Propriety Quotes - Page 5

• Anyone must be mainly ignorant or thoughtless, who is surprised at everything he sees; or wonderfully conceited who expects everything to conform to his standard of propriety.

  William Hazlitt

  Character, Conceited, Ignorant

  William Hazlitt (1841). “Lectures on the English Comic Writers. By William Hazlitt. Third edition. Edited by his son [William Hazlitt the Younger].”, p.49

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• It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. ...But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.

  John Dryden

  Beautiful, Latin, Expression

  "William Gilbert of Colchester". Book by P. Fleury Mottelay, 1893.

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• The censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society. But the First Amendment, written in terms that are absolute, deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression.

  William O. Douglas

  Expression, Freedom Of Speech, Firsts

  "Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 21, 1966.

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• Eutrapelia . "A happy and gracious flexibility," Pericles calls this quality of the Athenians...lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness of mind, amiability of manners.

  Matthew Arnold

  Mind, Quality, Prejudice

  "Irish Essays. A Speech at Eton" by Matthew Arnold, 1882.

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• The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of humanity; the feeling of shame and dislike is the beginning of righteousness; the feeling of deference and compliance is the beginning of propriety; and the feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom.Men have these Four Beginnings just as they have their four limbs. Having these Four Beginnings, but saying that they cannot develop them is to destroy themselves.

  Mencius

  Men, Feelings, Humanity

  "The Mencius". 2A:6, as translated by Wing-tsit Chan in "A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy", p. 65, 1963.

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• Each speech having its own character, the poetry it engenders will be peculiar to that speech also in its own intrinsic form. The effect is beauty, what in a single object resolves our complex feelings of propriety.

  William Carlos Williams

  Character, Feelings, Peculiar

  William Carlos Williams, A. Walton Litz, Christopher MacGowan (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962”, p.54, New Directions Publishing

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• Sundry manifestations of nature in men and women, are greatly perverted by existing social conventions upheld by both. There are feelings which, under our predatory régime, with its adapted standard of propriety, it is not considered manly to show; but which, contrariwise, are considered admirable in women. Hence repressed manifestations in the one case, and exaggerated manifestations in the other; leading to mistaken estimates.

  Herbert Spencer

  Men, Feelings, Social

  HERBERT SPENCER (1874). “THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY”, p.421

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• I am too inexperienced and ignorant to conduct myself with propriety in this town, where every thing is new to me, and many things are unaccountable and perplexing.

  Fanny Burney

  Ignorant, Towns

  Fanny Burney (1857). “Evelina: Or, The History of a Young Lady's Introduction to the World”, p.56

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• By going on the defensive. [...] libertarians are, inadvertently, conceding that speech should be policed for propriety, and that those who violate standards set by the PC set are somehow defective on those grounds alone and deserve to be purged from "polite" company.

  Ilana Mercer

  Standards Set, Libertarian, Speech

  "Fee-fi-fo-fem, I Smell The Blood Of A Racist". www.wnd.com. May 15, 2014.

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• The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places.The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Poetry, Attention, Definitions

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835). “Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge: In Two Volumes”, p.214

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• Let the girl be thoroughly developed in body and soul, not modeled, like a piece of clay, after some artificial specimen of humanity, with a body like some plate in Godey's book of fashion, and a mind after the type of Father Gregory's pattern daughters, loaded down with the traditions, proprieties, and sentimentalities of generations of silly mothers and grandmothers, but left free to be, to grow, to feel, to think, to act. Development is one thing, that system of cramping, restraining, torturing, perverting, and mystifying, called education, is quite another.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Girl, Mother, Daughter

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Ida Husted Harper (1889). “History of woman suffrage”

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• In San Francisco, vulgarity, "bad taste," ostentation are regarded as a kind of alien blight, an invasion or encroachment from outside. In Los Angeles, there is so much money and power connected with ostentation that is no longer ludicrous: it commands a kind of respect. For if the mighty behave like this, then quiet good taste means that you can't afford the conspicuous expenditures, and you become a little ashamed of your modesty and propriety.

  Pauline Kael

  Mean, San Francisco, Invasion

  pauline kael (1965). “i lost it at the movies”

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• The way in which modern German poetry follows theories reminds me of pupils who, scolded by their teacher for their insubordination, justify themselves by saying that they invented new rules of propriety according to which they are quite well- behaved.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Teacher, Poetry, Way

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• Even the street, the sunshine, the very air had a special Sunday quality. We walked differently on Sundays, with greater propriety and stateliness. Greetings were more formal, more subdued, voices more meticulously polite. Everything was so smooth, bland, polished. And genuinely so, because this was Sunday. In church the rustling and the stillness were alike pervaded with the knowledge that all was for the best. Propriety ruled the universe. God was in His Heaven, and we were in our Sunday clothes.

  Rose Wilder Lane

  Sunshine, Sunday, Air

  "Old Home Town". Book by Rose Wilder Lane, 1935.

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• One moment it's a cathedral, at another time there is no words to describe it when it ceases, for short periods of time, to have any regard for the proprieties that constitute not only Parliament, but its tradition. I've seen it in all its greatness. I have inwardly wept over it when it is degraded.

  John Diefenbaker

  Greatness, Tradition, Moments

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• All right, so there he is, our representative to the world, Mr. Western Civilization, in codpiece and pantyhose up there on the boards, firing away at the rapt groundlings with his blank verses, not less of a word-slinger and spellbinder than the Bard himself and therefore not to be considered too curiously on such matters as relevance, coherence, consistency, propriety, sanity, common decency.

  Marvin Mudrick

  Civilization, Common Decency, Consistency

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• It has been so written, for the most part, that the times it describes are with remarkable propriety called dark ages. They are dark, as one has observed, because we are so in the dark about them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dark, History, Age

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.125, Delphi Classics

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• Avant-garde art jousts with propriety, but takes care never to unseat it.

  Mason Cooley

  Art, Avant Garde, Care

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• Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry , Propriety , and Economy.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Order, Architecture, Economy

  "De architectura". Book by Vitruvius. Book I, Chapter II: "The Fundamental Principles of Architecture", Section 1,

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• There will be natural propriety in using an eastern light for bedrooms and libraries, a western light in winter for baths and winter apartments, and a northern light for picture galleries and other places in which a steady light is needed; for that quarter of the sky grows neither light nor dark with the course of the sun, but remains steady and unshifting all day long.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Dark, Winter, Light

  "De architectura". Book by Vitruvius. Book I, Chapter II, Section 7,

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• Propriety is that perfection of style which comes when a work is authoritatively constructed on approved principles. It arises from prescription, from usage, or from nature.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Perfection, Style, Principles

  "The Ten Books On Architecture". Book I. Chapter II, Sec. 5, 15BC.

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• We are disgusted by gossip; yet it is of importance to keep the angels in their proprieties.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Angel, Gossip, Disgusted

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.403

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• The maxim of Cleobulus, "Mediocrity is best," has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits.

  Samuel Johnson

  Safety, Long, Age

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.68

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• Everything we did was done in form and with propriety, and the result of our proceedings is the document [the Quebec Resolutions] that has been submitted to the imperial government as well as to this house and which we speak of here as a treaty. And that there may be no doubt about our position in regard to that document we say, question it you may, reject it you may, or accept it you may, but alter it you may not.

  Thomas D'Arcy McGee

  Government, House, Doubt

  Legislative Assembly, February 9, 1865.

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• The love of action is a principle of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger, to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every virtue, and, if those virtues are accompanied with equal abilities, a family, a state, or an empire may be indebted for their safety and prosperity to the undaunted courage of a single man.

  Edward Gibbon

  Revenge, Ambition, Men

  Edward Gibbon (1846). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.488

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