Propriety Quotes

He acted like a libertine of Europe with a genteel Southern propriety - and had all the morals of an emotionless psychopath. The two former masked the latter, like leaves covering a snare. You didn't notice the steel jaws until they were impaled in your flesh, and by then it was already far too late to run. ~ Nenia Campbell

All he asked of her was basic civility and an ounce of propriety, but she was like one of her sea creatures, goaded by the slightest disturbance into puffing up and flashing warning colors. ~ Shipstead, Maggie

Manners is what holds a society together. At bottom, propriety is concern for other people. When that goes out the window, the gates of hell are shortly opened and ignorance is King. ~ Jane Austen

Poesy is a beauteous damsel, chaste, honourable, discreet, witty, retired, and who keeps herself within the limits of propriety. She is a friend of solitude; fountains entertain her, meadows console her, woods free her from ennui, flowers delight her; in short, she gives pleasure and instruction to all with whom she communicates. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

A novel is a large diffused picture, comprehending the characters of life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various attitudes, for the purposes of an uniform plan, and general occurrence, to which every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene, by virtue of his own importance. ~ Tobias Smollett

Masonry, according to the general acceptation of the term, is an art founded on the principles of geometry, and devoted to the service and convenience of mankind. But Freemasonry, embracing a wider range and having a nobler object in view, namely, the cultivation and improvement of the human mind, may with more propriety be called a science, inasmuch as, availing itself of the terms of the former, it inculcates the principles of the purest morality, though its lessons are for the most part veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. ~ William Howard Taft

Certainly a liberal education does manifest itself in a courtesy, propriety, and polish of word and action, which is beautiful in itself, and acceptable to others; but it does much more. It brings the mind into form, - for the mind is like the body. ~ John Henry Newman

Theology can be useful only when it does not retreat from the divine judgment that accompanies the work of all men, but, instead unreservedly exposes and submits itself to this judgment. Only by not rejecting or resisting the threat that encounters it, but, instead, acknowledging it propriety, reconciling itself to it, and enduring and bearing it, can theology become useful. ~ Karl Barth

The ladies of Cranford always dressed with chaste elegance and propriety ... ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Female schools might be comprised in the list of those worthy the public patronage, with great propriety. ~ Joseph Lancaster

To explain the matter I will employ a simile, which yet, I confess is very dissimilar; but its dissimilitude is greatly in favour of my sentiments. A rich man bestows, on a poor and famishing beggar, alms by which he may be able to maintain himself and his family. Does it cease to be a pure gift, because the beggar extends his hand to receive it? Can it be said with propriety, that 'the alms depended partly on THE LIBERALITY of the Donor, and partly on THE LIBERTY of the Receiver,' though the latter would not have possessed the alms unless he had received it by stretching out his hand? Can it be correctly said, BECAUSE THE BEGGAR IS ALWAYS PREPARED TO RECEIVE, that 'he can have the alms, or not have it, just as he pleases?' If these assertions cannot be truly made about a beggar who receives alms, how much less can they be made about the gift of faith, for the receiving of which far more acts of Divine Grace are required! ~ James Arminius

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

Generosity, pleasing address, courage and propriety of conduct are not acquired, but are inbred qualities. ~ Chanakya

Her breath caught on the thought. Was he saying that a woman would put her hands - her mouth - there?
Her bodice felt suddenly too tight as her breaths became faster. She didn't know where to look: at those long fingers massaging his own leg or his glinting, knowing green eyes.
"And of course," he continued, "a woman can pleasure herself - with her hand - and a man…" His hand drifted up, straight to the top of his widely spread legs. He gripped himself frankly - lewdly - and looked at her.
She lost all sense of propriety. All sense of place and time and who he was and who she was.
She stared back into those sensuous green eyes and whispered, "Show me. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

There is an aptness, a propriety, a fitness in these things which one can understand perhaps better than explain. ~ Anthony Trollope

You're all Helen talks about. She's been reading Welsh history books and plaguing the family with accounts of Owain Glynd and something called the Eistedfodd." His eyes sparkled with friendly mockery. "Helen was hacking and spitting so much the other day that we thought she was coming down with a cold, until we realized she was practicing the Welsh alphabet."
Ordinarily Rhys would have made some sarcastic retort, but he'd barely noticed the gibe. His chest had gone tight with pleasure.
"She doesn't have to do that," he muttered.
"Helen wants to please you," Devon said. "It's her nature. Which leads to something I want to make clear: Helen is like a younger sister to me. And although I'm obviously the last man alive who should lecture anyone about propriety, I expect you to behave like an altar boy with her for the next few days."
Rhys gave him a surly glance. "I *was* an altar boy, and I can tell you that reports of their virtue are highly exaggerated. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Love was nothing but a lie people told themselves.
But lust?
Lust was real, and he was feeling it. Feeling it to his core. As he held her to him, his blood pounded with the fiercest, most primal kind of need. One that spoke of possession and claiming and mine.
She made him wild.
Surely it was simply because he'd gone so long without female company. Madeline wasn't even his usual sort. Given his choice, he would have said he favored a bonny Scots lass with fiery hair and a knowing gleam in her eye. Not a shy, proper English gentlewoman just learning the taste of her first kiss.
But beneath the shyness and reserve, she possessed a natural, earthy sensuality. He couldn't help but think of what that might mean in bed- when all the rules and corsets were shed, and the dark freed her from propriety. ~ Tessa Dare

Lust is absurd. It strikes in the strangest places at the oddest times. She doesn't even realize she's feeling it. She's erected a barricade of propriety and lies between us. I despise the type of woman she is. I loathe her soft pink innocence. My body doesn't concur. I wonder why her? ~ Karen Marie Moning

Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established ~ Confucius

And the thorny crown of this sad conception was that she whom he really did prefer in a cursory way to the rest, she who knew herself to be more impassioned in nature, cleverer, more beautiful than they, was in the eyes of propriety far less worthy of him than the homelier ones whom he ignored. ~ Thomas Hardy

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

If I were anyone else ... your opera singer ... the woman across the hall ... would you have apologized?"
He looked confused. "No ... but you are neither of those women. You deserve better."
"Better," she repeated, frustrated. "That's just my point! You and the rest of society believe that it's better for me to be set upon a pedestal of primness and propriety - which might have been fine if a decade on that pedestal hadn't simply landed me on the shelf. Perhaps unmarried young women like our sisters should be there. But what of me?" Her voice dropped as she looked down at the cards in her hands. "I'm never going to get a chance to experience life from up there. All that is up there is dust and unwanted apologies. The same cage as hers" - she indicated the woman outside - "merely a different gilt. ~ Sarah MacLean

Aging and the prospect of dying by no means enhance the attractiveness of fictitious comforts to come in paradise, or the veracity of malicious myths about hellfire and damnation. Fear and feeblemindedness cannot be credibly pressed into service to support fantastic claims about the cosmos and our ultimate destiny.

Whether one would even consider turning to religion in advanced years has much to do with upbringing, which makes all the more important standing up to the presumptions of the religious in front of children. One would regard the Biblical events – a spontaneously igniting bush, a sea's parting, human parthenogenesis, a resurrected prophet and so on – that supposedly heralded God's intervention in our affairs as the stuff of fairy tales were it not for the credibility we unwittingly lend them by keeping quiet out of mistaken notions of propriety. ~ Jeffrey Tayler

The happy man ... will be always or at least most often employed in doing and contemplating the things that are in conformity with virtue. And he will bear changes of fortunes most nobly, and with perfect propriety in every way. ~ Aristotle.

The superior man, extensively studying all learning, and keeping himself under the restraint of the rules of propriety, may thus likewise not overstep what is right. ~ Confucius

The only part of the evening I really enjoyed was when Lord Pomtinius told me a limerick about an adulterous abbot."
"Don't you dare repeat it!" her sister ordered. Georgiana had never shown the faintest wish to rebel against the rules of propriety. She loved and lived by them.
"There once was an adulterous abbot," Olivia teased, "as randy-"
Georgiana slapped her hands over her ears. "I can't believe he told you such a thing! Father would be furious if he knew."
"Lord Pomtinius was in his cups," Olivia said. "Besides, he's ninety-six and he doesn't care about decorum any longer. Just a laugh, now and then."
"It doesn't even make sense. An adulterous abbot? How can an abbot be adulterous? They don't even marry."
"Let me know if you want to hear the whole verse," Olivia said. "It ends with talk of nuns, so I believe the word was being used loosely. ~ Eloisa James

Repression is a seamless garment; a society which is authoritarian in its social and sexual codes, which crushes its women beneath the intolerable burdens of honour and propriety, breeds repressions of other kinds as well. ~ Salman Rushdie

Patience and propriety. It was the only graceful thing to do. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

In a word, to comport oneself with perfect propriety in Polygonal society, one ought to be a Polygon oneself. Such at least is the painful teaching of my experience. ~ Edwin A. Abbott

Taken thus by surprise, it was several moments before she was able to decide whether to make herself known to him, or to await a formal introduction. The strict propriety in which she had been reared urged her to adopt the latter course; then she remembered that she was not a young girl any longer, but a guardian-aunt ... To flinch before what would certainly be an extremely disagreeable interview would be the act, she told herself, of a pudding-heart. Bracing herself resolutely, she got up from the writing-table, and turned, saying, in a cool, pleasant tone: 'Mr Calverleigh?'
He had picked up a newspaper from the table in the centre of the room, and was glancing through it, but he lowered it, and looked enquiringly across at her. His eyes, which were deep-set and of a light grey made the more striking by the swarthiness of his complexion, held an expression of faint surprise; he said: 'Yes? ~ Georgette Heyer

It was strange, this feral creature, the body. It would stay denied for months, for years, and then, at one touch, a moment's trembling indiscretion, it would raise itself and reach out without a moment's hesitation for what it wanted, in complete contravention of all previously held notions of honour, propriety and morality. ~ Kiran Manral

If Shakespeare be considered as a MAN born in a rude age and educated in the lowest manner, without any instruction either from the world or from books, he may be regarded as a prodigy; if represented as a POET capable of furnishing a proper entertainment to a refined or intelligent audience, we must abate much of this eulogy. In his compositions, we regret that many irregularities, and even absurdities, should so frequently disfigure the animated and passionated scenes intermixed with them; and, at the same time, we perhaps admire the more those beauties on account of their being surrounded by such deformities. A striking peculiarity of sentiment, adapted to a single character, he frequently hits, as it were, by inspiration; but a reasonable propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold. Nervous and picturesque expressions as well as descriptions abound in him; but it is in vain we look either for purity or simplicity of diction. His total ignorance of all theatrical art and conduct, however material a defect, yet, as it affects the spectator rather than the reader, we can more easily excuse than that want of taste which often prevails in his productions, and which gives way only by intervals to the irradiations of genius. [....] And there may even remain a suspicion that we overrate, if possible, the greatness of his genius; in the same manner as bodies often appear more gigantic on account of their being disproportioned and misshapen. ~ David Hume

The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing. ~ Adam Smith

Good luck, Big Bill", Ben thought, and he turned away from that gaze. It was hurting him, hurting him in a deeper place than any vampire or werewolf would ever be able to reach. But all the same, there was such a thing as propriety. The word he didn't know; on the concept he was very clear. Looking at them when they were looking at each other that way would be as wrong as looking at her breasts when she let go of the front of her blouse to pull Bill's tee-shirt over her head. "If that's the way it is. But you'll never love her the way I do. Never. ~ Stephen King

It's all about how the words are used, not the words themselves. People who are hung up on tiny fragments of language, on single words and phrases, and who are intimidated or angered by them while ignoring the whole of the conversation, are shallow thinkers, superficial censors with no interest in the ideas, only in channeling a conversation along narrow avenues that will not burst out beyond the circumscribed boundaries of their sense of propriety. The ~ P.Z. Myers

(Those who) possessed the highest (sense of) propriety were (always seeking) to show it, and when men did not respond to it, they bared the arm and marched up to them. ~ Lao-Tzu

I would appreciate it if you would stop ... stop ... ogling me like that," she hissed, tugging her very modest neckline higher. "It is very embarrassing." She folded her arms across her breasts defensively. He tried to look contrite. "It wasn't me," he confessed. "It was my eyes. They are bold and easily led and have no sense of propriety. ~ Anne Gracie

The modern world, called "Christian" claims to have perpetuated the system called "Christianity," while, at the same time, it declares, that the miraculous gifts of the Spirit have ceased.

With as much propriety it might be contended, that the magnet "had been perpetuated, but had lost its magnetic properties; that water was perpetuated with all its virtues, but had lost its power to quench thirst, or seek its own level; that fire was still fire, but had lost its heat. ~ Parley P. Pratt

Jamie," I panted. He pushed his kilt out of the way and pressed my hand against him.
"Bloody Christ," I said, impressed despite myself. My sense of propriety slipped another notch.
"Fighting gives ye a terrible cockstand, after. Ye want me, do ye no? ~ Diana Gabaldon

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

It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him: I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far: beyond the verge or provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my station, I could still meet him in argument without fear of uneasy restraint: this suited both him and me. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil. ~ Horatio Nelson

So she hadn't completely lost her sense of propriety -- and for some reason he was glad of that. Yet even as he looked at her, there was that mischievous sparkle in her eyes again despite her protest.
A sparkle. An odd light as incongruous as her red hair.
No, he was imagining things. But where was the expected admonishment on propriety, the lecture on proper restraint? Just when he thought he understood the lady, knew how to knot up her corset strings and keep her at sixes and sevens, she'd turned the tide on him.
What had she said? You are not a man easily understood.
Perhaps she understood him better than he'd given her credit for. ~ Elizabeth Boyle

IT is difficult to speak or write with becoming moderation or propriety, on topics to which we are biased by prejudice, interest, or even principle. ~ Joseph Lancaster

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

Hypocrisy seemed to be the fashionable equivalent of propriety, discretion indistinguishable from morality, and the ~ Loretta Chase

there is a natural propriety in the companionship: always to be noted in confidence between a child and a person who has any merit of reality and genuineness: which is admirably pleasant. ~ Charles Dickens

This is the first significant mention of an idea that will acquire an almost unbearable, next to mindless authority in European writing: the theme of Europe teaching the Orient the meaning of liberty, which is an idea that Chateaubriand and everyone after him believed that Orientals, and especially Muslims, knew nothing about. Of liberty, they know nothing; of propriety, they have none: force is their God. When they go for long periods without seeing conquerors who do heavenly justice, they have the air of soldiers without a leader, citizens without legislators, and a family without a father.83 ~ Edward Said

Being, however, nothing but a woman, condemned to patience, propriety, and petticoats for life, I must respect the house-keeper's opinions, and try to compose myself in some feeble and feminine way. ~ Wilkie Collins

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

Profoundness, genius, spontaneity, merit, nobility, ingenuity, voice propriety, feeling, discernment, sensibility, good taste, great tone, rightness, courtliness, vivacity, boldness, style, freshness, harmony, perfection, imagination, purity, correctness. The greatest writer of all times. God's most astonishing creation. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I did documentary film for a long time, and I spent a lot of time behind the camera, fervently wishing that the reality I was filming would conform to my narrative propriety. But you can't control it. ~ Ruth Ozeki

I'm a gentleman, if nothing else. It's taken me years to become one, but finally I have a sense of propriety. ~ Eric Stoltz

we have somehow assumed that the interests of speed, or some other function of athletic performance, somehow set aside the requirements of propriety and modesty. In the ancient world, athletes competed naked, and in the modern world, in some events, they might as well be. ~ Douglas Wilson

Northerners are exactly like their weather - cold and boring. And I swear, none of them has one iota of etiquette or propriety. ~ Beth Hoffman

I can only answer that I tried to tell the truth and, if not be objective, at least be fair; history is not served when reporters prize trepidation and propriety over the robust journalistic duty to tell the whole story. ~ Randy Shilts

She had learned propriety, which was the same as saying she had learned to trust only herself. ~ Kristin Cashore

The unchanging Man of history is wonderfully adaptable cloth by his power of endurance and in his capacity for detachment. The fact seems to be that the play of his destiny is too great for his fears and too mysterious for his understanding. Were the trump of the Last Judgement to sound suddenly on a working day the musician at his piano would go on with his performance of Beethoven's Sonata and the cobbler at his stall stick to his last in undisturbed confidence in the virtues of the leather. And with perfect propriety. For what are we to let ourselves be disturbed by an angel's vengeful music too mighty for our ears and too awful for our terrors ? Thus it happens to us to be struck suddenly by the lightning of wrath. The reader will go on reading if the book pleases him and the critic will go on criticizing with that faculty of detachment born perhaps from a sense of infinite littleness and wich is yet the only faculty that seems to assimilate man to the immortal gods. ~ Joseph Conrad

Step outside on the terrace if you can't sleep in the heat. Don't be surprised if you find me there. The summer stars are spectacular. Just make sure you sleep near the half wall. Stay out of the sight line of the north tower. It would be scandalous if Uncle Solomon watched you sleep. You know, Islamic propriety and all. And by the way, you sleep about as quiet as an egg beater. ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

Manners or etiquette ('accessibility, affability, politeness, refinement, propriety, courtesy, and ingratiating and captivating behavior') call for no large measure of moral determination and cannot, therefore, be reckoned as virtues. Even though manners are no virtues, they are a means of developing virtue ... The more we refine the crude elements in our nature, the more we improve our humanity and the more capable it grows of feeling the driving force of virtuous principles. ~ Immanuel Kant

Any one may mouth out a passage with theatrical cadence or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts. But to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. ~ William Hazlitt

There are days when that dark face is something I can think of as a friend – a primal energy that carries me forward when nothing else will – but more often than not I am face-to-face with a stranger, a companion to something I recognise as myself, sure enough, but one who knows more than I do, thinks less of danger and propriety than I ever have or will, feels a cool and amused contempt for the rules and rituals by which I live, the duties I too readily accept, the compromises I too willingly allow (p. 262) ~ John Burnside

But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper. ~ Thomas De Quincey

This mundus tenebrosus, this shaddowy world of Mankind, is sunk into Night; there is not a Field without its Spirits, nor a City without its Daemons, and the Lunaticks speak Prophesies while the Wise men fall into the Pitte. We are all in the Dark, one with another. And, as the Inke stains the Paper on which it is spilt and slowly spreads to Blot out the Characters, so the Contagion of darkness and malefaction grows apace until all becomes unrecognizable. Thus it was with the Witches who were tryed by Swimming not long before, since once the Prosecution had commenced no Stop could be put to the raving Women who came forward: the number of Afflicted and Accused began to encrease and, upon Examination, more confess'd themselves guilty of Crimes than were suspected of. And so it went, till the Evil revealed was so great that it threatened to bring all into Confusion.

And yet in the way of that Philosophie much cryed up in London and elsewhere, there are those like Sir Chris. who speak only of what is Rational and what is Demonstrated, of Propriety and Plainness. Religion Not Mysterious is their Motto, but if they would wish the Godhead to be Reasonable why was it that when Adam heard that Voice in the Garden he was afraid unto Death? The Mysteries must become easy and familiar, it is said, and it has now reached such a Pitch that there are those who wish to bring their mathematicall Calculations into Morality, viz. the Quantity of Publick Good produced by any Agent is ~ Peter Ackroyd

She scuttled back from his approach and held up a hand. "No!"
Eversley stilled, his eyes widening at the words. "I beg your pardon?"
He was going to smell her. "Don't come any closer!"
"Why not?"
"It's not appropriate."
"What isn't?"
"You. Being here. So near. While I am abed."
One black brow rose. "I assure you, my lady, I've no intention of debauching you."
She had no doubt of that, considering her current situation, but she couldn't well tell him the truth. "Nevertheless, I must insist on the utmost propriety."
"Who do you think nursemaided you for the last day?"
Bollocks. He was right. He'd been close. He'd had to have noticed her odor. But it didn't mean he had to any longer. She straightened her shoulders, ignoring the twinge in the left. "My reputation, you see."
He blinked. "You were shot on the Great North Road while wearing stolen livery - ~ Sarah MacLean

But under a constitution where the subject is not a citizen, and which is therefore not republican, it is the simplest thing in the world to go to war. For the head of state is not a fellow citizen, but the owner of the state, and a war will not force him to make the slightest sacrifice so far as his banquets, hunts, pleasure palaces and court festivals are concerned. He can thus decide on war, without any significant reason, as a kind of amusement, and unconcernedly leave it to the diplomatic corps (who are always ready for such purposes) to justify the war for the sake of propriety. ~ Immanuel Kant

How could you die and not be old enough to hear about premarital sex? How could you die and still not be allowed to fall in love or be honest? Surely not everything had to wait for university and a good job. Passion and truth had to trump even those things. ~ Zen Cho

There is no virtue in concealment. When the earth is rendered chaos, regulations of speech and propriety are rendered impotent, just as city may become desolate, and street, battle ground, and flesh may become fire. ~ M T Anderson

All fear of 'offensive' speech is bourgeois and reactionary. Historically, profane or bawdy language was common in both the upper and the lower classes, who lived together in rural areas amid the untidy facts of nature. Notions of propriety and decorum come to the fore in urbanized periods ruled by an expanding middle class, which is obsessed with cleanliness, respectability, and conformism. ~ Camille Paglia

Miss Bridgerton," he said, "the devil himself couldn't scare you."

She forced her eyes to meet his. "That's not a compliment, is it?"

He lifted her hand to his lips, brushing a feather-light kiss across her knuckles. "You'll have to figure that out for yourself," he murmured.

To all who observed, he was the soul of propriety, but Hyacinth caught the daring gleam in his eye, and she felt the breath leave her body as tingles of electricity rushed across her skin. Her lips parted, but she had nothing to say, not a single word. There was nothing but air, and even that seemed in short supply.

And then he straightened as if nothing had happened and said, "Do let me know what you decide."

She just stared at him.

"About the compliment," he added. "I am sure you will wish to let me know how I feel about you."

Her mouth fell open.

He smiled. Broadly. "Speechless, even. I'm to be commended."

"You - "

"No. No," he said, lifting one hand in the air and pointing toward her as if what he really wanted to do was place his finger on her lips and shush her. "Don't ruin it. The moment is too rare. ~ Julia Quinn

They were paragons of conservative propriety in public, but in private they swung like pinatas. ~ Nicole Peeler

But then he rolls his eyes and gives me a half smile. "Fine. But if you must give me the Mark of the Beast, at least put it where I don't have to see it constantly."
"Such as?"
"If we want to be in keeping with what I think of the damned symbol, I'll drop trou and you can stamp it on my ass. But in the interest of propriety . . ." He rolls up his left sleeve, and I stamp the inside of his arm. ~ Rysa Walker

For who brooded over the meaninglessness of life anymore? Teenagers. They were the only ones who were preoccupied with existential issues, and as a result there was something puerile and immature about them, and hence it was doubly impossible for adults with their sense of propriety intact to deal with them. However, this is not so strange for we never feel more strongly and passionately about life than in our teenage years, when we step into the world for the first time, as it were, and all our feelings are new feelings. So there they are, with their big ideas on small orbits, looking this way and that for an opportunity to launch them, as the pressure builds. And who is it they light upon sooner or later but Uncle Dostoevsky. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

That Francis Bacon retains his reputation gained, is not strange to any that knows him. The unusual words wherewith he had spangled his speech, were rather gracious for their propriety than strange for their novelty, and like to serve both for occasions to report and means to remember his argument. Certain sentences of his , somewhat obscure, and as it were presuming upon their capacities will, I fear, make some of them rather admire than commend him. In sum, all is as well as words can make it, and if it please Her Majesty to add deeds, the Bacon may be too hard for the Cook. ~ Edward Coke

A certain class of novels may with propriety be called fables. ~ Richard Whately

Jesse, you're not going to lose me. I had the situation totally under control." Sort of. "But I have to say that after so many years of you keeping your feelings for me hidden out of propriety, it's really nice to hear you say all those things. Plus, it's emotionally healthy that you're letting them out this way. Keep unburdening yourself." I wrapped my arms around his neck. "What is it exactly, that you find so irresistible about me? Is it my magnetic personality? Or my emerald green eyes? Or maybe it's just my hot bod?" I felt something against my torso. "Oh, I'm getting the impression that it's my hot bod. ~ Meg Cabot

Emancipation, to be of any value to the slave, must be the free, voluntary act of the master, performed from a conviction of its propriety. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Tis impossible to judge with much Praecision of the true Motives and Qualities of human Actions, or of the Propriety of Rules contrived to govern them, without considering with like Attention, all the Passions, Appetites, Affections in Nature from which they flow. An intimate Knowledge therefore of the intellectual and moral World is the sole foundation on which a stable structure of Knowledge can be erected. ~ John Adams

Fashionable dances as now carried on are revolting to every feeling of delicacy and propriety and are fraught with the greatest danger to millions. ~ Horace Bushnell

The camel is an ugly animal, seen from above. Its shoulders slope formless like a sack, its silly little ears and fluff of bleached curls behind them have a respectable, boarding-house look, like some faded neatness that dresses for propriety but never dressed for love. ~ Freya Stark

In many parts of the world-including Polynesia, north Africa & the Middle East-public dancing that focused on a physically linked couple would have been unthinkable, a violation of communal propriety. ~ Gerald Jonas

Despite all her diligent efforts to remake herself into a model of propriety, when it come to falling in love she'd reverted to from and fallen in love with a man who was a renegade, a black sheep, a daring, cynical, tough social outcast who in some ways reminded her of the boys she'd known on the Chicago streets. ~ Judith McNaught

Golfing with Eisman wasn't like golfing with other Wall Street people. The round usually began with a collective discomfort on the first tee, after Eisman turned up wearing something that violated the Wall Street golfer's notion of propriety. ~ Michael Lewis

women had to be controlled and kept from going wild because of their inherent susceptibility to lust; thus men had to exercise aidos, "shame," and sophrosyne, "soundness of mind," to keep women from transgressing the bounds of propriety. ~ Thomas Van Nortwick

The row of dolls watched her impassively from the bookshelf, their tea party propriety almost certainly offended. ~ Holly Black

In fiction we say and recognize things about ourselves, which, for the sake of propriety, we ignore or don't talk about in reality. ~ Elena Ferrante

It is remarkable, however, that at the very lowest point of Kant's depression, when he became perfectly incapable of conversing with any rational meaning on the ordinary affairs of life, he was still able to answer correctly and distinctly, in a degree that was perfectly astonishing, upon any question of philosophy or of science, especially of physical geography, [Footnote: Physical Geography, in opposition to Political.] chemistry, or natural history. He talked satisfactorily, in his very worst state, of the gases, and stated very accurately different propositions of Kepler's, especially the law of the planetary motions. And I remember in particular, that upon the very last Monday of his life, when the extremity of his weakness moved a circle of his friends to tears, and he sat amongst us insensible to all we could say to him, cowering down, or rather I might say collapsing into a shapeless heap upon his chair, deaf, blind, torpid, motionless, - even then I whispered to the others that I would engage that Kant should take his part in conversation with propriety and animation. This they found it difficult to believe. Upon which I drew close to his ear, and put a question to him about the Moors of Barbary. To the surprise of everybody but myself, he immediately gave us a summary account of their habits and customs; and told us by the way, that in the word Algiers, the g ought to be pronounced hard (as in the English word gear). ~ Thomas De Quincey

Propriety is the new punk. ~ Aldus Santos

To be a pleasant person, you would at least need to see the point of being a pleasant person, or have it explained to you at some sort of 'finishing school' where you could actually learn the laws of propriety and the skills of appearing well-adapted, easygoing and attractively trouble free. But where do you learn these things? I don't know. ~ Michael Leunig

In the educated class even social life is a series of aptitude tests; we all must perpetually perform in accordance with the shifting norms of propriety, ever advancing signals of cultivation. ~ David Brooks

She was a woman who lived however she wished without care for another, without putting the needs of those around her before her own selfish opinions. We are breeding a nation of such thinkers and individuals--intent on personal expression at all costs--and that will lead to war. I might be more a successful writer if I did not seek to address human truth, but rather spewed out my own limited opinions without care for reader or critic or any kind of propriety. ~ Erika Robuck

The Emperor and his ministers might dance Western dances and even, in violation of traditional Japanese propriety, smile Western smiles. But their underlying and deadly earnest aim was always to wipe the smiles off European faces. ~ Niall Ferguson

That Hugh's presence within walking distance of Biddenden Manor might not be conducive either to his happiness or to his self-esteem he did not allow to weigh with him, for he was a man with a strong sense of propriety, and he knew that it was his duty to feel affection for all his brothers and sisters. ~ Georgette Heyer

No doubt she'd thought she was doing him a kindness, urging him to kick up his heels and loosen his too-tight cravat and learn to savor careless pleasures. As though he hadn't heard such urgings before, from every feckless acquaintance made uncomfortable by his example of propriety, or every heedless one who sailed through life never noticing that it was vigilant people, the people standing back from the merriment, who stomped out the fiery raisins dropped by others and kept everything from going up in flames. ~ Cecilia Grant

Those expressions are omitted which can not with propriety be read aloud in the family. ~ Thomas Bowdler

Genius disregards the boundaries of propriety. Genius is permitted to shout if shouting is productive. ~ Lois Lowry

Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are the two main characteristics of a gentleman. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Nothing sends patriarchy scuttling
under covers of propriety
faster than rambunctious peals of laughter
emanating from rubicund lips ~ Nalini Priyadarshni

Rhetoric is useful because truth and justice are in their nature stronger than their opposites; so that if decisions be made, not in conformity to the rule of propriety, it must have been that they have been got the better of through fault of the advocates themselves: and this is deserving reprehension. ~ Aristotle.

Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety. ~ Confucius