Propriety Quotes
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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.
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More Propriety Quotes
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— "Irish Essays. A Speech at Eton" (1882).
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— "Fee-fi-fo-fem, I Smell The Blood Of A Racist", WorldNetDaily.com, May 15, 2014
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."
— "Fee-fi-fo-fem, I Smell The Blood Of A Racist", WorldNetDaily.com, May 15, 2014
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 and wrong is the beginning of wisdom .
— Mencius, in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, p.65
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.
— Chapter II, Sec. 5 (Book I)
We are now, as we have always been, decidedly and conscientiouslyattached to what is called theTory, and which might with more propriety be called the Conservative party.
Critias— 1830 Quarterly Review, Jan.
A propriety of thoughts and words; or, in other terms, thought and words elegantly adapted to the subject.
john dryden— 1677 Definition of wit.'The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry and Heroic Licence', an essay prefacing State of Innocence, a libretto based on Paradise Lost.
Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety In Paradise of all things common else. 583
john milton— 1665 Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.4, l.750-2.
He could not have invented his own ruin, Had he despaired, with more propriety.
john webster— 1612 TheWhite Devil, act 5, sc.1.
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— "On Wit and Humour"
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. (Hear, hear.)
thomas d'arcy mcgee— Legislative Assembly, February 9, 1865 (Known in Ottawa as "The curse of D'Arcy Mcgee")
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— Section II, Chap. I
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
— George Washington, letter to the members of the Volunteer Association and other Inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland who have lately arrived in the City of New York (December 2, 1783), John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (1938), vol. 27, p. 254.
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— Introduction
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.
frances burney— Evelina (1778)
National unity is the basis of national security. To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the propriety of subordinating the possible ugliness of littered streets to the free expression opinion through handbills.
felix frankfurter— Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940).
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, Lectures on the English Comic Writers. On Wit and Humour.
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
— George Washington, letter to the members of the Volunteer Association and other Inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland who have lately arrived in the City of New York (December 2, 1783), John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (1938), vol. 27, p. 254.
A leading Welsh minister and Welsh ministers are, I think, among the best preachers was invited to preach an anniversary sermon before one of the great societies in London. Naturally anxious to disregard no propriety, he consulted the proper authority, the secretary. "Should I read my sermon?" "Oh, it is no matter, only bring some of your Welsh fire with you." " But you cannot, my dear sir, carry fire on paper." "No, that is true; but you may use the paper to kindle the fire."
— P. 483. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
In all cases whatever it is usual for either plaintiff or defendant to speak by their counsel. You are assisted by a most able counsel, and you would not be guilty of any impropriety if what you wish to offer to the Court were first suggested to him, for he would then determine of the propriety of suggesting it to the Court.
— Barrington, J., Case of the Dean of St. Asaph (1783), 21 How. St. Tr. 876.
Perhaps it is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused and, in reality, it is she who must prove her good reputation, her mental soundness, and her impeccable propriety.
freda adler— Freda Adler, Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975), p. 215.
A leading Welsh minister and Welsh ministers are, I think, among the best preachers was invited to preach an anniversary sermon before one of the great societies in London. Naturally anxious to disregard no propriety, he consulted the proper authority, the secretary. "Should I read my sermon?" "Oh, it is no matter, only bring some of your Welsh fire with you." " But you cannot, my dear sir, carry fire on paper." "No, that is true; but you may use the paper to kindle the fire."
— John Hall, p. 483. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
Here we notice that in acts the term "Hellenes" (or "Greeks") is used with noteworthy propriety: the people of Thessalonica, of Berea, of Ephesus, of Iconium. and of Syrian Antioch are spoken of as Hellenes. Those were all cities which had no claim to be Roman, except in the general way of being parts of the Roman provinces Macedonia, Galatia, and Syria. They were counted Greek cities, and reckoned themselves as such.
William Mitchell Ramsay— Historical Commentary on First Corinthians, p. 34
Proportion, or symmetry, is the basis of beauty; propriety, of grace.
— Henry Fuseli, Aphorism 46, in The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli (1831) Vol. III, edited by John Knowles.
There will be no propriety in the spectacle of an elegant interior approached by a low mean entrance.
— Chapter II, Sec. 6 (Book I)
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, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 1966).
I will become a believer in the ingenuousness, though never the propriety, of the Court's newfound respect for the wisdom of foreign minds when it applies that wisdom in the abortion cases.
— Antonin Scalia, in a speech delivered to Mississippi College School of Law, as quoted in "Scalia Defends Gay, Abortion, Gun Rulings at First Baptist" by the Jackson Free Press (January 5, 2010).
This indigested vomit of the Sea,Fell to the Dutch by Just propriety.
Andrew Marvell— The Character of Holland (c. 1653).
