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Propriety Quotes

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Propriety Quotes

“She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when well sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one. On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? They never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual must be improper. Shirley was judged.”

LovePassionUnderstandingWomenMusicSocietyTalentExpressionMoralityJudgmentEmpathySingingExpectationsPrejudiceGenderDevotionGiftJealousyRejectionHypocrisyFeelingFaithfulnessFidelityProprietySocial NormsPreconceptionsMusicality
Book:Shirley
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“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner." (Elizabeth Bennett)”

MenLoveWomenPrideEmpowermentAngerRejectionSelf DeterminationBehaviourDeclarationHumiliationScornProposalRefusalProprietyMr DarcyMarriage ProposalGentlemenGentlemanlike
Book:Pride and Prejudice
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“He thinned his eyes into razor slits and took a step toward Constance Brandley. “Let us be clear, madam. ‘Company’ implies one who is invited, one who is welcome.” Of course the chit didn’t back away. She angled her chin up in a like, defiant fury, and his annoyance only burned hotter. “You, in fact, are neither. Not for me. And…” He flicked an icy stare over her. “I suspect not for anybody.” She gasped. He continued over that indignant outrage. “Furthermore, if you are very interested in exchanging lessons on propriety and manners, let your first one be to advise you against visiting bachelor gentlemen.” There was a beat of silence. “All bachelors.” He puzzled his brow. “It’s just, you said you’d advise me against paying visits to bachelor gentlemen.” As she prattled, he searched for—and failed to find—any indication that she jested. “When in actuality, a woman concerned with propriety should steer clear of not just gentlemen bachelors, but all bachelors.” The termagant worked her gaze up and down his person. “Your inability to acknowledge those men outside the peerage is no doubt a product of your ducal status. Of course,” she tacked on.”

CompanyMannersBachelorsPropriety
Book:Five Days with a Duke
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“What she had done over the past year had required an equivalent expenditure of energy to a year-long sprint, and when she thought of it that way it was obviously an unreasonable thing to do. Remaining sane--clinging and grasping at it, seeking to please a propriety constructed by people whose boyfriends had never killed themselves--was in fact the most insane thing she could have done, and anyone properly equipped by the right kind of experience would understand that.”

DeathEnergyLossGriefSuicideInsanityMourningSanityPropriety
Book:The Great Night
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“For a brief moment she considered the unfairness of it all. How short was the time for fun, for pretty clothes, for dancing, for coquetting! Only a few, too few years! Then you married and wore dull-colored dresses and had babies that ruined your waist line and sat in corners at dances with other sober matrons and only emerged to dance with your husband or with old gentlemen who stepped on your feet. If you didn't do these things, the other matrons talked about you and then your reputation was ruined and your family disgraced. It seemed such a terrible waste to spend all your little girlhood learning how to be attractive and how to catch men and then only use the knowledge for a year or two. When she considered her training at the hands of Ellen and Mammy, se knew it had been thorough and good because it had always reaped results. There were set rules to be followed, and if you followed them success crowned your efforts. With old ladies you were sweet and guileless and appeared as simple minded as possible, for old ladies were sharp and they watched girls as jealously as cats, ready to pounce on any indiscretion of tongue or eye. With old gentlemen, a girl was pert and saucy and almost, but not quite, flirtatious, so that the old fools' vanities would be tickled. It made them feel devilish and young and they pinched your cheek and declared you were a minx. And, of course, you always blushed on such occasions, otherwise they would pinch you with more pleasure than was proper and then tell their sons that you were fast. With young girls and young married women, you slopped over with sugar and kissed them every time you met them, even if it was ten times a day. And you put your arms about their waists and suffered them to do the same to you, no matter how much you disliked it. You admired their frocks or their babies indiscriminately and teased about beaux and complimented husbands and giggled modestly and denied you had any charms at all compared with theirs. And, above all, you never said what you really thought about anything, any more than they said what they really thought. Other women's husbands you let severely alone, even if they were your own discarded beaux, and no matter how temptingly attractive they were. If you were too nice to young husbands, their wives said you were fast and you got a bad reputation and never caught any beaux of your own. But with young bachelors-ah, that was a different matter! You could laugh softly at them and when they came flying to see why you laughed, you could refuse to tell them and laugh harder and keep them around indefinitely trying to find out. You could promise, with your eyes, any number of exciting things that would make a man maneuver to get you alone. And, having gotten you alone, you could be very, very hurt or very, very angry when he tried to kiss you. You could make him apologize for being a cur and forgive him so sweetly that he would hang around trying to kiss you a second time. Sometimes, but not often, you did let them kiss you. (Ellen and Mammy had not taught her that but she learned it was effective). Then you cried and declared you didn't know what had come over you and that he couldn't ever respect you again. Then he had to dry your eyes and usually he proposed, to show just how much he did respect you. And there were-Oh, there were so many things to do to bachelors and she knew them all, the nuance of the sidelong glance, the half-smile behind the fan, the swaying of hips so that skirts swung like a bell, the tears, the laughter, the flattery, the sweet sympathy. Oh, all the tricks that never failed to work-except with Ashley.”

ProprietyDecorumHow To Treat OthersCatching Men
Book:Gone with the wind
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“There is a species of taverns of a lower denomination, which, however, are sometimes resorted to by good company, when disposed to enjoy a frolic. These are the oyster-cellars, a sort of ale-houses, where the proper entertainment of the house is oysters, punch and porter. Most of the oyster-houses have a sort of long room, where a small party may enjoy the exercise of a country dance, to the music of a fiddle, harp, or bag-pipe. But the equivocal character of these houses of resort prevents them from being visited by any of the fair sex who seek the praise of delicacy, or pique themselves on propriety of conduct.”

OystersProprietyEdinburgh
Book:The History of Edinburgh
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“To classify an intuitively bold and technically deft artist like Mary Hiester Reid as a poetry-reading lady flower painter in a high collar misses the fact that she slipped that collar at every opportunity, and when she couldn't, wore it with stately dignity.”

ProprietyWoman ArtistStill Lifes
Book:Flower Diary: In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door
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“You know the stories of my grandfather, I am sure?” Jesse asked. Lucie raised an eyebrow. “The one who turned into a great worm because of demon pox, and was slain by my father and uncles?” “I feared your parents would not have considered it the kind of tale suitable for a young lady’s ears,” said Jesse. “I see that was an idle concern.” “They tell it every Christmas,” said Lucie smugly.”

ChristmasProprietyDemon PoxLucie HerondaleJesse BlackthornYoung LadyBenedict LightwoodIdle Concern
Book:Chain of Gold
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“He sat down on the edge of Lucie’s bed—and immediately leaped back up, blushing. Lucie took her hands off her hips, amused. “A ghost with a sense of propriety. That is funny.” He looked at her darkly. He really did have a most arresting face, she thought. His black hair and green eyes made a wintry contrast against his pale skin. As a writer, one had to pay attention to these things. Descriptions were very important.”

WritersGhostsProprietyChecking OutLucie HerondaleJesse Blackthorn
Book:Chain of Gold
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“This was, however, 1915, and if the better classes clasped to themselves a semblance of the old order, it did little more than obscure the chaos beneath their feet. During the war the very fabric of English society was picked apart and rewoven. Necessity dictated that women work outside the home, be it on their own or that of their employers', and so women put on men's boots and took control of trams and breweries, factories and fields. Upper-class women signed on for long stretches nursing in the mud and gore of France or, for a lark, put on smocks and gaiters and became Land Girls during the harvest. The harsh demands of king and country and the constant anxieties over the fighting men reduced the rules of chaperonage to a minimum; people simply had no energy to spare for the proprieties.”

Social ChangeProprietyChaperone
Book:The Beekeeper's Apprentice
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“Any woman may act the part of a coquette successfully who has the reputation without the scruples of modesty. If a woman passes the bounds of propriety for our sakes, and throws herself unblushingly at our heads, we conclude it is either from a sudden and violent liking, or from extraordinary merit on our parts, either of which is enough to turn any man's head who has a single spark of gallantry or vanity in his composition.”

IfsMenMayEnoughTurnsWomenExtraordinaryBoundsSakeViolentReputationVanityMeritSparksModestyCompositionProprietyScruplesGallantryCoquette
Author:William Hazlitt
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“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.”

CharacterStandardsIgnorantConformProprietyConceited
Book:Lectures on the English Comic Writers. By William Hazlitt. Third edition. Edited by his son [William Hazlitt the Younger].
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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.”

IfsWellsDoeSometimesEnoughWould BeBeautifulLanguageImpossibleModernExpressionLimitsTongueNonsenseLatinTranslateSevereCompassOne WordUnreasonableProprietyTranslatorsBarbarity
Author:John Dryden
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“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.”

IfsHas BeensMadeJusticeDecisionOppositesStrongerFaultsConformityRhetoricDeservingProprietyTruth And Justice
Book:Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric, Literally Tr. with Hobbes' Analysis, Examination Questions and an Appendix Containing the Greek Definitions: Also, The Poetic of Aristotle, Literally Tr., with a Selection of Notes, an Analysis, and Questions
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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.”

MenFeelingsHumanityFourShameRighteousnessDislikeLimbsProprietyComplianceDeference
Author:Mencius
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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.”

MenShowsFeelingsSocialCasesStandardsMen And WomenManifestationConventionsMistakenAdmirableAdaptedExaggeratedManlyProprietyRepressedPredatory
Book:The Study of Sociology
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“The constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those ... who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy. ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.”

StatesWholeGovernmentCareFormSpiritUnitedPowerUnited StatesSupportNovelFieldsObjectsTheoryFitAuthorityJudgmentLettersConstitutionAssumingUnionsCharityContraryWelfareProvidingPhilanthropyLegislationFederal GovernmentCalamitySubversivePropriety
Author:Franklin Pierce
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“Far better, and more cheerfully, I could dispense with some part of the downright necessaries of life, than with certain circumstances of elegance and propriety in the daily habits of using them.”

CertainHabitCircumstancesEleganceRefinementProprietyDaily Habits
Book:De Quincey's Writings: Life and manners; from The autobiography of an English opium-eater. 1851
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“In most old communities there is a common sense even in sensuality. Vice itself gets gradually digested into a system, is amenable to certain laws of conventional propriety and honor, has for its object simply the gratification of its appetites, and frowns with quite a conservative air on all new inventions, all untried experiments in iniquity.”

LawCertainCommunityCommonAirObjectsHonorConservativeVicesExperimentsInventionCommon SenseSensualityAppetiteConventionalGratificationProprietyIniquityNew InventionsAmenable
Book:Character and characteristic men
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“It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat; and worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them,--for every one, sees how we dress, but none see how we live, except we choose to let them. But the truly great are, by universal suffrage, exempted from these trammels, an may live or dress as they please.”

MenMayMeanPleaseUniversalDressesAppearanceEvery ManDiscipleCoatsWorldlyDressingsSuffrageProprietyShabbyWorldly WisdomUniversal Suffrage
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express; it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it.”

WantWritingMayUseBigsSpeakEasyDifficultStyleFitMouthsTasksSimplicityPassagesTheatricalProprietyPompousCadenceDifficult TasksStilts
Book:Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
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“It is graceful in a man to think and to speak with propriety, to act with deliberation, and in every occurrence of life to find out and persevere in the truth. On the other hand, to be imposed upon, to mistake, to falter, and to be deceived, is as ungraceful as to rave or to be insane.”

ThinkingMenHandsSpeakMistakeGraceInsaneDeceivedPersevereProprietyDeliberationRave
Book:Cicero's Three books of offices, or moral duties: also his Cato Major, an essay on old age; Lælius, an essay on friendship; Paradoxes; Scipio's dream; and Letter to Quintus on the duties of a magistrate
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“The propriety of thoughts and words, which are the hidden beauties of a play, are but confusedly judged in the vehemence of action.”

PlayActionDramaJudgedProprietyVehemenceThoughts And WordsHidden Beauty
Book:The works of John Dryden: now first collected in eighteen volumes. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author
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