What's a fine person, or a beauteous face,
Unless deportment gives them decent grace?
Blessed with all other requisites to please.
Some want the striking elegance of ease;
The curious eye their awkward movement tires:
They seem like puppets led about by wires. [ Churchill ]

Awkward, embarrassed, stiff, without the skill
Of moving gracefully or standing still.
One leg, as if suspicious of his brother.
Desirous seems to run away from t' other. [ Churchill ]

Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame. [ Pope ]

Top and bottom teeth sometimes come into awkward collision. [ Ch. Proverb ]

Jealousy is an awkward homage which inferiority renders to merit. [ Madame de Puisieux ]

In love, it is as it was with the thieves of Sparta: only the awkward are punished.

Not all the pumice of the polish'd town
Can smooth the roughness of the barnyard clown; Rich, honor'd, titled, he betrays his race
By this one mark - he's awkward in his face. [ Holmes ]

We always make our friend appear awkward and ridiculous by giving him a laced suit of tawdry qualifications, which nature never intended him to wear. [ Junius ]

It is the violence of their ideas and the blind haste of their passion that make men awkward when with women. A man who has blunted a little his sensations, at first studies to please rather than to be loved. [ George Sand ]

A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance; than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. [ Colton ]

A man who knows the world, will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know; and will gain more credit by the dexterity he displays in hiding his ignorance, than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. [ Sir R. B. Cotton ]

Men are much more unwilling to have their weaknesses and their imperfections known than their crimes; and if you hint to a man that you think him silly, ignorant, or even ill-bred, or awkward, he will hate you more and longer than if you tell him plainly that you think him a rogue. [ Chesterfield ]

I would rather have a young fellow too much than too little dressed; the excess on that side will wear off, with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty, and stink at fifty years old. Dress yourself fine where others are fine, and plain where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward air. [ Chesterfield ]