Proper words in proper places. [ Swift ]
The careful pilot of my proper woe. [ Byron, Epistle to Augusta ]
The proper study of mankind is man. [ Pope ]
Yet he who grasps the moment's gift,
He is the proper man. [ Goethe ]
Learn to read slow; all other graces
Will follow in their proper places. [ Wm. Walker ]
Take time enough - all other graces
Will soon fill up their proper places. [ Byron ]
The mind is the proper judge of the man. [ Seneca ]
Action is the proper fruit of knowledge. [ Proverb ]
To women silence gives their proper grace. [ Sophocles ]
Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes.
But not too humbly, or she will despise
Thee and thy suit though told in moving tropes;
Disguise even tenderness, if thou art wise. [ Byron ]
Style may be defined, proper words in proper places. [ Swift ]
He needs no foil, but shines by his own proper light. [ John Dryden ]
Hunting is not a proper employment for a thinking man. [ Addison ]
The proper reward of the good workman is to be chosen.
[ John Ruskin ]
Good nature is the proper soil upon which virtue grows. [ Proverb ]
A smile that elow'd Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue. [ Milton ]
The proper task of literature lies in the domain of belief. [ Carlyle ]
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend so horrid as in woman. [ William Shakespeare ]
Forethought and prudence are the proper qualities of a leader. [ Tacitus ]
Grace is the proper relation of the acting person to the action. [ Winckelmann ]
Proper words in proper places make the true definition of a style. [ Jonathan Swift ]
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. [ Plutarch ]
True eloquence consists in saying all that is proper, and nothing more. [ La Roche ]
An individual helps not; only he who unites with many at the proper time. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
The great secret of a good style is to have proper words in proper places. [ Edwin P. Whipple ]
In all you write be neither low nor vile: The meanest theme may have a proper style. [ Dryden ]
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]
The heart of every man lies open to the shafts of reproof if the archer can but take a proper aim. [ Goldsmith ]
Even business should have a picturesque background. With a proper back-ground a woman can do anything. [ Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan ]
A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones. [ Chesterfield ]
In things pertaining to enthusiasm, no man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions. [ A. B. Alcott ]
Labour endears rest, and both together are absolutely necessary for the proper enjoyment of human existence. [ Burns ]
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him. [ Goethe ]
Prudence is that virtue by which we discern what is proper to be done under the various circumstances of time and place. [ Milton ]
For the gods, instead of what is most pleasing, will give what is most proper. Man is dearer to them than he is to himself. [ Juvenal ]
Observe a method in the distribution of your time. Every hour will then know its proper employment, and no time will be lost. [ Bishop Horne ]
God hath given to mankind a common library, His creatures; to every man a proper book, himself being an abridgment of all others. [ T. Fuller ]
Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader. [ Adam Clarke ]
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff for that purpose in it; and a man becomes renowned because he has the necessary stuff in him.
The mind of a thoroughly well-informed man is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust and everything priced above its proper value. [ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey ]
Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind; censure stimulates and contracts - both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper medium. [ Shenstone ]
In times of danger it is proper to be alarmed until danger be near at hand; but when we perceive that danger is near, we should oppose it as if we were not afraid. [ Hitopadesa ]
It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the proper place, than to expend both indiscriminately. [ Ruskin ]
Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant of both the character they leave and of the character they assume. [ Burke ]
Nobody can live by teaching any more than by learning; both teaching and learning are proper duties of human life, or pleasures of it, but have nothing whatever to do with the support of it. [ John Ruskin ]
We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the richness of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
A simple garb is the proper costume of the vulgar; it is cut for them, and exactly suits their measure; but it is an ornament for those who have filled up their lives with great deeds. I liken them to beauty in dishabille, but more bewitching on that account. [ Bruyere ]
What a conception of art must those theorists have who exclude portraits from the proper province of the fine arts! It is exactly as if we denied that to be poetry in which the poet celebrates the woman he really loves. Portraiture is the basis and the touchstone of historic painting. [ Schlegel ]
Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider, and should be wise in season, and not fetter himself with duties which will imbitter his days, and spoil him for his proper work. [ Emerson ]
Let every mother consider herself as an instrument in the hands of Providence - let her reflect on the immense importance the proper education of one single family may eventually prove; and that, while the fruit of her labors may descend to generations yet unborn, she will herself reap a glorious reward. [ Miss Hamilton ]
Perpetually or Continually? Perpetual means never ceasing, continuing without interruption; continual, of frequent recurrence, etc., with occasional interruptions. Indolent pupils are perpetually failing in the tasks assigned them.
Here the proper word is continually. Time is perpetual; frequent disregard of our duties is continual. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
Never teach false modesty. How exquisitely absurd to teach a girl that beauty is of no value, dress of no use! Beauty is of value; her whole prospects and happiness in life may often depend upon a new gown or a becoming bonnet; if she has five grains of commonsense she will find this out. The great thing is to teach her their proper value. [ Sydney Smith ]
Wealth brings noble opportunities, and competence is a proper object of pursuit; but wealth, and even competence, may be bought at too high a price. Wealth itself has no moral attribute. It is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil. It is the relation between wealth and the mind and the character of its possessor which is the essential thing. [ Hillard ]
Occur or Transpire? The misuse of these words is very common. Occur means simply to take place, to happen; transpire to leak out, to come to light. Hence, it is incorrect to say, The annual school exhibition transpired last week.
The proper word here is occurred. But transpire is correctly used in such a sentence as, The proceedings of the caucus have not yet transpired
. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
Individuals possessing moderate sized brains easily find their proper sphere, and enjoy in it scope for all their energy. In ordinary circumstances they distinguish themselves, but they sink when difficulties accumulate around them. Persons with large brains, on the other hand, do not readily attain their appropriate place; common occurrences do not rouse or call them forth. [ George Combe ]
The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man's general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters turns upon one shilling. [ Chesterfield ]
Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas it was its continuance which should have taught us its value. There are three requisitions to the proper enjoyment of earthly blessings, - a thankful reflection on the goodness of the Giver, a deep sense of our unworthiness, a recollection of the uncertainty of long possessing them. The first would make us grateful; the second, humble; and the third, moderate. [ Hannah More ]
A statue lies hid in a block of marble, and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone; the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero, - the wise, the good, or the great man, - very often lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light. [ Joseph Addison ]
Out of the ashes of misanthropy benevolence rises again; we find many virtues where we had imagined all was vice, many acts of disinterested friendship where we had fancied all was calculation and fraud - and so gradually from the two extremes we pass to the proper medium; and, feeling that no human being is wholly good or wholly base, we learn that true knowledge of mankind which induces us to expect little and forgive much. The world cures alike the optimist and the misanthrope. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gesture or quick movement inspires involuntary disrespect. One looks for a moment at a cascade; but one sits for hours, lost in thought, and gazing upon the still water of a lake. A deliberate gale, gentle manners, and a gracious tone of voice - all of which may be acquired - give a mediocre man an immense advantage over those vastly superior to him. To be bodily tranquil, to speak little, and to digest without effort are absolutely necessary to grandeur of mind or of presence, or to proper development of genius. [ Balzac ]
Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge: it is immortal as the heart of men. If the labors of the men of science should ever create any revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions which we habitually receive, the poet will then sleep no more than at present; he will be ready to follow the steps of the man of science, not only in those general indirect effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of the science itself. The remotest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, or mineralogist will be as proper objects of the poet's art as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us, and the relations under which they are contemplated by the followers of the respective sciences shall be manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering beings. If the time should ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put on. as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the being thus produced as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man. [ Wordsworth ]