Propriety cannot be sundered from what is honourable. [ Cicero ]

Never do an act of which you doubt the justice or propriety. [ Latin ]

A certain class of novels may with propriety be called fables. [ Whately ]

Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman. [ Hazlitt ]

That only can with propriety be styled refinement which, by strengthening the intellect, purifies the manners. [ Coleridge ]

The propriety of thoughts and words, which are the hidden beauties of a play, are but confusedly judged in the vehemence of action. [ Dryden ]

Worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them. [ Colton ]

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. [ Macaulay ]

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas. [ Macaulay ]

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 ]

A young woman should regard that propriety of attire which insures the strictest neatness, and modestly conform to those unobjectionable points which are the freaks of custom. [ C. Butler ]

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. [ De Quincey ]

If once a woman breaks through the barriers of decency, her case is desperate; and if she goes greater lengths than the men, and leaves the pale of propriety farther behind her, it is because she is aware that all return is prohibited, and by none so strongly as by her own sex. [ Colton ]

What we call genius may, perhaps, in more strict propriety, be described as the spirit of discovery. Genius is the very eye of intellect and the wing of thought. It is always in advance of its time. It is the pioneer for the generation which it precedes. For this reason it is called a seer, and hence its songs have been prophecies. [ Simms ]

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. [ Dr. Johnson ]

In most old communities there is a commonsense 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. [ Whipple ]

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two great faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasoning. [ Macaulay ]

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. [ Hazlitt ]

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, and may live or dress as they please. [ Colton ]