Punctilious Quotes & Sayings

Sunday: this satisfied procession
Of definite Sunday faces;
Bonnets, silk hats, and conscious graces
In repetition that displaces
Your mental self-possession
By this unwarranted digression.
Evening, lights, and tea!
Children and cats in the alley;
Dejection unable to rally
Against this dull conspiracy.
And Life, a little bald and gray,
Languid, fastidious, and bland,
Waits, hat and gloves in hand,
Punctilious of tie and suit
(Somewhat impatient of delay)
On the doorstep of the Absolute. — T. S. Eliot

Isn't the analogy with good manners perfect? Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word 'punctilious' ('attentive to formality or etiquette') comes from the same original root word as punctuation. As we shall see, the practice of 'pointing' our writing has always been offered in a spirit of helpfulness, to underline meaning and prevent awkward misunderstandings between writer and reader. — Lynne Truss

If the quickness of the mind and the fluency of the tongue are too punctilious and sharp, moderate them in your activity and rest. — Xun Zi

Religion can hardly revive, because it cannot decay. To put the matter bluntly on the lowest level, it is not to anybody's interest that religion should disappear. If it did, many compositors would be thrown out of work; the audiences of our best-selling scientists would shrink to almost nothing; and the typewriters of the Huxley Brothers would cease from tapping. Without religion the whole human race would die, as according to W. H. R. Rivers, some Melanesian tribes have died, solely of boredom. Every one would be affected: the man who regularly has a run in his car and a round of golf on Sunday, quite as much as the punctilious churchgoer. — T. S. Eliot

That religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword - the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men - stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism. The love of plunder, always a characteristic of hill tribes, is fostered by the spectacle of opulence and luxury which, to their eyes, the cities and plains of the south display. A code of honour not less punctilious than that of old Spain is supported by vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica. — Winston S. Churchill

Shall we make a positive appointment for a particular day and hour?" inquired the count; "only let me warn you that I am proverbial for my punctilious exactitude in keeping my engagements. — Alexandre Dumas

Not every collision, not every punctilious trajectory by which billiard-ball complexes arrive at their calculable meeting places lead to reaction ... Men (and women) are not as different from molecules as they think. — Roald Hoffmann

Jesus's demonstration in the temple was not, as is often assumed, a plea for a more spiritual form of worship. As he rampaged through the money changers' stalls, he quoted the Hebrew prophets who had harsh words for those who were punctilious in their devotions but ignored the plight of the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed. — Karen Armstrong

People don't change," Nina said bitterly. "They just get more punctilious about hiding their true selves. — Ruth Ware

Female Mercenary. This will be a companion on your Tour. She is usually tall, thin and wiry, silent, and neurotic. Sex scares her. This is because she either came from a nunnery or was raped as a child. Or both. Somehow this inspired her to become a mercenary and she is very good at her job. You can rely on her absolutely in a fight. She can usually kill two people at once while guarding your back in between. The rest of the time, she will irritate you with lots of punctilious weapons cleaning and a perpetual insistence that a proper watch be kept. Mostly, she will have no magic talents, but sometimes, in an emergency, she will come up with a gift or vision. You will end up grudgingly admiring her. — Diana Wynne Jones

Now two punctilious envoys, Thine and Mine Embroil the earth about a fancied line; And, dwelling much on right and much on wrong, Prove how the right is chiefly with the strong. — Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Where are the dogs going? you people who pay so little attention ask. They are going about their business. And they are very punctilious, without wallets, notes, and without briefcases. — Charles Baudelaire

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war. — Ann Coulter

It is by no means enough that an officer should be capable ... He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor ... No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention, even if the reward be only one word of approval. Conversely, he should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate. — John Paul Jones

Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation. — Lynne Truss

If people realized the great pains I go through to impose such delicious torment on him, they would be more punctilious. — Andrew Cormier

Punctilious abyss, the yawn of space
Come once a day to suffocate the sight. — Allen Tate

The British have their own conception of what constitutes the typical American. He must have a flavor of the Wild West about him. He must do spectacular things. He must not be punctilious about dignity, decorum and other refinements characteristic of the real British gentleman. The Yankee pictured by the Briton must be a bustler. If he is occasionally flagrantly indiscreet in speech and action, then he is so much more surely stamped the genuine article. The most typical American the British ever set their eyes on was, in their judgment, Theodore Roosevelt. — B.C. Forbes

Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals. — Herman Melville

To the American, English writers are like prim spinsters fidgeting with the china, punctilious about good taste, and inwardly full of thwarted, tepid and perverse passions.
We see the Americans as gushing adolescents, repetitive and slangy, rather nasty sometimes in their zest for violence and bad language. — Evelyn Waugh

The frivolous can call me frivolous. I've always been most punctilious about important things. And I insist that no one knows better than I do the Holy Fathers, or the Scriptures, or the Canons of the Councils. — C.P. Cavafy

so you must be as punctilious in sending them as though it were a bill that you were paying. I hope that they will always be respectful in tone and will reflect credit on your training. — Jean Webster

There is little I can tell you about Aglaura beyond the things its own inhabitants have always repeated: an array of proverbial virtues, of equally proverbial faults, a few eccentricities, some punctilious regard for rules. — Italo Calvino

His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for wedding presents and when he encountered anyone as punctilious as himself the correspondence ended only with death. — Evelyn Waugh