Quotes & Sayings About Unbecoming

If the ghost that haunts the towns of Ypres and Arras and Albert is the staturory British Tommy, slogging with rifle and pack through its ruined streets to this well-documented destiny 'up the line', then the ghost of Boulogne and Etaples and Rouen ought to be a girl. She's called Elsie or Gladys or Dorothy, her ankles are swollen, her feet are aching, her hands reddened and rough. She has little money, no vote, and has almost forgotten what it feels like to be really warm. She sleeps in a tent. Unless she has told a diplomatic lie about her age, she is twenty-three. She is the daughter of a clergyman, a lawyer or a prosperous businessman, and has been privately educated and groomed to be a 'lady'. She wears the unbecoming outdoor uniform of a VAD or an army nurse. She is on active service, and as much a part of the war as Tommy Atkins. — Lyn Macdonald

Judges ... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office. — Jonathan Swift

At a small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction- it fascinated rather than repelled. She sat very upright. Round her neck was a collar of very large pearls which, improbable though it seemed, were real. Her hands were covered with rings. Her sable coat was pushed back on her shoulders. A very small and expensive black toque was hideously unbecoming to the yellow, toad-like face beneath it. — Agatha Christie

We can't do anything but snap at each other," I said. "The masters made sure of that. Anything too extreme would get us expelled for Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Arcanum. Why do you think I haven't made his life a hell?"
"You're lazy?" Wil suggested. — Patrick Rothfuss

Stop believing what you want to believe. It's unbecoming — Max Barry

The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not. — Albert Schweitzer

... People are rivers, always ready to move from one state of being into another. It is not fair, to treat people as if they are finished beings. Everyone is always becoming and unbecoming. — Kathleen Winter

No one should ever know where conduct ends and acting begins. Conduct unbecoming. That's what acting is. — Peter O'Toole

And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling which the many entertain
towards philosophy originates in the pretenders, who rush in uninvited,
and are always abusing them, and finding fault with them, who make persons
instead of things the theme of their conversation? and nothing can be more
unbecoming in philosophers than this. — Plato

The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming. — Oscar Wilde

He wonders again if the dead need translators; perhaps in a moment, in a simple twist of unbecoming, they know everything they need to know. — Hilary Mantel

I shall stick to our vow: never, never under any circumstances, to say anything unbecoming of the other ... The trouble, of course, is that most successful men are prone to some form of vanity. There comes a stage in their lives when they consider it permissible to be egotistic and to brag to the public at large about their unique achievements. — Nelson Mandela

He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mr. Charnock said: Men that are great in the world are quick in passion, and are not so ready to forgive an injury, or bear with an offender, as one of a meaner rank. It is a want of power over that man's self that makes him do unbecoming things upon a provocation. A prince that can bridle his passions is a king over himself as well as over his subjects. God is slow to anger because great in power. He has no less power over Himself than over His creatures. — Arthur W. Pink

However, I think anything is better than high intellectual pressure. That is the most unbecoming thing there is. It makes the noses of the young girls so particularly large. — Oscar Wilde

Now in regard to trades and other means of livelihood, which ones are to be considered becoming to a gentleman and which ones are vulgar, we have been taught, in general, as follows. First, those means of livelihood are rejected as undesirable which incur people's ill-will, as those of tax-gatherers and usurers. Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I don't want lies between us, Alina."
"How many lies have you told me, Sturmhond? How many secrets have you kept until you were ready to share them?"
"Prince's prerogative?"
"If a mere prince gets a pass, so does a living saint."
"Are you going to make a habit of winning arguments? It's very unbecoming."
"Was this an argument?"
"Obviously not. I don't lose arguments. — Leigh Bardugo

Nothing is more unbecoming to a teacher of the Word than flippancy. He must be serious and should not act like a clown. — Martin Luther

Levity of behavior, always a weakness, is far more unbecoming in a woman than a man. — William Penn

Mara, if you're tired, I can hear it. If you're hurt, I can feel it. And if you lie, I will know it. — Michelle Hodkin

As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run ... What an interest it imparts to life!. — William Makepeace Thackeray

Sexual repression is conduct unbecoming a Celt." I shrugged. "Better that than having to deal with guilt ferrets. — Kevin Hearne

Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction, as the more graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain, - which taste cannot tolerate, - which ridicule will seize. — Jane Austen

If poets use such expressions it is because they need them, because emotion and experience force them out of them, and so it is, surely, with me, though you think them unbecoming in me. You are wrong. They are becoming to whoever needs them, and he has no fear of them, because they are forced out of him. — Thomas Mann

Our society is afflicted by a spirit of thoughtless arrogance unbecoming those who have been so magnificently blessed. How grateful we should be for the bounties we enjoy. Absence of gratitude is the mark of the narrow, uneducated mind. It bespeaks a lack of knowledge and the ignorance of self-sufficiency. It expresses itself in ugly egotism and frequently in wanton mischief ...
Where there is appreciation, there is courtesy, there is concern for the rights and property of others. Without appreciation, there is arrogance and evil.
Where there is gratitude, there is humility, as opposed to pride. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Unbecoming or not, I dare say that if a harmonica chases away a suitor, he was no suitor at all in the first place. — Sarah Price

It was not fair, she felt, to treat people as if they were finished beings. Everyone was always becoming and unbecoming. — Kathleen Winter

But it does make you feel smaller, which is a relief in some ways. When you screw up, it seems less terrible. all these people, everybody screwing up. — Rebecca Scherm

The certainty of those with whom we disagree - whether the disagreement concerns who should run the country or who should run the dishwasher - never looks justified to us, and frequently looks odious. As often as not, we regard it as a sign of excessive emotional attachment to an idea, or an indicator of a narrow, fearful, or stubborn frame of mind. By contrast, we experience our own certainty as simply a side-effect of our rightness, justifiable because our cause is just. And, remarkably, despite our generally supple, imaginative, extrapolation-happy minds, we cannot transpose this scene. We cannot imagine, or do not care, that our own certainty, when seen from the outside, must look just as unbecoming and ill-grounded as the certainty we abhor in others. — Kathryn Schulz

The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming. LADY — Oscar Wilde

Recovery is an unbecoming. My healing has been a peeling away of costume after cstume until here I am, still and naked before God, stripped down to my real identity. — Glennon Doyle Melton

For a moment, she stood transfixed, conscious of all the eyes that were staring at her, some admiringly, others lasciviously. Then she began to dance. Gracefully & nimbly, not vulgarly. There was no need to separate her thighs & wrench open her cup to display her hymen. Such an act would be unbecoming for a Goddess. Thus, she danced as the Goddess Artemis would, or the Goddess Hebe would, or the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, herself would, dance with the Graces in the gardens of Olympus.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

Unbecoming forwardness oftener proceeds from ignorance than impudence. — Sir Fulke Greville

What age is she now, twenty something. I'm not sure. She is very bright, quite the bluestocking. Not beautiful, however, I admitted that to myself long ago. I cannot pretend this is not a disappointment, for I had hoped that she would be another Anna. She is too tall and stark, her rusty hair is coarse and untameable and stand out around her freckled face in an unbecoming manner, and when she smiles she shows her upper gums, glistening and whitely pink. With those spindly legs and big bum, that hair, the long neck especially ... Yet she is brave and makes the best of herself and of the world. She has the rueful, grimly humorous, clomping way to her that is common to so many ungainly girls. ... Dear Claire, my sweet girl. — John Banville

Truer words were never spoken. — Michelle Hodkin

I had just finished carving some boiled beef (remarkably tough by the way) and on resuming my seat I remarked, in a spirit most unbecoming to my cloth, that anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world at large a service. — Agatha Christie

It's unbecoming," she agreed. "A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un. — Gregory Maguire

Pride goes before the fall. — Michelle Hodkin

Pain is just a feeling, and feelings aren't real. — Michelle Hodkin

She belonged to the class that wear their best clothes, however unsuitable to the occasion. Last year, you know, we had a picnic outing at Scrantor Rocks. You'd be surprised at the unsuitable clothes the girls wore. Foulard dresses and patent-leather shoes and quite elaborate hats, some of them. For climbing about over rocks and in gorse and heather. And the young men in their best suits. Of course, hiking's different again. That's practically a uniform, and girls don't seem to realize that shorts are very unbecoming unless they are very slender. — Agatha Christie

Religion is the eldest sister of philosophy: on whatever subjects they may differ, it is unbecoming in either to quarrel, and most so about their inheritance. — Walter Savage Landor

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims. — Aristotle.

Age before beauty, Mr. MacRieve. If you think you can fit."
"Only humans call me Mr. MacRieve."
"I'm not a human. So would you like me to call you Bowen, or Bowe for short?"
"Bowe is what my friends call me, so you doona."
"No problem. I have a slew of other more fitting names for you. Most of them end in er."
"You in the tunnel first."
"Don't you think it'd be unbecoming for me to be on my hands and knees in front of you? Besides, you don't need my lantern to see in the dark, and if you go first, you'll be sure to lose me and get to the prize first."
"I doona like anything, or anyone, at my back. And you'll have your little red cloak on, so I will no' be able to see anything about you that might be ... unbecoming."
"Twisting my words? I'll have you know that I am criminally cute - "
"Then why hide behind a cloak?"
"I'm not hiding. And I like to wear it. Fine. Beauty before age. — Kresley Cole

That decision to use basically all white models reveals a trait that is unbecoming to modern society. It can no longer be accepted. — Bethann Hardison

It was not of course a thing that the big-wigs cared to have anything to do with. Though ready enough to profit by the activities of obscure agents of whom they had never heard, they shut their eyes to dirty work so that they could put their clean hands on their hearts and congratulate themselves that they had never done anything that was unbecoming to men of honour. — W. Somerset Maugham

Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness. — Leon Trotsky

Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of. — Socrates

Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays. — Jonathan Swift

I so badly needed to self-destruct. — Michelle Hodkin

Grounded likely means no phone or computer," Jamie said. "But if I encounter an owl, I'll try to smuggle a message to the outside, okay? — Michelle Hodkin

A keen sense of humor helps us to overlook the unbecoming, understand the unconventional, tolerated the unpleasant, overcome the unexpected, and outlast the unbearable. — Billy Graham

Your levity is unbecoming, Richard, and not at all the point,' Mrs Lowe said, giving him a stern look.'In another week, the Season will be upon us, and as you have chosen to come to Town for once, I shall expect you to find a little more time for your social and family obligations.'
'Oh, you may expect whatever you like, Aunt.' Mairelon's tone was careless, but there was a set to his shoulders that told Kim he was not pleased.
'People are already arriving, and I fear there are quite a few who are ... confused about your proper standing'
'I can't imagine why. I'm the least confusing person I know. — Patricia C. Wrede

Americans must outgrow the unbecoming arrogance that leads us to assert that America somehow owns a monopoly on goodness and truth - a belief that leads some to view the world as but a stage on which to play out the great historical drama: the United States of America versus the Powers of Evil. — Feisal Abdul Rauf

Valkyrie walked over to her. Since she had met her, all she'd wanted to do was punch her face in. But that was when Kitana has been big and powerful and brimming with murderous arrogance. The girl standing before her now, crying and blubbing like any teenage girl would do under these circumstances, was not the same girl Valkyrie had wanted to punch.
But she'd do.
Valkyrie's fist connected with such a satisfying jolt that it actually made her smile as Kitana fell sideways, eyes already rolling in her head. Valkyrie resisted the urge to kick her as she lay crumpled.
Such behaviour would be unbecoming of a Sanctuary detective. — Derek Landy

There was a man who said, Such and such a person has a violent disposition, but this is what I said right to his face ... This was an unbecoming thing to say, and it was said simply because he wanted to be known as a rough fellow. It was rather low, and it can be seen that he was still rather immature. It is because a samurai has correct manners that he is admired. Speaking of other people in this way is no different from an exchange between low class spearmen. It is vulgar. — Tsunetomo Yamamoto

If you have assumed a character above your strength, you have both acted in this matter in an unbecoming way, and you have neglected that which you might have fulfilled. — Epictetus

I'm chasing oblivion I will never find. — Michelle Hodkin

Generally speaking, I think it is unbecoming to act as a national hero, wave hands and so on. — Vitaly Scherbo

. . . though if Fanshawe had not spoken in so unbecoming a way, Laurence would have liked to keep Carver out of it, as he knew the boy had a poor head for heights, which struck him as a grave impediment for an aviator. — Naomi Novik

... and I so badly needed to self-destruct. — Michelle Hodkin

It is equally vain," she thought, "for you to think you can protect me, or for me to think I can worship you. The light of truth beats upon us without shadow, and the light of truth is damnably unbecoming to us both. — Virginia Woolf

The choreographed standing and clapping of one side of the room - while the other side sits - is unbecoming of a serious institution and the message that it sends is that even on a night when the president is addressing the entire nation, we in Congress cannot sit as one, but must be divided as two. — Mark Udall

I think an appeal to arms and to brute force is unbecoming the age in which we live. Would to God that the time had come when there should be no war, and that religion and peace should reign throughout the world. — Robert Anderson

There is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh ... 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion! — William Congreve

But to be constantly asking 'What is the use of it?' is unbecoming to those of broad vision and unworthy of free men. — Aristotle.

My brother spent a large portion of the agonizingly slow drive to school banging his forehead on the stearing wheel. — Michelle Hodkin

For some reason he thinks of Diane in her unbecoming red ski jacket and decides that her life is her life, there is not much use worrying about it. And he thinks of his wife, pretending to laugh at the television. Her quietness. — Alice Munro

If you were anyone else, I'd tell you it's unbecoming to gloat."
But you'd tell me ... "
That even gloating becomes you. It's a sad thing, an intelligent woman in love. — Emma Bull

Far from being tortured, the prisoners [at Guantanamo] are being handled literally with kid gloves (or simulated kid-effect gloves). The U.S. military hands each jihadist his complimentary copy of the Koran as delicately as white-gloved butlers bringing His Lordship the Times of London. It's not just unbecoming to buy in to Muslim psychoses; in the end, it's self-defeating. And our self-defeat is their surest shot at victory...Even a loser can win when he's up against a defeatist. A big chunk of Western Civilization, consciously or otherwise, has given the impression that it's dying to surrender to somebody, anybody. Reasonably enough, the jihadists figure: hey, why not us? — Mark Steyn

The decisions we make, individually and personally, become the fabric of our lives. That fabric will be beautiful or ugly according to the threads of which it is woven. I wish to say particularly to the young men who are here that you cannot indulge in any unbecoming behavior without injury to the beauty of the fabric of your lives. Immoral acts of any kind will introduce an ugly thread. Dishonesty of any kind will create a blemish. Foul and profane language will rob the pattern of its beauty. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. — Alfred Tennyson

The truth of the matter was that Juliet would look good in a sack. Somehow everything she wore fitted perfectly. Glenda, on the other hand, never found anything good in her size and indeed seldom anything in her size. In theory, something should fit, but all she ever found was facts, which are so unbecoming. — Terry Pratchett

So since we've clearly created a monster, which of us is Dr. Frankenstein, and who gets to be Igor?" I asked, hoping to inject a little levity.
"I'm definitely the doctor. He had the nicer ass."
"I hate to be a bubble burster, but you're a disembodied AI; you don't have an ass."
"I have since I met you."
"Aw. And you do have quite a mainframe on you." I realized after saying it how weird that was, since technically her mainframe was my mainframe, and I really didn't want to dwell on how incestuous that was. "But what if I'm not ready to be a father?"
"Well, you're already a bother, so all you'd really need to do is give an F."
"That was low, and given how terrible my standards are, you should recognize what kind of an insult that really is."
"Don't be a jerk. It's unbecoming."
"Well, apparently I'm becoming a jerk. Were you expecting a pumpkin? — Nicolas Wilson

The truth is this: Pride must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. Under the banner of the truth, give yourself up to the meek and humble spirit of the holy Jesus. Humility must sow the seed or there can be no reaping in heaven. Look not at pride only as an unbecoming temper, nor at humility only as a decent virtue: for the one is death and the other is life; the one is hell and the other is heaven. So much as you have of pride within you, you have of the fallen angel alive in you; so much as you have of true humility, so much you have of the Lamb of God within you. — Andrew Murray

My grandmother, whom we call Biel, thinks it's very unbecoming of me not to smile for the paparazzi. So every time I see them, I think, 'Smile for Biel!' — Jessica Biel

Smoking was a bad habit, yes. But he looked so good doing it." - The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer — Michelle Hodkin

MacRieve, you're on my cloak. Let up -. Give it back!"
"It was slowing you - and therefore me - down."
"If you had gone first - "
"I dinna. If you want it, why no' use magick to take it from me?"
"You really do not want me to do that."
"You really must no' want your cloak back. Come then, witchling, just take it from me."
"Keep the cloak. It'll be worth money one day."
"Doona fret, witch. You're no' so unbecoming from my angle. Bit scrawny where it counts, but no' too bad."
"Scrawny where it counts, MacRieve? Funny, I'd heard the same about you."
"No' likely. Maybe you're just too young to have heard the rumors about Lykae males. Tender wee ears and such. — Kresley Cole

The cat's tail was straying into her face again; she was forced to expel air in a most unbecoming fashion to avoid a mouthful of hair. — Meredith Duran

It is unbecoming for a cardinal to ski badly. — Pope John Paul II

A proud woman who has learned to submit carries all her pride to the reinforcement of her submission, and looks down with severe superiority on all feminine assumption as unbecoming. — George Eliot

He was beautiful. And he was smiling at me. — Michelle Hodkin

I have always thought that in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so called by courtesy, but genuine madmen, have played a very considerable political part. One thing is certain, and that is that a condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times, and often even leads to success. — Alexis De Tocqueville