Unseemly Quotes & Sayings

I really love cursing a lot. But as I get older, I realize it's a little unseemly for women of a certain age. — Tina Fey

When great individuals move so marvelously along the straight and narrow path, it is unseemly of us to call attention to the fact that one of their shoelaces is untied as they make the journey. — Neal A. Maxwell

What an unseemly thing it would be to see a soldier go whining up and down with his finger in his eye, complaining, that he does not have hot meat every meal, and his bed warmed as he did at home! Now Christians know that they are in their warfare, they are here in this world fighting and combating with the enemies of their souls and their eternal welfare, and they must be willing to endure hardness here. — Anonymous

It remains a mystery to me why some of that [pulp] fiction should be judged inferior to the rafts and rafts of bad social [literary] fiction which continues to be treated by literary editors as if it were somehow superior, or at least worthier of our attention. The careerist literary imperialism of the Bloomsbury years did a lot to produce fiction's present unseemly polarities. — Michael Moorcock

I would hardly say that I have a rich knowledge of anything in particular, but I do seem to be burdened with an unseemly appetite for intellectual and artistic erudition, which, for the sake of balance, I keep well harnessed to a reliable sense of the absurd. — Thomas Steinbeck

I just think everyone knows you go on those [political satire] shows if you're a politician to, "humanize yourself" - to show, "Hey, I can take a joke." Well, why should satire be in the service of humanizing these people who are supposed to be the target of our venom and vitriol? I think that's unseemly. — Harry Shearer

But what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I should go, that I should make a point of going; and the more tactless, the more unseemly my going would be, the more certainly I would go. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a little child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenceless heart. You don't know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love. Brothers, love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labour. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever. Everyone can love occasionally, even the wicked can. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Expecting gratitude for a gift is... unseemly. — Jack Caldwell

Everybody has a right to like or dislike anything or anyone. From a flower to a flavor to a book or a composition but it is very sad that in our country we actually fight over such things in an unseemly manner. — Ravi Shankar

A dragon killer, he was, a rescuer of damsels, and his small sins seemed so great to him that he felt unfit and unseemly. She wished her father were here. Her father had felt greatness in Tom. Perhaps he would know now how to release it out of its darkness and let it fly free. — John Steinbeck

The breezes of the West African night were intimate and shy, licking the hair, sweeping through cotton dresses with unseemly intimacy, then disappearing into the utter blackness. — Maya Angelou

People are either attracted to the unseemly or disapproving of it, or both; yet we try to sound superior to the unseemly by pretending to be amused by it or indifferent to it. — John Irving

Apropos of nothing at all except that it has been on my mind and I think I had better say it because it accounts for a good deal of my behaviour. There is a strong streak in me that wishes not to exist and really does not believe that I do, so that I tend to become unnerved when these curious ideas are proved to be not really true because someone (in this case you) has responded to something I have said or done just as if I were an actual person the same as you (especially) or anyone else. Some of it is, I guess, just the worst sorts of arrogance and irresponsibility , but not all of it, as I really don't think I exist a lot of the time, so I'm asking you to bear with it, me, whatever, for the sake of what? - friendship I suppose, which I want to be capable of, which is obviously not enough. More brains might help, but enough unseemly remarks for eight o'clock in the morning and the shivering in pyjama bottoms syndrome. — Edward Gorey

What is a gathering without unseemly drunkenness? — Jonathan Stroud

At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic. — Naguib Mahfouz

Australia is mostly empty and a long way away. Its population is small and its role in the world consequently peripheral. It doesn't have coups, recklessly overfish, arm disagreeable despots, grow coca in provocative quantities, or throw its weight around in a brash and unseemly manner. It is stable and peaceful and good. It doesn't need watching, and so we don't. But I will tell you this: the loss is entirely ours. — Bill Bryson

'Hamlet' is a play about a man whose grief is deemed unseemly. — Meghan O'Rourke

Here I am not the one to throw out. No one steals my warmth and shoes because I am small. No one handles my backside. No one whinnies like sheep or goat because I drop in fear and weakness. No one screams at the sight of me. No one watches my body for how it is unseemly. With you my body is pleasure is safe is belonging. I can never not have you have me. — Toni Morrison

If the Britannica has taught me anything, it's to be more careful. I don't want to turn into an unseemly noun or verb or adjective someday. I don't want to be like Charles Boycott, the landlord in Ireland who refused to lower rents during a famine, leading to the original boycott. I don't want to be like Charles Lynch, who headed an irregular court that hung loyalists during the Revolutionary War. I can't have "Jacobs" be a verb that means staying home all the time or washing your hands too frequently. — A. J. Jacobs

Conservatives may be right when they argue that the government should not try to determine executive pay packages. But conservatives should at least be willing to speak out against unseemly behavior in corporate boardrooms with the same moral force, the same sense of outrage that they direct against dirty rap lyrics. — Barack Obama

The phytochemicals, antioxidants, and fiber- all of the healthful components of plant foods- originate in plants, not animals. If they are present, it is because the animal ate plants. And why should we go through an animal to get the benefits of the plants themselves? To consume unnecessary, unseemly, and unhealthy substances, such as saturated fat, animal protein, lactose, and dietary cholesterol, is to negate the benefits of the fiber, phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that are prevalent and inherent in plants. — Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body. — William Hazlitt

To show too much joy in a place such as this would be unseemly but, as he padded toward her, his tail was extended in a manner which would make wagging possible should all go as expected. — Eva Ibbotson

It is unseemly to undress on stage. I won't do that. — Joan Collins

We pray with sometimes unseemly insistence for specific things to happen. We give no thought to the myriad ways in which they might come to pass. — John Burgess

In the common perception, there is something unseemly about young people getting rich. Getting rich is supposed to be the reward for hard work, preferably arriving when you are too old to enjoy it. And the spectacle of young millionaires who made their bundle not from business or crime but from avant-garde art is particularly offensive. The avant-garde is supposed to be the conscience of the culture, not its id. — Janet Malcolm

Like a versatile baller, George Dohrmann swings seamlessly from position to position: investigative journalist, social critic, gifted storyteller. The result is a gem of a book that addresses THE question central to contemporary basketball: how does such an unseemly culture spring from such an essentially beautiful game? You'll come away rooting harder than ever for the kids and harder than ever against the basketball profiteers. — L. Jon Wertheim

The diorama was even more enthralling than Annabelle had hoped it would be. However, she wasn't able to lose herself in the unfolding spectacle - she was too acutely aware of the man standing beside her. It hardly helped that he occasionally bent down to murmur some inappropriate comment in her ear, mockingly reproving her for displaying such unseemly interest in the sight of gentlemen dressed in pillow-cases. No matter how sternly Annabelle tried to hold back her amusement, a few reluctant giggles escaped, earning disapproving glances from people around them. And then, naturally, Hunt chided her for laughing during such an important lecture, which made her want to giggle all the more. — Lisa Kleypas

If one does not get it into his head from the very beginning that the world is full of unseemly situations, for the most part his demeanour will be poor and he will not be believed by others. — Tsunetomo Yamamoto

And true love suffereth long, and is kind; true love envieth not; true love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. True love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; true love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. True love never faileth ... — Amy Harmon

How strange it is that Socrates, after having made the children common, should hinder lovers from carnal intercourse only, but should permit love and familiarities between father and son or between brother and brother, than which nothing can be more unseemly, since even without them love of this sort is improper. How strange, too, to forbid intercourse for no other reason than the violence of the pleasure, as though the relationship of father and son or of brothers with one another made no difference. — Aristotle.

She did not dare let it behind her, all unseen. Unseemly. All unseamed. — Patrick Rothfuss

Ada girl, adored girl, [ ... ] I'm a radiant void. I'm convalescing after a long and dreadful illness. You cried over my unseemly scar, but now life is going to be nothing but love and laughter, and corn in cans. I cannot brood over broken hearts, mine is too recently mended. — Vladimir Nabokov

One of the rudest things you can do, food-wise, is to stare at someone in the act of eating. It draws attention to the unseemly fact that eating is a bodily function - like animals, we are trapped by our hungers, but we do our best to disguise them with such civilized props as menus and forks. — Bee Wilson

There's the Holy Ghost and there's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can appear as other birds- sometimes as a swallow, sometimes a goldfinch and sometimes as a blue-tit." "How do you know him from an ordinary tit?" "He speaks." "How does he speak, in what language?" "Human language." "And what does he tell you?" "Why, to-day he told me that a fool would visit me and would ask me unseemly questions. You — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Monseigneur, I have killed you! You are dead! You are dead!"
You display an unseemly joy," he remarked. "I had no notion you were so bloodthirsty. — Georgette Heyer

It is not unseemly for a man to die fighting in defense of his country. — Homer

On March 30, 1890, an officer of the First National Bank placed a warning in the help-wanted section of the Chicago Tribune, to inform female stenographers of "our growing conviction that no thoroughly honorable business-man who is this side of dotage ever advertises for a lady stenographer who is a blonde, is good-looking, is quite alone in the city, or will transmit her photograph. All such advertisements upon their face bear the marks of vulgarity, nor do we regard it safe for any lady to answer such unseemly utterances." The — Erik Larson

She needed a distraction. "Was that your mother?"
The splashing stopped. "Are you going to converse while I bathe?"
"Why not?"
"Feels rather unseemly."
She laughed, picturing him sitting there, shocked and indignant. "We're supposed to be married, right?"
"You have a point, however I would rather not discuss her right now."
"I think you're evading me."
"Mayhap. Is it working? — Angela Quarles

Its avowed purpose is to excite sexual desire, which, I should have thought, is unnecessary in the case of the young, inconvenient in the case of the middle aged, and unseemly in the old. — Malcolm Muggeridge

He not only fumbled badly in his attempts at impromptu oratory en route to the capital, but worst of all, ended his journey in the dead of night, embarrassingly fearful for his safety, after encouraging unseemly partisan demonstrations in friendly Northern cities. He was too conspicuous. He was too sequestered. He was too careless. He was too calculating. He was too conciliatory. He was too coercive. He was too sloppy. — Harold Holzer

The ideal is to be obtained by selecting and assembling in one whole the beauties and perfections which are usually seen in different individuals, excluding everything defective or unseemly, so as to form a type or model of the species. — William Fleming

To attribute foreseeable necessity to the catastrophe of Germany and the European Jews would be to give it a meaning that it didn't have. There is an unseemly optimism in such an assumption. In the history of mankind there is more that is spontaneous, wilful, unreasonable and senseless than our conceit allows. - GOLO MANN, GESCHICHTE UND GESCHICHTEN, P. 170 — Clive James

Will the United States pull the rug on New Zealand? The answer is no. They might polish the lino a bit harder and hope that I execute a rather unseemly glide across it. — David Lange

I am uncomfortable talking about the things that I write. It seems unseemly to me. I have no problem at all when I see anybody else talking about the same project, but I feel my work should speak for itself. — Aaron Sorkin

It's a rental, I said, realizing when I said it that our house was the only rental on the block. Maybe something unseemly had happened there: adultery, Judaism, modern dance. — Emma Straub

Our growing conviction that no thoroughly honorable business-man who is this side of dotage ever advertises for a lady stenographer who is a blonde, is good-looking, is quite alone in the city, or will transmit her photograph. All such advertisements upon their face bear the marks of vulgarity, nor do we regard it safe for any lady to answer such unseemly utterances. — Erik Larson

Some very eminent critics writing in the decades immediately after the novel's publication felt that Eliot failed to maintain sufficient critical distance in her depiction of Ladislaw
that she fell in love with her own creation in a way that shows a lack of artistic control and is even unseemly, like a hoary movie director whose lens lingers too long on the young flesh of a favored actress. Lord David Cecil calls Ladislaw 'a schoolgirl's dream, and a vulgar one at that,' while Leslie Stephen complained 'Ladislaw is almost obtrusively a favorite with his creator,' and depreciated him as 'an amiable Bohemian. — Rebecca Mead

but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power. — Plato

We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State; and if it is held to be unseemly, or even inadmissible, for a man to cut himself off from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, why should it be less of a duty, in the choice of his activity, to submit his decision to the needs and the taste of his century? — Friedrich Schiller

How could the Christian Church, apparently quite willingly, accommodate this weird megalomaniac [Constantine] in it's theocratic system? Was there a conscious bargain? Which side benefited most form this unseemly marriage between church and state? Or, to put it another way, did the empire surrender to Christianity, or did Christianity prostitute itself to the empire? It is characteristic of the complexities of early Christian history that we cannot give a definite answer to this question. — Paul Johnson

A man may be a great statesman, and yet dislike his wife, and like somebody else's. A man may be a great hero, and yet he may have an unseemly passion, or an unpaid tailor. But the British public does not understand this ... It thinks, unhappily or happily as you may choose to consider, that genius should keep the whole ten commandments. Now, genius is conspicuous for breaking them. — Ouida

At home in Dellacrosse my place in the world of college and Troy and incipient adulthood dissolved and I became an unseemly collection of jostling former selves. Snarkiness streaked through my voice, or sullenness drove me behind a closed door for hours at a time. — Lorrie Moore

That life sometimes imitates art is a mere Oscar Wilde-ish curiosity; that it should set about to do so in such unseemly haste that between notes and novel (not to mention between the drafted and the printed page) what had been fiction becomes idle fact, invention history--disconcerting! Especially to a fictionist who, like yours truly, had long since turned his professional back on literary realism in favour of the fabulous irreal, and only in this latest enterprise had projected, not without misgiving, a detente with the realistic tradition. It is as if Reality, a mistress too long ignored, must now settle scores with her errant lover. — John Barth

Many people are embarrassed to create in public. It feels unseemly to them, like kissing in plain view ... Make a spectacle of yourself. — Eric Maisel

For money buys all virtues. Money suffereth long and is kid, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own — George Orwell

"Next," said Mrs Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, expressive of abdication under protest from the culinary throne, "I would recommend examination of the bacon in the saucepan on the fire, and also of the potatoes by the application of a fork. Preparation of the greens will further become necessary if you persist in this unseemly demeanour." — Charles Dickens

The thanks of a weak one are but of little value," he muttered, "but you have them, for truly, in this past week, little but scraps have come my way- and for all my body is small, yet is my appetite unseemly great. — Isaac Asimov

Spoilt pleasure is a sad, unseemly thing; you can only bury it. — Elizabeth Bowen

A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation. — Moliere

As for my personal opinion, to love only prosperity is even somehow unseemly. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, smashing something is occasionally very pleasant too. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to him and the more he saw this, the more roughly
and irritably he insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it was for her to betray and unveil all
that was her own. He understood that these feelings really were her secret treasure, which she had kept perhaps for
years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an unhappy father and distracted step mother crazed by grief, in the midst of starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same time he knew now and knew for
certain that, although it filled her with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read and to read to him that he might hear it, and to read now whatever might come of it! ... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went on reading the eleventh chapter of St.
John. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Sun Going South
In late sunshine I wander troubled.
Restless I wander in autumn sunlight.
Too many changes, partings, and deaths.
Doors have closed that were always open.
Trees that held the sky up are cut down.
So much that I alone remember!
This creek runs dry among its stones.
Souls of the dead, come drink this water!
Come into this side valley with me,
a restless old woman, unseemly,
troubled, walking on dry grass, dry stones. — Ursula K. Le Guin

She'd learned early that if she couldn't be on time to save her life, she'd better cultivate the unseemly art of groveling. — Michelle Sagara

No sane person, I hope, would accuse me of saying that every Distributist must drink beer; especially if he could brew his own cider or found claret better for his health. But I do most emphatically scorn and scout the vulgar refinement that regards beer as something unseemly and humiliating. And I would shout the name of beer a hundred times a day, to shock all the snobs who have so shameful a sense of shame. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Never lose your self-respect, nor be too familiar with yourself when you are alone. Let your integrity itself be your own standard of rectitude, and be more indebted to the severity of your own judgment of yourself than to all external percepts. Desist from unseemly conduct, rather out of respect for your own virtue than for the strictures of external authority. — Baltasar Gracian

Mr Davis was a middle class tremble of a man worried about an unseemly display and his Jerry Springer moment — Saira Viola

[God in the Law given to Moses] having forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men. — Eusebius

Where did you say you were from, girl?" Uniloma asked gruffly one morning. The vessel was far out to sea, giving a wide berth to the coastline of western Holt and any bold pirate vessel.

"From Kai."

"And your name?"

"Taoshira." Tashi did not risk giving her title again but neither was she going to lie.

Uniloma clucked in irritation.

"My family and friends call me Tashi."

"I'll call you Tashi then. I'm not using a princess's name for you."

Tashi sighed. There was no point arguing. The truth would come out when they returned to Rama. It would only be an unseemly squabble if she pressed her claim here.

That's if anyone recognizes me, Tashi thought glumly. I'm not sure I'd knowme either. I might have to stand naked before my servants to prove my point.

She smiled at the idea. No, I'm definitely not the same person if I can laugh about that. — Julia Golding

Behold, O Lord, that I am indignant with myself, for my senseless, profitless, hurtful, perilous passions; that I loathe myself, for these inordinate, unseemly, deformed, false, shameful, disgraceful passions; that my confusion is daily before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me. Alas! woe, woe! O me, how long? — Lancelot Andrewes

Better beware of the newly dead

Of the white-handed ghost

And the brightness of these lamps . . .

wrote Luc Berimont in 1940, in Reign of Darkness.

I've always felt the greatest reluctance to go anywhere near, to touch, a fresh corpse. For me, it's an unseemly thing. Useless. Hostile. Cunning. Dangerous. The 'presence' is much stronger, more perceptible one hour after death than one hour before. By my observation, this was not the case with Heisserer.

He was entirely absent from his head, his hands,his quivering body. He was gone instantly, unburdened of his absurd life, released. — Jacques Yonnet

SUPPOSING that Truth is a woman - what then? Is there not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women - that the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman? — Friedrich Nietzsche

Putin had told Yeltsin that he did not like election campaigns, and now he dismissed campaign promises as unachievable lies told by politicians and denigrated television advertisements as unseemly manipulation of gullible consumers. — Steven Lee Myers

We display outrageously and obsessively that which we do not possess or have deeply at our disposal. If we are displaying sex with unseemly exaggeration and preoccupation then we have not found the heart of sex. — Thomas Moore

Courtesy "Doth not behave itself unseemly." Unselfishness "Seeketh not its own." Good temper "Is not provoked." Guilelessness "Taketh not account of evil." Sincerity "Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth. — Henry Drummond

We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions. — Adolf Hitler

The property qualifications for federal office that the framers of the Constitution expressly chose to exclude for demonstrating an unseemly "veneration of wealth " are now de facto in force and higher than the Founding Fathers could have imagined. — Bill Moyers

It took all her strength not to weep. She had been weeping too much of late. It was unseemly, she knew, but she could not seem to help herself; the tears would come, sometimes over a trifle, and nothing she did could hold them back. — George R R Martin

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And
though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,
and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could
remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I
bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to
be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money
suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her
own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in
iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things ... And now
abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these
is money.
I Corinthians xiii (adapted) — George Orwell

Hot soup at table is very vulgar; it either leads to an unseemly mode of taking it, or keeps people waiting too long whilst it cools. Soup should be brought to table only moderately warm. — Charlie Day

To describe heaven it is not necessary to transport the materials of earth there. One must leave earth & its materials where they are, so as to beautify life with its ideal. To address Elohim familiarly is an unseemly buffoonery. The best way of showing him gratitude is not by yelling in his ears that he is mighty, that he created the world, that we are wormlets compared to his greatness. He knows it better than we. Men may excuse themselves of informing him of that. The best way of showing him gratitude is to console humanity, to restore all to it, take it by the hand & treat it like a brother. This is more genuine. — Comte De Lautreamont

Somewhere in the dim recesses of the journalistic soul lies the horrible suspicion: This is really a pretty shallow and maybe unseemly way for a grownup to make a living. — Andrew Ferguson

I think you have boundary problems," Groovy said.
"There's such a thing as too-strict boundaries, you know. You're all cut off from everybody."
"I am?". I felt just the opposite. I felt like I bled over everything, in an unseemly fashion, and my feelings for Sands was exacerbating this. — Rebecca Lee

It would be unseemly for me to beg for your succour so early in this letter, and so I shall divert you (or so I flatter myself) by relating my last conversation with my employer, Peter Romanov, or Peter the Great, as he is now styled - not without perfectly sound reasons - by many (I say "employer" because he owes - I do not say "pays" - me a stipend to act as his advisor on certain matters; my Mistress and liege-lady remains, as always, Sophie). As — Neal Stephenson

You pass by a little child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don't know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's unseemly to criticize without knowledge. — James Clavell

How pure he is, how unfit for a world that even she knew more about than he did. A dragon killer, he was, a rescuer of damsels, and his small sins seemed so great to him that he felt unfit and unseemly. — John Steinbeck

If Bedlam gates had been flung open wide, there would not have issued forth such maniacs as the frenzy of that night had made. There were men there, who danced and trampled on the beds of flowers as though they trod down human enemies; and wrenched them from the stalks, like savages who twisted human necks. There were men who cast their lighted torches in the air, and suffered them to fall upon their heads and faces, blistering the skin with deep unseemly burns. There were men who rushed up to the fire, and paddled in it with their hands as if in water; and others who were restrained by force from plunging in, to gratify their deadly longing. On the skull of one drunken lad - not twenty, by his looks - who lay upon the ground with a bottle to his mouth, the lead from the roof came streaming down in a shower of liquid fire, white hot; melting his head like wax. — Charles Dickens

His companion was older, clean-shaved, with a lined ascetic face. His hair had been pulled back and tied in a knot behind his head. "Small men oft feel a need to prove their courage with unseemly boasts," he declared. "I doubt if he could kill a duck." Tyrion shrugged. "Fetch the duck." "If you insist." The rider glanced at his companion. The brawny man unsheathed a bastard sword. "I'm Duck, you mouthy little pisspot." Oh, gods be good. "I had a smaller duck in mind." The big man roared with laughter. "Did you hear, Haldon? He wants a smaller Duck! — George R R Martin

Joffrey is in my prayers as well," said Margaery. "I loved him dearly, though I never had the chance to know him." Liar, the queen thought. If you had loved him even for an instant, you would not have been in such unseemly haste to wed his brother. His crown was all you ever wanted. For — George R R Martin

Humans - who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals - have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them - without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us. — Carl Sagan

I've been in rooms where people are discussing films that have yet to come out and saying delightedly, 'Oh, I've heard it's a disaster!' The jealousy is unseemly. — Lenny Abrahamson

No longer were there "doctors" of anthropology and physics and literature to offend the real doctors and confuse the public; they had put a stop to that, as they had put a stop to so many things that were unseemly and inappropriate. — Suzette Haden Elgin

Twenty years ago, the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500 either dug something out of the ground or turned a natural resource (iron ore or oil) into something you could hold. Today, fewer than half of the companies on the list do that. The rest make unseemly profits by trafficking in ideas. — Seth Godin

When Heraclitus said that everything passes steadily along, he was not inciting us to make the best of the moment, an idea unseemly to his placid mind, but to pay attention to the pace of things. Each has its own rhythm: the nap of a dog, the procession of the equinoxes, the dances of Lydia, the majestically slow beat of the drums at Dodona, the swift runners at Olympia. — Guy Davenport

Somehow in the public sector, if you start in the mailroom and spend your life getting promoted, it's unseemly. — Claire McCaskill

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. — Fran Lebowitz

Before I knew you, my angel, I was solitary and as it were asleep, and scarcely alive. They said, the spiteful creatures, that even my appearance was unseemly, and so I began to be disgusted with myself; they said I was stupid and I really thought that I was stupid. When you came to me, you lighted up my dark life, so that my heart and my soul were filled with light and I gained peace at heart, and knew that I was no worse than others; that I have no polish or style about me, but I am still a man, in heart and mind a man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But now I saw the real problem with chasing after a man. It wasn't a matter of being unseemly or socially unacceptable or not playing the game right. It was just this: if I chase him, I'll never really know if he cares enough to chase me. — Laura Jensen Walker