Careful Words

dignity (n.)

  Remember this,—that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 a d): Meditations. iv. 32.

Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,

In every gesture dignity and love.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 488.

Small habits well pursued betimes

May reach the dignity of crimes.

Hannah More (1745-1833): Florio. Part i.

  The dignity of history.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754): Tom Jones. Book xi. Chap. ii.

  I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history.

Thomas B Macaulay (1800-1859): History of England. Vol. i. Chap. i.

  We have exchanged the Washingtonian dignity for the Jeffersonian simplicity, which was in truth only another name for the Jacksonian vulgarity.

Bishop Henry C Potter (1835-1908): Address at the Washington Centennial Service in St. Paul's Chapel, New York, April 30, 1889.