Quotes About Buttoned-up

American secretaries of state have typically been more buttoned up than bon vivant, but John Quincy Adams's diplomatic successes - bigger than anything presidential or legislative that he achieved - still surprise a student of his personality.

Human sacrifice has power," he said. "The world has long understood that, but now it pretends to know differently—ohh, we're all so buttoned-up, pretending we don't do those things anymore, even though we sacrifice the homeless on our cold streets, or migrant children at the border, or the poor at every turn.

Left identitarians who think of themselves as radical creatures, contesting this and transgressing that, have become like buttoned-up Protestant schoolmarms when it comes to the English language, parsing every conversation for immodest locutions and rapping the knuckles of those who inadvertently use them.