"Toe the line" is an idiomatic expression meaning to conform to a rule or a standard. Other phrases which were once used in the early 1800s and have the same meaning were toe the mark and toe the plank.
Read more about Toe The Line: Origins, Modern Usage, Etymology
Famous quotes related to toe the line:
“Mr. Alcott seems to have sat down for the winter. He has got Plato and other books to read. He is as large-featured and hospitable to traveling thoughts and thinkers as ever; but with the same Connecticut philosophy as ever, mingled with what is better. If he would only stand upright and toe the line!—though he were to put off several degrees of largeness, and put on a considerable degree of littleness. After all, I think we must call him particularly your man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)