"Disagreeableness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gendarmes; well, he escaped them by staying twenty minutes under water in the pond of a farm-yard. He breathed air through a straw which he kept above the surface of the pool, which was half muck. But, goodness! what was that little disagreeableness to a man who spends his nights in the tree-tops, where the sparrows can hardly hold themselves, watching the soldiers going to and fro in search of him below? Farrabesche was one of the half-dozen chauffeurs whom the officers of justice could never lay hands on. But as he belonged to the region ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... and manner of its possessor. He was tall and hard-favored, with an expression of countenance much resembling a north-east rain storm—a drizzling, settled sulkiness, that seemed to defy all prospect of clearing off, and to take comfort in its own disagreeableness. His voice seemed to have taken lessons of his face, in such admirable keeping was its sawing, deliberate growl with the pleasing physiognomy before indicated. By nature he was endowed with one of those active, acute, hair-splitting minds, which can raise forty questions for dispute on any point ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... nothing more disagreeable, and few things more mischievous, than a well-meaning, meddling fool. And where there was no special intention, good or bad, towards yourself, you have known people make you uncomfortable through the simple exhibition to you, and pressure upon you, of their own inherent disagreeableness. You have known people after talking to whom for a while you felt disgusted with everything, and above all, with those people themselves. Talking to them, you felt your moral nature being rubbed against the grain, being stung all over with nettles. You showed your new house ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the morning air, enjoyed the firmness of the frozen ground, on which his boots made a pleasant thud. To be sure, the interview before him would have its disagreeableness, but Buckland was not one of those over-civilised men who shrink from every scene of painful explanation. The detection of a harmful lie was decidedly congenial to him—especially when he and his ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... the least room, as you know Garrick saddles us with one which we must bring out. But, if you have any particular desire that one of them should be done, it is another affair, and I should be glad to see them. Otherwise, I would much rather you would save the disagreeableness of giving my opinion to a fresh tragic bard, being already in disgrace with about nine of that ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... he at other times takes pleasure in benefiting, because he has only just enough money in his pocket to pay for his admission to the theatre. If the determination of his will rests on the feeling of the agreeableness or disagreeableness that he expects from any cause, it is all the same to him by what sort of ideas he will be affected. The only thing that concerns him, in order to decide his choice, is, how great, how long continued, how easily obtained, and how often repeated, this ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... you have realized for years that you are slow in perception, and have struggled to make yourself take mental snap-shots of details and conditions. You have wished and willed and worked to be agreeable and courteous; yet perhaps you lose friends by your characteristic disagreeableness and lack of courtesy. If, in spite of all you so far have done to improve yourself, you have been unable to get rid of your faults and defects, you are apt to question the statement that you certainly can develop such qualities as ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... here, you know—this won't do," said Trenholme, in loud authoritative tones; so transported was he by the disagreeableness of his situation that, for the moment, he supposed himself speaking to the man with whom he had just spoken. Then, realising that that man, although gone, was yet probably within call, he set down the lamp ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... private people, and that the "menial" conception of a servant will have vanished in an entirely educated community. The domestic work of the ordinary home, one may prophesy confidently, will be very much reduced in the near future whether we move toward Socialism or no; all the dirt of coal, all the disagreeableness attendant upon lamps and candles, most of the heavy work of cooking will be obviated by electric lighting and heating, and much of the bedroom service dispensed with through the construction of properly equipped bath-dressing-rooms. In addition, it is highly probable ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... was in the midst of the rainy season, and our clothing each morning when we arose to dress was as wet as if it had just come from a wringer. Our underclothing could be drawn on only with difficulty and the excessive disagreeableness of the feeling added no little to ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... Mrs. Schuneman declared quickly. "Yes, she did. She looked deep enough to find the pleasantness we didn't know was there because we'd covered it up with so much disagreeableness. I'm not ashamed to admit that she made me see that so long as you live in a world with other people you owe some obligation to be agreeable to them. If each of us did our share, as Mary Rose was always asking us to do, we'd find this world a friendlier ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... this respect pretty well, I was really afraid that if I gave myself too much time for consideration of my new scheme, I might become appalled by the difficulty and disagreeableness which were prophesied; and I was determined to place myself in a position where—unless a higher authority interfered—I could not in pride or conscience ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... Vicar had a disagreeable duty to perform he performed it as early as possible in the morning, so that none of its disagreeableness was lost. The whole day was ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... from the evil which he disposes of as merely negative, as the shadow of the good. Hawthorne's interest in the problem of sin finds little place in Emerson's philosophy. Passion comes not nigh him and Faust disturbs him with its disagreeableness. Pessimism is ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... case, but he always replied to them with one of his Scotch proverbs "A man's a lion in his ain cause." His opening speech was such an exceedingly powerful one that all felt on the first day that he had been right though inevitably it added not a little to the disagreeableness ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall |
