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Reckless   Listen
adjective
Reckless  adj.  
1.
Inattentive to duty; careless; neglectful; indifferent.
2.
Rashly negligent; utterly careless or heedless. "It made the king as reckless as them diligent."
Synonyms: Heedless; careless; mindless; thoughtless; negligent; indifferent; regardless; unconcerned; inattentive; remiss; rash.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Reckless" Quotes from Famous Books



... to the States to better his fortunes. This was just before the war; and as soon as it began, although he lived in the North, in New York City, he joined the Southern army and was killed. I believe, from what little I have learned of him, that he was both wild and reckless, but the few who remember him all say that he had many noble qualities, and was much loved by men, and, I am afraid, by women. I do not know more than that, except the one story of him, which my grandfather ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... She would not agree to give up her work, and he flung away from her in reckless despair. Mrs. Warden and the girls returned the call as a matter of duty, but came no more; the mother saying that she could not take her daughters to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... but which unite simply without blending; and that Puritan faction, of divers minds, fanatical, gloomy, unselfish, choosing for leader the most insignificant of men for such a great part, the egotistical and cowardly Lambert; and the faction of the Cavaliers, featherheaded, merry, unscrupulous, reckless, devoted, led by the man who, aside from his devotion to the cause, was least fitted to represent it, the stern and upright Ormond; and those ambassadors, so humble and fawning before the soldier of fortune; and the court itself, an extraordinary mixture of upstarts and great ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... he paid big prices in order to show how great was his respect for art and artists. He came to acquire a picture by Rubens, a book of drawings by Lucas van Leyden, and the splendid pearls that may be seen in the later portraits of Saskia. Very soon his rash and reckless methods became known to the dealers, who would push the prices up with the certain knowledge that Rembrandt would rush in where wiser buyers feared to tread. The making of an art collection, the purchase of rich jewels for his wife, together with good and open-handed living, soon began to ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels

... penetrated to a latitude into which the gaudy calendars of the advertiser have not yet made their way. Each man, foolish enough here to want a calendar, marks out his own on pencilled paper. We come across an H.B. Journal of the vintage of 1826 where the reckless scribe introduces two Thursdays into one week, acknowledging his error in a footnote with the remark, "It is not likely that the eye of man will ever ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... uttering a shrill yelp, and clutching her hair with a reckless disregard of its having originally been that of a total stranger. So severe were her shrieks and struggles that it was with difficulty that she was borne below in the arms of two ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... his oldest and most trusted servant, Phoenix. These two, the old man and the youth, he charged, as they hoped for the mercy of Zeus, to keep watchful guard over Achilles, whose exceedingly impetuous and reckless temper exposed him to many dangers which might be averted by a sensible and loving word ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... shows us Bradamant seeking Rogero, and discovering, by means of Angelica's magic ring, that he is captive of a magician. After a narrow escape, and a vision of the feats her descendants will perform, Bradamant helps Rogero to escape. Soon after, this reckless man vaults upon a hippogriff which lands him on an island, where an enchantress changes her visitors into beasts, stones, trees, etc. Instead of becoming one of her permanent victims, Rogero, warned by the myrtle to which he ties his ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... can be detected in Christ's answer to the hideous charge. But His patient heart overflows in pity for the reckless slanderers, and He warns them that they are coming near the edge of a precipice. Their malicious blindness is hurrying them towards a sin which hath never forgiveness. Blasphemy is, in form, injurious speaking, and in essence, it is scorn or malignant ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... Is there anything still more terrible? Pardon my sailor, Mr. abbot, he is drunk, and when he is drunk he is very reckless and he may kill you. Khorre, ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... to the little light and listened to speeches. It was a Royal pageant arranged as we do these things at home by men of T square and double entry, energy and goodwill. What is needed for such shows, in the first place, is a knowledge of historical precedents, and imagination, then organisation and reckless regard for weather, with say an artist, a historian, a general, and a ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... told about great men doing without sleep are mere lies. Some of them are true. For instance, it is undoubtedly true that Napoleon—an inconceivably foolish, reckless man in matters affecting his physical welfare—did deprive himself of sleep in his early years. But he paid for it dearly. In his last battles his power of resistance was so slight that he actually went to sleep during the fighting. Chronic drowsiness weakened his brain, ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... switching on the lights and opening the door to Sir John Langham. The situation was undoubtedly a "strong" one; but the tendency of modern technic is to hold "strength" too dearly purchased at such reckless expense of preparation. ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... wild, inescapable dust, In fiercest, untamable clouds, That men into misery helplessly thrust, And bury in agony-shrouds; A simoom of sorrow whose pestilent breath To the strong and the weak, to the young and the old, Brings despair that is reckless of possible gain, And the awfullest anguish of death; Till the soul in its rage uncontrolled, Droops low in the horrible ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller

... Jack Hare thought over this talk. It opened up a vista of the range-life into which he was soon to enter. He tried to silence the voice within that cried out, eager and reckless, for the long rides on the windy open. The years of his illness returned in fancy, the narrow room with the lamp and the book, and the tears over stories and dreams of adventure never to be for such as he. And now how wonderful was ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... too many visits to the bar, was running up the rope ladders of the mast to a dangerous height. He climbed up to where the ladder met the one on the other side, down which he scrambled with the agility of a monkey. The ladies in the group on deck gasped in fright at his reckless daring. The fellow jumped to the deck from the rail, and made a sweeping bow to ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... men was to quit the Church of Rome. Again and again they appealed to Rockycana to be their head, to act up to his words, and to lead them out to the promised land. The great orator hemmed and hawed, put them off with excuses, and told them, after the manner of cowards, that they were too hasty and reckless. "I know you are right," said he, "but if I joined your ranks I should be reviled on every hand."7 But these listeners were not to be cowed. The more they studied Peter's writings, the more they lost faith in ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... as men awakened from a dream, half-a-dozen desperate gallants, reckless of sharks and eddies, leaped overboard, swam toward the flag, and ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... strange and delicate plants rose dimly on either hand; enormous blossoms, like ghostly faces, seemed to peer at him from the shadows. For an instant Ezekiel succumbed to an unprofitable sense of beauty, and acquiesced in this reckless extravagance of Nature that was so unlike North Liberty. But the next moment he recovered himself, with the reflection that it was probably unhealthy, and doggedly approached the house. It was a long, one-storied, structure, apparently all roof, vine, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... of you, my dear," he said, stroking her hair lovingly, "and you mustn't pay any attention to that silly boy. I've always known you were true blue, Beth, and now you have proved it to everyone. It may have been a reckless thing to do, as Mr. Watson says, but you did it like a major, and saved our self-esteem as ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... dirks, the actor a secondary consideration, and the game—interesting. Hugh saw it but saw it with even less sense of peril than Ramsey, who stood her ground nervously cling-ing to her chaperon, yet flashing and tinkling with a mirth as of some reckless sport; a mirth mildly reflected by her companion and which, for Hugh, suddenly shed a ludicrous light on every one: on himself and Basile; on the pallid Lucian as he peevishly, vainly, ordered Ramsey off the scene; ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... make one wish to sit on benches—under this magic of expansion and condonation Mrs. Bonnycastle, who during the winter had been a good deal on the defensive, relaxed her vigilance a little, became whimsically wilful, vernally reckless, as it were, and ceased to calculate the consequences of an hospitality which a reference to the back files or even to the morning's issue of the newspapers might easily prove a mistake. But Washington life, to Count Otto's apprehension, was paved ...
— Pandora • Henry James

... perfection the trees and fields had an ideal beauty after Hammersmith, and they promised themselves breezy walks on the Downs above. Not a word of the trouble between them. The mother held to a hope that the great change of circumstance would insensibly turn Olga's thoughts from her reckless purpose; and, for the moment, Olga herself seemed happy ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... it that all mankind has a sneaking sympathy with a poacher? A burglar or a pickpocket has our unmitigated contempt; he clearly is a criminal; but you will notice that the poacher in the story is generally a reckless daredevil with a large and compensatory amount of good-fellow in his make-up—yes, I almost said, of good citizenship. I suppose, because in addition to the breezy, romantic character of his calling, seasoned with physical danger as well as moral risk, there is away ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... therefore state that it was a wild and stormy night. The winds howled and moaned and made all sorts of curious noises, soughing through the bare limbs of the trees, whistling through the chimneys, and, with reckless disregard of my children's need of rest, slamming doors until my house seemed to be the centre of a bombardment of no mean order. It is also necessary to state that the snow, which had been falling all day, had clothed the lawns and house-tops in a dazzling drapery of white, ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... end of the speech; which is all, from first to last, as glorious in conception and imagery as it is reckless ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... ecstatic pleasure. The priest, ambitious for his hierarchy, fanatical in his devotion to the Church, relying upon privilege if he should chance to be detected, had a plain interest in promoting and directing such conspiracies. Men of blood, and bandits up to the hilts in crimes of violence, rendered reckless by the indiscriminate cruelty of justice in those days, allured by the double hope of pay and spiritual benefit, rushed without a back-thought into like adventures. Ready to risk their lives in an unholy cause, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... England, Walderhurst had seen him occasionally, and had only remarked and heard unpleasant things of him,—a tendency to selfish bad manners, reckless living, and low flirtation. He once saw him on the top of a bus with his arm round the waist of an awful, giggling shop-girl kind of person, who was adorned with tremendous feathers and a thick fringe coming unfrizzled with the ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... spirits to seek their fortunes in the New World, even by associating themselves with the buccaneers of Tortuga. Be this, however, as it may, England and Holland and other European states respectively furnished many reckless and daring recruits to the army of freebooters; and their piracies increased with their numbers. Ostensibly they directed their operations only against the commerce of Spain, with whom they were directly at war, and whose galleons from the continent, freighted with the produce ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... with Sirajuddaula he resolved to turn his arms against the French. They were suspected of helping the Nawab in his expedition against Calcutta: it was known that the Nawab, treating his engagements with reckless levity and faithlessness, was trying to persuade Bussy, the French commander in the Dekkan, to help him to expel the British from Bengal. There was excuse enough for an ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... years, of the studies and amusements {p.141} of which the reader may by this time have formed an adequate notion. By degrees, from the usual license of his equal comrades, he sinks into habits of a looser description—becomes reckless, contracts debts, irritates his own family almost beyond hope of reconciliation, is virtually cast off by them, runs away from Scotland, forms a marriage far below his condition in a remote part ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... Heigho, sparrow! Reckless of the rain; When chill the cheerless wind grows, Chirping might and main! Is it naught, then, when the ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein

... insolent little king. Accordingly the English were set in motion into the interior, and town after town speedily fell, or opened their gate to him. The king, deserted by his troops, and detested by his people for having brought so terrible a scourge upon them by his reckless conduct, now sued for peace; but King Richard would give him no terms except dethronement, and this he was forced to accept. He was deprived of his crown, and banished from ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... supported by his industry: but when a rheumatic fever came on, one hard winter, and finally settled in his limbs, reducing the most active and hardy man in the parish to the state of a confirmed cripple, then his reckless improvidence stared him in the face; and poor Jack, a thoughtless, but kind creature, and a most affectionate father, looked at his three motherless children with the acute misery of a parent who has brought those whom he loves best in the world to abject destitution. ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... to lift and was the first to take hold of ponderous beams. Festing owned that he had misjudged Charnock, but not more than he had misjudged himself. His farming had been a rash experiment and the contract a reckless gamble; the one threatened to end as badly as the other. Then Bob had somehow kept his wife's love, and he, with senseless obstinacy, ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... life, except when the duties of his profession occasionally called him from his dungeon for an hour. Whether his long confinement, and the ignominious estimation in which he was held, combined with despair of pardon for his heinous offense, and a natural ferocity of character, had rendered him reckless of "weal or woe," or other impulse directed his movements, I know not, but never did I see such a demoniacal visage as was presented by this miscreant; and when the trembling culprit was delivered over to his hand, he pounced eagerly upon his victim, while ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... too active when improvement sets in or you will cause a return by using the joints before they have become thoroughly well. I did the same thing in my anxiety to get out, but would never be as reckless again. Pain and stiffness of the joints often last long after convalescence has set in. One who has had this disease once is liable to another attack if he is ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... across the tracks show off all the bad words they can think of. One of them has a mouth-harp which he plays upon, now and then opening his hands hollowed around the instrument. Patsy Gubbins dances to the music, which is a thing even more reckless and daredevil than swearing. Patsy's going with a "troupe" some day. Or else, he's going to get a job firing on an engine. He isn't right sure which he wants to do ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... to his feet. Not again was he to be cheated as the man had cheated him. He sprang forward at a reckless pace to the spot at which he last had ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... splash in the moat made by fish or water-vole, and once or twice he saw the star-bejewelled surface twinkle and move as if some creature were swimming across; but soon that was all calm again, and the booming, buzzing noise of some great beetle sweeping by on reckless wing ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... maun hae been the minister that broke the bowl. Pit it by for him till he comes. I'm no' gaun to be wracked oot o' hoose an' hame for reckless ministers." ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... now made to feel the incubus-load, which perseverance in sin heaps on the breast of the reckless offender. What was the most grievous of all, his power to shake off this dead weight was diminished in precisely the same proportion as the burthen was increased, the moral force of every man lessening in a very just ratio to the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... pleasure in submitting the foregoing facts, in refutation, in part, of the loose and reckless statements of Mr. YEATMAN, and take this method of entering their protest ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann

... being much of a moralist, one may clearly perceive that its tone is unhealthy and its sentiment vicious. What it aims at we would not assume to decide; what it accomplishes is, to secure a sympathy for a reckless and dare-devil spirit which drives the hero through a tolerably long career of more than moderate iniquity, and leaves him impenitent at the end. It will hardly do to say that the object of the book is only to amuse. Dealing with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... were drawbacks to Mr. Cavor's society I had not foreseen. The absentmindedness that had just escaped depopulating the terrestrial globe, might at any moment result in some other grave inconvenience. On the other hand I was young, my affairs were in a mess, and I was in just the mood for reckless adventure—with a chance of something good at the end of it. I had quite settled in my mind that I was to have half at least in that aspect of the affair. Fortunately I held my bungalow, as I have ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... dashed away in foam and blood from the English shore. Properly understood, Godwin's whole life was one protracted agony for the salvation of his country. He had to contend with every species of deleterious influence,—ferocious, drunken, dissolute, and imbecile kings, the reckless intrigues of monasticism at the instigation of Rome, and the unprincipled and infamous ambition of the Norman Bastard, who crept into England during this great man's exile, and fled in all haste at his return. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... fascinated!" said Grace; and for a moment the half-whimsical, half-reckless look, which was her usual expression, gave way to one that was stern enough. "Mrs. Peyton appears to me to be a wholly selfish person; a thing rarely met with in such entirety. I have promised my Good Physician that I will try to rouse her, and see if there is ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... I don't know how many drops more I shall drink. We get so fierce and reckless about our victuals. Will it be the spirit of the old counterfeiters who used to inhabit this island entering into us?" suggested Eva, using the English-Canadian idiom of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... extraordinary compact which he had made with the little nonconformist who had chosen him for a traveling companion. The more he thought of the situation the more apparent became the gravity of his responsibility. Why had he yielded to her reckless whim? Only this morning he had been thanking his lucky stars that he was well rid of women of the world for a month at least. And now—Shades of Pluto! He had one hanging around his nick more securely than any millstone. And this one—Hermia ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... boy huskily, with a sensation akin to that which he had felt when hurt in his last school fight, when, reckless from pain, he had dashed at a tyrannical fellow-pupil who was planting blow after blow upon ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... thought; "and she loves pearls. And a prayer-carpet would have pleased the Professor tremendously. But no, after all, it wouldn't have done. Sylvia couldn't go about in pearls the size of new potatoes, and the Professor would only have ragged me for more reckless extravagance. Besides, if I'd taken any of the Jinnee's gifts, he might keep on pouring more in, till I should be just where I was before—or worse off, really, because I couldn't decently refuse them, then. So it's best as ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... then sweet, dark-eyed Sera, MacBride's young wife, took up her guitar and sang us love songs in the old Lusitanian tongue of her father; and Tom Devine, the ex-boat-steerer, and Charley de Buis, the reckless; and Peter Huysmans, the red-faced, white-haired old Dutchman, all joined hands and danced around the rough table; while Billy Grey and Ludwig Wolfen stood on the top of it and sang, or tried to sing, 'Home Sweet ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... his reverie. He felt that scalding irritation in his chest, which always came as soon as his pride, the pride of the reckless vagrant, was touched by anyone, and especially by one who was of no value in ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... that had driven him furiously away, all those years before, from the flesh-pots of a modern Babylon! Had he cared for it all very much then?... He wondered, looking full and deep into his hidden memories. Had the lights and the music, the song and dance, the laughing women and reckless men, the midnight orgies and morning headaches, really given him so much pleasure that he must needs fling it all aside with such bitter anger and harsh regret when the thunderbolt fell and the searching dart stabbed him awake? Outraged, hurt-maddened, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... on the 25th of March 1582. He was first educated at the public school at Ruthin, and later at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was sent when sixteen years of age. While at the university he appears to have indulged in a somewhat reckless expenditure, and Bishop Hacket, who wrote his biography, informs us that 'from a youth and so upward he had not a fist to hold money, for he did not lay out, but scatter, spending all that he had, and somewhat for which he could be trusted.' He ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... their side, And that's the way the officers ride! Boots stretched out like a letter V, we belong to the cavalry! Over the hurdles after the hounds, tirra-la! the hunting-horn sounds— Dashaway, slashaway, reckless and fast! Crashaway, smashaway, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... laziness. If you once get a reputation for complete, immovable, and reckless indolence the world will leave you to your own thoughts, which are generally ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... male students were animated by a wild and reckless spirit, the result of a fickle roving from town to town. The pretext for this course was the necessity of hunting up skilful teachers; but with many it was only love for a career of frolic and idleness. The oldest and strongest scholars, young men of twenty ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... reckless whim of a lad came near to destroying the Earth and robbing the spheres ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... he could not prevent, and hastened into the boat. The convicts also took their share with patience—they had been accustomed to "many stripes." Roberts and Williams, in spite of the remonstrances of Newton, with all the reckless spirit of English sailors, would not submit so quietly. The first object which attracted Roberts' attention, as he came up the ladder, was the body of the ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... enacts Romeo with better grace, and during one of the representations, the married people break each others heads, and Vidocq runs off during the affray. He then becomes assistant to a quack doctor, and the favoured swain of an actress; gets into the Bourbon regiment, where he is nicknamed Reckless, and kills two men, and fights fifteen duels in six months. His other exploits are as a corporal of grenadiers, of course, a deserter, and a prisoner of the revolution. He then marries, but does not reform. Of course a wife is but a temporary incumbrance to a man of Vidocq's dexterity. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... When the reckless world is sleeping, And the star of eve shines gay; While the night winds softly creeping O'er the waters, die away; When the moonbeams softly playing, Silver o'er the glistening rill; 'Tis to thee my thoughts are straying, For my hopes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various

... now in rippling waves Unbroken, haste they onward to their fate; Each speeding hurriedly as though it craves An early death. So reckless is the rate Which some pursue, that, with a sudden shock, They burst in foam-clouds on a ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... "I apologise to Captain Dancy for the reckless and monstrous charge I made against him, and I retract ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... night at a very exclusive boarding house at six dollars per week, reckless of the effect on my very slender purse. For a few days I permitted myself to wander and to dream. I have disturbing recollections of writing my friends from this little town, letters wherein I rhapsodized on the beauty of the scenery in terms which I would not ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... too," offered the reckless youth. "I'm crazy about art. It's the only solace of my declining years. And," he added cunningly and with evil intent to flatter and cajole, "I can tone down that design of yours without affecting its beauty and ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... a large one and everything was neat and clean. The fire burned brightly, and a few green plants were in blossom by the south window. Beside them sat a child of about seven years who turned a startled face at Telford's reckless entrance. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... were going better in the center. But what was the good of this reckless advance, of this bold rush, which built bridges of human bodies across the enemy's trenches and formed living ladders composed of whole companies before the enemy's earthworks—what was the good of all this heroic courage in the face of Marshal Nogi's relentless calculations? ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... hundred men. One or two of these were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless. Physically they exhibited no indication of their past lives and character. The greatest scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion of blonde hair; Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy air and intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet; the coolest and most courageous man was scarcely ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... clothes, and with high jack-boots. I did not know them at all, and so I concluded that they were strangers to our part of the county. They were not altogether ill-favoured men, although I could not help feeling that there was a kind of reckless expression on their faces which was not ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... get too reckless with my wardrobe. I ain't got enough to fit out the whole Gummidge family, you know. Save me a dress tie and a change of ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford

... the Romanticists. Hyperion's words expressed their taste more accurately: 'O, man is a god when he dreams, a beggar when he thinks!' and they laid stress upon restless movement, fantastic, highly-coloured effects, a crass subjectivity, a reckless licence ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... Erie Railway, bore, among other less important freight, Miselle and her fortunes. But, unfortunately for the interest of this narrative, she had unwittingly selected an "off-night" for her journey; neither horrible accident nor raid of bold marauders enlivened the occasion; and undisturbed, the reckless passengers slept throughout the night, as men have slept who knew that a scaffold waited for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... to you, then," said the Goodwife, loosening her clasp and picking up the wet clothing. "You know well about the tide! Nancy, child, why art thou so wild and reckless? Thou art the cause ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... use of those stimulants, nor will we now stop long to dwell upon the solemn fact, that whoever, at the demand of appetite, drinks even the sweet cider, weakens his own moral strength, becomes a tempter to the weak, and casts away the pure influence of an unsullied example. Reckless and guilty indeed is that man who, in the light of this day, dares to insult humanity and defy heaven by publicly putting the glass to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... dismissed soldiers two months of their arrears. The train upon which we travelled from Cairo carried many of these men to their homes. While the army is not paid, we see on every hand unmistakable proofs of the Khedive's reckless personal extravagance. Here lies his grand steam yacht rotting in the harbor. In the station we noticed the imperial cars stowed away; on the river his large summer boat; and every other remarkably fine house in Cairo seemed to be one or another of the Khedive's palaces ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... small boats had been stolen from some of them, and the ropes and oars from others. There they lay, thirty-eight in number, up against the mud banks of the Ohio, under the boughs of the half-clad, melancholy forest trees, as sad a spectacle of reckless prodigality as the eye ever beheld. But the contractor who made them no doubt ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... and this first letter was written to Mrs. Morris. It was filled with self-reproaches, and earnest entreaties for her intercession and mine with Effie. He cursed his infatuation, and the cause of it, and closed with the declaration that he would be reckless of life if Effie remained unforgiving. As I finished reading the letter I heard Effie's voice warbling in wild and plaintive notes ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... enterprise he was aided and guided by his cousin Lewis William, Stadtholder of Friesland—the quaint, rugged little hero, young in years but almost a veteran in the wars of freedom, who was as genial and intellectual in council as he was reckless and impulsive in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... gates." Then came "a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity"—a day of "breaking down the walls and of crying to the mountains." Amidst this general alarm and mourning there were, however, found some whom a wild despair made reckless, and drove to a ghastly and ill-timed merriment. When God by His judgments gave an evident "call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth—behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... the reckless devastations of our national heritage, none is really more shameful than the continued poisoning of our rivers and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... once one of the few great wonders of the ancient world. This was intended to do honor to the loved and illustrious dead, and this it did as no grave or pyre could do. This was also intended to protect the lifeless form from ruthless robbery and reckless profanation, and it performed this task so well that for near two thousand years no human eye beheld the mortal part of Mausolus, and no human hand disturbed its rest. At a far earlier time, Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, while he illustrated this tendency to entomb the dead, also offered ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... measures. I am speaking of those individuals who have evaded the spirit and purpose of our tax laws, of those high officials of banks or corporations who have grown rich at the expense of their stockholders or the public, of those reckless speculators with their own or other people's money whose operations have injured the values of the farmers' crops and the savings ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... be prevailed upon to allot a moment to exercise or recreation. I breakfasted with a pen behind my ear, and dined in company with a folio bigger than the table. I became solitary and morose, the necessary consequence of reckless study; talked impatiently of the value of my time, and the immensity of my labors; spoke contemptuously of the learning and acquirements of the whole world, and threw out mysterious hints of the magnitude and importance of ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... so happened that day, that Neykia, she of woodland grace and beauty, was strolling in the sunshine with her Little Pine; while on every side the trees were shaking their heads and it seemed gossiping about the hunting plans of that reckless little elfin hunter, Hymen, who was hurrying overland and shooting his joyous arrows in every direction, till the very air felt charged with the whisperings of countless lovers. It made me think of the shy but radiant Athabasca, and I wondered—was ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... mustn't think that, either, and be reckless," was the next injunction. The shy laugh rang like music. "That's why I want to go along, to see that ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... She was so unsophisticated and had been so confused and agitated, that she scarcely knew where to draw the line between simple, right action and indiscretion. Conscious of her inexperience, inclined to be both timid and reckless in her ignorance and trouble, she began even now to cling, metaphorically, to his strong, sustaining hand. His very presence produced a sense of restfulness and safety, and when he began to call attention to the scenes and sounds about them ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... and regret when he heard of the death of his late commander. He had deserted him but a few months before. That brief interval had sufficed to transform him into a savage; and both he and his companion found their present reckless and ungoverned way of life greatly to their liking. He could tell nothing of the Mississippi; and on the next day he went home, carrying with him a present of beads for his wives, of which last he had made a ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... you would be reckless," she said. "I saw it in your face, so I came back as soon as I could steal away, and sure enough, there lay your money and the books and everything. I hid them in the thicket, so they will be all right. I've almost prayed it wouldn't rain. I didn't dare carry them to the house. ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... ravines, she ceased to lower herself and me gently from one foothold to the next, but acquired a habit of thumping down in a reckless way, giving a sort of grunt, which sometimes, for the life of me, I could not help accompanying with a groan that seemed to come from my very shoes. I had no fear of falling. In fact, I think I should have hailed it as a delightful change could ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole

... with Lawrence. While ardently engaged in financiering, his business received less attention. Instead of using to the best possible advantage the money already obtained in his financiering operations, he strove eagerly after more. In fact, too reckless an investment, in many instances, of borrowed capital, from which no return could be obtained perhaps for years, made his wants still as great as before, and kept in constant activity all the resources of his mind in order ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur

... was descending the narrow stairway I was almost overthrown by a torrent of children pouring down from the flats above. In the dim light of a gas-burner I saw that Bobsey was one of the reckless atoms. He had not heard my voice in the uproar, and before I could reach him, he with the others had burst out at the street door and gone tearing toward the nearest corner. It seemed that he had slipped away in order to take part in a race, and I found him "squaring off" at a bigger boy who had ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... and removed the timber to the Bankside, he was deeply incensed, not only at the loss of the building, but also, no doubt, at being completely outwitted. At once he instituted suit against Cuthbert Burbage; but he was so intemperate in his language and so reckless in his charges that he weakened his case. The suit dragged for a few years, was in part referred to Francis Bacon, and finally in the summer of 1601 was dismissed. Thus the history of the first London playhouse, which is chiefly the history of quarrels and litigation, ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... Higelac's kinsman; the hero-chief angry Cast then his carved-sword covered with jewels That it lay on the earth, hard and steel-pointed; He hoped in his strength, his hand-grapple sturdy. So any must act whenever he thinketh To gain him in battle glory unending, And is reckless of living. The lord of the War-Geats (He shrank not from battle) seized by the shoulder The mother of Grendel; then mighty in struggle Swung he his enemy, since his anger was kindled, That she fell to the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... foreigners visiting Russia in winter is, that those who come for a short visit are rarely willing to go to the expense of the requisite furs. In general, they are so reckless of their health as to inspire horror in any one who is acquainted with the treacherous climate. I remember a couple of Americans, who resisted all remonstrances because they were on their way to a warmer clime, and went about when the thermometer was twenty-five to thirty degrees ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... weak and poorly, and whose condition was rendered worse by her nervous fears that she would not get through this confinement. For the doctor had told Mrs. Saunders that the next time it might go hard with her; and in this house, her husband growing more reckless and drunken, it was altogether a bad look-out, and she might die for want of a little nourishment or a little care. Unfortunately they would both be down at the same time, and it was almost impossible ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... fiction we shall scarcely find the subject inferior in interest. Truth often enough is stranger, and some of the tricks and devices employed by the smuggling communities may well surprise us. And while we shall not make any vain attempt to whitewash a class of men who were lawless, reckless, and sometimes even brutal in their efforts, yet we shall not hesitate to give the fullest prominence to the great skill and downright cleverness of a singularly virile and unique kind of British manhood. In much the same way as a spectator looks on at a fine sporting contest ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... Shepherdess Fennel fell back upon the intermediate plan of mingling short dances with short periods of talk and singing, so as to hinder any ungovernable rage in either. But this scheme was entirely confined to her own gentle mind: the shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the most reckless phases ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... resolutions they had discussed so ably and passed so decidedly a few hours before? Was the Moon inhabited? No! Was the Moon habitable? No! Yet in the face of all this—or rather as coolly as if such subjects had never been alluded to—here were the reckless scientists actually thinking of nothing but how to work heaven and earth in order ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... delirium he is driven forth on the scent of human blood. He had always hunted like a madman. It was thus "the matins of Paris" began, in which not religious zealots only assisted, but the thieves, the wanton, the unemployed, the reckless children, les enfants massacreurs like those seen dragging an insulted dead body to the Seine, greed or malice or the desire for swift settlement of some long-pending law-suit finding here an opportunity. ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... himse'f—an' which is entitled Napoleon's Mad Career. Thar's twenty-four stanzas to it; an' while these interlopin' selectmen sets thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said recitations with sech a multitood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... mind apprehensions of danger. If such productions as Uncle Tom's Cabin are to give tone to public sentiment in the North, then assuredly are we in danger. Should Mrs. Stowe's vile aspersion of southern character, and her loose, reckless and wicked misrepresentations of the institution of slavery in the southern States ever become accredited in the northern section of the Union I fear the consequence. I sometimes survey the condition of my country ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... became an abrogation of free citizenship; law and justice with him went hand in hand with reform, and rectitude, not impulse, gave consistency to his course. Such a man lays himself open to factious criticism far more than reckless politicians, who are restrained by no sense of responsibility; but, on the other hand, in the last analysis, they stand forth the most pure because the most patient, just, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... in the parish of Egrignolles, as the peace-offering to Heaven for the follies of his youth. Thus was he cardinally consigned to the good graces of the Church and of God. From a wicked youth and reckless man, he became a good, wise man, and discreet in his dissipations and pleasures; rarely was in anger, unless someone blasphemed God before him, the which he would not tolerate because he had blasphemed enough for every one in his wild youth. In short, he never quarrelled, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... do it because I'm bored. I am bored, you know. Desperately!" He stretched out his hand to her with such haggard, hunted eyes that Laura, reckless, threw herself down by him and kissed the heavy eyelids. Clowes put his arm round her neck, fondling her hair, and for a little while peace, the peace of perfect mutual tenderness, fell on this hard-driven pair. But soon, a great sigh bursting from his breast, Clowes ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... with a gorgeous gown, only less full of her experiences than of the crowning triumph yet to come. She had bought every song of Sir Julian's to be had in Melbourne, and his name was always on her lips. In a reckless moment Miss Bouverie had inquired ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... of that awful vision so perilously close before them, and the natural uncertainty which attended such a reckless venture, Waldo could not repress a chuckle at that comical conclusion, so frequently used towards himself when their uncle was coaxing them to ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... reminded of a story of Andrew Kirkaldy, who in his young days once carried for a young student of divinity who was most painfully nervous on the putting greens, and repeatedly lost holes in consequence. When Andrew could stand this reckless waste of opportunities no longer, he exclaimed to his employer, "Man, this is awfu' wark. Ye're dreivin' like a roarin' lion and puttin' like a puir kittlin'." But the men whose occupations are of the philosophical and peaceful ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... father—who, perforce, had to spend his days at the Beauchene works—developed an ardent temperament and a thirst for every frivolous pleasure. And by degrees the once simply petted child became a participator in Seraphine's own reckless ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... no human figure near him nor any sound borne to him over the air. But the tide was near the turn and already the day was on the wane. He turned landward and ran towards the shore and, running up the sloping beach, reckless of the sharp shingle, found a sandy nook amid a ring of tufted sandknolls and lay down there that the peace and silence of the evening might still the riot ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... blood. That's what it was. We heard afterwards that a collier had been run over. When we kill any of our own chaps, we say as little about it as possible. It's generally—mostly always—their own fault. No, we never think of danger ourselves. We're used to it, you see. But we're not reckless. I don't believe there's any body of men that takes more pride in their work than engine-drivers do. We are as proud and as fond of our engines as if they were living things; as proud of them as a huntsman or a jockey is of his horse. And a engine has almost as many ways ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... previous organization. At the moment, the whole framework of society in Ireland was shaken and disjointed, and, in fact, on the point of falling into utter confusion; yet there were no manifestations of reckless wickedness—the demands of the people did not go beyond the cry for food and ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... of what he said to Iris for the next few days, when Dorothy was present; but gradually this restraint began to wear off, and he grew to be almost reckless in the way he laughed and carried on with the girl, even though his fiancee was in the room. This attention was certainly not ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... cavalcades to neighboring points of interest; some to visit certain notable mansions which the wealth of a rapid civilization had erected in that fertile valley. One of these in particular, the work of a breathless millionaire, was famous for the spontaneity of its growth and the reckless extravagance of ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... along. Dick called London a vile Place, and spake to Ralph concerning what they had seen of it overnighte, whence it appeared to me, that he had beene pleasure-seeking more than, in Father's state, he ought to have beene. But Dick was always a reckless Lad;—and oh, what Joy, on reaching this deare Place, to find Father had onlie beene suffering under one of his usual Stomach Attacks, which have no Danger in them, and which Dick had exaggerated, fearing Mr. Milton woulde ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... mass of fact underlay the theoretical superstructure, the idea of empirical proof was not current. Riverius chopped logic vigorously and drew conclusions from unsupported assertions in a way that strikes us as reckless. ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer

... going from Jouy to the mills, Madame Desvarennes had noticed the chateau, the slate roofs of the turrets of which rose gracefully from a mass of deep verdure. The Count de Cernay, the last representative of a noble race, had just died of consumption, brought on by reckless living, leaving nothing behind him but debts and a little girl two years old. Her mother, an Italian singer and his mistress, had left him one morning without troubling herself about the child. Everything was to be sold, by ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... bankrupt, it is its own fault; that nation has broken the laws of political economy which God has appointed for nations, and its ruin is God's judgment, God's plain-spoken opinion again of the sins of extravagance, idleness, and reckless speculation. ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... I cannot do this—nor would it be well for him who could, to trust his fortune on so reckless a risk. But the states of St. Mark do not cover ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of you; it was none of us that shot the captain, but his own good men. Farewell, Mistress Sylvia!" With these words he made me a very low bow, and set off for his horse at the corner of the wood—as reckless a gallant as ever broke hearts, and those of his own kin foremost; yet ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore

... government has squandered its rich domain with signal folly, but Mexico has been far more reckless. It has recently given away 60,000,000 of acres in Durango, Chihuahua, and other regions to an American company represented by Henry B. Clifford. It is not stated that any very valuable consideration has been given ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... prevent its being adhered to. I should mention, that many of these landholders have each armed and disciplined bodies of two thousand foot and five hundred horse; and, what is worse, the command of as many as they like of "Passies," armed with bows and arrows. These Passies are reckless thieves and robbers of the lowest class, whose only professions are thieving and acting as Chowkedars, or village police. They are at the service of every refractory Zumeendar, for what they can get in booty in his depredations. The disorders ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... precise as not to be doubted. Brett was far from suspecting how deeply his information had cut me. In spite of my loyalty, the discovery that my kinsman had not been a full-blown rebel was vastly humiliating. How that once curiously regarded flower of chivalry had withered! What about those reckless moonlight raids? What had become of Prince Rupert, at the head of his plumed cavaliers, sweeping through the valley of the Shenandoah, and dealing merited destruction to the boys in blue? In view of Brett's startling revelation, my kinsman's personal anecdotes of Stonewall Jackson took on ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... alchemist to plead poverty once it was noised about that he had learned the secret. For how could such a man be poor when, with a piece of metal and a few grains of magic powder, he was able to provide himself with gold? It was, therefore, a reckless alchemist indeed who dared boast that he had made ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... down at her for a moment that chill dread seemed to lay its icy hands on her very heart as she glimpsed something of the tumult within his eyes. She had a vision of him as a man capable of all, reckless, impassioned, poised upon the brink of some desperate plunge.... Then the hands of consequences seemed to lay compelling hold upon him; the fire was extinguished; the vision gone like a mirage. His eyes were friendly, his lips smiling, as he bowed to her, in deferential courtesy, to all appearances ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... would have been done, and our hero, Florence Kearney, with his companion, Cris Rock, never more have been heard of; in other words, the novel of the "Free Lances" would not have been written. But among those reckless avengers there were some who knew better than to advocate indiscriminate slaughter. It was "a far cry to Loch Awe," all knew; the Highland loch typified not by Texas, but the United States. But ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... Malthus's writings was the rapid and enormous increase of pauperism during the first quarter of this century. The charitable and sentimental writers of the day were alarmed, but proposed to meet the evil by a reckless increase of charity, either of the official or the private variety. Pitt, we know, declared (though he qualified the statement) that to be the father of a large family should be a source of honour, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... one reckless in sudden surge of intoxication, most passionate desire to take her in his arms; and on her lips to crush to fragments the barriers of conduct he had in damnable sophistries erected; and in her ears to breathe, "You are beloved ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... expect future laws to apply to—is strictly limited. It must be a crime of violence against a human being, or a crime of destruction in which there is a grave danger that human lives may be lost. The sex maniac, the firebug, or the goon who gets a thrill out of beating people. Or the reckless driver who has proven that he can't be trusted behind ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... submit to. That a right should be maintained under the consciousness that it has its limits in necessary obligatory respects, has been almost lost sight of by Norway. The chief impetus of the Revolution has been a reckless desire on the part of the Norwegians to be absolutly their own masters, that and nothing else. Norway has bragged about her prerogatives without any feeling of responsibility, like an unreasoning whimsical child. It must be declared, ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund

... support from Freud and Jung, and with some extremely able British and American lieutenants, the cause of unashamedness appears to be winning its way in literature. The George Moore of these Confessions stands to view as a reckless and courageous pioneer, a bad strategist but a faithful soldier, in the foolhardy, disastrous and gallant Campaign ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... There to remain until I'm freed;—but then, To-night it is I meet the brave Don Felix: I had forgotten it. Most willingly Would I avoid this foolish rash dispute; And yet I must not. When I was friendless, Reckless of life,—a life not worth preserving,— I could have pass'd whole days in mortal ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... we receive, the sum, combined with that obtained at Caxamalca, might well have satisfied the cravings of the most avaricious. The sudden influx of so much wealth, and that, too, in so transferable a form, among a party of reckless adventurers little accustomed to the possession of money, had its natural effect. it supplied them with the means of gaming, so strong and common a passion with the Spaniards, that it may be considered a national vice. Fortunes were lost and won in a single ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott



Words linked to "Reckless" :   foolhardy, heady, careless, bold, heedless, rash, recklessness



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