"Shirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... harassing of magnates and mighty men, have access whenever it be desirable to the Lord Priors and the Standard-Bearer of Justice), affords a comment on his own criticism of his fellow-citizens, whose disposition to shirk the burden of public duty is more than once the subject of his satire. "Many refuse the common burden, but thy people, my Florence, eagerly replies without being called on, and cries, 'I load myself'" ('Purgatory,' ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... it must meet, a clearer and humbler understanding of our human limitations. We must also clearly realize as makers of the future, that as the Church has its special dangers of conservatism, cosiness, intolerance, a checking of initiative, the domestic tendency to enclose itself and shirk reality; so the cultus has also its special dangers, of which the chief are perhaps formalism, magic, and spiritual sloth. Receiving and conserving as it does all the successive deposits of racial experience, it is the very home of magic: of the archaic tendency ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... The astrologer handed him the paper as he spoke. "It is for you to read—to do with after as you see fit. I have but one word to say: not I, but a mightier power traced the words you will read—your son's irrevocable fate. Don't hope to shirk it. My task is ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... every day broken, and we cannot punish them. Another band attempted flight a few days past, one of whom I hanged—although it weighs on my conscience now that I have done it; for, in a sense, they have excuse enough. Since I did not shirk it, I inform you of it now, to relieve my conscience, before God and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... swords. Did Mrs Wolff always know exactly that two and two make four, and never by any chance made a delicious pretence that it was five? And when she went to school had she a chum whom she adored, and wrote letters to every other day filled with 'dears' and 'darlings,' and did she ever shirk 'prep,' or play tricks on the teachers, or sit up ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... about five miles from Peshawar. It was intended that we should remain there for a couple of months, but before the end of that time I had to join the General at Rawal Pindi, where he had gone on a tour of inspection. Being anxious not to shirk my regimental duty, I did not leave Chamkanie until the last moment, and had but one day in which to reach Rawal Pindi, a distance of one hundred miles, which I accomplished on horseback between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., only stopping at Attock ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute. The soup warming before the fire must be watched. Am I the kind of woman, do you suppose, to shirk such cares? The humblest task may earn a rich harvest of affection. How pretty is a child's laugh when he finds the food to his liking! Armand has a way of nodding his head when he is pleased that is worth a lifetime of adoration. How could I leave to any ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... me up to work; I pray the Lord I may not shirk. If I should die before the night, I pray the Lord my work's all ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... the work and herding slackers, getting her breakfast and packing off Ellen to the little school she went to at Rye, Joanna found all too soon that the market hour was upon her. It did not strike her to shirk this part of a farmer's duty—she would drive into Rye and into Lydd and into Romney as her father had always driven, inspecting beasts and watching prices. Soon after ten o'clock she ran upstairs to make herself splendid, ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... 107 and 108 are rather obscure. What the king says in 107 seems to be that you two have referred your dispute to me who am a king. I cannot shirk my duty, but am bound to judge fairly between you. I should see that kingly duties should not, so far as I am concerned, become futile. In 108 he says, being a king I should discharge the duties of a king, i.e., I should judge disputes, and give, if need be, but never take. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... "Shirk business? Nothing doing. I was strictly on the job listening to local items on treasure trails instead of powwowing with you all over the latest news reports from the Balkans. Soon as my pocket has a jingle again, I am to get ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... more enlivened or oppressed; and the case might in fact have been serious had she not, by good fortune, from the moment the picture loomed, quickly made up her mind that what finally most concerned her was neither to seek nor to shirk, was not even to wonder too much, but was to let things come as they would, since there was little enough doubt of ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... think that you would be doing yourself justice by thus evading the responsibility that your convictions give rise to? If I were a man"—Rachel drew herself up—"I would go and seek the conflict, and not shirk it." ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... officer, and now that the United States has declared war, the Albatross may be classed as an American naval vessel. It has been heavily armed that it may make the voyages without convoy. There will be considerable danger, of course, but I know you are not the lads to shirk that. Come, now, what do ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... Who chatter and bleat and bore, Are sent to hear sermons From mystical Germans Who preach from ten to four: The amateur tenor, whose vocal villainies All desire to shirk, Shall, during off-hours, Exhibit his powers To Madame Tussaud's waxwork: The lady who dyes a chemical yellow, Or stains her grey hair puce, Or pinches her figger, Is blacked like a nigger With permanent walnut juice: The idiot ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... [Applause]. It is because you have not felt that it was your duty to vote. You have felt yourselves to be secure and happy enough in your privileges and prerogatives, and have left the great mass of your sisters, that shed tears and bore burdens, to shirk for themselves. You have felt that you had rights more than you wanted now. O yes, it is as if a beauty in Fifth Avenue, hearing one plead that bread might be sent to the hungry and famishing, should say, "What is this talk ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... one of the scout virtues. When it is a scout's duty to do something, he dare not shirk. A scout is faithful to his own interest and the interests of others. He is true to his country ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... Prince's seclusion. I admit now that it had already made an impression on me. He was, as became his nature and his training, a disciplinarian. Each man had his place and his duties, and Prince Frederic appeared at due seasons and shared in the responsibilities. He did not shirk, in accordance with his promise. But for the rest he had withdrawn himself now for three days from the general company. His meals were served with his sister and Mademoiselle, but from what I saw he was most often ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands their principles better than they did themselves; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than we ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... building meantime a wooden stage of sufficient length to bear the plunder expected. This is used for cleaning and drying the plants brought in. Afterwards, if he be prudent, he follows his lumber-men, to see that their indolence does not shirk the big trunks—which give extra trouble naturally, though they yield the best and largest return. It is a terribly wasteful process. If we estimate that a good tree has been felled for every three scraps of Odontoglossum which are now established ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... scholars, and afterward making clear to them the lessons. In the arithmetic class there were ninety pupils, and I can not remember a time when there was any flagging in the interest. There were never any cases of unruly conduct, or a disposition to shirk. With scholars who were slow of comprehension, or to whom recitations were a burden, on account of their modest or retiring dispositions, he was specially attentive, and by encouraging words and gentle assistance would manage to put all at their ease, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the Squire, who, so far from being pleased, was irritated and disturbed by the proposal. "I ask you to do your duty, sir, and not to shirk it," the head of the house said, with natural vehemence, as he stood with that circle of Wentworths round him, giving forth his code of honour to his ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... her if she loved me, and she seemed inclined to shirk For a moment, so I took her by the head (So to speak) and rushed her at it; and she seemed to like the work When she kissed me, though ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... their families. Here again the "sad fact of incurability" must be recognized. It is folly to let such men discover that, through our charitable interest in their families, we will either directly or indirectly pay their whiskey bills, or will assume the burdens that they deliberately shirk. A Committee on Intemperance, reporting to the Ward VIII. Conference of the Boston Associated Charities in 1886, called attention to this aspect of the question. "The committee, however, say that, in their opinion, the question of moral ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... can you talk such rubbish over the graves of your conscientious objectors? All law limits liberty of conscience: if a man's conscience allows him to steal your watch or to shirk military service, how much liberty do you allow it? Liberty of conscience is ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... and precision. Now, if you take into account that all this was to be worked out by a set of lazy, twaddling, shiftless laborers, who had grown up, all their lives, in the absence of every possible motive to learn how to do anything but 'shirk,' as you Vermonters say, and you'll see that there might naturally be, on his plantation, a great many things that looked horrible and distressing to a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... science, is now within our grasp should not be difficult for Americans, once they have rightly conceived it. We, who have always pinned our faith to ideas, who entered the conflict for an Idea, must be the last to shirk the task, however Herculean, of world reconstruction along the lines of our own professed faith. We ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a bird," said Monsieur Bril, "that shall assist me where I am disposed to shirk a duty. You know that bird, Monsieur Mignot; he is the philosopher of the air. He is happy through submission to his lot. None so merry or full-crawed as he with his whimsical eye and rollicking step. The fields yield him ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... it has entirely disappeared in my own person. With wealth and position it will be to me at home as though it were not; and when my dear mother passes away it will disappear entirely and be speedily lost to memory. I do not mean by this to shirk the position of the colored man, of which I have had a bitter taste. I only mean to show you the brightness and hope of my situation. I trust that you will approve of the course which I have marked out, and give me some credit for courage in meeting and conquering the grisly terror, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... up, Perkins. Don't shirk so. Can't you see that we're trying to get this piano across the ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... course the missionary question—a question which I feel it is hopeless to attempt to speak of without being gravely misunderstood, and which I therefore would willingly shirk mentioning, but I am convinced that the future of Africa is not to be dissociated from the future of its natives by the importation of yellow races or Hindoos; and the missionary question is not to be dissociated from the future of the African natives; and so ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... must do so," Ned replied. "I promised the governor to stand by him to the last; and as he has scarce a soul on whom he can rely, it is clearly my duty to do so. It is not for me to shirk doing my duty as long as I can, because I fear that the day will ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... not? You have heard the call and you are not the man to shirk it. Lesser men than you have tried—all honour to them if they were sincere—to voice the yearnings, the questions, the doubts, of a generation that has outgrown its spiritual garments. All the world feels, knows, that a new voice must come ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... allow his patience to be abused with evil intent. He read his suppliants swiftly. The profiteer, the shirk, the fraud of any sort, was instantly unmasked. "I'll have nothing to do with this business," he burst out after listening to a gentlemanly profiteer; "nor with any man who comes to me with such degrading propositions. What! Do you take the President of the United States to be a commission ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... military capability was allowed to deteriorate to a very dangerous degree. We are just now restoring, through the essential modernization of our conventional and strategic forces, our capability to meet our present and future security needs. We dare not shirk our responsibility to keep America free, secure, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... of perpetuating the existence of a race, with all its immeasurable possibilities of sin and suffering, is one from which the boldest might recoil. But the only effective way of improving the lot of man is to rear up a new generation of better stock. For the reflecting to shirk parentage is to make over the future to the spawn of unreflecting indulgence. In the world's great field of battle no duty is higher than to keep the ranks of the forces of Light well filled with recruits. It is to no holiday that our offspring ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... boat-house, and pulled over to our weeping willow. But I couldn't stop there. . . . I can't try myself too high. I guess I'm a bit weak where you're concerned, boy—a bit weak. And I've got to go through with this. It's my job, and one can't shirk one's job. . . . Only sometimes it seems that one gets saddled with funny jobs, doesn't one? Try to see my point of view, Derek; try to understand. If it was only me, why, then, my dear, you know what would be the result. I think it would kill me if ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... workwoman will not encumber herself with too many tools; but she will not shirk the expense of necessary implements, the simplest by preference, and ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... plantations in Cuba. Indian women were made to do the work of the camp. Indian men were chained together and forced to carry the baggage. The chiefs were held as hostages for the good behavior of the whole tribe. The Indians who tried to shirk work or offered resistance ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... character lies in a moral rectitude so perfect and so pure as to be a secret unto itself; a clear, serene composure of truth, mingling so freely and smoothly with the issues of life, that while, and perhaps even because she is herself unconscious of it, she is never once tempted to abuse or to shirk her trust, though it be to play the attorney in a cause that makes so much against herself. In this respect she presents an instructive contrast to Malvolio, who has much virtue indeed, yet not so much but that the counter-pullings have rendered him ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... constantly; if they are working well and their crop promises to be large, he will permit and even encourage them to draw upon him liberally; it is only a partial failure of the crop, or some intimation of the negro's intention to shirk his obligations, that induces his country factor to preach the virtue of self-restraint, or moralize ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... shirk the psychology of such a moment, for my belief is that the striking clocks struck out all power of thought and feeling, and that I played my poor part the better for that blessed surcease of intellectual sensation. ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... the more eminent Shakespearian scholars in London had even an opportunity to look at it closely.[G] The attacks upon the genuineness of the writing on its margins Mr. Collier was at once too ready to regard as impeachments of his personal integrity, and to shirk by making counter-insinuations against the integrity of his opponents and the correctness of their motives. He attributes to the pettiest personal spite or jealousy the steps which they have taken in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Casey was impressed. The very Spanish name of the prune orchard impressed him, and so did the formal business terms used by J. Paul Smith; and that "thanking you in advance" seemed to place him under a moral obligation too great to shirk. There was the note, too,— heavy green paper with a stag's head printed on it, and looking ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... would not go farther, and asked me to lend him money to get back. I made answer: "I should not have enough left to go forward; you ought indeed to have thought of this on leaving Florence; and if it is because of your feet that you shirk the journey, we will find a return horse for Rome, which will deprive you of the excuse." Accordingly I hired a horse; and seeing that he did not answer, I took my way toward the gate of Rome. When he knew ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... You are a very odd mixture. You will go to the ends of the earth on the scent of big game; but you shirk all social exertion with a cynical laziness. You will come from Damascus at a stretch without sleeping, and think nothing of it; but you find it a wretched thing to have to exert yourself to be ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... It was "up to him," and he was too much of a man to shirk the issue. After all, he realized that, although actually led away from home by this determined little girl, he was the one who had fully understood the enormity of what they were doing. In his own unuttered but emphatic phrase, "She ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... average soldier is a sneak, a shirk, a failure, a coward. He is only valuable as he is licked into shape. It is pretty much the same in business. It seems hard to say it, but the average employe in factory, shop or store, puts the face of the clock to shame looking at it; he is thinking ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... duty I cannot shirk. I will consult the doctor about it. I will make him see that I both understand and shall insist upon my rights in this matter. But you may tell Miss Doris that I will sit out of sight, and that I shall ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the majority, who shirk their responsibilities, it is the minority which does the work and assumes the power. The majority having resigned, the minority becomes sovereign, and public business, abandoned by the hesitating, weak, and absent multitude, falls into the hands of the resolute, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... injunction mean that unconditionally we are to abandon all occupations in which there is danger. It can never be a duty to shirk a duty because it is dangerous. And sometimes it is as much a Christian man's duty to go into, and to stand in, positions that are full of temptation and danger, as it is a fireman's business to go into a burning house at the risk of suffocation. There were saints in Caesar's household, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... or dependent on her widowed sister, who is too proud to see her go to the poor house; and this is just the trouble with a lot of people; they not only have their own burdens to bear but somebody else's. You may call me an old fogy, but I would rather live cheap and dress plain than shirk my burdens because I had wasted when they had saved. You and John Hanson are both young and have got your health and strength, and instead of buying sealskins, and velvets and furbelows, you had better be laying up for a rainy day. You have no ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... greedy for the toast Of confidence before our guest, The loyal song, the manly boast Your splendid faith to manifest. In works of art and livelihood Shirk not the creed, "What's ours is good," Dread not ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... mean—pay?" asked the witch. "Pay whom? And what with? Look here, if you will come and live here you shall have a little Wednesday every week on the stairs, under license from me. Harold the Broomstick is apt to shirk cleaning the stairs, but as it happens, he is keeping company with an O-Cedar Mop in Kentish Town, and I've no doubt she would come over and do the stairs thoroughly every Tuesday night. Besides, we have overalls in stock at only two ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... I answered, "it's not in my nature to shirk peril. If I were to be hanged and quartered and could avoid that unpleasantness by changing from my carriage to a cab—I would be hanged and quartered. Take the children and return to the palace any way ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... are to be the leaders, spend their hours in riotous living? No, never! Will they be false to duty? No, never! Will they shirk? No, never! Will they be disloyal to self, to home, to country, and to ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... planters that I thought the word "slave" was the most repulsive part of the institution, and I have always observed they invariably shirk using it themselves. They speak of their servant, their boy, or their negroes, but never of their slaves. They address a negro as boy or ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... kind of boy I want in my store," said Mr. Graham. "He's a harum-scarum sort of boy, and likes to shirk his work. Then I suspect he stops to play on the way when I send him on errands. Yesterday he was five minutes longer than he need to have been in goin' to Sam Dunning's to carry some groceries. Thomas doesn't ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... too hot for him, and he left the community and kept by himself; but he soon returned to the others again. His little body was bursting with courage to live the life, and would not let him shirk it; he must take his chance—eat ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... We must not shirk the very difficult question of the relation between the bodily and the mental side ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... old cailliach was dying, she called the Amadan to her and put him under geasa [an obligation that he could not shirk] to lose the power of his feet, of his strength, of his sight, and of his memory, if he did not go to meet and fight the Black Bull of the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... and the Trelawneys have never failed in time of need. Are you going to be the first to fail, Bob? Oh, please don't think I do not dread the thought of your going to the front, and perhaps being killed; but I cannot bear the thought that my boy should shirk his duty to his country. Tell me, Bob, why do you want to ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... is a mystery. No one denies that. An explanation is necessary, and I accept the explanation offered by the Roman Catholic Church. I obey Her in all her instruction for the regulation of life; I shirk nothing, I omit nothing, I allow nothing to come between me and my religion. Whatever the Church says I believe, and so all responsibility is removed from me. But this is an attitude of mind which you as ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... here at once. [Exit ORDERLY.] The very men Who meanly shirk their service to the crown! A breach of duty to be remedied, For disaffection like an ulcer spreads Until the caustic ointment of the law, Sternly applied, ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... on the sea, and it was all most dreary. He stood at the end of the jetty, and his great possibility came out of the grey to him. Weeks was shorthanded. Cribbed within a few feet of the smack's deck, there would be no chance for any man to shirk. Duncan acted on the impulse. He bought a fisherman's outfit at Gorleston, travelled up to London, got a passage the next morning on a Billingsgate fish-carrier, and that night went throbbing down the great ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... fight goes on, Till the silent battle's won; Vainly do Bacilli shirk When their deadly foe's at work; Every microbe faints with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... did not think so, for he motioned away a bowl of the delightful mixture, though it was proffered him by the fair hands of Mrs. Mudge. The lady was somewhat surprised, and said, roughly, "I shouldn't wonder if he was only trying to shirk." ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... answered Mr. Eversleigh, with a tone of sullen despair. "I am utterly ruined, Carrington. It's no use trying to shirk the truth. I am a doomed wretch, a beggar for life, and the sooner I throw myself over one of the bridges, and make an end of my miserable existence, the better. According to Millard's account my uncle's infatuation for that singing-girl grows stronger ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... king proceeds with Hubert in King John. And so men often proceed when they wish to have a thing done, and to shirk the responsibility; setting it on by dark hints and allusions, and then, after it is done, affecting to blame or to ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... similar or worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might be crushed by no moral delinquency on my own part, but could not shirk without cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a speech by heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only I forgot every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another as well as I could. I ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... you have lived more deeply than I. Life seems to have touched me on the shoulder and passed me by; these hands of mine have never done a real day's work, Mrs. Loring, for they've been the servants of an unwilling brain. I hated my own work as a younger man, and, though I hope I did not shirk it, I certainly did nothing that I could avoid." He paused, and went on slowly, "I've thought sometimes, of late I mean, that if life is to be worth much, if it is to be real life, and not mere existence, one must put one's whole heart into it, and ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that when Messiah cometh He shall open the eyes of the blind. I would that He might open my sister Naomi's eyes. If Thou wilt answer this prayer, Lord, I will promise Thee anything. I will be Thy faithful servant, I will be an obedient son, I will learn my lessons well at school and never shirk. I will no more throw stones at stout Solomon nor even call him names. I will promise anything Thou mayst ask of me, if Thy Messiah will only open my sister Naomi's eyes. Hear my prayer, O ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... their hands at this interposition. Bob was not a fellow to shirk when the time of ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... to shirk her duty. These children were to be Irene's guests, and they must be immediately put into their right position. She turned, therefore, to her little friend and ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... thing is not at all to be wondered at. It has gone on since the dawn of time with college theses, clergymen's sermons, the orations and official papers of statesmen. Whenever a man is confronted with an intellectual task that he dare not shirk, and yet has not the intellect or the interest to perform, the first thing he thinks of is to hire some one to do it for him, and this demand has always been great enough and widespread enough to make it profitable for some one ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... clenched, Not loosely clasped, as you intended them. [He takes his pencil and makes a few strokes. Thus should it stand—a single line will mend. And here, what's this? Why, 't is a sloven's work. You dance too many nights away, young gallant. You shirk close labor as do all your mates. You think to win with service frivolous, Snatched 'twixt your cups, or set between two kisses, The favor of the mistress ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... a public-spirited retailer of Boston, Mr. Lincoln Filene, entered the controversy. Mr. Filene resolved that, as a large consumer, he and his class had no right to shirk their responsibility by passively acquiescing in sweat-shop conditions. As an intermediary between the wholesaler and the public, the retailer had an important part in the conflict, not only because he suffered directly from the temporary ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... temperate, and pray; Fast if thou wilt; and yet, throughout the day, Neglect no labour and no duty shirk: Not many hours are left thee for thy work - And it were meet That ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of his brethren at every street-corner," continued she. "Well, I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am and a witch I'm likely to be and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... own people and to their posterity. But there are other duties which must be accepted, even though they entail national sacrifice, because laid at the nation's door, like Cuba, or forced upon its decision, like the Philippines. I see too clearly in myself the miserable disposition to shirk work and care, and responsibility, to condone the same in nations. I once heard a preacher thus parody effectively the words of the prophet—"Here am I, send him!" And I have heard attributed to the late Mr. John Hay an equally telling allusion ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... for the fact that nature in its most fundamental aspect is four-dimensional. Things are what they are; and it is useless to disguise the fact that 'what things are' is often very difficult for our intellects to follow. It is a mere evasion of the ultimate problems to shirk ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... eyes to see The dashing manner of my gait which marks my noble breed; I am content to trudge the road And willingly to draw my load— Sometimes to know the spur and goad When I begin to lag; I'd rather feel the collar jerk And tug at me, the while I work, Than all the tasks of life to shirk As does the ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... contest for honours as to repudiate the debt that we owe to those who have gone before us and to those who bear with us the responsibilities that rest upon the present generation. Society has claims upon us; our country makes demands upon our time, our thought and our purpose. We cannot shirk these duties without disgrace to ourselves and injury to those who come after us. If one is tempted to complain of the burdens borne by American citizens, let him compare them with the much larger burdens imposed by despots upon ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... of that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... him, and did not attempt to shirk it. But he did propose certain restrictions on the regency in order that the king, should he recover his reason, might without difficulty ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... such time as is necessary to provide adequate religious instruction for the natives. Then the full amount of tribute may be collected, and the encomenderos will enjoy all their revenues. Most of them will shirk their obligations to the Indians, as they have done in the past, unless they are compelled to meet them; and Salazar thinks that they will be more ready to provide religious instruction if they are restricted from collecting the tributes until they shall have done so.] He ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... are easily made up, but of money quarrels there is no end. From the moment these money quarrels commenced, I began to hate Lord Delacour; before, I had only despised him. You can have no notion to what meanness extravagance reduces men. I have known Lord Delacour shirk, and look so shabby, and tell so many lies to people about a hundred guineas—a hundred guineas!—what do I say?—about twenty, ten, five! O, my dear, I cannot ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... Constantine's entrance into the monastery at Monte Cassino Desiderius was elected Pope. The humble Benedictine did not want to take the exalted position, but it was plainly shown to him that it was his duty, and that he must not shirk it. Accordingly, under the name of Pope Victor III, he became one of the great Popes of the eleventh century. One might think that he could have summoned Constantine to Rome, but perhaps he knew that his friend would prefer the quietude of the cloister, and then, too, probably ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... news. No—my Burns is not done yet, it has led me so far afield that I cannot finish it; every time I think I see my way to an end, some new game (or perhaps wild goose) starts up, and away I go. And then, again, to be plain, I shirk the work of the critical part, shirk it as a man shirks a long jump. It is awful to have to express and differentiate Burns in a column or two. O golly, I say, you know, it can't be done at the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I do not lose sight of the fact that thousands of foreigners are each year added to the voting population, whose ballots in the aggregate defeat the will of our enlightened, American-born citizens. Besides, it is a too convenient way for a legislature to shirk its own responsibility. If the demand is made, I hope it may be done in connection with that for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... my private collection was equally large. This the leader of the quartet did not like. It was the duty of this man who was a teacher at Tuskegee, to speak as well as myself, but for some reason he did not like to do it and would always shirk it when he could. But after this meeting he cut off my support and when we reached Portsmouth, he told me that I was dividing the interest and that he could not use me further on that trip. Of course, what little money I had been getting I had sent to the school, so I was almost penniless ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... good deal, & I have often longed to move up from the dock to the bench & rest myself and fatigue others. My opportunity is come, but I hope I shall not abuse it overmuch. I mean to do my best to make a good magazine; I mean to do my whole duty, & not shirk any part of it. There are plenty of distinguished artists, novelists, poets, story-tellers, philosophers, scientists, explorers, fighters, hunters, followers of the sea, & seekers of adventure; & with ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... wholly with acts, responses. The will always has to do with causing or inhibiting some action, either physical or mental. We need to go to the dentist, tell some friend we were in the wrong, hold our mind to a difficult or uninteresting task, or do some other disagreeable thing from which we shirk. It is at such points that we must call upon ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... how I worked during all those long hours is to me an all-absorbing subject and edifying spectacle, I am not so vain as not to realize that I must be the only person to find it so. Most men—and women too—were brought into the world to work, but most of them would be so willing to shirk the obligation that the best they ask is to be allowed to forget their own labours while they can, and not to be bothered with a report of other people's. By nature I am inclined to Charles Lamb's belief that a man—or a woman—cannot have too little to do and too much time to ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... started on restrictions, drew article after article, until it seemed that manacles were put on the masters' hands. To these restrictions the decadence of Brussels is ascribed, but that were like laying a criminal's fault to the laws of the country. Primarily must have been the desire to shirk, the intent to do questionable work. And behind that must have been a basic cause. Possibly it was one of those which we are apt to consider modern, that is, the desire to turn effort into the coin of the realm. All of the enormous quantity of orders ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... what you want of me," answered Oswyn shrewdly. "You said in your note that it was on a matter of vital importance to a friend of mine. I haven't so many friends that I can afford to shirk a little trouble in a matter which vitally concerns one of them. May I ask, in the first place, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... one of the kind that'll shirk on me when my back's turned, or steal from me if he gets a chance, or betray any trust I put in him. He's as poor as blue-John and as proud as Lucifer, but he's as straight as the barrel of that old gun. He's got Kentucky blood in him, and the best ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... trouble with me is that I'm lazy! I believe that's it! I don't want to work the way Marietta does, and Mother does, and even Madeleine does over her dresses and parties and things. It must be I'm a shirk, and expect to have an easier time than most people. That must be it. What ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... day are upon us, a gift from above. Let the light from heaven penetrate our souls, and may this be the best of our lives, we pray. Remember those less fortunate, dear Father, May some messenger of thine bring joy to their hearts today. Forbid we should shirk any duty coming our way, for we are thy servants and desire to do thy will. Our Dear Father thou hast blessed us with many dear ones. I pray thy blessing upon each one, especially our soldier boys That they may heed thy voice and follow thee as their great and true leader. Forbid, dear Lord, that ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede
... with the boy Julius for a companion; and so he spent a little of his time in visiting among the neighboring planters, and a good deal more in "pottering" among his mother's flower beds. Visiting was the hardest work he had ever done; but he knew he couldn't shirk it without exciting talk, and there was talk enough about him in ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... train. Why do I dwell upon these things? It is to say this, that great indeed is the responsibility of those who allow their country—as we have done—to be drawn into such a welter; but there is one thing much worse than to take such a responsibility, and that is, upon a fitting occasion, to shirk it. [Cheers.] Our record in the matter is clear. We strove up to the last moment for peace [cheers] and only when we were satisfied that the price of peace was the betrayal of other countries and the dishonor and degradation of our own we took up the sword. [Prolonged ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... with you and Vesta; but malice is no part of my nature, and I am quite ready to overlook the neglect. You and Vesta must miss Phoebe sadly, and be very lonely, and I feel it a duty that I must not shirk to come and show you both that to me, at least, blood is thicker than water. One drop of Darracott blood, I always say, is enough to establish a claim on me. It is a long time since I have been in Elmerton, and I should like above all things to bring ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... and must hurry back to England. The girl's pure conscience was tortured already by the thought of the excuses she would have to invent. And not a word, till Mr. Manisty was safely started on his way to that function at the Vatican which he was already grumbling over, which he would certainly shirk if he could. But, thank Heaven, it was not possible for him ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... usually they will run after the fall of half a dozen: amongst a Kraal full of braves who boast a hundred murders, not a single maimed or wounded man will be seen, whereas in an Arabian camp half the male population will bear the marks of lead and steel. The bravest will shirk fighting if he has forgotten his shield: the sight of a lion and the sound of a gun elicit screams of terror, and their Kaum or forays much resemble the style of tactics rendered obsolete by the Great Turenne, when the tactician's ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... we all have to be our brothers' keepers," the old Squire continued. "We are all to a degree responsible for the good behavior and safety of our fellow beings. If we shirk that duty, troubles come and crimes are committed that might have been prevented. Especially in a family like ours, each ought to have the good of all at heart and do his best to ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... BURT, But to "raise the whole race" can't be done in a spurt, And while Nature provides us with genius and clown, There is nought to be gained by mere levelling down. So the plan of PROCRUSTES, my boys, will not work, Or will benefit none save the sluggard or shirk. Oh yes, the bold bully stands swaggering there With the axe in his hand, and his head in the air, Type of heedless Compulsion, the shallow of pate, Who man's freedom would sell to a fetish of State. Self-help and joint effort, as BURT wisely said, Are better by far than—that comfortless bed. That ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... had scope to work— Riches, they say, are a burden at best; Her onerous burden she did not shirk, But carried it all with commendable zest; Leaving her husband with nothing in life But to smoke, eat, drink, and obey his wife. She built a house with a double front-door, A marble house in the modern style, With silver planks in the entry floor, And carpets ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... concerned, the two sexes nowadays stand to each other in a most unnatural relation. It is alike the mission of both to marry, but whereas women are honorably anxious to fulfill this mission, men, as we have already seen, are too ready to shirk it. Yet, by a strange inversion of the usual order of things, to the very sex which evades the mission is its furtherance and ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... with an approving nod; "that's just the point which I'd like you and me to stick to: when we see things to be wrong don't let's shirk sayin' so as flat as we can; but don't let us go, like too many shallow-pates, and say that we know who's wrong and why they're wrong, and offer to put them all right on the shortest notice. Mayhap" (here Bax spoke in a soft meditative tone, as if he had forgotten his young ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... "No, I don't want to go over old ground. We are talking of present things. I'm not going to pester you, not going to ask you to marry me even—" again she was aware of his smile though his speech sounded grim—"until you have honestly answered the question that you are trying to shirk. Perhaps you won't thank me for reminding you a second time of a conversation that you and I once had on this very spot, but I must. I told you that I had been waiting for my turn. And you told me that I had ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... you, Hippy," said Nora. "I'm not ashamed to admit that I am very hungry too. It's the people who are never able to eat at the table, and then go off and feed up in the pantry, who always manage to shirk ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... opposition to this, that Memory is something other than a function of the brain. Between two such statements as these, compromise or reconciliation is obviously impossible. It is then for experience to decide between these two conflicting views. This empirical appeal Bergson does not shirk. He has made a most comprehensive and intensive study of pathological phenomena relating to the mental malady known as aphasia. This particular type of disorder belongs to a whole class of mental diseases known as amnesia. Now amnesia (in ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... "Shirk it? Why should I?" He stood aside to let her pass in. "I've nothing to be ashamed of. I don't wear the garment of respectability, but then I'm not stark naked. Every man clothes himself in some article of faith, virtue if you like." The name of Sally and Sally's ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... of work, so on the round-up, a man of ordinary power, who nevertheless does not shirk things merely because they are disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. There were crack riders and ropers who, just because they felt such overweening pride in their own prowess, were not really very valuable men. Continually on the circles ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... fields united, The party we of all who work; The earth belongs to us, the people, No room here for the shirk. How many on our flesh have fattened! But if the noisome birds of prey Shall vanish from the sky some morning, The blessed ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... pride in their community as a whole. The members of a decaying community are, for the most part, languid and indolent; their very gestures are dawdling and slouching, the opposite of smart. They shirk work when they can do so, and scamp what they undertake. A prosperous community is remarkable for the variety of the solid interests in which some or other of its members are eagerly engaged, but the questions ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... was a heavy one, but our hero did not shirk the task before him. He half dragged and half carried the unconscious lady to the nearest staircase and almost fell to ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... alienating its best friends. The Pall Mall Gazette voiced the general feeling. "What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure the Government in the country? Of one thing we may be sure, that if they shirk the Bill they will do no good to themselves at the elections. Nobody doubts that it will be made a test question, and any Liberal who declines to vote for such a Bill will certainly lose the support of the Northampton sort of Radicalism in every constituency. The Liberal ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... followers. Let us deal with the chief of the gang at once; if we cannot convict him, he will be at least open to a compromise." This, I say, I can comprehend; but it is clear and clean beyond me that he should shirk the interview, and own he was afraid of it. It would not surprise me to-morrow to hear that Lord Derby dreaded the Radicals, and actually feared the debating powers of "Mr Potter of ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... interpolation, as there is always a blank page opposite the one on which I am writing. After correcting the manuscript, it is put in typewriting and again revised. There are also two revisions of the proof. While I do not shirk the tasks which approach closely to drudgery, especially since my eyesight is not so good as it was, I also obtain expert assistance. I find that when a page has become very familiar and I am rather tired of it, my ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... shirk your work that way, Thompson." The purser came closer. "Listen," he whispered. "After this you keep your ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... sacred front They muster, miles on miles, I am resolved to stick the brunt," Said bold HORATIUS BYLES; "For Liberty I'll take my stand, Just like a stout Berserk, And still defend with bloody brand Our glorious Right to Shirk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... individuals and groups. Unless along with this excessive altruistic care, scientific principles of breeding, of prevention, and of care can be introduced, the dependent, defective, and delinquent classes of the world will eventually become a burden to civilization. Society cannot shirk its duty to care for these groups, but it would be a misfortune if they reach a status where they can demand support and protection of society. It is a question whether we have not already approached in a measure this condition. Fortunately there ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... papers, and their recommendations, extensive and varied as they were, showed that he had patiently reviewed the field of labor so sadly and so unexpectedly opened before him, and that he was not inclined to shirk the constitutional duty of aiding Congress by his suggestions and advice. An honest man, who believed in his own principles, who followed his own convictions, and who never hesitated to avow his sentiments, he gave his views in accordance with ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Junk was quite ignorant of anything being wrong about her ladies, although she did shirk the question regarding their possible visit to London in July. However, Hurd had learned that Grexon Hay not only was an old friend, but had been engaged to Maud for many months. This information made him the more certain that Hay had robbed Beecot ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... filled with convicts. We soon came along side the Leyden, an old Dutch 64, fitted up with births, eight feet by six, so as to contain six persons; but they were nearly all filled by prisoners who came before us, so that we were obliged to shirk wherever we could. ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... herself, "is that the household is made up of mixed elements, and things might be lost; the second is that the preparations are under no particular control, with the result that, when the time comes, the servants might shirk their duties; the third is that the necessary expenditure being great, there will be reckless disbursements and counterfeit receipts; the fourth, that with the absence of any distinction in the matter of duties, whether large or small, hardship and ease will ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... time being the matter ended; but in a day or two rumours of the rebellion had reached Clarke. Strong steps had to be taken; and Clarke was not the man to shirk ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... Grace, "it wouldn't be fair for me to shirk my responsibility. Mabel wrote me about Kathleen West in the first place, and I promised to look out for her. If she doesn't yearn for my society, it isn't my fault. I'm not going to be a coward, at any rate. I'll go at once, while my resolution is at its ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... adventure on the ridge in the summer. Thorbjorn Oxmain praised Grettir's conduct, and said that Kormak would have had the worst of it if no one had come to part them. Then Thorbjorn Slowcoach said: "What I saw of Grettir's fighting was not famous; and he seemed inclined to shirk when we came up. He was very ready to leave off, nor did I see him make any attempt to avenge the death of Atli's man. I do not believe there is much heart in him, except when he has a sufficient force ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... my investigation into his habits as a husband and father, it is by no means clear to me that we must call him hard names. Before doing that, we ought to know not only that he stays away from his wife and children, but why he stays away; whether he is really a shirk, or absents himself unselfishly and for their better protection, at the risk of being misunderstood and traduced. My object in this paper is to raise that question about him, rather than to blacken his character; in a word, to call attention to him, ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... the Chevalier de la Darante to her at dinner, some weeks ago, 'if I were young, I should adore you.' 'Monsieur,' she answered, 'you use that "if" to shirk the responsibility.' That put him on his mettle. 'Then, by the gods, I adore you now,' he answered. 'If I were young, I should blush to hear you say so,' was her reply. 'I empty out my heart, and away trips the disdainful nymph with a laugh,' he rejoined gaily, the rusty old courtier; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Roddy,—Sorry to do a shirk: but circumstances oblige me to take the boat-train, 9.45, ex Victoria. I have locked up the flat. The porter has the keys, with instructions to lend to nobody ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... peoples dere to Miss Susan plantation hab dey certain business to go 'bout eve'y day en dey ne'er didn't shirk dat neither. Miss Susan ain' 'low fa no slack way 'round whey she was. Dere been Yaneyki wha' hadder jes wait on Miss Susan; Becky, de house girl; Aun' Hannah, de one wha' cook in de big house; Aun' Dicey, wha' al'ays ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... it is easy to cheat society, and deprive it of its due. We can shirk our social obligations; we can dodge subscriptions; we can stay at home when we ought to be at the committee meeting, or the public gathering; we can decline invitations and refuse elections to arduous offices, and at the same ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... and becoming more sociable, told nigger stories. On the sugar-plantations there was a rush season, when the rule was twenty hours' work a day; when some of the niggers tried to shirk it, they would arrest them for swearing or crap-shooting, and work them as convicts, without pay. The pit-boss told how one "buck" had been brought before the justice of the peace, and the charge read, "being cross-eyed"; for which offence he had been sentenced to sixty days' ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... wanted personal success but would not shirk a duty or harm any one in any way to gain that success, at all times he forgot his own personal importance and was ready to do ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... yet. He had still a part to play whose lines were not yet written, whose business remained to be invented. He neither dared shirk that appointment, for reasons of policy, nor wished to, while there remained reparation to be accomplished, a wrong to be righted, justice to be done, a ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... have been obliged to shirk this year, for the sake of living almost solely with "Cecilia," none have had less patience with my retirement than Miss Palmer, who, bitterly believing I intended never to visit her again, has forborne sending me any invitations: but, about three weeks ago, my father had a note from Sir Joshua ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... reg kom," yes, but not if we shirk our responsibilities. "Alles sal reg kom" if we are true, staunch, and honourable, if with perseverance and patient endurance we fulfil our duty when its demands upon us ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... he protested. "It's your money. Don't tell me you're going to give it to suffering humanity. That sort of drivel makes me sick. Take it, give it away if you like, but for God's sake don't shirk your job." ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... natural for him to think this. Ever since the beginning, men have assigned to women the role of the dissuader, the drag, the hinderer. It is always the woman, tradition tells us, who persuades the man to be a coward, to stay at home, to shirk a ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... terrace I had surveyed it carefully as it lay beneath, wandering capriciously in the wasteful shingle-bed, and looking like a maze of tangled silver ribbons. I calculated how to cut off one stream after another, but I could not shirk the main stream, dodge it how I might; and when on the level of the river, I lost all my landmarks in the labyrinth of streams, and determined to cross each just above the first rapid I came to. The river was very milky, and the stones at the bottom could not be seen, ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... to whom Muller had said that he would not shirk any responsibility, began a hue and cry for the arrest of all parties in any way concerned with the direction of the building ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... Lou. There's more behind it, but the colonel mustn't think that there's as much money in the mines as people say. No idea how much living costs up here. Heavens, no! And the prices for labor! And then they shirk the job from dawn to dark. I have to watch 'em every minute, ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... children for heat or for work, At that age when all labor so gaily we shirk? Play, then, little ones, play, And enjoy while ye may, But to all of God's creatures be kind— Then when months have rolled by and left Summer behind, Its joys unalloyed shall ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... misogynist, for not to like women is not to be a man. There are, however, many men, both in Germany and out of it, who greatly dislike sham women; that is, women who shirk their functional responsibilities. This form of dislike is a healthy instinct. Women are given the greatest and most inspiring of all tasks: to make men; and a woman who cannot make a man, by giving birth to one, or by developing one as son or husband, has failed more deplorably ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... was not for long, as we had lost much time in the outer sea, and the skipper wanted to get round to St. Margaret's Hope. No sooner had we put a boatload of goods ashore than we set sail again. And now that we were in smoother water, I was not allowed to shirk my watch, but had to spend the better part of the night ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... self-interest must prompt him to put Pablo and the poor ass most summarily out of the way. And as the logic of these facts irresistibly presented itself in my mind a keen and heavy sorrow overcame me, for I could not shirk the conviction that, whoever might strike the blow that killed him, I myself was the cause of this poor boy's death. Fray Antonio could not see my face in that shadowy prison, yet his fine nature divined ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... which the fit have to bear has often been referred to by Dr. MacGregor, who states in one of his reports, "Wives and husbands, parents of bastards, all alike are encouraged by lavish charity (falsely so called) to entirely shirk their responsibilities in the well grounded assurance that public money will be forth-coming to keep them and their families in quite as comfortable position as ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... to shirk any blame off on to Providence," Jerome responded, scornfully. "It was Stimson's weak ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... him; would he believe; was it best to unveil the working of my own heart to that degree? And how could I evade or shirk the question? ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... shoulders, and his jaws hardened. No man, without justice on his side, should dictate to him; no man should order him to hire this man or discharge that one. He alone had that right; he alone was master. Bennington was not a coward; he would not sell to another; he would not shirk the task laid out for his hand. Unionism, such as it stood, must receive ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... me in one thing. She could not fully realize that I held as weakness all imposition of force. Only the weak dare not be just. They shirk their responsibility of fairness and try quickly to get at results through the short- cuts of injustice. Bimala has no patience with patience. She loves to find in men the turbulent, the angry, the unjust. Her respect must have its ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... stand up," declared Tad, rising to his feet. "I won't be killed any quicker standing than lying down. Besides, I don't like to shirk." ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... going became difficult from the rough ice and soft snow, and with despair Captain felt the days going by. Klusky maintained his muteness and, moreover, to the anger of his captor, began to shirk. It became necessary to beat him. This Captain did relentlessly, deriving a certain satisfaction from it, yet marvelling the while at his own cruelty. The Jew feigned weariness, and began to limp ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... Richard, "we have nothing positive to accuse him of, and if we had, it would be of no use. He will be at school in three weeks, and there he would be sure to shirk, even if he left it off here. Every one does, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her own personal or ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... praise, but face about! seek the praise for another, in true brotherly spirit. Naturally, we are lazy and would shirk our task; but brace up! put vim in the job; that honours God, and incidentally, puts both success and joy in the work. When we get in trouble, naturally we chafe and become impatient; God says, "Be patient in tribulation." That's a "Right-about-face!" for you. We pray once and quit—naturally. God ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... into these people's minds that they could shirk this care that had fallen on them. To keep Morely's fall a secret would save his wife from terrible grief and pain, and would give the poor broken man a better chance to retrieve the past; and kept from her it must be, at whatever cost ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson |
