"Trifle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my Aunt Julia; "here, my dear, here is a small trifle to help you to replenish the stock you have lost in the service of your country. Noble little fellow! what should we ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Professor, can't you really guess?" replied Cor, with that leathery smile. "Hasn't it dawned that you were a little too near our own field with that machine of yours? A trifle more research, a slightly different application—and you would have ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... then to step the trifle beyond her stride, but if he was humorous, she forgave; and if together they appalled the decorous, it was great gain. Her supple person, pretty lips, the style she had, gave a pass to the wondrous confidings, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were at least Plancus, I think the only thing you ever rejected of mine was an essay entitled 'Editors, their Cause and Cure.' It is not included, for obvious reasons, in the present volume, of which you will recognise most of the contents. These may seem even to your indulgent eyes a trifle miscellaneous and disconnected. Still there is a thread common to all, though I cannot claim for them uniformity. There is no strict adherence to those artificial divisions of literature into fiction, ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... wondered. But the noo? Wull ye no be thinking of some laddie who gave up a' the world held that was dear to him, when his country called? Wull ye no be thinking that, after a', ought that can be asked of you in the way of sacrifice and effort is but a sma' trifle compared to what ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... brightened up in a way which she had not observed when he was speaking to any one else. She could not be mistaken with regard to his manner towards her, for she was confident, noble and honourable as he was, he would not trifle with her feelings. ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... implied that they strongly disapproved, he saw no further reason for associating this infamy with the character of any one of them more than with the rest. M. de Charlus was somewhat inclined to eccentricity, but he was fundamentally good and kind; M. des Laumes was a trifle dry, but wholesome and straight. As for M. d'Orsan, Swann had never met anyone who, even in the most depressing circumstances, would come to him with a more heartfelt utterance, would act more properly or with more discretion. So ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... want at the time we specified. In short, we both regard the publication of our Tragedies as an evil. It is not impossible but that in happier times, they may be brought on the stage: and to throw away this chance for a mere trifle, would be to make the present moment act fraudulently and ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... April.—No events of importance during the last few days. Weather a trifle cooler. I rode over to the hospital on Saturday to see Gilbert who is very bad, poor fellow, and will have to go home. I gave him clothes and books and tried to cheer him up a bit. On my return I found a fine large parcel ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... he would say with tears in his voice, laying a hand on the man's shoulder in an elder brotherly way, "it's a trifle hard when a gentleman comes to settle here, that you should dun him for things before he has settled the preliminary expenses about ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... so that Locke managed to turn his body faster than the wheel was being turned, thus gaining on the noose and at each revolution loosening it a trifle. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... Medicine, Dr. Surtaine. (More and louder applause.) The Reverend Dr. Wales, of Dr. Surtaine's church, sonorously seconded the nomination. So did Hollis Myers, of the Security Power Products Company. So, a trifle grumpily, did Elias M. Pierce. Also Col. Parker, editor of the "Telegram," Aaron Scheffler, of Scheffler and Mintz, and Councilman Carlin. The presiding officer inquired with the bland indifference of the assured whether there were any further nominations. There were not. But ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Dion because she felt that he was ungovernable by her, that her will no longer meant anything to him. He did not brace himself to defy it; simply, he did not bother about it. He seemed to have passed into a region where such a trifle as a woman's will ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Wessex, or wait in the town at which she had arrived. She would have preferred to go back, but the distance was too great; moreover, having left the place for good, and somewhat dramatically, to become a bride, a return, even for so short a space, would have been a trifle humiliating. ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... religious pictures for many of our monasteries and great churches. Often, in old days, when I was at the seminary, have I watched him shape the blue and crimson robes and spread the gold like butter. I will write a word to him and, maybe, pay a trifle, that he may receive thee as his disciple. Devote thyself to his instruction and soon, with the grace of Allah, thou wilt far surpass him in accomplishment. Then, after a year or two, return and speak to us of marriage. We shall hear ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... his sovereign. But his notions of honour will scarce admit of his taking money for a service rendered. I have promised to fit them out with arms, armour, and a war-horse when they go on service; but beyond that, which is after all but a trifle to me, I ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... his unknown friends, Fouche began again to trifle with one of the ladies. This time the scout lost self-control; he rose, and taking his chair with both hands, brought it down upon Fouche with all his might, evidently with the intention of shattering the brains of the latter. ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... two miles, but Fred did not mind that. The prize for which he was striving was too great for him to shrink from such a trifle as that. ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... about the floor, as only a bright, happy, thoughtless young girl can who is free from care. "I couldn't count all who make eyes at me now, so what will it be when I get as old as the rest of you girls?"—this a trifle maliciously, for every one of them was at least twenty, and that seemed rather passee to this bit of femininity ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... in general standing. Never a popular man in the corps, he commanded, nevertheless, the respect and esteem of the entire battalion, and little by little won a deeper regard from his immediate associates. He was a man of marked gravity of demeanor. He rarely laughed. His smile was only a trifle more frequent. He was taciturnity personified and for two years at least was held to be morose. Of his antecedents little was known, for he never spoke of them and seldom of himself. He was methodical in the last degree, exercising just so long in the ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... barbarity he could not refuse ease and affluence and an excellent position for his daughter, and condemn her to school-keeping and Major Street for the rest of her life; especially since the offer was accompanied with no drawbacks, except the one trifle, that Esther must marry. That was an undoubtedly bitter pill to swallow; but the colonel swallowed it, and hardly made a wry face. He would be glad to get away from Major Street himself. So he ate his oysters, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... he offered, if the charge for breakage seemed unjust to the vice- consul, to abate it; and since the signora had not understood that she was to pay extra for the other things, he would allow the vice-consul to adjust the differences between them; it was a trifle, and he wished above all things to content the signora, for whom he professed a cordial esteem both on his own part and the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... said at last, "that this violin may prove a valuable clue, as valuable almost as that coat of arms. That might very well have been picked up or bought for a trifle at a pawnshop, or come into the hands of its possessor in some accidental way. But this is different; this, unless I am greatly mistaken, is a real Amati, and therefore worth at least a couple of hundred guineas. That could hardly have come accidentally into the hands of a wandering ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... that Mrs. Eyrecourt is well, and is already enjoying the gayeties of Paris. Three-fourths of the letter are occupied with the baby. When I wrote to her I signed myself "yours affectionately." Stella signs "yours sincerely." It is a trifle, I daresay—but I feel it, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... trifle nervous when he went to the front to shoot, he did his best to control it. Taking as careful aim as possible, ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... Crewe," the owner of that name proclaimed, accepting the hand with no exaggeration of cordiality. The situation jarred on him a trifle. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... worth being separated, for the pleasure of meeting again! (Kisses her.) And such nice letters from you, every single day—thank you, darling! (Kisses her again.) And you look just the same—just the same! Perhaps a trifle paler, but that is ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... speak but the effect was to set Vera into crying out at every one being so intolerably cross about such a trifle, Gillian ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... week or a fortnight for that matter; for this was the land of "la manana," and the white element on Las Palomas easily adopted the easy-going methods of their Mexican neighbors. So on the day everything was in readiness. The ranch was a trifle over thirty miles from Shepherd's, which was a fair half day's ride, but as Miss Jean always traveled by ambulance, it was necessary to give her an early start. Las Palomas raised fine horses and mules, and the ambulance team for the ranch consisted of four mealy-muzzled ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... brought to a successful end—or, at least, within view of it—an adventure very difficult and alarming; and I looked across at Mr. Dudgeon, as the port rose to his cheeks, and a smile, that was semi-confidential and a trifle foolish, began to play upon his leathery features, not only with composure, but with a suspicion of kindness. The rascal had been brave, a quality for which I would value the devil; and if he had been pertinacious in the beginning, he had ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dressed in about the same fashion as himself, and when I remembered that Joan had called the war-council of Orleans "disguised ladies' maids," it reminded me of people who squander all their money on a trifle and then haven't anything to invest when they come across a better chance; that name ought to have been saved ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... strange in this world, Wilson, nothing at a We may slave for years and get no reward, and do a trifle out of politeness and become independent. In my opinion, this mystery is unravelled. The old lady, for I knew the family, must have died immensely rich: she knew you in your full uniform, and she asked your name; a heavy fall ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... Church gets fond of you," he said, gravely. "It doesn't seem right to trifle with a ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... gain, he at last found, to his satisfaction, that he had made sufficient height to clear the gloom of the woods. As he looked out over their tops, a light breeze cooled his wet forehead, and he pressed on with fresh vigor. Presently the slope grew a trifle easier, the foothold surer, and he mounted more rapidly. The steely lake, and the rough-ridged, black-green sea of the fir-tops began to unroll below him. At last he rounded an elbow of the steep, and there before him, upthrust perhaps a hundred feet above his head, stood the outlying ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... part of the ceremony—tasting—had likewise to be performed by proxy, for the young scion of the house peremptorily refused to trifle with any temptation in the form of mincemeat. We all in succession performed the ancient rite, and my husband said to me afterwards what a capital subject for a picture of family portraits the scene would afford. The contrast in the attire of the cook and her maids ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... journey a trifle less strenuous for Elizabeth, Nora kept up a continuous flow of talk. It mattered little about what; only that there was no silence, but Elizabeth might as well have been a wooden girl so far as listening to her companion ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... combat, fighting with knives, in Norse fashion, while hooked to each other at the belt. They strip, a la Heenan and Sayers. Mr. Taylor, who does not often come behind the occasion when he can get a human figure to describe statue-wise or under a studio light, is perhaps a trifle too Phidian in bringing out the good looks of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... it lay before him, began in desolation and ended in desolation. Except that it was a trifle larger it differed in no important particular from many others that littered the face of the world through which he had passed during the last twenty-four hours. It was a mere dot in the center of a flat grass country ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Chancelleries of Europe, among the men who have too long played with human lives as pawns in a game of chess, who have become so enmeshed in formulas and the jargon of diplomacy that they have ceased to be conscious of the poignant realities with which they trifle. And thus will war continue to be made, until the great masses who are the sport of professional schemers and dreamers say the word which, shall bring, not eternal peace, for that is impossible, but a determination ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... nevertheless, if that is your idea of a Francesca, I confess she seems to me a trifle—shall ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... imagined that the regency of an aged monk would favour the designs of their invasive ambitions were sharply checked by the energy of the new regent, who had organised an efficient body of troops in his own pay and speedily made it apparent that Spain had a ruler with whom it was perilous to trifle. One incident in the contest he sustained in defence of the crown's prerogatives against the encroachments of the feudal nobles, illustrates his character. The Duke of Infantado, the Grand Admiral of Castile, and the Count of Benevente came ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... prices. "I who speak to you, I owe myself to my country. There is no sacrifice I would not make rather than capitulate to those Huns, those Vandals," said a grocer to me, with a most sand-the-sugar face, this morning, as he pocketed about ten times the value of a trifle—candles, in fact, which have risen twenty-five per cent. in the last two days—and folding his arms, scowled from under his kepi into futurity, with stern ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... require the services of writers of risky, or, for that matter, any other novels, as clerks; and, besides, as Zola has told us himself, in an interview with my old friend and employer,[*] the late M. Fernand Xau, Editor of the Paris "Journal," they thought "La Confession de Claude" a trifle stiff, and objected to their clerks writing books in time which they considered theirs, ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... many writers, German especially, perhaps, have the fault of "writing a subject to its dregs," giving to the unimportant undue place. In Fiske's estimation of facts there is no failure of proper proportion, the great thing is always in the foreground, the trifle in shadow or quite unnoticed. To do this accurately is a fine power. He delved more deeply himself perhaps than many of his critics have been willing to acknowledge, but I incline to say that his main service to history was in detecting with ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... is Tim Cannon, surprised every morning at waking to find himself out of the den of the city slums, where morning, noon and night his grandfather—being in liquor at the time—would drive him out to steal some trifle good for a drink at the pawnbroker's saloon. And having no knowledge that a living is to be gained by a more honorable profession than crime he peeps out with suspicion on the open streets and yards, where it is impossible to hide ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... be to go wrong.'[9] So, in short, superstition does an immense harm by enfeebling rational ways of thinking; it does a little good by accidentally endorsing rational conclusions in one or two matters. And yet, though the evil which it is said to repair is a trifle beside the evil which it is admitted to inflict, the balance of expediencies is after all declared to be such as to warrant ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... kept in coffers are not real, but only those which are kept in the soul. Nothing which cannot enter into the substance of the life and character can satisfy us. That which we are makes us rich or poor, that which we own is a trifle. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... we ask ourselves what natural thing most resembles the common idea of a ghost. You are reading alone at night, let us say, the door opens and a human figure glides into the room. To you it pays no manner of attention; it does not answer if you speak; it may trifle with some object in the chamber and ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... received Tiddler's atrocious sketch, representing the author of The Insurgent as a Diogenes looking for gray-eyed girls, he had ceased to smile over the thing. The joke was becoming a trifle stale. ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... my boys! No, no, too happy to get you." Another gun from the corvette. "Firebrands, you must shove off. My compliments, Wiggins, to the Captain, and there's a trifle for you to drink my health, when you get into port." The boat shoved off—the corvette filled her maintopsail. "Put the helm down—ease off the mainsheet stand by to run up the squaresail. How is her head, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... there, with the fur collar on his coat; he can give you the only thing I ever knew of any efficacy; he's the steward, ma'am, Stewart Moore; but you must be on your guard too as you are a stranger, for he's a conceited fellow, and has saved a trifle, and sets up for a half gentleman; so don't be surprised at his manner; though, after all, you may find him very different; some people, I've ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... in our street is a gloomy house, with a blistered door and a cavernous step; with a hungry area and a desolate frontage. The windows are like prison-slips, only a trifle darker, and a good deal dirtier; and the kitchen-offices might stand proxies for the Black Hole of Calcutta, barring the company and the warmth. For as to company, black beetles, mice, and red ants, are all that are ever seen of animated nature there, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... the monster she had charmed shot forth its head, snapped at that spinning trifle—and swallowed it. Then the fork-tail hunched in a posture Shann had seen the wolverines use when they were about to spring. The weaponless Wyvern was the prey, and both her companions were ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... sir, it is hard to please you. Unforeseen circumstances," said the wary father, with a wise look, "mean circumstances that we don't foresee at present. I assure you that I have no intention to trifle with you, and I shall be sincerely happy ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... exactly alike," he said. "I thought of having yours made a trifle lower than the others, but concluded to give you a foot-rest instead, as you will soon grow tall enough to want it the height it now is. Max and Lulu, shall we give your little sister the first choice, ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... which, with the exception of a few ballads and some of Allan Ramsay's songs, was the first poetry he made acquaintance with. It must often have been with anxiety, and sometimes not without a struggle, that his mother—solicitous about every trifle which affected the training of her child—decided on the books which she was to place in his hands. She wished him to develop his intellectual faculties, but not at the expense of his spiritual; and romantic frivolity and mental dissipation on the one hand, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... a trifle slowly. In the first place, respect was just particularly what he had not won—but why trumpet forth his miseries? "The young master must like me—he often chats with me, even over the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... cries. One sole thought possessed him when his sufferings left him a lucid interval, and in his agony he repeated over and over again that he wished to implore pardon from the count and countess for a great injury which he had done them. The people round about him told him that was a trifle, and that he ought not to let it embitter his last moments, but he begged so piteously that he got them to promise that they ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... services right through, just as he always did, except that when he'd remembered in his prayer every one in America and had worked around through Europe to Asia Minor, he lingered a trifle longer over the Turks than usual, and the list of things which he seemed to think they needed brought the Armenian back into the fold right ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... writer compares English humor, in a general way, to beer-drinking, and this is more particularly applicable to Dickens's characters. The very name of Mark Tapley suggests ale bottles. Thackeray's humor is of a more refined quality, but a trifle sharp and satirical. It is, however, pure and healthful and might be compared to Rhine-wine. Hawthorne's humor at its best is more refined than Thackeray's, as well as of a more amiable quality, and reminds one (on Taine's principle) of those delicate Italian wines which have very ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... are rooming with Irene McCullough. She is, as you know, an only child, and I fear has been a trifle spoiled. It would please me if you could waken her to a higher regard for the spiritual side of life, and ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... an arduous and slippery path, God forbid that any weak feelings of my declining age, which calls for soothings and supports, and which can have none but from you, should make me wish that you should abandon what you are about, or should trifle with it. In this house we submit, though with troubled minds, to that order which has connected all great duties with toils and with perils, which has conducted the road to glory through the regions of obloquy ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... had friends and relatives as guests in our house I have often heard that in Berlin families move out on account of piano playing, or on account of cockroaches, or on account of an unfriendly concierge. If it is done on account of such a trifle—" ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... doors are a trifle disappointing, though only so because of their great reputation, they certainly did not deserve to be mutilated by the Huguenots in 1562; and in 1793 when a barrelmaker's child was slashing the heads of the statues with an axe, the crowd ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... a high compliment from one who is himself so beautiful," murmured Scraps, casting down her suspender-button eyes by lowering her head. "But, tell me, good sir, are you not a trifle lumpy?" ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Pray do not say so Of a trifle, in anger and haste; Though they are equally new, Yet my drum I'll give you, But I've tied it in ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... to tell the writer's name,' she replied, with a dudgeon that was very great for one whose whole stock of it was a trifle. And she passed on ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... the northern angle. There is no well, and the mass of huts cluster close to the walls. The five guns here deposited by Sharmarkay when expelled from Berberah, stand on the ground outside the fort, which is scarcely calculated to bear heavy carronades: they are unprovided with balls, but that is a trifle where pebbles abound. Moreover, Abdy's slaves are well armed with matchlock and pistol, and the Bedouin Tul Jailah [27] find the spear ineffectual against stone walls. The garrison has frequently been blockaded by its troublesome neighbours, whose prowess, however, never ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... nodded the sergeant, proudly; "it was, in fact, but a trifle—a brown devil brandished his yataghan at the captain, and I cut off his hand to prevent the execution of his plan. Now, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... those days of Caribou. The Colonel had gradually slipped into the position of Boss of the camp. The Trio were still just a trifle afraid of him, and he, on his side, never pressed ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... back a word of kindness When the chance to speak it comes; Though it seems to you a trifle, Many a heart ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... which was a stand-up one, for an hour, while he talked brilliantly about the Italian renaissance in its ultimate influence on the arts and crafts movement of the present day. To listen to Logan was a liberal education at any moment, if a trifle too much like attending a lecture. But at least ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... was as high as you would care to go," Ogilvie said; "but I forgot you had come fresh up, with your pocket full of money. If you would like something a trifle more princely, I'll ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... and pervasive fumes, and opened the window to discover the fire escape was now against the house, and all Fishbourne boiling with excitement as an immensely helmeted and active and resolute little figure ascended. In another moment the rescuer stared over the windowsill, heroic, but just a trifle self-conscious and grotesque. ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... people are moving in this matter. They intend to take up collections in their churches for the benefit of Mrs. Lincoln. They are enthusiastic, and a trifle from every African in this city would, in the aggregate, swell into an immense sum, which would be doubly acceptable to Mrs. Lincoln. It would satisfy her that the black people still have the memory of her deceased husband fresh in ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... all to speculate. Among the scoffers, of course, was Ralph Hambleton, who stood with his hands in his pockets and cheerfully predicted all sorts of dire calamities. Ralph was always a superior boy, tall and a trifle saturnine and cynical, with an amazing self-confidence not wholly due to the wealth of his father, the iron-master. He ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you? There is great power in the virtues; rouse them, if they chance to droop. Take fortitude for your guide, which will give you such spirits that you will despise everything that can befall man, and look on it as a trifle. Add to this temperance, which is moderation, and which was just now called frugality, which will not suffer you to do anything base or bad—for what is worse or baser than an effeminate man? Not even justice will suffer ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... semicircle of them. The tank took a long time to fill; until it did, they all sat immobile and fascinated. Even after it stopped, many remained, hoping that it would start again. Paul Meillard began wondering, a trifle uneasily, if that would happen every time ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... full-tilt at a thousand men, may look like a trifle, but they are disconcerting. What they hit, they kill; and if they succeed in striking home, they play old Harry with formations. And Risaldar Mahommed Khan did strike home. He changed direction suddenly ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... piece of obstinacy. Pilate knew that he had prostituted his office in condemning Jesus, and he revenged himself for weak compliance by ill-timed mulishness. A cool-headed governor would have humoured his difficult subjects in such a trifle, as a just one would have been inflexible in a matter of life and death. But this man's facile yielding and his stiff-necked obstinacy were both misplaced. 'So I will, so I command. Let my will suffice for a reason,' was what he meant. He had written his gibe, and not all the Jews ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... Andy thoughtfully, and his eyes narrowed a trifle. "On the square, Miss Hallman, what are the natural advantages out here—for farming? What line of talk ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... trifle with people's hearts," she decided, with all the authority of an experienced reader of magazine stories. "If you pretend you don't care for them, they drive their aeroplanes recklessly and smash up, or expose themselves to the enemy's fire, or get submarined, before you've had time to tell them ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... pork-dealer. "I'm your man; but, stranger, you must allow me to pay. You see, I've won a trifle here. My right to ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... gate arter 'em and went back to the office, and I 'adn't been there above 'arf an hour when somebody started ringing the gate- bell as if they was mad. I thought it was the cook's lot come back at fust, so I opened the wicket just a trifle and peeped out. There was a 'ansom-cab standing outside, and I 'ad hardly got my nose to the crack when the actor-chap, still in my clothes, pushed the ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... gift has no possible comfort for us if our little is not our best. The widow's mites were her best, small though the money value was—she gave all she had. The poor woman's cup of cold water was all she could give. But if we give only a trifle out of our abundance, we are not ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... out by this reply; but he was not the man to allow himself to be subdued by a trifle, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of Western Europe distrusted him as much as their rulers worshipped; and some of these same presents to their rulers have become trifle-monuments of no mean value in showing that popular idea of Russian policy. Foremost among these stand those two bronze masses of statuary in front of the Royal Palace at Berlin, representing fiery horses restrained by strong men. Pompous ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... old with the habits of the Euclid House, Theodore chose next day the hour when he judged that Tommy would be most at leisure, and sought him out. The landlord was a trifle grayer, decidedly more portly, but was in other respects the same smooth-tongued, affable host that he was when Tode Mall ran hither and thither to do his bidding. Theodore attempted nothing with him further than to beg a few minutes' chat ...
— Three People • Pansy
... my quivering flesh—I have suffered from corporeal punishment in its various forms—I have mingled my sorrows with those that were bereaved by the ungodly soul drivers—and I also know what it is to shed the sympathetic tear at the grave of a departed friend; but all this is but a mere trifle compared with my sufferings from then to the end of ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... and joy, Hudson continued his voyage up the noble river, anchoring at frequent intervals. More trouble soon occurred between his crew and the savages, for Juet the mate shot and killed an Indian who was attempting to steal some trifle from the cabin of the Half Moon. There followed a fight in which no less than twelve Indians were killed by Hudson's men; the redskins were getting their first taste of white man's rule, and coming with gifts they were ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... three hundred registered yearling bulls to the beef ranges of Chile. Even so, vaguely, with vague pleasure, he heard Paula sing her way back across the patio to her long wing of house; though he was unaware that her voice was a trifle, just ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... philosophers contrive Life to stop at thirty-five, Time his hours should never drive O'er the bounds of thirty-five. High to soar, and deep to dive, Nature gives at thirty-five. Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five: For howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five. He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five; And all who wisely wish to wive Must look ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... instant the mountaineer's eyes had flashed on Clayton, but when the latter, a trifle embarrassed, looked up, Raines apparently had heard nothing. Easter did not reappear ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... Wild. You trifle, Sir, and know our Business better, than to think we come to take your Life, which wou'd not advantage a Dog, much less any Party or Person—Come, come, your ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... times out of the King's highway, over hedges and ditches, to find out by-ways and shorter cuts, which generally prove the farthest about, but never the nearest home again. He is so passionate a lover of the Liberty of the People that his fondness turns to jealousy. He interprets every trifle in the worst sense, to the prejudice of her honesty, and is so full of caprices and scruples that, if he had his will, he would have her shut up and never suffered to go abroad again, if not made away, for her incontinence. All his politics are speculative and for the most part impracticable, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... hearing, but second sighted on such matters, shot a malevolent glance from her place. In an awful voice, intended to be a trifle arch, she ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... and moral health. Her face was more gentle than striking; her eyes were very blue and full of animation; she had a rich complexion; her hair was light yellow, but not colorless; her nose, slightly aquiline; her red lips were a trifle thick, like those of all the Hapsburgs; her hands and feet were models of beauty; she had an impressive carriage, and was a little above the medium height. When she arrived in France, she was a little too stout, and her face was a ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... wide-open door of Meshach Milburn's store. A few negroes and poor whites were at the counter, and Meshach was measuring whiskey out to them by the cheap dram in exchange for coonskins and eggs. He looked up, just a trifle surprised at the principal man's advent, and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... of impatience broke from him. "Laws! In some states, yes. In others, no. It is a mere technicality—a trifle! There is about it a bit of that which you call red tape. It amounts to nothing—to that!" He snapped his fingers. "A few months' residence in another state, perhaps. These American laws, they are made ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... Professor Lemm, but I wish you would allow me to conduct this examination," put in Colonel Colby a trifle stiffly. If the truth must be told, the overbearing manner of the teacher was not any more to the liking of the master of the Hall than it was to the cadets. Yet, Asa Lemm had come well recommended, and ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... (behind) poste. Backbite kalumnii. Backbone spino. Backslider rekulpulo. Backward (slow) mallerta. Bacon lardo. Bad, ly malbona, e. Badge simbolo. Badger melo. Bag sako. Bagatelle (trifle) bagatelo. Baggage pakajxo. Bail garantiajxo. Bailiff (legal) jugxa persekutisto. Bait allogajxo. Bake baki. Baker panisto, bakisto. Balance (scales) pesilo. Balance (poise) balanci. Balance of a/c restajxo. Balance-sheet bilanco. Balcony balkono. Bald senhara. Baldness ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... was raised a little over the teeth; the whole expression of the slightly open mouth was unusually soft and sensitive. On the whole, Minta Hurd was liked in the village, though she was thought a trifle "fine." The whole family, indeed, "kept theirsels to theirsels," and to find Mrs. Hurd with company was unusual. Her name, of course, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but a trifle of my letter written yet; what shall Presto do for prattle-prattle, to entertain MD? The talk now grows fresher of the Duke of Ormond for Ireland; though Mr. Addison says he hears it will be in commission, and Lord Galway(11) one. These letters of ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... himself. His headgear was more elaborate than that of his men, and around his shoulders and down his chest hung a brilliant feather dress, while a wide belt of green, blue, and black plumes encircled his hips. Yuara himself had inserted feathers in his nose and donned a headband of tall parrot plumes a trifle more ornate than those worn by the ordinary fighters, and somehow the simple addition seemed to transform him into a bigger, fiercer man. Also, his eyes now held a smoldering light which had not been ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... or misunderstanding, or dryness betwixt them—not for a moment"; and that, "to the last of his life, she felt the same ardent and tender love and affection for him, and the same desire to please him in the smallest trifle that she had at their first acquaintance." To the day his last illness began, her husband never went out without her going to the window to watch him till he was out of sight of those kind, bright, beautiful eyes, through which shone as beautiful a soul as any that ever made the earth ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... man with bright, blinking eyes that questioned the truth of this statement. His pop had never lied to him, and although Pete suspected what was in the wind, he had no ground for argument. Annersley was a trifle surprised that the boy consented to stay without demur. Annersley might have known that Young Pete's very silence was significant; but the old man was troubled and only too glad to find his young partner so amenable to his suggestion. When Annersley left the store ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... directed to mold the paste over it as thin as possible, which conveys the idea that the paste is to be pressed over and so made thin; this would destroy the finest paste in the world; roll it thin, say for small tartlets, less than a quarter of an inch thick, for a pie a trifle thicker, then lay the dish or tin to be covered on the paste, and cut out with a knife, dipped in hot water or flour, a piece a little larger than the mold, then line with the piece you have cut, touching it as little as possible; press only enough to make ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... and it seems Mitchell thought she would be particularly glad I was going to act with her instead of Luscombe, because, as I say, Luscombe put so little meaning into the words. It never would have got over the footlights. Old Mitchell will be too pleased to get me back to worry about a trifle like that.' ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... went far enough to provide for the happy-go-lucky and mostly ungrateful creatures who had no idea of providing for themselves. He established a sick fund, and to this each of the men who worked for him was obliged to subscribe a trifle out of his weekly wages. Then in their not infrequent sickness there was alleviation and comfort waiting for them. If the miners were not his friends they were his dependents, and as such he cared for them and looked after them. He ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... the method of feeding these great masses of rock to the rolls, and will also enable the reader to form an idea of the rapidity of the breaking operation, when it is stated that a boulder of the size represented would be reduced by the giant rolls to pieces a trifle larger than a man's head in ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... the offence?—I tell thee, boy, he had better never have seen the light. But I will not trifle with ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various |
