"Discontent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when the mind is subdued by fear, anxiety or shame, or overwhelmed by sorrow or despair, the eyes, like faithful chroniclers, still tell the truthful story of the mental disquietude. And hatred, anger, envy, pride, and jealousy, ambition, avarice, discontent, and all the varied passions and emotions that torment, excite or depress the human soul, and find a resting place in the human breast, obtain expression in the eyes. At one moment the instruments of receiving and imparting pleasure, at another the willing ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... at himself. His fury was foolish, a mere generalization of discontent from very little data. Still, it was a relief to be out in the purring night sounds. He had passed from the affluent stone piles on the boulevard to the cheap flat buildings of a cross street. His way lay through a territory of startling contrasts of wealth ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and attention to these extraneous matters. But who would have anticipated that he could ever in his quiet seclusion have become a prey to a spirit of restlessness? Of a sudden, one day he began to feel discontent, finding fault with this and turning up his nose at that; and going in and coming out he was simply full of ennui. And as all the girls in the garden were just in the prime of youth, and at a time of life when, artless and unaffected, they sat and reclined without regard to retirement, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the people disapproved of these doings, and there were murmurs of discontent. But the Governor had his money, and had made his friend Chief-Justice, and was running matters pretty much his own way, so ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... shares this growing discontent. The Spectator is written in the language of the drawing-room and the coffee-house. Nothing is ever said which might not pass in conversation between a couple of "wits," with, at most, some graceful indulgence in passing moods of solemn or ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... heard her gentle answer, and saw that even now she had no discontent or malice for all the wrong he had done her, he relented at last, and blamed ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... gale was still blowing fiercely, although with less strength than on the previous day. Jack had heard from his mother of his appointment to go to the "Ship" with much discontent, and had at first positively ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... suddenly of a sharp attack of pleurisy. That left Jonathan alone in the household of his son and family. He seemed, so the old Squire told me later, to lose heart entirely after that, and sat about or wandered over the farm in a state of constant discontent. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... officially. I fear I have mixed up a little bile with my intelligence; but the times are bilious, and it is beyond the compass of my patience to see the great stake we are playing for lost by imbecility, treachery, and neglect, without betraying a few symptoms of discontent. It is really deplorable that we should be the only nation in Europe who are up to the danger of the moment, and that the minds of all the other Cabinets are either so tainted with false principles, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... unknown; but if in Heaven he can witness their penury, his soul must rest ill at peace and weep for those on earth. To the soldier, who is still alive and struggling for our independence, the letter that brings him news of his wife's and children's poverty must bring him discontent, and render him unwilling to longer remain in the army and struggle for liberty while they are starving. How many times have not desertion taken place through this very cause. In Mississippi we witnessed the execution of a soldier for the crime of desertion. On the morning of his execution he ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... in the air" were suddenly shattered. The Italian army had not been properly supplied and the country was very short of coal. The army had therefore not been able to follow up its successful attacks. The enemy had also caused great discontent among the common soldiers in the Italian forces by spreading lies among them. The collapse of the Russian armies had also made many of them ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... the State against Sam Green (free negro) indicted for having in his possession, papers, pamphlets and pictorial representations, having a tendency to create discontent, etc., among the people of color in the State, was tried before ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... assailed him, and he yielded to it without a struggle. His attitude expressed his mood with relentless verity. Chin sunken upon his breast, eyes fairly distilling gloom, legs stretched out carelessly before him, he sat motionless, suffocating at the bottom of a gulf of discontent. His lips moved, sometimes noiselessly, ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... the discontent began to smoulder once more, for the King's pledges of restoration were not fulfilled; and Cromwell, who was now recognised to be the inspirer of all the evil done against Religion, remained as high as ever ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... that certain evil always attends every deviation from what is right. When we disobeyed the advice of our mother, and, tempted by cakes and other dainties, frequently returned to the same dangerous place, how severely did we suffer for it? And now, by our own discontent, and not being satisfied when so safely though more humbly lodged, into what trouble have we not plunged ourselves? How securely have we lived in the barn for the last seven months, and how happily might we still have continued there, ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... cures their longings; but it is so hard to give a soul to heaven that has not first been trained in the fullest and sweetest human affections! Too often they fling their hearts away on unworthy objects. Too often they pine in a secret discontent, which spreads its leaden cloud over the morning of their youth. The immeasurable distance between one of these delicate natures and the average youths among whom is like to be her only choice makes one's heart ache. How ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... ruled me. Each night I retired with the hope that the morning would find it gone. It disturbed my sleep. It was not the constant discontent I had hitherto felt with the world. This was ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... at her in surprise. It was so unlike her to express discontent. She had always seemed so happy. "Why, I thought you couldn't be ever induced to live any other ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... possibilities inherent in an application of the principles of psycho-pathological treatment based on the discoveries of FREUD. For our own part we are convinced that herein lies the only solution of Ireland's discontent. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... submissive, obedient slave; betray no disappointment, discontent, or impatience at your lot. The harsher he is, the humbler must you be; the more despotic he becomes, the more subservient you must seem. Make yourself so perfectly complying in all his moods that ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... gentlemen, meanwhile, were having arguments about the eternal backsheesh with the roaring Arab boatmen; and I recall with wonder and delight especially, the curses and screams of one small and extremely loud-lunged fellow, who expressed discontent at receiving a five, instead of a six-piastre piece. But how is one to know, without possessing the language? Both coins are made of a greasy pewtery sort of tin; and I thought the biggest was the most valuable: but the fellow ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... When popular discontent and passion are stimulated by the arts of designing partisans to a pitch perilously near to class hatred or sectional anger, I would have our universities and colleges sound the alarm in the name of American brotherhood ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the estates of Culloden and Bunchrew; during the 1745 rebellion he was active in the Hanoverian interest, and did much to quell the uprising; Forbes was a devoted Scot, and unweariedly strove to allay the Jacobite discontent and to establish the country in peace, and used his great influence and wealth to further these ends, services which, in the end, impoverished him, and received little or no recognition at the hands ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... distress that moved the Government; it was the alarm of external danger. The strength of England was then strained as it has never been before or since in an unequal war with the combined forces of France, Spain, and America, and it was no time either to feed or to neglect discontent at home. Ireland had already sent many recruits to the revolutionary army in America, and at this very moment the Irish Protestants, incensed at the indifference of Government to the protection of their ports, had, under the lead of ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... in the immediate presence of God, Lucifer went forth to diffuse the spirit of discontent among the angels. Working with mysterious secrecy, and for a time concealing his real purpose under an appearance of reverence for God, he endeavored to excite dissatisfaction concerning the laws that governed heavenly beings, intimating ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... I had better dress myself all over again," she says, glancing with much discontent at the charming vision the ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... Ali heard this, he sent a messenger to Kursheed, hoping to influence him in his favour. Ismail, distrusting the Skipetars, who formed part of his troops, demanded hostages from them. The Skipetars were indignant, and Ali, hearing of their discontent, wrote inviting them to return to him, and endeavouring to dazzle them by the most brilliant promises. These overtures were received by the offended troops with enthusiasm, and Alexis Noutza, Ali's former general, who had forsaken him for Ismail, but who had secretly returned to his allegiance ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... did not pass without animadversion and discontent. Sir James Mackintosh moved that a jury of twelve should be substituted for the clause constituting a military jury—the most obnoxious portion of the bill. In this he was seconded by Mr. Wilberforce, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... Chicago will be! That is the ever-recurring burden of one's cogitations. For Chicago is awake, and intelligently awake, to her destinies; so much one perceives even in the reiterated complaints that she is asleep. Discontent is the condition of progress, and Chicago is not in the slightest danger of relapsing into a condition of inert self-complacency. Her sons love her, but they chasten her. They are never tired of urging her on, sometimes (it must be owned) with most unfilial objurgations; ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... of the garrison to the stronger and safer position of Fort Sumter, I called upon him again to represent, from my knowledge of the people and the circumstances of the case, how productive the movement would be of discontent, and how likely to lead to collision. One of the vexed questions of the day was, by what authority the collector of the port should be appointed, and the rumor was, that instructions had been given to the commanding officer ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... for promotion has become insatiable, one would be astonished if, after such a feat, a colonel was not promoted; but during the Empire ambition was more modest. Christophe did not become a general until some years later, and never showed any discontent with ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... a pretty place, Shadow Hill, but it's dull. Everybody in the town is dull, stupid, and perfectly satisfied: everybody owns at least that acre which Ilse demands; there's no discontent at Shadow Hill, and no reason for it. I really couldn't bear it," she added gaily; "I want to go where there's healthy discontent, wholesome competition, natural aspiration—where things must be bettered, set right, helped. You understand? ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... low moaning of the sea encompassed her, where she stood, in forgotten beauty, careless of the wind and wave. The short, uneasy heave of waters in among the kelpy rocks, flowing from no swell or furrow on the misty glass of sea, but like a pulse of discontent, and longing to go further; after the turn, the little rattle of invaded pebbles, the lithe relapse and soft, shampooing lambency of oarweed, then the lavered boulders pouring gritty runnels back again, and every basined outlet wavering toward another inlet; these, and ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... is little wonder that under such circumstances discontent arose and that people who by nature are sociable longed to go where life was, in their opinion, more agreeable. Even with all the later conveniences and improvements, the trend cityward still continues and may continue indefinitely in the future. The American people may as well face ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... detention at Gondokoro, I saw unmistakeable signs of discontent among my men, who had evidently been tampered with by the different traders' parties. One evening several of the most disaffected came to me with a complaint that they had not enough meat, and that they must be allowed ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... She was familiar with his genius, and it no longer surprised her into overlooking his frailty. His fame no longer flattered her. His gentleness was gone, and had left, not hardness nor violence, in its place, but a sort of irritable palsy of discontent. That was what she called it ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... have them written on parchment and handsomely bound, so that the getting up of a person's birth formula is a test of his social position. They commence by setting forth, That whereas A. B. was a member of the kingdom of the unborn, where he was well provided for in every way, and had no cause of discontent, &c., &c., he did of his own wanton depravity and restlessness conceive a desire to enter into this present world; that thereon having taken the necessary steps as set forth in laws of the unborn kingdom, he did with malice aforethought set himself to plague and pester two unfortunate people who ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... discussing the affair further at present. I have told you how matters stand because I promised you I would, if I saw anything of this kind going on. But in the present condition of things, we can neither make nor mar; we can only wait.' And he took up his hat to go. But the squire was discontent. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... aide-de-camp had failed to please, though he looked spruced and his manners were beautiful. The Premier of Leichardt's Land, a red-faced gentleman of blunt speech, was grumbling audibly to the Attorney-General. Mrs Gildea caught snatches of discontent as she passed from one ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... never would have so acted as to bring about the late war. It was their reliance on the ability of mere governments to settle every question in dispute, that caused them to plunge into a conflict with Prussia and Italy, when their master's empire was bankrupt, and when more or less of discontent existed in almost every part of that empire. Statesmen who knew the age, and who were aware of the change that has come over Europe in half a century, would have told the Emperor that to rely on "something turning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... progress under a three-year structural adjustment program in cooperation with the IMF. On the minus side, public sector wage increases and regional peacekeeping commitments have led to continued inflationary deficit financing, depreciation of the cedi, and rising public discontent with Ghana's austerity measures. A rebound in gold prices is likely to push ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... instance, that handsome, unprincipled houri, married to a septuagenarian poet, who would rather lock her up in a garret than see her shine at Whitehall; or Lady Castlemaine, whose husband has been uncivil enough to show discontent at a peerage that was not of his own earning; or a dozen others I could name, were not such scandals as these ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... rich, was there any thing wanting to Mr Wilkins's felicity? Yes. Alexander the Great was wretched when he had conquered the world, and was ten times happier when he was breaking-in Bucephalus; and Mr Wilkins, if the truth must be told, was very like Alexander the Great, at least in his discontent, and was never so gay as he used to be in the dingy mansion in Riches Court. The dinners he gave were formal, cold affairs, where he never felt at his ease: he could not help thinking that the neighbours quizzed and looked down on him; and, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... incurring any of the penalties entailed by infraction of the long table of prohibitions, and whether they are living up to the foreign garments they wear. Their faces have, for the most part, an expression of sullen discontent, they move about silently and joylessly, rebels in heart to the restrictive code on them, but which they fear to cast off, partly from a vague apprehension of possible secular results, and partly because they suppose they will cease to be good Christians if they do so. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... his memory, though faded so as to fail him occasionally, yet, as he assured me, and I indeed perceived, able to serve him very well, after a little recollection. It was agreeable to observe, that he was free from the discontent and fretfulness which too often molest old age. He in the summer of that year walked to Rotherhithe, where he dined, and walked home in the evening. He died on the 31st of December, 1791. BOSWELL. The version of Maphsus's ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... tyrants; the peasants had become slaves,—such slaves,—savage from despair,—even when they were most gay, most fearfully gay, from constitution. Sir, I saw the priest rack and grind, and the seigneur exact and pillage, and the tax-gatherer squeeze out the little the other oppressors had left; anger, discontent, wretchedness, famine, a terrible separation between one order of people and another; an incredible indifference to the miseries their despotism caused on the part of the aristocracy; a sullen and vindictive hatred for the perpetration of those miseries ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... when Japan proved that the great powers of Europe are not invulnerable. North and south and west it has spread, rousing China out of centuries of slumber, stirring India into ominous questioning, reviving memories of past glory in Persia, breeding discontent in Egypt, and ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... while the lower house, or assembly, was continued virtually without change. The old property restriction on the suffrage, though lowered slightly in some states, was continued in full force to the great discontent of the mechanics thus deprived of the ballot. The special qualifications, laid down in several constitutions, for governors, senators, and representatives, indicated that the revolutionary leaders were not prepared for any radical experiments in democracy. The protests ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... She writes: "I seem to shrink from my daily tasks; energy and stimulus are wanting; I have no courage. A great weariness has come over me." In all the letters of the past ten years there has not been one note of discontent or discouragement, but now she is growing tired of the treadmill. At this time the California fever was at its height, hundreds of young men were starting westward, and she writes: "Oh, if I were but a man so ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Works, and that increased my discontent. I went through moods of cold unsociability, alternating with sudden flushes of curiosity, when I gloated over stray scraps of talk overheard in railway stations and omnibuses, when strange faces that I passed in the street tantalized me with fugitive promises. I wanted to be among things that ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... their feast at his Hall the next Monday. Thence I went home and took my wife and dined at Mr. Wades, and after that we went and visited Catan. From thence home again, and my wife was very unwilling to let me go forth, but with some discontent would go out if I did, and I going forth towards Whitehall, I saw she followed me, and so I staid and took her round through Whitehall, and so carried her home angry. Thence I went to Mrs. Jem, and found her up and merry, and that it did not prove the small-pox, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... at them. So strong is the feeling that the departed still owns whatever property he once possessed, that he is thought to be jealous of his heirs who now enjoy its possession. He may not let them sleep at night, but makes them sit up by the fire and talk. To soothe his discontent, tesvino and all kinds of food are given him, because he needs the same things he needed here. In the course of the year several ceremonies are performed, by which he is actually chased off, and the survivors constantly take precautions against his ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... short, violent scene over a trivial difference just to relieve routine. The domestic low-lands stretched beyond the eye. He missed the broken country, the unexpected dips and curves of the unknown. Not that his heart went adventuring. He was faithful in body and spirit, but there was discontent in the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... highest potentiality of which it had vision; and as one did that for himself, so he did it for the person he loved. There could be no higher love than this—to treat the thing beloved as one's self, to be perpetually dissatisfied with it, to scourge it to new endeavor, to hold it in immortal discontent. ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul. By that good lady the Houris are said to be ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... who would level all things, and confound right with wrong, to insist upon the inconveniences which are attached to every choice, without taking into consideration the different weight and consequence of those inconveniences. The question is not concerning ABSOLUTE discontent or PERFECT satisfaction in government; neither of which can be pure and unmixed at any time, or upon any system. The controversy is about that degree of good humour in the people, which may possibly ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... stern measures were necessary. In almost every county of three Provinces conspirators were at work, trying to bring down on their country a foreign invasion, and stirring up the people to rebellion and crime by appealing to their agrarian grievances and cupidity, their religious passion, and the discontent produced by great poverty. For a second time it appeared that Wolfe Tone would succeed in obtaining aid from abroad—this time from Spain and Holland; and the rebel party in Ireland were now so well organized, and Jacobin feeling ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... The occasion of discontent was the security of property assured to the inhabitants, "by which means," says that dull chronicler, Niles, "the poor soldiers lost all their hopes and just demerit [desert] of plunder promised them." In the meagreness ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... at last by their own incapacity and sink into peerages. Now and again a man cannot bear the bondage of office, and flies into rebellion and independence which would have been more respectable had it not been the result of discontent. Then the gaps must be filled. Whether on this side or on that, the candidates are first looked for among the sons of Earls and Dukes,—and not unnaturally, as the sons of Earls and Dukes may be educated for such work almost from their infancy. A few rise by the slow process of acknowledged fitness,—men ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... lest the shop should suffer by this change of my behaviour; and, therefore, after some expostulations, posted me in the warehouse, and preserved me from the danger and reproach of desertion, to which my discontent would certainly have urged me, had I continued ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... restlessness and discontent which had been mastering the Mount Desolation pack for weeks now received an immense addition, so far as Finn and Warrigal were concerned, in the events which led them to forsake their den on the first spur. It culminated, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... stairs to a little basement front room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl of about nineteen, with an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and petulant expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which in her sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playing draughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest of the House of Wilfer. Not to encumber this page by telling off the Wilfers in detail and casting them up in the gross, it is enough for the present that the rest were what is called 'out in ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... not been solitary, for Daniel Otway, failing to meet his brother, lingered a couple of hours in the drawing-room. As she sat dreaming under the soft light, her face relieved for the moment of its weariness and discontent, had a beauty more ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... of War's frauds, the death of the head Mullah, the reported secret attempts to poison the Shah, the prospects of a drought, the reported murder of two Russians at Resht, and other minor sources of discontent, all coming together, gave rise to fears on the part of Europeans that a revolution might take place in Teheran. But such rumours are so very frequent in all Eastern countries that generally no ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... not lover-like talk; yet what talk, in its very impartiality, could from a lover be more gratifying? Althea again glanced at Helen, but Helen again seemed to slumber. Her face in repose had a look of discontent and sorrow, and Franklin's eyes, following her own, no doubt recognised what she did. He observed Helen for some moments before returning to the theme ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... of discontent were, therefore, already planted in the camp of the mutineers of the Cowrie at the north edge of Jungle Island. But Kai Shang realized that he must act with circumspection, for Gust alone of the motley horde possessed ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... contingencies of trade, or by divisions of profits with his master, he should be enticed into feverish hope of an entire change of condition; and as an almost necessary consequence, pass his days in an anxious discontent with immediate circumstances, and a comfortless scorn of his daily life, for which no subsequent success could indemnify him. And I am the more confident in this belief, because, even supposing a gradual rise in social rank possible for all well-conducted persons, my experience does not ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... than a third of the states popular discontent with the state legislature, together with the growing self- confidence of the voters, has led to the adoption of the Initiative. The Initiative is a device whereby any person or group of persons may draft a statute, and, on securing the signatures of a certain percentage of the voters, compel the ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... civilise that portion of THE EARTH; but is the SAVAGE civilised? He is exterminated! You accumulate machinery,—you increase the total of wealth; but what becomes of the labour you displace? One generation is sacrificed to the next. You diffuse knowledge,—and the world seems to grow brighter; but Discontent at Poverty replaces Ignorance, happy with its crust. Every improvement, every advancement in civilisation, injures some, to benefit others, and either cherishes the want of to-day, or prepares the revolution of to-morrow."—Stephen Montague.); ever, with its Cabala and its number, lives on to change, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a shrewd observer of the weakness of the Government, and of the popular discontent. He perceived the opportunity of making the Manchu dynasty the scapegoat of national weakness and apathy. He could not be the servant of the Government. Class contempt, the prejudices of his examiners, or it ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... following day the daily reports of the generals of division came in. They spoke of nothing but the insufficiency of the rations, the complaints of the soldiers—of their murmurs and discontent at seeing their bread given to enemies who had been withdrawn from their vengeance, inasmuch as a decree of death; in conformity with the laws of war, had been passed on Jaffa. All these reports were alarming, and especially that of General Bon, in which no reserve was made. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... you're back from up the country, Mister Townsman, where you went, And you're cursing all the business in a bitter discontent; Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear That it wasn't cool and shady — and there wasn't plenty beer, And the loony bullock snorted when you first came into view; Well, you ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... look at you to-day my heart is as glad as that of a lover who sees his sweetheart after a long separation. I should like to know what miracle has happened since yesterday, and what magician has arrived to dispel your discontent. I should be exceedingly grateful to your majesty if you would show him ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... rout of Gonzalo de Cordova's Spanish tatterdemalions, and of the capture of Montmorency, who was sorely wounded—some said with twenty and some with thirty wounds—and little like to live. Sorrow and discontent stalked abroad in Languedoc that day, for they believed that it was against the Cardinal, who sought to strip them of so many privileges, that Gaston d'Orleans ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... clerical flights into the bosom of family life with some natural discontent. Her brother Samuel she had always disliked because he laughed at her; her sister she did not care for because she was very innocently, poor lady, flaunting her superior married state; and her brother-in-law she did not like because he always behaved as though she were one of a vast public of ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... Alaric's discontent with his salary and the terms of his commission, his raiding marches, his plunder of the capital, shows how vastly different was the beginning of the fifth century from the society of three hundred years before. It is symptomatic of the change, ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... wife no more. I should grow avaricious in my old age, were I to remain with you. I should long for money to call my own. Those doled out shillings which I received wakened within me feelings of a dark nature—covetousness, and envy, and discontent—which must have shadowed the happiness of your mother in heaven to look down upon. I must go and seek out an independent living for myself, even yet, though I am fifty-two. Though my energies for struggling with the world died, I thought, when your mother died, and, leaving my active business ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... question of false stewards at Novy Afon. It is a place where a Luther might serve and feel no discontent, a place of new life. It looks into the future with eyes that see visions, and stretches forward to that future with hands that are creative; an institution with no past but only a present and an idea, not acting ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... little doubt that they show deep depression in the mind of James to whom they came. He woke out of his sleep in great excitement and terror, and told his attendants what he had dreamed, who were very "discontent of his visioun, thinking that they would hear hastily tidings ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... groups; they whisper together, as if fraught with some secret purposes; and I am also told that they frequently hold nightly meetings to deliberate on what may be done. Between the M'Clutchys and M'Slimes, I must say they have ample cause for discontent." ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... against a state of things which the experience of their authors taught them to condemn, and from the faults of which they took refuge in the opposite extremes. They remained without influence, and have never passed from literary into political history, because something more than discontent and speculative ingenuity is needed in order to invest a political idea with power over the masses of mankind. The scheme of a philosopher can command the practical allegiance of fanatics only, not of nations; and though oppression may give ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... delightful revelations of confidences. It is still only by inference that we can assign the loss of his office, to the business of which we have many references, to any especial cause. It may have been surrendered by him because he longed for more home-life, or because the growing spirit of discontent and apprehension as to the state of public affairs, which he shared with so many of his friends, made him obnoxious to the controlling heads ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... who had been lying fast asleep below deck in the cutter, were considerably astonished and certainly far from pleased at the idea of the nocturnal passage. But a few words from the skipper in a language unintelligible to Edith speedily removed their discontent. They now readily set to work to set sail and weigh anchor. The skipper's powerful hands grasped the helm; the small, strongly-built vessel tacked a little and then, heeling over, shot out ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... if he was not a fool he never would suffer his best subjects to be imprisoned—referring to Buckingham. And not only did she ask his liberty, but the restitution of his places. No wonder there was discontent when such things were done, and public affairs were in such a state. We must again quote the graphic, terse language of Pepys:—'It was computed that the Parliament had given the king for this war only, besides all prizes, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... man far more happily employed than in the composition of political pamphlets, or in the nurture of political discontent. Nay, when his friend Mr. Carlyle is about going out with Lord Elgin to Constantinople, the very headquarters of despotism, we do not perceive, amongst the multitude of most characteristic hints and queries which Paley addresses to him, a single fling at the Turk, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... the Italian asked me, in that tone of discontent which seemed habitual to her, "Do you know at what time we shall ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... engaged to me you have forgotten how to laugh and have aged five years. Your father, to whom life was always simple and clear, thanks to me, is now unable to understand anybody. Wherever I go, whether hunting or visiting, it makes no difference, I carry depression, dulness, and discontent along with me. Wait! Don't interrupt me! I am bitter and harsh, I know, but I am stifled with rage. I cannot speak otherwise. I have never lied, and I never used to find fault with my lot, but since ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... gallant and dashing officer, was popular with them. "Fool Tom Jackson" was not. They complained, and they very honestly thought that they had upon their side justice, common sense, and common humanity—to say nothing of military insight! The bitter night was bitterer to them for their discontent. Many were from eastern Virginia or from the states to the south, not yet inured to the winter heights and Stonewall Jackson's way. They slept on frozen ground, surrounded by grim mountains, and they dreamed uneasily of the milder lowlands, of the yet green tangles of bay and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... day subordination, though it did not entirely cease, rapidly declined; all was discontent, murmuring, and fear. Our water was greatly diminished, and that terrible death by thirst began to stare us in the face, owing, in a great measure, to our own imprudence. Ismael, who had been left sentinel over the skins of water, had slept so soundly, that a Turcorory had opened ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... described as a period of high prices, low wages, and of unparalleled suffering. The war dragged on, and to make matters worse, the century closed with a most disastrous run of bad seasons. Prices continued to rise to an alarming height, and with it popular discontent increased so much that George III. was mobbed, hooted, and pelted on his way to the House of Lords! The Bank of England stopped payment in 1797, and among country banks which did the same was Wisher's Bank at Cambridge. ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... granting their request, he consulted their ease only, and was himself by no means convinced of its propriety. They were accordingly reinstated in their former chambers, and the great room only of madame's apartments was reserved for the marchioness, who expressed her discontent to the marquis in terms of mingled censure and lamentation. The marquis privately reproved his daughters, for what he termed the idle fancies of a weak mind; and desired them no more to disturb the peace of the castle with the subject of their late fears. They received this reproof ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... the Volume on Clothes, read and again read, was in several points becoming lucid and lucent; the personality of its Author more and more surprising, but, in spite of all that memory and conjecture could do, more and more enigmatic; whereby the old disquietude seemed fast settling into fixed discontent,—when altogether unexpectedly arrives a Letter from Herr Hofrath Heuschrecke, our Professor's chief friend and associate in Weissnichtwo, with whom we had not previously corresponded. The Hofrath, after much quite ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... to Your R.H. there is, most undoubtedly such a spirit of revenge still subsisting amongst the Clans who suffer'd, and such a general discontent amongst the others who have been scandalously slighted by the Government, that if made a right use of, before it extinguishes, must unavoidably produce great and ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... will have been spent in corrupting public taste and encouraging public extravagance. Every preference you have won by gaudiness must have been based on the purchaser's vanity; every demand you have created by novelty has fostered in the consumer a habit of discontent; and when you retire into inactive life, you may, as a subject of consolation for your declining years, reflect that precisely according to the extent of your past operations, your life has been successful in retarding ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... to this, 'Tis my delight, my crown, my bliss. All my joys to this are folly, Naught so sweet as melancholy. 'Tis my sole plague to be alone, I am a beast, a monster grown, I will no light nor company, I find it now my misery. The scene is turn'd, my joys are gone, Fear, discontent, and sorrows come. All my griefs to this are jolly, Naught so fierce as melancholy. I'll not change life with any king, I ravisht am: can the world bring More joy, than still to laugh and smile, In pleasant toys time to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... we give makes the boys a little less clownish in their manners, and more intelligent when spoken to by strangers. On the other hand, it has made them less contented with their lot in life, and less willing to work with their hands. The form which discontent takes in this country is not of a healthy kind; for, the Natives of India consider that the only occupation worthy of an educated man is that of a writership in some office, and especially in a Government office. The village schoolboy goes back to the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ample warning of what he had to expect, and abundant opportunity to make the fullest preparations for defence. During the years B.C. 338 and 337, while Philip was still alive, he did do something towards organising defensive measures, collected troops and ships, and tried to foment discontent and encourage anti-Macedonian movements in Greece.[14351] But the death of Philip by the dagger of Pausanias caused him most imprudently to relax his efforts, to consider the danger past, and to suspend the operations, which he had commenced, until he should see whether Alexander had either ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... until the war should be at an end. Although it was very much distrusted by all, and therefore was not consented to, yet he introduced it by force. The brewers who would not agree to it had their beer given over to the soldiers. So it was enforced, but it caused great strife and discontent. ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... he rested from rowing. And the mandolin told them all, what the words of none could say, that they fared to adventure in the land of Romance, to the overthrow of dullness and the sameness of all drear schemes and the conquest of discontent in the spirit of man; and perhaps it sang of a time that has not yet come, or ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... turned my attention to the relaxed crew, portions of whom refused wine, and began to sulk about the decks. As yet only two had been slightly scratched by spent musket balls; but so much discontent began to appear among the passenger-sailors of the wrecked slaver, that my own hands could with difficulty restrain them from revolt. I felt much difficulty in determining how to act, but I had no time for deliberation. Violence was clearly not my role, but ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... always known her mother to be both selfish and mercenary. More than this, her little visit in Sausalito had altered her whole viewpoint. Ignorant of life as she was, and bewildered by the revelations of that visit, she was still intelligent enough to feel an acute discontent with her old world, an agonizing longing for that better and cleaner and higher existence. How to grasp at anything different from life as it was lived in her mother's home—in her grandmother's, in Mrs. Tarbury's—Julia had not the most remote idea. Until a few months ago she had ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... opinions about all forms and means and ends of Socialism will smile if he be kindly and sneer if he be not. But most of these people are in earnest. If they represent nothing else, and however they disagree and quarrel, they do represent an enormous amount of real discontent. "I protest" is often in their mouths; as the president yells "Monsieur, vous n'avez pas la parole" they stand in the benches and protest again in acute screams. It is under extraordinary difficulties ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... toil I found myself at thirty-five lonely, friendless, and imprisoned in a groove of iron, whose long curves swept on inevitably to that grim terminus where all men arrive at last. Sometimes I chided myself for my discontent; and certainly there were many who might have envied me. I occupied a fairly comfortable house in a decayed terrace where each house was exactly like its neighbour, and had I told any one that the mere aspect of this grey terrace oppressed me ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... to some ruling passion beyond our reach. Comfort, health, calmness, and content, are sacrificed to grasp at something more. Our cheeks grow pale, our brows wrinkled, our hearts clouded, from a settled, taught, established habit of discontent with any position that is not the highest. There is much of truth in all this, as every one who treads our crowded marts and finds each man, however prosperous, cankered with the thought that he is not prosperous enough, will admit. All this constitutes American energy; all this renders our ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Irishman from his native bogs as a house-servant. If she employs the accomplished and well-recommended foreign servant, he is too apt to disarrange her establishment by disparaging the scale on which it is conducted, and to engender a spirit of discontent in her household. Servants of a very high class, who can assume the entire management of affairs, are only possible to people of great wealth, and they become tyrants, and wholly detestable to the master and mistress after a short slavery. One New York butler lately refused to ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... course, than to join the parties together according to their desires and wishes, the custom and form of law; and so we have seen him quickly restored to his former health, that was languished away to skin and bones; after his desire was satisfied, his discontent ceased, and we thought it strange; our opinion is therefore that in such cases nature is to be obeyed." Areteus, an old author, lib. 3. cap. 3. hath an instance of a young man, [5834]when no other means could prevail, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... as he wandered to and fro, Nothing could please him, high or low. As Savages at Ships of War He looked unawed on Temple-Bar; Scarce could conceal his Discontent With Fish-Street and the Monument; And might (except at Feeding-Hour) Have scorned the Lion in the Tower, But that the Lion's Race was run, And—for the ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... cannot be happy unless we love. I did not love; but I was devoured by a restless wish to be something to others. I became the victim of ingratitude and cold coquetry—then I desponded, and imagined that my discontent gave me a right to hate the world. I receded to solitude; I had recourse to my books, and my desire again to enjoy the society of Adrian became a ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... prepossessions by no means unfavorable, and indeed rather indulged in many of those illusive ideas, with respect to the purity of the government and the primitive happiness of the people, which I had early imbibed In my native country, where, unfortunately, discontent at home enhances every distant temptation, and the western world has long been looked to as a retreat from real or imaginary oppression; as, in short, the elysian Atlantis, where persecuted patriots might find ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... been an unwonted reserve between the girls since Charlotte's return,—a reserve which arose, on Miss Halliday's part, from the contest between girlish shyness and the eager desire for a confidante; and on the part of Miss Paget, from that gloomy discontent which had ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... aloft!" said the captain, with just a shade of discontent in his cheery voice, as he took in with a quick, sailor-like glance the position of the ship and every detail of the swelling pyramids of canvas that towered up on each mast from deck to sky—the yards braced round sharp, almost fore and ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... two languages of the country were issued and sold in all the public-houses. Congregations were gathered in all the cities, and even small towns, and everywhere the authorities could see that no spirit of discontent with anything but sin and evil habits was being created, but that the police would find their tasks lightened, and the life of the poorest of the people brightened and bettered, if they let ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... mile and a half. On a fine afternoon in the season the display on these roads is grand. In Hyde Park are held the great military reviews and the mass-meetings of the populace, who occasionally display their discontent by battering down the railings. At Hyde Park Corner is a fine entrance-gate, with the Green Park Gate opposite, surmounted by the Wellington bronze equestrian statue. The most magnificent decoration of Hyde Park is the Albert Memorial, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... and Conquests of Cyrus. While the Babylonian empire was sinking into decay, the Median kingdom on the north and east experienced a sweeping revolution. Its cause was the discontent of the older Median population under the rule of the more barbarous Umman-Manda. These later Scythian conquerors had, under their king Cyaxares, broken the power of Assyria and fallen heir to its eastern territory. The older elements found a leader in Cyrus, the king of Anshan, a little ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... who were there thought it not fit To discontent so ancient a wit, And therefore Apollo called him back again, And made him mine host of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... one on a question of discipline and one with regard to a French Class that he caused to be held during School hours in his own house, by a man of his own choice. On both occasions the immediate cause of disagreement was but the final spark of a smouldering and mutual discontent, and it is impossible to ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... conditions of their health, to encounter much "roughing," and a certain amount of that was assuredly inevitable—a good deal more five-and-twenty years ago than would be the case now. But if the flesh was weak, truly the spirit was willing! I have heard grumbling and discontent from the young of either sex in the heyday of health and strength in going over the same ground. But for my companions on the present occasion, let the difficulties and discomforts be what they might, the continually varied and continually suggestive interest ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... strongly to his erratic ambition. His term of banishment had expired, and he hastened to the Saskatchewan to organize the Metis. Still the Government did not stir, though it knew the reckless daring of Riel and the influence he wielded. Riel at once set to work to fan the discontent into flame. Though the English-speaking half-breeds drew back, he soon gained remarkable ascendancy over his French-speaking compatriots. He preached a new religion, with himself as prophet, threatened to dethrone the ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... No! it never was my meaning; but to stay you before you fell into the ditch." But it was impossible for her to explain the real reasons for her course, and the dissolution of the Parliament in January 1567 left her face to face with a national discontent added to the ever-deepening peril from without. To the danger from the north and from the east was added a danger from the west. The north of Ireland was in full revolt. From the moment of her accession Elizabeth had realized the ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... is that labour in Ireland has not yet succeeded in organising anything—not even discontent. It is not self-conscious to any extent, and, outside of Dublin, it scarcely appears to exist. The national imagination is not free to deal with any other subject than that of freedom, and part of the policy of our "masters" is to see that we be kept busy with ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... that he was pretty old, and had no children, though he had so many wives. He knew not what to attribute this barrenness to; and what increased his affliction was, that he was likely to leave his kingdom without a successor. He dissembled his discontent a long while; and, what was yet more uneasy to him, he was constrained to dissemble. At length, however, he broke silence; and one day, after he had complained bitterly of his misfortune to his grand vizier, he demanded of him if he knew any ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... better part; for I had now for some time wished it were possible in my state to go about begging, for the love of God—to have no house of my own, nor anything else. But I was afraid that others—if our Lord did not give them the same desire—might live in discontent. Moreover, I feared that it might be the cause of some distraction: for I knew some poor monasteries not very recollected, and I did not consider that their not being recollected was the cause of their poverty, and that their poverty was not the cause of their distraction: ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... if she noticed the estrangement at all, she did not allow it to occasion her any anxiety. Jealousy and discontent are more self-absorbing passions than love, and they closed her eyes to whatever they did not involve. Yet the effect of the estrangement was more hurtful upon her than upon Sophie; for never had her pure-minded sister's influence ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... when his stricken heart indulged itself in such outpourings. Breiteberg arose at a short distance before him, with the few acres of land that still belonged to him lying waste for want of hands. Klaus threw a look of sullen discontent towards the land, and lo—he beheld there the figure of the Dwarf gliding along, and surrounded by countless sparkling lights. The lad stood still, and stared with astonishment at the apparition. Dissevered tones, as of a violin, floated in the disturbed air; and when the phantom lifted his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... business, and was made Secretary of War in 1754, when Charles James, whose cleverness made him a favoured child, was five years old. In the next year Henry Fox was Secretary of State for the Southern Department. The outbreak of the Seven Years' War bred discontent and change of Ministry. The elder Fox had then to give place to the elder Pitt. But Henry Fox was compensated by the office of Paymaster of the Forces, from which he knew even better than his father ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... into the neighbourhood of Oyster-le-Main, where much confusion reigned among the good monks. Sir Godfrey Disseisin over at Wantley had let Richard Lion Heart depart for the Holy Wars without him. "Like father like son," the people muttered in their discontent. "Sure, the Church will gravely punish this second offence." To all these whisperings of rumour the Grand Marshal of the Guild paid fast attention; for he was a man who laid his plans deeply, and much in advance of the event. He saw the country was fat and the ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... not the earl's intention then 'Twixt Olaf and the udalmen Peace to establish, and the land Upright to hold with Northman's hand; But ever with deceit and lies Eirik's descendant, Hakon, tries To make ill-will and discontent, Till all the udalmen are bent Against ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... all British. The same Britons who at the Club scowl at a suspicion of draught, and luxuriate in an asphyxiating atmosphere, band against "the foreigners" in this respect. We have a national reputation to keep up. We are the nation of soap, of fresh air, of condescending discontent; and when we are on the Continent every one else, including the native, is "a foreigner;" we carry our nationality about with us like a camp-stool; we squat on it; we are jealous of it; it is a case of "Regardez, mais ne ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... seated sideways before the long strip of mirror between her two windows she turned to look at herself, leaning her elbow on the back of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her portrait. It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one's own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care; but Gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. She had a naive delight in her fortunate self, which any but the harshest saintliness will have some indulgence for in a girl who ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot |
