"Empty words" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forget me, though I am the last left," he said to himself. "His blessings are not mere empty words. 'Glory to God in the highest!'" And ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... human being was ever placed in a situation so pitiable as mine. Every atom of my frame seemed to have a several existence, and to crawl within me. I had but too much reason to believe that Mr. Falkland's threats were not empty words. I knew his ability; I felt his ascendancy. If I encountered him, what chance had I of victory? If I were defeated, what was the penalty I had to suffer? Well then, the rest of my life must be devoted to slavish subjection. Miserable sentence! And, if it were, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... did not stop to analyze his motives. So far as he could discover he had felt the call to higher endeavor, and just naturally had heeded it. Such things as practical experience and educational equipment were but empty words to him, for he was young and hopeful, and the world is ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... to rear up children (to be just); They know a simple, merry, tender knack Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, And stringing pretty words that make no sense, And kissing full sense into empty words; Which things are corals to cut life upon, Although ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... by Mithras, the man who can cherish and foster a little tree so carefully will do greater things than these. What a splendid fruit! Surely it's like was never seen before. I thank you again, Oropastes, and as the thanks of a king must never consist of empty words alone, I name you at once vicegerent of my entire kingdom, in case of war. For we shall not dream away our time much longer in this idle rest, my friends. A Persian gets low-spirited ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mused, as he noticed this brilliant and singular decoration, "an emblem of the fraternity, I suppose, meaning ... what? Salvation and Immortality? Alas, they are poor, witless builders on shifting sand if they place any hope or reliance on those two empty words, signifying nothing! Do they, can they honestly believe in God, I wonder? or are they only acting the usual worn-out comedy ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... her Peers and Barons and Churchmen as walked in that procession. There, was the huge Northumberland, fresh from Pontefract—where but a week aback he had sent Rivers and his friends to the headsman—now bearing Mercy's pointless sword; Stanley (his peace made by empty words) with the Mace; Suffolk with the Sceptre; Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the Realm, with the Crown; and Richard himself, in purple gown and crimson surcoat; the Bishop of Durham on his right and the Bishop of Bath on his left; and behind him, bearing his train, the Duke ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... in this way, because Feuerbach could not find his way out of the abstraction, which he hated with a deadly hatred, to living reality. He clutches hard at Nature and Humanity, but "Nature" and "Humanity" remain empty words with him. He does not know how to tell us anything positive about real nature and real men. We can only reach living men from the abstract men of Feuerbach if we regard them as active historical agents. Feuerbach strove against that, hence the year 1848, which, he did not understand, ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... doctrine of the Church of Rome, that the priest, by a secret direction of his intention, can invalidate any sacrament. This position is derived from a strict and regular prosecution of the obvious truth, that empty words alone, without any meaning or intention in the speaker, can never be attended with any effect. If the same conclusion be not admitted in reasonings concerning civil contracts, where the affair is allowed to be of so much less consequence than the eternal salvation of thousands, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... guns, and the blare of the bugles—these things cannot inspire us with admiration for collective murder and for the monstrous enslavement of the peoples.... Young men lying to-day in your graves, they strew flowers on your tombs and proclaim you immortal. What to you are empty words? They will pass even more quickly than you have passed! It is true that, in any case, within a few years you would have ceased to be. But these few years of life would have been your ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... you think it was very idiotical on my part, thus to bewail my grief to another person; and allow a few empty words to change the current ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... mere tickling of their ears. Some, however, even come with tablets in their hands, to catch up not things but words. Some with eager countenances and spirits are kindled by magnificent utterances, and these are charmed by the beauty of the thoughts, not by the sound of empty words; but the impression is not lasting. Few only have attained the power of carrying home with them the frame of mind into which they had ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... male relative in the shipping business, "spilling the beans," as Cappy expressed it, the old man had taken a house in the country, and came to the office only twice a week to mourn for his lost Matthew and glean what little comfort he could from the empty words of hope Mr. Skinner ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... refutation of the theory which couples rhetorical excellence with intellectual emptiness, but also because he was a man whose glowing hatred of all injustice and sympathy for all suffering never evaporated in empty words. His fine literary perception enabled him to detect the genuine excellence which underlay the superficial triviality of Crabbe's verses. He discovered the genius where men like North and Shelburne might excusably see nothing but the mendicant versifier; and a benevolence ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... king to embrace his proposed undertaking. Among these was Lewis de Santangel an Arragonese gentleman, who was clerk of the allowances in the royal household, a man of great prudence and reputation. But, as a matter of such importance required to be learnedly investigated, and not merely by empty words and the favourable reports of courtiers, their majesties referred it to the consideration of the prior of Prado, afterwards archbishop of Granada; ordering him to take the assistance of some cosmographers, and after a full investigation ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... turned away; his heart was too sick for empty words, and the heavy-hearted young man, who slowly walked down the graveled path away from Whitestone Hall in the moonlight, was as little like the gay, handsome Rex of one short week ago ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... cross-examination of her; and it had seemed so plausible and so convincing that the doctor's pride in it was plain on his optimistic face as he gave the command: "Absolute repose." But to Hilda the reasoning and the resultant phrase, 'nervous breakdown,' had meant nothing at all. Words! Empty words! She knew, profoundly and fatally, the evil principle which had conquered her so completely that she had no power left with which to fight it. This evil principle was Sin; it was not the force of sins, however multifarious; it ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... wisdom is a great obstacle to the true management of business? What would become of them, think you, were they to fight it out at blows that are so dead through fear when the contest is only with empty words? ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... do not let us be discouraged or deceived by any fine, vapid, empty words. The true material age is the stupid Chinese age, in which no new or grand revelations of nature are granted, because they are ignorantly and insolently repelled, instead of being diligently and humbly sought. The difference between the ancient fiction of the mad braggart ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... damned world. It talks all day and does nothing all night. The ragged Italian in front of the fresco in his village church or at the back of the gallery at the opera of his town knows more essentials of painting and music than any of us. It's a hollow sham of a world filled with empty words. I love it." ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... impossible if you are but willing! How can you say it is impossible? It is impossible for you to leave me without killing me. These are no empty words, I do not mean it as a threat; it is the simple truth! I am as certain of it as I can feel my own heart in here: not to have you means death to me. Therefore take me along. If not for my sake, do it for human mercy's sake! Let it ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... doubt not there is, as there always was, a plentiful stock. Glad to see you both in good health and tip-top spirits. I have only come to pass a fortnight with you; and as I intend to make the utmost use of every minute of the time, don't let us waste in empty words what would be better employed ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... light, That I no more, with aching brow, Need speak of what I nothing know; That I the force may recognize That binds creation's inmost energies; Her vital powers, her embryo seeds survey, And fling the trade in empty words away. O full-orb'd moon, did but thy rays Their last upon mine anguish gaze! Beside this desk, at dead of night, Oft have I watched to hail thy light: Then, pensive friend! o'er book and scroll, With soothing power, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... contemptuously, and shook her head. "Do you call that love? these empty words, this everlasting, unmeaning praise; this rapture about my beauty, my grace, and my skill, is this worship? Go, go, Marietta, you know it is not love, it is not worship. They amuse themselves with a rare and foreign flower, which is only beautiful because it has been ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Eugene, "are honor and shame but empty words? Is this, indeed, the Marchioness de Montespan, whose entrance is greeted like that of a sovereign, while the Countess de Soissons wanders in foreign lands, a fugitive from justice? Justice?—No! ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... the clear sky, grown less hard than it had been for weeks, and sparkling with stars. But before another sunset it seemed to me that beauty had fled out of the world, and that goodness, innocence, mercy, gentleness, were a mere mockery of empty words. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Weymouth translates it, "The heartfelt supplication of a righteous man exerts a mighty influence." Prayer may be empty words, with no more power than those empty shells which have been foisted upon the Turks in their war with the Balkan States. Firing empty shells! That is what many professed prayers really are; they have nothing in them, and they accomplish ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... Why not content him? Whatever pledges she gave would die with him. What did it matter? It was cruelty to deny him the words—the mere empty words—he asked ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... citizen of Rome he would advise them to adopt a humbler frame of mind, and come to him in three days with a ratification of his proposals. If they should come to any other determination, he warned them that it would not be safe for them to come to his camp again with empty words. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... in Paris, Mesmer tried again to get into communication with the Academy of Sciences. This society even acceded to a rendezvous. But, instead of the empty words that were offered them, the academicians required experiments. Mesmer stated—I quote his words—that it was child's play; and the conference ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... know it is in vain,' she cried, when she had made her way to the foot of the throne. 'Five times I have appeared to demand my rights, and no longer will I be put off with empty words. No king are you, who are swayed this way and that by every man that passes, and dare not even avenge your friends, for fear of ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... make your guests feel at home; and do this, not by urging them in empty words to do so, but by making their stay as pleasant as possible, at the same time being careful to put out of sight any trifling trouble or ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young |
