"Indifferent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... real budget it has got to be your budget. It will be good, bad or indifferent finally just in proportion to your interest in it and your expression of that interest at the polls and elsewhere. If there is a good budget system—not on paper, but in actual practice—you've got to make it. If, when a ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... be doubted; for precious pearl will hardly be bought without precious stones, and I think there's scarce one indifferent one to be found betwixt you three: yet since there is some hope ye may prove honest, as by the death of your fathers you are proved rich, walk severally; for I, knowing you all three to be covetous tug-muttons, will not trust you with the sight of each other's ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... he marrying her for?" was Maurice's next question, put with an utter disregard of all possibilities of sentiment in the matter—the man whom Lucia might have loved could not but be indifferent to ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... "compared with the average of British translations, they may be pronounced of almost ideal excellence; compared with the best translations extant, for example, the German Shakespeare, Homer, Calderon, they may still be called better than indifferent. One great merit Mr. Taylor has: rigorous adherence to his original; he endeavours at least to copy with all possible fidelity the term of praise, the tone, the very metre, whatever ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... importance to receive notice of the event that concerned her so vitally. Others would prepare her, as one might fatten a lamb for slaughter. The lamb need not be consulted or even informed; the day of its fate would be sufficient for it. I was in despair. Max, in his ignorance, was indifferent. ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... to appear, well knowing that they would be far from acceptable to Madam. And since Mrs Dorothy was sometimes constrained unwillingly to differ from Madam on points which she deemed essential, she was careful not to vex her on subjects which she considered indifferent. ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... continually reproached him with imitating, not only the headdress, but the asceticism of the monks. From this cause, a coldness arose between them. The lady proving at last unfaithful to her shaven and indifferent lord, they were divorced, and the Kings of France lost the rich provinces of Guienne and Poitou, which were her dowry. She soon after bestowed her hand and her possessions upon Henry Duke of Normandy, afterwards Henry II of England, and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Anglo-Norman annals, perhaps the smallest number derive their origin from Normandy. Discernment in the choice of talent, and munificence in rewarding ability, may be truly ascribed to Rollo's successors; open-handed, open-hearted, not indifferent to birth or lineage, but never allowing station or origin, nation or language, to obstruct the elevation of those whose talent, learning, knowledge, or aptitude gave them their patent of nobility."[G] The Normans won their fame, as the Romans their empire, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... hired mules to ride to the city of Laguna,[73] so called from an adjoining lake, about four miles from Santa Cruz. We arrived there between five and six in the evening; but found a sight of it very unable to compensate for our trouble, as the road was very bad, and the mules but indifferent. The place is, indeed, pretty extensive, but scarcely deserves to be dignified with the name of city. The disposition of its streets is very irregular; yet some of them are of a tolerable breadth, and have some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... I am not indifferent at any time to good wine and good cheer, nor was it for lack of pressing that I drank as sparingly as I was able, and pretended to a greater elation than I felt. Nor certainly was it from any fine scruples as to the character of the gentleman whose hospitality we were receiving—scruples ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... at each other, and Enoch went on, "Of course, I've been feeling rather proud of the opportunity to display myself before Washington with you. I've been called indifferent to women. I'm hoping now that the gossips will say, 'Aha! Huntingdon's a deep one! No wonder he's been indifferent to the ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... to his mother's religion? Did he look on Gentiles as his legitimate prey? Had he turned Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Mahometan, Brahmin, or what not? I never knew anything whatsoever about his religious opinions, and so far as I could see, he was indifferent rather ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... practice of it? In the same way it does not at all follow, even if it were difficult to find out at what age Baptism should be administered, that therefore one time is as good as another. Difficulty is the very attendant upon great blessings, not on things indifferent. ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... people of the little town, who would have torn them to pieces had not their captors marched them to the prison occupied by the galley-slaves when on shore, and left them there. Most of the galley-slaves were far too exhausted by their long row, and too indifferent to aught but their own sufferings, to pay any attention to the new-comers. Two or three, however, came up to them and offered to assist in bandaging their wounds. Their doublets had already been taken by their captors; but they now tore strips off their shirts, and with these staunched ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... in things industrial they did not permit the white people to outstrip them much in education. The freedmen so earnestly seized their opportunity to acquire knowledge and accomplished so much in a short period that their educational progress served to disabuse the minds of indifferent whites of the idea that the blacks were not capable of high mental development.[1] The educational work of these centers, too, tended not only to produce men capable of ministering to the needs of their environment, but to serve as a training center for those who would later be ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... Learn to be indifferent to surroundings. You need not catch the "spirit of the age" unless the "spirit of the age" is worth catching. When you contemplate Marquis de Condorcet, in the dark days of the French Revolution, hiding in a lonely room in the city of Paris, while its streets ran red with ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... part of the deck was crowded with Zouaves and French soldiers of various denominations, with whom Nero soon made himself perfectly at home, though the exclamation of a Zouave on his first appearance seemed to forbode but an indifferent reception for the four-footed intruder. "Cre nom d'un chien" cried the shaven, fez-capped warrior, "mais je ne t'aimerais pas pour mon camarade ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... garden. He has no sympathy for the stars: they are too mystical and remote. But the flowers as they blush and smile beneath his eye may stir the often deeply hidden lovingness and gentleness of his nature. They have a social and domestic aspect to which no one with a human heart can be quite indifferent. Few can doat upon the distant flowers of the sky as many of us doat upon the flowers at our feet. The stars are wholly independent of man: not so the sweet children of Flora. We tend upon and cherish them with a parental pride. They seem especially meant ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... like us, always surrounded by so many indifferent people, how pleasant is solitude! How sweet to be left alone to commune with one's thoughts when one has had to bear with so much trifling conversation. Leave me alone to walk ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... Colonial Governors; and in Scotland, neither by the Church nor by anyone else. At that time the whole work of foreign missions was regarded as the duty, not of the Churches, but of "Kings, Princes, and States." In England, Anglicans, Independents and Baptists were all more or less indifferent. In Scotland the subject was never mentioned; and even sixty years later a resolution to inquire into the matter was rejected by the General Assembly {1796.}. In Germany the Lutherans were either indifferent or hostile. In Denmark and Holland the whole subject was treated with contempt. ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... republican form of government. We need forever to remember that representative government does represent. A careless, indifferent representative is the result of a careless, indifferent electorate. The people who start to elect a man to get what he can for his district will probably find they have elected a man who will get what he can for himself. A body will keep on its course ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... abdicated in favor of the priest, not indeed without possibility of return, for when a man has once reigned, I would say, thought, in liberty—what other kingdom is there on this earth?—he makes but an indifferent slave; in vain he tries to submit; in spite of himself it happens at times that he lifts his head proudly, he rattles his chains, he remembers the struggles, sadness, anguish of the days of liberty, and weeps their loss. Among the sons of St. Francis many were destined to weep their lost liberty, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... descent without a sinking of the heart. For three days more he made his camp by the lake, recovering strength and nerve before resuming his journey down the wild river to the settlements. And many times a day his salutations would be waved upward to that great, snowy-headed, indifferent bird, wheeling in the far blue, or gazing at the sun from his high-set ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... the ships of China and Arabia were making its ports their emporiums; the national chronicles, whose compilation was an object of solicitude to successive dynasties, are silent regarding these adventurous expeditions; and utterly indifferent to all that did not affect the progress of Buddhism or minister to the interests ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... about this hotel were the usual ones—indifferent food, absence of privacy, and horrible bathing arrangements. In Eastern countries it is usual to find a bath-room attached to the bedroom. In Java hotels people—ladies as well as men—burdened with sponges and towels, and some with soap, must cross a public court-yard and wait their turn ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... place at the head of the table and, filling his glass, bowed towards Hamel. Once more Gerald and his sister relapsed almost automatically into an indifferent and cultivated silence. Hamel found civility towards the newcomer difficult. Unconsciously his attitude became that of the other two. He resented the intrusion. He found himself regarding the advent of ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... interesting, for the picture which it gives of Chaucer himself; riding apart from and indifferent to the rest of the pilgrims, with eyes fixed on the ground, and an "elvish", morose, or rather self-absorbed air; portly, if not actually stout, in body; and evidently a man out of the common, as the closing words ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... mean to have my own way; I am not going to be tied and bound by promises and vows; I shall do what I like, whether it be right or wrong. Such persons are, I hope and believe, uncommon. Then there is a second class of people, which is indifferent about Confirmation, because it does not fully understand the blessings belonging to it. These people have probably never been taught true Church doctrine, and so they tell us that Confirmation may be a very good thing, but they can do very well without it. ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... least, have spoken less confidently. [FOOTNOTE: Schumann, who in 1839 attempted to give a history of Liszt's development (in the "Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik"), remarked that when Liszt, on the one hand, was brooding over the most gloomy fancies, and indifferent, nay, even blase, and, on the other hand, laughing and madly daring, indulged in the most extravagant virtuoso tricks, "the sight of Chopin, it seems, first brought him ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... since five o'clock, and neither she nor the girls (who rose at six) had had anything to eat, and they were all somewhat faint for want of a breakfast which was cooling on the table. Meanwhile a "humming in the head," to which she was subject, rendered Maria mercifully indifferent to the proposal to add an extra half-hour to her distasteful labours; and Miss Blomfield corrugated her eyebrows, and was conscientiously distressed and really puzzled that Mother Nature should give different gifts to her children, when their ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... sufficed to establish a communication—really copious for the occasion—between the strangers and the unknown gentleman whom they found in possession, hat and stick in hand. This was not my doing—for what had I to go upon?—and still less was it the doing of the younger and the more indifferent, or less courageous, lady. She spoke but once—when her companion informed me that she was going out to Europe the next day to be married. Then she protested "Oh mother!" in a tone that struck me in the ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... very wearisome to my kind reader, if not unbearable, were I to describe here at length, in detail and with all sorts of over-choice and exquisite words and phrases, all that Jonathan and Nanni did in their trouble. Such things may be found in any indifferent romance; and it is often amusing enough to see into what postures the struggling author throws himself, merely in order to appear original. On the other hand, it seems to be of great importance to follow Master Wacht on his walks, or ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... glass of ale and porter with your cheese? Pa. Yes, one or the other; but seldom both. Dr. You West-country people generally take a glass of Highland whiskey after dinner. Pa. Yes, we do; it as good for digestion. Dr. Do you take any wine during dinner? Pa. Yes, a glass or two of sherry; but I'm indifferent as to wine during dinner. I drink a good deal of beer Dr. What quantity of port do you drink? Pa. Oh, very little; not above half a dozen glasses or so. Dr. In the West country it is impossible, I hear to dine without punch? Pa. Yes, sir, indeed, 't is punch we drink chiefly; but ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... few words, which were wholly incomprehensible to her, Madame d'Espard returned to the general conversation, showing neither offence at that indifferent "As you please," nor curiosity as to the outcome of the interview. The princess stayed an hour longer, seated on the sofa near the fire, in the careless, nonchalant attitude of Guerin's Dido, listening ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?' is sounded in our ears to-day. There are certain aspects which I would like you to note. It was an appeal based upon a great need. Then, as now, the people were without God; indifferent to His claims, few of them with any experimental knowledge of His Salvation, and, consequently, having no hope in the world. And in these respects God wanted a man who would arouse the people, assert His claims, and lead ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... he felt he was hopelessly vanquished, and in a moment of supreme clearness of intellect, like Gerard de Nerval, he attempted suicide. Less fortunate than the author of Sylvia, he was unsuccessful. But his mind, henceforth "indifferent to all unhappiness," had entered ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... only dangerous but malevolent, and there were oft told tales of domiciliary visits paid by him at the cabins of settlers, and of aggressive advances upon mounted vaqueros, who were saved by the speed of their horses. Doubtless the bear was audacious in foraging and indifferent to the presence of man, but he was not malevolent. Indeed, I have yet to hear on any credible authority of a malevolent bear, or, for that matter, any other wild animal in North America whose disposition and habit is to seek trouble with man and go out of its way with the deliberate purpose ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... features by the growth of a beard, might be recognised. With this idea, he kept himself well back in the shadow, listening attentively to the scraps of desultory talk among the dozen or so of men in the room, while carefully maintaining an air of such utter fatigue as to appear indifferent to all that passed around him. Nobody noticed him, for which he was thankful. And presently, when he became accustomed to the various contending voices, which in their changing tones of gruff or gentle, quick or slow, made a confused din upon his ears, he found out ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... say that I was as indifferent to the result, so far as it affected me personally, as to the question whether I should walk on one side of the street or the other. I did not undervalue the great honor of representing Massachusetts ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... poor woman and the sick girl shone from these two indifferent faces. Indeed, the only ray of good cheer visible in that disorderly room gleamed from the bright eyes of a little girl not more than nine or ten years old,—so small, in truth, that she had to stand on a stool by the table, where she was washing ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... on the affections of the people. They frequently direct the opinions of the masses, and, with the exception of their pastors, are the only class our rural population know and revere. As to the generality of our statesmen, good, bad, or indifferent, their names, brilliant as they may be, are not half so well known in our villages as that of the most obscure labourer, the humble artizan who knows how to file a saw ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... the Llanos of Nueva Barcelona, we met with a Frenchman, at whose house we passed the first night, and who received us with the kindest hospitality. He was a native of Lyons, and he had left his country at a very early age. He appeared extremely indifferent to all that was passing beyond the Atlantic, or, as they say here, disdainfully enough, when speaking of Europe, on the other side of the great pool (al otro lado del charco). Our host was employed in joining large pieces of wood by means of a kind of glue called guayca. This substance, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... over in their minds the deplorable events of which, all said and done, they were the victims. They gazed at each other full of self-pity. They felt they were two derelicts afloat on the immense sea of indifferent humanity. ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... studious coldness towards herself, his air of deep understanding and mastery, his magic look of wizardly youth, his eloquence, his immense self-possession, his mysterious connection with Cleopatra's indisposition and recovery. What could it be that made him so indifferent to her? ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... the Grand Canyon and its numberless tributaries, a great number of indications of man's presence were found on the rim, on the fault lines or breaks in the sheer precipitous walls, on the plateaus and in the Canyon beneath, in the shape of crude house ruins, lookout houses or forts, indifferent trails, cliff-dwellings, hewn-out water cisterns, mescal pits, with countless pieces of broken pottery, arrowheads, stone axes, hammers, mortars, pestles and even ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... supposed that Conrad would be indifferent to the money value of the prize offered, but he had extravagant tastes, and found his allowance from his father, though a liberal one, insufficient for his needs. He began to consider in what way he would spend the money, which he considered ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... men of all times can recognise themselves; a crew of "able-bodied" is never wanting to man this old, weather-beaten, but ever seaworthy vessel. The thoughtful, penetrating, conscious spirit of the Basle professor passing by, for the most part, local, temporary or indifferent points, seized upon the never-dying follies of human nature and impaled them on the printed page for the amusement, the edification, and the warning of contemporaries and posterity alike. No petty writer of laborious ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... and he was buried there accordingly on January 8, 1827, immediately under the monuments of Camden and Garrick. He was much richer at the time of his death than he was at all aware of, for he was perfectly indifferent about money. Indeed, he several times returned money to Mr. Murray, saying that "he had been too liberal." He left L25,000 of personal property, a considerable part of which he left to the relatives of Mr. Cookesley, the surgeon of Ashburton, who had been to him so faithful and self-denying ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... reap-hook, and the flail, with skill, and the malicious even began to say that there was something more in him than wild sallies of wit and foolish rhymes. But the farm lay high, the bottom was wet, and in a third season, indifferent seed and a wet harvest robbed him at once of half his crop: he seems to have regarded this as an intimation from above, that nothing which he undertook would prosper: and consoled himself with joyous friends and with the society of the muse. The judgment cannot be ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... himself was an offender against this law, and detained a great quantity of ground from the commonalty, Tiberius desired him to forbear opposing him any further, and proffered, for the public good, though he himself had but an indifferent estate, to pay a price for Octavius's share at his own cost and charges. But upon the refusal of this proffer by Octavius, he then interposed an edict, prohibiting all magistrates to exercise their respective functions, till such ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... arrows which were ignited by his breath; but the scene of the fiery fiend's operations might be well supposed as changed to "Conciliation Hall," and his arrows thence flung over the inflammable isle. However indifferent the loyalists might be to the conflicts between Old Ireland and Young Ireland, the government could not be so, for "O'Connell's tail" was, if no ornament, of some use on the ministerial benches. O'Connell denounced the Whigs, but intrigued to keep them in power, or help them to obtain ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... calculation, and I imagine the Regent will not now be in full possession of his office till about the 19th or 20th. I wait with much impatience to hear what has passed on Thursday in the Irish Parliament. I find that people here, those at least with whom I converse, are indifferent about the success of the measure in Ireland, but are much exasperated at the madness and folly of the people who are endeavouring to stir fresh questions of ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... not a man of delicate feeling; and after having made his morning salutations in the warden's drawing-room, he did not scruple to commence an attack on "pestilent" John Bold in the presence of Miss Harding, though he rightly guessed that that lady was not indifferent to the name ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... making their harsh criticisms, for many of the New England regiments, the militia in particular, came upon the ground with an inferior military organization. They were miserably officered in many cases, and the men, never expecting to become soldiers as such, were indifferent to discipline. But in another view the criticisms were unfair, because the Pennsylvanians and others, in making comparisons, compared their best troops with New England's poorest. As two thirds of the army were from New England—more ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... elks and antelopes, as well as buffalo in the lower ground. We accordingly encamped in a beautiful spot with the lofty mountains rising above us, while below extended the prairie far away to the horizon. I must not stop to describe our various adventures. Dick continued indifferent to sport, but occasionally went out with me; while Armitage and Story shot together, and never returned without a big-horn or two, or an elk. One day they appeared leading or rather dragging along what looked like a mass of shaggy fur of a tawny colour. As they approached, I saw that their ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... summer, that I was relaxing myself from the toils of severe study by a day's amusement in fishing in those waters which had been the favorite resort of my boyhood. I was in company with several worthy burghers of my native city. Our sport was indifferent; the fish did not bite freely; and we had frequently changed our fishing ground without bettering our luck. We at length anchored close under a ledge of rocky coast, on the eastern side of the island of Manhata. It was a still, ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the neighbourhood of the house and return to the fort before dark. I could not help recollecting the tiger we had seen on our way up, and the numerous serpents which I knew were crawling about in all directions. My uncle, however, seemed utterly indifferent to them. We had got to the end of our torrent road, and were working our way through the jungle, when the sound of human voices reached our ears. On this, instead of going straight forward, my uncle turned to the right towards the sea. I followed him, literally crawling ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... matter of mines, and they're hovering in the attitude of the query, like corkscrews over a bottle, profoundly indifferent to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cared he? His Wullie was acknowledged champion, the best sheep-dog of the year; and the little man was happy. They could turn their backs on him; but they could not alter that; and he could afford to be indifferent. "They dinna like it, lad—he! he! But they'll e'en ha' to thole it. Ye've won ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... clouds threatened rain, they would at times, notably about three o'clock, rise handsomely. But on all other occasions it was rarely that we could entice them up through the twelve or fifteen feet of water. Earlier in the season they are not so lazy and indifferent, but the August languor and drowsiness were now upon them. So we learned by a lucky accident to fish deep for them, even weighting our leaders with a shot, and allowing the flies to sink nearly to the bottom. After ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... Column, I used to receive heart-broken letters from young men asking for advice and sympathy. They found themselves the object of marked attentions from girls which they scarcely knew how to deal with. They did not wish to give pain or to seem indifferent to a love which they felt was as ardent as it was disinterested, and yet they felt that they could not bestow their hands where their hearts had not spoken. They wrote to me fully and frankly, and as one soul might write ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... the hotel the high, foaming glasses slid along the bar. The hotel man with the diamond in his tie greeted the men who lined up at the rail with an indifferent smile. The glasses were raised and drained. And then some bold spirit asked the man with the diamond how he'd feel ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... but castle-building. I am quite indifferent as to the result except that, in case it is given me, I shall be restored to my position as an artist by the same power that prostrated me, and then shall I not more than ever have cause to exclaim: 'Surely Thou hast led me in away which I knew not'? I have ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... she shrugged her shoulders, "who wants illusions? I don't. I want truth, Bob. I want to know everything there is to know in this world, good, bad or indifferent. And you needn't be afraid. It won't hurt me. Truth is good for any one, whether it's pleasant truth or not. It makes one's opinions of more value, if nothing else. And of course you want my opinions to be worth ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... offspring are in all essential characteristics like their immediate progenitor, they nevertheless vary more or less within narrow limits from their parent and from each other. Some of these variations are indifferent, some deteriorations, some improvements—that is, such as enable the plant or animal to exercise its functions to greater advantage. Third, the law of Over-Production. All plants and animals tend to increase in a geometrical ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... harmless, natural selection cannot, it is plain, be counted on to weed it out, keeping it within the narrow limits of the exceptional and individual. Natural selection gets rid of what is harmful only, and is indifferent to what is ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... seemed to be provokingly indifferent on the subject, and the professor was at last compelled to ask an interview, which, however, his dignity compelled him to defer till the ship was approaching Flushing, when the steamer was to leave ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... every seminary of higher knowledge is under the control of a branch of the Christian Church, whose influence is predominant in the faculty, and which regards the college as a filial institution, with traditions intertwined with its own. However skeptical or indifferent students may be to religion, they cannot fail to imbibe at least an esteem for the doctrines of the Saviour from the teachers who impart to them secular lessons. The impressions thus received by the plastic mind of youth are not likely to be ever wholly effaced. The man or the divinity we venerate ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... have been useless," he answered. "I think that he knew quite well that I should give no such pledge. That is what makes me believe that the matter is serious. He is so sure of coming events that failing my joining with him he expressed himself as indifferent as to what my course of action might be. There was only one condition he made before I left—and ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... she must wait a little, and find out more. Notwithstanding her apparent indifference to Claude Locker, there was more danger in that direction than Mrs. Easterfield had supposed. A really persistent lover is often very dangerous, no matter how indifferent ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... motion accelerated or retarded, in moving to or from the light; others, as with the Pea, seem indifferent to its action; others move steadily from the light to the dark, and this aids them in an important manner in finding a support. For instance, the tendrils of Bignonia capreolata bend from the light to the dark as truly as a wind-vane from the wind. In ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... relentless than reckless, the shrike compels that sort of deference, not unmixed with indignation, we are accustomed to accord to creatures of seeming insignificance whose exploits demand much strength, great spirit, and insatiate love for carnage. We cannot be indifferent to the marauder who takes his own wherever he finds it — a feudal baron who holds his own with undisputed sway — and an ogre whose victims are so many more than he can eat, that he actually keeps a private graveyard for the balance." Who ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... other places, on certain nights in the year, the peasants were obliged to beat the water in the castle ditch to keep the frogs quiet. These customs have been considered very grievous by democratic writers, nor were they so indifferent to the peasants themselves as the lovers of the good old times would have us believe.[Footnote: See the rural cahiers, passim. Mathieu gives the text of a customary right of banalite. The fee of the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... not decide the question; he seems to shew a leaning towards heathenism and Christianity alternately. The truth seems to be that, being of a sceptical turn of mind, he was indifferent; but that, living under an orthodox Emperor, he affected the forms and language of Christianity. Had he been an open and avowed adherent of Paganism, he would scarcely have been admitted to the Senate or appointed ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... impossibility in the practice; for where can they find scales of capacity enough for the first, or an arithmetician of capacity enough for the second. Secondly, we are ready to accept the challenge, but with this condition, that a third indifferent person be assigned, to whose impartial judgment it shall be left to decide which society each book, treatise, or pamphlet do most properly belong to. This point, God knows, is very far from being fixed at present, for we are ready to produce a catalogue of some thousands which in all common ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... to Vane almost as if he had received a blow—so sudden was the check to his mental rambling. For the eyes of the man opposite, deep set and gleaming, were the eyes of greatness, and they triumphed so completely over their indifferent setting that Vane marvelled at his previous obtuseness. Martyrs have had such eyes, and the great pioneers of the world—men who have deemed everything well lost for a cause, be that cause right or wrong. And almost as if he were standing there in the flesh, there came to him a vision of Sir James ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... presuppose external conditions favorable to their development. Competition is merely the means through which conformity to these external conditions is enforced. It eliminates alike that which is better than the environment and that which is worse. It is indifferent to good or bad, to high or low. It simply picks out, preserves and perpetuates those types best suited to environing conditions. Both progress and retrogression are a process of adaptation, and their cause must be sought, not in the principle of competition itself, but in the general external conditions ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... was of course a great care to her, the more so because Billy was in it so little, and was so frankly eager for the time when she should leave it and go to a house of her own, and because Clarence was absolutely indifferent to it in his better moods, and pleased with nothing when he was in the grip of his besetting sin. The Breckenridges did little formal entertaining, but the man of the house liked to bring men down from town for week-end visits, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... next, as we might go under to-day or to-morrow; who could tell when the turn of the next would come? And all that day I was haunted by the figure of the youth who was staring so vacantly over the rim of the trench, heedless of the bursting shells and indifferent to his ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... chief French friends were ladies—Madame de Vasse, Madame de Talmond, and others. Montesquieu, living in their society, and sending wine from his estate to the Jacobite Lord Elibank; rejoicing, too, in an Irish Jacobite housekeeper, 'Mlle. Betti,' was well disposed, like Voltaire, in an indifferent well-bred way. Most of these people were, later, protecting and patronising the Prince when concealed from the view of Europe, but theirs was a vague and futile alliance. Charles ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... his passports before seeking her favor? How had he dared to make himself so much at home in her drawing room, with his impertinent insouciance and his Sultan airs? How had he gone about, indifferent, independent, ignoring when he pleased, courting no one's favor, and yet, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... universal law for everyone to have." On this principle a man is an end to himself as well as others, and it is not enough that he is not permitted to use either himself or others merely as means (which would imply that be might be indifferent to them), but it is in itself a duty of every man to make ...
— The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics • Immanuel Kant
... (trouble and not poetry!), before I could consent to such a thing. Well!—and if I do not ... these people are just as likely to print them without leave ... and so without correction. What do you advise? What shall I do? All this time they think me sublimely indifferent, they who pressed for an answer by return of packet—and now it is past six ... eight weeks; and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... he despised all human doctrines as dross. Yet this no way lessened him in my esteem; for I had for some time begun privately to harbour such an opinion myself. I therefore took occasion to observe, that the world in general began to be blameably indifferent as to doctrinal matters, and followed human speculations too much—'Ay, Sir,' replied he, as if he had reserved all his learning to that moment, 'Ay, Sir, the world is in its dotage, and yet the cosmogony or creation of the world has ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... seemed to take a morbid delight in the hard and dirty places, and his endurance was marvellous. He could stand all day at the tail of a stacker, tirelessly pushing the straw away with an indifferent air, as if ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... intent. She was conscious of a growing interest in and affection for Anthony Dalaber since his own fervent declaration of love towards herself. She had given him no definite promise, but she felt that henceforth their lives must of necessity be more or less linked together. She could not be indifferent to aught that concerned him; the stability of his faith and of his character must mean very much to her in ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... classification, in which every man had a chance and knew that he had it. If a man can climb, and feels himself encouraged to climb, from a coalpit to the highest position for which he is fitted, he can well afford to be indifferent what name is given to the government under which he lives. The Bailli of Mirabeau, uncle of the more famous tribune of that name, wrote in 1771: "The English are, in my opinion, a hundred times more agitated and more unfortunate than the very ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... on reaching our destination, I insisted, despite his polite remonstrances, on turning everything upside down. We made hay of the apartment, but discovered nothing more treasonable than some rather dry biscuits and a bottle of indifferent ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... bodily condition that causes him to fill a house of mourning with festive uproar? I am indifferent as to what makes him a malefactor. For my part, I would sooner abandon this dear child to the care of a criminal than to that of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... however, were soon forgotten in the ferocious excitements that followed her. Here were two camels, tired and dusty, with that look of bored and indifferent superiority that belongs to their tribe, two elephants, two clowns, and last, but of course the climax of the whole affair, a cage in which there could be seen behind the iron bars a lion and a lioness, jolted haplessly from side to side, but too deeply shamed and indignant to do more than reproach ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... could hear it thundering in avalanches on the distant slopes. He was quite sure now that they were even farther north than he had at first supposed, and that probably they would be snowed in all the winter in the valley, a condition to which the Indians were indifferent, as they had good shelter and plenty of food. They began to make snowshoes, but Will judged that they would be used for hunting rather than for travel. There was no reason on earth that he knew why the village should move, or any of its people ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... served as a hindrance in great undertakings. He consumed the surplus of his energy in athletic exercise. After one of his feats of strength, which filled his comrades with enthusiasm, he would come in fresh, serene, indifferent, as though he were coming out of a bath. He fenced with the French painters of the Villa Medici; learned to box with Englishmen and Americans; organized, with some German artists, excursions to a grove near Rome, which were ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... inherited many of the traits which for a thousand years had been characteristic of the Phoenicians. It was a vast business-house, protected by a strong navy, indifferent to most of the finer aspects of life. The city and the surrounding country and the distant colonies were all ruled by a small but exceedingly powerful group of rich men, The Greek word for rich is ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... death, his policy continued to be cultivated, with indifferent success, by Arapooish, the chief already mentioned, who had been his great friend, and whose character he had contributed to develope. This sagacious chief endeavored, on every occasion, to restrain the predatory propensities of his tribe when directed ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... Theodosia cannot hear you spoken of without an apparent melancholy; insomuch, that her nurse is obliged to exert her invention to divert her, and myself avoid the mention of you in her presence. She was one whole day indifferent to everything but your name. Her attachment is ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... somep'n," she went on, following her own line of thought, and indifferent to his outburst. "There's somep'n we could do with 'em that we'd never forget, if we could only think ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... now sending down calamities;—Do not be so complacent. Heaven is now producing such movements;—Do not be so indifferent. If your words were harmonious, The people would become united. If your words were gentle and kind, The people ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... ignorance and self-love.... And in all this there is no judgment, only an implacable comprehension, as of one outside nature, to whom joy and sorrow, right and wrong, savagery and civilization, are equal and indifferent...."[3] ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... than three months had passed, during which I had seen her almost every day; and what can I say of that time except that I saw her? "To be with those we love," said Bruyere, "suffices; to dream, to talk to them, not to talk to them, to think of them, to think of the most indifferent things, but to be near them, it ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... place with alacrity, intent upon forcing everything within his reach to subserve the interests of the Confederate cause in that particular part of the southern world. To the Indians and to their rights, natural or acquired, he was as utterly indifferent as were most other American men and all too soon that fact became obvious, most obvious, indeed, to General Pike, the one person who had, for reasons best known to himself, made ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... courage from the fact that our contemporaries are fired by social compassions and enthusiasms, to which even our immediate predecessors were indifferent. Such compunctions have ever manifested themselves in varying degrees of ardor through different groups in the same community. Thus among those who are newly aroused to action in regard to the social evil are many who would endeavor to regulate it and believe they ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... on her own part might put Prissy altogether to flight. Nothing answered in the girl's eyes to her words; there was no lighting up of desire or curiosity, however restrained; she stood like one indifferent or uncomprehending. ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... stand unassisted, and, when support was removed, fell to the floor. Pupils were widely dilated; internal strabismus of the right eye was present. Facial musculature was distorted, and he mumbled to himself in a low, indifferent tone of voice, over and over again, "Give me something to eat. I can't do it. Give me something to eat," etc., in a rapid monotone. He appeared to be in a deep stupor. He did not seem to realize his whereabouts, and attention could ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... was before us was very gradually arrived at, and only as we fell in with the successive families. Moreover, as my boy was very young, it may be that he was more eager in communicating to those who had no idea of them, the wonders he had seen, than in making inquiries on points that were indifferent ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... class, from ladies of the highest blood, to Bonarobas, and peasants' wives: and that they all might be divided into three heads and no more; that is to say as follows. First, the very hot and passionate, who were only contemptible; second, the cold and indifferent, who were simply odious; and third, the mixture of the other two, who had the bad qualities of both. As for reason, none of them had it; it was like a sealed book to them, which if they ever tried to open, they began at the back of ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... may almost be said to live in the past; it is to the future that I look for my reward, and it would be difficult to make any person who is not thoroughly intimate with me, understand how completely indifferent I am to the praise or censure of the present generation, farther than as it may affect my means of subsistence, which, thank God, it can no longer essentially do. There was a time when I was materially injured by unjust criticism; but even then I despised it, from a confidence in myself, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... therefore, is not paid by the wool and the hide, must be paid by the carcase. The less there is paid for the one, the more must be paid for the other. In what manner this price is to be divided upon the different parts of the beast, is indifferent to the landlords and farmers, provided it is all paid to them. In an improved and cultivated country, therefore, their interest as landlords and farmers cannot be much affected by such regulations, though their interest as consumers may, by the rise in the price of provisions. It would be ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... thing, which we may note in passing, is that Wordsworth, who clung fervently to the historic foundations of society as it stands, was wholly indifferent to history; while Byron, on the contrary, as the fourth canto of Childe Harold is enough to show, had at least the sentiment of history in as great a degree as any poet that ever lived, and has given to it by far the most magnificent expression. No doubt, it was history on ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... law was especially given by their chief, who led the people out of the land of Egypt. He attaches no importance to meats offered to idols, thinks them of no consequence, but makes use of them without hesitation. He holds, also, the use of other things as indifferent, and also every kind of lust. These men, furthermore, use magic, images, incantations, invocations, and every other kind of curious arts. Coining also certain names as if they were those of the angels, they assert that some of these belong to the first, others to the second, heaven; ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... up. Three boys together can find so much more to do than one can, all alone; and they made it four as often as they could, for Dick Lee had proved himself the best kind of company. Frank Harley's East-Indian experience had made him indifferent to the mere question of color, and Ford Foster was too much of a "man" to forget that long night of gale and fog and danger on board ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... pass into the interior of the lodge, when a light exclamation caught his ear. As he turned his head, Fluellina came bounding to his arms. However stoical and indifferent the North American Indian may appear in the presence of his companions or of white men, it is a mistake to suppose that he is wanting either in the ordinary affections of humanity, or in those little demonstrations of love so peculiar to our own race. Deep in the woods, when alone with their ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... knowledge in preference to them, has pathetically observed—"The heart knoweth its own bitterness; and there is a joy in which the stranger intermeddleth not." A simple question founded on a trite proverb, with a discursive answer to it, would scarcely suggest to an indifferent person any other notion than that of a mind at ease, amusing itself with its own activity. Once before (I believe about this time last year), I had taken up the old memorandum book, from which I transcribed the preceding essay, and they had then attracted my notice by the name ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... their estate was about 1400l. a year; great for that time, but is now, exclusive of a few pepper-corns and red roses, long since withered, reduced to one little farm, tilled for bread by the owner. This setting glympse of a shining family, is as indifferent about the matter, and almost as ignorant, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... creature's impression of life is, the more acute is its distress. It is only extremely stupid Sunday-school children who shout in chorus, "We are so happy, happy, happy!" Genius thrown naked, with exposed nerves, on a hard indifferent world, is never "happy" at first. Earth is a "poisoned place" to it, until it has won its way and woven its ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... his capture, the tribesman seemed indifferent to Ross, looking back instead at the wide curtain of grass smoke, frowning as he studied the swift spread of the fire. Muttering to himself, he pulled the lead rope and brought Ross's horse to follow in the direction from which Ennar had brought the ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... and harvest go on together in this fertile land. Our train halts at Depok, a Christian village unique in Java, for the religious history of the island shows little missionary enterprise among a race strangely indifferent to the claims of faith, and lightly casting away one creed after another, with a carelessness which has ever proved a formidable bar to spiritual progress. The Portuguese Jesuits were expelled by the Dutch, and English efforts at conversion ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... swaying along ponderously, close to the wall of the corridor, eyes on the head of the stairway, was as indifferent to the uproar as he was to those ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... clearing out the 'tween decks, which was to be converted into a living- and dining-room for officers and scientists. The carpenter erected in this room the stove that had been intended for use in the shore hut, and the quarters were made very snug. The dogs appeared indifferent to the blizzard. They emerged occasionally from the drift to shake themselves and bark, but were content most of the time to lie, curled into tight balls, under the snow. One of the old dogs, Saint, died ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... up into a strong and handsome animal. Karr kept him company as often as he could; but now it was no longer through pity, for a great friendship had sprung up between the two. The elk was always inclined to be melancholy, listless, and, indifferent, but Karr knew how to make him playful ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... community let it so be said, early, late, and often, in large, plain type. So doing shall the library's books enter—before too old to be of service—into that state of utter worn-out-ness which is the only known book-heaven. Another way, and by some found good, is to work the sinfully indifferent first up into a library missionary, and then transform him into a patron. A library is something to which he can give an old book, an old paper, an old magazine, with no loss to himself. Having given, the library is at once his field, a Timbuctoo for his missionary ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... decidedly is not. Could not Sir T. Cartwright be sent there, and Sir Edward Disbrowe go to Stockholm? The Queen merely suggests this; but, of course, as long as the man sent to the Hague is sensible and fair, it is indifferent to her who ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... Lazarus at his resuscitation, bore it with great resolution, and said, he knew why he was told of it, but when he thought his country in danger, he would not go away. As he is so near death, that it is indifferent to him whether he died two thousand years ago or to-morrow, it is unlucky for him not to have lived when such insensibility would have been ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... of La Tuna, General Benevides proved himself worthy of his lineage. No general could have done more to rally his troops, or have been more indifferent to danger. He scorned to turn his back upon an enemy, and while trying to rally his scattered forces, he was captured, ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... of a forward-going column of infantry appeared in the road. It came swiftly on. Avoiding the obstructions gave it the sinuous movement of a serpent. The men at the head butted mules with their musket stocks. They prodded teamsters indifferent to all howls. The men forced their way through parts of the dense mass by strength. The blunt head of the column pushed. The raving ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... be depended upon to illumine the ancient interior of the North Estabrook church. He addressed his eldest brother, Oliver, who, in his newness to the situation and his consequent lack of sympathy with the occasion, was proving but an indifferent worker. This may have been partly due to the influence of Oliver's wife, Marian, who, sitting—in Russian sables—in one of the middle pews, was doing what she could to depress the labourers. The number of these, by the ...
— On Christmas Day In The Evening • Grace Louise Smith Richmond
... flashed upon him Gilbert began to look about him for some means of safety for those in peril, and in his distress of mind every lost minute was monstrously lengthened as it passed. Beside him, his man Dunstan stood in silence, apparently indifferent to all that was taking place, his quiet dark face a trifle more drawn and keen than usual; and though a very slight contraction of the curved nostrils expressed some inward excitement, it was scarcely perceptible. Gilbert knew that his own face ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... during this war. We knew man to be stupid, mediocre, selfish: we knew that on occasions man could be extremely cruel. But though we had few illusions, we had never believed that man could remain so monstrously indifferent to the cries of millions of victims. We had never believed that there could be a smile such as we have witnessed upon the lips of the young fanatics and of the old demoniacs who, from their safe seats, are ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... connoisseur could hardly mistake. And the public soon became good enough judges of it too, studying it regularly in Punch, and refusing for the most part to be led away to look for it in the other journals which Jerrold edited, with but indifferent success so far as their circulation went. Although his fame was already established as a dramatist before Punch was born, I doubt, without Punch, he would ever have earned the reputation in pure literature which his "Q Papers" ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann |
