"Sybarite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wards, arranging for supplies of food and stores, and fitting a large staff into a cubic space totally inadequate to hold them. But wonderful things can be accomplished when everyone is anxious to do their share, and the most hopeless sybarite will welcome shelter however humble, and roll himself up in a blanket in any corner, when he is dead tired. For the first few days the rush of wounded had been so tremendous that all we could do was ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... 'Go, you genuine sybarite! Uncle of mine, I would not accept the gift of all your estates if your gourmandizing be ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... first day or two, expressed some fear lest they might not rest well; but both girls averred they never in their lives had known so luxurious a bed,—and never should again, unless their good fortune brought them back another year to enjoy this sybarite couch at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... a deplorable street, a luxurious couch of a street in which the afternoon lolls like a gaudy sybarite. Overhead the sky stretches itself like a holiday awning. The sun lays harlequin stripes across the building faces. The smoke plumes from the I. C. engines scribble gray, white and lavender fantasies against the ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... for newcomers so as to hide the coffee-stains as much as possible, and then proceeded to set their tea for them, after which she went back to building the fire again. In the work of waiting she was at uncertain intervals assisted by Joe, a shock-headed, black-haired Celt, who, when a Sybarite asked at breakfast for toast, repeated "Toast!" in a tone that set the table in a roar. It was not said impudently or rudely. Far from it. Joe's tone simply expressed honest amazement, as if one had asked for a broiled crocodile or ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... danger or showed himself venturous in battle; and, when Antigonus wondered and upbraided him with his change, made no secret of the reason, and said, "Sir, you are the cause of my cowardice, by freeing me from those miseries which made me care little for life." With the same feeling, the Sybarite seems to have said of the Spartans, that it was no commendable thing in them to be so ready to die in the wars, since by that they were freed from such hard labor, and miserable living. In truth, the Sybarites, a soft and dissolute people, might very ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... rumored evil deeds became piquant eccentricities, and the whispers of the oriental orgies that were said to take place in his bachelor apartments made him an object of a curious interest, and many sighed for the opportunity of reforming so distinguished a sybarite. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... in itself might successfully have tempted the taste of a Sybarite) was further enhanced by several wines and cordials which, filling the room with the aroma of the sunlit grapes from which they had been expressed, stimulated the appetite, which without them needed no such spur. The lady, who ate but sparingly herself, possessed herself with patience until Jonathan's ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... to the turbid libation which some rose-lipped Paris, some silk-locked Sybarite poured out last night, after leaving the theatre. Under the pretence of adding a leaf to the chaplets, won by what he is pleased to tern 'diving dramatic genius,' this 'Jules Duval'—let me see, I would not libel an honourable name; yes, so it is signed—this Jules Duval, this ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... soft incandescence in deep bowers of fireproof tissue flowers. There was a delightful warmth about the place, and the seductive scents and delicate odours betokened the haunt of the twentieth- century Sybarite. ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... "I do declare that there is no sybarite upon the face of the globe who can for a moment be compared to you. Oh, Planchet, it is very clear that we have never yet eaten a ton ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... expected from the young Sybarite, a great contest arose between him and other poets and prose writers of the time. They spoke to each other with great volubility and animation a language incomprehensible to any one who should suddenly ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... sterile realms, rose the dismal Mount of Fire; while on the other hand, winding through variegated plains, to which distance lent all its magic, glittered many and many a stream by which Etruscan and Sybarite, Roman and Saracen and Norman had, at intervals of ages, pitched the invading tent. All the visions of the past—the stormy and dazzling histories of Southern Italy—rushed over the artist's mind as he ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... succeeded in communicating with Gaul he suggested a permanent occupation, being secretly influenced by tales of mineral wealth to which he had lent an ear. Disillusioned and recalled, he was followed by a sybarite, whose palate was tickled by banquets of fish of which he wrote in raptures to his friends at Capri and Brindisi. This excellent man, dying of apoplexy in his bath, was replaced by a rough soldier, who lost no time in procuring ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... bookcases, filled mainly with the works of French and German authors of decadent type. The man's taste in art was revealed by certain pictures, undeniably clever, but a little too daring. He was undoubtedly a sybarite, yet he evidently possessed rare energy and executive force. It was ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... damage with his pranks; there were wine-glasses, bottles, pickles, &c., in the cupboard when he got the cheese; but he extracted his supper as daintily as a cat, and not a thing was upset! Oddly enough, when we are with him, he never thinks of getting into cushions and chairs like that blessed old sybarite the Bull-dogue. But if we leave him tied up, he plays old gooseberry with the furniture. I had been fearing it would be rather a practical difficulty in the way of his adoption, the question of where he should sleep; ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... he had fitted up for himself was whitewashed and barely furnished; it made one's bones ache to look at the iron bedstead and chairs. Holmes's natural taste was more glowing, however smothered, than that of any saffron-robed Sybarite. It needed correction, he knew; here was discipline. Besides, he had set apart the coming three or four years of his life to make money in, enough for the time to come. He would devote his whole strength to that work, and so be sooner done with it. Money, or place, or even power, was nothing ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... of a sybarite, who can blame me for being lulled into security, and telling myself that my troubles were nearly at an end? Who can wonder at the chateaux en Espagne that I built as I lounged in the patio, and assisted my customers to consume the media aqua de soda, ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... o'er Hansard frown, Confused by lore statistic? Or will those lips e'er stir the town From pulpit ritualistic? Will e'er that tiny Sybarite Become an author noted? That little brain the world's delight, Its works by all ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... of the Achaean cities was strictly a colonization. The cities had no harbours—Croton alone had a paltry roadstead—and they had no commerce of their own; the Sybarite prided himself on growing gray between the bridges of his lagoon-city, and Milesians and Etruscans bought and sold for him. These Achaean Greeks, however, were not merely in possession of a narrow belt along the coast, but ruled from sea to sea in the "land ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... ridiculous!" declared his sister. "You're a regular Sybarite at home. You love easy chairs and pillows and fresh flowers all about, and all that,—then you want to go off where you'll have nothing nice at all,—not ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... one moment he is full of humour and robust talk, a genial, merry, shrewd-eyed old gentleman; at the next—at the mention of real sin—his brows contract, his eyes flash, and his tongue hisses out such hatred and contempt and detestation as no sybarite could find on the tip of his tongue for anything ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... Crotona; at the height of its prosperity the luxury and voluptuousness of the inhabitants was such as to become a byword throughout the ancient world, and henceforth a Sybaris city is a city of luxurious indulgence, and Sybarite a devotee ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... and when we had attended to the needs of the animals and had something to eat and drink ourselves, we were too tired to do anything but roll into the blankets and sleep until a disgruntled picket roused us for another day. Occasionally some sybarite would be seen using the remains of his evening tea as shaving-water and laboriously scraping a three days' growth of hair from his face; but he was the exception. We were a ragged, unwashed, unshaven crew—yet mighty ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... Croesus—made a hundred and eighty pounds last year, and expect to make over two hundred this one. Now, if a man with that perfectly prodigious fortune can't afford to keep his own father in comfort and affluence, what an absolute Sybarite and gourmand of a fellow he ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... have become accustomed to my Sybarite's couch of which you used to tell me. Would you be willing to give up all you have striven for and won—your life—the honors you have ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Sybarite never once saw the sun rise or set during a course of twenty years; yet he lived to a good old age, drank like a centaur, and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... of the Moslems, should be rescued from slavery and barbarism, and restored to a people illustrious for genius, civilization, and a spirit of liberty. Perdita rested on his restored society, on his love, his hopes and fame, even as a Sybarite on a luxurious couch; every thought was transport, each emotion bathed as it were in ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... with which he paints his tyrants are borrowed from the rhetorical exercises of the school. Who can recognise, in his blustering and raging Nero, the man who, as Tacitus says, seemed formed by nature "to veil hatred with caresses?"—the cowardly Sybarite, fantastically vain till the very last moment of his existence, cruel at first, from fear, and afterwards ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... good-bye, with the usual confirmation, he could no more remember what had been said in that miraculous hour than a bee flying home from a garden could tell you about the separate blossoms from which he (the Sybarite!) had gathered his freight ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... Sable was her defense of Port Royal. She united with Mme. de Longueville in protecting the persecuted Jansenists, Nicole and Arnauld, but she had neither the courage, the heroism, nor the partisan spirit of her more ardent companion. With all her devotion she was something of a sybarite and liked repose. She had the tact, during all the troubles which scattered her little circle, to retain her friends, of whatever religious color, though not without a few temporary clouds. Her diplomatic moderation did not quite please the religieuses ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Stafford had been a frequent visitor to the house. Sir Stanley was a childless widower, who was wont to complain that he kept up his huge establishment in order to justify the employment of his huge staff of servants. Stafford suspected him of being something of a sybarite. His dinners were famous, his cellar was one of the best in London and because of his acquaintances and friendships in the artistic sets, he was something of a dabbler in ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... While Pleasure sat by me, and Love was my guest; They twined a fresh wreath for each day as it came, And the bosom of Beauty still pillowed my rest: And the harp of my country—neglected it slept— In hall or by greenwood unheard were its songs; From Love's Sybarite dreams I aroused me, and swept Its chords to the tale of ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... no longer an invalid," he said. "And I must be getting northward very soon. I need the bracing air, the Spartan touch of the cold that the Sybarite in me dreads. Perhaps we ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... sacred, half profane. There are on it, besides, little pictures in beads, holy-water fonts, a watch-case with an Agnes Dei, a Palm Sunday palm-branch, and not a few odorless artificial flowers. A number of oaken bookshelves contain a rich and choice library, in which Horace, the Epicurean and Sybarite, stands side by side with the tender Virgil, in whose verses we see the heart of the enamored Dido throbbing and melting; Ovid the large-nosed, as sublime as he is obscene and sycophantic, side by side with Martial, the eloquent and witty ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... object, and, stretching forth his hand, he simply took hold of rouge, powder and a few hair-pins, with which he began to play. Mr. Cheng experienced at once displeasure, as he maintained that this youth would, by and bye, grow up into a sybarite, devoted to wine and women, and for this reason it is, that he soon began to feel not much attachment for him. But his grandmother is the one who, in spite of everything, prizes him like the breath of her own life. The very mention of what happened is even strange! He is now grown up to be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Old Hurricane, well wrapped up in his quilted flannel dressing-gown, sat in his well-padded easy-chair before a warm and bright fire, taking his comfort in his own most comfortable bedroom. This was the hour of the coziest enjoyment to the self-indulgent old Sybarite, who dearly loved his own ease. And, indeed, every means and appliance of bodily comfort was at hand. Strong oaken shutters and thick, heavy curtains at the windows kept out every draft of air, and so deadened the ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... would have suited you long, Brian, had I been ever so devoted. You are too much of a sybarite.' ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... creature, grotesque in his grace, Is sitting before us, and washing his face With his little fat paws overlapping; Where does he hail from? Where? Why, there, Underground, From a nook just as cosey, And tranquil, and dozy, As e'er wooed to Sybarite napping (But none ever caught him a-napping). Don't you see his burrow so ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... about a hundred dishes; Lamb and pistachio nuts—in short, all meats, And saffron soups, and sweetbreads; and the fishes Were of the finest that e'er flounced in nets, Drest to a Sybarite's most pamper'd wishes; The beverage was various sherbets Of raisin, orange, and pomegranate juice, Squeezed through the rind, which makes it best ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... lattices, little gateways with roses, white enamel with cute little diamond panes of glass for windows, inviting bowers of artificial flowers and dim yellow lights. It makes you feel like a sybarite just to see it. It's a cosmetic Arcadia for that fundamental ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... causes, as distinguished from its occasions, were common to our whole civilization. How perverse not to confess that beneath all our modern life, as its dominating motive, has lain that ruthless and pagan philosophy, which creates alike the sybarite, the tyrant and the anarch; the philosophy in which lust goes hand in hand with cruelty and unrestrained will to power is accompanied by ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... be no doubt that the early inhabitants of this city were Grecians and a maritime and commercial people; they have been supposed to belong to the Sybarite race, and the roses producing flowers twice a year in the spring and autumn in ancient times here, might sanction the idea that this balmy spot was chosen by a colony who carried luxury and refinement ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... no sybarite, Verschoyle. You'll say that when you see my room at home. My housekeeper is always bewailing my lack of appreciation of what she calls comfort"—taking out his pocket-book as he spoke, and putting it on to the dressing-table before removing ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various |
