"Trifler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been already said to disabuse the reader's mind of the common misconception of Buffon, namely, that he was more or less of an elegant trifler with science, who cared rather about the language in which his ideas were clothed than about the ideas themselves, and that he did not hold the same opinions for long together; but the accusation of instability has been made in such high ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... "Away, Away, you trifler. Love! I know thee not, I care not for thee, Kate: this is no world To play with mammets, and to tilt with lips; We must have bloody noses ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... needs must feel oppress'd, My heart to earth's low cares a prey. Too old the trifler's part to play, Too young to live by no desire possess'd. What can the world to me afford? Renounce! renounce! is still the word; This is the everlasting song In every ear that ceaseless rings, And which, alas, our whole life long, Hoarsely each passing moment sings. But to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... yourself, to kiss him deliberately, unmistakably upon the lips, is a final seal and ultimate surrender, and that if you do not marry a man you have so kissed you would be no better than a worthless deceiver, an outrageous flirt, an abandoned trifler——" ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... four sorts of kisses," reflected the Mexican trifler. "But there! very likely to me also they would appear alike from the top of a rock." He looked the American over, the rifle under his leg, his pistol, and his knife. "How clumsy these gringos are when it's about a girl!" thought Luis. "Any ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... who esteems trifles for their own sake is a trifler, but one who values them, rather, for the deductions that may be drawn from them—he ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... I knew, was grieved and indignant. With all my fair promises and pretended loyalty I seemed to be an idle trifler. How could my relation to Lettie Conlow be explained away in the light of this visit from a handsome cultured young lady, who had had an assurance of welcome or she would not have come. He loved Marjie as the daughter of his dearest friend. He had longed to call her, "daughter," and ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... essential to Pastorals, that it ought to be confin'd to the State, Manners, Apprehension and even common phrases of Sheapards: for nothing can {23} be said to be Pastoral, which is not accommodated to their condition; and for this Reason Nannius Alcmaritanus in my opinion is a trifler, who, in his comments on Virgils Eclogues, thinks that those sorts of Composures may now and then be lofty, and treat of great subjects: where he likewise divides the matter of Bucolicks, into Low, Middle, and High: and makes Virgil the Author of this Division, ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... suppose her guilt, and that what we see before us is a great spirit carried away by passion—that something beyond reason, beyond all human power to restrain, which sometimes binds an angelic woman to a villain, and sometimes a man of the highest power and wisdom to a lovely trifler or a fool. It seems to me as at once more consistent with the facts and with human nature to realise the position of the unhappy Queen as transported by that overwhelming sentiment, and wrought on the other side to an impatience almost maddening, by the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... succeeded, yet he had acquired such a command over his heart that he was as little wretched as a man can be who is a living monument of the too common folly of being captivated by a sudden glare of person and parts; and of the fatal error of those men who seek in marriage for an amusing trifler rather than a rational and amiable companion, and too late find that the vivacity which pleases in the mistress is often a fatal vice in a wife. He lives chiefly in the country, has generally a few friends in the house with ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... Then with that force content, which Nature gave, Nor am I now displeased with what I have. When the young wrestlers at their sport grew warm, Old Milo wept, to see his naked arm; And cried, 'twas dead. Trifler! thine heart and head, And all that's in them (not thy arm) are dead; This folly every looker on derides, To glory only in thy arms and sides. Our gallant ancestors let fall no tears, Their strength decreasing by increasing years; 290 But they advanced in wisdom every ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... human progress. If they express moral and political greatness, and serve to enhance it, they acquire a certain dignity; but so soon as this expressive function is abandoned they grow meretricious. The artist becomes an abstracted trifler, and the public is divided into two camps: the dilettanti, who dote on the artist's affectations, and the rabble, who pay him to grow coarse. Both influences degrade him and he helps to foster both. An atmosphere of dependence and charlatanry gathers about the artistic attitude and spreads ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... retreat, smiled beautifully to himself. He had watched the old gentleman's progress through the garden, and had guessed that he was tremendously proud of his flowers, his trees, his lawn; and an inspiration had come to this light-hearted trifler with another ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... thoughts, I saw that I must avoid what is called bad company, that I must give up my old habits and pretensions, which would be sure to make me enemies, who would have no scruple in representing me as a trifler, and not fit to be trusted ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... exercised an ever-increasing influence upon the popular understanding, his sympathetic nature endeared him more and more to the popular heart. In vain did journals and speakers of the opposition represent him as a lightminded trifler, who amused himself with frivolous story-telling and coarse jokes, while the blood of the people was flowing in streams. The people knew that the man at the head of affairs, on whose haggard face the twinkle of humor ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... careerist is rather obvious, easily recognizable, with diaphanous motives and conduct. But there is another and rarer bird, the careerist of talent, even the careerist of genius, whom it is not so easy to see through. Clever and brainy, he may be a good all around trifler, or his specific gift for some line of achievement may make him more effective. There is nothing he may not call himself: conservative, liberal, progressive, or radical. Often he is an agnostic about social and political affairs and ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... for Mr. Quirk; he would not resume argument with such a trifler; nor, indeed, was there any opportunity; for Lord Rockminster now suggested they should go into the drawing-room—and Ichabod had to ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... sincere and simple, to be unassuming and kindly. Ive lived a blameless life. Ive supported the Censorship in the face of ridicule and insult. And now I'm told that I'm a centre of Immoralism! of Modern Minxism! a trifler with the most sacred subjects! a Nietzschean!! perhaps ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... Caroline's father in the Colony was a circumstance ominous of trouble. The Baron was no trifler, and would as soon choke a prince as a beggar, to revenge an insult to his personal honor or the honor of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... a trifler unworthy of his race; the mere gentleman is a character which may in time become somewhat tiresome; there is a just mean between the two, where a better conduct than either is to be found. It is that of ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... dog is another man's mongrel. Mr. Robert Cortes Holliday, that quaint philosopher frequently doggishly nicknamed Owd Bob, went to Washington lately to see President Harding. His eye fell upon the White House Airedale. Now Owd Bob is himself something of an Airedale trifler, and cherishes the memory of a certain Tristram Shandy, an animal that frequently appeared in the lighter editorials of the Bookman when Mr. Holliday (then the editor) could think of nothing else to write about. And of Mr. Harding's dog Mr. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... of hypocrisy! Into how many ears have I poured tender words, until fair hands were as good as offered to me, and I turned their love to mockery! I hated and despised all womanhood; and even in Paris I became notorious as a heartless trifler with the affections I won and trampled under my feet. Whenever a brilliant and beautiful woman crossed my path, I attached myself to her train of admirers, until I made her acknowledge my power and ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... falls still lower, it affects indifference and scepticism and it puts on the air of the trifler in order to insinuate a word of wisdom into the seductive talk that is heard around it, and it holds language somewhat as follows: "Probably everything has its good points and there is something to be said for both vice and virtue, crime and honesty, ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... influence over every other. The second generation of the statesmen of this reign were worthy pupils of the schools in which they had been trained, of the gaming-table of Grammont, and the tiring-room of Nell. In no other age could such a trifler as Buckingham have exercised any political influence. In no other age could the path to power and glory have been thrown open to the manifold ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of life in harmony therewith; and totally averse to the purer, manlier and nobler duties and pleasures of a better state of society. To dress and exhibit themselves; to crowd the saloon of every foreign trifler, who, under the abused name of art, and for the sake of gold, seeks to minister to us those meretricious excitements which associate themselves with declining states and artificial forms of life; to waste the most ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... moods are, of course, described as they might actually be experienced by a highly cultivated and serious man like Milton himself. The gravity is the gravity of a man of thought, not of a man of affairs; the pleasures are those of a scholar and a poet, not those of a trifler, a sportsman, or a sensualist. Like all Milton's works they borrow freely from earlier poets, remain entirely original and Miltonic, and are imitated only at the peril of the imitator. Any one who looks at the parallel passages in Marlowe and Fletcher will see how very ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... the chair nearest the door, and Batty Langton was the one moderately sober man of the company. He had not heard, in time to interfere, the proposal to send for Ruth: it had started somewhere at the Collector's end of the table. But trifler though he was, he thought it cruel to the girl—a damnable shame—and pulled himself together to prevent what mischief he might. At the same time he felt curious to see her, curious to learn if these many months of seclusion had fulfilled ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... lonely place, he should be certain that she is capable of being enjoyed by the use of a little force. A woman who lets a man make up to her, but does not give herself up, even after a long time, should be considered as a trifler in love, but owing to the fickleness of the human mind, even such a woman can be conquered by always keeping up ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... and, blasted with her frown, To Its first state of nothing melted down. 170 Nor shall the Muse, (for even there the pride Of this vain nothing shall be mortified) Nor shall the Muse (should Fate ordain her rhymes, Fond, pleasing thought! to live in after-times) With such a trifler's name her pages blot; Known be the character, the thing forgot: Let It, to disappoint each future aim, Live without sex, and die without a name! Cold-blooded critics, by enervate sires Scarce hammer'd out, when Nature's feeble ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... earth," judge that desirable, good, and profitable, which being present we use, and absent we want and desire. But that which no man thinks worth his concern, either for his profit or delight, is indifferent. For we by no other means distinguish a laborious man from a trifler, who is for the most part also employed in action, but that the one busies himself in useless matters and indifferently, and the other in things commodious and profitable. But these men act quite contrary; for with them, a wise and prudent ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the Plymley Letters, advocating the claims of Catholic emancipation, and extolling Fox and Grenville at the expense of Perceval and Canning. Very edifying is it to find Sydney Smith objecting to this latter that he is a "diner out," a "maker of jokes and parodies," a trifler on important subjects—in fact each and all of the things which the Rev. Sydney Smith himself was, in a perfection only equalled by the object of his righteous wrath. But of Peter ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... CAN," or the able man. The modern explanation usually makes him "the chief or head of a people." Edward II would satisfy neither of these definitions. He lacked all disposition to do anything himself; he equally lacked power to incite others to do. By nature he was a jester, trifler, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... years, unsettled and even revolutionized our estimates of Swedenborg as a philosopher. That man, indeed, whom Emerson ranks as one amongst his inner consistory of intellectual potentates cannot be the absolute trifler that Kant, (who knew him only by the most trivial of his pretensions,) eighty years ago, supposed him. Assuredly, Mr. Clowes was no trifler, but lived habitually a life of power, though in a world of religious mysticism and of apocalyptic visions. To him, being such a man by nature and ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... all the world is my sermon; every one contradicts it. If I go about with lies, then I have Christ against me; therefore I have heaven and earth against me, and how then could I stand? As such a trifler with holy things how should I dare rise up? Believe me, I speak the truth, I have seen it with my eyes, and touched it with my hands. Believe it! If I speak not the truth, I consign myself body and soul to destruction; ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... not met for six years. Mr. Lovel went back to his books as calmly as if there had been no ardent impetuous girl of eighteen under his roof, leaving Clarissa to find occupation and amusement as best she might. He was not a profound student; a literary trifler rather, caring for only a limited number of books, and reading those again and again. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Southey's Doctor. Montaigne, and Swift, he read continually. He was a collector ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... "No, you trifler!—one of Edgar Allan Poe's. None of your scoffing, sir! You may go home in tears before I am through with you. This way, both ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... sentimentalist has proclaimed him a mere mocker. To the critic of the schools, ever ready with compendious label, he is the revolutionary destructive. To each alike of the countless orthodox sects his name is the symbol for the prevailing of the gates of hell. Erudition figures him as shallow and a trifler; culture condemns him for pushing his hatred of spiritual falsehood much too seriously; Christian charity feels constrained to unmask a demon from the depths of the pit. The plain men of the earth, who are apt ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... but their eternal Queen Anne. It's good for one's bed-room, Queen Anne—for one's washing-room; but it isn't proper for a salon. Do I spend my life at the auctioneer's?" Mr. Rosier pursued in answer to another question of Isabel's. "Oh no; I haven't the means. I wish I had. You think I'm a mere trifler; I can tell by the expression of your face—you've got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope you don't mind my saying that; I mean it as a kind of warning. You think I ought to do something, and so do I, so long as you leave it vague. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... secret of talking well is to adapt your conversation as skillfully as may be to your company. Some men make a point of talking commonplace to all ladies alike, as if a woman could only be a trifler. Others, on the contrary, seem to forget in what respects the education of a lady differs from that of a gentleman, and commit the opposite error of conversing on topics with which ladies are seldom acquainted. A woman of sense has as much ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... looking up at her and tingling with daring thoughts. He was a littleish man, you must remember, but neither mean-looking nor unhandsome in those days, sunburnt by his holiday and now warmly flushed. He had an inspiration to simple speech that no practised trifler with love could have bettered. "There is love at first sight," he ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... three, Laughing idler, full of glee, Arm in arm does fondly chain her, Thinking, poor trifler, to detain ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... barrister withdrew to his room, where he read hard until very late. Eustace was no trifler; he had brains, and saw his way to make use of them to the one end which addressed his imagination, that of social self-advancement. His studies to-night were troubled with a resentful fear lest Irene's "unwomanly" behaviour (a generation ago ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... with sufficient reason, that there is in the commentary too much of unseasonable levity and affected gaiety; that too many appeals are made to the ladies, and the ease which is so carefully preserved is, sometimes, the ease of a trifler. Every art has its terms, and every kind of instruction its proper style; the gravity of common criticks may be tedious, but is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... silent grave!— The world, which for an idle day Grace to your mood of sadness gave, Long since hath flung her weeds away. The eternal trifler breaks your spell; But we—we learnt your ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... opinion, not mine, nor yours, but that of all these ages. I will stand by the sentence of the word of God: the Spirit breatheth where it will (John iii. 8). There he is at it again; what circumvolutions, what wheels he is making! This trifler, this arch-contriver of words and sophisms, I know not to whom he can be formidable: tiresome he possibly will be. His tiresomeness will find its corrective in your sagacity: all that was formidable about him ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... fool that I am! to fix all my happiness on such a trifler! 'Sdeath! to make herself the pipe and ballad-monger of a circle! to soothe her light heart with catches and glees!—What can you say to ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... Prince of the Republic to see to it, that the majesty of the law, the sacredness of the lives of Roman noblemen, and the security of their property be publicly vindicated: I am here to undo all that Lollius Corbulo supinely allowed to be done. You shall perceive that I am wholly unlike any such trifler. Of one feature only of his procedure do I approve. I highly acclaim his notions as to the right kind of torture. Slaves like you, however pampered, are property, like horses or cattle. Their value lies in their usefulness. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... you trifler: Loue, I loue thee not, I care not for thee Kate: this is no world To play with Mammets, and to tilt with lips. We must haue bloodie Noses, and crack'd Crownes, And passe them currant too. Gods me, my horse. What say'st thou Kate? what wold'st thou haue with me? La. Do ye not loue me? Do ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... in loops of flight I watch you wayward go; Dance down a shaft of glancing light, Review my books a-row; Before the bust you flaunt and flit Of "blind Maeonides"— Ah, trifler, on his lips there ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... he threatened. "I think I have, already. I don't believe I could stand up to Dryfoos, now, as I did for poor old Lindau, when I risked your bread and butter for his. I look back in wonder and admiration at myself. I've steadily lost touch with life since then. I'm a trifler, a dilettante, and an amateur of the right and the good as I used to be when I was young. Oh, I have the grace to be troubled at times, now, and once I never was. It never occurred to me then that the world wasn't made to interest me, or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... have discovered what to call thee,"—shouted this same Mikhalevitch, at three o'clock in the morning;—"thou art not a sceptic, not a disillusioned man, not a Voltairian,—thou art a trifler, and thou art an evil-minded trifler, a conscious trifler, not an ingenuous trifler. Ingenuous triflers lie around on the oven and do nothing, because they do not know how to do anything; and they think of nothing. But thou art a thinking man,—and ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... English subtlety, which illumined by the lights of former times is always sending forth fresh rays of truth, produce anything to the advancement of science or the declaration of the faith, this was instantly poured still fresh into our ears, ungarbled by any babbler, unmutilated by any trifler, but passing straight from the purest of wine-presses into the vats of our memory to ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... have found her. You may think me a trifler, Easelmann; but every nerve I have is quivering with agony at the thought of the pain I have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... should. Monte, big-hearted and good, had, as a consequence of all these things, imagined himself in love. This delusion might last a week or two; and then, when he came to himself again, the rude awakening would follow. He would see her then merely as a trifler. Worse than that, he might see himself as merely a trifler. That ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... were made with the despatch which characterized Mrs. Hardy. She was a stickler for precedent; any departure from the beaten paths was in her decalogue the unpardonable sin, but when she had arrived at a decision she was no trifler. She accepted the situation with the resignation which she deemed to be correct under such circumstances, but the boundless prairies were to her so much desolation and ugliness. It was apparent that dwellers in the little four-cornered houses of the plains ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... only herself to blame," he said, as he struggled with his feelings. "I forewarned her; I gave her to understand clearly what she had to expect. My word is passed. I have said it; and that ends the matter. I am no childish trifler. What I say, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... storm; Wood, in its most imposing form, That climbs the mountain, bows below, Where deep th' unsullied waters flow. Here Gilpin's eye transported scan'd Views by no tricks of fancy plan'd; Gray here, upon the stream reclin'd, Stor'd with delight his ardent mind. But let the vacant trifler stray From thy enchantments far away; For should, from fashion's rainbow train, The idle and the vicious vain, In sacrilege presume to move Through these dear scenes of peace and love, The spirit of ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... peace of Utrecht. We are indeed no admirers of the statesmen who concluded that peace. Harley, we believe, was a solemn trifler, St. John a brilliant knave. The great body of their followers consisted of the country clergy and the country gentry; two classes of men who were then inferior in intelligence to decent shopkeepers or farmers of our time. Parson ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... porch and, maybe inspired by secret antagonism to the Fynes, I said to myself deliberately that Captain Anthony must be a fine fellow. Yet on the facts as I knew them he might have been a dangerous trifler or a downright scoundrel. He had made a miserable, hopeless girl follow him clandestinely to London. It is true that the girl had written since, only Mrs. Fyne had been remarkably vague as to the contents. They were unsatisfactory. They did ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... guarantee had he that Iris Wayne would welcome him to her birthday feast? He had thrown her kindness back into her face, had first accepted and then carelessly repudiated her friendship; and it was only too probable she had written him down as a casual and discourteous trifler with whom, in future, she desired to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... him and find out what he means, what influences have been at work, what is underneath it all. Warn him of the danger of even appearing doubtful, or for a moment lukewarm. The one person whom the public will not have in politics is the trifler. Think how many there have been, brilliant men, too, who have lost their places through a single false step, a single year, a month of dilettantism. Remind him of them. The man who moves in a great cause may move slowly, if you will, but he must ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are thinking," she cried impulsively "You are wrong—very wrong, Mr. Chase. Lady Deppingham is a born coquette—a born trifler. It is ridiculous to think that she can be seriously ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... not endure that which beset him; it was unbearable, because her eyes had maddeningly seemed to ask him some wistful question. Why did she let her loveliness so call to him. She was not a trifler who could play with meanings. Perhaps she did not know what her power was. Sometimes he could believe ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... deep respect. But for your ambidextrous apologist or theologian, the fellow who can make words bear double meanings, and even infallible oracles tell contradictory stories, we have nothing but contempt, because he is a trifler with truth. ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... looked him straight in the eyes. "I have seen her. A fair toy vessel to amuse an idle young man's leisure! You are he that in that fool's hole of a Bosekop, is known as the 'rich Englishman,'—an idle trifler with time,—an aimless wanderer from those dull shores where they eat gold till they die of surfeit! I have heard of you,—a mushroom knight, a fungus of nobility,—an ephemeral growth on a grand decaying old ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... quod is animo conceperit, si quae dictio, &c. If aught be omitted, or added, which he likes, or dislikes, thou art mancipium paucae lectionis, an idiot, an ass, nullus es, or plagiarius, a trifler, a trivant, thou art an idle fellow; or else it is a thing of mere industry, a collection without wit or invention, a very toy. [113]Facilia sic putant omnes quae jam facta, nec de salebris cogitant, ubi via strata; so men ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... it and drags it indoors, gathers the pollen-dust, prepares the honey in her crop, stores and mixes the paste. This severe labour, so imperious and so active, in which the insect's whole life is spent, manifestly demands a bodily strength which would be quite useless to the male, the amorous trifler. Thus, as a general rule, in the insects which carry on an industry the female is the ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... them grievously harassed by disputations. Anabaptists were on one side, and Quakers on the other; and hereby five or six persons have been confused. But the rest cleave so much the closer together. Nor does it appear that there is now one trifler, much less a disorderly walker, among them." Wednesday, 17th (August, 1763).—"Hence we rode to Coleford. The wind being high, I consented to preach in their new room; but large as it was, it would not contain the people, who appeared to be not a little affected, of which they gave a ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... public to this important subject. Unfortunately Basedow had a silly ambition of being reputed an infidel, and thus created a great obstacle to his own success: he was also in many other respects a sciolist and a trifler: but, since his time, the subject has been much cultivated in Germany: 'Paedogogic' journals even, have been published periodically, like literary or philosophic journals: and, as might be anticipated from that love of children which so honourably ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... more of you than I thought, my boy. In May I knew you had a heart; but one who heard you in the woods would have set you down just for a kindly, practical man of the world. Last night, and most of the time to-day, you were the trifler, the incorrigible jester. Why do you belie yourself so and hide your inmost self from ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... the people, and the aristocracy as well, regarded the person of the king. There was somewhat of gloomy and ferocious dignity about Philip II. which might easily bring a courtier to his knees; but how can we account for the equal reverence that was paid to the ninny Philip III., the debauched trifler Philip IV., and the drivelling ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... If, however, she had already become what Harry uneasily felt she might become, was it not his duty to go to the rescue of his friend and try to save him from any rash act on account of a woman that might prove to be entirely unworthy of him; for trifler and visionary as he was, Harry deserved a better ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... coward. I can at least be honest, and then you may think what you please of my weakness and vacillation. You cannot think worse things than I think myself, but you must not imagine that I am a cold-blooded, deliberate trifler, for that has never been true. I know you don't care for ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... patient, unremitting delving, of the digging up, up, up to get to the light which most human beings are privileged to enjoy with no effort at all! The mind that accepts this wealth with no thought, no sense of responsibility, is a trifler with riches that are about us for God-given purposes. Think of the way in which Stevenson and John Richard Green and George Eliot rose above their ill-health and did their work in despite of it! Perhaps some of us have superb health and have never ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... sit who copy out the words of the Divine Law, and likewise the hallowed sayings of Holy Fathers. Let them beware of interspersing their own frivolities in the words they copy, nor let a trifler's hand make mistakes through haste. Let them earnestly seek out for themselves correctly written books to transcribe, that the flying pen may speed along the right path. Let them distinguish the proper sense by colons and commas, and set the points, each one in its ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... world at large, perhaps, Mr. Huxley's share in moulding the thesis of NATURAL SELECTION is less well-known than is his bold unwearied exposition and defence of it after it had been made public. And, indeed, a speculative trifler, revelling in the problems of the "might have been," would find a congenial theme in the inquiry how soon what we now call "Darwinism" would have met with the acceptance with which it has met, and gained the power which it has gained, had it not been ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley |
