"Undeserving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... against the Roman Catholics. In his "History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles," Lord Stanhope, the descendant of the minister whose career and character have done so much honor to a name and a family, claims for him the credit of having put on paper a scheme "not undeserving of attention as the earliest germ of Roman Catholic emancipation." Stanhope's life was too soon and too {174} suddenly cut short to allow him to push forward his scheme to anything like a practical position, and it is not probable ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... pursued he, "is scarce the equal of his brother, yet is he undeserving of the name of a leopard cub; and my Lord Ambrose, as meseemeth, shall make a worthy honourable man. For what toucheth my Lord Guilford, I think he is not unkindly, but he hath not wit equal to his father; and as for Robin [the famous Earl of Leicester]—well, you ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... praises out of envy and spite, nor should we allow others either to praise us then, but we should make way for those that are being honoured, if they are worthy of honour, and even if they seem to us undeserving of honour and worthless, we ought not to strip them of their praise by self-laudation, but by direct argument and proof that they are not worthy of all these encomiums. It is plain then that we ought to avoid ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... they done, between them, to Angela. It was his wife put him up to saying that, she reasoned, for Janet's Calvinistic dogmas as to daughters in their teens were ever at variance with the views of her gentle neighbor. If Angela had been harshly dealt with, undeserving, it was Angela's duty to say so and to say why, said Janet. Meantime, her first care was her wronged and misjudged brother. Gladly would she have gone to the office with him and stood proudly by his side in presence of his oppressor, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... society was an excuse to enjoy yours. I was an habitual visitor in town that I might cherish my love, and, dare I say it, I came down here to declare it. Do not despise it, dearest of women; it is not worthy of you, but it is not altogether undeserving. It is, as you ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... Quirk. "Denis, that I believed was dead! Call Mr. Quirk, my dear! Oh, this is too much joy! God is good, far too good, to an undeserving old woman like me." ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... we trifle with our precious moments—such another opportunity may not occur; then let me now conjure my kind, my condescending angel, to fix the time when I may rescue her from undeserving persecution, and with a licensed ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... deliver me from a Pack of Villains. I most humbly beg your Pardon for my late Conduct and unjust Complaint of you. Do but stand my Friend, at this critical Conjuncture, and I'll be your most obedient Vassal till Death. Zadig had now no Inclination to fight for one so undeserving any more. Find some other to be your Fool now, Madam; you shan't impose upon me a second Time. I'll assure you, Madam, I know better Things. Besides he was wounded; and bled so fast that he wanted Assistance ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... it, the problem that we have to consider is, briefly, how to apply Christ's teaching in our own town. Let me suggest first: That there are in this city, as in every city, two classes who present their claims for assistance; the deserving and undeserving. Any plan which does not distinguish between these two classes must prove a failure, because it would encourage the idle in their idleness, and so prove a curse instead of a blessing. It would make fraud profitable by placing a premium rather than a penalty on crime; and it would make the sufferings ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... you will apply your great learning to this subject. The matter is one which deserves long and deep consideration on your part; nor am I, for my part, undeserving of having the fruits of your wisdom imparted to me. You may even argue on both sides (as your way is), provided you argue more forcibly on one side than the other, so as not to dismiss me in suspense and anxiety, when the very cause of my consulting you has ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... say he could not get his Imprimeur to proceed. He should have applied to another. But as to you, it shall be set to rights in the manner I have before stated. Accept my regret that you were in the hands of so undeserving a workman, and one who placed me under the necessity of interrupting a work which interested you. Be assured, at the same time, of the sincerity of those sentiments of esteem and respect with which I have the honor to be, dear Sir, your most ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... There are plenty rich and silly women in Glasgow who are systematically fleeced by the undeserving poor—people who have no earthly business to be poor, who have hands and heads which can give them a competence, only they are moral idiots. No woman should be allowed full use of large sums of money. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... by those who bore arms. The oppressions of the government were little felt, except by the aristocracy. The institutions of the country when compared with the institutions of the neighbouring kingdoms, seem to have been not undeserving of the praises of Fortescue. The government of Edward the Fourth, though we call it cruel and arbitrary, was humane and liberal when compared with that of Lewis the Eleventh, or that of Charles the Bold. Comines, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the letter are undeserving of serious examination. They are of a far later period than the Elizabethan age. They cannot be dated earlier than 1763. Safely might the heaviest odds be laid that in no year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth "did friende Marle promyse G. Peel his syster that he would send hyr watche and the ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... remained with them more as a confidante than as a servant; indeed, she had so much money, that she received several offers of marriage, which she invariably refused, observing, with the true humbleness of a contrite heart, that she was undeserving of any honest, good man. Everybody else, even those who knew her history, thought otherwise; but Mary continued firm in her resolution. As for all the rest of the personages introduced into these pages, they passed through life with an ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... as the banker of the poor. The committee were unanimous in condemning the conduct of Morris, and it says much for the members that, in spite of the provocation one of them had received, they did not take the name of so undeserving a man from their list of ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... over an hour, while the latter was occupied with the consumption of a lengthy breakfast, and his impression of the man whom he thus watched closely is summed up briefly:- "A more insignificant personage," he says, "I have never yet beheld!" After which he dismisses Jerome as undeserving of further comment. ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... It has been estimated that nearly L5,000 is given every year in what may be called the indiscriminate charity of giving alms to those who ask it in the streets or from door to door. By far the largest portion of this amount goes into the hands of the undeserving and the worthless, and the formation of a central relief office, into which the charitably-disposed may hand in their contributions, and from whence the really poor and deserving may receive help in times of distress, has been a long felt want. In 1869 a "Charity Organisation Society" ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... blessed to give than to receive, my child. Happy are they who have the power to confer benefits, and who do so with willing hearts. I fear, however, that you will find your task a difficult one. Everywhere are the idle and undeserving, and these are more apt to force themselves forward as objects of benevolence than the truly needy and meritorious. As I know every one in the village, perhaps I may be able to guide you to ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... of the franking system are far more serious than the pecuniary expense, although that is by no means undeserving of regard. It is not only an ensnaring prerogative to those who enjoy it, and an anomaly and incongruity in our republican institutions, but it is an oppressive burden upon the post-office, which ought ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... not know the origin of the French word CLICHY, as applied to the noted prison of that name, but it is perhaps not undeserving the comment that in Continental Gipsy it means a key ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... with these criticisms: the common indictment of "inefficiency" so often brought against public and privately endowed agencies. The charges include the high cost of administration; the pauperization of deserving poor, and the encouragement and fostering of the "undeserving"; the progressive destruction of self-respect and self-reliance by the paternalistic interference of social agencies; the impossibility of keeping pace with the ever-increasing multiplication of factors and influences responsible for the perpetuation of human misery; the misdirection and misappropriation ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... have been invented for the comfort of the undeserving. We let fall our rain of compliments upon the unjust and the just without distinction. Every hostess has provided us with the most charming evening of our life. Every guest has conferred a like blessing upon us by accepting our invitation. I remember a dear good lady in a small south German ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... keen interest, and much amusement to readers who were not included in Pope's black list of dunces. At the same time it roused a number of authors to fury, as it well might. His satire is often unjust, and he includes among the dunces men wholly undeserving of the name, who had had the misfortune to offend him. To place a great scholar like Bentley, an eloquent and earnest preacher like Whitefield, and a man of genius like Defoe among the dunces was to stultify himself, and ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... justice. He hath also acquired a reputation for learning in this world. However undeserving he may be to be staked in play, with him as stake I will play, with such a dear object as it, indeed, he were ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... sunk in the misery of sin, and not venture to extend to him the helping hand of a gentle but out-spoken remonstrance. We must condescend in everything, but only up to the altar steps; that is to say, not beyond the point at which condescension would be a sin, and undeserving of its name. I do not say that we must at every instant reprove the sinner. Charitable prudence demands that we rather wait the moment when he is capable of assimilating the remedies suitable for his malady, and till God shall give to his hearing joy and gladness, and ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... country continue to enjoy great prosperity. Undoubtedly there will be ebb and flow in such prosperity, and this ebb and flow will be felt more or less by all members of the community, both by the deserving and the undeserving. Against the wrath of the Lord the wisdom of man cannot avail; in time of flood or drought human ingenuity can but partially repair the disaster. A general failure of crops would hurt all of us. Again, if the folly of man mars the general well-being, then those who ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... assign any reasonable motive; that, if the truth must be told, the man was, in point of conduct, a most incorrigible fool; that, though he pretended to have a knack at hitting off characters, he blundered strangely in the distribution of his favours, which were generally bestowed on the most undeserving of those who had recourse to his assistance; that, indeed, this preference was not so much owing to want of discernment as to want of resolution, for he had not fortitude enough to resist the importunity even of the most worthless; ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... bright eye of Mittie actually sunk before the calm, rebuking glance, which gave emphasis to every cool, deliberate word. Here was the woman she had dared to treat with disdain, as undeserving her respect, as the usurper of a place to which she had no right, whom she had predetermined to hate because she was her step-mother, and whom she continued to dislike because she had predetermined to do so, all at once assuming an ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... five minutes or so had elapsed since the previous visit, she had a pretty little way of greeting him that, though very gradually acquired despite surging impulse, was at last quite a settled fact, and he loved it,—well, he would have been an unappreciative, undeserving brute had he not. She would steal behind him, lean over the back of the chair (Jack refused to exchange it for the high-backed one suggested by Mrs. Pelham on the occasion of a brief visit paid them in March), and, twining her arms around his neck, would draw ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... here, Ann, the whole thing's so jolly complicated. According to Calway, we're to give the State all we can spare, to make the undeserving deserving. He's a Professor; he ought to know. But old Hoxton's always dinning it into me that we ought to support private organisations for helping the deserving, and damn the undeserving. Well, that's just the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Mr. Neville, I am sorely grieved to see in you more traces of a character as sullen, angry, and wild, as the night now closing in. They are of too serious an aspect to leave me the resource of treating the infatuation you have disclosed, as undeserving serious consideration. I give it very serious consideration, and I speak to you accordingly. This feud between you and young Drood must not go on. I cannot permit it to go on any longer, knowing what ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Manfred. "Forget her from this moment, as I do. In short, Lady, you have missed a husband undeserving of your charms: they shall now be better disposed of. Instead of a sickly boy, you shall have a husband in the prime of his age, who will know how to value your beauties, and who may expect a ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... parent cannot be saved from the sorrow inflicted by a spoiled child; the idle cannot be saved from hunger and want; the lazy cannot be given the rewards of the diligent. The success that attends effort and rewards character cannot be awarded to the undeserving without paralyzing all the incentives to virtue and industry. Christ came not to destroy the law—either that revealed in the Word of God or that which was written on nature—He came to fulfill. In the brief years that He taught ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... fraudulently put upon these rolls is a wicked imposition upon the kindly sentiment in which pensions have their origin; every fraudulent pensioner has become a bad citizen; every false oath in support of a pension has made perjury more common, and false and undeserving pensioners rob the people not only of their money, but of the patriotic sentiment which the survivors of a war fought for the preservation of the Union ought to inspire. Thousands of neighborhoods have their well-known fraudulent pensioners, and recent developments by ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... this late hour of the night, refrain from saying two or three words. Most of the observations of the honourable Member for Preston I pass by, as undeserving of any answer before an audience like this. But on one part of his speech I must make a few remarks. We are, he says, making a law to benefit the rich, at the expense of the poor. Sir, the fact is the direct reverse. This is a bill ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... remarkable, purposely substituted a fictitious designation, for the real name of the place in which his observations were made. We are confirmed in this belief by a little circumstance, apparently slight and trivial in itself, but when considered in this point of view, not undeserving of notice. In Mr. Pickwick's note-book, we can just trace an entry of the fact, that the places of himself and followers were booked by the Norwich coach; but this entry was afterwards lined through, as if for the purpose ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... good deed is that, if we are liberal only to our friends? As Christ teaches, Luke vi, even a wicked man does that to another who is his friend. Besides, the brute beasts also do good and are generous to their kind. Therefore a Christian must rise higher, let his liberality serve also the undeserving, evil-doers, enemies, and the ungrateful, even as his heavenly Father makes His sun to rise on good and evil, and the rain to fall on the grateful ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... him to realise that he was returning to wealth and luxury, indeed, monopolising it,-he the helpless, undeserving, indolent son, while all the others, and especially his ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a clergyman a fool, who was not totally undeserving of the title, but who resented the indignity so highly, that he threatened to complain to his diocesan, the Bishop of Ely, "Do so," says the Doctor, "and he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... sweet" to her, the weather, her husband's sermons, the little trays that came continually from her neighbours, and she lived in a perpetual state of thankfulness for favours so insignificant that a less impressionable soul would have accepted them as undeserving of ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... necessary to give the rules which guided me, as they were very often modified by considerations, each obvious enough in itself, but difficult to summarize as a whole. Various provisional trials were made; I then began afresh by rejecting a few names as undeserving any mark at all, and, having marked the remainder individually, found that a total of 657 marks had been awarded to 332 persons; 117 of them had received 3 marks; 101, 2 marks; 104, 1 mark; so the three subdivisions were approximately ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster
... favors on the undeserving," briefly, almost sternly answered Stanley, with an unconscious change of tone and manner, which ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... a privilege of which I am undeserving, that I was suffered, in ever so small a way, to do aught for his comfort by rendering help to Madame Gruithuissens in the making of messes to tempt the sick man to eat, and also by doing what lay in my power to console those who ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... this epistle to you as the least undeserving of a very undeserving family. You, I think, have sent me one letter since I left London. I have nothing here to do but to write letters; and, what is not very often the case, I have members of Parliament in abundance to frank them, and abundance of ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... if he were a second St. George, the patron saint of England, while in Una we may see idealized some fair lady of the court. In Archimago he satirizes the odious King Philip II of Spain, and in false Duessa the fascinating intriguer, Mary Queen of Scots, who was undeserving so hard a blow. ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... need of his. Eternal life, pardon of sin, and deliverance from wrath to come, Christ propounds to thee, and these be the things that thou hast need of; besides, God will be gracious and merciful to worthless, undeserving wretches; come then as such an one, and lay no stumblingblocks in the way to him, but come to him for life, and live (John 5:34; 10:10; 3:36; Matt 1:21; Prov 8:35,36; 1 Thess ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the assurance of immunity from the consequences of her folly and imprudence, it was less with the arrogance of Fortune's favourite daughter than with the humility of one to whom life had measured out benefactions of which she was consciously undeserving. The assertion that the world owed her a living was forgotten, and if recalled, would have been revised to the sense that she owed the world the duty of honourable and conscientious living. If her temper was tolerably exalted, it ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... success, then by all the laws and principles of logic, Florrie ought to have been a failure. But she was not a failure. She was a fool whose incomparable foolishness had conferred not only prosperity, but happiness upon her. She shone, she scintillated, she diffused the glow of success. Though she was undeserving of admiration, she had been surfeited on it from her childhood; though she was devoid of the moral excellence which should command love, by a flashing glance or a waving curl, she could bring the most exalted love down from the heavens. There was no question that Algernon had ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... and almost always in sight of the fleet. The left flank of the army was protected by the column of cavalry. Hormisdas and Arinthaeus were appointed generals of the horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas [46] are not undeserving of our notice. He was a Persian prince, of the royal race of the Sassanides, who, in the troubles of the minority of Sapor, had escaped from prison to the hospitable court of the great Constantine. Hormisdas at first excited the compassion, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... countenance was very cold and stern, as he replied, "I thank you, Travilla, on her behalf; but, if you please, I would much prefer your not giving her anything at present, for, I am sorry to say, Elsie has been very stubborn and rebellious of late, and is quite undeserving of any indulgence." ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... that Ceres was not undeserving the highest titles bestowed upon her, being considered as the deity who had blessed men with the art of cultivating the earth, having not only taught them to plough and sow, but also to reap, harvest, and thresh out their grain; to make flour and bread, and fix limits or ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... turn; The rest with watchful care, kept cautious guard. Howe'er he stands, on Ioe still he looks; His face averse, yet still his eyes behold. By day she pastures, but beneath the earth When Phoebus sinks, he drags her to the stall, And binds with cords her undeserving neck. Arbutus' leaves, and bitter herbs her food: Her wretched bed is oft the cold damp earth; A strawy couch deny'd:—the muddy stream Her constant drink: when suppliant she would raise Her arms to Argus, arms ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... other more considerable advocates of old-age pensions clearly see that if such pensions are to be of real value they must discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving; and they believe that they may have the effect of stimulating, instead of weakening, thrift. For this purpose several schemes ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... servants of God have already received? It is clear that such souls must consider themselves greater debtors—under greater obligations to serve Him: we must acknowledge that we have nothing of ourselves, and confess the munificence of our Lord, Who, on a soul so wretched and poor, and so utterly undeserving, as mine is,—for whom the first of these pearls was enough, and more than enough,—would bestow greater riches than I ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... with justice be called to account in such language as this; but I possess an ample revenue, and wealth sufficient for three potentates, Why then have you no better method of expending your superfluities? Why is any man, undeserving [of distressed circumstances], in want, while you abound: How comes it to pass, that the ancient temples of the gods are falling to ruin? Why do not you, wretch that you are, bestow something on your dear country, out of ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... presence; he was wanted wherever there was any family event; and was godfather, guardian, friend, and adviser of all. Every one looked on him as a sort of exclusive property, yet he had room in his heart for all. As a magistrate, he was equally indispensable in county government, and a charity must be undeserving indeed that had not Humfrey Charlecote, Esq., on the committee. In his own parish he was a beneficent monarch; on his own estate a mighty farmer, owning that his relaxation and delight were his turnips, his bullocks, and machines; ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... eyes of Mrs. Thackeray to the bad quality of some of the company she kept. That sagacious lady did not think it worth while to dispute the ipse dixit of a teacher so single-minded, if not sagacious. She bowed respectfully to all his suggestions, promised no longer to bestow her smiles on the undeserving—a promise of no small importance when it is remembered that, at thirty-three, Mrs. Thackeray was for the first time a widow—and that night she might have been seen laughing heartily with Mesdames Ford and Quickly ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... disciplining, at home and at school, too, she dared not rebel. Yet wrath smoldered within her. She came to where the substitute stood at the board, calmly explaining the process of "borrowing," and the resolution to regard her as an undeserving stranger was tempered by Bep's desire to inflict ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... the leading members of that council, when in the service of your Majesty's royal father, reported in the most solemn form, that documents reflecting upon her Majesty were satisfactorily disproved as to the most important parts, and that the remainder was undeserving of credit. Under this declared conviction, they strongly recommended to your Majesty's royal father to bestow his favour upon the Queen, then Princess of Wales, though in opposition to your Majesty's ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... upon the more logically reasoning husband, and that it might lead him to be more merciful to the later wrong. And there was a keener irony that his first movement of unconscious kindliness towards her was the outcome of his affection for his undeserving wife. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... said royal Audiencia is the cause of the perversion of distributive justice. Dignities and offices are given to the unworthy and undeserving, thus causing those who have served his Majesty to complain. [20] For the appointive offices and offices of dignity, both of war and of the districts of alcaldes-mayor, are given to the brothers, sons, or relatives of the said auditors. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... it is, I consider that you are entitled to hear it. So far, then, as I am acquainted with the general character of the cases reported by the Homoeopathic physicians, they would for the most part be considered as wholly undeserving a place in any English, French, or American periodical of high standing, if, instead of favoring the doctrine they were intended to support, they were brought forward to prove the efficacy of any common remedy administered by any common practitioner. There are occasional ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... charities were doing more harm than good, and that the changed economic conditions of the sixteenth century called for a corresponding change in the distribution of relief, to save the country from being overrun by undeserving mendicants, amongst whom some of the religious Orders were themselves to be reckoned. It does not appear that any part of this argument held good against the Augustinian Canons, or that the more serious moral charges brought against the smaller communities were at all applicable to ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... trustful old man! he could not be brought to believe that one so dearly loved and highly trusted could prove so base and undeserving. ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... "And the most undeserving?" It was he who added the words, as though he had read them in my own mind; and there was a slight, sarcastic rising inflection of the voice at the end of the sentence, as if he put it to ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... have it otherwise. We should cry out against any serious attempt, outside of the pulpit, to alter or readjust an order that enables us to buy for money a position of which we would be otherwise undeserving. It would be most discouraging to us to have substituted for the present arrangement a society in which the only qualifications for admittance were those of charm, wit, culture, good breeding and ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... care, and tender arms! Call me thy son, thy cousin, thy kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god by the scenes of his infant years, no longer to repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, but to favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection?—He daily bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving and the worthless—assure him, that I bring ample documents of meritorious demerits! Pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious cause of Lucre, I will do anything, be anything—but the horse-leech of private oppression, or ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... unworthy of a moment's consideration, and it was certain that, as long as she received her weekly remittance—paid through an agent in London,—she would trouble herself very little about the rest; or, at all events, any feeling that might possess her would be wholly undeserving of respect. Gradually Julian ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... theopathic saintliness is that of Saint Gertrude, a Benedictine nun of the thirteenth century, whose "Revelations," a well-known mystical authority, consist mainly of proofs of Christ's partiality for her undeserving person. Assurances of his love, intimacies and caresses and compliments of the most absurd and puerile sort, addressed by Christ to Gertrude as an individual, form the tissue of this paltry-minded recital.[205] In reading such a narrative, we realize the gap between the thirteenth and the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... stagger; shake one's faith, shake one's belief, stagger one's faith, stagger one's belief. Adj. unbelieving; skeptical, sceptical. incredulous as to, skeptical as to; distrustful as to, shy as to, suspicious of; doubting &c v.. doubtful &c (uncertain) 475; disputable; unworthy of, undeserving of belief &c 484; questionable; suspect, suspicious; open to suspicion, open to doubt; staggering, hard to believe, incredible, unbelievable, not to be believed, inconceivable; impossible &c 471. fallible &c (uncertain) 475; undemonstrable; controvertible ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in all her schemes ... and cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and sour ... but the justices of the peace for Middlesex ... selected her from 124 competitors to the office of turnkey for a county Bridewell, which she held till her decease, more than thirty years afterwards, remaining single all ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... father's sight; If we shall meet again with more delight; Then draw my life in length; let me sustain, In hopes of his embrace, the worst of pain. But if your hard decrees- which, O! I dread- Have doom'd to death his undeserving head; This, O this very moment, let me die! While hopes and fears in equal balance lie; While, yet possess'd of all his youthful charms, I strain him close within these aged arms; Before that fatal news my soul shall wound!" He said, and, swooning, sunk upon the ground. His servants bore ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... servant to Ascalon for proofs," she said. "I shall give you shelter here until you are proved undeserving of it. And since the times ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... won over by your compassion for us, and defended by your aid in our critical circumstances, it is incumbent on us that we show our sense also of the kindness received; lest we should seem ungrateful, and undeserving of aid from either god or man. Nor, indeed, do I think that because the Samnites first became your allies and friends, such a circumstance is sufficient to prevent our being admitted into friendship; but ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... utterly undeserving!—how utterly undeserving such love and devotion!" said Lewie, pacing up and down the room. "Sweet sister!—dearest Agnes!—now has my prison lost all its gloom; and were it not for the future, I might be happier here than when out in the world; for ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... soul of a man or woman has been repeatedly brought into this species of communion with invisible beings, as a tale which, though it is just possible that it may be true, is yet, on the face of it, so flagrant a violation of the laws of nature, as to be undeserving of positive hearty belief. They confound the laws of physical nature with the laws of universal nature. They speak of the nature of this material earth, as if it was identical with the nature of things. ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... sense of shame in him deepened with every word spoken by his chief. He felt how untrustworthy he had been, how undeserving of the selfless devotion which Percy was showing him even now. The words of gratitude died on his lips; he knew that they would be unwelcome. These Englishmen were so devoid of sentiment, he thought, and his brother-in-law, with all his unselfish and heroic deeds, was, ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... of those who attended the clinic—(my entire establishment was there to see that I had the proper attention and to tell me how happy they were that it wasn't any worse)—I say, I declared to all of them that I was an unmitigated fool and undeserving of the slightest mead ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... least a wonderful chance of finding and applying the remedy. The world can never make good to them the wrong it has done them; yet they may, if they will, put the world inexpressibly in their debt. No doubt mankind does not deserve it, but the one perfect lover in history was willing to die for an undeserving world. It can never be other than a great calling to follow where ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... left to his class. Kendal scanned him with interest and admiration and pleasure. It was an excellent thing that England's backbone should be composed of men like that, he thought and he half wished he were not so consciously undeserving of national vertebral honors himself—that Elfrida's warnings had a little more basis of probability. Not that he wanted to drop his work, but a man owed something to his country, especially when he had what they called a stake in ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... but you are wrong. I represent them as they are. I suppose the Professor has faults—though he does not show them to us—they must be of the generous kind, at any rate. Father says that he never could keep a farthing; he would always give it away to undeserving people. Miss Du Prel, I find on closer acquaintance, is not without certain jealousies and weaknesses, but these things just seem to float about as gossamer on a mountain-side, and one counts them in relation to herself, in about the same proportion. Mr. Temperley—I ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... unmeritable:/ insignificant, undeserving. In Shakespeare many adjectives, especially those ending in -ful, -less, -ble, and -ive, have both an active and a passive meaning. ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... possibly happen that the sufferer recommended may be a person not deserving the favour intended by the brief; in which case no minister, who knows the sufferer to be an undeserving person, can with a safe conscience, deliberately and affectionately publish the brief, much less earnestly persuade, exhort, and stir up the people to contribute freely and cheerfully towards the relief of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... the birthplace and home of one John Rallywood,' said Counsellor with a twist of his big moustache. 'You lucky, undeserving beggar! So Selpdorf's ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... been proved that you are undeserving of my hospitality, my door shall always be open to you; and the more readily, that others ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... the results may not be undeserving notice for practical purposes—as those in the instances of sulphuretted hydrogen, oil of turpentine, and camphor, in relation to the destruction of parasitical insects, whether infesting plants or minerals, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... egoist; he does not remember, or does not think it worth while to remark, that, in these near intimacies, we are ninety-nine times disappointed in our beggarly selves for once that we are disappointed in our friend; that it is we who seem most frequently undeserving of the love that unites us; and that it is by our friend's conduct that we are continually rebuked and yet strengthened for a fresh endeavour. Thoreau is dry, priggish, and selfish. It is profit he is after in these intimacies; moral profit, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... many came to him that were found to be unworthy that he finally bade the guards proclaim to all who waited that any who should be found undeserving would be ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... the best apology of any that had been offered; natural affection was the pleader; and though blinded to its true interest, such weakness had an amiable source, and so was pardoned. But the other pleas were so basely selfish, so undeserving of anything but scorn, that Sir Eustace Maxwell could not forbear expressing it. "When Sir William Wallace is entering full sail, you will send your hirelings to tow him in! but if a plank could save him now, you would not throw it to him! I understand ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... "No, you are most undeserving. Mais ecoute. C'est le pere de la petite qui a fait le coup. Il me l'a avoue, ensuite il a claque et depuis j'ai vu ton avocat. C'est ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... captivity,' answered Hamet, 'since it has given me an opportunity of showing that I was not altogether undeserving of your kindness, and of preserving the life of that dear youth, that I value a thousand times beyond my own. But it is now fit that my generous patron should be informed of the whole truth. Know, then, that when the unfortunate Hamet was taken by your galleys, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... against them, this is not likely to be the case: they would not be employed by any, while other persons could be got. At a hop plantation, so lately as 1830, Gipsies were not allowed to pick hops in some grounds, while persons as unsettled and undeserving, were engaged for that purpose. Had this been a parochial arrangement to benefit the poor of their own neighbourhood, who were out of employ, it ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... from the interruption of all other concerns; and he has the rather wished for this opportunity of undistracted and mature reflection, from a desire that what he might send into the world might thus be rendered less undeserving of the public eye. Meanwhile life is wearing away, and he daily becomes more and more convinced, that he might wait in vain for this season of complete vacancy. He must, therefore, improve such ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... which the world took in him? and yet who could say? He might be unhappy, and with reason. Was he a real poet after all? might he not doubt himself? might he not have a lurking consciousness that he was undeserving of the homage which he was receiving? that it could not last? that he was rather at the top of fashion than of fame? He was a lordling, a glittering, gorgeous lordling: and he might have had a consciousness that he owed much of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... considered as a judicial murder? Are the infernal machine and its terrible ravages forgotten? Georges, at the head of the Chouans, was a misled Frenchman, to be pitied, and to be spared. Georges, at the head of a band of assassins, was undeserving of pity, and the cause of morality, as well as of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... discovered something rather noteworthy in this salmon fishing. It is the effect that our interest in the matter has on the population. To them a fish means a cod; it is the only fish they know. All others are undeserving of the name, and are compelled to appear under the guise of their proper appellations. The taking of fish is a serious business, and one that does not pay very handsomely, as far as these people ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... place of good feeling. While insisting on truthfulness, she constantly sets an example of untruth by threatening penalties which she does not inflict. While inculcating self-control, she hourly visits on her little ones angry scoldings for acts undeserving of them. She has not the remotest idea that in the nursery, as in the world, that alone is the truly salutary discipline which visits on all conduct, good and bad, the natural consequences—the consequences, pleasurable or painful, which in the nature ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... fees, salaries and legacies he took pains to earn. Legacies he claimed as they were left him, though he stooped to no fawning to obtain them, and in at least one instance returned the property to the natural (though he says undeserving) heir. If so, let us give him due credit for generosity. Certainly, he was not selfish or illiberal. He assisted his friends with money and influence, as well as advice, and he gave to his native town, Comum, a public library, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... continually interposing to divert the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologise for the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect. I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant lines you enclosed; and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetic talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem, had I not been apprehensive, ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... sentiments in the senate upon his legs. On being heard in the senate on this occasion, after so long an interval, he drew the eyes of all upon him, and gave occasion to conversations to the following effect: "That the people had injuriously disgraced a man who was undeserving of it and that it had been greatly detrimental to the state that, in so important a war, it had not had the benefit of the service and counsels of such a man. That neither Quintus Fabius nor Marcus Valerius Laevinus could be given to ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... associated with the collected mind. When it was wondered why Johnson cared for some unhappy mortal who had no charm or talent, Goldsmith said, in his quiet and reflective way: "The man is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough for Johnson." Concerning one who was undeserving, according to the manner of the world, who had no honour, and had forfeited all claim to character, yet still retained Johnson's compassion, Goldsmith rejoined: "This man has become miserable, and ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... with her, and smothered her ruffled dignity; so that presently she went away with, in her manner, a lesser measure of hostility to the undeserving. In quite a different frame of mind she returned presently to ask if her mistress would like her to engage a full staff of other servants, or at any rate try to do so. "For you know, ma'am," she went on, "when once a scare has been established in the servants' hall, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... immensely tickled with flattered complacency at your indomitable desire to become the bride of such a man of straw as this undeserving self, and will no longer offer any ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... and the approval of my conscience. Worthiness, however!—the mind must be trained to discern it. We can err very easily in youth; and to find ourselves shooting at a false mark uncontrollably must be a cruel thing. I cannot say it is undeserving the scourge of derision. Do you know yourself? I do not; and I am told by my Professor that it is the sole subject to which you should not give a close attention. I can believe him. For who beguiles so much as Self? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which he believed to be sincere, led him to trust too much to the undeserving. This exposed him to misrepresentation. He felt himself obliged to resign. The care of a rising family, and the narrowness of his fortune, made it a duty to return to his profession for their support. But tho he ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... embarrassment at so unexpected an outburst, when he kindly interrupted me and sought an escape from his own emotion in good- humoured confidences. He referred, with a smile, to the self- denial which had yielded the place of honour on so extraordinary an occasion to an undeserving man like Reissiger. When I assured him that this act had afforded me the liveliest satisfaction, and that I had myself persuaded my colleague to take the baton, he confessed that at last he began to understand me, but failed altogether to comprehend how the other could accept a ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... State Street to the Old Colony Bank, bearing in a rusty leathern wallet anything, from nothing to a hundred thousand dollars, the daily notes and discounts of James Bowdoin's Sons. James Bowdoin and his father used to watch him occasionally from the window. There were certain pensioners, mostly undeserving, who knew old Mr. Bowdoin's hours better than he did himself. It was funny to see old McMurtagh elbow these aside as he sidelonged up the street. There was an old drunken longshoreman; and a wood-chopper who ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... 210 Yielding not, wounded the invisible Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell: And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they, Rent the soft Form they never could repel, Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 215 Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... and terror, Revenge that knows no rein, Light haste and lawless error, Protect us yet again. Cloak Thou our undeserving, Make firm the shuddering breath, In silence and unswerving To taste ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... You see, you can never be wholly undeserving in my eyes.' With Lucy, as with many girls in whom gratitude is the precursor of love, most of the sentiments due to the kindling affection were ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... in regard to pain and anguish," said Davenport. "I've experienced both, of course, but not so as to learn their effect on women. But suppose, if you can, a woman who should look kindly on an undeserving, but not ill-meaning, individual like myself. Suppose that, after a time, she happened to hear of the reputation of bad luck that clung to him. ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... are contrary to one another on the part of their respective estimation of another's evils, for which pity grieves, in so far as it esteems someone to suffer undeservedly, whereas nemesis rejoices, in so far as it esteems someone to suffer deservedly, and grieves, if things go well with the undeserving: "both of these are praiseworthy and come from the same disposition of character" (Rhet. ii, 9). Properly speaking, however, it is envy which is opposed to pity, as we shall state further ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the reputation of being a 'ripe' scholar, and to him had been deputed the task of judging the poetical outbursts of the bards of the Upper Fifth, with the object of awarding to the most deserving—or, perhaps, to the least undeserving—the handsome prize bequeathed by his open-handed ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... they have, and which as yet Englishmen need not ask from their hands. You will enjoy that, and your own integrity, and the satisfactory consciousness of having not merited such graces from Courts as are bestowed only on the mean, servile, flattering, interested and undeserving. The only steps to the favour of the great are such complacencies, such compliances, such distant decorums, as delude them in their vanities, or engage them in their passions. He is their greatest favourite who is the falsest; ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... Government was that of the President alone. An English statesman is alleged to have said upon becoming Prime Minister, "I had important and interesting business in my old office, but now my chief duty will be to create undeserving Peers." Lincoln, in the anxious days that followed his first inauguration, once looked especially harassed; a Senator said to him: "What is the matter, Mr. President? Is there bad news from Fort Sumter?" "Oh, no," he answered, "it's the Post ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... mighty genius of Shakespeare was listened to. The people were delighted: but I am not sufficiently versed in stage antiquities to determine whether they did not flock as eagerly to the representation of many pieces of contemporary Authors, wholly undeserving to appear upon the same boards. Had there been a formal contest for superiority among dramatic writers, that Shakespeare, like his predecessors Sophocles and Euripides, would have often been subject to the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... Annixter's eyes. He took her in his arms and held her there for a moment. Never in his life had he felt so unworthy, so undeserving of this clean, pure girl who forgave him and trusted his spoken word and believed him to be the good man he could only wish to be. She was so far above him, so exalted, so noble that he should have bowed his forehead to her feet, and instead, she took him in her arms, believing him ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... for the children, at which, when the Shepherd of Ettrick was about to seat himself, his friend probably whispered that it was reserved for the "little lords and ladies, and their playmates." This blunder may seem undeserving of any explanation; but it is often in small matters that the strongest feelings are most strikingly betrayed—and this story is, in exact {p.088} proportion to its silliness, indicative of the jealous feeling which mars and ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Oh, my friends, how lost are they to all that elevates the immortal soul! But the preacher and I, sad and sick at heart for them, gazed down into hell. Oh, my friends, it WAS hell, the hell of the Scriptures, the hell of eternal torment for the undeserving ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... talk so determinately, Fred, I'm sure that Clara has given sufficient reasons to justify the circumstances of an unpremeditated act, apparently so innocent, as to be undeserving of censure." ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... be enabled to do from the rugose structure of their feet, with which they adhere strongly to the smoothest surface. Sometimes however, on springing too eagerly at a fly, they lose their hold, and drop to the floor, on which occasions a circumstance occurs not undeserving of notice. The tail being frequently separated from the body by the shock (as it may be at any of the vertebrae by the slightest force, without loss of blood or evident pain to the animal, and sometimes, as it would seem, from the effect of fear alone) within a ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... conduct, the more she was astounded by its utter baselessness. And Bower was admirable in many ways. He stood high in the opinion of the world. He was rich, cultured, and seemingly very deeply enamored of her undeserving self. What better husband could any girl desire? He would give her everything that made life worth living. Indeed, if the truth must be told, she ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... sketch a few flowers and figures. Perhaps they can speak French and translate German. They know in what position to sit, and how to move gracefully. All very well these things in their places, and fitted to increase the charm of manner when the eyes are lighted up by the informing soul; not undeserving notice either in their influence upon man, when they are accompanied by something better, for, amid all the weighty cares of life, he is sometimes in the mood when such things do please; but sadly over-estimated when they ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... skit about a bit of doggerel which was then making nights and days unhappy for many undeserving persons who in an evil moment had fallen upon it in some stray newspaper corner. A certain car line had recently adopted the "punch system," and posted in its cars, for the information of passengers and conductor, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... in cold blood—under any other circumstances—she would never have so committed herself, and that nothing but the thought of the wrongs and sorrows and sufferings that had been heaped one after another upon the undeserving head of that luckiest of young Kentuckians would ever have betrayed her into such an outburst of sentiment. She may admit what indeed was the truth, that she wrote the whole thing after a vehement interview ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... bears on the title-page these initials: D. R. H. Q. M.; that is to say, "du Roi Henri Quatre, Mari." This work professes to give a relation of Marguerite's conduct during her residence at the castle of Usson; but it contains so many gross absurdities and indecencies that it is undeserving of attention, and appears to have been written by some bitter enemy, who has assumed the character of her husband ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... hope has failed and fruition is but—a memory. Ah! how we cherish it in our hearts, and how it comes at our beck and call to thrill us through and through and make us thank God that we have lived, and wonder in our hearts why he has given poor undeserving us so much. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... time that Lucy should see the world; and though there are many—at Bath, above all places, to whom the heiress will be an object of interested attentions, yet there are also many in that crowded city by no means undeserving her notice. What say you, dear Joseph? But I know already: you will not refuse to keep company with me in my little holiday; and Lucy's eyes are already sparkling at the idea of new bonnets, Milsom Street, a thousand adorers, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
