"Unthought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ourselves because of war in a great many different directions. The Government has taken to itself unprecedented and unthought-of powers because of the necessities of our condition. I say that to meet the problem of the returned soldier we ought to take advantage of this opportunity to do the work now that must eventually be done and reclaim these arid lands of the West. Turn the waters of the Colorado ...
— Address by Honorable Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior at Conference of Regional Chairmen of the Highway Transport Committee Council of National Defence • US Government
... fore-quarter of Paris lamb or a duck a la presse. She could never understand why Andrew should pay four or five francs for a bottle of wine, when they could buy a good black or grey for three sous a litre. On tour gaieties were things unthought of. But during periods of rest, in Paris, she cared little for excitement. With an income relieving her from the necessity of work, she would have been content to lounge slipshod about the house till the day of ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... engine is to be the hand-maid of electricity cannot be told, for it seems impossible to set limits to the future conquests of the latter, which is probably destined to perform miracles un-dreamt of to-day, perhaps coupled in some unthought-of way, with radium, the youngest sprite of the weird, uncanny tribe of mysterious agents. Uranium, the supposed basis of the latest discovery, Radium, has only one-millionth part of the heat of the latter. The slow-moving earth takes twenty-four hours to turn upon its axis. Radium ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... words) behind her was the "shining sword of Germany." It were tedious to enlarge on this point. Let it suffice to say that in 1914 Germany felt herself ready for the conflict. Enormous supplies of guns, of a caliber before unthought of, and apparently inexhaustible supplies of ammunition had been prepared; strategic railroads had been built by which armies and supplies could be hurried to desired points; the Kiel Canal had been completed; ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... be true of a world beneath and beyond that world,—the Black World beyond the Veil. Today it makes little difference to Atlanta, to the South, what the Negro thinks or dreams or wills. In the soul-life of the land he is to-day, and naturally will long remain, unthought of, half forgotten; and yet when he does come to think and will and do for himself,—and let no man dream that day will never come,—then the part he plays will not be one of sudden learning, but words and thoughts he has been taught to lisp in his ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... praise thee, Matron! and thy due 35 Is praise, heroic praise, and true! With admiration I behold Thy gladness unsubdued and bold: Thy looks, thy gestures, all present The picture of a life well spent: 40 This do I see; and something more; A strength unthought of heretofore! Delighted am I for thy sake; And yet a higher joy partake: Our Human-nature throws away 45 Its second twilight, and looks gay; A land of promise and of pride Unfolding, wide as life ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... of the crude hymn-tune. Such song-births of spiritual enthusiasm are beyond enumeration—and it is useless to hunt for author or composer. Under the momentum of a wrestling hour or a common rapture of experience, counterpoint was unthought of, and the same notes for every voice lifted pleading and praise ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... There even are ways one can justify excesses like this. If their hunger for books ever seems indiscriminate to them when they themselves stop to examine it, they will have their excuses. They will argue that some bits of knowledge they once had thought futile, had later on come in most handy, in unthought of ways. True enough! For their scientists. But not for their average men: they will simply be like obstinate housekeepers who clog up their homes, preserving odd boxes and wrappings, and stray lengths of string, to exult if but one is of some ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... With speech unthought, quick revelation, With boldness in predestination, With threats of absolute damnation Yet YEA and NAY hath some salvation For his own tribe, not every nation: See a ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... then as if she would have to do the same thing for the rest of her days. She spent several hours in her room without once moving, and without being disturbed, for her aunt was sufficiently annoyed at her morning's reception not to visit her again. The lunch hour passed, therefore, unthought of by Helen, and it was an hour or two later before she heard her aunt's step in the hall, and her ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... hath sown Within our hearts, the love whose flower hath blown Bright as if heaven were ever in its eye, Will pass so soon from human memory; And not by strangers to our blood alone, But by our best descendants be unknown, Unthought of—this may surely claim a sigh. Yet, blessed Art, we yield not to dejection; Thou against Time so feelingly dost strive: Where'er, preserved in this most true reflection, An image of her soul is kept alive, Some lingering fragrance of the pure ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... astronomy are deduced from the generalities of the Newtonian theory), will be found in all, or even in most cases, among truths now known and admitted. We may rest assured, that many of the most general laws of nature are as yet entirely unthought of; and that many others, destined hereafter to assume the same character, are known, if at all, only as laws or properties of some limited class of phenomena; just as electricity, now recognized as one of the most universal of natural agencies, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... of a pleasant nature may be in store for bride and bridegroom. Unthought of qualities may be called into play, deeper feelings may be aroused, and the full sweetness of a character only be fully revealed in the ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... their tradition. Rubens showed his contemporaries that art was a mistress who could be served in many ways that were yet unthought of, and that she did not by any means disdain the tribute of other than religious votaries. Beginning, as we have pointed out, with sacred subjects, Rubens soon turned to the study of the classics, and ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... to me on the night of March 14th, I made the sudden decision you know of. I thought I had cut myself loose. If it had not been for that one unthought-of thread—Larssen's scheme to use me dead or alive—I should never have come back.... My sudden decision was wrong. I realise now that no man can cut himself utterly loose from the life he has woven for himself. He is part of the pattern of the great web of humanity. He is joined to the ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... Hope, the opening of the sea route of the East Indies, the further discoveries that hinged on these, and finally, the circumnavigation of the earth, revolutionized the life and views of the most advanced nations of Europe. The unthought-of rapid expansion of the world's commerce, called to life through the opening of ever newer markets for European industry and products, revolutionized the old system of handicraft. Manufacture arose, and thence flowed large ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all untied and illumin'd! O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last! To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and you from yours! To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature! To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth! To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... beyond the ideal of the dreamers—a community, in the past, known but slightly to the outer world as the Red River Settlement, which is but the bygone name for the one Utopia of Britain—the clear-cut impress of an exceptional people living under conditions of excellence unthought of by themselves until ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... changes of outlook in the past have approached in their extent and significance those which have been in progress during the last fifty years, the new history of man and his surroundings, stretching back through hitherto unthought-of ages, the substitution of an illimitable vista of ever changing worlds for the imagined perfection of the ordered heavens, and above all the intrusion of science into the most intimate regions of ourselves. The effects ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... an account of one of the most singular cases of depravity ever brought before a criminal court; but it is unnecessary to bring any of its details under the reader's attention, for nearly every other number of our journals has of late contained some instances of atrocities before unthought of, and, it might have seemed, impossible to humanity. The connection of these with the modern love of excitement in the sensational novel and drama may not be generally understood, but it is direct and constant; all furious ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... engaged the live-long day at his piano, refashioning the classic melodic forms at his pleasure. And, at every turn of his instrument, the old modes took on unthought-of shapes and expressed new shades of feeling. The melodic forms which had become habituated to their pristine stately gait, when thus compelled to march to more lively unconventional measures, displayed an unexpected agility and power; ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... in compartments in which they generally stayed. The kaleidoscopic coming and going of a society based on monetary exchanges—its speedy riches and speedy bankruptcies, its embarrassment of alternative careers all open to talents—these were unthought and undreamed of. The same uniformity and the same isolation marked also, if in a less degree, the knightly class which followed the profession of arms. A common feudal system, if we can call that a system which was essentially ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... their form. To find a flower in its native haunts I walked enormous distances, beside the brooklets, through the valleys, to the summit of the cliffs, across the moorland, garnering thoughts even from the heather. During these rambles I initiated myself into pleasures unthought of by the man of science who lives in meditation, unknown to the horticulturist busy with specialities, to the artisan fettered to a city, to the merchant fastened to his desk, but known to a few foresters, to a few woodsmen, and to some dreamers. Nature can ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... she was aware of his knowledge, but when, instead of taking advantage of her gratitude, he avoided all sentiment, and treated her with a cordial frankness as if she were in truth simply the friend he had asked her to become, all of her old constraint in his presence was unthought of, and she welcomed the glances of his dark, intent eyes, which interpreted her thoughts even before they were spoken. The varying expressions of his face made it plain enough to her that he liked and appreciated her thoughts, and that his admiration and affection were ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... observation, I discover the tender young beans, hiding among the foliage. Then, each morning, I watch the swelling of the pods, and calculate how soon they will be ready to yield their treasures. All this gives a pleasure and an ideality, hitherto unthought of, to the business of providing sustenance for my family. I suppose Adam felt it in Paradise; and, of merely and exclusively earthly enjoyments, there are few purer and more harmless to be experienced. Speaking of beans, by the way, they are a classical food, and their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... the heart's messages And know it not, nor doth the heart well know, But Nature hath her will; even as the bees, Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and fro With the fruit-quickening pollen;—hard if these Found not some all unthought-of way to show 230 Their secret each to each; and so they did, And one heart's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to friends here and there; joyful wishes of former soldiers returned from the regiment. Since the morning, a sort of intoxication or of fever, and, in front of him, everything unthought-of in life. ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... political. Along with the most advanced ideas which were being agitated in the political world—the death of privilege, the equality of the citizen, Republicanism—I heard many disputations upon theological subjects which the impressionable child drank in to an extent quite unthought of by his elders. I well remember that the stern doctrines of Calvinism lay as a terrible nightmare upon me, but that state of mind was soon over, owing to the influences of which I have spoken. I grew up treasuring within me the fact that my ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... fortune then I owe This unthought for success? Fortune is blind, it can't be so, I must some other guess: JUSTICE, bright heav'nly maid, beheld The dire contention rise, Saw, and her sacred beam she held Suspended in the skies: The Austrian scale kick'd up, by our's weigh'd down, Justice approv'd, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... among the middle and lower classes, placed them in marked contrast with the moustached or clean-shaven patricians and foreigners. In short, Russia gripped hold of and warmed Borrow's imagination. Here were new types, curious blendings of nationalities unthought of and strange to him, a mine of wealth to a man whose studies were never books, except when they helped him the better ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... and Aunt Ann and Aunt Matilda rigidly confronted them, having stolen upon them unseen, unheard, unthought of, and they stood now in grim horror, merciless and implacable. They advanced in a swooping body, after one moment of agonizing suspense, and snatched Adnah into their midst, glaring three kinds of loathing scorn upon ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... the beginning of the century, the prisoner would have been left to die, as countless multitudes had already died, unheard, uncared for, unthought of; the victim not of deliberate cruelty, but of that frightfullest portent, folly armed with power. Happily the years of his imprisonment had been years of swift revolution. The House of Commons had become ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... essentials in my profession is the ability to put the finger on the small mistakes a criminal makes when he endeavors to cover up his tracks. I suppose nine cases out of ten are solved in this way, and more often than not the thing left undone, unthought of, is the very one, you would imagine, which the criminal would have thought of first. I fancy the reason lies in the fact that the criminal does not believe he will be suspected. I said nothing ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... who sternly forbade all approach to this dangerous waterway; he turned them into enemies of his country and of himself (he was now an admiral), and led parties of gallant tars to the stream by ways hitherto unthought of. At foot of the avenue was an oak tree which hung over the road, and thus by dropping from this tree you got into open country. The tree was (at this time) of an enormous size, with sufficient room to conceal a navy, and ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... that we should all be fortified with what sleep we could get. The day, too, would be full of work. Everything in connection with the Great Experiment would have to be gone over, so that at the last we might not fail from any unthought-of flaw in our working. We made, of course, arrangements for summoning aid in case such should be needed; but I do not think that any of us had any real apprehension of danger. Certainly we had no fear of such danger from violence as we had ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... perhaps behold our great seaport swelling into a metropolis, in size and importance, its suburbs creeping out to an undreamt-of distance from its centre; or we might, reversing the picture, behold Liverpool by some unthought-of calamity—some fatal, unforeseen mischance, some concatenation of calamities—dwindled down to its former insignificance: its docks shipless, its warehouses in ruins, its streets moss-grown, and in its decay like some bye-gone cities of the east, that once sent out their vessels laden with ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... wished it had been my destiny to be born two or three centuries hence. For invention and improvement are prolific, and beget more of their kind. The present progress is rapid. Many of great importance, now unthought of, will, before that period, ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... no career or life so charming as that of a successful man of letters. Those little unthought of advantages which I just now named are in themselves attractive. If you like the town, live in the town, and do your work there; if you like the country, choose the country. It may be done on the top of a mountain or in the bottom of a pit. It is compatible with the rolling ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... risen to meet him, but sank down again on finding herself undistinguished in the dusk, and unthought of. With a friendly shake of his son's hand, and an eager voice, he instantly began—"Ha! welcome back, my boy. Glad to see you. Have you heard the news? The Thrush went out of harbour this morning. Sharp is ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... fanciful pictures which he painted in bewildering numbers, many of which, commissioned by Marie de' Medici and King Louis XIII of France, are now to be seen in the Louvre galleries in Paris. And Van Dyck raised portrait painting to unthought-of excellence: his portraits of the English royal children and of King Charles I ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Hark! booming from unthought-of depths, a roar rolls up in majestic waves of echoing thunder. At this resonant burst, I ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... successively each part of any plant, new sisterhoods, and unthought-of fellowships, will be found between the most distant orders; and ravines of unexpected separation open between those otherwise closely allied. Few botanical characters are more definite than the leaf structure illustrated in Plate VI., which has given to one group of the Drosidae the descriptive ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... substitute for tallow and wax. Twenty-five years ago, the present prices and extensive applications of sulphuric and muriatic acids, of soda, phosphorus, &c., would have been considered utterly impossible. Who is able to foresee what new and unthought-of chemical productions, ministering to the service and comforts of mankind, the next ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... above me: Houses were built above me; trees let fall Yellowing leaves upon me, hands of ghosts, Rain has showered its arrows of silver upon me Seeking my heart; winds have roared and tossed me; Music in long blue waves of sound has borne me A helpless weed to shores of unthought silence; Time, above me, within me, crashed its gongs Of terrible warning, sifting the dust of death; And here I lie. Blow now your horns of glory Harshly over my flesh, you trees, you waters! You stars and suns, Canopus, Deneb, Rigel, Let me, as I ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... ears, therefore, came in 1867 the offer of the Russian Minister, Baron Stoeckl, to sell Alaska. The proposal did not raise a question which had been entirely unthought of. Even before the Civil War, numbers of people on the Pacific coast, far from being overawed by the responsibility of developing the immense territories which they already possessed, had petitioned the Government to obtain Alaska, and even the proper purchase price had ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... but to that he had attached but little importance; now, however, all was different. He could not understand how or why—she had not only crossed the pathway of his life, but she had entered his life. She seemed to arouse within him all sorts of unthought-of possibilities. His ideas of the world became different. She made him think of the poetry and of the romance of life, even although she still looked upon him with scorn, if not with anger. The morning had been rainy, and the long ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... murmured to himself, aloud; "indeed you are absolutely in error. If I have seemed—but I repeat, you are deceived. The idea of 'fitness' is a total hallucination. Supposing you—I do it even in play painfully—entirely out of the way, unthought of. . ." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... discovered that it was not there. Probably it had been taken forrard when the decks were washed, to give it a scrub. So, as there was no one on the poop, I left the wheel, and stepped aft to the taffrail. It was thus that I came to see something altogether unthought of—a full-rigged ship, close-hauled on the port tack, a few hundred yards on our starboard quarter. Her sails were scarcely filled by the light breeze, and flapped as she lifted to the swell of the sea. She appeared to have very little way through the ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson |
