"Insignificant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is not flat like a table, but full of gentle curves and sweeps, as if it were always just going to reveal something unknown, and yet it reaches on for ever on all sides. It makes us feel quite insignificant as our conveyance crawls along the centre of a gigantic circle which appears to move with us. But the thing which is most surprising is the beauty of it. The grass is growing freely and is very fresh, and mingled with it, like poppies and cornflowers ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... than the firm attitude of our troops. The duke of Brunswick made his somewhat shaken battalions fall back; the firing continued till the evening; the enemy attempted a fresh attack, but were repulsed. The day was ours; and the success of Valmy, almost insignificant in itself, produced on our troops, and upon opinion in France, the effect of the most ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... consideration of American demands, and would have rendered Mr. Gallatin's further residence useless as well as unpleasant; but French dignity got the better of what Gallatin termed, "the sickly sentimentality which existed on the subject of personal abuse of the king," and the insignificant incident was not allowed to interfere with ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... internal affairs and their taxation, every office or dignity in the gift of the crown is freely open to the native of Guernsey or Jersey. Generals, admirals, peers of the United Kingdom are made, and there is nothing which hinders prime ministers to be made from those insignificant islands. The same system was commenced in reference to the colonies generally by an enlightened colonial secretary, too early lost, Sir William Molesworth, when he appointed Mr. Hinckes, a leading Canadian politician, to a West Indian government. It is a very shallow view of the springs of political ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... Baron de St. Heleine from Savoy, had a pretty but very insignificant wife. The baron, a fat man, was a gamester, a gourmand, and a lover of wine; add that he was a past master in the art of getting into debt and lulling his creditors into a state of false security, and you have all his capacities, for in all other respects ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... lay a slender dark line across the plain. This we knew to be mesquite; and once entered, we knew it, too, would seem to spread out vastly. And then this grassy slope, on which we now rode, would show merely as an insignificant streak of yellow. It is ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... Mayor, like any other Englishman, probably fancied that War was on the western gale, and was glad to lay hold of even so insignificant an American as myself, who might be made to harp on the rusty old strings of national sympathies, identity of blood and interest, and community of language and literature, and whisper peace where ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... did not like the idea of swimming in among them. She never felt so gray and insignificant as when she happened upon swans. One or another of them was sure to drop a remark about "common gray-feathers" and "poor folk." But it is always best to take no notice of ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... the sport. A convention of those interested financially and otherwise in the game, was held in 1867 in Philadelphia, and an effort was made to effect a reformation. That the sport even then was by no means insignificant can be seen from the fact that in that convention some 500 organizations were represented. While the work done at the convention did not accomplish all that was expected, it did produce certain reforms, and the sport grew rapidly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... of the mountains four miles north of San Mateo, an insignificant stream entering the Burntwood halfway down to Bowenville. The Johnson ranch house was a mile up the canyon, where the rocky walls expanded into a grassy park of no great area. They reached the girl's home about half-past nine ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... pleasure of the novice; since an American, fresh from the fresher fields of the western continent, might very well find delight in memorials of the past, more especially in England, which pall on his taste, and appear insignificant, after he has become familiar with the Temple of Neptune, the Parthenon, or what is left of it, and the Coliseum. I make no doubt that I lost a great deal of passing happiness in this way, by beginning at the beginning, or by beginning in ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... seemed bad enough, but while watching the green things about her disappear it had not occurred to the child that the grasshoppers would eat the dry and, as Luther had said, overripe stems of the flax. Still less had it occurred to her that the insignificant wings and feet of such small things could do damage to an entire field by merely ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... 1494, he never returned, but was drowned in the Garigliano. Clement VII. ordered, and Duke Cosimo I. erected, this marble monument—the handicraft, in part at least, of Francesco di San Gallo—to their relative. It is singularly stiff, ugly, out of place—at once obtrusive and insignificant. ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... living within a hundred yards of Westminster Hall and the Abbey church, and the bridge, and looking from my own window into St. James's Park, all other buildings and spots appear mean and insignificant. I went to-day to see the house I formerly occupied. How small! It is always thus: the words large and small are carried about with us in our minds, and we forget real dimensions. The idea, such as it was received, remains during our absence from the object. When ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... a more complete exposure of the insufficiency of worldly glory to constitute happiness, and never a more impressive exhibition of the littleness of vanity. What an insignificant disappointment is sufficient to mar the comfort of him who depends upon creatures! The merest feather may be turned into a weapon of hostility, and destroy his peace; and whatever he may possess or acquire, he must necessarily he as remote from true felicity as at the first ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... be stimulating, and there was always the background of Big Business. Larry was conscious that he was moving amid large ideas and far-reaching interests, and that though he himself was a small element, he was playing a part not altogether insignificant, with a promise of bigger things in the future. Professor Schaefer became easily the centre of interest in the party. He turned out to be a man of the world. He knew great cities and great men. He was a connoisseur ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... animals have little real existence, but are the reflection of the imagined sensations of cultivated men and women in similar circumstances; and that the amount of actual suffering caused by the struggle for existence among animals is altogether insignificant. Let us, therefore, endeavour to ascertain what are the real facts on which these ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the Field, or even the Stationary hospitals, with symptoms of moderate severity, or even of an insignificant character, in which evidence of septic peritonitis suddenly developed and ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... other half (nearly) an apology for yours, You know (or am I now to tell you) that you and your concerns are the highest, the dearest interest I have in this world; one in comparison with which all others are insignificant. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... /n./ Used (often sarcastically) of a change to a program that is thought to be trivial or insignificant right up to the moment it crashes the system. Usually 'cured' by another one-line fix. See also {I ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... second colour. We miss the beauty of those extraordinary and exquisite high notes—the cap and cuffs; and the place of the rich, palpitating greys, so tremulous in the background of the earlier picture, is taken by an insignificant grey that hardly seems necessary or helpful to the coat and rug, and is only just raised out of the commonplace by the dim yellow of two picture-frames. It must be admitted, however, that the yellow ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... occultism. To receive a paltry sovereign for murdering the greatest statesman of the Eastern hemisphere was simply grotesque. Moreover, she had most distinctly not wanted to deprive China of a distinguished man. She had expressly stipulated for an inferior and insignificant mandarin, one that could be spared and that was unknown to Reuter. She supposed she ought to have looked up China at the Wedgwood Institution and selected a definite mandarin with a definite place of residence. But could she be expected to go ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... those who are incapable of recalling their own feelings under restraint and disappointment can have no appreciation of the sufferings of children who can neither describe nor analyze what they feel. In defending themselves against injustice they are as helpless as dumb animals. What is insignificant to their elders is often to them a source of great joy ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... place is insignificant, and what there is consists chiefly of a transit trade, for, being really little more than a large station of camel-keepers, Harish has no trade of its own. It has, therefore, much suffered from the construction of the Suez ...
— The Caravan Route between Egypt and Syria • Ludwig Salvator
... may do us that great service, without doubt. Verily as the illustrious Hari had slain the Nagas in the great lake, he, by sight alone, is capable of slaying those Asuras called the Nivatakavachas, along with their followers. But the slayer of Madhu should not be urged when the task is insignificant. A mighty mass of energy that he is, it swelleth to increasing proportions, it may consume the whole universe. This Arjuna also is competent to encounter them all, and the hero having slain them in battle, will go back to the world of men. Go thou at my request to earth. ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... in the early morning, Harlson told me more of the young lady. She was living with an aunt, he said, and was, otherwise, alone in the world. She had but a little income, barely enough to live on, but she had courage unlimited, and tact, and was not insignificant as a social factor. She had the sturdiness of her ancestry, in which the ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... considered it due to gloire to assist Divine Providence in its government of the souls of men. Was he not the greatest prince of the earth, the eldest son of the Church, standing nearer to the throne of grace than any insignificant pope? Of course he was responsible for the orthodoxy of his subjects, a demi-dieu qui nous gouverne. He came to think religion a part of his royal prerogative, and misbelief treason against his royal person. He was quite capable of going a step beyond Cardinal Wolsey, and of writing, "Ego ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... This does not imply that man is inferior to the animal, but merely that he is inferior in some one respect, or that he depends less upon instincts and thus has a greater need of training. If the child learns at this early stage that there is no person or no creature too insignificant to teach him something, he will have learned one of the most valuable lessons in life. The child may not be able to tell why the wild hog has lost its tusks, but he will enjoy thinking about it. He can observe or find out in other ways that the domesticated hog no longer has them, ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... the results we obtained were far beyond any expectations, the purely physical phenomena were relatively insignificant, it is not necessary to go further into the detail of the room. Robinson has done that, anyhow, for the Society of Psychical Research, a proceeding to which I was opposed, as will be understood by the close of ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the inmates of the boarding house was a 'married' couple who stayed for some time; he was an insignificant, ugly, little, crosseyed commercial traveler; she was a pretty, little creature who looked as innocent and was as merry as a child; we all vied in paying her attentions and waiting on her like slaves, the husband ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... please. It appears as if we must regard eternity as outliving every progressive change, For there is no convergence or enfeeblement of time. The ever-flowing present moves no differently for the occurrence of the mightiest or the most insignificant events. And even if we say that time is only the attendant upon events, yet this attendant waits patiently for the ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... harmony of life, to have definite things that they want to do, definite regions in which they desire to advance. The people whom it is hard to fit into any scheme of benevolent creation are the vague, insignificant, drifting people, whose only rooted tendency is to do whatever is suggested to them. One who like myself has been a schoolmaster knows that the danger of school life is not that the wicked are numerous, but the weak; the boys who have little imagination, little prudence, ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... come down from his dangerous position were unavailing. His anxiety to pierce the Xenophon with the thirty-two kept him on the parapet directing the gunners, while balls and shells shrieked about him. Job tried three shots; but only one did any injury, and that was some insignificant damage to the rigging. Fernando saw at once ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... priest looked, he thought: 'Here is a teaching for my people. Every one can be happy, even the most insignificant can ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... Pete had lately stumbled upon a secret of fortune—a copper hill; a warty, snubby little gray hill in an insignificant cluster of little gray hills. But this one, and this one only, precariously crusted over with a thin layer of earth and windblown sand, was copper, upthrust by central fires; rich ore, crumbling, soft; a hill to be loaded, every yard of it, into cars yet unbuilt, on a railroad ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... hope to learn much of the fortunes of people so insignificant—save for that moment when the fate of a nation hung on their breath—as the Portails and Toussaints. We do know that Felix proved worthy. For though the attack on Paris which was planned at Toussaint's ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... Mirebeau, though now an insignificant bourg, was formerly a place of some consequence. Its chateau was built by Foulques Nera, the redoubted Count of Anjou; and here, in 1202, Elionor of Aquitaine sustained a siege directed against her by the partisans of the Count of ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... of finding himself at the head of a large standing army in a perfect state of discipline and equipment, in an age when, except some few insignificant corps, standing armies were unknown in Christendom. The renown of the Spanish troops was justly high, and the infantry in particular was considered the best in the world. His fleet, also, was far more numerous, and better appointed, than that of any other European power; and both his soldiers and ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... rises out of the town, a high wall zigzags up to the fort above, showing Cattaro's strength of former days. Now, a few insignificant mounds of earth far away on the mountain-tops are all that is to be seen of the military might of modern Cattaro. Yet how powerful are those forts only the Austrian authorities know. Cattaro and the Bocche are impregnable from sea or land, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... your highness can give yourself a moment's uneasiness about that little insignificant fellow,[1] Tom Thumb the Great—one properer for a plaything than a husband. Were he my husband his horns should be as long as his body. If you had fallen in love with a grenadier, I should not have wondered at it. If you had fallen in love with something; ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... possible to read this tragedy of the "Grecian Daughter," without laughing as well as crying. Some passages excite tears, whilst certain high-sounding sentences, with meaning insignificant, are irresistibly risible. ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... lordship's administration. From me, my lord, permit me to say, these are not words of course or of compliment, this is not the language of flattery; your lordship knows I have no Views, perhaps knows that, insignificant as it is, my praise is never detached from my esteem: and when you have raised, as I trust you will, real monuments of glory, the most contemptible characters in the inscription dedicated by your country, may not be the testimony of, my ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... ever been. He had often met Caroline Danby—now Mrs. Randall—and Mary more than once delicately turned her eyes away from her cousin's face, lest she should read there somewhat of chagrin as Mr. Randall, with his meaningless face and dapper-looking form—insignificant in all save the reputation of being the wealthiest banker in Wall-street, and possessing the most elegant house and furniture, the best appointed equipage, and the handsomest wife in the city—stood ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... hysterical! Why should he care? I'm a very insignificant person, and he can do very well without my company. I'm not interested in him ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... have no doubt it is. But I would rather see the worst music-hall show that was ever put up than the best picture-play that was ever filmed. The darkness, the silence, the buzz of the machine, and the insignificant processions of shadows on a sheet are about the last thing I should ever describe by the word Entertainment. I would as soon sit for two hours in a Baptist Chapel. Still, Mr. C. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... are you made to be an indolent cicisbeo to some fair Italian, with one passion and two ideas: and yet I have known men as clever as you, whom that bewitching Italy has sunk into one or other of these insignificant beings. Don't run away with the notion that you have plenty of time before you. You have no such thing. At your age, and with your fortune (I wish you were not so rich), the holiday of one year becomes the custom of the next. In England, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said concerning Hawthorne's character as a man. It was not so perfect as Longfellow's, to whom all other American authors should bow the head in this respect—the Washington of poets; and yet it was a rare example of purity, refinement, and patient endurance. His faults were insignificant in comparison with his virtues, and the most conspicuous of them, his tendency to revenge himself for real or fancied injuries, is but a part of the natural instinct in us to return the blows we receive in self-defence. Wantonly, and of his own ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... espoused a German adventuress and filled Russia with foreigners. Such is the Old Believers' explanation of the portentous phenomenon of a Russian czar engaged in destroying the institutions of Holy Russia. In the midst of the nineteenth century the incidents of Peter's career, whether insignificant or important—his vices not less than his glory—are used as proofs of his infernal mission. The remarkable victories with which he recovered from terrible disasters were miracles wrought by the help of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... the original mark at least sixty-five feet; in 1797, one hundred and fifty feet; and in 1806, nearly two hundred and fifty feet. These were "high-water" years. The "high waters" since then have been so insignificant that I have scarcely taken the trouble to notice them. Thus, you will perceive that the planters need not feel uneasy. The river may make an occasional spasmodic effort at a flood, but the time is approaching when it will ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... stared at her profile, cut like a cameo, with intense satisfaction. The low, straight forehead, the straight nose, the full curving chin, satisfied his eye like a carved statue. About her ear, exquisitely small and delicate, the wind had blown a fluff of loose hair, and on this insignificant detail his eye dwelt with rapture. This woman's face pleased him like music. And as he looked, all his desires were melted and confounded in a wave of tenderness, caressing and devotional, the complete surrender of strength to weakness. He wanted to take ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... those about me. Without reaching the point of seeing life as a spectacle, I believe my own small personality presented a spectacle of which I was pretty generally and interestedly conscious. There was a good deal of drama for me, in my own insignificant progress. I often watched myself, and strove to gauge the impression I produced on others, and to mould and shape this to my fancy. There may possibly be something unpleasant, even unnatural about this, in so young a boy. I do not know, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... pyogenes—into the cellular connective tissue of the integument, intermuscular septa, tendon sheaths, or other structures. Infection always takes place through a breach of the surface, although this may be superficial and insignificant, such as a pin-prick, a scratch, or a crack under a nail, and the wound may have been healed for some time before the inflammation becomes manifest. The cellulitis, also, may develop at some distance from the seat of inoculation, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... culture which prevailed there. He appears to have rejected many of the received opinions of the time. His enemies asserted that he was not even a Christian, and that he declared that Moses, Christ, and Mohammed were all alike impostors. He was nearsighted, bald, and wholly insignificant in person; but he exhibited the most extraordinary energy and ability in the organization of his kingdom of Sicily, in which he was far more interested than in Germany. He drew up an elaborate code of laws ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... were likely to be decisive in the end, if the North could and would endure to the end. But at the very beginning these advantages simply did not tell at all, for the immediately available military force of the North was insignificant, and that of the South clearly superior to it; and even when they began to tell, it was bound to be very long before their full weight could be brought to bear. And the object which was to be obtained was supremely difficult of attainment. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Army can be the subject of death or impaired health except they are chargeable to his service. Medical theories are set at naught and the most startling relation is claimed between alleged incidents of military service and disability or death. Fatal apoplexy is admitted as the result of quite insignificant wounds, heart disease is attributed to chronic diarrhea, consumption to hernia, and suicide is traced to army service in a wonderfully devious and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... aggravated at the disconcerting providence which has overwhelmed us in the journey of life. There are compensating circumstances which should alleviate our sorrow. Our lives are spared, and the immeasurable forests are undisturbed by the trifling event which has overtaken us poor, insignificant creatures, whose—" ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... particulars concerning them. Going from Tumen eastwards, or rather to the north-east, in seven days journey we arrive at the river Ledil[24], on the banks of which stands Githercan[25], a small insignificant town, laid waste, and in ruins. It was formerly a very considerable and celebrated place; as before the devastation of it by Tamerlane, the spices and silks which go to Syria[26] were carried by Githercan, and thence to Tanna, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... tightly together to hide how they were shaking. All she had left in the world was the pride of being an Elmreich and a baroness; and as, with the relentless years, she had grown poorer, plainer, more insignificant, so had this pride increased and strengthened, until, together with her passionate propriety and horror of everything in the least doubtful in the way of reputations, it had come to be the very mainspring ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... remembered that an Austrian force had been reported approaching from the south, moving on Krupanie, and that it had seemed so insignificant that a small detachment of third reserve troops had been sent to hold it back. But this enemy force now ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... coming hot on his leg. The gray horse stumbled; its breath came and went in sobs. Now they were neck and neck again. Then it was over, the little brown mare swept by, and Ralston's rope, cutting the air, dropped about the neck of the insignificant, white "digger" ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... around here everywhere, my dear,' he told Helen with his old placid assurance. 'It is quite as I have said; if you want fish, look for them in the sea; if you seek gold, not in insignificant quantities, but in a great, thick, rich ledge, come out toward ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... interrupted by a cautious knocking at her door. She rose suddenly, startled by any sound in the stillness of her room. She rose, and threw herself into a low chair near the fire. She flung her beautiful head back upon the soft cushions, and took a book from the table near her. Insignificant as this action was, it spoke very plainly. It spoke very plainly of ever-recurring fears—of fatal necessities for concealment—of a mind that in its silent agonies was ever alive to the importance of outward ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... to his uneasy pacing, but now with an irrational and supporting sense of duty done. He had dug his grave that morning; now he had carved his epitaph; the folds of the toga were composed, why should he delay the insignificant trifle that remained to do? He paused and looked long in the face of the sleeping Huish, drinking disenchantment and distaste of life. He nauseated himself with that vile countenance. Could the thing continue? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... A minute later the men were called from the guns and made to fall into line. They were silent, tremulous with suppressed excitement; the most sun-burned and weather-stained of them a little pale; the meanest, raggedest, and most insignificant not unimpressive in the deep and solemn silence with which they stood, their eyes fastened on the Colonel, waiting for him to speak. He stepped out in front of them, slowly ran his eye along the irregular line, up and down, taking in every man ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... he went to him in great rage and killed him with his own hand. After this he pointed and fired off one of the cannon against a squadron of the royalists, by which shot several of the troopers were killed. Seeing this, and considering that the artillery of the royal army was too insignificant to do much service, Carvajal determined to leave it behind that the army might advance more quickly. At this time Don Diego and his officers had arranged their army in order, the cavalry divided on the two wings, and the infantry in the centre, having their cannon in front, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... not fair," cried Everett. "I am not an individual fighting less fortunate individuals. I am an insignificant wheel in a great machine. You must not blame me ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... sketches journalistic, political, and dramatic, and other papers—reveal Auerbach's varying moods or enthusiasms, chronicle his residence in different German or Austrian cities, and are comparatively insignificant among his forty or more volumes. Nor is much to be said of his first long fiction, 'Neues ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the most exciting of my life. I can conceive nothing more sublimating than the strange peril and novelty of an adventure such as this. May God grant that we succeed! I ask not success for mere safety to my insignificant person, but for the sake of human knowledge and—for the vastness of the triumph. And yet the feat is only so evidently feasible that the sole wonder is why men have scrupled to attempt it before. One single gale such as now befriends us—let such a tempest whirl ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... encounters and exploits that we shall consider as being part of the naval operations of the Revolutionary war were of a kind that would to-day be regarded as insignificant skirmishes; and the naval officer of to-day would look with supreme contempt upon most of his brethren of '76, as so many untrained sea-guerillas. Nevertheless, the achievements of some of the seamen ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... his consternation. It had been our world for these years, a world set apart, distant and unknown; but it had been satisfactory until now. Never before that moment had the scattering little one-story cabins of log and adobe seemed so small and insignificant, so unfit for human occupancy. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... the Netherlands made progress in Picardy; and John De Werth, a formidable general of the League, and a celebrated partisan, pushed his march into Champagne, and spread consternation even to the gates of Paris. But an insignificant fortress in Franche Comte completely checked the Imperialists, and they were obliged, a second time, to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... in a piqued style. Such a beau of beaux, no doubt he was annoyed that an insignificant little country bumpkin should not be flattered by his patronage, or probably he thought me ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... behaved honestly, if not with high feeling. In recounting the doings of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, it will sometimes be necessary to refer to Mr. Brisket. He shall always be spoken of as an honest man. He did all that in him lay to mar the bright hopes of one who was perhaps not the most insignificant of that firm. He destroyed the matrimonial hopes of Mr. Robinson, and left him to wither like a blighted trunk on a lone waste. But he was, nevertheless, an honest man, and so much shall be said of him. Let us never forget that "An ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... In the hands of late writers they shaded into legendary accounts of the origin of the kingdom, and the whole was colored by the developed Mazdaism. We thus have theological constructions rather than true myths.[1748] The few mythical stories that have survived play an insignificant part in the religious system—a sort of result that is to be expected whenever a substantially definite monotheistic ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... can be disputed only by denying the truth and accuracy of all the reports, Federal and Confederate, taken as a body; and these happen to dovetail into each other in one so consistent whole, that they leave to the careful student none but entirely insignificant items open to doubt. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... this very submission to the Divine order that he himself soars into greatness. The figure of the warrior who is so insignificant in the Homeric story of the fight around Troy becomes that of a hero in the horror of its capture. AEneas comes before us the survivor of an immense fall, sad with the sadness of lost home and slaughtered friends, not even suffered ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... deception of the old man could not have been the object of the play, for it was but by chance that he saw it, and it could matter to no one what he saw or thought or felt, for he was one of the most insignificant of earth's sons. Then Caius would think of that curious gleam of deeper insight the poor old mind had displayed in the attempt to express, blunderingly as it might be, the fact that truth exceeds our understanding, and yet that we are bound to walk by the light of understanding. He ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... more useful. It has been said that his work is imperfect as a book of reference, for while the great events and personages are discussed with a fulness that leaves little to be desired, many of the more insignificant transactions or more obscure periods are passed over or barely noticed. Critics of different religious schools have also complained that his mind was essentially secular; that he had a low sense of the certainty and the importance of dogma; that there were some classes of ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... tempting as the offers were, after much deliberation, they were rejected. Such things were common a short time before, and hundreds of the banditti had been ferried over to the coast of Sardinia; but now there was a sharp look-out, and discovery would be ruin. Insignificant as is the commerce of Bonifacio, it is well watched by a staff of douaniers, consisting of a captain, four sous-officiers, and thirteen or fourteen préposés, matelots, &c., besides officiers de santé and swarms of gendarmes. They ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... about him, which was very apparent, though he evidently did his utmost to conceal it; and it was this same manner which had hitherto caused me to treat him rather coolly, and rendered me little disposed to cultivate his intimacy. His companion, Don Pablo, was a tolerably insignificant person, who seemed to look up to Silveira and his wife with a respect and reverence almost amounting to idolatry. Beside him, their suite was composed of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... novel (see Canterbury Tales, ed. 1832, vol. ii.). On the other hand, in the remaining three-fourths of the play, the language is not Miss Lee's, but Byron's, and the "conveyance" of incidents occasional and insignificant. Much, too, was imported into the play (e.g. almost the whole of the fourth act), of which there is neither hint nor suggestion in the story. Maginn's categorical statement (see "O'Doherty on Werner," Miscellanies, 1885, i. 189) that "here Lord Byron ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... many temptations to selfishness there are in the home life! Every day brings the choice between selfishness and self-sacrifice. Shall I take for myself the choicest apple? or shall I share in that which is not so agreeable? These may appear to be very insignificant questions. But, boys and girls, do you know that the habitual decisions at which you arrive in childhood, determine largely whether or not you will live by principle later on? "As the twig is bent, so ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... and had enabled her to subdue the world, while Scotland was the residence of "roving barbarians." The Pyrenees, Carpathians, and other ranges of continental Europe, are all younger than the Grampians, or even the insignificant Mendip Hills of southern England. Stratification tells this tale as plainly as Livy tells the history of the Roman republic. It tells us—to use the words of Professor Philips—that at the time ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... York to which England looks as the future successful rival of London, and it is New York at whom England chiefly aims the blow in desiring to overthrow the Union. The interest of New York in the price of bank or State stock is insignificant compared with her still greater stake in the success of the Union. Indeed, if the Union should fall, State and bank stock and all property will be of little value, and bank debts ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... developed—our success was sure to attract it; but it was still of insignificant proportions, and we gave it no thought. We had been first in the field and our position ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... him in the hush of the dawn that all the big world had been bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny. The drowsy sais gave him his mount, and, since the one great sin made all others insignificant, Wee Willie Winkie said that he was going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and went out at a foot-pace, stepping on the soft ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... contrast with familiar and tangible objects. It is only by a careful examination in detail that one can become fully sensible of their extraordinary magnificence. Vast streets of almost interminable length, lined by insignificant two-story houses with green roofs and yellow walls; vast open squares or ploschads; palaces, public buildings, and churches, dwindled down to mere toy-work in the deserts of space intervening; countless throngs of citizens and carriages scarcely bigger than ants to the eye; broad sheets of water, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... London can not compare in glory with the crystal ripples of a mid-ocean scene. The botannical gardens of the Tuilleries in Paris do not stir the soul as does the splendor of the Welsh mountains. The rockery plants of Phoenix Park, Dublin, are insignificant compared with growths of ferns and moss On the rock ledges of Bray's Head, south of Dublin. No panorama that man has painted can equal the scene of Waterloo battle-field, observed from the earthen mound near the ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... spoken much wisdom! It is, after all, a proposition that has, possibly, sense in it. La Nina is a woman such as any man might be glad to make his wife, and yet—this very fact that she is not an insignificant personality, is what I object to! I doubt her developing into either a blinded saint or a coquette with amiable complacence for others. We should lead a peppery life, I fear. But don't you think, my brother, ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... prepared for the apprehension of a great purpose should fix the thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty, no matter how insignificant their task may appear. Only in this way can the thoughts be gathered and focussed, and resolution and energy be developed, which being done, there is nothing which ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... Ivan Michaelovitch considered insignificant and uninteresting beside these dogmas. All the rest might be as it was, or just the reverse. Count Ivan Michaelovitch lived and acted according to these lights for 40 years, and at the end of 40 ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... government, whatever it be; others by principle. The few from Central and South American republics are thoroughly sound. The diplomats of the great powers, representing various complicated interests, are the more confused, they have so many things to consider. The diplomatic tail, the smallest, insignificant, fawn to all, and turn as whirlwinds around the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... the overtones, of which the vowels are made up, and hence it is that the human voice is capable of an infinite variety of tone-color, compared with which Wagner admits that even "the most manifold imaginable mixture of orchestral colors must appear insignificant." ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... tale of goodness which age brings to the memory! There may be crowning acts of benevolence, shining here and there; but the margin of what has not been done is very broad. How weak and insignificant seems the story of life's goodness and profit, when Death begins to slant his shadow upon our souls! How infinite in the comparison seems that Eternal goodness which is crowned with mercy. How self vanishes, like ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... cried De la Vigne, amazed at all the expression the exquisite voice and face had given to the two words. And so the scene was altered, and the long recital of D'Orval was broken by the reproachful "Ah, monsieur!" of his wife, and seldom has the utterance of such an insignificant exclamation affected those who heard it so keenly. For myself, I never can forget the sudden, burning blush that spread tingling to my shoulders at all the shame and mortification and anguish conveyed in the pathetic protest of that "Ah, monsieur!" ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... all minor points and insignificant questions compared with the great principle which was incorporated by the House in the bill in reference to the use of the Army in time of peace. The Senate had already conceded what they called and what we might ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... insignificant thing. Well, what are you the better for this? Is this Mr. Mirabell's expedient? I'll be put off no longer. You, thing, that was a wife, shall smart for this. I will not leave thee wherewithal to hide thy shame: your body shall be naked ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... brought into court. On some unguarded and apparently irrelevant statement he may open an entirely new line of inquiry, or throw upon the case a flood of light. Everyone knows what revelations are sometimes evoked by apparently the most insignificant remarks. Why should justice be denied a chance ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... been a very brief and insignificant one, extending little beyond the duration of a single term of senatorial office. But in that brief period I have seen five judges of a high court of the United States driven from office by threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministration. I have heard the taunt from ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... play. For the mind may be trained to meditate on great themes instead of giving itself up to idle reverie; when it is released from work it may concern itself with the highest things as readily as with those which are insignificant and paltry. Whoever can command his meditations in the streets, along the country roads, on the train, in the hours of relaxation, can enrich himself for all time without effort or fatigue; for it is as easy and restful to think about great things as about ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... by the immediate crowding out of cottage industry and the abrupt increase in production was insignificant beside the deeper influence, physical, moral, mental, of the machine in changing the permanent habitat and the entire mode of living for millions of human beings. It removed them from those healthy rural surroundings ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... circles to which he had been admitted and he longed for the life of the sea. He finally preferred his request directly to the king and shortly afterward was given, not the great sea monster he had been led to expect, but an insignificant looking craft called Le Duras. In compliment to Dr. Franklin's magazine of the name and in humorous comment of the ship's appearance, he renamed it the Bon Homme Richard, meaning the Poor Richard. But with the Poor Richard, as with the human ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... needless trouble in handing you this paper. The writer of it may be too insignificant to deserve any notice. If I knew this to be the case, I should not have intruded on your time, which is so precious. But there may possibly be some scheme or party forming to your prejudice. The enclosed leads ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... us; nothing can exceed its truth' (Prior's 'Life', 1837, ii. 380). In other words, it delineates Goldsmith as his contemporaries saw him, with bulbous forehead, indecisive chin, and long protruding upper lip, — awkward, insignificant, ill at ease, — restlessly burning 'to get in and shine.' It enables us moreover to understand how people who knew nothing of his better and more lovable qualities, could speak of him as an 'inspired ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... waxen beauty which outshone the rest of our tribe. It was the first time I had heard the word Doll, though I was well acquainted with the illustrious individual to whom it was applied; and it now flashed upon my mind, with pride and pleasure, that, however insignificant in comparison, I too was a doll. But I had not time to think very deeply about my name and nature just then, as I wished to listen to the conversation ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... for Nan's soul and body! The idea was too hideous to be thinkable. In his anger he had accused her of flirting with Bivens, but in his heart he didn't believe it. The personality of the little money-grubber made the idea preposterous. He was not only frail, insignificant, and unattractive physically, but he had personal habits which were offensive to Nan's feelings of refinement. His excessive use of tobacco was one thing he knew she could not tolerate. Tobacco ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... taking its rise somewhere among the adjacent mountains, discharged itself into the waters of the harbour, and when once it had come to be recognised that the approach of the party must be made by water, it was upon this stream that George concentrated his attention. It was but an insignificant affair as to width, and to all appearance shallow, but just before it reached the city it widened out to about sixty yards across; and while the young captain was studying it through his perspective glass, during the mid-day halt, he perceived ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... and entirely lacking in any material for malodorous thoughts and feelings. By constantly turning his thoughts to the wonders and truths of heredity and to the marvel of the development of living things from such insignificant yet momentous beginnings, and by telling him interesting facts of animals and plants along these lines, his thought can be kept general and on a high plane. Where details are demanded, the parent ought to be thankful that ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... having been placed between electrodes spaced three centimeters apart, currents were obtained which indicated that, with the best of porcelains, the rendering of the apparatus is diminished by one-half. Asbestos cloth introduces but an insignificant resistance. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... the least. Miss Alicia, who, as a timid dependent either upon "poor dear papa" or Mr. Temple Barholm, had been secretly, in her sensitive, ladylike little way, afraid of superior servants all her life, knowing that they realized her utterly insignificant helplessness, and resented giving her attention because she was not able to show her appreciation of their services in the proper manner— Miss Alicia saw that it had not occurred to him to endeavor to propitiate them in the least, because somehow it all seemed a joke to him, and he didn't care. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... wrote to his intimate friend Atticus, who, safe from harm and turmoil, was dwelling under the calm Athenian sky. A great fraction of the Senate departed; only those stayed who felt that their loyalty to the advancing Imperator was beyond dispute, or who deemed themselves too insignificant to fall beneath his displeasure. In the hour of crisis the old ties of religion and superstition reasserted themselves. Senators and magistrates, who had deemed it a polite avocation to mock at the gods and deny the existence ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Doctor's Capitols might have been built within these walls, but he was by no means sure that two or three hundred of them might not have been squeezed in with some trouble. That palace at Carnac was an insignificant little building after all. He (the Count), however, could not conscientiously refuse to admit the ingenuity, magnificence, and superiority of the Fountain at the Bowling Green, as described by the Doctor. Nothing like it, he was ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... time, lest the irritated and wronged bees should set upon them and take an ample revenge. Had they known their power, this might easily have been done, no ingenuity of man being able to protect him against the assaults of this insignificant-looking animal, when unable to cover himself, and the angry little heroes are in earnest. On the present occasion, however, no harm befell the marauders. So suddenly had the hive tumbled that its late occupants appeared to be astounded, and they submitted to their fate as men ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... diplomatic missions, which succeeded each other rapidly during the ensuing ten years. The period of the Middle Ages was not a period of nuances; that nuance which distinguishes an ambassador from a messenger was held as insignificant, and escaped observation; the two functions formed but one. "You," said Eustache Des Champs, "you, ambassador and messenger, who go about the world to do your duty at the Courts of great princes, your journeys are not ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... presentation of a world theme backed by a striking personality. In the lounge Mr. Rowell, our best authority on the ethics of the Empire and the League of Nations, went about alone, unobtrusive, drab-coloured, almost insignificant. He spoke to nobody and few men as much as noticed him. He nodded gravely now and again, but never smiled. Both hands in his trouser pockets, he seemed to be gazing at some vagabond blind spot in the room. He almost seemed to be whistling ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... full of people. Mr. Marigold was there, chatting with Captain Strangwise who seemed to be just taking his leave; there was a short, fat, Jewish-looking man, very resplendently dressed with a large diamond pin in his cravat and a small, insignificant looking gentleman with a gray moustache and the red rosette of the Legion of Honor in his button-hole. Matthews came out of the Chief's room as Barbara entered the ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... not, for it does not often fall to the lot of mortal man to find in one little, insignificant figure, dwarfish alike in soul and body, such a compound of selfishness, duplicity, meanness, and vulgarity, as was centered in the object of that ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... of farmers seemed lost on an immensity of soft gray and golden billows of land, insignificant dots here and there on distant hills, so far apart that nature only seemed accountable for those broad squares of alternate gold and brown, extending on and on to the waving horizon-line. A lonely, hard, ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... of my confusion Mr. Pulitzer said, "Look out of the window and tell me what you see. Remember that I am blind, and try and make me get a mental picture of everything—everything, you understand; never think that anything is too small or insignificant to be of interest to me; you can't tell what may interest me; always describe everything with the greatest minuteness, every cloud in the sky, every shadow on the hillside, every tree, every house, every dress, every wrinkle on ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... her to think. In originally wishing to please the highest class of man she had ever intimately known, there was no disloyalty to Stephen Smith. She could not—and few women can—realize the possible vastness of an issue which has only an insignificant begetting. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... all this was the fact that we took hold of the growth and development of South Australia, and identified ourselves with it. Nothing is insignificant in the history of a young community, and—above all—nothing seems impossible. I had learned what wealth was, and a great deal about production and exchange for myself in the early history of South Australia—of the value of machinery, of roads and bridges, ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... did not know that he, of whom they spoke, was Mochuda, for it was not the custom of the latter to make himself known to many. "Say not so," said Molua (to the censorious brethren), "for the day will come when our community and city will seem but insignificant beside his—though now he goes alone; you do not know that he is Mochuda whom many obey and whom many more will obey in ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... personal appearance! It was not till I had known him for nearly a year, owing partly to our unfrequent meetings, and his absence, that I began to be sensible of his superior talents and acquirements. His personal appearance was, it must be candidly owned, certainly insignificant and unprepossessing. He was of slight make, a trifle under the middle height, his hair was rather light, and his complexion pale. He wore spectacles, being excessively near-sighted, and had a very slight cast in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... capitals of Europe; and in a failing light the last wicket had fallen at Kensingtowe. So it happened that, while the Emperors of Central Europe were whispering that the Day had come and the slaughter of the youth of Christendom might begin, there was a gathering in Radley's room of those insignificant people whose little doings you have watched at Kensingtowe. They were assembled to drink tea and discuss the match. There were Radley as host; Pennybet, to represent the Old Boys; Doe and I, in fine fettle for the School; and Dr. Chappy, who, having sworn that he was a busy ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... was that Mr Limpney allowed the littleness of his nature to come uppermost, and he laboriously explained the most insignificant portions of the lessons in a sarcastic manner which made Dexter writhe, for he was not slow to find that the tutor was ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... it," she bent to say In her courteous Chinese way, "In my very contemptible garden, dear, your illustrious wish to play?" And when he nodded his head She knew that he would have said, "My insignificant feet are proud your honored ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... this trivial attention, and she knew it. It was an absurdly insignificant incident, and yet here she was recalling it with something like a thrill. Not only that, but she recalled another and equally preposterous detail of the day. She had dropped her vanity-box in the car, and as they ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... made some progress at first, and offered effective resistance for a long time, simply because the Southern authorities manifested greater military wisdom than the Northern. The difference in preparations and in military training in advance was quite insignificant. The North had many more educated and competent military men than the South. The difference was that the South used the few they had to the best advantage, while the North so used only a very ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... Levante, rendered this journey one of the most interesting I have ever made. I stopped to dine at Borghetto and brought to the night at Sestri Levante, breakfasted the next morning at Rapallo, and arrived the same evening at four o'clock in Genoa. Borghetto is a little insignificant town situate in a narrow valley surrounded on all sides by the lofty crags of the Appennines. Sestri Levante is a long and very straggling town, part of it being situated on the sea shore, and the other part on the gorge of ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... carefully distinguished. John Lee, who appeared in the small role of Sancho and also took the equally unimportant part of Sebastian in Abdelazer this same year, had, according to Downes, joined the Duke's Company about 1670. He never rose above an entirely insignificant line, and we find him cast as Alexas in Pordage's Herod and Mariamne, 1673; Titiro in Settle's Pastor Fido, 1676; Pedro in Porter's The French Conjurer, and Noddy in The Counterfeit Bridegroom, 1677. He was, it ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... to love Mr. McMaster as much as they admired his zeal. He was in many ways a quaint, curious character. His body seemed so small and insignificant, and his spirit so mighty. He knew neither fear nor despair in the prosecution of his chosen work, and it was impossible to be associated with him without being infected by his unquenchable ardour. For some time no special incident marked their work, and then Bert had an experience that might have ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... folly Even doubt whether he believes in the existence of a God Follies and superstitions as the rosaries and other things Formerly the custom to swear horridly on all occasions Great filthiness in the interior of their houses Great things originated from the most insignificant trifles He always slept in the Queen's bed He had good natural wit, but was extremely ignorant He was a good sort of man, notwithstanding his weaknesses Her teeth were very ugly, being black and broken (Queen) I ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... ship, solid, sturdy, compact, strong and resistant as any vessel built by mortal hands can be, yet utterly insignificant in comparison with the white, cold adversary she must fight. And on this little ship are sixty-nine human beings, men, women, and children, whites and Eskimos, who have gone out into the crazy, ice-tortured channel between Baffin Bay and the Polar Sea—gone ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... own preoccupation, neither deduced aught from the drift of her remarks nor saw the tender glances which attended them. While he was making some insignificant answer, the maid, in moving the candelabrum on the spinet, accidentally brushed therefrom his hat, which had been lying on it. She picked it up, in great ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... what I, a lonely and insignificant person, may say or do. What is my protest against the common current, the race to which I belong is taking and (what grieves me more), which the missionary societies seem to follow? Even if a respectable number protested it would not be of any use. Yet were I alone against the whole world, ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... was readily appeased; could drink a great deal, but was no drunkard; and held as his creed that a God had probably made the world and set it going, but that he did not care a brass farthing, as he phrased it, how it went on, or what such an insignificant being as a man did or left undone in it. Perhaps he might amuse himself with it, he said, but he doubted it. As to men, he believed every man loved himself supremely, and therefore was in natural warfare with every ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the old hole!" exclaimed the wronged young lady. "What does it amount to if you lose one insignificant hole when there are ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... did not help to redeem Tom Robinson's drawbacks in the judgment of a rash young world that he lacked his late father's fine presence. Though gentleman-like enough, he was insignificant in person, and he had little to say for himself. Probably it would have struck his critics as little short of profane to make the comparison, otherwise there is a great example that might have stood him and all men not giants and glib of tongue in good stead. It is ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... grounds and the cattle; I could not escape the house. A lady with silver hair, a slender silver voice, and a stream of insignificant information not to be diverted, led me through the picture gallery, the music-room, the great dining-room, the long drawing-room, the Indian room, the theatre, and every corner (as I thought) of that interminable mansion. There was but one place reserved; the garden-room, whither ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... gradually declared itself in favor of Wei. It would serve no useful purpose to enumerate the battles which marked this struggle, yet one deed of heroism deserves mention, the defense of Sinching by Changte, an officer of the Prince of Wei. The strength of the place was insignificant, and, after a siege of ninety days, several breaches had been made in the walls. In this strait Changte sent a message to the besieging general that he would surrender on the hundredth day if a cessation of hostilities were granted, "as it was a ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... weather. Or it may have been that my imagination was stirred by the arrival of that strange pair, Harut and Marut, apparently in search of myself, seven thousand miles away from any place where they can have known aught of an insignificant individual with a purely local repute. Or it may have been that the pictures which they showed me when under the influence of the fumes of their "tobacco"—or of their hypnotism—took an ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard |
