"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Nuremberg, was invested with the margravate of Brandenburg and the electoral dignity. The Hohenzollerns, a few exceptions aside, have been a thrifty, energetic and successful family. Slowly, but with the precision of destiny, their motto, "From rock to sea"—once apparently an idle boast—has realized itself to the full, until they now stand foremost in Europe. It would pertain rather to a history of the Prussian monarchy than to a sketch like the present to trace, even in outline, the steps by which Brandenburg annexed one after another ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... while there were no Precepts for these People in the Gospel, concerning the improvement of their Time, and Talents, as things whereof they must one Day be accountable. For others it may be they cannot but see that there are such Commands; but the Sacred Law of Fashion has made endless Idle Visits, and less Innocent Entertainments, the indispensibly constant Employment of those of their Condition: and when they are grown Old in the perpetually repeated round of such Impertinence and Folly, they have but labour'd ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... they told him that their father would not keep them any longer in the house because a piece of gold lay every morning under their pillows. "Come," said the huntsman, "that is nothing so very bad, if at the same time you keep honest, and are not idle." As the good man liked the children, and had none of his own, he took them home with him and said, "I will be your father, and bring you up till you are big." They learnt huntsmanship from him, and the piece of gold which ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... an artificial flower in the house, on embroidered table-cover or sofa cushion or tidy; indeed, Mrs. Jackson holds that the manufacture of silken poppies and crewel sun-flowers is a 'respectable industry,' intended only to keep idle hands out of mischief." ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... girl related all her history, and what had happened to her, and when the mother heard how she came to have such great riches she began to wish that her ugly and idle daughter might have the same good fortune. So she sent her to sit by the well and spin; and in order to make her spindle bloody she put her hand into the thorn hedge. Then she threw the spindle ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... men. With population vice has increased, and these politicians, with ears but no eyes, hear of drunkenness and sin and ignorance. And then they declare to themselves that this wicked, half-barbarous, idle people should be controlled and not represented. A wicked, half-barbarous, idle people may be controlled;—but not a people thoughtful, educated, and industrious. We must look to it that we do not endeavour to carry our control beyond the wickedness ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... mind was unconscious of not having spoken devoutly. True or not, his words were idle to his son: his talk of dangers over, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... who, without any formal institution of rules, have gradually acquired a consistency that approximates to organisation. But the universe of this vast city contains a plurality of systems; and the one into which I have been attracted may be described as that of the idle intellects. In general society, the members of our party are looked up to as men of taste and refinement, and are received with a degree of deference that bears some resemblance to the respect paid ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... afternoon I sit down again to eat, as if I needed a meal and had earned it. But it is only for something to do; my hands are idle, and my brain inclined to fancies. It gets dark early: well to find a sheltered cleft in the hillside here; there are fallen firs enough lying about for ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... distress could check his capacity for work. Save during the hours of sleep, his pen would seem never to have been idle; even whilst talking to a friend who was waiting to take him for a walk, he was jotting down at great speed one of his most beautiful dramatic ballads, the 'Zwerg.' Another friend, Carl Umlauff, has related how he used to go to Schubert's ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... employment for which they are more fitted than the ordinary occupations of everyday life. This raises a difficult question, and each case would have to be settled on its merits. The difficulty must be faced; otherwise the children will simply drift and become idle and useless, while, if educated, at any rate partly, on the system for the blind, they would become useful members ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... living sensible creature, doth require. And that, whatsoever it be, thou mayest admit of and do it, if thy nature as thou art a reasonable living creature, will not be the worse for it. Now whatsoever is reasonable, is also sociable, Keep thyself to these rules, and trouble not thyself about idle things. ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... given a better administration. His word has been taken without question. He declared that "Darien hath been one of the Settlements where the People have been most industrious as those of Savannah have been most idle. The Trustees have had several Servants there who under the direction of Mr. Moore McIntosh have not only earned their bread but have provided the Trust with such Quantities of sawed stuff as hath saved them a great sum of money. Those Servants cannot be put under the direction of anybody ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... now seen the impropriety of thinking of that portionless girl as your wife. At all events, you may rest assured that on the day you marry her you shall be disinherited. You know me well enough to be aware that this is not an idle threat. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... says, "is this virtue, and worthy of being practised by the best beloved children of God."[1] And again, "Our Lord loves with a most tender love those who are so happy as to abandon themselves wholly to His fatherly care, letting themselves be governed by His divine Providence without any idle speculations as to whether the workings of this Providence will be useful to them to their profit, or painful to their loss, and this because they are well assured that nothing can be sent, nothing permitted by this paternal and most loving Heart, which will ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... difficulty that the superabundant color was removed; and he charged her to let the flowers alone till he was ready to wash them for her. He worked a little at the piece every day, forbidding Marianne to touch it; and she remained idle while he was putting in skies, mountains, etc., for the other ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... of the Government, where nothing but wickedness, and wicked men and women command the King: that it is not in his nature to gainsay any thing that relates to his pleasures; that much of it arises from the sickliness of our Ministers of State, who cannot be about him as the idle companions are, and therefore he gives way to the young rogues; and then, from the negligence of the Clergy, that a Bishop shall never be seen about him, as the King of France hath always: that the King would fain ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... laughed at death? The truth is simple. Her faith had triumphed over what seemed to be insuperable obstacles; and she was with Philip, for better or for worse. A miracle had been wrought; and miracles are not meaningless, or idle, or without purpose. It was a feeling perhaps unknown to man, who is merely a reasoning creature, much given to material consideration of natural causes and effects, and so compelled by his limitations to grope in outer darkness. And it was not so much a feeling ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... and the day when thou shalt reap thy reward is near at hand; for the bonds which connect thee with the destiny of a Wehr-Wolf shall be broken, and thy name shall be inscribed in Heaven's own Book of Life! And I will give thee a sign, that what thou seest and hearest now in thy slumber is no idle and delusive vision conjured up by a fevered brain. The sign shall be this: On awaking from thy sleep, retrace thy way to the spot where this morning thou didst separate from her whom thou lovest; and there shalt thou find a boat upon the sand. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... speaker, is always able to command attention and doors are thrown open to him which remain closed to others not equipped with a like facility of expression. The man who can talk well and to the point need never fear to go idle. He is required in nearly every walk of life and field of human endeavor, the world wants him at every turn. Employers are constantly on the lookout for good talkers, those who are able to attract the public and convince others ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... wanderers in the Parks, there appeared latterly a trim little figure in black (with the face protected from notice behind a crape veil), which was beginning to be familiar, day after day, to nursemaids and children, and to rouse curiosity among harmless solitaries meditating on benches, and idle vagabonds strolling over the grass. The woman-servant, whom the considerate doctor had provided, was the one person in Emily's absence left to take care of the house. There was no other creature who could be a companion to the friendless girl. ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... was I without my inseparable note-book and pencil in my hand or in my pocket, never without good, long, serious articles to be written in my hotel bedroom. Even in London when I might have passed for the idlest stroller along Bond Street or Piccadilly on an idle afternoon, oftener than not I have been bound for a gallery somewhere with the prospect of long hours' writing as the result of it. But though the task varied, the tale of these days as well has been told, and has duly appeared in the long columns of many a ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... jubilee. But by and by the novelty wore off; she had told the family everything she could possibly think of, and now longed for a few pairs of fresh ears into which to pour her stories. Everybody else was working for Christmas; Dotty alone was idle; for no one had time to give her a daily stint, and see ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... Perkiss help me. We managed it between us. It was just a fancy of mine to fill the idle hours. I didn't think I should ever have the courage ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... geological times is an abominable mystery." ("More Letters of Charles Darwin", Vol. II. page 20, letter to J.D. Hooker, 1879.) A couple of years later he made a bold suggestion (which he only called an "idle thought") to meet this difficulty. He says: "I have been so astonished at the apparently sudden coming in of the higher phanerogams, that I have sometimes fancied that development might have slowly gone on for an immense period in some ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... communicating are cut off, I have only to beg that you will not believe the idle rumours of battles, &c. ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... and dispassionate, because farther removed from the agitations of the day, now seeks to solve, as she looks back over the dreary torrents of blood that sprang from that disastrous source. The inquiry is not an idle one—for justice ought to find such a vindication in the records of past generations as may have been denied at the time of the commission of ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... been incarcerated for various reasons, murder, etc., for even in this state of Matto Grosso an assassin who cannot pay or escape suffers a little imprisonment. The excuse was, "We cannot afford to keep so many idle men—we are poor." What a confession for a Brazilian! I do not vouch for the story, for I was not an eye-witness to the act, but it is quite in the range of Brazilian possibilities. The only discrepancy may be the strange way of Portuguese counting. A man ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... M. a part of our world, or is it not? Should its inhabitants be encouraged to maintain their connections with us, or is it better for them to "accept the situation" and gradually wean themselves from us and from our affairs? It would be idle to determine this question in the abstract: it is perhaps idle to decide any question of casuistry in the abstract. But, in practice, there are constantly arising questions which really require some decision of this abstract problem for ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... first place, that it is my decided conviction that the Gipsies were neither more nor less, before they set out upon their pilgrimage, than a pell-mell gathering of many thousands of low-caste, good for nothing, idle Indians from Hindustan—not ashamed to beg, with some amount of sentiment in their nature, as exhibited in their musical tendencies and love of gaudy colours, and except in rare instances, without any true religious motives or influences. It may be worth while to notice that I have come ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... dance," she exclaimed. And she caught hold of Monsieur Dupuis, who was sitting idle on the couch, and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... hour later the boys were busy with a Latin exercise, when silence was broken by a shuffle and an exclamation from the back desk. "You again, Maxton," said the master, looking up with a frown. "I suppose you are determined to idle away your time and remain bottom of the class this term as you were last. I shall put your name down for some extra work. Let's see," he continued, taking up the slate: "I appear to have three boys' names down already—'Vance,' ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... opportunities, education and abilities, who have really been educated for nothing and have let themselves drift, in the hope that they will find somehow, and by some sudden turn of good luck, the golden road to fortune. He was not idle or lazy, he had energy and a disposition to carve his own way. But he was born into a time when all young men of his age caught the fever of speculation, and expected to get on in the world by the omission of some of the regular processes which have been appointed from of old. And examples ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... his charges into the elevator. "Well, what do you think of Jane and her doings now?" he asked, briskly, as he stepped in after them. "Can you think of any better opening for the investment of your idle funds? Isn't she an able financier? Hasn't she got a great administrative capacity? Isn't she one of the rising young men of the day?" As he flung off this string of stock phrases from the newspapers, his eyes flashed brightly, ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... one thing, he wants to get away. He doesn't seem quite content with his job of idle aristocrat. I believe he's been pestering the old man to send him ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... disarranging a tactical conception which, with our superior numbers, would doubtless have proved successful had it not been anticipated by an enterprising foe. During the battle on the 8th the Second Corps, under General Thomas L. Crittenden, accompanied by General George H. Thomas, lay idle the whole day for want of orders, although it was near enough to the field to take an active part in the fight; and, moreover, a large part of Gilbert's corps was unengaged during the pressure on McCook. Had these troops ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... I have named to learn from him what were the best books on those subjects which promised to be useful to me, and my first care was to become possessed of them. Architecture was now vigorously studied, and other books, too, were not suffered to lie idle. ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... always the vanity to believe they can do things better than men, though at the same time what good they do is by their advice. It would be odd indeed, if I, who laid this plot myself, could not carry it on as well as you. But let us lose no time in idle discourse; lie down in my place, and witness if I do not come off with as ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... German who tries to bomb New York from the air has a big surprise coming to him—a lot of big surprises. The war department may not have been doing much advertising, but it has not been idle." ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... be supposed that machinery is essentially related to unsteadiness of work. The contrary is obviously the case. Cheap tools can be kept idle without great loss to their owner, but every stoppage in the work of expensive machinery means a heavy loss to the capitalist. Thus the larger the part played by expensive machinery, the stronger the personal motive in the individual capitalist to give full regular ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... recollection which might strengthen the chain of association we wished to indulge in. Our attention was attracted, by observing the window of the study open, and we were led to look within, impelled by no idle or blameable curiosity, but rather like a pilgrim approaching the shrine where his warmest adoration has ever been paid. But, alas I the deep tones of the venerable old Principal Baird, whose voice was heard in earnest and impressive prayer, came upon us through an opposite door, from the library ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... of you to come," said Ishmael, taking the little hand that lay idle against a flounce. She made no motion to withdraw it or to move away, and glancing up at her he saw there were tears in her eyes. As he looked they slipped over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. She made no effort to stay them, nor did ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom and austere control? Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelai, Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God. Is that time dead? Lo, with a little rod I did but touch ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... not that I staid from idle motives. Poor Agnes has found shelter in Corbey abbey; but the prince and the avenging knights, march in full force to batter down ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... scenery round the place has many charms for me. Besides," added Kenelm, feeling conscious that he ought to find some more plausible excuse than the charms of home scenery for locating himself long in Cromwell Lodge, "besides, I intend to devote myself a good deal to reading. I have been very idle of late, and the solitude of this place must be ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I expected, had not been idle. Ever since the day we had left him, he had been hunting and trapping, and had collected a large store of skins of all sorts of animals, with dried meat enough to supply an army. The baggage animals we had brought could carry but a small amount of the stores collected by Uncle Jeff. It was arranged, ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... that temperance which was observed by every one on board, except at the beginning of the voyage by the captain of our vessel, who, however, ended by adopting our mode of life. I mention this to contradict an idle story told in a magazine ('The London') 'that Lord Byron on this voyage passed the principal part of the day drinking with the captain of the ship.' Lord Byron, as we all did, passed his time chiefly reading. He dined alone on deck; and sometimes in the evening he sat ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... this city is decidedly hostile to color, and the daily acts of persecution in this city are manifest in the number of arrests and false imprisonment made where no shadow of criminality exists, while gangs of idle rebel soldiers and other dissolute rowdies insult, rob, and assault the helpless ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... of old and were walking out the old Mission Road. In such moods it was impossible for him to idle before a fire and read aloud. Madeleine had told her husband she would like to join Masters in his walks occasionally, and he had replied heartily: "Do you good. He'll lead you some pretty tramps! I can't keep up with him. You ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... events had been transpiring in the Spanish town, Captain Dynamite had not been idle. As the last man of the little Cuban army filed down the mountain-side, he rose from his chair, and tightening his belt stretched his big body as was his custom when ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... command me? Right and wrong are only matters of feeling, and your feelings are no rule to me. The will of the majority is only the law of might, and if I can evade it, or overcome it, my will is as good as theirs. Oaths are only an idle superstition; there is no judge, no judgment, no punishment for the false swearer." Take away the moral sanction of law, and the sacredness of oaths, and what basis have you left for any government, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... breath, the well of her imagination run dry, but her face was so radiant that instinctively her listener knew these were not idle words, though she could not keep the hard tone out of her voice as she answered, "Ah, that is easy enough to say, but—wait until you are where I am now, and I think you will find it lots harder to practice ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Mississippi Valley and the recovery of New Orleans. After the fifteenth of this month, operations must cease on the Carolina and Georgia coasts—Charleston and Wilmington being still in our possession. But we should not be idle. Lee, in disdaining the sheltered army of the invaders, would be likely to invade in turn; and the public demand of retaliation for the cruelties and destruction of private property perpetrated by the enemy could not be resisted. His men would probably apply the torch to the towns and cities ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... different orders of Benedictines, which, though enormously rich, devoured the substance of the poor. There were more than twenty thousand monks in a population of three or four millions; and most of them led idle and dissolute lives, and were subjects of perpetual reproach. Reforms of the various religious houses had been attempted, but all reforms had failed. Nor were the lives of the secular clergy much more respectable than those of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... do light services, but as for servants of our own flesh and blood, no such class exists. We all share whatever work there is, and no labor is menial. Whatever I ask others to do I am glad to do for them when occasion offers. Do not suppose we are idle. There is work for us, but with our abundant strength and continual good health it is never a burden. Then there are the duties connected with our higher life and education, for we are ever seeking to fit ourselves for a still better ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... I felt a strange kind of fear, and once or twice I even thought I could discern something white through the darkness which surrounded me. At length, by the help of reason, I succeeded in mastering these, what some would call idle fancies, and fell asleep. I had slept about an hour when a strange sound awoke me, and I saw looking through my curtains a skeleton wrapped in a white sheet. I was overcome with terror and tried to scream, but my tongue was paralysed and my whole ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Rodenbeck, &c.]—and, for finis, got into the common Passage-Boat (TREKSCHUIT, no doubt) for Utrecht, that he might see the other fine Country-houses along the Vechte. Fine enough Country-houses,—not mud and sedges the main thing, as idle readers think. To Arnheim up the Vechte in this manner; Wesel and his own ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... of forty, an age in itself terrible, and that hopeless young "wrong 'un" of twenty-three (also well connected I believe) had some sort of subdued row in the cleared rooms: wardrobes open, drawers half pulled out and empty, trunks locked and strapped, furniture in idle disarray, and not so much as a single scrap of paper left behind on the tables. The maid, whom the governess and the pupil shared between them, after finishing with Flora, came to the door as usual, but was not admitted. She heard the two voices in dispute before she knocked, and then ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... charity of several people, and one of them bid him "Go to work for an idle rogue." "That I will," said Whittington, "with all my heart; I will work for you if you will ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... cool air is beginning to blow across the fields with long shadows. When their work was done the boys hurried to join the little group under the big willows. They were all there. Ben was set there in the big armchair, Mrs. Boyle with her knitting, for there were no idle hours for her, Margaret with a book which she pretended to read, old Charley smoking in silent content, Iola lazily strumming her guitar and occasionally singing in her low, rich voice some of her old Mammy's songs or plantation hymns. Of these latter, however, Mrs. Boyle was none too sure. To ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... He had to be continually dodging large bales of fruit and wine, and if he made a mistake the officer on duty would shout at him angrily, "Lazy dog! you would not have left Greece were you not an idle fellow." Such words wounded his pride, and he determined to do so well that he should earn praise. But the little officer, his bright buttons flashing in the sunlight, who smoked quietly in the intervals of silence, never praised anybody; but he left off abusing Gregorio ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... days' battering, breaches of from thirty to fifty feet wide were effected in the walls. The Saxons had not been idle. Behind each of the threatened points they raised banks of earth ten feet high, and cut away the bank perpendicularly behind the shattered wall, so that the assailants as they poured in at the gaps would have ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... in execution. Some one has said, that it makes a great difference in the force of a sentence whether or not there is a man behind it. This impression of a fulness of resources always accompanied the efforts of Herr Formes; every phrase had meaning or beauty, as he delivered it. Perhaps it is as idle to lament his deficiencies, in comparison with artists like Belletti, for instance, as to complain because the grand figures of Michel Angelo have not the delicacy of finish that marks the sweetly insipid Venus de Medici. Of the other solo performers in the oratorios it is not necessary for us to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... spending some time in theaters, concerts, and society without looking for him. Full too of talk of her frocks and neighbors, without wishing to interrupt the empty gossip with a look or a kiss to let him know that she was conscious of his presence, and in the middle of her idle talk to say nevertheless that her heart was with him. On the other hand, she showed the tenderest sympathy for him. She longed for a picture of his rooms in the Dorotheenstrasse, where he lived and thought of her. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... doctrine, and if we have the Spirit and faith, then fruits and good works will follow of their own accord. For although the Spirit truly is present and, as Christ says, willing and effective in those that believe, on the other hand the flesh is weak and sluggish. Besides, the devil is not idle, but seeks to seduce our weak ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... been noticed, for instance, that Bacon strikes and impresses us, not merely by the substantial merit of what he achieved, but still more by a certain greatness of scheme and conception. This quality is not a mere idle decoration. It is not a theatrical artifice of mask or buskin, to impose upon us unreal impressions of height and dignity. The added greatness is real. Height of aim and nobility of expression are true forces. They grow to be an obligation upon us. A lofty sense of personal ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... knitting, but she did not lift a stitch. Where there is no positive compulsion the hand is only handmaid to the heart, and it does the work only which the heart wishes. At this hour Denas hated her knitting, and there being no necessity on her to perform it, her hands lay idle upon her lap. After a few minutes' conversation John went out with Tris Penrose, and then Denas began to cry with ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... at noon, as Lucy was sitting with her father, not as usual engaged either in work or in reading, but seemingly quite idle, with her pretty foot upon the squire's gouty stool, and eyes fixed on the carpet, while her hands (never were hands so soft and so small as Lucy's, though they may have been eclipsed in whiteness) were lightly ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Three Mile Slope the man on the pony could see the town of Dry Bottom straggling across the gray floor of the flat, its low, squat buildings looking like so many old boxes blown there by an idle wind, or unceremoniously dumped there by a careless fate and left, regardless, to carry out ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... perhaps to keep the bauble? If so, I counsel you to spare From idle passion hours so fair, And me, henceforth, all further trouble. I hope you are not avaricious! I rub my hands, I scratch my head— [He places the casket in the press and locks it up again.] (Quick! ...
— Faust • Goethe
... the great physicians of this time, who was also an important official of his household, that these Christians had established everywhere hospitals in which not only their own people, but also those who were not Christians, were received and cared for, and that it would be idle to hope to counteract the influence of Christianity until corresponding institutions could be ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... which was said to have been used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of England to the other all classes were constantly singing this idle rhyme. It was especially the delight of the English army. More than seventy years after the Revolution a great writer delineated with exquisite skill a veteran who had fought at the Boyne and at Namur. One of the characteristics of the good old soldier is his trick of whistling ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... were often nine at Mrs. Poppit's bridge-parties (she appeared to be unable to count), but on those occasions Isabel was generally told by her mother that she did not care for bridge, and so there was no cutting out, but only a pleasant book for Isabel. But what would be done with ten? It was idle to hope that Susan would sit out: as hostess she always considered it part of her duties to play solidly the entire evening. Still, if the cutting of cards malignantly ordained that Miss Mapp was ejected, it was only reasonable to expect that after her magnanimity to the United Services, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... was sitting by his half-built sod house. This was the season of building, for the sun shone; and moreover presently would come the bitter unending rain of winter, when it were better to be abiding safely at home. Nevertheless the Fool sat happily idle, for he never could get enough of the sunshine, though he rose with the sun in the morning and wistfully watched it set at night. Now he was twirling a dandelion between thumb and finger, and gazing out across the valley to the running hills of ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... accustomed to rely upon no power but that of the sword, and to respect no authority but a military commission. To him the law was a subject of scorn, and the civil rights of citizens or subjects an idle tale. He looked upon his five thousand troops, with their arms and ammunition, and he saw there the only power be respected, or would condescend to use to maintain his government. Such principles led or ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... is almost idle to look for a presentation of this disinterested, this passive evil, because nothing but the conscious is literary. Shakespeare, in his Othello, a drama which has always appeared false and absurd to me, emphasizes the disinterested malice ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... if it had been in these days, such a person would be plagued to death with idle folks," continued Mrs. Todd, after a long pause. "As it was, nobody trespassed on her; all the folks about the bay respected her an' her feelings; but as time wore on, after you left here, one after another ventured to make occasion to put somethin' ashore for her if they went ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... dawned with another flat calm; but that the crews of the several ships had not been idle during the night was shown by the scattered appearance of the fleet. Six of the fifteen sail counted by Captain Blyth on the previous evening were hull-down to the northward, in which direction three more vessels had put in ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... child can comprehend what you put into its hand; whether it is fitted to convey instruction, or wholesome entertainment, or right moral impressions. If it can do neither of these, it will be either an idle or a vicious companion for your child, and you should exclude ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... ANTHONY:—This is no time to be idle now. Every true woman must do her whole duty, and buckle on the strong armor of Faith, to meet the enemy face to face. Let the traitors of the country hear our voices, and let Southern tyrants tremble in their high places. Let the prayers of the loyal women ascend to the throne ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... usually ended in Harry's coming to an anchor under some spreading oak or beech, where he remained, "doing a bit of the dolce," as Archer called it, till luncheon time; whilst I, who could not afford to be idle, read hard till about three o'clock, and then joined in whatever amusement was the ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... married poor men—now they are so worn and tired and bedraggled and perambulatorious, and they worry about Biddies and furnaces and cabbages, and their hair is just scratched together, with the dubbest hats—I'd rather be an idle rich." ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the same time at Metz, the streets of which were said to have been filled with 1100 dancers. This rich city became the scene of the most ruinous disorder. Peasants left their plows, mechanics their shops, servants their masters, children their homes; and beggars and idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate the convulsions, roved from place to place, inducing all sorts of crime and vice among the afflicted. Strasburg was visited by the dancing plague in 1418, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... he was the best in battle. And when he was but a young child he was made much of by the whole of the Fianna, and it is for him they used to keep the marrow bones, and they did not like to put any hardship on him. And he grew up tall and idle, and no one thought he would turn out so strong as he did. And one day there was an attack made on a troop of the Fianna, and all that were in it went out to fight, but they left Osgar after them. And when he knew the fight ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... been immured in a place of furtive, obscene whisperings, but he had found there not only vice. There was the chance of an education. He had accepted it at first because he dared not let himself be idle in his spare time. That way lay degeneration and the loss of his manhood. He had studied under competent instructors English, mathematics, the Spanish grammar, and mechanical drawing, as well as surveying and stationary engineering. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... suits me excellently well," returned Francesco. "Idle have I been over-long, and the wish to roam is in my veins again. I'll see the world once more, and when I weary of my vagrancy I can withdraw to my lands of Aquila, and in that corner of Tuscany, too mean to draw a conqueror's eye, none will molest me, and I shall rest. Babbiano, my friend, shall ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... we give God a tenth of our time; and yet we think that with our good works we can merit heaven. What have I been doing to-day? I have talked for two hours, I have been at meals three hours, I have been idle four hours; ah, enter not into judgment ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... to enervate him by luxury or weak indulgence. He was inured to early rising, and never permitted to be idle. Sometimes he engaged in labors which the children of wealthy parents would now account severe, and thus acquired firmness of frame and a disregard ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... are to go having bad dreams about me—who am like a stalled ox—browsing in idle comfort—in fact, idle is no word for it. Sloth is the right epithet. I can't get myself to do anything but potter in the garden, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... a man of idle vaunts. He soon had everybody at work, with a system, order, silence, and activity, that proved he was master of his profession. Nor was the language which might sound so boastful to foreign ears, altogether without its justification. Forty Americans were a formidable force; and, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... the same power, and in that way they might eventually get 70 horse power in a boat of that size, because the weight of the motor was not great. With regard to the formation of a film on the surface, no doubt a film of sulphate of lead was formed if the battery stood idle, but it did not considerably reduce its efficiency; as soon as it was broke through by the energy being evolved from it, it would give off its maximum current. They knew by experience that, with properly constructed accumulators, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... Anglo-American Punch-and-Judy, which consists solely of a play really unique in the exact sense of that much-abused word. They were getting their fill of the delicious Italian art which is best described by an American verb—to loaf. And yet they were not wont to be idle, and they had both the sharp, quick American manner, on which laziness sits uneasily ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... expiated in various ways. Accordingly, O good Brahmana, I am charitable, truthful, assiduous in attending on my superior, full of respect towards regenerate Brahmanas, devoted to and free from pride and (idle) excessive talk. Agriculture is considered to be a praiseworthy occupation, but it is well-known that even there, great harm is done to animal life; and in the operation of digging the earth with the plough, numberless creatures lurking in the ground as also ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... felt so cheerfully, I knew that the evenings would not be idle. There would be mending to do and linen to make, for we could not afford to buy our things ready-made; but, with mother's clever fingers and Carrie's help, I thought we should do very well. I must utilize every spare minute, ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... idle in the naval harbour until 1905, when she was used by the marine artillery as a floating magazine. In the same year a good deal of the vessel's outfit (amongst other things all her sails and most of her rigging) ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... be one. A low brow, large temples, less than forty years of age, but with crow's-feet, harsh, short hair, cheeks like a brush, a beard like that of a wild boar; the reader can see the man before him. His muscles called for work, his stupidity would have none of it. He was a great, idle force. He was an assassin through coolness. He was thought to be a creole. He had, probably, somewhat to do with Marshal Brune, having been a porter at Avignon in 1815. After this stage, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... an idle and empty boast. It is true that no army of the Allies has crossed the German frontier to permanently hold a city. But let no man think that Germany has succeeded because of the richness of her loot. There is a success that is ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... there are lots of wintergreens and sweet flags, but instead of going for them, he is to stay indoors and pare apples, and stone raisins, and pound something in a mortar. And yet, with his mind full of schemes of what he would like to do, and his hands full of occupations, he is an idle boy, who has nothing to busy himself with ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... doubt he who is ours will be a bold speaker and wise. Eh, Tota, what wilt thou be when thou art a man and I am gray-headed?' Tota tucked his fat legs into adorable creases. He could crawl, but he was not going to waste the spring of his youth in idle speech. He wanted Mian Mittu's tail ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... do not remain idle, another resource engaging them—a feat for which the Fuegian native has obtained a world-wide celebrity— namely, diving for sea-eggs. A difficult, dangerous industry it is, and just on this account committed to the women, who alone ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... he would probably seem to most people a somewhat teetering person, diffused, chaotic, or contradictory. It could hardly be helped—with the raw materials of a great man all scattered around in him, great unaccounted-for insights, idle-looking powers all as yet unfused. But a man in the long run (and longer the better) is always worth while, no matter how he looks in the making, and it certainly does seem reasonable, however bad it may look, that this is the way he is made, that in proportion ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... happy perhaps in that she had been a joint minister with Kate to her cousin George's idle fantasies, than she would have been hurrying about with him as her slave. They had tacitly agreed to spoil him with comforts; and girls are always happier in spoiling some man than in being spoiled by men. And he had taken it all well, doing his despotism pleasantly, exacting much, but ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... living out our love, we certainly have the clew to the heavenly life. We shall continue in the doing of the things we have here learned to do. Life in glory will be earth's Christian life intensified and perfected. Heaven will not be a place of idle repose. Inaction can never be a condition of blessedness for a life made and trained for action. The essential quality of love is service—"not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" and for one who has learned ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... I believe that at this moment Germany regards Belgium as a new but integral part of the German Empire, and that she wishes to see this new waste land of hers productive. Assuredly Germany has made a serious effort to reorganise and open again some of the great Belgian factories that are now idle. ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... show that you are sweating now, or have every intention of sweating in a moment or two. Personally, as a private secretary, I find it very difficult, though I do my best. As a private secretary I labour in a rich house in the notoriously idle neighbourhood of South Kensington, where nobody would believe that anybody laboured, much less perspired over it. So when I pass, on the way to my rich house, a builder's labourer or a milkman or a dustman, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... the most motley crew that was ever brought together for excommunication. It is not, however, till the end of the essay that the true root of bitterness between the critic and his victims is suffered fully to appear. "A splenetic and idle discontent with the existing institutions of society seems to be at the bottom of all their serious and peculiar sentiments." In other words, the Edinburgh takes up the work of the Anti-Jacobin; with no very good grace ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... this train of thought, she experienced again a sting of regret, (as she fancied) she should not have given way to such idle thoughts and missed attending to the ballads; but when she once more came to listen, the song, by some coincidence, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... be found more patriotism than in the country, greater devotion to the public welfare, more intelligence, in a word? And, gentlemen, I do not mean that superficial intelligence, vain ornament of idle minds, but rather that profound and balanced intelligence that applies itself above all else to useful objects, thus contributing to the good of all, to the common amelioration and to the support of the state, born of respect for law and ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... its ordinary present use, as one addicted to idle tittle-tattle, and it seems to bear no relation whatever to its etymology and first meaning. The same three steps, however, which we have traced before will bring us to its present use. 'Gossips' are, first, the sponsors, brought by the act of a common sponsorship into ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... It is idle, then, to sneer at 'medical materialism,' and stigmatise it as superficial. Many people are constitutionally afraid of words, and there is nothing that arouses prejudice so quickly as a name. But it is really not a question of materialism, medical ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... mingled with others, approaching along the veranda. At the same moment he experienced acute regret at the whim of fortune which had made himself and that sprightly young lady fellow-passengers from Panama, and at the idle impulse which had prompted ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... him; partly from a natural shyness to exhibit themselves before a stranger; partly because his search after effusions which had so little value in their eyes, and his attempt to fix them by writing, seemed to them an idle and useless occupation. The only reason which they could conceive for it was, that the learned idler meant to ridicule them; and his request was frequently answered by the words: "We are no blind men to sing or ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... received bribes both from Spanish and French sources and to have betrayed the interests of his country. The chief instigator of these attacks was Oldenbarneveldt's personal enemy, Francis van Aerssens, whose pen was never idle. The defenders of the Remonstrant cause and of the principles of provincial sovereignty were not lacking in the vigour and virulence of their replies; and the Advocate himself felt that the accusations ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... 200,000 coal miners of South Wales deliberately, obstinately and criminally withheld their labour from their own nation, whose existence at that moment was dependent on its bestowal. The coal pits of South Wales remained idle for over a week. The miners crossed their arms and turned deaf ears to the voice of reason and interest calling on them not to sacrifice the lives of their kith and kin who were fighting for them. This act of black treason to the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... you by desire Barley's very poetical poem. You will like, I think, the novel headings of each scene. Scenical directions in verse are novelties. With it I send a few duplicates, which are therefore no value to me, and may amuse an idle hour. Read "Christmas," 'tis the production of a young author, who reads all your writings. A good word from you about his little book would be as balm to him. It has no pretensions, and makes none. But parts are ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... finding Mr. Wilby, who was in the country and was not expected for a week. I therefore had at first no person to whom I could apply for counsel as to the best means of proceeding; but unwilling to remain idle till the period of his arrival, I at once commenced operations at Lisbon as I have narrated. At the end of four or five days I started for Cintra, distant about four leagues from Lisbon, situate on a ledge of the northern declivity of a wild and picturesque ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... enjoyed himself. It was the study of his Greek grammar that first gave me a love for the noble language of ancient Greece. I know of no grammar that has so few bones and so much meat in it. One can really enjoy reading it in an idle hour! It so clearly reveals the fact that that most beautiful of languages, with all its sweetness and euphony, is but a transcript of the mind of the race of men that knew more of beauty, of taste, and of philosophy than all the ancient world ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... north; one terminating at the castle of the Governor, and the other in the market. These are of some width, there being space for a dozen camels to pass abreast. There are, besides, many little squares before the houses of the grandees, where the people lounge: the streets are always full of idle people. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... a Distemper that I cannot but imagine a Speculation on this Subject will be of universal Use. There is hardly any one Person without some Allay of it; and thousands besides my self spend more Time in an idle Uncertainty which to begin first of two Affairs, that would have been sufficient to have ended them both. The Occasion of this seems to be the Want of some necessary Employment, to put the Spirits in Motion, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... considering the merry faces that go along with it. At any rate, cleanliness is sometimes a painful good, as any one can vouch who has had his face washed the wrong way, by a pitiless hand with a gold ring on the third finger. If you, reader, have not known that initiatory anguish, it is idle to expect that you will form any approximate conception of what Caterina endured under Mrs. Sharp's new dispensation of soap-and-water. Happily, this purgatory came presently to be associated in her tiny brain with a passage straightway to a seat of bliss—the sofa in Lady Cheverel's ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... mind of man very easily slides into an error of the former sort; but it is very hard to imagine, that the effect of an idea so universally terrible in all times, and in all countries, as darkness, could possibly have been owing to a set of idle stories, or to any cause of a nature so trivial, and of an ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... pumps of varying diameter and short stroke. The press has two long-stroke rams, LL, of small diameter, to compress the loose material, and two short-stroke rams, FF, of large diameter, to give the final squeeze. These two pairs of rams act alternately, the one pair being idle while the other is in operation. The lashing of the bale takes place while the larger rams are in action, the bale being supported on the grid, B, which is pushed under it through grooves formed in the press-head, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... obtaining a commission for me, can no way alter, or cool my desire at this important juncture, to venture my life, in some manner or other, for my King and country. I cannot bear to live under the reproach of lying obscure and idle in a country retirement, when every man, who has the least sense of honour, should be preparing for the field. You may remember, sir, with what reluctance I submitted to your commands upon Monmouth's rebellion, when no importunity could prevail with you to permit me to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... reason of the slight shadow that had fallen on my spirit was the vanished hawthorn. Poor sentimentalist, you say, to cherish these idle fancies in this stern world of blood and tears. Well, perhaps it is this stern world of blood and tears that gives these idle fancies their poignancy. Perhaps it is through those fancies that one feels the transitoriness of other things. The coming ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... among the reeds, is cast the impregnable shield of His purpose. All things serve that Will. The current in the full river, the lie of the flags that stop it from being borne down, the hour of the princess's bath, the direction of her idle glance, the cry of the child at the right moment, the impulse welling up in her heart, the swift resolve, the innocent diplomacy of the sister, the shelter of the happy mother's breast, the safety of the palace,—all these and a hundred more trivial and unrelated things are spun into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren |
