"Idle words" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... each be wise and wear the prize, Let each divide the crown, The deeds of Harlowe and of Thayer, Are equal in renown. Stop arguing and get to work, For that is why we're here, Don't waste your time in idle words, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... they refused to listen to. Now his simple and weighty words will be gathered like those of Washington, and your children and your children's children shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep wisdom of utterances which, in their time, passed, in party heat, as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of patriotism for his sake, and will guard with zeal the whole country which he loved so well. I swear you, on the altar of his memory, to be more faithful to the country for which he has perished. They will, as they follow his hearse, ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... should apply to Friendship is, does it lead to idle words? Every one likes talking about their neighbours, and dress, and amusement, but we need to be careful that kindliness and nice-mindedness are not sacrificed, and that all our interests are not on that level. Many ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... he, "I cannot amuse you with idle words. I fear to speak, and yet silence would serve me ill. I offer not the strength of my arms nor the fleetness of my feet, for they may fail me tomorrow; nor my courage, for that has never been tried; nor the renown of my ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... are no idle words, for, says the New York Recorder, "Her love for the missionary enterprise found expression in an act, by which she, being dead, will long speak through the living heralds of the cross. By her will, as we learn from an authentic source, after providing for the comfortable maintenance ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... fault that you are here," said he; but she put up her hand as much as to say, "No idle words." ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... several sins against the law—"In many things we offend all." So that now thy righteousness to the law being mixed with sometimes the lust of concupiscence, fornication, covetousness, pride, heart-risings against God, coldness of affection towards Him, backwardness to good duties, speaking idle words, having of strife in your hearts, and such like; I say, these things being thus, the righteousness of the law is become too weak through this our flesh (Rom 8:3), and so, notwithstanding all our obedience to the law, we ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Coquetry, Lines on seeing in a list of new Music "The Waterloo Waltz," The Boy of Egremont, Lines written on the Prospect of Death, An Embarkation Scene, The Execution of Montrose, A Ghost Story, Lord Byron, Self Reliance, Idle Words, The Maniac of Victory, God doeth all things well, How old art thou, ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... in their right places?" To his credit be it spoken, Mount Dunstan managed to say it as if in the mere putting together of idle words. What man likes to be reminded of his right place! No man wants to be put in his right place. There is always another place which seems ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... vehement expostulations with his patron and his adversary. "Gracious Heavens!" he said, "my lord, are you going to draw a sword upon your friend in your own house? Can you doubt the honour of a lady who is as pure as Heaven, and would die a thousand times rather than do you a wrong? Are the idle words of a jealous child to set friends at variance? Has not my mistress, as much as she dared to, besought your lordship, as the truth must be told, to break your intimacy with my Lord Mohun; and to give up the habit which may bring ruin on your family? ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at her with a strange confusion of feelings. A new life was burning in his veins, and for the first time since his boyhood he doubted his absolute self-mastery. Dared he stay there? Could he sit by her side, and bandy idle words with her? ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tongue that has professed affection becomes a poisoned fang, and the lips which gave their warm kiss utter the word of ridicule, or sneer, or aspersion? Better be dumb than have the gift of speech to be used in the miserable idle words, insincerities, and backbitings too common in modern society. Surely something better can be found to talk about; if not, utter silence is more heaven-like. A stupid girl who cannot talk at all is better far than a chattering ...
— Girls: Faults and Ideals - A Familiar Talk, With Quotations From Letters • J.R. Miller
... Mr. Kearney. If I have said anything which you think justifies this very abrupt leave-taking, I beg you will forgive and forget it—or, at least, let it have no more weight with you than the idle words of any woman. I only spoke generally. You ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... through their fingers had it not more upheld itself among us as a mark, title, and instrument of division and faction, than by itself. As in conference, the gravity, robe, and fortune of him who speaks, ofttimes gives reputation to vain arguments and idle words, it is not to be presumed but that a man, so attended and feared, has not in him more than ordinary sufficiency; and that he to whom the king has given so many offices and commissions and charges, he so supercilious and proud, has not a great deal more in ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... flickering light, The lowly couch, the casement swinging free,— My noblest friend, was this a place for thee? No fitting place! Yet there, from all apart, We poured forth mind for mind and heart for heart, Ranging from idle words and tales of mirth To the deep mysteries of heaven and earth Yet there thine own sweet voice, in accents low, First breathed Iphigenias tale of wee, The glorious tale, by Goethe fitly told, And cast as finely in an ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... "Idle words: her father's health, disinclination to leave him. You may suppose I take such excuses for what they are worth. The real cause of her refusal is ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... from its high estate, has chivalry departed from our blood, and left us nothing but the dregs which go to make a nation of hucksters? If so, then let us leave the battlefields to better men, and train our children solely for the market-place. But these are idle words, born of the spleen which such a thought engenders. Full well I know the temper of our people, terrible in their wrath, but swift to see the nobleness in those who face ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... days have fallen on the Pope, Brother Granaglia, when one of his own Cardinals proposes that he should at last countenance a secret society. But his Eminence was mad with fear—was it not so? He wanted to win you over with promises, eh? Idle words, and no more. He feeds you on wind, and sends you away, and returns to his mistresses and his wines and his ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... of opinions which you had adopted. In them I never acquiesced. Doubtless I may have used at times sentiments and expressions, which I should not now use; but I believe these had no root in my mind, and as such they were mere idle words which I ought ever to be ashamed of, because they were idle. But the opinions to which I especially alluded in my former letter as associated by the world with your Grace's name under the title of 'Liberal,' (but not, as you suppose, received by me on the world's authority,) are those which may ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... excited the indignation of the governor, and he issued a proclamation forbidding the people to pay any obedience to these seditious resolutions. But proclamations now sounded in the ears of the people of Massachuset's Bay as idle words, and the resolutions were strictly obeyed. The same disregard to the mandates of government was also shown in other colonies. The king had issued a proclamation strictly prohibiting the exportation of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... could say that, during your stay at the capital, you had rarely left your study chamber and that you had never Skimmed the Waves. He will have confidence in you, and the harmony of the house will be restored. Thus, without idle words, you change your sorrow to joy. Give the matter three thoughts. I do not covet the Beauty! I speak with no idea but of ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... would find protection in the laws, if Appius Claudius could not? That he would be a proof whether tyranny or liberty was established by the new laws, and whether the right of appeal and of challenge against the injustice of magistrates was only held out in idle words, or really granted. ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... parcel of bloody fools, and you ought to have told us these Sub-Commissioners were coming!" Mr. Sweeney, the tenant by marriage already mentioned, was not content to express his particular dissatisfaction in idle words, but kept on going into arrears. In May 1888 things came to a crisis. The agent refused to accept a settlement which included the payment by him of the costs of the proceedings forced upon him by ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... Aladdin was thunderstruck, and he bethought himself of the lamp, and of the genie who had promised to obey him; and without indulging in idle words against the sultan, the vizier, or his son, he determined, if ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... come a time when those self-satisfied ones, whose hands are all the time steeped in blood, shall be confronted with me, and shall realise to the full all that their idle words have brought about. ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... even the kindness to say 'No' plain and flat; they listen to all you have to say, and as soon as your back is turned they forget your existence. The coin that passes around in this infernal town is indeed nothing but idle words, and that is all that poverty-stricken talent ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... property, by which he meant to intimate that the real owner of substantial wealth could not be allowed to disembarrass himself of his responsibilities or strip himself of his privileges by a few generous but idle words. The late Duke's will was a very serious thing, and it seemed to the heir that this abandoning of a legacy bequeathed by the Duke was a making light of the Duke's last act and deed. To refuse money in such ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... take her into my heart, and fold my arms about her.—Oh, I pray you do not look upon me with that mocking smile! Pity me, rather! pity this wretched heart that longs to curse God and die!—Nay, I want not your idle words. Can good destroy? Can love persecute? I was a worm that turned. What then? Why not have crushed me to annihilation? Oh, no, not that! He took me up and shook me before the world, clipped me, and let me fall. A derisive ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... fervently, "that I should speak idle words upon such a subject. The people of Theos are still brave and true, and their freedom is as dear to them as life itself. They came to me, who for long have lived apart, and I have shown them what I truthfully believe to be their only chance of ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... bare adventurer; in brief a woman, That put strange garments on, and came thus far To seek an ancient friend: And having spent her stock of idle words, And feeling some tears coming, Hastes now to clasp Sir Walter Woodvil's knees, And beg a boon for Margaret, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Lucy—gentle, patient, loving to the last. I saw how good, how sweet she was, and something of the old love, the boy love, came back to me, as I held her in my arms, where she wished to be. I would have saved her if I could; and when I called her 'my darling Lucy,' they were not idle words. I kissed her many times for myself, and once, Maddy, for you. She told me to. She whispered: 'Kiss me, Guy, for Maddy Clyde. Tell her I'd rather she should take my place than anybody else—rather my Guy should call her wife—for ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... she called me to her and embraced me." On hearing this, the chamberlain said to himself, "What is passing in his mother's breast? What have I not done I can yet do, and it were better that I preserve this youth some days, for such a rose may not be wounded through idle words, and such a bough may not be broken by a breath. For some day the truth of this matter will be disclosed, and it will become known to the king when repentance may be of no avail." So he went before the king and said, "That which was commanded have I fulfilled." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... have almost, if not altogether ceased to hope. I do not wonder at it. If I had not so often mocked your generous confidence, I would again assure you that all will be well. I see that what I say does not make the warm blood bound to your face, as once it did. I will not use idle words to convince you. But one thing I will say. I have been, for sometime past, conscious, that it was dangerous for me to touch wine, or ale, or anything that stimulates, as they do. They only revive an appetite for stronger drinks, while they take away a measure of self-control. ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old church-steeple minds the rooks cawing ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the city. And do thou go and tell this to the Consuls." Now the man was not careless of the Gods, nevertheless because he stood in great fear of the Consuls he went not, lest he should be laughed to scorn for idle words. But this delay cost him dearly, for within a few days his son died. And that he might not doubt what this great trouble might mean, the god appeared to him yet again in a dream. "Hast thou had wages enough for thy neglect of that which I commanded? Verily, thou shalt receive yet more if thou ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... "These are idle words; if you had desired my father's company, or mine, you would have come back. There I had a bed laid for you, sir, at my cousin's, and he would have made much of you, and, who knows, I might have made much of you ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... supposable that there can be a specific day of judgment, since every moment of our days is judged. But through Margaret had her tolerant doubts, she knew that the message itself was sound. It did not condemn evil and vulgar words, for they condemn themselves. What it condemned was idle words and she regretted that her mother employed them. But theosophy is, primarily, a school of good manners. The Gospel condemns idle words, theosophy ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... there not something in the pleading eye Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns The law that bids it suffer? Has it not A claim for some remembrance in the book That fills its pages with the idle words Spoken of man? Or is it only clay, Bleeding and aching in the potter's hand, Yet all his own to treat it as he will, And when he will to cast it at his feet, Shattered, dishonored, lost for evermore? My dog loves me, but could he look beyond ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... roughly dispelled, and the life in all its lawlessness and violence had stood forth before her. The warnings and denunciations which only a few hours before, when Reuben May had uttered them, she had laughed to scorn as idle words, now rang in her ears like a fatal knell: the rope he had said would hang them all was then a sieve of unsown hemp, since sprung up, and now the fatal cord ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... in idle words?— Forward, O warriors of the soul! There will be breaking up of swords When that new morning ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... of the fair tresses, the daughter of the sea: the sire I boast is Anchises great of heart, and my mother is Aphrodite. Of these shall one pair or the other mourn their dear son today; for verily not with idle words shall we two satisfy our strife and depart out of the battle. But, if thou wilt, learn also this, that thou mayest well know our lineage, known to full many men: First Zeus the cloud-gatherer begat Dardanos, and he stablished Dardania, for not yet was holy Ilios built upon ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... world attribute everything to themselves and their prudence, and what they cannot so attribute they call fortuitous and accidental, not knowing that human prudence is nothing and that "fortuitous" and "accidental" are idle words. ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... you," said Despard, "I do not object to tell my purpose. You know what it is to seek for vengeance. The only feeling that I have is that. Love, tenderness, affection, all are idle words with me. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... to mixed classes proved to be idle words; yet the old-fashioned minds opposed to us shut their eyes and went on reasoning 'a priori, and proving that the evils which they saw did not arise must arise should the experiment of mixed classes, which was ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... around the circle. "Is this the time to speak of corn? Our Manitou has sent this Great Mountain into our country. He has placed him in our hands so that we may strike, so that we may tell the white man with our muskets that our Manitou is stern and just, and that no Iroquois will listen to the idle words of a ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... my sweet young lady, take not the idle words in ill part," pleaded the good hostess. "We all know how to love thee, and what is a smooth skin to a true heart? Take a bit more of the pasty, ladybird; we'll have far to ride ere we get to Wherwell, where the good sisters will give us a meal for young St. Edward's ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... solemn sermon," said Miss B., shaking her head impressively, as she sat down to table on Sunday noon; then giving a deep sigh, she added, "I am afraid that if an account is to be rendered for all our idle words, some people will have a great ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as they all came to a realizing sense that Sally's idle words had sent them sliding out upon thin ice. Bobby ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Are you toys that you give yourselves as playthings into the hands of this man who chooses to use you in his game? Are you children to be led by his idle words and moved by his foolish dreams? Are you men or are you cattle to be stampeded by him, without reason, to your own destruction? Would you, at this stranger's bidding, dig a pit for your fancied enemies ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... do the same. I also beg you to forgive me for any ignominy that may attach to you herefrom; but consider that we are only here for a time, and that you may soon be forced to render an account to God of all your actions, and even your idle words, just as I must do now. Be mindful of your worldly affairs, and of our children, and give them a good example; consult Madame Marillac and Madame Couste. Let as many prayers as possible be said for me, and believe that in my death I am still ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE |
