"Simplicity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shocked a Japanese. Yet we are shocked by them. We are astounded at the sights we see in their country villages, while they in their turn marvel at the exhibitions they witness in our city theatres. At their watering-places the two sexes bathe promiscuously together in all the simplicity of nature; but for a Japanese woman to appear on the stage in any character, however proper, would be deemed indecent. The difference between the two hemispheres may be said to consist in an artless liberty on the one hand, and artistic license on the other. Their unwritten ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... more proud of her. I felt the pride setting my cheeks aglow when I saw her at Brechy; for I came there every Sunday for her sake alone, to see her pass calm and serene in the imposing security of her lofty reputation. I laughed at the simplicity of all these honest, good people, who bowed so low to her, thinking they saluted a saint; and I congratulated myself with idiotic delight at being the only one who knew the true Countess Claudieuse,—she who took her revenge so bravely ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... the plain, struggling, workaday folk are thinking, upon whom the chief terror and suffering of this tragic war fall. They are looking to the great, powerful, famous democracy of the West to lead them to the new day for which they have so long waited; and they think, in their logical simplicity, that democracy means that women shall play their part in affairs alongside men and upon an ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... which arose among the Nedj tribe in Central Arabia, whose aims were puritanic and the restoration of Islamism to its primitive simplicity in creed, worship, and conduct; in creed they were substantially the same as the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... unconventional American. In the clear light of retrospection he now saw how impossible it was for her to have been the princess. Every act, every word, every look should have told him the truth. Every flaw in her masquerading now presented itself to him and he was compelled to laugh at his own simplicity. Caution, after all, was the largest component part of his makeup; the craftiness of the hunted was deeply rooted in his being. He saw a very serious side to the adventure. Stretching himself upon the ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... wait," said Arthur, aloud, and cast a look of great anxiety on Penfold, which the poor old man, with all his simplicity, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... In her simplicity, Say, when Shotaye mentioned the probability of her suffering capital punishment, had not thought of her children and of the consequences that would arise in case she herself were to share that fate. She felt greatly relieved ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... the tops of churches or tall buildings; they are called conductors. Franklin was a plain-spoken, homely dressing man; and when he was sent to Paris on the affairs of the Americans, all the great ladies and gentlemen went into raptures about his beautiful simplicity, and began to imitate him, in a very ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... numerous "signs" here recorded. At first sight, it may be thought that extreme folly is their salient quality. Yet if we take a wide view the case is reversed; we are surprised, not at the unintelligibility of popular belief, but at its simplicity, and at the frequency with which we can discern the natural process of unsystematic conjecture. Such judgments are not to be treated with derision, as subjects of ridicule, but to be seriously examined, as revealing the natural procedure of intelligence limited ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... of Condillac's:—that primitively, the inanimate statue is entirely the sensation that it feels. To itself it is all odour and all savour; it is nothing more, and this sensation includes no duality for the consciousness. It is of an absolute simplicity." ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... Roxburghe, and put on a coronet at an age, long before which most part of mankind have put on their shrouds. He put it on—ay, and for many years wore it stout and stark—nobly, loftily, sweetly—with a dignity, simplicity, large-heartedness, and munificence, the remembrance of which somehow always brings to my mind that majestic line of Shakspeare, containing, after all, only a name and title, yet sounding as the embodiment of whatever is great and heroic in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Bennet observes that the same peculiarity is stealing into his manner toward them. It is as if he were involuntarily asking pardon for some great wrong that he has unconsciously done them. And yet his mildness, and sweetness, and simplicity of nature are such, that this singular manner does not ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... vivid perception of what is naturally beautiful, and that happiness of expression, which at once conveys to the reader the idea of the poet These latter qualities unite in many passages of Shakespeare, of which the reader at once acknowledges the beauty, the justice, and the simplicity. But such Jonson was unequal to produce; and he substituted the strange, forced, and most unnatural though ingenious analogies, which were afterwards copied by Donne and Cowley.[7] In reading Shakespeare, we often meet passages so congenial to our nature and feelings, that, beautiful as they ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Prentis, who commanded the provost guards, would tell me of seven or eight killed, and fifteen or twenty wounded; opposed to this the sentries, (who were generally Irishmen, that guarded us with much simplicity, if not honesty,) frequently admitted of forty or fifty killed, and many more wounded. The latter assertions accorded with my opinion. The reasons for this belief are these: when the dead, on the following days, were transported on the carioles ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... pursed her lips, "Oh, but there is simplicity and simplicity! Give me warmth, homeliness, and plenty of pretty things. This place is archaically cold—quite like a convent. And you, my dear, might be the Sister Superior from your air. Now, Gilbert darling, you and I are going ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... myself not only to the young enthusiast, the ardent devotee of truth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by the contagion of the world. He will embrace a pure system, from its abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, and its promise of wide-extended benefit; unless custom has turned poison into food, he will hate the brutal pleasures of the chase by instinct; it will be a contemplation full of horror, and disappointment ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... you defend them?' I reply, 'My growling friend, I DON'T defend them, but they are very agreeable to me. There is a shepherd—youth, a friend of mine, who transmutes them into something highly fascinating to my simplicity. I don't say it is for this that they exist—for I am a child among you worldly grumblers, and not called upon to account to you or myself for ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... monarch can charm, Free from pride is the beauty that bears off the palm. This song was to be found in almost every part of France. Altho' the last couplet was generally suppressed, so evident was its partial tone towards me, in the midst of it all I could not help being highly amused with the simplicity evinced by the good people of France, who, in censuring the king's conduct, found nothing reprehensible but his having omitted to select his mistress from elevated rank. The citizens resented this falling off in royalty with as much warmth and indignation as the grandees of the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... virtues and vices of the Romans themselves the secret of their triumphs and of their reverses. The contemplation of antiquity inspires him with language often worthy of Tacitus, curt, nervous, powerful in its grave simplicity. "It seemed," he says, "that the Romans only conquered in order to give; but they remained so positively the masters that, when they made war on any prince, they crushed him, so to speak, with the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... pampooties seems to make the dancing on this island lighter and swifter than anything I have seen on the mainland, and the simplicity of the men enables them to throw a naive extravagance into their steps that is impossible in places ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... you sportive?—bid the morn of youth Rise to new light, and beam afresh the days Of innocence, simplicity, and truth; To cares estranged, and manhood's thorny ways. What transport, to retrace our boyish plays, Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied; The woods, the mountains, and the warbling maze Of the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... ha! ha!—So, my dear Simplicity, let me give you a little respite.—[Altering her manner.] Let girls in my station be as fond as they please of appearing expert, and knowing in their trusts; commend me to a mask of silliness, and a pair of sharp eyes for my own interest ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... in Madison street, one of the nicely paved, well-shaded avenues in the western part of that beautiful city. It is a plain, substantial two-and-a-half story brick house of thirteen rooms, with modern conveniences, and belongs to Miss Mary. It is furnished with Quakerlike simplicity but with everything necessary to make life comfortable. In the front parlor are piano, easy chairs and many pictures and pieces of bric-a-brac, given by friends. Over the mantel hangs a fine, large painting of the Yosemite, presented to ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Dominee coming into Winnipeg little dreamed that the Church of Rome had established its Mission on the Red River decades ago. In fact, he knew as little about Canada as he did about Timbuctoo, and in his simplicity thought himself "the first that ever burst into that silent sea." When the evening breeze brought to his ears a muffled sound, he was in doubt how to ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... on. They desired to contemplate man proportioned to his organs and to his condition and endowed with every perfection within these limits; they demanded nothing more and nothing less; anything besides would have struck them as extravagance, deformity, or disease. Such is the circle within which the simplicity of their ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... now in the moment of my departure. Monsieur de Montmorin having given us audience at Paris yesterday, I missed the opportunity of seeing you once more. I am extremely pleased with his modesty, the simplicity of his manners, and his dispositions towards us. I promise myself a great deal of satisfaction in doing business with him. I hope he will not give ear to any unfriendly suggestions. I flatter myself I shall hear from you sometimes. Send your letters to my hotel as usual, and they will be ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... simplicity was an article of belief with La Cibot (and be it noted that this faith in simplicity is the great source and secret of the success of all infantine strategy); La Cibot, therefore, could not suspect Schmucke of deceit when he came to say to her, with a face half of distress, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... east, and west will be accepted as standard. In our science there is perhaps at present no place where generalization needs to move with greater caution than in the statement of the farmer's psychic characteristics. It is human to crave simplicity, and we are never free from the danger of forcing concrete facts into general statements that do ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... the enthusiasm of his day. As a statesman, while he pacified Italy, he saw Byzantium fall into the hands of the barbarians. He was a Pagan in whom there was no guile. His enthusiasm was rather for Apollo and the Muses than for Jesus and the Saints. With a simplicity touching and delightful, he watched Sigismondo Malatesta build his temple at Rimini, and was his friend and loved him well. Pius II, with all his love of nature and the classics, though his own life was full of unfortunate ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... contrast with the quiet efficiency and simplicity of his mother's house. He could see her seated at the little table in the center of the room, a snow-white cap on her head. The work of the house had been done without a servant. It had been done so ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... discern clearly as we approach the period of the Renaissance, that the first cause of the fall of the arts of Europe was a relentless requirement of perfection, incapable alike either of being silenced by veneration for greatness, or softened into forgiveness of simplicity. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... consent To trust Amelia with me to the grave Where lay my once-betrothed, Millicent: 'For,' said she, hiding ill a moistening eye, 'Though, Sir, the word sounds hard, God makes as if He least knew how to guard The treasure He loves best, simplicity.' And there Amelia stood, for fairness shewn Like a young apple-tree, in flush'd array Of white and ruddy flow'r, auroral, gay, With chilly blue the maiden branch between; And yet to look on her moved less the mind To say 'How beauteous!' than 'How good and kind!' And so we went alone By walls o'er ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... originality of his thoughts, the consummate beauty of the language in which they were clothed, the calm dignity of his bearing, the absence of all oratorical effort, and the singular directness and simplicity of his manner, free from the least shadow of dogmatic assumption, made a deep impression on me. Not long before this I had listened to a wonderful sermon by Dr. Chalmers, whose force, and energy, and vehement, but rather turgid eloquence carried, for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... ease, the unconcern of his future partner's attitude. It disquieted him because it increased his responsibility. But long ago he had learned the generous nature of the Great Bud. Long ago he had realized his trusting simplicity. Now he would have preferred a keen cross-examination of his statement. But none was forthcoming, and he was forced to continue in face of the ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... liked to resume the conversation, but he could not conceal that he was a little chilled by what had passed. He asked Perrotin if he meant to state in public the opinions he had just professed, and Perrotin refused, naturally, laughing at his friend's simplicity. What is more, he cautioned him affectionately against proclaiming such ideas from the house-tops. Clerambault was vexed and disputed the point, but in order to make the situation clear to him, and with the utmost frankness, Perrotin described his surroundings, the great minds of the ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... parties publicly cut off. Such a sacred regard had they for the preservation of their beards, that if a man pledged it for the payment of a debt, he would not fail to pay it. Among the Romans a bearded man was a proverbial expression for a man of virtue and simplicity. The Romans during grief and mourning used to let their hair and beard grow, (Livy) while the Greeks on the contrary used to cut off their hair and shave their beards on such occasions.[4](Seneca.) When Alexander the Great was going to fight against ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... the grand book of the world. French is a manly language. The French are the most martial people in the world; and French literature is admirable in many respects. Italian is a sweet language, and of beautiful simplicity—its literature perhaps the first in the world. The Italians!—wonderful men have sprung up in Italy. Italy is not merely famous for painters, poets, musicians, singers, and linguists—the greatest linguist the world ever saw, the late Cardinal Mezzofanti, was ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... convalescent and was granted a parole which permitted her to walk at will about the hospital grounds. After one of these walks, taken in the early spring, she rushed up to my informant and, with childlike simplicity, told him of the thrill of delight she had experienced in discovering the first flower of the year in full bloom—a dandelion, which, with characteristic audacity, had risked its life by braving the elements of ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... personality in the world's progression. Mankind has never produced a leader to rank with Him. Regarded solely as a historic personage He is unique. Judged by the standard of human estimation, Jesus of Nazareth is supreme among men by reason of the excellence of His personal character, the simplicity, beauty, and genuine worth of His precepts, and the influence of His example and doctrines in the advancement of the race. To these distinguishing characteristics of surpassing greatness the devout Christian soul adds an attribute that far exceeds the sum of all the others—the divinity of ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... are roundabout ways of expressing thought; circumlocution is the more common, periphrasis the more technical word. Constant circumlocution produces an affected and heavy style; occasionally, skilful periphrasis conduces both to beauty and to simplicity. Etymologically, diffuseness is a scattering, both of words and thought; redundancy is an overflow. Prolixity goes into endless petty details, without selection or perspective. Pleonasm is the expression of an idea already plainly implied; tautology is the restatement in other ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Here it is. The device consists of a disk of thin leather about six inches in diameter. In the centre is a hole through which runs a string. When the Indian desires to deal with a man with a bald head, he proceeds as follows—observe the simplicity of the operation: He wets the leather, stamps it carefully down upon the surface of the scalp, slides his knife around over the ears, gives the string a jerk, and off comes the scalp as nicely as if it had been Absalom's. ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... accounted for as such: I could only remember the one for whom I mourned, on my knees, in my prayers. This checked, as nothing else could have done, the morbid tendency of grief, in a lonely, unoccupied, undisciplined mind. I was thoroughly obedient, and bent myself with all simplicity to follow the instructions given me. Sometimes they seemed very irrelevant and useless, but I never rebelled against any, even one that seemed as hard to flesh and blood as this. And I have, sooner or later, seen the wisdom of them all, as I have ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... spite of this fair appearance, has as yet yielded results which are somewhat disappointing. At the birth of every science it is necessary to postulate something. The postulates that the anthropologist demands rival in simplicity those formulated by Euclid. He merely asks us to accept as facts that the main object of every living creature is to go on living, that he cannot attain this object without being supplied with food, and that, in the case of man, his supply of food must ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... Jeff, whose claim to consideration at the hands of many friends was a guileless transparency of purpose, a candour and simplicity unhappily too rare. Now, his climax, so artfully introduced, provoked nothing more ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... usually seems the accompaniment of age or experience, the son seemed the elder man of the two. I had yet to learn that there is an experience so perfect and subtle that it assumes the air of ignorance, and triumphs in its simplicity ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... hitherto baffled all attempts to force it into the "march of progress" which most things are destined to follow. It seems to scorn complication in its structure, and successfully holds its own in its simplicity. There is in the Violin, as perfected by the great Cremonese masters, a simplicity combined with elegance of design, which readily courts the attention of thoughtful minds, and gives to it an air of mystery that cannot be explained to those outside the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... soon deep in a comparative study of our schools, both founded along unorthodox lines. We discovered many identical features-outdoor instruction, simplicity, ample scope for the child's creative spirit. Rabindranath, however, laid considerable stress on the study of literature and poetry, and the self-expression through music and song which I had already noted in the case of Bhola. The Santiniketan children observed periods ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... men, always willing to follow good advice from others. Like a brother he dealt with the lowliest of his brethren, while mixing at the same time with the highest in the land with the most perfect and unconscious simplicity. Troubled souls, who complained to him how hard they found it to possess the faith he preached, he comforted with the assurance that it was no easier matter for himself, and that he had to pray God daily to increase his faith. His saying, 'A great doctor must always remain a pupil,' ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... attach to these words the same sort of sacredness that the Hebrews did to the Divine name. There is no need to do more than allude to this side of the Muggletonian writing. What we are concerned with is the story of the prophet's life, which has been told with the utmost frankness and simplicity; a more unvarnished tale it would be difficult to find, or one which bears more the stamp of ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... is! Positively nothing could be simpler unless it be the stark simplicity of the mind of an author who figures that when the Atlantic Ocean starts boring its way through a crack in a sea wall you can stop it by plugging the hole on the inner side of the sea wall with a small boy's arm. Ned Buntline may never have enjoyed the vogue among parents and teachers that Mr. ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb
... long ago, and found her just the same as ever. I sat at her feet, and laid my head in her lap, and tried to be a child again. I bade her tell me the history of Bluebeard, and strove to forget that I had ever lost the childish simplicity which she has kept so well;—and I almost succeeded. I had forgotten that the great poet was jealous of my 'Captive Queen,' and told myself it would be a grand thing to be like him. I thought I should like to see a live Emperor. But just when the delusion was perfect, there ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... her ideas of gentlemanship from Jim Dyckman. She knew that he had lineage and heritage and equipage and all that sort of thing, and he must be great because he knew great people. His careless simplicity, artlessness, shyness, all the things that distressed her at first, were now accepted as the standards ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... A deep simplicity touching many hidden springs, a profound regard for the noble uses of leisure, things which modern critics of life have taught us to despise — these are the technique and the composition and ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... works of Xenophon, an Athenian who is sometimes called the "Attic Muse," from the simplicity and beauty of his style, the best known and the most pleasing are the Anab'asis, the Memorabil'ia of Socrates, and the Cyropedi'a, a political romance. He was born about 443 B.C. The best English ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... piece of camouflage. I wish I could explain to you how the effect was achieved. It was all made plain to me; every step of the process was explained, and I cried out in wonder and in admiration at the clever simplicity of it. But that is one of the things I may not tell. I saw many things, during my time at the front, that the Germans would give a pretty penny to know. But none of the secrets that I learned would be more valuable, even to-day, ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... be that this simple fellow could do something through his very simplicity," mused the Sheriff's daughter, overhearing his prattle. "Odds bodikins! 'twill do no harm to try his service, while I bethink myself of ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... simple feather, covered her head, beneath which her curling black hair flowed in unconfined luxuriance. She wore no ornament of any kind, and the slight shoes that covered her small feet were perfectly plain. In short, there was a modest simplicity about the girl's whole aspect and demeanour which greatly interested the Englishman, inducing him to murmur to himself, "What an uncommonly pretty girl she would be ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... special signals may be agreed upon to facilitate the solution of such special difficulties as the particular situation is likely to develop, but it must be remembered that simplicity and certainty are indispensable qualities ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... able to occupy a whole winter apiece, so they were studied in company. The club possessed a proper complement of officers, and their meetings went from house to house. They were conducted with artless simplicity, in a pleasant, conversational manner, but with due regard to polite forms; and only at a moment of excitement was the chair addressed by her ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... the destiny of the soul might be to undergo a renewed birth, or a series of births in new bodies. Such a conception, appearing in a rude state of culture, before the lines between science, religion, and poetry had been sharply drawn, recommending itself alike by its simplicity and by its adaptedness to gratify curiosity and speculation in the formation of a thousand quaint and engaging hypotheses, would seem plausible, would be highly attractive, would very easily secure ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... itself the most easy works it can find: for example, there is reading, praying, hearing of sermons, baptism, breaking of bread, church-fellowship, preaching, and the like; and there is mortification of lusts, charity, simplicity, and open-heartedness with a liberal hand to the poor, and their like also. Now, the unsound faith picks and chooses, and takes and leaves; but the true faith does not so. Satan is afraid that men should hear of justification by Christ, lest they should embrace it. ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... to a situation where I shall have occasion for them. I know that I can rely upon you." He then asked with great warmth of friendship what I was about, and inquired after my family, etc. In short, I never saw him display less reserve or more familiarity and unaffected simplicity; which he did the more readily, perhaps, because ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... is treated with exquisite simplicity by Francia; we have just the same personages as in the rude Greek model, but disposed with consummate grace. Still, to represent the Child as completely undraped has been considered as a solecism. He ought to stretch out his hands to his mother and to look as if he understood the portentous ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... higher authorities in Germany earnestly desired that the people, and, especially, the officers of the army and navy, should learn not to enjoy themselves too much. A great endeavour was always made to keep them in a life, so far as possible, of Spartan simplicity. For instance, the army officers were forbidden to play polo, not because of anything against the game, which, of course, is splendid practice for riding, but because it would make a distinction in the ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... that passed between you, on causes and effects, a conversation the like of which few mortals have forsooth listened to; but your younger brother is sluggish of intellect, and cannot lucidly fathom the import! Yet could this dulness and simplicity be graciously dispelled, your younger brother may, by listening minutely, with undefiled ear and careful attention, to a certain degree be aroused to a sense of understanding; and what is more, possibly find the means ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... which she had put on, increased the tall flexibility of her form. A being woven of sunlight and morning dew, unapproachable in her serene distinction—thus she appeared to Mary, whose hands had been reddened by early toil, and whose breadth of shoulder was only surpassed by her simplicity of heart. ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... absolute and elemental simplicity in this tiny crypt, with its stone bench and tombs of stone, that appeals far more strongly to the imagination than any bespangled ecclesiasticism above it. This is the true service of God and of His poor. The cold austerity ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... The only artificial embellishments were two flights of stone steps leading to simple fountains with large stone basins, where the water gurgled and splashed lazily. 'Frisoni, build the house not in the new style, I pray you,' she had said, 'some graceful Italian simplicity were better here'; and he built a very pleasant mansion, unturreted, without tortured elegancies—a long, low, broad-windowed country retreat, each proportion perfect, each line harmonious. What a wealth of flowers bloomed in the Freudenthal garden! How fragrant ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... and in the following year, conjointly with Mr. Dodds, who provided the necessary funds, he took out a patent, dated the 28th of February, 1815, for an engine which combined in a remarkable degree the essential requisites of an economical locomotive; that is to say, few parts, simplicity in their action, and directness in the mode by which the power was communicated to the wheels ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... arches, and amphitheatres in which a nation might assemble; their Corinthian columns hewn from the rocks of Egypt, and obelisks of granite transported by some strange but forgotten means from Alexandria; the simplicity the grandeur and beauty of their temples and churches; the vast fruitfulness of their lands, their rich vineyards, teeming fields, and early harvests; the mingled sublime and beautiful over the face of nature in ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... had left him within a year of his marriage, and whatever investigations he may have privately made, they were sub rosa, and he had persistently refused to make public ones. She would come back, he believed, with an almost childish simplicity in the lure of his great fortune,—if she needed money,—or him. That she should suffer real poverty or hardship, lack the bare necessities of life, never for a moment occurred to him. Why should she, when his whole fortune was at ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... with the simplicity of the narrative, and the speaker's freedom from regret, sorrow, or ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... back again like a returning prodigal, and vaguely, without knowing why, he yielded to their influence—their immensity, their enormous power, crude and blind, reflecting themselves in his own nature, huge, strong, brutal in its simplicity. And this, though he only saw the mountains at night. They appeared far different then than in the daytime. At twelve o'clock he came out of the mine and lunched on the contents of his dinner-pail, sitting ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... the means to live harmoniously with the Tao. Taoists believe the esoteric world is made up of a perfect harmonious balance and nature, while in the manifest world - particularly in the body - balance is distorted. The Three Jewels of the Tao - compassion, simplicity, and humility - serve as ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... their crimson showed almost brown; his scabbard plain, dingy leather; his saddle of similar cheap, durable leather, his saddle-cloth of a crimson faded as brown as his cloak and plume. This was precisely the Spartan simplicity which Aurelius, as more than half a Stoic, had always affected, partly from an innate tendency towards self- restraint and modesty, partly that his example might, at first, offset the sumptuosity of Verus and, after his death, might ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... first time in his life felt the secret quick of his simple, sensitive soul cut open and exposed to gaze. Not even the medical man before him could fail of sudden pity at witnessing what was written on his face—-all the dignity, the simplicity, the reticence, all the bashfulness of a man brought up helplessly against the knife. He could not—or perhaps would not—answer such a question even from the man before him, whom he suddenly had come to trust and respect as a being superior ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... arrive, stone by stone, at the whole history, by that exhaustive British sense and perseverance, so whimsical in its choice of objects, which leaves its own Stonehenge or Choir Gaur to the rabbits, while it opens pyramids, and uncovers Nineveh. Stonehenge, in virtue of the simplicity of its plan, and its good preservation, is as if new and recent; and, a thousand years hence, men will thank this age for the accurate ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... turned his attention to her. He was not a joker, but I think he was a trifle suspicious. The young lady met his gaze with one of serene simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... for both food and clothing, so turn your eyes away before I fire." The next moment the woods echoed the report of his smooth-bore muzzle-loader—the kind of gun used by about 90 per cent. of the fur hunters of the forest. Why? Because of the simplicity of its ammunition. Such a gun never requires a variety of cumbersome shells for different kinds of game, but with varying charges of powder and shot or ball, is ready for anything from a rat or duck to a ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... his genius; but another, and profounder, appears in the eloquent simplicity of such a passage as the following, against our fears of lessening ourselves in the ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... conscious of the antithesis and so knew nothing of intellectual suffering. His intellect, unexhausted by speculation or casuistry, was wholly at the service of hand and eye, and whatever he pleased he did with an unheard of ease and simplicity, and if style and vocabulary were at times monotonous, he could not have made them otherwise without ceasing to be himself. Instead of the language of Chaucer and Shakespeare, its warp fresh from field and market, if the woof were learned, his ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... irradiated by no sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; moved by none of those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark shadows of misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants, that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life. Here one has conventional worldly notions and habits without instruction and without ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... attention to its perfection. His face, in the lamp's full light, softened, but there was in it no hint of sensuousness to prepare one for this indulgence in luxurious bibliomania. There was a childlike simplicity in Bassett's delight. A man who enjoyed such playthings could not be hard, and Dan's ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... newly-burnished, enlivens my rooms"—is one of the attractions held out in his invitation to the fair Phyllis to grace his table on Maecenas's birthday (Odes, IV. 11). And we may be very sure that his little dinners were served and waited on with the studied care and quiet finish of a refined simplicity. His rule on these matters is indicated by himself ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... scarcely recognised her. He had seen her last in furs, to-day she seemed like a delicate dream of Springtime. She wore a white spotless muslin gown, whose exquisite simplicity had been the triumph of a French artiste. Her hat, large and drooping, was a vision of pink roses and soft creamy lace. There was a dainty suggestion of colour about her throat—only the sunlight seemed to discover when she moved the faint glinting green beneath the transparent ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... another share. Two children between ten and sixteen would count as one and be allowed a share in the division, but children under ten were to have only fifty acres of wild land. The scheme was admirable for its equity, simplicity, and elasticity, and was equally so ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... for the mastery of the world. But Phoenicia's greatest gift to civilisation was the alphabet, which she herself may have developed from Egyptian hieroglyphics, and which, with its great merit of simplicity, has, slightly altered, at length superseded among civilised ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... dismayed. He is prepared for the difficulty; and the means he used to surmount it exhibits the same remarkable simplicity as the ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... altogether in favour of the English heroine, for while Antigone went to her death bravely, yet her final words were those of bitter complaint and almost whining lamentation. Compare with these words the Christlike simplicity of Miss Cavell's last message to the world, and the difference between the noblest Paganism and the best of Christianity is apparent. Truly the light of Calvary illumined her dark cell! Standing "in ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... came into Bob McGraw's eyes as he knelt beside the bed and took the hand of the worst man in San Pasqual in his. He could not speak. The simplicity, the honesty of this dying stray dog had filled his heart to overflowing; for he was young and he could weep at the passing of ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... said—"you! dear one—woman of Christ's heart, if ever lived one. You were so weak and I so strong, and yet as I look back it seems that all of good that made me worthy to be wife and mother I learned from your simplicity." ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... olive, yet not lose beauty); which have lost colour and become feeble in green, as in the poplar, or crudely bright, like rice; which have lost substance and softness, and have nothing to give in scent or nourishment; or become flinty or spiny; finally, which have lost simplicity, and become cloven or jagged. Many of these losses are partly atoned for by gain of some peculiar loveliness. Grass and moss, and parsley and fern, have each their own delightfulness; yet they are all of inferior power and honour, compared to the ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... look seemed to seek his friend's thought even at the bottom of his heart, but D'Artagnan sustained the inquisition with an air of admirable simplicity. Besides, at that moment he put his foot on the first step of the ladder and began his descent. In a moment he was on the ground. Bazin remained ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... altogether respectfully; and immediately the pale-faced, cold, loving boy, Mark, unwillingly, therefore almost unconsciously, disliked him. He was beyond question handsome, with a Grecian nose nearly perfect, which had its large part in the aristocratic look he bore. This was favored also by the simplicity of his dress. He turned with ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... in this manner that they are repaid! Scarcely have we set foot upon their country before we sting them into self-reproaches, and act in every thing as if it were our wish to make them ashamed of their generous confidence as of a foolish simplicity—proclaiming to them that they have escaped from one thraldom only to fall into another. If the French had any traitorous partizans in Portugal, (and we have seen that such there were; and that nothing was ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... fairness and freshness of aspect:—how did he alone preserve it untouched, through the wind and heat? In truth, it was not by magic, as some said, but by a natural simplicity in his living. When that dark season of his troubles arrived he was heard begging querulously one wintry night, "Give me wine, meat; dark wine and brown meat!"—come back to the rude door of his old home in the cliff-side. ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... disposed Robert Adam to the development of painted furniture with inlays of beautiful exotic woods, and many of his designs, especially for sideboards, are extremely attractive, mainly by reason of their austere simplicity. Robert Adam was no doubt at first led to turn his thoughts towards furniture by his desire to see his light, delicate, graceful interiors, with their large sense of atmosphere and their refined and finished ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... open wilderness. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that to our veteran borderer the field of literature should remain a "terra incognita." It is our army that unites the chasm between the culture of civilization in the aspect of science, art, and social refinement, and the powerful simplicity of nature. On leaving the Military Academy, a majority of our officers are attached to the line of the army, and forthwith assigned to duty upon our remote and extended frontier, where the restless and warlike habits of the nomadic tribes render the soldier's life almost as unsettled ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... with our guide, the glare of many torches falling on the dark silent river made the swarthy forms of the boatmen weird and Charon-like. Mrs. B—— welcomed us with a pleasant smile to her little heaven of home across the river, and by the simplicity and gentleness of her manners dispelled in a measure my feeling of forlornness. When at last I found myself alone, I would have sought the sleep I so much needed, but the strange scenes of the day chased each other in agitating confusion through my brain. Then I quitted the side of my ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... a certain village priest to me, uninfluenced by anybody, and whose primitive simplicity caused him to be ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... immediately carried by an escort into the presence of the Caliph, who put the alternative in his power of either, on the instant, renouncing his religion, or submitting to the axe of the headsman. Demetrius told his tale with a noble simplicity; and his youth, his open countenance, and stately bearing, so far gained on the heart of Abubeker, that, on his refusal to embrace Mahomedism, he begged of him seriously to consider of his situation, and ordered a delay of the sentence, which he must otherwise ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... constructed with the proverbial art that conceals, but yet allows itself to be enjoyed by readers to whom fine literary method is a keen pleasure; true without cynicism, subtle without affectation, humorous without strain, witty without offence, inevitably sad, with an unmorose simplicity.'—The World. ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... had a long and delightful conversation with my metamorphosed preceptor. He spoke of his marriage with all the ingenuousness and simplicity of a child. He thanked me for having told him, when I parted from him in New York that he had an influence over Margaret that he had not dreamed of possessing. It made him, he said, more observant of her, and more careful of himself, till he ready found her a pleasant ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... have come newly into this case, and I assure you that its apparent simplicity is illusive. As new facts come into your possession you will realize that what I say is perfectly true, and if you act now you will be acting hastily. All that I have learned I am prepared to place at your disposal. But I predict that the interference of Scotland Yard will ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... of simplicity in food, I must keep my attention more on the alert. Yet to-day I have not done so badly; some cold ends of herring at breakfast, and a morsel of mackerel at lunch are the only things I have to reproach myself with; the only lapses ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the list of this year's publications has in it any pages of more thrilling interest than can be found in this book by Professor Wright. There is nothing pedantic in the narrative, and the most serious themes and startling discoveries are treated with such charming naturalness and simplicity that boys and girls, as well as their seniors, will be attracted to the story, and find it difficult to lay it aside."—New ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... with a look that taught even Hannah's simplicity that she had received the deepest insult a woman could suffer. Hannah was a rude, honest, high-spirited old maid. And she immediately obeyed her natural impulses, which were to raise her strong hands and soundly box the villain's ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... beginning of their fame. Abby sent it to me for publication in the Times of this city, but the editor not having room for it sent it to the Courant, which gave it a place in its columns, thus (unwittingly) setting a ball in motion that ran all round the country, and even over the ocean. The simplicity and uniqueness of the story of "Abby Smith and her cows," gave a boom to the cause of woman suffrage as welcome as it was unexpected. The Glastonbury mails were more heavily laden than ever before in the history of this hitherto unknown town, for letters came pouring ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... attacks the custom of swearing, which was so prevalent in His time among the Jews and other Oriental peoples. He urges simplicity and moderation of speech. In this He is true to the Occult traditions, which teach the value of simple thought and simple speech to all the Initiates ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... and simplicity this captured me completely, so I replied at once saying I would take baby to Ilford ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... but they do foolish things. In him goodness and intelligence combined and made their best result of wisdom. For perfect truth consists not merely in the right constituents of character, but in their right and intimate conjunction. This union of the mental and moral into a life of admirable simplicity is what we most admire in children; but in them it is unsettled and unpractical. But when it is preserved into manhood, deepened into reliability and maturity, it is that glorified childlikeness, that high and reverend simplicity, which shames and baffles the most accomplished ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... intercourse. They were wholly illiterate. As a natural consequence the world beyond the Athabasca region was as much of an unknown quantity to them as the North had been to Thompson before he set foot in it—as much of its needs and customs were yet, for that matter. The Lachlan virtues of simplicity and kindliness were overcast by obvious dirt and a general slackness. In so far as religion went if they were—as Breyette had stated—fond of preachers, it was manifestly because they looked upon ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... corresponding oppression of the poor. The Church itself was a power for conquest and greed. Its kingdom was of this world. St. Bernard and others had nobly aimed to effect a reform and had illustrated by their own lives the beautiful example of simplicity and unselfishness, but their work failed in effectiveness and ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... more complex are the relations between its component parts. The agricultural inhabitants of the Ganges Delta have evolved a far more complex society than that of the aborigines of Australia, but the civilization at the mouth of the Ganges is simplicity itself compared with that of Britain, Belgium or Japan. In the Ganges Delta each family group has a homestead. Outside of the homestead, the community life is almost wholly unspecialized. Even where the homesteads are clustered together there are no stores, no recreation centres, and few churches ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... and cause the apparent harshness in some measure to disappear;[9] partly on account of its refined and artificial grammatical structure. In this latter respect it differs materially from the Russian language; which, although equally rich, is remarkable for its simplicity and perspicuity. The Polish and Bohemian idioms, in the opinion of the best judges, are above all others capable of faithfully imitating the refinements of the classical languages; and the Polish prose is ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... hope you will not judge my earnestness to be impatience: and for my simplicity, if by that you mean a harmlessness, or that simplicity which was usually found in the primitive Christians, who were, as most Anglers are, quiet men, and followers of peace; men that were so simply wise, as not to sell their consciences to ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... qualities in women, but depth of sentiment. There are many aged women who can be cited as examples of activity and perseverance, for their sound and clear judgment, as well as for their affability and simplicity of manners. Although their intellectual productiveness ceases earlier than that of man, this in no way excludes an excellent and persevering activity of mind, combined with much judgment and sentimental qualities. A woman who is growing ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... wearisome when read continuously in quantity as any in the English tongue. This is saying a great deal, though it is not claiming for him the compactness, nor the robust vigor, nor the depth of thought, of many others masters in it. It is sometimes praised for its simplicity. It is certainly lucid, but its simplicity is not that of Benjamin Franklin's style; it is often ornate, not seldom somewhat diffuse, and always exceedingly melodious. It is noticeable for its metaphorical felicity. ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... left side of his face, and his eyes were set horizontally, a sure sign of Manchu descent, because all Southern Chinese have the oblique Mongolian eye. Though prepared for treachery of some kind, the very simplicity of this scheme almost disconcerted him, and he blurted out the first words that ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... words with a gentle, earnest gravity and simplicity that touched Guildea, who returned ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... into simple, straightforward Anglo-Saxon English. In certain of Captain Burton's books he borrows words from all languages, there are not enough for his use, and he is driven to coin them. But in the character of Arabian story-teller he is simplicity itself, and whilst avoiding words of length, he introduces just enough of antique phrase as gives a bygone and poetic flavour. The most exacting and the most fastidious will be satisfied at the felicitous handling of immortal themes. A delightful characteristic is the division ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... hibiscus, the common flower of the hedgerow in Samoa, with its grace and its languor and its passion; but what surprised me most, taking into consideration the story I knew even then a good deal of, was her freshness and simplicity. She was quiet and a little shy. There was nothing coarse or loud about her; she had not the exuberance common to the half-caste; and it was almost impossible to believe that she could be the virago ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... series of books for girls, written by popular authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. Their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, vigorous action, and character painting will please all ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... about the missing bunches. "Ah," said the boy, "how have you learnt that? The letter could not know about it, for I put it under a stone before I did it." The judge could not help laughing at the boy's simplicity, and sent the man a letter wherein he cautioned him to keep the poor boy better, and not let him want for meat and drink, and also that he was to teach him what was right ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... purely agricultural districts, the custom is dying out, if, for some reason, strangers are often seen in the place. Such a village is Selborne, and an amusing experience I met with there some time ago serves to show that the old rustic simplicity of its inhabitants is now ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson |
