GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Go through the motions

"Go through the motions" Quotes from Famous Books

... Austria-Hungary there are nineteen public opinions—one for each state. No—two or three for each state, since there are two or three nationalities in each. A Government cannot satisfy all these public opinions; it can only go through the motions of trying. This Government does that. It goes through the motions, and they do not succeed; but that does not worry ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... to undergo the test, but he quails when he sees the heavy spear which Brunhild brandishes and when he perceives that twelve men stagger beneath the weight she proposes to throw. He is, however, somewhat reassured when Siegfried whispers he need but go through the motions, while his friend, concealed by the Tarncappe,—the cloak of invisibility which endows the wearer with the strength of twelve men,—will perform the required ...

— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... a very bewildering thing—and thoughts do sometimes play the very will-o'-the-wisp with one. And when somebody you know is at a party, there is a funny inclination to go through the motions at least, and be up as late as anybody else. So it was with a somewhat sudden recollection that Mr. Rollo bethought him of what his watch might say. Just then he was in a belt of shadow, where trees crowded out ...

— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... company with the stump unbandaged—but anything would be better than the mopey Oliver of the last two weeks and a half, and Mrs. Crowe had been taught by a good deal of living the aseptic powers of having to go through the motions of ordinary life in front of a casual audience, even when it seemed that those motions were no longer of any account. So Oliver took clean flannels and a bitter mind to Southampton on the last day of August, and, as soon as he got off the train, was swung into a reel of ...

— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... who has lost a hand's first appearance in company with the stump unbandaged—but anything would be better than the mopey Oliver of the last two weeks and a half, and Mrs. Crowe had been taught by a good deal of living the aseptic powers of having to go through the motions of ordinary life in front of a casual audience, even when it seemed that those motions were no longer of any account. So Oliver took clean flannels and a bitter mind to Southampton on the last day of August, and, as soon as he got off the train, ...

— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet