"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... life must be one of action. "I am able to endure the strain of daily traveling and lecturing at over three-score and ten," she observed, "mainly because I have always worked and loved work.... As machinery in motion lasts longer than when lying idle, so a body and soul in active exercise escapes the corroding rust of physical and mental laziness, which prematurely cuts off the ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... differs widely from our English authors, who generally slightly despise their own art, and think that, in providing amusement for our idle hours, they are rather derogating from their dignity. Instead of claiming our attention as a right, they try to entice us into interest by every possible artifice: they give us exciting glimpses of horrors to come; they ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... my son, you break my heart with your sorrow! Study if you would play like your father, study and be brave, be courageous! All will come out right. Idle fretting ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Hinchinbrook;(1031) I heard a very bad account of her when I was last in town. Your letter to Madame Roland shall be taken care of; but as you are so scrupulous of making me pay postage, I must remember not to overcharge you, as I can frank my idle letters no longer; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... however, an event occurred which was calculated to give some ground to these idle, gossiping tales. One fine morning in the month of July, 1847, the lady died suddenly of apoplexy. Six weeks later, a report began to spread that Count Ville-Handry was going to ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... party of hunters were thus successfully pushing along, the other bands were not idle, though, possessing no fire-arms, they were less noisy. In fact their proceedings were altogether of the cat-catty. One fellow, as black as a coal, as lithe as an eel, and as long—according to Disco's standard—as a fathom of pump-water, having come upon a herd of buffalo unseen by them, and ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... the meantime the Valley of Ruins no longer lies alone and unheeded in the sunlight; and no longer do the hills look down upon rich plains left solely to the idle pleasure of a careless black people. The forerunners of to-day's great civilising army have marched into the valley, and beside the ancient walls there is now a police camp of the British South Africa Police, presided over ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... unworthiness she had been suffered to be born in Joppa, made it one of her most fervent and reiterated petitions that she might not always have to live there; that some time, if she were very good and very patient, it might be granted her to go. She was so weary of it all: of the busy idleness and the idle business, of the unthinking gayety and the gay thoughtlessness, and of the nothingness that made up its all. She wanted, she did not exactly know what, only something different; and to go, she did not quite know where, only somewhere ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... earl, come back from the dead? Ghost of Tyr-owen, why stand you here idle in the gap of Ulster, where once Cuculain fought against the host of Meave? Do you also stand here to fight as ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... fingers grimed with charcoal and crayons. Laura is always Laura, a stylish young girl, busy with the strip of an extremely elegant carriage robe, and Mrs. Grandon, a handsome woman past fifty, has a bit of embroidery in her hands. She seems never exactly idle, but now she holds her work and listens, then drops ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... next point of interest is the window. The modern Italian is completely owl-like in his habits. All the daytime he lies idle and inert; but during the night he is all activity, but it is mere activity of inoccupation. Idleness, partly induced by the temperature of the climate, and partly consequent on the decaying prosperity of the nation, leaves indications of its influence on all his undertakings. ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... piteous cries of distress. 'The causes' of this serious affection are very numerous; among the most usual and active agents may be enumerated, exposure to atmospherical vicissitudes, remaining wet and idle after coming from the water, damp kennels, suppressed perspiration, metastasis of eruptive diseases, luxurious living, laziness and over-feeding. These and many other causes are all busy in the production of this disease. Duck dogs on the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... history of human intellectual interest is more striking than the excellent judgment displayed by the editors who selected the works to be printed at this time. Very few of them were trivial or insignificant. Fewer still were idle speculations, and most of them were almost of classical import for literature and science. Four editions of this work were printed in Venice in the sixteenth century, one of them as late as 1560, when the work done by such men as Vesalius, Columbus, ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... aware how essential a kindness you offered me when you undertook to receive my boxes. I do not know what I should do without such head-quarters. And now for an apologetical prose about my collection: I am afraid you will say it is very small, but I have not been idle, and you must recollect what a very small show hundreds of species make. The box contains a good many geological specimens; I am well aware that the greater number are too small. But I maintain that no person has a right to accuse me, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... before any of my friends in England were aware of my retreat, or of my ever having accompanied the Princess. Though my letters were written and dated at Paris, they were all forwarded to England by way of Holland or Germany, that no clue should be given for annoyances from idle curiosity. It is to this discreetness, to this inviolable secrecy, firmness, and fidelity, which I so early in life displayed to the august personages who stood in need of such a person, that I owe the unlimited confidence of my illustrious benefactress, through ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... phenomena at so great a distance apart, in connection with active or dormant volcanoes, would seem to be enough to prove the connection in any candid mind, and utterly refute the idle theory that all this heat may be produced by the chemical action of water on beds of sulphates or phosphates just below the surface. The temperature of the water should be sufficient to show that it comes from great depths. The writer ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and west of Compiegne. Hence he so wrought that he made a pact with the captain of the French in Gournay, a town some four leagues north and west of Compiegne, whereby the garrison there promised to lie idle, and make no onslaught against them of Burgundy, unless the King brought them a rescue. Therefore the Duke went back to Noyon on the Oise, some eight leagues north and east of Compiegne, while his ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... was exchanged for the agricultural, the latter tendencies have been always gaining ground on the former. All experience testifies that regularity in domestic relations is almost in direct proportion to industrial civilization. Idle life, and military life with its long intervals of idleness, are the conditions to which, either sexual profligacy, or prolonged vagaries of imagination on that subject, are congenial. Busy men have no time for them, and ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... go for flowers. It is a sinful waste of time, and we have no use for them, since they do but litter everything. And thou wilt some day be called to account for these idle, frivolous moments." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... a few days of brilliant weather— furious, hot sun, with passing clouds. Idle men and women, tired of the dullness and confinement of the flood season, begin to report, on returning from their morning bath, the cessation of the flow— as agoas estao paradas, "the waters have stopped." The muddy streets, in a few days, dry up; groups of young fellows are now seen seated ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... pikemen, and now and then a wagon went down some old-world street and lumbered through the gateway and out to the country, and now and then a wagon drew up to the city from the mist that was rolling with evening over the fields. Sometimes folks put their heads out of lattice windows, sometimes some idle troubadour seemed to sing, and nobody hurried or troubled about anything. Airy and dizzy though the distance was, for Mr. Sladden seemed higher above the city than any cathedral gargoyle, yet one clear detail he obtained as a clue: the banners ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... future, or fostering their growth, or actually contriving their appearance. Such is man's first industrial habit, seen in grazing, agriculture, and mining. Among nature's products are also those of man's own purposeless and imitative activity, results of his idle ingenuity and restlessness. Some of these, like nature's other random creations, may chance to have some utility. They may then become conspicuous to reflection, be strengthened by the relations which they establish in life, and be henceforth called works of human art. They then constitute ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... serious character was not at all adapted to such conversation, and who, still occupied with the importance of the scene he had just witnessed and the great interests which had been discussed, made no answer to this torrent of idle words. He looked at the Duc de Bouillon with an astonished air, as if to ask him whether this was really the man whom they were going to place at the head of the most audacious enterprise that had ever been launched; while the Prince, without appearing to perceive that he remained unanswered, ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... by reason of their having indulged idle fancies, are led into curious blunders. Others, having indulged in exaggerated ideas of married life, say to themselves, as soon as they have taken a husband, "What! Is this all?" In every way, the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... be sent to a missionary family among the distant heathen. Seaming, stitching, piecing, quilting and knitting, kept every hand busy, while their owners' tongues were equally so, yet the conversation was not the common, idle talk of the day, but useful and elevating, for religion was loved, and lived, by most of those dear and pleasant people, and it could not but be spoken of. Still there was interest in each other's welfare, as their social ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... opinions of their own respecting the Tracts and Mr. Newman. He took his degree, and then started himself in the world upon that career which is of all the most difficult to follow with respect and self-comfort. He proposed to himself the life of an idle man with a moderate income,—a life which should be luxurious, refined, and graceful, but to which should be attached the burden of no necessary occupation. His small estate gave him but little to do, as he would not farm any portion of his own ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... pardon, friend. Methought the query was prompted by idle curiosity. By a great oversight my driver forgot to put his box of tools in the wagon, so that when the accident occurred he was obliged to ride on to the next tavern for help. I doubt not but that he ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... his hearers by the force and impressiveness of his oratory. The presence of this extraordinary stranger could not remain long unknown to the Athenian literati; but, when they entered into conversation with him, some of them were disposed to ridicule him as an idle talker, whilst others seemed inclined to denounce him as a dangerous innovator. "Certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him; and some said—What will this babbler say? other some—He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods, because he preached ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... instead of the cloth one he had worn in the morning—he had a single white japonica in his buttonhole—his face was pale and his eyes unusually brilliant. He looked his best—I admitted it, and could readily understand how an idle, pleasure-seeking feminine animal might be easily attracted by the purely physical beauty of his form and features. I spoke a part ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Barge, late Senior Fellow of St. Michael's, thinks that his pretty bride has not been received with due honours; or Dr. Crotchet is for years kept out of his destined bishopric by a sinister influence; or Mr. Professor Carraway has been infamously shown up, in the Edinburgh, by an idle fellow whom he plucked in the schools; or (majora movemus) three colleges interchange a mortal vow of opposition to a fourth; or the young working Masters conspire against the Heads. Now, however, we ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... passion may rage with great intensity when the soul takes its first long flight in the world of books, and ninety per cent of all Conradi's cases showed it. Of these, thirty-two per cent read to have the feelings stirred and the desire of knowledge was a far less frequent motive. Some read to pass idle time, others to appear learned or to acquire a style or a vocabulary. Romance led. Some specialized, and with some the appetite was omnivorous. Some preferred books about or addressed to children, some fairy tales, and some ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... interlaced hedge of vines bordered the clearing. Toward this Gavin bent his idle steps, wondering vaguely how such a lofty and impenetrable wall of vine was supported from the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... started to his feet. He could not help understanding the colonel's meaning. It would have been idle to pretend it. ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... might be, a base at one place would not meet our necessities, and a base at the other place would. If a base at Guantanamo would not meet our necessities in case of an invasion of the Caribbean by a naval fleet superior to ours, then it seems idle to discuss the value of Guantanamo relative to some other place, no matter how good the position of Guantanamo may be, and no matter how nearly it may approximate to adequacy. There is no real usefulness in having a naval base anywhere, unless ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... got there, and how I got away at all from the Polytechnic candidate, he may perhaps know, for I don't. The moon shone upon the floor where the box lay open, and the dolls all in a confusion together—great and small all scattered about; but I was not idle. Out of bed I jumped, and into the box they had all to go, some on their heads, some on their feet, and I shut down the lid and seated myself upon the box. 'Now you'll just have to stay there,' said I, 'and I shall beware how I wish you flesh and blood again.' I felt quite light, my good humour ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... motherhood upon a married woman in absolute despite of her health and of the interests of the children is none the less an iniquity because it has at present the approval of Church and State. It is woman who bears the great burden of parenthood, and with her the decision must rest. It is idle to reply that this is impossible, for it is possible, as there are not a few happy wives throughout the civilized world to bear testimony. Every new life that comes into being is to be regarded as sacred from the first. The accident of birth at a particular stage in its development does not ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... royal warrant, received in 1830. It now became necessary to ascertain disputed titles. It was proposed by some to establish them by a general act: against this course Mr. A. Stephen protested, and pointed out consequences, that proved his objections were just. Many of these illustrate the idle and fraudulent manner in which the public business is often transacted. A grant issued in 1823, gave one side-line 32 acres, written over an erasure. An investigation took place: a record book kept ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... grown at any time that the soil is not occupied by other crops, provided other conditions are suitable. Land which is used for spring and summer crops often lies bare and idle during fall and winter. A hardy green manure crop planted after the summer crop is harvested will make considerable growth during the fall and early spring, and this can be plowed under for the use of the following summer crops. If there is a long interval of time during spring ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... he or I will be standing at my door. It is as well that you should look carefully round, before you enter, so as to be sure there is no one in the corridor, and that you can slip in unobserved. You may be sure that I am asking you to come for no idle freak, but because I have something very important to ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... "A thousand idle stories have been related concerning the Emperor's motives for breaking the bonds he had contracted upwards of fifteen years before, and separating from one who was the partner of his life during the most stormy events of his glorious career. It ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... superior to all other bliss; and many other points. Now, all at once, the clause 'from whence speech returns' is said to mean that neither speech nor mind applies to Brahman, and that thus there are no means whatever of knowing Brahman! This is idle talk indeed! In the clause '(that) from which speech returns,' the relative pronoun 'from which' denotes bliss; this bliss is again explicitly referred to in the clause 'knowing the bliss of Brahman'—the genitive 'of Brahman' ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... my son, take my advice. Avoid The places where thou seest much drapery, Colours, and gold, and plumes, and heraldries, And such new-fanglements. But, above all, Take care how evil chance or youthful wandering Bring thee upon the house of Idle Babble." "What place is that?" said I; and he resumed;— "Enchantresses dwell there, who make one see Things as they are not, ay and hear them too. That which shall seem pure diamond and fine gold Is glass and brass; and coffers that ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... an old adage, that "when the devil finds a man idle, he sets him to work;" when love finds a heart unoccupied, he soon finds it a tenant, for it always has been, is now, and always ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... said something to the same effect," observed the doctor; "but the captain remarks that there are many wild, idle boys sent to sea who may claim to be the sons of gentlemen; and as your appearance shows, as you acknowledge was the case, that you were before the mast, there you must continue till your conduct proves that you are deserving of a higher rank. And now go for'ard. I'll recollect what you have ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... will do most of the butchering, and transport the meat and hides to camp. If there is no band of buffalo near by, they go off, singly or by twos and threes, to still-hunt scattering buffalo, or deer, or elk, or such other game as may be found. The women remaining in camp are not idle. All day long they tan robes, dry meat, sew moccasins, and perform a thousand and one other tasks. The young men who have stayed at home carefully comb and braid their hair, paint their faces, and, if the weather is pleasant, ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... barn, and I engaged a man to put a string of wire above the wall. That was effective as long as it was in repair. But it was Mis' Cow's business to see that it did not remain in repair permanently. She would examine it during idle moments, pick out a weak spot in the entanglement, and pull it flat with her horns. Or where the wall was broad enough at the top she would climb up and walk it, just for exercise, stepping over when she got ready. If she could have been persuaded to do those things to order I could have ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... jus' 's well be a warnin' to you too, f'r I was put off three miles from where there ain't no omnibus, 'n' I had to leg it over a road 's is laid out three hills to the mile. I ain't one 's is give to idle words, but I will remark 't by the time I'd clum the fourth hill I hadn't no kind o' family feelin's left alive within me, 'n' when I did finally get to Knoxville I was so nigh to puffed out 't I c'd hardly find breath to ask where Cousin Marion did live. It was a boy ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... the general stile of Mr. Wherry's letters, they too much talk of government affairs. It is our duty to take care of the Smyrna trade, as well as all other, and it never has yet been neglected; but Great Britain, extensive as her navy is, cannot afford to have one ship lay idle. Be assured, my dear Sir Sidney, of my perfect esteem and regard, and do not let any one persuade you to the contrary: but my character is, that I will not suffer the smallest tittle of my command to be taken from me. But, with pleasure, I give way to my friends; among ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... it will, no doubt, be admitted by most readers that the reason why they know their friends and foes better than they know anyone else is that they carry the remembrance of them not only in their eyes, but in their whole body. When in idle moments we find the memory of an absent friend surging up in our minds with no apparent reason, we may often note, to our astonishment, that we have just been unconsciously adopting one of his characteristic attitudes, or imitating ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... "You ask me idle questions," she sighed. "We have gone, perhaps, a little further than I intended. I came to plead with you for all our sakes, if I could, to make things more comfortable by remaining here instead of insisting upon ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... showers over the frozen fields and through the naked woods of Bacchus Island. The short day was nearing a dismal close. Harman Blennerhassett paced uneasily to and fro within the narrow confines of his study. His face was haggard, his general aspect that of a man harassed and hopeless. Yet he seemed idle and without sense of responsibility for the future. His air indicated irresolution, ennui, mild disgust of the world and of himself. He took down Homer, brushed the dust from the covers, and then replaced the volume on its shelf. He gave the glass cylinder ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... During his first idle day, Harry's attention was drawn to a handbill which had been posted up in the store, the post office, the tavern, and other public places in the village. ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... But all this is idle talk. My brain is a wilderness, and I thirst for a long, long sleep, to awake only when my arms are around you. Write to me very precisely, also whether you are inclined, after a little stay at Zurich, to go with ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... Justice is a thing absolute; it is not altered by circumstances, especially for a circumstance so trivial as a young man's idle fancy." ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... immediately to the camp. During his absence I was abundantly occupied, and anxious that Mr. Poole and Mr. Browne should have a little rest after their late journey. Both those gentlemen were however too interested in the service in which they were engaged to remain idle when they could be usefully employed. Mr. Poole went out with me on the 5th and 6th to assist in the measurement of the new base line I had deemed it prudent to run, for the purpose, as I have said, of correcting ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... to the south of that cape was utterly unfit for the habitation of mankind, sterile, burnt up, and destitute of soil and water, like the sandy deserts of Lybia; and they pretended to object on principles of patriotism, that the natives of Portugal were improvidently wasted on idle discoveries, which, if at all advisable, would have been undertaken by their former, wise sovereigns; who, contented with the known world, did not, vainly seek for conquests in the torrid zone, which was altogether ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... "Idle fancies, monsieur. I do not laugh at you, although I am a Gascon. And, as for being indifferent, if I were so, I should have sent you about your business a quarter of an hour ago, for you would make a man who was out of his senses with delight as dull as possible, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Lowell always stayed at Elmwood, in an impassioned love for his home and for his town. I must have found him there in the afternoon, and he must have made me sup with him (dinner was at two o'clock) and then go with him for a long night of talk in his study. He liked to have some one help him idle the time away, and keep him as long as possible from his work; and no doubt I was impersonally serving his turn in this way, aside from any pleasure he might have had in my company as some one he had always been kind to, and as a fresh arrival from ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... your Majesty's time with idle words," said the Abbe, glancing at a written memorandum which he held in his hand. "My master, King Louis, sends greeting to his royal brother, and hopes that no cause of difference may ever arise to darken the blue sky of peace that now ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... allow himself to remain idle many minutes. The fractured front of the craft being immovably fixed in the bank, he leaned his head over the side and washed the paint from his face. He disliked to disfigure himself in that fashion, though he always carried the stuff ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... nations. Honour, too, to our King, and, that I may be just, to his illustrious wife; for wherever in the Grecian world a friend of the Muses appears, whether he is investigator, poet, architect, sculptor, artist, actor, or singer, he is drawn to Alexandria, and, that he may not be idle, work is provided. Palaces spring from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the insinuating air he knew so well how to assume. Miss Hyslop took but little notice of him when he addressed her, and turned away, giving her attention to Bella's lessons, or going on with any work she might have in hand, for she never was a moment idle. She was admirably fitted for colonial life; indeed, I may say, for any position in which she might be placed. If she had become a duchess, she would not have been an idle one.—I again addressed Mr Kydd. I told him that the captain wished to have ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... forms the subject of the first is no idle piece of subtle argument, but a consideration of such decidedly practical importance that it comes up whenever the plan of pushing War to the utmost extremity is mooted, and by its weight in most cases restrains the execution of ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... had—temporized. The war, unfortunately, must be delayed for those twenty days necessary for the going and coming of the ambassadors. The ambassadors could do nothing. But still they must wait. In the mean time he will not be idle. For them, the Roman people, he will work and watch with all his experience, with diligence almost above his strength, to repay them for their faith in him. When Caesar was with them they had had no choice but obedience—so much the times ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... tribute in kind. You will observe the necessary system in taxing them, and will execute whatever decision is reached about the matter; moreover you will inform me of what is being done, and will always be careful to see that the Indians work in some occupation or other and be not idle, since idleness is the chief cause of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... naturally, riding was delightful to her cousin. Jacqueline was never tired of it; while she paid as little attention to the absurd remarks Oscar made to her between their gallops as a girl does at a ball to the idle words of her partner. She supposed it was his custom to talk in that manner—a sort of rough gallantry—but with the best intentions. Jacqueline was disposed to look upon her life at Fresne as a feast after a long famine. Everything was to her taste, the whole appearance ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... people among themselves. By these means, from being temporary they became perpetual; from elective, hereditary; and the state, agitated by the intrigues of the ambitious, by largesses from the rich and factious, by the venality of the poor and idle, by the influence of orators, by the boldness of the wicked, and the weakness of the virtuous, was convulsed with all the inconveniences ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... should there be delay? Amy wished nothing but to become his wife. Idle to think of his doing any more work until he sat down in the home of which she was mistress. His brain burned with visions of the books he would henceforth write, but his hand was incapable of anything ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... to find himself thus situated in a House of Commons which had just been elected, and from which it would therefore be idle to appeal to the electors, he would instantly resign his office, and his adversaries would take his place. The change would be most advantageous to the public, even if we suppose his successor to be both less virtuous and less ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... marching to the relief of Washington before Philadelphia, as he was ordered, kept his victorious troops idle at Saratoga; and it was only by the extraordinary tact of Alexander Hamilton, the youthful aide, secretary, and counsellor of Washington, who had been sent North for the purpose, that the return of Morgan ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... justice to his fellow-subjects: it is principally with this order of men that the commission of the peace is filled. And here a very ample field is opened for a gentleman to exert his talents, by maintaining good order in his neighbourhood; by punishing the dissolute and idle; by protecting the peaceable and industrious; and, above all, by healing petty differences and preventing vexatious prosecutions. But, in order to attain these desirable ends, it is necessary that the magistrate ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... accustomed to arms, ingenious, energetic, brave and strong. The same qualities that have enabled a single generation of men to develop the resources of a continent, would enable us to destroy more rapidly than we have constructed. It is idle for individuals of either section to suppose themselves superior in military power. The French and English tried that question for a thousand years. We ought to know it now. The result of the contest would not depend upon the first blow of the first year, but blood shed in civil ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... the heavy work and drudgery about camp, and it troubled Bob not a little to see them working while the men were idle. Several times he attempted to help them, but his efforts were met with such a storm of protestations and disapproval, not only from the men, but the women ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... again? It would be like a new life to spend a day with you. How I shudder when I think of our awful experience with those mobs last winter, and yet even now I long for action." Miss Anthony was equally restive in her own seclusion which, although by no means an idle one, had shut her from the great outside world that at this hour seemed to cry aloud for the best service of every man and woman. In January, 1862, she went to Mrs. Stanton's and together they prepared an address for the State Anti-Slavery ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... as Pythagoras imagined he had been Panthoides Enphorbus in the Trojan war, I am not sure that I did not ride upon a pillion behind a gentleman-usher, when her Majesty Elizabeth went in procession to St. Paul's on the defeat of the Armada! Adieu! the postman puts an end to idle speculations—but, Scarborough ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... individuals over whom he was so mercilessly tyrannising, while each thought himself the tyrant. All this may seem improbable to well-nurtured, shore-bred young gentlemen and ladies; but midshipmen were always reckless and idle—that is, personally. On actual service, they have ever been equally reckless, but commensurably active. This kindness of Joshua, in taking all trouble off our hands, soon left us almost nothing wherewith to ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of God Almighty. We are not children but men, you know that all must die; and in a few years those who kill us must die too. When I was born, God set the way of my death; I do not blame any body. I was taken by the pirates and they made me help them; they would not let me be idle. I could not show that this was the truth, and therefore they have judged me by the people they have found me with. I am put to death unjustly, but I blame nobody. It was my misfortune. Come, let us pray. If we are innocent, so much the less we have to repent. I do not come here ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... was, before the Revolution, a journeyman printer, and married to a washerwoman, whose industry and labour alone prevented him from starving, for he was as vicious as idle. The money he gained when he chose to work was generally squandered away in brothels, among prostitutes. To supply his excesses he had even recourse to dishonest means, and was shut up in the prison of Bicetre for robbing his master of types and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... crowned with a mass of grayish hair, surmounted a monster body. The voice, when it came, did justice to such a frame. "My old one, my friend, Letonne! Thou art well come. Thou art the saving grace to an idle hour." ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... all the delicate magnificence of leaf tracery and flower petal and feather, soft fur and the shining wonder of living skin, musical with thunder and the singing of birds; but an arena nevertheless, an arena which offers no seats for idle spectators, in which one must will and do, decide, strike and strike ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... boys," he said. "The fleet is in good formation." He paused as he settled back in his chair. "But I'm not the one who believes in idle hands. I've assigned you to Professor Sykes. He needs help in charting the unexplored regions of space we're approaching. And you three need that kind of training. Report to ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... a tailor; for I always envied the comfortable seat which they appeared to enjoy upon the shopboard, and their elevated position, which enabled them to look down upon the constant succession of the idle or the busy, who passed in review before them in the main street of the country town, near to which I passed the first fourteen years of ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... hope I shall now and then have their company. They being gone, I to my office till towards twelve o'clock, and then home and to bed. Upon the 'Change, this day, I saw how uncertain the temper of the people is, that, from our discharging of about 200 that lay idle, having nothing to do, upon some of our ships, which were ordered to be fitted for service, and their works are now done, the towne do talk that the King discharges all his men, 200 yesterday and 800 to-day, and that now he hath got L100,000 in his hand, he values not ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... his Karma, and extricate himself from an evil doom, and the evil Karma may be 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 various ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... there is always the alternative that he will starve. France, which is most accessible to creative ideas, is least interested in this particular matter. Great Britain is still heavily conservative. It is idle to ignore the forces still entrenched in the established church, in the universities and the great schools, that stand for an irrational resistance to all new things. American universities are comparatively youthful and sometimes quite ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... him. Some having to do with the earliest days of his childhood; some with fighting on the Danube, before he left the army, impoverished and ashamed; some with idle hours in the North Tower in Stavely Castle; and one with the day he and his sister left the old castle, never to return, and looked back upon it from the top of Farcalladen Moor, waving a "God bless you" to it. The thought of his sister filled him with a desire, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "is an assembly of seven hundred and thirty-five tyrants. While I have four inches of iron I will not suffer it to reign and shed blood with the revolutionary tribunal it has just created; as for the republic," he added, "it is an idle word. I had faith in it for three days. Since Jemappes, I have deplored all the successes I obtained in so bad a cause. There is only one way to save the country—that is, to re-establish the constitution of 1791, and a ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... time were the Emperor and his young "Confucius" idle? By no means. They had hatched a counterplot, and had decided that what they could not do by moral suasion and statesmanship they would do by force, and so they sent an order to Yuan Shih-kai, who as we have said had drilled and was in charge of 12,500 of the best troops in the empire, urging ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... by his suggestions, I studied the letter I had just received. It was merely an idle fancy, for if Mrs. Cunningham was going to tell Miss Lloyd her story, it made little difference to me what might be her stature or the color of her hair. But, probably because of Parmalee's suggestion, I pictured ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... accent, appeared to be a Canadian of Irish parentage, said, in a few curt words, that he had a cart outside, and was going to drive at once to Cloud Island, that he wished to take the young doctor with him; for death, he observed, was not sitting idle eating his dinner at The Cloud, and if anyone was coming to do battle with him it would be ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... the midshipmen and youngsters, to the number of nearly thirty, could not be in a better situation for obtaining a knowledge of practical seamanship. We soon found that the activity of our captain would not allow us an idle hour, and there was so much kindness of heart, and cheerfulness of manner, blended with daring exertion in the performance of his duties, that we were all happy to imitate his example to the best of our abilities. In the course ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... been idle. Already the dispute between himself and the earl had come to such a point that it was certain that sooner or later open hostilities would ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... have changed for the better in the eyes of the coral-fisher, his lot still remains hard enough, even in the present days of grace; whilst any employment that saps the workman's strength during the hot summer months and leaves him idle or unemployed in winter time cannot well be described as a desirable trade. Yet the temptation to obtain a considerable sum of money in advance, as is the case in this particular industry, often proves overwhelming to the young man of the Torres or of Castellamare, imprudently married before he ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... not pay any attention to such idle tales," said the doctor, well pleased, however, to find that his patient could afford to pay for ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... make cowards of us all! I was so downcast by my pitiful mismanagement of the morning's business that I shrank from the eye of my own hired infant, and read offensive meanings into his idle tootling. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chief justice or adelantado under the marquis, and Antonio Picado who had been his secretary, to be taken into custody[2]. In the next place he appointed Juan Tello, Francisco de Chaves[3], and one Sotelo to be captains of his troops. On the news of this revolution, all the idle vagabonds and debauched blackguards of the country hastened to enrol themselves under the banners of Don Diego, in hopes of participating in the plunder of the partizans of Pizarro, and of being enabled to live licentiously without labour. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... understand such an expression, gentlemen? I cannot; it must be looked up in a dictionary before one can understand it; these things of a bygone day are already unintelligible to us). He appears to have been one of those Russian parasites who lead an idle existence abroad, spending the summer at some spa, and the winter in Paris, to the greater profit of the organizers of public balls. It may safely be said that the manager of the Chateau des Fleurs (lucky man!) pocketed at least a third of the money paid by Russian peasants to their lords ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... it will be perceived, is but little practised in the ways of literature; much less is he gifted with that prophetic spirit which can anticipate the judgment of the public. It may be that he is too idle or too apathetic to think anxiously or much about the matter; and yet he has been amused, in his earlier days, at watching the first appearance of such few books as he believed to be the production of some powerful intellect. He has seen people slowly rise up to them, ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... reward than my foal, for it has not its like in the world, and is not to be bought for love or money; for it can go from one end of the earth to another in a few minutes. Of course the cunning Corva will do her best to dissuade you from taking the foal, and will tell you that it is both idle and sickly; but do not believe her, and ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... played at it in every city in Europe, without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory of Chances—that philosopher's stone of all gamblers! And a gambler, in the strict sense of the word, I had never been. I was heart-whole from the corroding passion for play. My gaming was a mere idle amusement. I never resorted to it by necessity, because I never knew what it was to want money. I never practised it so incessantly as to lose more than I could afford, or to gain more than I could coolly pocket without being thrown off ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... also, its perceptions and its sympathies, it will be entirely deficient in expression of character, and acuteness of thought, but will be peculiarly restless, manifesting its desire for excitement in idle changes of subject and purpose. Incapable of true imagination, it will seek to supply its place by exaggerations, incoherencies, and monstrosities; and the form of the grotesque to which it gives ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... making them look in the least like their English equivalents, if equivalents they may be said to have. Was it there that Mr. Parsons learned so well how Americans would like England to appear? I ask this idle question simply because the England of his pencil, and not less of his brush (of his eminent brush there would be much to say), is exactly the England that the American imagination, restricted to itself, constructs from the poets, the novelists, from all the ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... tell each other in a lane, it would be a parallel case to the publication of some of the Browning Letters. Why the serious and universal portions of those Letters could not be published without those which are to us idle and unmeaning it is difficult to understand. Our wisdom, whether expressed in private or public, belongs to the world, but our folly ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... to credit the idle tales you hear of Natty; he has a kind of natural right to gain a livelihood in these mountains; and if the idlers in the village take it into their heads to annoy him, as they sometimes do reputed rogues, they shall find him protected by the strong ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the nation, the actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, or worth saving, or really respect-worthy, and to subtract them would have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility and gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any rationally constructed world. And yet, by ingenious contrivance, this gilded minority, instead of being in the tail of the procession where it belonged, was marching head up and banners ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... idle way of living, until every habit is wrong, every taste wrong. The world is wrong. People can be ruined by wealth just as much as by poverty. Do you think I wouldn't face life with you if I could, if I wasn't absolutely certain I should be ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various
... to pay servants," she persisted, "why should I idle about the house? Why should not I, an able-bodied person, be out helping in the world's work somehow—and also helping you ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... not at all like his new benefice; his parishioners were evidently idle, ill-disposed people, doing no credit to the ministry of the deceased incumbent; and looking with eyes any thing but respectful and affectionate upon their new pastor. In short, he foresaw a host of troubles; although he had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... samphire,—dreadful trade! Methinks he seems no bigger than his head: The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark, Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge, That on th' unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high.—I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... through the cracks, and an ever-present fear lest they should suddenly fly open with "impetuous recoil, grating harsh thunder" on their wheels, and not exactly letting Satan in, but everything in the room fall out; an idle fear, for they can only be shoved asunder by dint of much pushing and pulling, especially if they are warped by having one side exposed to more heat than the other, as usually happens. Being at last opened ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner |
