"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... letter very much, and am so glad you keep "office hours." It is very good of you not to be angry with my good advice! "Experientia does it," as Mr. 'Aughton would say.... I break down about once in three months like clockwork—from sheer overwork. I certainly am never happy idle; but I have too often to sit in sackcloth in the depths of my heart—whilst everybody is beseeching me to be "idle"—from a consciousness that, not from doing nothing, but by doing B when I should have done A, and C ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... long, long summer hours, The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by. The oriole should build and tell His love-tale, close beside my cell; The idle butterfly Should rest him there, and there be heard ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... several times he found the official was abroad. Leon Berthelini began to grow quite a familiar figure in the streets of Castel-le-Gachis; he became a local celebrity, and was pointed out as "the man who was looking for the Commissary." Idle children attached themselves to his footsteps, and trotted after him back and forward between the hotel and the office. Leon might try as he liked; he might roll cigarettes, he might straddle, he might cock his hat at a dozen different jaunty inclinations - the part of Almaviva ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vanity of a little brief authority has before now tempted subordinate officers to hint at weaknesses on the part of their superiors. Ignorance of war and of the situation has induced them to criticise and to condemn; and idle words, greedily listened to, and quickly exaggerated, may easily destroy the confidence of the soldiery in the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... the headman of that kraal?" I asked of one of the Kafirs who had collected round us in our trouble, as such idle ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... sounded now like the buzzing of a swarm of bees, magnified a thousand times. And then the field was full of men, rushing from the inn. He wondered how they could have been concealed there. But such wonder was idle, and he did not think of it. Instead he watched keenly. First one monstrous aerial battleship came to rest on the earth. At once the men in the field surrounded her, seizing the ropes that were flung out, and ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... Indians away from their huts. Their settlement they named Jamestown. The early colonists of Virginia were not very well fitted for such a work. Some of them were gentlemen who had never labored with their hands; others were poor, idle fellows whose only wish was to do nothing whatever. There were a few energetic men among them as Ratcliffe, Archer, and Smith. But these spent most of their time in exploring the bay and the rivers, in hunting for gold, and in quarreling ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... conception of its blessedness, some half-waking desires to become a standard-bearer in the hottest of the fight with the foes of God,—a minister or missionary of the Cross, so as to labor more efficiently in saving souls. But in your circumstances you find it an idle wish. Do you hence smother these kindling emotions and fold your hands in despair? The Gospel may be preached by your alms. There are many links in the chain of influences which God employs in rescuing sinners ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... of the relation of war to human instincts, on the one hand, and to human ideals, on the other, is the issue about which most recent observation and discussion has centered. It seems idle to assert that hostility has no roots in man's original nature. The concrete materials given in this chapter show beyond question how readily the wishes and the instincts of the person may take the form of the fighting ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... indeed, but its words were idle. For the Turks and their Mamelukes I have no great love. They prey upon the land, and enrich themselves at our expense; but the Franks would doubtless do the same, and I would rather be fleeced by those of the true faith ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... this is a queer thing about them: though our building is pocked with windows that are open by day seven months in the year, and though the air of the building is clean enough, save for the smell of the ink, yet at night, after the machines have been idle for many hours and are probably asleep, the place smells like the lair of wild animals. By day they are as clean as machines may be kept. And even in the days when David Lewis petted them and coddled them and gave them the core of his heart, they were speckless, and bright ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... consist in the truth which he possesses, or means to possess, but in the sincere pain which he hath taken to find it out. For his powers do not augment by possessing truth, but by investigating it, wherein consists his only perfectibility. Possession lulls the energy of man, and makes him idle and proud. If God held inclosed in his right hand absolute truth, and in his left only the inward lively impulse toward truth, and if He said to me: Choose! even at the risk of exposing mankind to continual erring, I most humbly would seize His left ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... talk from you, Thomas McDonagh, and it seemed The words were idle, but they grew To nobleness by death redeemed. Life cannot utter words more great Than life may meet by sacrifice, High words were equaled by high fate, You paid the price. You paid ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... gentleness and the wisdom of the domestic animals and the sadness which they feel when their master dies. But he has many other qualities that bring him much closer to humanity: he is treacherous, cruel, idle, greedy and quarrelsome; and, above all, he is ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... my idle curiosity—a curiosity which, in him, I had the moment before viewed both with suspicion and disgust; but so it was—I felt a desire to know who he could be who was neither lawyer nor preacher, and yet talked of his circuit with the gravity of both. How ridiculous, I thought to myself is this; ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... features were small, a heavy beard and mustache covered his face, his brow was low, and his eyes black and twinkling. A sharp, furtive glance which he gave at Brandon attracted the attention of the latter, for there was something in the glance that meant more than idle curiosity. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... for the question. The ways of aristocratic ladies, whose idle hours often supply a field of labour for the Evil One, were perfectly well known to her; and she wondered a little sharply how far he was still unspoilt. The majority of big, strong, full-blooded young men in his place would assuredly have sipped the cup of pleasure pretty deeply ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... conception of inherited, personal rights. As the dinner dragged on, there occurred no further opportunity for talk until near the end, when suddenly the clear, even tones of Miss Hitchcock's voice brought his idle musing ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... "molendinum," the grinding-place. I do not know if actually the local name,[61] or Scott's invention. Compare Sir Piercie's "Molinaras." But at all events used here with by-sense of degradation of the formerly idle saints ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... his last meeting with Mary. The part he played in public affairs was as great, and the standing quarrel with the Court, and all those who favoured it, more acrimonious than ever, every slanderous tale that came on the idle winds of gossip being taken for granted, and the most hideous accusations made in the pulpit as well as in private places against the Queen and her lighthearted company. The principles, of such profound importance to the nation, which were undoubtedly involved, are discredited ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... things in their right places?" To his credit be it spoken, Mount Dunstan managed to say it as if in the mere putting together of idle words. What man likes to be reminded of his right place! No man wants to be put in his right place. There is always another place ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... loafer, a conscious loafer, not a simple loafer. Simple loafers lie on the stove and do nothing because they don't know how to do anything; they don't think about anything either, but you are a man of ideas—and yet you lie on the stove; you could do something—and you do nothing; you lie idle with a full stomach and look down from above and say, 'It's best to lie idle like this, because whatever people do, is ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... souls? What of her warning that she would drive her chosen ones by strange paths through doubt and need and danger and battle? Which of these had he encountered, beyond the vanished phantoms of idle hours passed in the cozy comfort of the Orient Express? "Never ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... There was no reason why Hilda should remain,—burning gas to no purpose. She had telegraphed, by favour of a Karkeek office-boy, to Miss Gailey, saying that she would come by the first train on the morrow—Saturday, and she had therefore much to do at home. Nevertheless, she sat idle in the office, unable to leave. Her whole life was in that office, and it was just when she was most weary of the environment that she would vacillate longest before quitting it. She was unhappy and apprehensive, much less about her mother than about the attitude of her conscience ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... weary of these interminable discussions and unending compliments, and glad of a respite in which to turn to other matters. But there were no idle hours in that august assembly, though it might chance that some whimsical phase of statesmanship lightened, by way of entr'acte, the severity of their deliberations. They were, possibly, not unpleasantly aware of the irony of the situation when a letter from their governor in Constantinople ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Legenden zu erkennen." This seems too positive an opinion of their untrustworthiness. It is agreed with, however, by Orelli (Introd.to Hab., Clarke's Transl.), who styles Bel and the Dragon, or at least the Habakkuk incident in it, "an idle story." A.B. Davidson also (Encyclop. Brit. ed. 9, II. 181) writes of it as being "completely fabulous;" and Ewald speaks of the episode of Habakkuk as an example of an unhistoric spirit, growing rapidly and dangerously ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... flower of thy beauty into the deep dust of defilement. Alas, what great evil have the sons and daughters of Khem wrought that the High Gods should have visited them with so sore a judgment! How long shall thy bright wings lie folded and idle, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... or Stimson idle. To assist Stetson in his press-work, and to further the idea that all Europe was now clamoring for the "Rise and fall," Peter paid an impecunious but over-educated dragoman to translate it into five languages, and Stimson officially wrote ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... landing, sat the portress, a woman-angel of dark visage, leaning her shadowed brow on her idle hand. The children rushed upon her, covering her with caresses, and ere she understood, they had taken heaven by surprise, and were already in the city, still mounting the stair by the side of the descending torrent. ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... 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 any previous ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... 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
... Saxon charter as granted by king Edgar in 973 to Thorney Abbey.—Collectanea Topographica, iv., 55.] The condition of military service attached to its manor will be found to have been often exacted, nor was the service in the grand hunt an idle form. Hunting came next to war in those days, as the occupation of the nobility and gentry. The clergy engaged in it equally with the laity. The hunting establishment of the Bishop of Durham was on a princely scale. He had his forests, chases and parks, with ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... however, that the charges against these men were proven. They were not dismissed because of idle hearsay, but because of absolute and convincing proof. The breath of scandal has assailed more than one ball player without any good and convincing reason, and will doubtless do so again, just as it has assailed private reputations of men in other walks of life. The breath ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... reporter I do not believe there was a week in which it was not heard from in the police reports, generally in connection with a crime of violence, a murder or a stabbing affray. It was usually on Sunday, when the Italians who lived there were idle and quarreled over their cards. Every fight was the signal for at least two more, sometimes a dozen, for they clung to their traditions and met all efforts of the police to get at the facts with their stubborn "fix him myself." And when the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... her letters are more distinctly literary. She discusses modern realism with Flaubert, and play-writing with Dumas fils; and protests with passionate vehemence against the doctrine of L'art pour l'art. 'Art for the sake of itself is an idle sentence,' she writes; 'art for the sake of truth, for the sake of what is beautiful and good, that is the creed I seek.' And in a delightful letter to M. Charles Poncy she repeats the same idea very charmingly. 'People say that birds sing for the sake of singing, but I doubt it. They ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... glanced at the now enormous stack of pearl shells and at the tubs once more well filled with oysters, for the beachcomber had not let his men be idle. But the sight of the treasures of which they had been robbed only irritated the boy, and he turned away to forget it in encountering the grinning face of ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... and Spratt and Bigg did the same, but we found that the blacks had turned three or four while we could scarcely get over some of the smaller ones. We had another companion who showed that he had no wish to be idle. As soon as we began the onslaught on the creatures Solon commenced an attack on them also. As he had no handspike to turn them over, all he could do was to lay hold of their flappers, and to try to hold them till we came up; many a ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... to be so. Infinitely sadder is the sight of a mind which is falling to pieces by reason of the rust that has eaten into its very core. For rust must needs mean idleness—and no human intellect need be idle. So it had been with these two old ladies. Born in a wofully unintellectual age, they had never left a certain groove in life. When their brother married Christian Vellacott's grandmother, they had left his house in Honiton to go and live in Bodmin upon a limited but sufficient income. These "sufficient ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... most clearly in organic beings, plants and animals. Organisms, except the very lowest, are compounds of a number of different parts, each fulfilling a special function for the good of the whole. There is no idle constituent in an organic body, none without its function. What are called rudimentary organs, even if they serve no purpose in the individual, have their use in the species, or in some higher genus. In the animal there is no idle natural craving, or appetite. True, in the individual, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... did not remain long idle in their new position. In the First Month, 1827, they received a "minute" for visiting the meetings in their Monthly Meeting; and in the Second Month they commenced a tour amongst the meetings in some other parts of Yorkshire. ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... Indiana, and Illinois centers of wealth and production, and when the wonderful Northwestern country embracing the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, was so rapidly opened up and brought nearer to the Eastern markets, the Vanderbilt railroad interests were not idle. The original genius, Cornelius Vanderbilt, was soon gathered to his fathers, but his son, William H. Vanderbilt, was in ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... It was all idle and strangely empty, and yet hard to understand. She would have been much surprised if she could have guessed how much its emptiness interested other people in Rome; how the dowagers chattered about her over their tea, abusing her mother and all her relations for ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... idle in his trenches before Petersburg, the presidential election of 1864 took place, and in spite of the unpopular draft of five hundred thousand men in July, and a summer and Autumn of severe fighting both East and West, Mr. Lincoln was elected. There had been active and even acrimonious opposition, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... the slush he said to himself: "I guess it's up the river for mine.... By God, it's a shame, for I'm feeling pretty good, too, and that's no idle quip!... Old Squills handed out a line of talk all right-o!... He landed it, too.... I ought to find ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... governors (gunshi) in their provinces, although this evil system had been prohibited in the time of Gemmyo. In connexion, too, with the rice collected for public purposes, there were abuses. This rice, so long as it lay in the official storehouses, represented so much idle capital. The provincial governors utilized it by lending the grain to the farmers in the spring, partly for seed purposes and partly for food, on condition that it should be paid back in the autumn with fifty per cent, increment. Subsequently this exorbitant figure ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... into bundles, and Alice thoughtfully bought a pennyworth of pins. Of course it was idle to suppose that we could go through the village in our gipsy clothes without exciting ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... regulates and watches their perilous course through the intricate ford of a deep river, or stands upon some solitary hill to reconnoitre the trackless country and select the line along which the motley assemblage is to pass. He is now an idle unoccupied gentleman, the inhabitant of a boarding-house, with no object in the world before him; but ere long the plans of fresh achievements and speculations are sketched out. You see a muster of bearded weather-beaten men, carrying short-handled ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... replenished. With the aid of its content, a newspaper, and some skimming of the cream of the pie-stock, Flora got through the remainder of the day in perfect good humour; though occasionally embarrassed by the consequences of an idle rumour which circulated among the credulous infants of the neighbourhood, to the effect that an old lady had sold herself to the pie-shop to be made up, and was then sitting in the pie-shop parlour, declining to complete her contract. This attracted so many young persons of both sexes, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... 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.' ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... merely as a matter of idle curiosity and without prejudice to the question of the five francs, whether the mother of your children is your ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... a light rifle. It was but the work of a moment to unsling and level it. The sharp crack followed, and the ball impinged between the monster's eyes, glancing harmlessly from his hard skull as though it had been a plate of steel. The shot was an idle one, perhaps worse; for, stung to madness with the stunning shock, the reptile sprang far out into the water, and ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... emoluments that might accumulate during the period of their apprenticeships, I would suggest, in order to mark that due gradation which in every well regulated society must necessarily exist in the scale of rewards to be accorded to such as may be subordinate or refractory,—industrious, or idle; that these latter encouragements should only be extended in this double ratio to those who might quit the establishment with a certificate of ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... to some poor ship close locked in water dense and dark and vile The wind comes garrulous from afar and sets the idle masts a-quiver; And ev'n to her so foully docked, swift as the sun's first beam at dawn The sea-bird comes and like a star wheels by and ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... Pencroft, "are we not going back to work? Let Mount Franklin smoke, groan, bellow, or spout forth fire and flame as much as it pleases, that is no reason why we should be idle! Come, Ayrton, Neb, Herbert, Captain Harding, Mr. Spilett, every one of us must turn to at our work to-day! We are going to place the keelson, and a dozen pair of hands would not be too many. Before two months ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... for a babbling girl? I love your mother better than you do, or this brat of yours would not be here. I shall not bring her gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave. I shall speak of this villany to but one person; and to him I shall talk with this, and not with the idle tongue." And he tapped his sword-hilt with a ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... home trying to think of a way of bringing their plan to a successful issue, and so doing something, at least, towards the diffusion of a better spirit among the people. She could not bear the thought of being idle while there was a vague possibility of the slightest improvement being made in the present aspect of affairs. But her brain seemed willing to turn to anything but that, and she found herself as far off as ever from any settlement by ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... Many of our animals are domesticated and trained to do light services, but as for servants of our own flesh and blood, no such class exists. We all share whatever work there is, and no labor is menial. Whatever I ask others to do I am glad to do for them when occasion offers. Do not suppose we are idle. There is work for us, but with our abundant strength and continual good health it is never a burden. Then there are the duties connected with our higher life and education, for we are ever seeking to fit ourselves for a still better existence ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... be laborious in reading and study, and yet idle in business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body or softness of spirit, such as Seneca speaketh of: Quidam tam sunt umbratiles, ut putent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est; and not of learning: well may it be that such a point of a man's nature may make him give ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... was put out, so that, had my curiosity been idle, my purpose could not be accomplished. To retire from this scene, neither curiosity nor benevolence would permit. That some mortal injury had been intended was apparent. What greater mischief had befallen, or whether greater ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... idle during Raleigh's absence, but so long as Winwood was alive he had not been able to attack the absent Admiral with much success. As soon as Bailey brought him the news of the supposed attack on Lanzarote, he communicated with his Government, and urged that an ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... inquiry it is to be preferred to that other which it confutes, and according to which, as has been said, the world appears doubly incomprehensible. But it is in the very nature of things that we cannot on this point come to any clear conclusion, and all further words on the subject are idle—and so, 'Ignorabimus.'" ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... was lonely and idle, and because I dreaded inexpressibly going back to my still house, I went with her. Her ways were a kind of entertainment, and I remember that I believed my leisure to ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... idle dreams Of poison or of ropes, I cannot dine on airy schemes, I cannot sup on hopes: New milk, I own is very fine, Just foaming from the cow; But yet I want my pint of wine,— I'm not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... Nor was the archbishop idle at this time. He proceeded to give rules to the new Audiencia as to the manner in which it was to conduct itself, declaring that recourse to it in cases of fuerza and banishment was faulty; and a little later, when urged to absolve Governor Vargas, he replied that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... idle; but he saw that the insurgents were not rousing the country as they progressed, and therefore he judged that the further they were drawn away from their own country the better. Except for a slight skirmish at Guildford, the Cornishmen were not actively interfered ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... "I should rather call his house a school or university of Christian religion, for there is none therein but readeth or studieth the liberal sciences; their special care is piety and virtue; there is no quarreling or intemperate words heard; none are seen idle; which household that worthy gentleman doth not govern, but with all courteous benevolence." The servant men abode on one side of the house, the women on the other, and met at prayer time or on Church festivals, when More would ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... Oyer and Terminer and Jail-Delivery usually holden in London in a Year, many of which, through the great Number of Prisoners try'd, continue four or five Days successively; during which time, the Old-Bailey-Yard is crouded with an idle disorderly Crew of Persons of both Sexes, who have no other Business but to obstruct those who have any unwish'd for Avocation to the Place——In one Corner stands a Circle, compos'd of, perhaps, a Baker's-Boy, a Journeyman-Shoemaker, a Butcher's-'Prentice, ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... said, "you are a rich, idle fellow; De Rochemont, and we want rich, idle fellows to come and look into all this and do something for us. You must let me take you with me ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... years devoted to limiting the acreage which any one person could buy or lease, and to ensuring that any person acquiring land should himself live thereon, and should use and improve it, and not leave it lying idle until the spread of population enabled him to sell it at a profit to some monopolist or, more often, some genuine farmer. As early as 1856 Otago had set the example of insisting on an outlay of 30s. an acre in improvement by each purchaser of public land. Gradually ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... ever sat by the seashore playing with pebbles in an idle mood? You are not aiming at anything, you are much too lazy to aim; but some god directs your arm, and, without thinking, you hit something that, ten to one, you never would have hit if you had ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... bring back the French and Belgian wounded. I wish I could have gone with him, for we seem so useless here now that our soldiers are well, and the days are long, since the wild excitement of a giant army on the wing has cooled down. "On the wing" is not an idle expression when we remember those forced marches and how they lashed the poor artillery horses which galloped and strained in the traces without making much impression on the wheels. It was rather like that famous chariot race in the play, "Ben Hur," when the landscape rolled ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... helpless under thy rays.* Thy loveliness is in the southern sky,* thy graciousness is in the northern sky.* Thy beauties seize upon hearts,* thy loveliness maketh the arms weak,* thy beautiful operations make the hands idle,* hearts become weak ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... doth seem; And clasping her within convulsing arms, Receives a thrill that all his nerves alarms, And wakes him from the dreams she had instilled. "What means this fantasy that hath me filled, And spirit form that o'er my pillow leans; I wonder what this fragrant incense means? Oh, tush! 'tis but an idle, wildering dream, But how delightful, joyous it did seem! Her beauteous form it had, its breath perfume; Do spirit forms such ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... exclaimed. "Singularly enough, that happens to be precisely the amount I now have lying idle. Now, Jack, my lad, I have known you from a boy; and, though it is an axiom with us lawyers never to think well of anything or anybody, I would stake my last penny upon your integrity. So far as your honesty is concerned I would not hesitate ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... reckoning the time and wages of my men at work on the claims. Accounts of assessment work on twenty claims, besides new prospecting in different localities, will give you something to do after cutting the kindling for Mother; and neither of you need feel that you are useless nor idle. Part of these gold claims are yours, and in your own names, and you can both make short 'mushing' trips of inspection over the country when you like; though the new railroad up Anvil will be finished in a few weeks, and then you can ride. Under no consideration must either of you ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... ordinary men would sail one. The model of the triremes, revealing the number of the rowers but concealing their faces, was first furnished by the Argonauts. So too the sail, that flying sheet[391] which wafts idle men to their destination quicker than swiftest birds can fly, was first invented by the lorn Isis, when she set off on her wanderings through the world to find her lost ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... dialectician if, in order to avoid this difficulty, I were to say (as you are saying of pleasure) that there is no difference between one science and another;—would not the argument founder and disappear like an idle tale, although we might ourselves escape drowning by clinging ...
— Philebus • Plato
... when the elements of Latin grammar confronted him, Will had already found grammar-school an excellent place to plead aching tooth or heavy head to stay away from. At eight, a dreary traveling for him to cover did his "Sententiae Pueriles" prove, and idle paths more pleasing. ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... lend it their influence, but those who are indifferent or hostile to Christian institutions. Fathers and mothers who are careless of the example they set their children; vain followers of the fashions, who think more of a golden trinket than they do of virtue; idle and dissipated hangers-on of society; fast young men in the road to ruin; vicious young women; dissolute men, whose vices would horrify every sensitive heart were they uncovered; with a sprinkling, perhaps, of better people who forget, for the time being, what company they ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... Miss Rylance. 'I suppose, Bessie, you know that Miss Pew has especially forbidden us all to indulge in idle ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... otherwise than well. But those idle shooters of the Dusky Ones, whereabouts nigh to thee ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... to the tireless stove) Lazily rising, see how the smoke From thousands of chimneys floats upward! And yet that stove of ours No fuel seems to need, the idle rascal, Content to live in ease, just like ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... find cheap vacation homes in the country, and by establishing vacation banks to help the girls save for their summer outings, the committee hopes to discourage some of the haphazard picnic park dissipation. In summer many trades are slack, girls are idle, and out of sheer boredom they hang around the parks seeking amusement. It is only a theory, perhaps, but Mrs. Israels and the others on her committee believe that if many of these girls knew that a country vacation were within the possibilities, ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... were all too busy, running here, running there, hastening to and fro, carrying long-swords and shields, holding horses' heads, stamping, tramping, scolding and jesting. Little Wattie was more than once told to stand aside, and more than once got pushed about and mixed up with the throng of idle children, whose juvenile curiosity kept them spell-bound, stationed near the ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... child were not yet, however, at an end. Before her entrance to the convent he had been remarkably good and docile, but now, so completely had his temper been soured by the irritating remarks of injudicious advisers, that he had grown idle, self-willed and absolutely reckless. This was the worst pang of all; she dreaded more than any other misfortune, that of his offending God; the news of his death would have been a light sorrow in comparison. ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... could not understand why it was; but whenever there was a dispute about cards in a club, it was brought to him to settle. It was most odd. But it was trite. In public affairs, no less than in private, Lord Hartington's decisions carried an extraordinary weight. The feeling of his idle friends in high society was shared by the great mass of the English people; here was a man they could trust. For indeed he was built upon a pattern which was very dear to his countrymen. It was not simply that he was honest: ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... her meat and drink, and bade her rest and think of nothing troublous, and in all wise made her good cheer; and she was merry with them, and praised their fairness and their deftness, and asked them many questions about their weaving and spinning and carding; (howbeit the looms were idle as then because it was midsummer, and the men gone to the war). And this they deemed strange, as it seemed to them that all women should know of such things; but they thought it was a token that ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... Alone, idle, and always surrounded with danger, savage man must be fond of sleep, and sleep lightly like other animals, who think but little, and may, in a manner, be said to sleep all the time they do not think: self-preservation being almost his only concern, he must exercise those faculties ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... crimes, and the misfortunes, of the suffering people, were presumptuously compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the Divine Justice, which did not exempt from the common destruction the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with industry, and safety with valor. The timid and selfish policy of the court of Ravenna might recall the Palatine legions for the protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... better families the horoscope of the children was drawn as a matter of course, and it sometimes happened that for half a lifetime men were haunted by the idle expectation of events which never occurred! The stars were questioned whenever a great man had to come to any important decision, and even consulted as to the hour at which any undertaking was to be begun. The ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... who had recognized him as he entered the town, quickly, by their cries of greeting, roused the loungers and idle conversationalists along the sidewalks further down the street. There was a rush to shop doors, a craning of necks, excited inquiries in Spanish and English; more shouts of greeting. A gaunt, hawk-faced ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... had reached the palace, the sultan perceiving his disordered state, inquired the adventures of the day; and being informed of his fruitless pursuit, and the remarks of the old man, said, "My son, discharge this idle chimera from thy mind, nor perplex thyself longer, since he who wishes for an impossibility may pine himself to death, but can never gain his desires: calm then thy soul, nor vex thyself longer in vain." "By Allah!" answered the prince, "my soul, O my father, is captivated with ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... without saying. Nobody could possibly have whiskers like them without feeling proud of them. I feel that if I had such whiskers I should never be away from the looking-glass. And consider the pleasurable employment they give in idle moments. Satan, it is said, has mischief still for idle hands to do. But no one with such streamers as Sir Edward's can ever have idle hands. When you have nothing else to do with them you stroke ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... and patriotic Statesman on his way to Washington to beseech the President for an office, an idle Tramp accosted him and begged twenty- five cents with which to buy a suit ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... a purchase is due from the day fixed upon for completing: where it cannot be completed, the loss rests with the party with whom the delay rests; but it appears, when the delay rests with the seller, and the money is lying idle, notice of that is to be given to the seller to make him liable to the loss of interest. In law, the property belongs to the purchaser from the date of the contract; he is entitled to any benefit, and must ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... find life. I do not obtain the vitalizing air through controversy, or clamour, or idle lamentation, but by opening the window! Faith opens the door and window of the soul to the Son of God. It can be done without tears, it can be done without sensationalism. "If any man will open the door, I will come in." "And he that hath the ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... here, as in Paris, what a suffering multitude, what a shameless exhibition too of the social sore, the devouring cancer openly tolerated and displayed in utter heedlessness! There are whole families leading idle and hungry lives in the splendid sunlight; fathers waiting for work to fall to them from heaven; sons listlessly spending their days asleep on the dry grass; mothers and daughters, withered before their time, shuffling about in loquacious idleness. O Holy Father, already to-morrow at dawn may your ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... of the loyalty and faith of Godwin were required and conceded. They were selected from his own family; and the choice fell on Wolnoth, his son, and Haco, the son of Sweyn. As, when nearly all England may be said to have repassed to the hands of Godwin, it would have been an idle precaution to consign these hostages to the keeping of Edward, it was settled, after some discussion, that they should be placed in the Court of the Norman Duke until such time as the King, satisfied with the good faith of the family, should ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... see the hounds throw off; otherwise it is not different from other meets. As for the Roman mountains, they are so totally unlike any other hills in the world, and so extremely beautiful in their own peculiar way, that to describe them would be an idle and a useless task, which could only serve to exhibit the vanity of the writer and the feebleness ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... saw Gavin and his mother happy in our Auld Licht manse, that did not prevent my considering the contingencies which might leave her without a son. In the school- house I had brooded over them as one may think over moves on a draught-board. It may have been idle, but it was done that I might know how to act best for Margaret if any thing untoward occurred. The time for such action had come. Gavin's death had struck me hard, but it did not crush me. I was not unprepared. I was ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... daily bread and very fortunate was he to have so good a place. Having read himself this lecture he was wont to turn to his duties with lighter heart, closing his ears to the laughter and his eyes to the merriment that made up the days of the idle. But what he never could get used to was the fact that he must not ask questions or voice his opinions. In a free country where one man was as good as another the mandate seemed absurd. But it wasn't done. That was all there was about it. Jerry said ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... cage; and the confinement lasts only a month. Probably the long period mentioned by Dr. Brown is that prescribed for chiefs' daughters. Poor people could not afford to keep their children so long idle. This distinction is sometimes expressly stated. See above, p. 30. Among the Goajiras of Colombia rich people keep their daughters shut up in separate huts at puberty for periods varying from one to four ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... man was not quite convinced, and received the warning as an idle threat, he shrugged his shoulders and walked leisurely towards the table, upon which lay a writing-case and a pen, the length of which would have terrified the topographical Porthos. De Wardes then saw that nothing could well be more seriously intended than the threat in question, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Greek may be a good thing or no; but nobody says that if Greek scholarship is carried past a certain point, everybody will be torn in pieces like Orpheus, or burned up like Semele, or poisoned like Socrates. Philosophy, theology and logic may or may not be idle academic studies; but nobody supposes that the study of philosophy, or even of theology, ultimately forces its students to manufacture racks and thumb-screws against their will; or that even logicians need be so alarmingly logical as all that. Science seems to be ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... from Lenorme, and was getting hopeless in respect of that quarter of possible aid. But so long as Florimel could content herself with the quiet of Lossie House, there was time to wait, he said to himself. She was not idle, and that was promising. Every day she rode out with Stoat. Now and then she would make a call in the neighbourhood, and, apparently to trouble Malcolm, took care to let him know that on one of these occasions her call had been upon ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... sorrowful, more awkward and more baneful than those which we are leaving; and how shall we explain that these have come about after so many millions of others which should have opened the eyes of the genius of infinity? It is idle to persuade ourselves, as Hindu wisdom would, that our sorrows are but illusions and appearances: it is none the less true that they make us very really unhappy. Has the universe elsewhere a more complete consciousness, a more ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... wasted. They mean our meat supply. I'm still wearing my pistol, and I've got two boxes of shells for it in my pocket—it's a small caliber, and there's fifty in each box. There are plenty of blankets and cooking utensils, magazines for idle hours and, Heaven bless us, an old and battered phonograph on the table. Don't scorn it—anything that has to be packed on a horse this far mustn't be scorned. We can have music with our meals, if we like." He ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... was none of my business," says Conscience, "and a pretty piece of work you have made of it without me. Idle in college, and, when you began to perceive the connection between study and what people call success in life, overworking yourself, here you are, and just beginning to bethink yourself that I might have furnished just the right degree of stimulus, if you ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... a little languidly, for the spell of her presence was so strong that it threatened to subjugate him. He was never willingly alone with her now. The fear was always upon him that, in some weak moment, he might betray himself. The fear was an idle one—no man was less likely than Michael to lose his self-control; but, nevertheless, ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... reading habit. He would carry in his pocket a tract or a pamphlet which some one had loaned him, and whenever he had an idle moment during the day he would plod through a paragraph, and then think about it while he worked. Also he read the newspapers, and asked questions about them. One of the other porters at Hinds's was a sharp little Irishman, who knew everything that Jurgis wanted to know; and while ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... reason or argument, had recourse to recrimination. In the paper which he sent me next day, he insisted in general that he had carefully perused the case (which you will perceive was a self-evident untruth); he said the theory it contained was idle; that he was sure it could not be written by a physician; that, with respect to the disorder, he was still of the same opinion; and adhered to his former prescription; but if I had any doubts I might come to his house, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... disposition, in spite of ages of oppression. In the course of centuries they have not furnished a single man to that army of rash minds which have carried the rest of Europe headlong through lofty, perhaps, but at bottom empty and idle theories, to the brink of that bottomless abyss into which no one can peer ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... idle curiosity, dear aunt," she replied; "but you asked if father Gilbert was coming hither again, as though he had already been here; and, I confess, I am anxious to learn if I understood ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... master, was inclined to pardon and reward; and it was their interest, as well as duty, to reclaim their deluded brethren, who had been seduced by the arts of the usurper. Not a man was tempted to desert the standard of the Gothic king. Belisarius soon discovered, that he was sent to remain the idle and impotent spectator of the glory of a young Barbarian; and his own epistle exhibits a genuine and lively picture of the distress of a noble mind. "Most excellent prince, we are arrived in Italy, destitute ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... been left in the detestable position of independent gentlemen. The dignity of labor was a dignity unknown to these degraded young men. "I despise a wealthy idler," I said to Oscar, with my republican severity. "You want the ennobling influence of labor to make a man of you. Nobody has a right to be idle—nobody has a right to be rich. You would be in a more wholesome state of mind about yourself, my young gentleman, if you had to earn your bread and cheese ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... stood dozing behind his mistress's chair as in days of old. The sideboard was under his charge, and so were all the groceries and pickles. To the question, had he not heard of the emancipation, he invariably replied: "How can one take notice of every idle piece of gossip? To be sure the Turks were emancipated, but such a dreadful thing had not happened to him, thank the Lord!" A girl, Pufka, was kept in the house for entertainment, and the old nurse Vassilievna used to ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... attachment existed between them. Many thought—and idle gossips whispered it about—that the widow was soon to console herself for the great loss she had sustained, by taking Mr. Scofield as a second husband; but no such idea ever entered their minds. Her heart was ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... have I waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer would be a crime. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved as idle as my hopes. God's will be done. I go to see and ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... for meddling with what did not belong to you: you shall see me no more." He struck her eye as he spoke, and from that hour till the day of her death she was blind on the right side, thus dearly paying for having gratified an idle curiosity in ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... furnished the basis for the incorporation of the Furnaces Company. After $2,000,000 had been "expended," the clamor of the stockholders caused the company actually to build several furnaces. They were erected and stood idle, with nothing to feed them. The whole scheme collapsed in 1892. The stockholders lost every dollar of ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... high, spreads her boughs and secular arms, where, one saith, idle Dreams dwell clustering, and cling under every leaf. And monstrous creatures besides, many and diverse, keep covert at the gates, Centaurs and twy-shaped Scyllas, and the hundredfold Briareus, and the beast ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... evident that Ralph Mainwaring's oft repeated assertions concerning the elaborate preparation he had made for the coming contest were no idle boast. Nothing that human ingenuity could devise had been left undone which could help to turn the scale in his own favor. The original will of Ralph Maxwell Mainwaring, by which his elder son was disinherited, ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... that time you should care to write, who then will have recovered from this folly of the desert and an idle moon?" ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... idle chatterers frequent their houses, and, with various pretended modes of adulation, applaud every word uttered by men of such high fortune; resembling the parasites in a comedy, for as they puff up bragging soldiers, attributing to them, as rivals of the ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... but it gave him no opportunity of thinking. He had to be continually dodging large bales of fruit and wine, and if he made a mistake the officer on duty would shout at him angrily, "Lazy dog! you would not have left Greece were you not an idle fellow." Such words wounded his pride, and he determined to do so well that he should earn praise. But the little officer, his bright buttons flashing in the sunlight, who smoked quietly in the intervals of silence, never praised anybody; but he left off abusing Gregorio at last, and when ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... to any friend about Bresci—and especially if you mention the subject to any young man inclined to be idle—call attention to this point. You can amplify what must be presented ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... moving around under the boathouse, Shep and Snap were not idle. The doctor's son, on awakening, had wanted to throw the flour paste out of the window at the midnight prowlers, but ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... no idle boast, for Bayard's company was composed of picked men, the greater number of whom had been commanders themselves, but who preferred the honor of serving under the noted chevalier to ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... began to boom and foam upon another sunken reef; and ever and again a breaker would fall in sounding ruin under the very bows of her, and the brown reef and streaming tangle appear in the hollow of the wave. I tell you, they had to stand to their tackle: there was no idle men aboard that ship, God knows. It was upon the progress of a scene so horrible to any human-hearted man that my misguided uncle now pored and gloated like a connoisseur. As I turned to go down the hill, he was lying on his ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he was, yet after staying with the Knight and his lady for some time, Jack grew weary of such an idle life, and set out again in search of new adventures. He went over hills and dales without meeting any, till he came to the foot of a very high mountain. Here he knocked at the door of a small and lonely house, and an old man, with a head as white ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous
... and high-priced land, necessitate high farming; and by high farming, I mean growing large crops every year, and on every portion of the farm; but high wages and low-priced land do not necessarily demand high farming. If the land is cheap we can suffer it to lie idle without much loss. But when we raise crops, whether on high-priced land or on low-priced land, we must raise good crops, or the expense of cultivating and harvesting them will eat up all the profits. ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... highest way of life for man, a belief still held by Plato and Aristotle, and to which we shall have to return. We may note at once, however, that it is not an 'intellectualist' ideal. There is no question of idle contemplation; it is a strenuous way of life, the aim of which is the soul's salvation, and it gives rise to an eager desire to convert other men. Just for that reason, the Pythagorean philosopher will take part ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... it in electric letters on Broadway. It was the first night of 'Overheard.' Florance was playing at the Hudson Theatre, which is a bit higher up Forty-fourth Street, and his name was in electric letters too, but further off Broadway than mine. I strolled up, just out of idle curiosity, and there the old man was standing in the porch of the theatre, all alone! 'Hullo, Sachs,' he said, 'I'm glad I've seen you. It's saved me twenty-five cents.' I asked how. He said, 'I was just going to send you a telegram of congratulations.' ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... It is as futile as it is stupid to expect that in this matter history will go backward. To oppose measures already accomplished which are in the direction of democratic adjustment of social relations, even by those who think certain measures "a reform against nature," is not only idle in effect but shows that the opposer is out of touch with "whatsoever forces draw ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... and now and then it brings him into conflict with the department,... or with his own better nature. Sometimes his unerring instinct discovers secrets in high places, secrets which the Police Department is bidden to hush up and leave untouched. Muller is then taken off the case, and left idle for a while if he persists in his opinion as to the true facts. And at other times, Muller's own warm heart gets him into trouble. He will track down his victim, driven by the power in his soul which is stronger than all volition; but when he has this victim in the net, he will ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... no hirers of labour. Had the colony been as large and as prosperous as its neighbour it could scarcely have absorbed the glut of workmen; but it was really on the verge of bankruptcy—its finances were embarrassed, its trades and industries at a standstill. But not only were the convicts idle; they were utterly depraved. It was soon found that the system which kept large bodies always together had a most pernicious effect upon their moral condition. "The congregation of criminals in large batches without adequate supervision meant ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... trouble themselves so much about them. If therefore I can make out in this Essay, that there were such Animals as Pygmies; and that they were not a Race of Men, but Apes; and can discover the Authors, who have forged all, or most of the idle Stories concerning them; and shew how the Cheat in after Ages has been carried on, by embalming the Bodies of Apes, then exposing them for the Men of the Country, from whence they brought them: If I can do this, I shall think my time not wholly lost, nor the trouble altogether ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... of just ideas respecting comets has been slow, it must nevertheless be regarded as on the whole satisfactory. When we remember that it was not a mere idle fancy which had to be opposed, not mere terrors which had to be calmed, but that the idea of the significance of changes in the heavens had come to be regarded by mankind as a part of their religion, it cannot but be thought ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... see there was no Englishman, so it must have been idle gossip. And Varvara Petrovna and Stepan Trofimovitch both tell lies. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... can; he is just idle and spoiled," the firm lips set more firmly. "He shall take his ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... your prairie nest, Blow from the mountains, blow from the west. The sail is idle, the sailor too; O! wind of the west, we wait for you. Blow, blow! I have wooed you so, But never a favour you bestow. You rock your cradle the hills between, But scorn to ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... same to-day in my village of Serignan, where there are numbers of youthful adepts in the art of putting poultry to sleep. Science often has very humble beginnings. There is nothing to tell us that the mischief of a pack of idle urchins is not the starting-point ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... too severe an economist of time, to waste it willingly on idle pomp and ceremonial. His heart swelled with satisfaction, however, as he gazed on the magnificent capital thus laid at his feet, and pouring forth the most lively expressions of a loyalty, which of late he had been led to distrust. With all his impatience, therefore, he was not ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... extraordinary Advantage, if carried on in Virginia; but I presume these may suffice as a Specimen to shew how useful and easy it is to promote many Trades, Arts, and Manufactures there, and what Numbers of poor, idle, and wicked People may there be employed, and get a plentiful Maintenance and Settlement for their Families, and by their Labour may enrich themselves, the Planters and Merchants, benefit our Trade, encrease the Revenue of the Crown, and advance ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... of Italy all that is corruptible and corrupting is assembled. The young are idle, the old lascivious, and each sex and every age abounds with debasing habits, which the good laws, by misapplication, have lost the power to correct. Hence arises the avarice so observable among the ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli |
