"Laziness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we did,—wait, until that pleasant morning came round and brought me Clarian's note. I could scarcely brook the slow laziness with which the day dragged by, as if it knew its own beauty, and lingered to enjoy it. At last, however, the night came, the hour also, and punctually with it came Dr. Thorne, a kindly young physician, and a man of much promise, well-read, prompt, clear-headed, resourceful, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... was filled up with a siesta in the Spanish fashion, which arranges for sleep between the two chief meals, and so occupies the hours when Paris is in a busy turmoil. The Spanish cigar also played its part, and consumed time as well as tobacco. Laziness is a mask as gravity is, and that ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... she ought not to disturb the present comfort, but also because it was getting a principle with her, as apparently with many middle-aged Englishwoman, that she must always be going abroad. Yet she knew that Miss Gurney did not particularly want to have her, and had invited her more from laziness than from anything else. ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... graciousness. Kate distrusted him, but she thought there was use in keeping on outwardly good terms; and she had no suspicion of his shameless conduct the night before. Ayre directed their walk to the very same seat on which she and Haddington had sat. As they passed, either romance or laziness suggested to Kate that they should sit down. Ayre accepted her proposal without demur, asked and obtained leave for a cigarette, and sat for a few moments in apparent ease and vacancy of mind. He was thinking ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... Heaven's sake, Arnold," he implored. "To look at you is an incitement to laziness. The world's full of things to write about. Make a choice and have done with it. Write something, even if you have ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were some honest creatures among them; even in Sodom and Gomorrah a few just people were found. It is true that in later life I once had occasion to depend greatly upon the fidelity of two Oneidas, and they did not fail me. But as a whole the race was a bad one—full of laziness and lies and cowardly ferocity. From earliest childhood I saw a good deal of them, and ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... "Not laziness, old lad—fagged, and must rest when I can. Was I there? Of course I was. But oh, what a mess we made of it! Everything was well thought out; but you were too strong for us. We should have got them all away if they had not trapped us with ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... more, but then apparently changed his mind and hurried away. Soon a small boat was over the side and this was manned by the mate, Bossermann, Wingate and a sailor named Ulligan, a fellow noted for his laziness and untrustworthiness. Without delay the small boat set out for ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... saw the diligence of this holy man he chid the laziness of the other workmen, and said, "You receive more pay than this good man, but do not do half as much work." For this reason the other workmen hated Rinaldo, and made a secret agreement to kill him. They knew that he made it a practice to go every night to a certain ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... out of rock crystal or perfectly clear glass. There is no apparent difference between the head and the tail, save that one end tapers more gradually than the other. Very limited power of motion has been bestowed upon it. It cannot wriggle. It merely squirms in the extremity of laziness or lassitude. These two keep the PINNA company—the lively shrimp, pinkish brown and green with pin-point black eyes, and the little eel as bright and as transparent yet as dull and insipid as glass. One of the oysters attracts the patronage of a rotund crab, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... functional characteristics are the same in whatever part of the world he may be found; and whether in the trackless forests of South America, the coral isles of Polynesia, the jungles of India, or the spicy brakes of Sumatra, he is everywhere known for his gluttony, laziness, and indifference to the character and quality of his food. And though he occasionally shows an epicure's relish for a succulent plant or a luscious carrot, which he will discuss with all his salivary organs keenly excited, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... sun, hot and soft-stroking against leaves. Or a Pleistocene man, smallest of all the males, whose supine acceptance had devolved into laziness.... ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... of Pitlochry had by no means put his wife out of his mind. His incurable laziness and procrastination in small things had led him to let slip post after post; but that very morning, at any rate, he had really written her a decent letter. And he was beginning to be anxious to hear from her about the yachting plan. If Lady Dunstable had asked him a few ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... his reasonings, and by which he judgeth of truth and falsehood, right and wrong; which some, wanting skill and leisure, and others the inclination, and some being taught that they ought not to examine, there are few to be found who are not exposed by their ignorance, laziness, education, or precipitancy, to ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resorted, and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university in less volume; whither they came not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions, which laziness and consent made current in vulgar ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... day, Lord? In all my wrong, Self-love and weakness, laziness and fear, This one thing I can say: I am content To be and have what in thy heart I am meant To be and have. In my best times I long After thy will, and think it glorious-dear; Even in my worst, perforce my will to thine ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... little Fanchon at my feet, too idle to eat the biscuits with which I am trying to tempt her,—biscuits from Boston, sent to me by Mrs. Sparks, whose kindness is really indefatigable, and which Fanchon ought to like upon that principle if upon no other, but you know her laziness of old, and she improves in it every day. Well that is a picture of the Swallowfield cottage at this moment, and I wish that you and the Bennochs and the W——s and Mr. Whipple were here to add to its life and comfort. You must come ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... know I am a rogue and the son of a dog. Yet let me tell you, when I came here I had a week's misery and a fortnight's illness, and since then I have been more or less busy in being content. This is a kind of excuse for my laziness. I hope you will not excuse yourself. My plans are still very uncertain, and it is not likely that anything will happen before Christmas. In the meanwhile, I believe I shall live on here 'between the sandhills and the sea,' as I think Mr. Swinburne hath it. I ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... solitary willow that has a story attached to it. It was the only tree in the settlement—think what a place that must have been!—except those the missionary had planted in his own garden, and it would never have existed but for the laziness of its owner. Nothing would have induced any of the natives to take the trouble to plant a tree, and therefore the willow had not been planted. But it happened, a long-time ago, that a native had fetched a log ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... whiskers and moustaches horribly into the shade. Talk of owls! I never saw any one stare like you. This, my young friend, is a cup of tea, and this is a hard-boiled egg—the best choti haziri our chaps can manage—and the animal beside you, looking astonished at your laziness, is your horse, vulgarly termed a quad. But give me your hand, old boy, and let me haul you up to take part in this ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... is the name of that young gentleman whose jacket is so out at the elbows; he has been intending to mend it these last two months; but is too lazy to go to his chest for another. He has been turned out of half the ships in the service for laziness; but he was born so—and therefore it is not his fault. A revenue-cutter suits him, she is half her time hove to; and he has no objection to boat-service, as he sits down always in the stern-sheets, which is not fatiguing. Creeping for tubs is his delight, as he gets over so little ground. He is ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Judge Trent; "I was just telling Miss Lacey I should go up and knock on her door. She assures me that laziness is not one of my ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... is of all domestic animals the gentlest and most docile. We are warlike in France, and we are citizens. Another reason to be proud, this being a citizen! For the poor it consists in sustaining and preserving the wealthy in their power and their laziness. The poor must work for this, in presence of the majestic quality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread. That is one of the good effects ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... the negro laborers were satisfied as long as it lasted. The owners of the land, under this system, would furnish the indispensable mule and the farming implements, and take one half the product. The planters themselves relinquished this system. Some of them contend that the laziness and indifference of the negro made the partnership undesirable; many others admit that they were not able to advance the negro tenant his supplies pending the growth of the year's crop, as it was necessary they should do under the sharing system. Now the renting system is almost ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... missing below here," muttered Shep. "Ham and his crowd were too lazy to cut firewood, so they used the board. If that isn't the height of laziness and meanness!" ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... The primary difficulty, of course, is to reach a classification. The one adopted by Mr. Warner in his book on American charities is: 1. Causes indicating misconduct; 2. Causes indicating misfortune. Under the first head come drink, immorality, laziness, shiftlessness and inefficiency, crime and dishonesty, a roving disposition. Under the second head come lack of normal support, matters of employment, matters of personal capacity, such as sickness or death in family, etc. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... have a king, she had slaves; oh, dozens and dozens of error-fairies, to do her will. Creepin' shadders they was, too, till somebody listened to 'em and give 'em a backbone. There's—let me see"—the apple woman looked off to jog her memory—"there's Laziness, Selfishness, Backbitin', Cruelty—oh, I ain't got time to tell 'em all; an' not one mite o' harm in one of 'em, only for some silly mortal that listens and gives the creetur a backbone. They jest lop over an' melt away, the whole batch of 'em, when Love comes near. She knows what ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... more than good speed. The rapidity with which he insisted on travelling, bred several disputes between him and the party whom he had hired to attend him as a guard. These men were Saxons, and not free by any means from the national love of ease and good living which the Normans stigmatized as laziness and gluttony. Reversing Shylock's position, they had accepted the employment in hopes of feeding upon the wealthy Jew, and were very much displeased when they found themselves disappointed, by the rapidity with which he insisted on their proceeding. They remonstrated ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... we better get out of here;" Mr. Ade's Artie, a Chicago clerk, says, "I got a boost in my pay," meaning "I have got:" the locution is very common indeed. It is no more defensible than "swelp me" for "so help me." It arises from sheer laziness, unwillingness to face the infinitesimal difficulty of pronouncing, "d" and "b" together. As a colloquialism it is all very well; but I regard it with a certain alarm, for where all trace of a word disappears, people are apt to forget the logical ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... he would say to his brother, "what a pleasure this rural laziness is to me. Not an idea in one's brain, as empty ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... habits of laziness, untidiness, extravagance, voice, gestures, clothing, to gain ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... and work without being driven by the contractor's foreman. They are not encouraged to work more than eight hours a day; but as what they get depends on what they do, they do not dawdle during those hours, and if one man in a group should prove a loafer, his comrades, who have to suffer for his laziness, soon get rid of him. The tendency is for first-class men to join together, and for second-class men to similarly arrange themselves. Sometimes, of course, the officers, in making estimates of the price to be paid for work, make mistakes, and men will earn extravagantly high wages, or get very ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Chypre) brought me into closer contact with that composer, and was the means of procuring me many an enlivening talk with that peculiarly good- hearted and really unassuming man, whose talent, alas, declined all too soon. Schlesinger, in fact, was exasperated at his incorrigible laziness. Halevy, who had looked through my piano score, contemplated several changes with a view to making it easier, but he did not proceed with them: Schlesinger could not get the proof-sheets back; ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... forward to seeing, at least during the interim, their friend in clean clothes, and reading "his copy" in the best journals. But the luxury of having a fixed place to sleep in, stimulated, not industry, but vicious laziness of the most ineradicable kind. Henceforth Sands abandoned all effort to help himself. Uncombed, unwashed, in dirty clothes, he lay in an arm-chair through all the morning, rising from time to time to mess some paint into the appearance of some incoherent landscape, or to rasp out some ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... stowed away among her domestic implements, furs, robes, blankets, and painted cases of PAR' FLECHE, in which dried meat is kept. Here she sat from sunrise to sunset, a bloated impersonation of gluttony and laziness, while her affectionate proprietor was smoking, or begging petty gifts from us, or telling lies concerning his own achievements, or perchance engaged in the more profitable occupation of cooking some preparation of prairie delicacies. Reynal was an adept ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... bear. To her mind, trained in all the minutiae of domestic economy, the Warden family lived in careless wastefulness. That five women—for Dora was older than she had been when she began to do housework—should require servants, seemed to this New England-born girl mere laziness and pride. That two voting women over twenty should prefer being supported by their brother to supporting themselves, she condemned even more sharply. Moreover, she felt well assured that with a different family to "support," Mr. Warden would never have broken down so suddenly and ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... must have grown steeper in parts since he was Curdie's age. His back was to the light of the sunset, which closed him all round in a beautiful setting, and Curdie thought what a grand-looking man his father was, even when he was tired. It is greed and laziness and selfishness, not hunger or weariness or cold, that take the dignity out of a man, and ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... then? OUR fault—the fault of our wills and our souls. Our souls were intended to be the masters of our flesh, to conquer all the weaknesses, defilements of our constitution—our tempers, our cowardice, our laziness, our hastiness, our nervousness, our vanity, our love of pleasure—to listen to our spirits, because our spirits learn from God's Spirit what is right and noble. But if we let our flesh master us, and obey its own blind lusts, we sin against God; and we sin against God doubly; ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... life—the honeymoon, as people called it. To taste the full sweetness of it, it would have been necessary doubtless to fly to those lands with sonorous names where the days after marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post chaises behind blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep road, listening to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the mountains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled sound of a waterfall; at sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the perfume ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... to get some fishing this morning, I fancy," I said. "And possibly I shall idle a good deal, for my time with you here is shortening, and I want to have a great store of laziness behind me for memory, when I've got ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... am too stupid still to begin vexing myself over it. I suppose energy and power of considering will come when my heart does not flutter so. In the meantime, I only want to keep quiet, and I hope that's not all laziness, but some trust in Him who has helped me ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... would be changed into a harmless form if there were a censor. One night I dreamt that an acquaintance, Murray, was dead. The first association to Murray was: "He's a lazy sort of chap." I think that all he stood for was laziness, and he was merely my own laziness symbolised. The dream was a hint to me to be up and doing, for I had been neglecting a task ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... sensations of our animal loss or well-being to become spiritual perceptions, and had they to be created by thought, how often would the soul be obscured by the overwhelming blaze of passion; how often stifled by laziness and stupidity; how often overlooked in the absorptions and distractions of business! Further, would not, in this case, the most perfect knowledge of his economy be demanded of the animal man—would not the child need to be a master ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sight. The women would bring their pretty brown babies for the fair English lady to admire or to pat on the head; and when Muriel now and again stooped down to caress some fat little naked child, lolling in the dust outside the hut, with true tropical laziness, the mothers would run up at the sight with delight and joy, and throw themselves down in ecstacies of gratitude for the notice she had taken of their favored little ones. "The gods of Heaven," they would say, with every sign of pleasure, "have ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... 'bout mendin', an' sech—she air enough ter skeer any man away. An' Justus knows jes' what sech laziness means. Kin mend clothes hisse'f ez good ez the nex' one, an' useter do it too, strong an' taut, with a double thread, whenst the fambly war leetle chil'n an' gin ter bustin' out'n ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... since he never reached his fiftieth year. Before his death, Yakov had already entered the university in the faculty of physics and mathematics; he did not, however, complete his course; not through laziness, but because, according to his notions, you could learn no more in the university than you could studying alone at home; and he did not go in for a diploma because he had no idea of entering the government service. He was shy with his fellow-students, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... Freedom from the idea of meum, freedom from egoism, freedom from expectations, looking on all with an equal eye, and freedom from desire,—these constitute the eternal religion of the good. Confidence, modesty, forgiveness, renunciation, purity, absence of laziness, absence of cruelty, absence of delusion, compassion to all creatures, absence of the disposition to calumniate, exultation, satisfaction, rapture, humility, good behaviour, purity in all acts having for their object the attainment of tranquillity, righteous ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that their goings-on are excellently entertaining; though I cannot but think that to give both his leading lady and his soubrette, or Singing Chambermaid, the handicap of morally deficient young brothers, does look like laziness on the part of Mr. CAINE. Surely there exist other avenues to calamity. But it's an amusing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... whether to reckon the Peucini, Venedi, and Fenni among the Germans or Sarmatians; [267] although the Peucini, [268] who are by some called Bastarnae, agree with the Germans in language, apparel, and habitations. [269] All of them live in filth and laziness. The intermarriages of their chiefs with the Sarmatians have debased them by a mixture of the manners of that people. [270] The Venedi have drawn much from this source; [271] for they overrun in their predatory excursions all ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... correct and which answer the question as well as the answer the teacher seeks from the pupil. Such questioning comes either from lack of clearness and definiteness in the teacher's thinking, with a consequent uncertainty as what he really does mean to ask, or else from a mental laziness which shrinks from the effort necessary to ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... didn't you take it to him last night? Because of your damned laziness, I suppose. Do you think I give you wages for you to choose your own hours, and come dawdling up a quarter of ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... weak and the conquered, and enslave him for his own use, shunting the toil and burden of life upon his bowed shoulders. Through long ages he had to work out this wrong premiss in disaster to empires through the laziness and worthlessness of their ruling classes engendered by slave labor, in the dumb suffering and bitter wrongs of millions of enslaved men and women. Through centuries the Church protested against these wrongs in vain, since the evil root, in the face of all ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... to be twice bidden. The terrible result of his fling of just resentment sobered him completely. He knew, better than any one on board, how nearly the Good Hope had gone bodily down below their feet; and he could tell, by the laziness with which she met the sea, that the peril was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Floyd is here," said Mr. Floyd when we were through breakfast, "I shall indulge in laziness no longer, but shall sit by and see him work." And the result was that for the next two weeks he and my mother, Helen and I, all sat in Mr. Raymond's study for an hour or two every morning and looked over his papers. Two or three times Mr. Wickham the lawyer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... natural inert laziness and ignorance of the people is their own and their country's bane. They are all totally unaware of the treasures at their feet. This dreadful sloth is in part engendered by the excessive bounty of the land in its natural ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... laughing. "Give me a man of thy humor, Hezekiah Negus, who rightly apprehends the value of time, and the danger of keeping his superiors dependent on his laziness." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... habits? Yes, yes. You agree with me. You take the allegory? Alas! at our time of life we don't like to give up those old habits, do we? It is ill to change. There is the good old loose, easy, slovenly bedgown, laziness, for example. What man of sense likes to fling it off and put on a tight guinde prim dress-coat that pinches him? There is the cozy wraprascal, self-indulgence—how easy it is! How warm! How it always seems to fit! ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... are laid gently on the reposing bed; somebody brings a narghile, which tastes as tobacco must taste in Mahomet's Paradise; a cool sweet dreamy languor takes possession of the purified frame; and half-an- hour of such delicious laziness is spent over the pipe as is unknown in Europe, where vulgar prejudice has most shamefully maligned indolence—calls it foul names, such as the father of all evil, and the like; in fact, does not know how to educate idleness as those honest Turks do, and the fruit which, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... little less "anyhow" than they are now, in that the volumes of any particular work were at least together, but that is all that can be claimed for them. For years I put off the business of tidying them up, just as I am putting it off now. It is not laziness; it is simply that I ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... accomplishing prior to the middle of the seventeenth century. It is what English may be able to accomplish in the middle of the twentieth century, if we once awaken to the danger of contaminating our speech with unassimilated words, and to the disgrace, which our stupidity or laziness must bring upon us, of addressing the world in a pudding-stone and piebald language. Dr. Bradley has warned us that 'the pedantry that would bid us reject the word fittest for our purpose because it is ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... and in reading these it was but natural that he should be led to write stories. First came "John Sherman" and "Dhoya" in 1891, the one a condensed novel with the slightest of plots about a slow-pulsed young man's troubles with love and laziness in Sligo and London, and the other a sketch of Irish faery in old time. Some of the sketches of "The Celtic Twilight" (1893) approach the tale, but such narrations are not told for their own sake, but ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... to do cuneiform writing on a dab of clay, like the Babylonish king," Ken said; "all spikey and cut in, instead of sticking out; much worse than Braille. Go to it, and let Mother sit here, laziness." ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... "It's sheer laziness. I went to see her last Christmas and she was bursting with health. Her doctor told me himself that there was nothing wrong with her whatever. But she will insist that she's a hopeless invalid, so he has to ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... wet with an April shower. "How delicious, after such a mental sirocco, to feel the pure air and hear the birds sing, and look upon the flowers and blossoms, and sit here, and bask in the sun from laziness to walk into the shade. You must needs acknowledge, Mary, that spring in England is a much more amiable season ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... Russian governor, for Anadyrsk, intending to engage there fifty or sixty native labourers and begin at once the construction of station-houses and the cutting and distribution of poles along the Anadyr River. My own efforts to that end, owing to the laziness of the Anadyrsk people, had been unsuccessful; but it was hoped that through the influence and cooperation of the civil authority something might ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... won't." The curling line of her lips, as they closed on each other, said all the rest; all the cruel truths about his unspeakable, inane, coarse follies, his laziness, his excesses, his lies, his deceptions, his bad faith, his truculence, his improvidence, his shameful waste and ruin of his life and hers. She doubted whether he realized his baseness and her wrongs, but if he could not ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... am now at leisure, And in the country taking pleasure, It may be worth your while to hear A silly footman's business there; I'll try to tell in easy rhyme How I in London spent my time. And first, As soon as laziness would let me I rise from bed, and down I sit me To cleaning glasses, knives, and plate, And such like dirty work as that, Which (by the bye) is what I hate! This done, with expeditious care To dress myself I straight prepare, I clean my buckles, black my shoes, Powder my wig ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... loaded with children and baskets, sit in the shade of the knobby trees which stretch their trunk-like branches horizontally over the beach, forming a natural roof against sun and rain. The half-grown boys are too lively to enjoy contemplative laziness; gossip and important deliberations about pigs and sacrifices do not interest them, and they play about between the canoes, wade in the water, look for shells on the sand, or hunt crabs or fish in the reef. Thus ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... lash and flicked a flake of skin from her naked shoulder. It stung me as if I had been hit instead. The master halted the file and jumped from his horse. He stormed and swore at this girl, and said she had made annoyance enough with her laziness, and as this was the last chance he should have, he would settle the account now. She dropped on her knees and put up her hands and began to beg, and cry, and implore, in a passion of terror, but the master gave no attention. He snatched the child from her, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is mere laziness. Berkeley wants to witness a display of your forensic wisdom. A learned counsel may be in a fog—he very often is—but he doesn't state the fact baldly; he wraps it up in a decent verbal disguise. Tell us how you arrive at your conclusion. ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... 15 years of age, but I have known some under 10 and a few over 15. Each is compelled by hobo law to let his jocker do with him as he will, and many, I fear, learn to enjoy his treatment of them. They are also expected to beg in every town they come to, any laziness on their ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... are shortened, not by natural and gradual shrinkage, but by deliberate laziness. The national distaste for many syllables appears in wire for telegram, the Artful Dodger's wipe for the clumsy pocket handkerchief, soccer for association, and such portmanteau words as squarson, an individual ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... in bed wid nothin' to do but to circulate yer symtems. I put a spell on yer when I nuss you an' feed you an' s'port you an' spile the life plumb outen you. I ain't claimin' 't wasn't rheumatism in the fust place, but it's a spell now, all right—a spell I did lay on yer, a spell of laziness pure ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... New York, I told him, Now here's your chance to see the world on a big scale. You know already what work and saving and steady habits and sense will bring a man, to; you don't want to go round among the rich; you want to go among the poor, and see what laziness and drink and dishonesty and foolishness will bring men to. And I guess he knows, about as well as anybody; and if he ever goes to preaching he'll know what he's preaching about." The old man smiled his fierce, simple smile, and in his sharp eyes March fancied contempt of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... best things the generous goddess had to bestow, but whose brain had been somewhat overlooked in the distribution of intellectual gifts. Sir Michael Audley made that mistake which is very commonly made by easy-going, well-to-do-observers, who have no occasion to look below the surface. He mistook laziness for incapacity. He thought because his nephew was idle, he must necessarily be stupid. He concluded that if Robert did not distinguish himself, it was because he ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... to be cut, from the product of ten jail deliveries, and nobody dares to cut them, for want of the proper warrant; archbishoprics there are to be filled; and, because they are not filled, the whole nation is running helter skelter into heresy—and all in consequence of your majesty's sacred laziness." Our governments were less remissly administered; since each of us, by continued reports of improvements and gracious concessions to the folly or the weakness of our subjects, stimulated the zeal of his rival. And ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... objects which move both my spleen and laughter so effectually as those young fellows at the Greecian, Squire's, Searle's, and all other coffee-houses adjacent to the law, who rise early for no other purpose but to publish their laziness. One would think these young virtuosos take a gay cap and slippers, with a scarf and party-coloured gown, to be ensigns of dignity; for the vain things approach each other with an air which shews they regard one another for their vestments. ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... capitalists their selfishness and brutality may take the form of hard indifference to suffering, greedy disregard of every moral restraint which interferes with the accumulation of wealth, and cold-blooded exploitation of the weak; or, if they are laborers, the form of laziness, of sullen envy of the more fortunate, and of willingness to perform deeds of murderous violence. Such conduct is just as reprehensible in one case as in the other, and all honest and farseeing men should join in warring against it wherever it becomes manifest. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... weren't disturbed by the music?' Ponto says. 'My girls, you know, practise four hours a day, you know—must do it, you know—absolutely necessary. As for me, you know I'm an early man, and in my farm every morning at five—no, no laziness for ME.' ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that, although Freudian "repression" undoubtedly occurs and is important, it is not the usual reason for unconsciousness of our wishes. The usual reason is merely that wishes are all, to begin with, unconscious, and only become known when they are actively noticed. Usually, from laziness, people do not notice, but accept the theory of human nature which they find current, and attribute to themselves whatever wishes this theory would lead them to expect. We used to be full of virtuous wishes, but since Freud ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... those from the United States are called) and Englishmen, who are fast filling up the principal towns, and getting the trade into their hands, are indeed more industrious and effective than the Mexicans; yet their children are brought up Mexicans in most respects, and if the "California fever'' (laziness) spares the first generation, it is likely to attack ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... a large, untidy woman who always gave the impression of needing to be tucked up. The end of her gray braid hung out behind one ear, her waist hung out of her belt, and even the buttons on her shoes hung out of the buttonholes in shameless laziness. ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... expected it you have both remembered me, so inherent it is in your family not to forget an old servant. It looks rather like ingratitude on my part, that where I have been so often obliged, I have appeared so seldom to return my thanks, and where I was also so sure of being well received. Somewhat of laziness was in the case, and somewhat too of modesty; but nothing of disrespect or of unthankfulness. I will not say that your lordship has encouraged me to this presumption, lest, if my labours meet with no success in public, I may expose your judgment to be censured. ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... clink of milk-bottles set down by the back-door, the whole complex machinery of life begin anew! Gissing was amazed now, looking back upon his previous existence, to see himself so busy, so active. Few people are really lazy, he thought: what we call laziness is merely maladjustment. For in any department of life where one is genuinely interested, he will be zealous beyond belief. Certainly he had not dreamed, until he became (in a manner of speaking) a parent, that he had in him such capacity ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... idea. He thought the sand would dig easier, and laziness guided every act of his life. That was five years ago, son, that this lower trail was made, and for the reasons I have just given you. No, I can't tell you any more personal experiences ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... the French soil, and, worst of all, over the hearts and minds of the French people. Enterprise was deadened; invention crippled. Honesty was nothing; honor everything. Life was of little value. Labor was the badge of servility; laziness the very badge and passport of gentility. The serf-owning spirit was an iron wall between noble and not-noble,—the only unyielding wall ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary distractions are thoughts which the mind freely and directly embraces to the exclusion of pious thoughts which should occupy it in prayer, of which the office is a high form; or they may be thoughts which arise from previous laziness, thoughtlessness, pre-occupation or some engrossing worldly affair. Involuntary distractions are those which come unbidden and unsought to the mind, are neither placed directly, nor by their causes, by the person ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... boy, Kit, to say such nice things," said Mrs. Graham, smiling. "But you're all nice boys to take an old lady like me with you, and stand for all my laziness and tantrums." ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... aspect, Saint Eucher compares it to a saint, and the Anonymous Monk of Clairvaux identifies the Devil with the ox. The poor ass is no better treated by Hugh of Saint Victor, who accuses it of stupidity, by Saint Gregory the Great, who taxes it with laziness, and Peter of Capua, who speaks of its lust. It must, however; be observed that Saint Melito compares it with Christ for its humility, and that the exegetists explain the ass's foal ridden by Christ on Palm Sunday as an image of the Gentiles, as they interpret the she-ass ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... only about half that which had been contracted for. The company, though not without grudging, paid the poet the stipulated share of profit; and the curious document, recovered by Mr. Malone, not only establishes the terms of the bargain, but that the players, although they complained of the laziness of their indented author, were jealous of their right to his works, and anxious to retain possession of him, and of them.[26] It would have been well for Dryden's reputation, and perhaps not less productive to ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... cases of unusual laziness or eccentric ambition, most men would elect to do a full day's work for a full day's pay. For these, who would form the immense majority, the important thing is that ordinary work should, as far as possible, afford interest and independence and scope for initiative. ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... cordially did he hate his prescribed duties. A story is said to have been related to a gentleman by the Duke de Liancourt, of two turnspits employed in his kitchen, who had to take their turns every other day to get into the wheel. One of them, in a fit of laziness, hid himself on the day he should have worked, so that his companion was forced to mount the wheel in his stead, who, when his employment was over, began crying and wagging his tail, and making signs for those ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... it at all," answered Mendouca carelessly. "Her people are getting their supper, probably, and are too lazy to start tack or sheet until they have finished their meal. Bless you, you have no idea what lazy rascals the Portuguese are; their laziness is absolutely phenomenal; they are positively too lazy to live long, and so most of them die early. More over, I expect her skipper is still below poring over his charts and trying to make up what he is pleased ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... delirium might be in his own mind, but there is no delirium here. Neither does it seem to me that a certain university president expresses things with any more wisdom or effectiveness, when he says that it "impressed him with its infinite laziness." Lazy? When once, in the far-distant past, after rising from the primeval sea, it sank back again and deposited twelve thousand feet of strata, then lifted them out into the sunshine, carved eleven thousand feet of them away, and sent them dashing down the ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... unfortunately on the wrong side; and backed by the collective ignorance, pride, laziness, and superstition of Aberalva, showed to his new assailant that terrible front of stupidity, against which, says Schiller, "the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... to see me act like I was." He rose swiftly, his laziness falling from him now that there was work to do. "Go and fetch in them cayuses. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... the daily Perusal of those Gentlemen whom I cannot but consider as my good Brothers and Allies, I mean the Fraternity of Spectators who live in the World without having any thing to do in it; and either by the Affluence of their Fortunes, or Laziness of their Dispositions, have no other Business with the rest of Mankind but to look upon them. Under this Class of Men are comprehended all contemplative Tradesmen, titular Physicians, Fellows of the Royal Society, Templers that are not given to be ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... replied he of the keys, "the garb of laziness and filthy debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you not, idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and that the abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to Master Robert ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... the young rascal ought to be out of his bed in time for breakfast," he retorted with affected brusqueness. "He has all the Italian laziness in him." ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... letter in due time, and should have answered it in due season, if I had not been prevented, as L—— conjectures, by laziness. The money was very acceptable to me, and will last me till the end of the term, which is three weeks from next Wednesday. I shall then have finished one half of my college life.... I suppose your farm prospers, and ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... the peak itself quite invisible. My boys are quite demoralised by the cold. I find most of them have sold the blankets I gave them out at Buana; and those who have not sold them have left them behind at Buea, from laziness perhaps, but more possibly from a confidence in their powers to ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... perhaps, this strangeness that attracted Paul Trenchard. He was, above everything, a kindly man-kindly, perhaps a little through laziness, but nevertheless moved always by distress or misfortune in others. Maggie was not distressed—she was quite cheerful and entirely unsentimental—nevertheless she had been very ill, was almost penniless, had ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... the life of the dear little joyous creatures, soaring in the blue depths of Heaven; she would even weep bitterly over the dead birds. But if he came home empty-handed, she found fault with his awkwardness and laziness, which obliged them to be content with fish and crabs for dinner. Either way, he took delight in her pretty fits of anger; the more so as she rarely failed to make up for them by the fondest caresses afterwards. The old folks, having been ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... last night at Lady Buckingham's, and am ashamed of my laziness in not going. I dine with his Lordship on Saturday, and to-day I am going with Mie Mie and Mrs. W(ebb) to Mr. Gregg's, who has got a little ball for a dozen children of her age, because it is the birthday of ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... on his mantelpiece. It was probably this fact that decided Ashe. If he had been compelled to postpone his visit to the offices of Messrs. Mainprice, Mainprice & Boole until the afternoon, it is possible that barriers of laziness might have reared themselves in the path of adventure; for Ashe, an adventurer at heart, was also uncommonly lazy. As it was, however, he could make ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... wonderful things, Daisy," he remarked, throwing himself back upon the moss with his hands under his head. His cap fell off; his blue eyes looked at her with a sort of contented laziness; never sleepily. ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... amount of grass and the grouping of the trees give it a park-like appearance, and the gentle slopes of the verdant mountains remove all wildness from the scene. It is a pleasant spot to halt at. A little nook which while it charms the eye, only suggests peaceful laziness. My coolies sit at a short distance, singing through their noses Kashmirian songs. There is much more melody in their music than in that of their brethren of Hindoostan. Indeed some of the tunes admit ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... The "laziness" of her husband, as Mrs. Parker did not hesitate so call it, annoyed his good wife. She did not find things any easier—she could not retire from business. In fact, the new order of things made her a great ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... and Why Taboo in Schools Alleged Novelties in Modern Schools What is to be Done? Children's Rights and Duties Should Children Earn their Living? Children's Happiness The Horror of the Perpetual Holiday University Schoolboyishness The New Laziness The Infinite School Task The Rewards and Risks of Knowledge English Physical Hardihood and Spiritual Cowardice The Risks of Ignorance and Weakness The Common Sense of Toleration The Sin of Athanasius The Experiment Experimenting Why We Loathe Learning ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... well and then rolling on the grass—ask him if there were ever such a day as that, when even the bees were diving deep down into the cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had made up their minds to retire from business and be manufacturers of honey no more. The day was made for laziness, and lying on one's back in green places, and staring at the sky till its brightness forced one to shut one's eyes and go to sleep; and was this a time to be poring over musty books in a dark room, slighted by ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... for, for the last thirty years, I have been throwing my letters and bills pell-mell into the same desk, and this confusion has often caused me considerable trouble. But I feel such moral and physical laziness at the sole idea of putting anything in order that I have never had the courage to begin this ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... soil for a speculative Joint Stock Company, at a weekly wage that would have made an European peasant independent for half a year. Yet there was no enthusiasm in their labor, although it was seldom marked by absolute laziness or evasion, and was more often hindered by ill-regulated "spurts" and excessive effort, as if the laborer was anxious to get through with it; for in the few confidences they exchanged there was little allusion to the present, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... your brief epistle; and, to take vengeance on your laziness, I have, you see, taken a long sheet of writing-paper, and have begun at the top of the page, intending to scribble on to the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... many pastors and preachers are very negligent in this, and slight both their office and this teaching; some from great and high art [giving their mind, as they imagine, to much higher matters], but others from sheer laziness and care for their paunches, assuming no other relation to this business than if they were pastors and preachers for their bellies' sake, and had nothing to do but to [spend and] consume their emoluments as long ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... mistake that many young people make—don't be offended: I did the same thing—and usually on account of laziness. It is more convenient to imagine one's self soaring over the distant mountain top than to lift a foot and step over the stone just in front of one. Of all the million things that you would like to do there are only a very few that you can do. ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... the Privy Councils, and have no more time to hunt. Some persons thought he did this from motives of policy and to make the King believe he had no ambition; but I am persuaded it was from nothing but indolence and laziness; he loved to live a slothful life, and to interfere ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... had dug ten fathom deep and could find no water, they had liberty to fetch a pitcherful of four gallons and a half in a day from their neighbors'; for he thought it prudent to make provision against want, but not to supply laziness. He showed skill in his orders about planting, for any one that would plant another tree was not to set it within five feet of his neighbor's field; but if a fig or an olive, not within nine; for their roots spread farther, nor ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the soul, that you will excuse me, I hope, for the sake of the result. Besides this is a story which has just been told to me. And now you ask me for one. The opportunity is too good to be missed for one of my laziness ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... nation we may be allowed to call attention to the fact, that in the accounts of the ancients as to the Celts on the Loire and Seine we find almost every one of the characteristic traits which we are accustomed to recognize as marking the Irish. Every feature reappears: the laziness in the culture of the fields; the delight in tippling and brawling; the ostentation—we may recall that sword of Caesar hung up in the sacred grove of the Arverni after the victory of Gergovia, which its alleged ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... OF THE FALL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. All created spirits must develop. When they have done so, they attain perfection and make way for new dispensations and worlds.[767] In the exercise of their freedom, however, disobedience, laxity, laziness, and failure make their appearance among them in an endless multiplicity of ways.[768] The disciplining and purifying of these spirits was the purpose for which the material world was created by God.[769] It is therefore a place ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... was the prompt response, "generally when I'm lying down at night in the bush, looking up at the stars. And I daresay it does 'denote laziness,' as Aunt Elizabeth says. But at the same time I think it really doesn't matter to God whether one is lying down or sitting up, or on one's knees ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... doubt that it often does so; and it is well that we should see this sometimes, to make us strong to contend with evil before it works out this, its worst mischief, and to rouse us from the easy optimist laziness which sits idle while others are being wronged, and bids them believe 'that all will come right in the end,' when it is our direct duty to do our utmost to ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... allowing a certain number of days between each demand, and the latter is not able to persuade anyone to redeem him, he becomes, by the custom of the country, a pure slave, upon the creditor's giving notice to the chief of the transaction. This is the resource he has against the laziness or untoward behaviour of his debtor, who might otherwise, in the state of mengiring, be only a burden to him. If the children of a deceased debtor are too young to be of service the charge of their maintenance is added to the debt. This opens a door for many iniquitous practices, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... and laziness and selfishness, the Marchesa was not devoid of tact, least of all where her own ends were concerned, and when she took the trouble to have any object in life at all. She saw in her daughter's face that something had annoyed her, and she at once determined that no reference ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... wild dances of their women, whose outlandish garb was rendered still more effective by the pieces of red stuff cut into hearts and sewed all over their skirts. "These caravans of strange beings, who preserve under every sky their dreamy laziness, their rebellion against the yoke, their love of solitude," had always possessed an irresistible charm for him, and he had never understood the scorn and disgust of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... all those to whom the law of the completion of man through the good is indeed foolish and chimerical, since their lives imply the negation of it: I mean to say the immense multitude of those who live in any kind of way, good easy people, refined possibly, from caprice, coquetry or laziness, but in complete ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... good!" replied the pendulum; "it is vastly easy for you, Mistress Dial, who have always, as everybody knows, set yourself up above me,—it is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness! You, who have had nothing to do, all the days of your life, but to stare people in the face, and to amuse yourself with watching all that goes ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... and detailed process, is the most perfect and exalted elaboration of the human mind, and when protracted is a painful exertion; indeed, the greater portion of our species reluctantly submit to the toil and lassitude of reflection; but from laziness, or incapacity, and perhaps in some instances from diffidence, they suffer themselves to be directed by the opinions of others. Hence has arisen the swarm of critics and reviewers, those clouds that obscure the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... his favourite expletive till it sounded ferocious, "That ain't quare feelin's. That's just plain old-fashioned laziness. You git yo'self back thar and tend them ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... that, in respect of sham and real histories, a similar fact may be noticed; the sham story appearing a great deal more agreeable, life-like, and natural than the true one: and all who, from laziness as well as principle, are inclined to follow the easy and comfortable study of novels, may console themselves with the notion that they are studying matters quite as important as history, and that their favorite duodecimos are as instructive as the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from serious organic troubles. Unquestionably the great mass of the people are underfed. This is largely due to the poor quality of the rice which they consume, and to the fact that rice forms too large a part of their diet. I am firmly convinced that much of the so-called laziness of the Filipinos is the direct result of physical weakness due to improper ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... it is true, he became convinced, even in the chill dwellings of real poverty, that this was hardly ever entirely unmerited. Where it had not been brought about by laziness, frivolity, or drink, its source was to be found in ignorance or incapacity, in other words, in an inefficient equipment for the battle of life. He judged all these circumstances, however, to be the outward and visible signs of obscure natural laws, and that ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau |
