"Procrastinate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... going into the country, he might, possibly, consent to carry Wallace along with him. I confided greatly in the salutary influence of rural airs. I believed that debility constituted the whole of his complaint; that continuance in the city might occasion his relapse, or, at least, procrastinate his restoration. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... for his house in Beaufort Buildings being unpaid, and for which he had been demanded again and again [we may remember how Mr. Luckless' door was "almost beat down with duns"]...he was at last given to understand by the collector who had an esteem for him, that he could procrastinate the payment no longer." To a bookseller, therefore he addressed himself, and mortgaged the coming sheets of some work then in hand. He received the cash, some ten or twelve guineas, and was returning home, full freighted with this sum, when, in the Strand, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... closely embraced, Of her lily-white fingers the other made capture, And he press'd his adored to his bosom with rapture, "And, oh!" he exclaim'd, "let them go catch my skiff, I'll be home in a twinkling and back in a jiffy, Nor one moment procrastinate longer my journey Than to put up the bans and kick ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... procrastinate, others may plead for further diplomatic negotiations, which means delay; but for me, I am ready to act now, and for my action I am ready to answer to my conscience, my ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... they do?" he went on irritably. "What did they do but procrastinate, knowing we wanted it! Put us off. Postponed a decision. Practically refused to give it to us, knowing we wanted it! Other things came up in the meantime, so we did not press them, and the matter dropped for a number of ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... turn up, or if Mr. Shuttleworthy wouldn't come in the natural way, and explain his reasons for sending his horse on before. I dare say you have often observed this disposition to temporize, or to procrastinate, in people who are labouring under any very poignant sorrow. Their powers of mind seem to be rendered torpid, so that they have a horror of any thing like action, and like nothing in the world so well as to lie quietly in bed and "nurse their grief," as the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... is a state of greater happiness than the unoccupied one, to which you had a thought of retiring. I wish the bulk of my extravagant countrymen had as good prospects and resources as you. But with many of them, a feebleness of mind makes them afraid to probe the true state of their affairs, and procrastinate the reformation which alone can save something, to those who may yet be saved. How happy a people were we during the war, from the single circumstance that we could not run in debt! This counteracted all the inconveniences we felt, as the present facility of ruining ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... deceitful, misleading, fallacious, fraudulent. Decorate, adorn, ornament, embellish, deck, bedeck, garnish, bedizen, beautify. Decorous, demure, sedate, sober, staid, prim, proper. Deface, disfigure, mar, mutilate. Defect, fault, imperfection, disfigurement, blemish, flaw. Delay, defer, postpone, procrastinate. Demoralize, deprave, debase, corrupt, vitiate. Deportment, demeanor, bearing, port, mien. Deprive, divest, dispossess, strip, despoil. Despise, contemn, scorn, disdain. Despondency, despair, desperation. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... I have to crawl while others walk. I have to wait and procrastinate, where another might ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... inaction, but threatens you, and utters (as we are told) haughty language: for he is not the man to rest content in possession of his conquests: he is always casting his net wider; and while we procrastinate and sit idle, he is setting his toils around us on every side. {10} When, then, men of Athens, when, I say, will you take the action that is required? What are you waiting for? 'We are waiting,' ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes |
