"Pusillanimity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... concern us in the least. We approve of the project and will see that it is carried out. We have spent a good deal of money arming ourselves; and we are not going to have that money thrown away through the pusillanimity of ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... matters ecclesiastical he was at variance with his subjects. What caused, if possible, an even deeper feeling of anger than his interference in church matters, was his claim to influence the decisions of the law courts. The pusillanimity of the great mass of the judges hindered them from opposing his outrageous claims, and the people saw with indignation and amazement the royal power becoming infinitely greater and more extended than anything to which Henry VIII. or even Elizabeth had laid claim. The negotiations ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... neutrality in it." Jefferson, whose own account this is, did not mention that he raised any objection to the wording of the proclamation at the time, though a few months later he referred to it in his private correspondence as a piece of "pusillanimity," because it omitted any expression of the affection of America for France. The proclamation was issued on April 22, two weeks after the arrival of Genet at Charleston. The procedure that had been adopted at Jefferson's ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... very thought, and hidden it even from herself, as being unworthy in one of her station to love a man so lowly-born as Caron. But now, on the eve of his death, the truth would no longer be denied. It cried, perchance, the louder by virtue of the pusillanimity of the craven below stairs in whose place Caron was to die; but anyhow, it cried so loudly that it overbore the stern voice of the blood that had hitherto urged her to exclude the sentiment from her heart. No account ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... cowardice, without getting credit for voluntary concession. But yet his behaviour on many trying occasions effectually vindicate him from the charge of timidity, and showed that the unwillingness to shed blood, by which he was peculiarly distinguished, arose from benevolence, not from pusillanimity. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... was hauled alongside. The first to appear was the major, still wearing his blanket, which he had forgotten to throw aside, and not recollecting the curious figure he cut. His own officers turned from him, disgusted at what they supposed his pusillanimity and his desertion of them and his men; while the naval officers only laughed at his unusual and somewhat absurd costume. He was followed by his two daughters, Mrs Major Bubsby bringing up the rear, though it might have been wiser in her to have ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... believe that this unhistoried continent,—this virgin leaf in the great diary of man's conquest over the planet, on which our fathers wrote two words of epic grandeur,—Plymouth and Bunker Hill,—is to bear for its colophon the record of men who inherited greatness and left it pusillanimity,—a republic, and made it anarchy,—freedom, and were content as serfs,—of men who, born to the noblest estate of grand ideas and fair expectancies the world had ever seen, bequeathed the sordid price of them in gold. The change is sad 'twixt Now and Then: the Great Republic is without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... "that suggestion does you little credit and appeals neither to the Raffles nor to the Holmes in me. Pusillanimity was a word which neither of my forebears could ever learn to use. It was too long, for one thing, and besides that it was ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes: it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... deaf; and the more so that it is just Isaiah who so frequently speaks of spiritual blindness and deafness; comp. chap. xxix. 18: "And in that day (in the time of the future salvation, when the Lord of the Church shall have put to shame the pusillanimity and timidity of His people), the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind see out of obscurity and darkness;" xlii. 18: "Hear ye deaf, and look ye blind and see;" xliii. 8: "Bring forth the blind people, that ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... difference of the climate, it is impossible to mistake the likeness between the Greek and the Northern conceptions of a dignified and reasonable way of life. The magnificence of the Homeric great man is like the magnificence of the Northern lord, in so far as both are equally marked off from the pusillanimity and cheapness of popular morality on the one hand, and from the ostentation of Oriental or chivalrous society on the other. The likeness here is not purely in the historical details, but much more in the ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... unceremonious questionings of comrades; finally, of the serious hindrance during the time of government examinations. But, having scarcely begun speaking with Nijeradze, he at once became ashamed of his pusillanimity, and having started off listlessly, towards the end he again began to ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... wealth of experiences, lessons, and discoveries. I, of course, foresaw that my new play would call forth a howl from the camp of the stagnationists; and for; this I care no more than for the barking of a pack of chained dogs. But the pusillanimity which I have observed among the so-called Liberals has given me cause for reflection. The very day after my play was published the Dagblad rushed out a hurriedly-written article, evidently designed to purge itself of ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... smiling inwardly at the contrast exhibited between the spirit of the haciendado and the pusillanimity of the Senator. "Be calm! the enemy I speak of is no longer under your roof— he has fled beyond the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... operation of longevity and time. These analogies between bodies natural and politic, though they may sometimes illustrate arguments, furnish no argument of themselves. They are but too often used, under the color of a specious philosophy, to find apologies for the despair of laziness and pusillanimity, and to excuse the want of all manly efforts, when the exigencies of our country call for them the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in the night's fear one great part is the fault of pusillanimity; that is, of faint and feeble stomach, by which a man for faint heart is afraid where he needeth not. By reason of this, he flieth oftentime for fear of something of which, if he fled not, he should take no harm. And a man doth sometimes by his fleeing make an enemy bold on ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... the former for his supineness, and ordering him to march in all haste to attack Edward in the rear. The earl's activity, promptitude, all-provident generalship, form a mournful contrast to the errors, the pusillanimity, and the treachery of others, which hitherto, as we have seen, made all his wisest schemes abortive. Despite Clarence's sullenness, Warwick had discovered no reason, as yet, to doubt his good faith. The oath ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... looking her aunt full in the face with something of defiance both in her eyes and in the tone of her voice. She had almost said, "Anton Trendellsohn, the Jew;" and when her speech was finished, and admitted of no addition, she reproached herself with pusillanimity in that she had omitted the word which had always been so odious, and would now be doubly odious—odious to her aunt in ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... MU}{GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA}), it is longanimous or magnanimous and there is indeed no great, truly great, mind but is patient and long suffering. It is a great weakness and pusillanimity to be soon angry. Such a spirit hath not the rule of itself, but is in bondage to its own lust, but "he that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." Now, it is much of this affection of love that ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... driveth them, they are carried away headlong in error; at another time, coming again to themselves, they are beaten back like contrary waves; sometime with rash presumption they allow such things as seem uncertain, at another time of pusillanimity they are in fear even about those things which are certain; doubtful which way to take, which way to return, what to desire, what to avoid, what to hold, what to let go; which misery and affliction of a wavering and unsettled heart, were they wise, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... measures to obtain permission to go abroad. It was refused. Then he took his son with him, and for three whole years he roamed over Russia, from one doctor to another, incessantly journeying from town to town and driving the physicians, his son, his servants, to despair by his pusillanimity and impatience. He returned to Lavriki a perfect rag, a tearful and capricious child. Bitter days ensued, every one endured much at his hands. Ivan Petrovitch calmed down only while he was eating his dinner; he had never eaten ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... in the use of this rod. "Every child," says Dr. South, "has some brute in it, and some man in it, and just in proportion to the brute we must whip it." When thus necessary we should not shrink from this kind of correction. "It is pusillanimity, as well as folly, to shrink from the crushing of the egg, but to wait composedly for the hatching of the viper." Yet, on the other hand, in the language of Dr. Bell, "a maximum of attainment can be made only ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... parleyed for a time, all because of the pusillanimity of the Marshal, when he, at last, said,—"I am tired waiting on you; I see you are not going to give up. Go to the barn and fetch some straw," said he to one of his men, "I will set the house on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... neglected those of dietetics, to which the former are a farce. They thought of no exercises but Latin; they gave him a Gradus instead of a cricket-bat, until his mind became too keen for its mortal coil, and the foundation was laid for ill health, derangement of stomach, moral pusillanimity, irresolution, lowness of spirits, and all the Protean miseries of nervous disorders, by which his after life was haunted, and which are sadly depicted in ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... Carpenter. The pair in the malthouse might have eluded all search but for the steward's pusillanimity. Incontinently, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... strength and daring, victory, and other impressive instinctive behavior that is harmless to the onlooker. Similarly, frowns, hoots, and sneers seem bound as original responses to the observation of empty-handedness, deformity, physical meanness, pusillanimity, and defect. As in the case of all original tendencies, such behavior is early complicated and in the end much distorted, by training; but the resulting total cannot be explained by ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... pricked forward; he had once, in his palmy, coltish time, been a battle charger, and, perhaps, some memory of those martial days, the waving of plumes and the clashing of arms, reawoke his combative spirit of old. Or, possibly his brute intelligence penetrated the dwarf's knavish pusillanimity, and, changing his tactics that he might still range on the side of perversity, resolved himself from immobility into a rampant agency of motion. Furiously he dashed into the thick of the conflict, and Triboulet, paralyzed with fear and dropping his lance, was borne helplessly ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Peter, your great father, could hear you," sadly said Lestocq, "he would spurn you for such pusillanimity, princess." ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Rhineland, and Italy galled French pride. Loud were the murmurs of the throngs of soldiers that came from the fortresses of Germany, or the prisons of Spain, Russia, and England—70,000 crossed over from our shores alone—at the harshness of the allies and the pusillanimity of the Bourbons. The return from war to peace is always hard; and now these gaunt warriors came back to a little France that perforce discharged them or placed them on half-pay. Perhaps they might have been won over by a tactful Court: but the Bourbons, especially ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... open the way with their sword to the holy city. Nobles, artisans, peasants, even priests, enrolled their names; and to decline this meritorious service was branded with the reproach of impiety, or, what perhaps was esteemed still more disgraceful, of cowardice and pusillanimity. The infirm and aged contributed to the expedition by presents and money; and many of them, not satisfied with the merit of this atonement, attended it in person, and were determined, if possible, to breathe their last in sight of that city where their Saviour had died for them. Women themselves, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... to the commandment of Allah." Then Omar cast a terrible look at the accused youth and said to him, "Verily thou hearest the complaint these two young men prefer; what hast thou in reply to aver?" But he was brave of heart and bold of speech, having doffed the robe of pusillanimity and put off the garb of cowardry; so he smiled and spake in the most eloquent and elegant words; and, after paying the usual ceremonial compliments to the Caliph, said, ""By Allah, O Commander of the Faithful, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... The peace establishment of the Roman army numbered some 375,000 men, divided into thirty legions, who were confined, not within the walls of fortified cities, which the Romans considered as the refuge of pusillanimity, but upon the confines of the empire; while 20,000 chosen soldiers, distinguished by the titles of City Cohorts and Praetorian Guards, watched over the safety of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... sort is singularly liable to misrepresentation. Militant patriotism rejects it with scorn. It is said to involve an ignoble degree of truckling to foreign nations. It involves nothing of the kind. I should certainly be the last to recommend anything approaching to pusillanimity in the conduct of the foreign affairs of my country. If I thought that the introduction of a policy of Protection was really demanded in the interests of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, I should warmly advocate it, whatever might be the effect produced on the public opinion ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... and the injunctions of religion, than those which are complicated with an opinion of dignity; and which we cannot dismiss without leaving in the hands of opposition some advantage iniquitously obtained, or suffering from our own prejudices some imputation of pusillanimity. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... subject; but, be it said to the honor of American Christians, the very large minority resisted to the end; the latter was sustained by outside opinion, and many friends of the Gospel joined with it in deploring the pusillanimity which yielded to the menaces of the South. A crisis thence arose, which has not yet reached its height, and the first fruits of which have been the foundation of a rival society in Boston, to which adherents are gathering from ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... little which is done; for I profess I have taken care to master my pen, that I might not err ANIMO, {69} or of set purpose discolour each or any of the parts thereof, otherwise than in concealment. Haply there are some who will not approve of this modesty, but will censure it for pusillanimity, and, with the cunning artist, attempt to draw their line further out at length, and upon this of mine, which way (with somewhat more ease) it may be effected; for that the frame is ready made to their hands, and then haply I could draw one in the midst of theirs, but that modesty in me ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... he with marked irony, "it is at such a pinch that one discovers his true friends! But fortunately I had no sooner dispatched Gumbo in search of you than I foresaw some chance of this pusillanimity of which you give ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... give the order to shoot. You have heard the policemen testify that the prisoner was furious at the Indian's pusillanimity. I say it ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... whome God hath doubled his spirite vppon, and giuen a double soule vnto to be Poets. My heroicall master exceeded in this supernaturall kinde of wit, hee entertained no grosse earthly spirite of auarice, nor weake womanly spirit of pusillanimity and feare that are fained to be of the water, but admirable, airie, and firie spirites, full of freedome, magnanimitie and bountihood. Let me not speake anie more of his accomplishments, for feare I spend al my spirits in praising him and leaue my selfe no vigor of wit, or effectes of a soule to ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... to victory, gazed out straight before him, as if through the bare, white-washed walls of this humble hotel room he saw the vision of the brilliant halls of the Tuileries, the imperial throne, the Empress beside him, all her faithlessness and pusillanimity forgiven, his son whom he worshipped, his marshals grouped around him; and with a gesture of proud defiance he threw back ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... contest the plainest observations by opposing to these a few trite maxims although eloquently expressed. Each regarded the other as if they alone were worthy of being heard, each encouraging the other with the idea that all resistance to their way of looking at things was pusillanimity." ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... occurred resolved to send the two consuls thither, in order to raise troops and suppress the insurrection.(20) It was impossible to adopt a more irrational course. The senate, in presence of the insurrection, evinced its pusillanimity and its fears by the re-establishment of the corn-law; in order to be relieved from a street-riot, it furnished the notorious head of the insurrection with an army; and, when the two consuls were bound by the most solemn oath which could be ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... my earlier letters from hence, I hope will be removed, and that I shall be thought not to be totally destitute of political prudence. When that letter was written, I was rather apprehensive I might be censured by some as suffering prudence to degenerate into pusillanimity, for not taking advantage of the impression made by so important an event as the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his army, and thought it expedient to assign any reasons for not doing it, knowing that we are apt to think events, which so immediately change the face of affairs ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... appealing again to his Majesty. Our appeals have been spurned. Our entreaties have been interpreted as the pleas of cowardice. Our patience has been regarded as pusillanimity. Because British oppression has been met by respectful remonstrance instead of indignant denunciation, it has appealed to arms; and that appeal must be promptly met by warlike preparations and ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... plucky hopefulness indispensable to true statesmanship did not animate them to any extent. Unhappily events over which no statesman could then have control overtook Canada, while as yet things bounded along gaily in the States, and the sons of despair seemed to have some ground for their pusillanimity. The harvest of 1885 was deficient, and agriculture was in consequence depressed: a slight panic in the Spring was succeeded by a great one in the Fall. Heavy failures followed. A feeling of uneasiness was caused at the ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... station off the Armada's port of departure, and fully aware of the risk such a move entailed, he fortified his purely strategical reasons with moral considerations of the highest moment. But the Government was unconvinced, not as is usually assumed out of sheer pusillanimity and lack of strategical insight, but because the chances of Drake's missing contact were too great if the Armada should sail before our own fleet could get ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... faith was broken with the hillmen; Jellalabad held out until the "Retribution Column" camped under its walls. But for the awful catastrophe which befell in the passes the hapless brigade which under the influence of deplorable pusillanimity and gross mismanagement had evacuated Cabul, no serious military calamity marked our occupation of Afghanistan and certainly stubborn resistance had not confronted our arms. From 1878 to 1880 we were in Afghanistan again, this time with ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... induced its composition. I make full admission of Rossetti's claims to the purest kind of literary renown, and if I were to criticise his poems now, I should write very differently. But nothing will shake my conviction that the cruelty, the unfairness, the pusillanimity has been on the other side, not on mine. The amende of my Dedication in God and the Man was a sacred thing; between his spirit and mine; not between my character and the cowards who have attacked it. I thought he would understand,—which ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... return to Toulon, where it will effect for me a powerful diversion. I estimate then that it is necessary to do two things, first to send a special message to Admiral Villeneuve, ordering him to effect this manoeuvre; second, as his excessive pusillanimity will hinder him from undertaking it, you will send Admiral Rosily to replace him. He will be the bearer of letters enjoining upon Admiral Villeneuve to return to France, to render ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... they would deserve to be handed down to posterity as poltroons and cowards. He would, he said, go still further; they would not only deserve to be thus branded with infamy, but they would actually be so; and their pusillanimity would be a taint in the blood of their children's children. He begged, he prayed, he intreated, he implored that they would not disgrace the name of man by conduct at once so cowardly and so foolish. But he begged, prayed, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... seemed broken. He stopped also; looked at me in some surprise; made a remark that I 'did not appear to be well,' and passed on. I looked after him, sick at heart with revenge deferred, and cursed my own pusillanimity. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... that he could write well, the only thing he could do which was worth doing, always supposing that there is any merit in being able to write. He was of a mean appearance, and, like his father, pusillanimous to a degree. The meanness of his appearance disgusted, and his pusillanimity discouraged the Scotch when he made his appearance amongst them in the year 1715, some time after the standard of rebellion had been hoisted by Mar. He only stayed a short time in Scotland, and then, seized with panic, retreated to France, leaving ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... when finally the Turkish fleet sailed triumphantly into the Gulf of Patras, where it was protected by the Sultan's artillery at Lepanto, the Grand Prior of Auvergne, who commanded the French squadron, sailed away in disgust at the pusillanimity of his colleague. Lepanto fell, August 28th; and Grimani was imprisoned, nominally for life, for his blundering: nevertheless, after twenty-one ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... scarcely anything could exasperate, he possessed the firmest courage and a degree of bodily strength which rendered that courage invincible. He affected, indeed, to despise the virtuous moderation of his friend, and ridiculed it with some of his looser comrades as an abject pusillanimity; but he felt himself humbled whenever he was in his company as before a superior being, and therefore gradually ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... sighs he drew when, at an hour before dawn on the following day, he witnessed the striking of the tents, which he thought too like a prelude to a shameful flight from the enemy. While he was standing by the busy people, and musing on the nice line which divides prudence from pusillanimity, his grandfather came up, and bade him mount his horse, telling him that, owing to the unhealed state of his wound, he was removed from the vanguard, and ordered to march in the centre, along with the prince. Thaddeus remonstrated against ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... of the Convention were always brave in the extreme; but before the threats of the rioters who invaded the Assembly they constantly exhibited an excessive pusillanimity, obeying the most absurd injunctions, as we shall see if we re-read the history of ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... himself, who subsequently attacked so strongly the "pusillanimity" of the Administration's course, said on September ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... the government will not protect them, they will attempt at least to protect themselves;" and he concluded, "I cannot be thankful to that gentleman for coming all the way from Geneva to give Americans a character for pusillanimity." He held it madness to suppose that if the treaty were defeated war could be avoided. Called to order, he said that he might have been too personal, and asked pardon of the ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... force might damp their Manilla trade, and therefore acted in this manner with a view of forcing the commodore to Batavia: But it might be as natural in this light to suppose, that they would have been eager to have got him dispatched. I, therefore, rather impute their behaviour to the unparalleled pusillanimity of the nation, and to the awe they are under of the government; for as such a ship as the Centurion, fitted for war only, had never been seen in those parts before, she was the horror of these dastards, and the merchants were in some degree terrified even with the idea ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... important affairs of state the man of will was not to be found. Louis XVI. was upon the throne exactly what those weak temperaments whom nature has rendered incapable of an opinion are in society. In his pusillanimity, he gave his confidence to a minister; and although amidst various counsels he often knew which was the best, he never had the resolution to say, "I prefer the opinion of such a one." Herein originated the misfortunes of the State.—SOULAVIE'S "Historical ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... hypothesis furnishes a simple explanation of what seemed to his associates to be his unnatural recklessness and audacity. Being himself out of danger, he always gave his vote for the most violent and perilous course, and sneered very complacently at the pusillanimity of men who, not having taken the infamous precautions on which he relied, were disposed to think twice before they placed life, and objects dearer than life, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the biography, continuous in itself." If a "hasty person" be one who thinks eleven years rather long to have his button held by a biographer ere he begin his next sentence, I take to myself the sting of Mr. Masson's covert sarcasm. I confess with shame a pusillanimity that is apt to flag if a "to be continued" do not redeem its promise before the lapse of a quinquennium. I could scarce await the "Autocrat" himself so long. The heroic age of literature is past, and even a duodecimo ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... appetites, proclivities, desires, and passions, in mutual check and limitation. It consists in shunning extremes. Thus courage stands midway between cowardice and rashness; temperance, between excess and self-denial; generosity, between prodigality and parsimony; meekness, between irascibility and pusillanimity. Happiness is regarded as the supreme good; but while this is not to be attained without virtue, virtue alone will not secure it. Happiness requires, in addition, certain outward advantages, such as health, riches, friends, which therefore a good man will seek by all lawful means. Aristotle ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... the glories of the Inca dynasty, and the incredible wealth of the ancient rulers of Peru. She appeared to be pretty intimately acquainted with the history of the conquest of the country by Pizarro, and had many bitter things to say of the strange pusillanimity of the Inca, Atahuallpa, on that fatal 16th of November, 1532, when he went, open- eyed, into the trap prepared for him at Caxamalca, and suffered himself to be seized, in the presence of his entire army, by a mere handful of Spaniards. She gave a most emphatic denial ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... Christ's sacrifice. Since that time men have died only because of an obstinate habit of dying formed for many generations. For his part, he has the independence and resolution to withstand the universal pusillanimity and to refuse to die. He has discovered "an engine in Divinity to convey man from earth to heaven." He will "play a trump on death and show himself ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... that a successor should be sent in his place, alleging for it only the old reason of the mutability of fortune, as if she would be weary of long favoring the same person. With this language many did begin to feel offended; it seemed to be morosity and ill-will, the pusillanimity of old age, or a fear, that had now become exaggerated, of the skill of Hannibal. Nay, when Hannibal had put his army on shipboard, and taken his leave of Italy, Fabius still could not forbear to oppose and disturb the universal joy of Rome, expressing his fears ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... well as on others, the memory of M. Cuvier has been unjustly treated. He has been accused of pusillanimity and servile ambition. The charge indicates little knowledge of human nature, and insults a man of genius on very slight grounds. I lived much with M. Cuvier. Firmness in mind and action was not his most prominent quality; but he was neither servile, nor governed by fear in opposition ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... tyranny. In setting out for France she had broken the commandment to honour father and mother, she had given an occasion for scandal, she had committed blasphemy and had fallen from the faith. In the leap from Beaurevoir, she had displayed a pusillanimity bordering on despair and homicide; and, moreover, it had caused her to utter rash statements touching the remission of her sin and erroneous pronouncements concerning free will. By proclaiming her confidence in her salvation, she uttered presumptuous and pernicious lies; by saying that ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... sufficient cause, and the divine goodness as the sufficient reason; but an answer to the Whence and Why is no answer to the How, which alone is the physiologist's concern. It is a sophisma pigrum, and (as Bacon hath said) the arrogance of pusillanimity, which lifts up the idol of a mortal's fancy and commands us to fall down and worship it, as a work of divine wisdom, an ancile or palladium fallen from heaven. By the very same argument the supporters ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... with varying fortune between the northern and southern powers during the rest of the reign of Soutsong, and also during that of his successor, Taitsong the Second. This ruler showed himself unworthy of his name, abandoning his capital with great pusillanimity when a small Tibetan army advanced upon it. The census returns threw an expressive light on the condition of the empire during this period. Under Mingti the population was given at fifty- two million; in the time of the second Taitsong it had sunk to seventeen million. A great general named ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Normands, who in the ninth century entered Paris, burnt some of the churches, and meeting with scarcely any resistance, made themselves masters of all they could find, whilst the Emperor Charles the Bald, at the head of an army, had the pusillanimity to treat with them, and finally to give them seven thousand pounds of silver to quit Paris, which was only an encouragement for them to return, which they did in a few years after, carrying devastation ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... my ramble, I stayed a single day in town, to witness the exit of the ci-devant Jacobin, Mr. Watt. It was a very solemn scene, but the pusillanimity of the unfortunate victim was astonishing, considering the boldness of his nefarious plans. It is matter of general regret that his associate Downie should have received a reprieve, which, I understand, is now prolonged for a second month, I suppose to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... published a pamphlet in which he charged Washington with "encouraging and swallowing the greatest adulation," with being "the patron of fraud," with a "mean and servile submission to the insults of one nation, treachery and ingratitude to another," with "falsehood," "ingratitude," and "pusillanimity;" and finally, after alleging that the General had not "served America with more disinterestedness or greater zeal, than myself, and I know not if with better effect," Paine closed his attack by the assertion, "and as to you, sir, treacherous in private friendship, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... Pusillanimity, blush to give you this Anxiety, did not I opine you were as gracious as communicative and eminent; and though you have no Cognisance of me, your humble Servant,—yet I have of you,—you being so gravely fam'd for ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... of bishops into a titter, could he have been honoured (may it be no offence to suppose it) with such grave and right reverend auditors. In the ludicrous distresses, which by the laws of comedy, Folly is often involved in; he sunk into such a mixture of piteous pusillanimity, and a consternation so ruefully ridiculous and inconsolable, that when he had shook you, to a fatigue of laughter, it became a moot point, whether you ought not to have pitied him. When he debated any matter by himself, he would shut up his mouth with a dumb studious pout, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... in the morning; and as it had been pouring all day, the ground could not have afforded very luxurious quarters. The same extraordinary luck which had attended the French in their whole expedition now favored their retreat; and the same pusillanimity which the allies had shown at Fornovo prevented them from re-forming and engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. One hour before daybreak on Tuesday morning the French broke up their camp and succeeded in clearing the valley. That ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... projectors. Their own distress, of which this prudent and necessary reserve of the banks was, no doubt, the immediate occasion, they called the distress of the country; and this distress of the country, they said, was altogether owing to the ignorance, pusillanimity, and bad conduct of the banks, which did not give a sufficiently liberal aid to the spirited undertakings of those who exerted themselves in order to beautify, improve, and enrich the country. It was the duty of the banks, they seemed to think, to lend for as long a time, and to as great ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... arranged in picturesque and fanciful devices. As the young Moslem gazed around him, and beheld these trophies of victories won by Turkish viziers and pachas in their wars against Austria and Venice, his martial and fearless spirit rose high, and he reproached himself with weakness and pusillanimity for having abandoned the pursuit of her he loved. Bitterly did he now regret his precipitation in leaving Venice the morning after the Battle of the Bridge, and while under the influence of the shock he had received, in beholding the hideous features ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... Indian Faqueers, after having been for nearly four hours wandering in the bowels of the earth. Our followers soon regained their courage now that the danger was past, and each in turn began to boast of his own valour and sneer at the pusillanimity of his comrade; but all agreed that nothing on earth or in heaven should ever tempt them again to visit the ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... old age—a race of manly men to whom life is not a lascivious farce; whose god is not gold; who do not worship at the shrine of the Pandemian Venus nor devote their lives to the service of Mammon, "the least erect of all the angelic host that fell from heaven." I want to see men who scorn the pusillanimity of the policy-prayer, who, —like Caesar, dare tell greybeards the truth e'en though it cost a crown; men of leonine courage, men of iron mould, men strong of hand and heart, who defiantly throw down the gage to destiny—who can trample hell itself beneath their ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... we should cease tormenting ourselves, and seek to obtain an absolute calm, which they dignified with the name of ataraxie. Beholding the overthrow and disgrace of their country, surrounded by examples of pusillanimity and corruption, and infected with the spirit of the times themselves, they wrote this maxim: "Nothing is infamous; nothing is in itself just; laws and customs alone constitute what is justice and what is iniquity." Having reached this extreme, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... from myself that they were idle and empty as the air. I dissimulated, I hesitated to announce my own belief, reflecting how far it were seasonable thus to contradict my companion, and persuading myself that it would be useless, and that I was perfectly justified in remaining silent. What vile pusillanimity! why thus respect the presumptuous power of popular errors and opinions, resting upon no foundation. True it is that an ill-timed zeal is always indiscreet, and calculated to irritate rather than convert; but to avow with ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... conceived that a bold bearing would do him more good than a pusillanimous demeanour; and, as for flight, he despised it, as well as disapproved of it, on grounds of fancied prudence, seeing that he would thereby admit his guilt, and prove his pusillanimity, while it might ultimately turn out that the king's intentions were not hostile, whereby he would be exposed to the ridicule and scorn of both king and subjects. Having beat off Scott's retainers, and secured in this way, as he thought, a fancied victory, he marched direct on to his own Tower; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... Sheikh had hundreds of people not far off. Zaleâ, and his Arabs, certainly behaved the best. Zaleâ, in fact, was now the only man of the caravan. He told me afterwards, the Ghadamsee people had proposed to him, that I should run away on to Ghat, but he would not sanction such pusillanimity. I confess, however, when the people described to me the character of Ouweek, I myself felt considerable alarm. During the succeeding night, I slept scarcely a wink. I made the messenger of Jabour sleep close ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... ministers were treacherously negotiating with false Burgundy, some say with the Regent Bedford himself. They cared not to save France. They cared only to keep out of harm's way—to avoid all peril and danger, and to thwart the Maid, whose patriotism and lofty courage was such a foil to their pusillanimity ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that Captain Edney loved the boy to whom he gave so many words and such serious thought at a time of action and peril. Perhaps he had heard of Winch's pusillanimity, and understood the spirit which prompted Frank to fill his place. Certain it is he saw in the lad's eye the guarantee that, if permitted, he would give no cowardly account of himself that day. So, reluctantly, dreading lest evil might happen to him, he granted his request; ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... At the beginning of the year, when Parliament was opened in the queen's name, the royal speech contained a phrase which that boisterous organ of the war-party, the Pall Mall Gazette, pronounced "sickening" in its pusillanimity. Her Majesty alluded to the necessity, in view of the complications in the East, of the government taking into consideration the making of "preparations for precaution." This was certainly an ineffective ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... June, and a Russian army was in possession of East Prussia. A German army in British pay, and commanded by the "Butcher" hero of Culloden, was beaten in July, and capitulated in September. In America, the pusillanimity of the English commanders led to terrible disasters, among which the loss of Fort William Henry, and the massacre of its garrison, were conspicuous events. In India, the English were engaged in a doubtful contest with the viceroy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the misaffected parts together, it boots not, they keep the mind in a perpetual dungeon, and oppress it with continual fears, anxieties, sorrows, &c. It is an ordinary thing for such as are sound to laugh at this dejected pusillanimity, and those other symptoms of melancholy, to make themselves merry with them, and to wonder at such, as toys and trifles, which may be resisted and withstood, if they will themselves: but let him that so wonders, consider with himself, that if a man should tell him on a sudden, some of his ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... latter's challenge to fight him on the other side of the Channel. Any hesitation on the part of the leader of that daring Scarlet Pimpernel League would have covered him with a faint suspicion of pusillanimity, and a subtle breath of ridicule, and in a moment the prestige of the unknown and elusive hero would have ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... community sensible of the public calamity, and ambitious of the honor of extirpating such a notorious highwayman from society, since he owes his long successes to no other cause than his immoderate impudence, and the sloth and pusillanimity of those who ought to bring him to justice.' I will not deny," continued Coates, "that, professing myself, as I do, to be a staunch new Whig, I had not some covert political object in penning this epistle.[22] ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... benefit from such destruction would inure to the South. Under the circumstances his course was taken: he dared not consult or trust Mr. Clay with the real motives which influenced him to yield, and made a virtue of patriotism and magnanimity which cloaked his pusillanimity, and shielded from public ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... devouring necessity which drove him on through life and to this catholicity; no feeling for the fact that such a man is too prone to consume himself rapidly, like a flame; nor any indignation at the thought that the vulgar narrowness and pusillanimity of his whole environment, especially of his learned contemporaries, so saddened, tormented, and stifled the tender and ardent creature that he was, that the very universality for which he is praised should give rise to feelings of the deepest compassion. ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the slightest idea. I was so enveloped in my own misery, that I was absolutely blind to all external objects. I could think of nothing but my dead hopes. So onward I went, stumbling and splashing through the mud, cursing Mannering, cursing the Motor Pirate, above all cursing myself for my own pusillanimity. Why had I listened to Winter? Why should I have allowed myself to be persuaded to play the part of coward, merely that Winter's car should have been saved ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... in a course of his own choosing. The more he saw, the more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation; justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just, generous, prudent, or brave were held cheaply ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... low side of humanity, a sort of defiled infirmity, that runs into a disposition to strike the helpless. This is the bravery of ruffianism. There is apt to be a shrinking away from duty, when the contest involves a conflict with arrogant power. This is the cowardice of pusillanimity. The American citizen has been noted for his superior bravery. He has certainly shown himself brave in the battle-field, and more brave and determined than any other nation in the vindication and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... and speak to their members on religion; what do they know of it? In 19 out of 20 cases their members, when awakened, seek Christ in other churches. We have held back too long with our testimony. I fear that by our negligence souls have gone to hell. And what have we won by our pusillanimity? The advocates of symbolism have grown and become more impudent by their success." (L. u. W. 1867, 88.) In a subsequent issue the same paper, after boldly defending the baldest Zwinglianism, remarked with respect to ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... were those of William, when he landed in England. The Earl of Mar was at the head of ten thousand men; but the chevalier was no general, and was unequal to his circumstances. When he landed in Scotland, he surrendered himself to melancholy and inaction. His sadness and pusillanimity dispirited his devoted band of followers. He retreated before inferior forces, and finally fled from the country which he had invaded. The French king was obliged to desert his cause, and the Pretender retreated to Italy, and died at the advanced age of seventy-nine, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... of my men was a great trial to me—a penance I had to bear in silence. What was more, I could not let it appear in the slightest degree that it was a penance to me, if I did not wish to make matters worse. Pusillanimity and fear are two qualities which I cannot quite understand nor admit in men. Hence, it is well to be imagined what I suffered in being with followers who, with the exception of Alcides and Filippe the negro, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... was outvoted, having only reason on my side, and being opposed by a triple-headed monster, that shod the baneful influence of avarice, prejudice, and pusillanimity in all our assemblies. It was some consolation to me, however, to find that philosophy and truth had made some little progress since my last effort, as I obtained twice as many ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... sentence with feelings of shame and remorse. But so it always happens in revolutions: the most violent put themselves forward; their vigilance and activity seem to multiply their number; and the daring of the few wins the ascendancy over the indolence or the pusillanimity ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... of the lady appears on the scene, sometimes as a supplicant, and at others as a consenting party to the inevitable marriage, but never is he depicted as resorting to force to rescue his daughter. This pusillanimity can only be reasonably accounted for by supposing that the "little man" was physically incapable of encountering and overcoming by brute force the aspirant to the hand of his daughter. From this conduct we must, I think, infer that the Fairy race were a weak people ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... said that he betrayed pusillanimity at the hour of death; and that, to save himself from punishment, he (397) accused his mother of being involved in the conspiracy. This circumstance, however, is not mentioned by other writers, who relate, on the contrary, that he died with philosophical fortitude. He was then only in the twenty-sixth ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... been observed, that the inhabitants of towns which have undergone a cruel siege, and experienced all the horrors of storm and pillage, have retained for ages the traces of the effects of their sufferings, in a detestation of war, indications of pusillanimity, and decline of trade. If there be any truth in this observation, what caitiffs must the inhabitants of Berwick be! No town in the world has been so often exposed to the "ills that wait on the red chariot of war;" for Picts, Romans, Danes, Saxons, English, and Scotch ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton |
