"Shirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... careful consideration. She should be known to be honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her own personal ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... was the rub! Not one short, sharp pang, and over—all fire quenched in cool mists of death and unconsciousness, but long years to come of daily, hourly, paying the price; incessant compunction, active punishment. A prospect for a martyr to shirk from, and for a woman who has made ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... States the native birth-rate tends to decline, while the rate of immigrant foreigners greatly exceeds it. The higher the degree of comfort and luxury in the home the smaller the birth-rate seems to be a principle of social experience. There are selfish people who shirk the responsibilities and troubles of parenthood, and there are social diseases that tend to sterility, but the childless home is always an incomplete home. Children are the crown of marriage, the enrichment of the home, ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... jolly well jiggered, and as for good 'ealth, I've no doubt That the treadmill is jolly salubrious, wich that is mere turning about, Upon planks 'stead o' pedals, my pippin. No, wheeling as wheeling's 'ard work, And that, without larks, is a speeches of game as I always did shirk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... dockyard people. Though I would rather have gone afloat at once, this was, I found, a great advantage, as I had thus an opportunity of seeing her masted, rigged, and fitted for sea. Officers are often glad to shirk this, for it is far from pleasant work, and Portsmouth is not the most delectable of residences. I should advise all midshipmen not to miss an opportunity of seeing a ship fitted out, if they possibly can. They will find it will save them an immense deal of after trouble, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... of you? Can't you dissipate his fears? Did the bugle ring out vainly for the British Grenadiers? Once the regiment was famous for its deeds of derring-do, And you followed where the flag went when on alien winds it flew. Has the soldiers' "oath of duty" been forgotten, that you shirk, Not the face of foe, we're certain, but this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... we call all what a'n't white folks. Our folks can tell 'em right smart. They can't shirk out if it's only marked by the seventeenth generation. You can always tell 'em by the way they look—they can't look you in the face, if they are ever so white. The law snaps 'em up once in a while, and then, if they're ever so white, it makes 'em prove it. ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... use: we're sure to be always meeting them. And besides, I'll be hanged if I'm going to shirk the Hickses. I spent five whole months on the Ibis, and if they bored me occasionally, ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... gorce's dank and bleak 'Mid shatter'd mounts that devil's split! To mourn in plasmic Temple's fold With gyving sod no King can shirk! A spangled pomp of Death's gray peak Where owls and lizards blink and sit As curdling cries of monsters cold Pierce hollows deep until they irk, Each surf-thrown afrite's eclipsed dome. And cursing clans that felt the heat That dwale obscured in shadows vague, Clash thro' the broken forest ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... King Zahr Shah in jubilee: A King albeit thou leave thy life to win * One look, that look were all sufficiency: And if a pious prayer thou breathe for him, * Shall join all Faithfuls in such pious gree: Folk of his realm! If any shirk his right * For other ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... which marks my noble breed; I am content to trudge the road And willingly to draw my load— Sometimes to know the spur and goad When I begin to lag; I'd rather feel the collar jerk And tug at me, the while I work, Than all the tasks of life to shirk ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... 108 are rather obscure. What the king says in 107 seems to be that you two have referred your dispute to me who am a king. I cannot shirk my duty, but am bound to judge fairly between you. I should see that kingly duties should not, so far as I am concerned, become futile. In 108 he says, being a king I should discharge the duties of a king, i.e., I should judge disputes, and give, if need be, but never take. Unfortunately, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the having a room of your very own will not prove a temptation to you to shirk your duty; that your privileges will not block your view of your duties. Come down now, and help Mary, in return for all the help ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... men made it gay not only for the young ladies, but also for a certain young married lady, when she managed to shirk her rather filial duties to her husband, who was much about the verandas, purblindly feeling his way with a stick, as he walked up and down, or sitting opaque behind the glasses that preserved what was left of his sight, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was no help for it, so, with a sickly smile, he put his name to the fatal document in big and shaky letters. Then Muller called another man, who instantly tried to shirk on the ground that his education had been neglected, and that he could not write, an excuse which availed him little, for Frank Muller quietly wrote his name for him, leaving a space for his mark. After this there ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... the Law I must request Less noise while we're having a well-earned rest. For the Judge and the Usher never must shirk A well-earned rest in the middle of work. It's the duty of both they are well aware To preserve their precious lives with care; It's their duty, when feeling overwrought, To preserve their lives ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... frankness, for it was only by frankness on his side that Diane would be able to carry out his wishes on hers. The responsibility imposed upon him by his wife's death, he said, was one he had never wished to shirk by leaving his child to the care of others. Moreover, he had had his own ideas as to the manner in which she should be brought up, and he had put them into practice. The results had been good in most respects, and if in others there ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... people from the capitalistic world thrown upon their hands was very much as it would be with us if we had the same number of Indians, with all their tribal customs and ideals, thrown upon our hands. They say they will not shirk their duty in the matter, and will study it carefully; but all the same, they wish the incident had ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... by hour the fight goes on, Till the silent battle's won; Vainly do Bacilli shirk When their deadly foe's at work; Every microbe faints with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... social, less interested in my neighbors and in the body politic, more inclined to shirk civic and social responsibilities and to stop my ears against the brawling of the reformers, is ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... never be," answered Mr. Eversleigh, with a tone of sullen despair. "I am utterly ruined, Carrington. It's no use trying to shirk the truth. I am a doomed wretch, a beggar for life, and the sooner I throw myself over one of the bridges, and make an end of my miserable existence, the better. According to Millard's account my uncle's infatuation for that singing-girl grows stronger and ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... I resolved to hold over the adventure for the following day, and I returned to the welcome and the caresses of little Weena. But next morning I perceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the Palace of Green Porcelain was a piece of self-deception, to enable me to shirk, by another day, an experience I dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent without further waste of time, and started out in the early morning towards a well near the ruins of granite ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Ned replied. "I promised the governor to stand by him to the last; and as he has scarce a soul on whom he can rely, it is clearly my duty to do so. It is not for me to shirk doing my duty as long as I can, because I fear that the day ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... who shirk their responsibilities, it is the minority which does the work and assumes the power. The majority having resigned, the minority becomes sovereign, and public business, abandoned by the hesitating, weak, and absent multitude, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Gladstone's Government to send General Gordon to the Soudan in January 1884 were, as has been clearly shown, the selfish desire to appease public opinion, and to shirk in the easiest possible manner a great responsibility. They had no policy at all, but they had one supreme wish, viz. to cut off the Soudan from Egypt; and if the Mahdi had only known their wishes and pressed on, and treated the Khartoum force ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... and fearless even in adversity, he did not shirk the responsibility of the campaign; declaring, that disastrous and bitter as it had been, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... as yet struggling for very existence, the practical effect of such teachings may well have been deemed politically dangerous. When things came to such a pass that the forces of the colony were mustered for an Indian campaign and the men of Boston were ready to shirk the service because they suspected their chaplain to be "under a covenant of works," it was naturally thought to be high time to put Mrs. Hutchinson down. In the spring of 1637 Winthrop was elected governor, ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... countries, and we think we may safely say, that we have more men of that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as they feel, with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... He won't shirk it. But he's hurted proper; you might let Jan Grimbal knaw, 't will ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... somebody else that should say it. Most of our workmen are putting every ounce of strength into this urgent work for their country, loyally and patriotically. But that is not true of all. There are some, I am sorry to say, who shirk their duty in this great emergency. I hear of workmen in armaments works who refuse to work a full week's work for the nation's need. What is the reason? They are a minority. The vast majority belong to a class ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... passed, a month which it is safe to say was neither satisfactory to Sam nor his employer. The deacon discovered that the boy needed constant watching. When he was left to himself, he was sure to shirk his work, and indulge his natural love of living at ease. His appetite showed no signs of decrease, and the deacon was led to remark that "Samuel had the stiddyest appetite of any boy he ever knew. He never seemed to know when he had ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... brethren at every street-corner," continued she. "Well, I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am and a witch I'm likely to be and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... injure himself. It is the fashion now to get rid of a judgment to come by telling us that we are our own judgment here. The latter part of the statement is not the whole truth, but there is truth in it. The strain brings out the strength there is, but shirk it and we have weakness. Do as we like rather than do as we ought, and the price must be paid in loss of manhood. Everything we gain for selfishness we ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... big for you? Then you caught sight of a pair of shoulders that looked to you broader than yours—the muscles developed by years of exercise—and you were pretty thankful to shift the load on to them? You didn't want to shirk—Heaven forbid!—but you just felt you didn't know enough to deal with the ...
— On Christmas Day In The Evening • Grace Louise Smith Richmond
... things, Arthur, because they're not in your line, and I know you hate them. But you're dead right. I dare say I'll tell you something that will astonish you before long. But I'm not doing anything to be ashamed of. I haven't made any mistake; and if I had, I shouldn't shirk the payment." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... going to shirk her duty. These children were to be Irene's guests, and they must be immediately put into their right position. She turned, therefore, to her little friend and touched her on ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... older," said Chaffery. "There's truths you have to grow into. But about this matter of Lies—let us look at the fabric of society, let us compare the savage. You will discover the only essential difference between savage and civilised is this: The former hasn't learnt to shirk the truth of things, and the latter has. Take the most obvious difference—the clothing of the civilised man, his invention of decency. What is clothing? The concealment of essential facts. What is decorum? Suppression! I don't argue against ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... then what great and brave men I bequeathed to him! They did not shirk the public burdens; they were not idlers, rogues and cheats, as they are to-day; their very breath was spears, pikes, helmets with white crests, breastplates and greaves; they were gallant souls encased in seven ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... dine out to-day, and I would fain shirk and stay at home; never, Shylock-like, had I less will to feasting forth, but I must go or be thought sulky. Lord M. and Lady Abercromby called this morning, and a world of people besides, among others honest Mr. Wilson, late of Wilsontown, who took so much care of me at London, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... scaler was active in his work, when once he began it, and could keep up with the skidding. But now he displayed a strong antipathy to the north wind on the plains. Of course he could not very well shirk the work entirely, but he did a good deal of talking ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... my cousin Rachel. Poor grandmother is nearing the close of her earthly pilgrimage. She may go at any time. Dr. Reed hath given us notice, and death is a sad and awesome matter even for little ones. So mother said she would rather have no added cares, though she would not shirk ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... murmured. "That busy brain is never still. No, Comrade Brown, I do not propose to write the whole paper myself. I do not shirk work when it gets me in a corner and I can't side-step, but there are limits. I propose to apply to a few of my late companions of Park Row, bright boys who will be delighted to come across with red-hot stuff ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... to do a thing Is do it when you can, And do it cheerfully, and sing And work and think and plan. The only real unhappy one Is he who dares to shirk; The only really happy one Is he ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... even their instinct in the matter, who live comfortably apart from the evil places, and so hear only now and then a message from the dying wafted on the sable wings of cholera or typhus. Is it not shabby this, to shirk their share of the work and the trouble, and to leave it to be done by softer ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... sons of sin, Created to shally and shirk; Hem lay 'round and Haw looked on While God did all ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... this election of mine is, after all, an ordinary affair. I take it, and what is to come after it, just as other men do. I have accepted your party and your programme, and I mean to stick to them. I see that the political situation is difficult and exciting, and I don't intend to shirk. But I am no more going to slay my private life and interests at the altar of politics than my father did when he was in Parliament. If the revolution is coming, it will come in spite of you and me. And, moreover—if you will let me say so—I am convinced that your modes of procedure ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... temperate, and pray; Fast if thou wilt; and yet, throughout the day, Neglect no labour and no duty shirk: Not many hours are left thee for thy work - And it were meet ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... getting out of Kitty's luggage, for Aunt Pike was one of those unfortunate persons who never fail to come to words with porter or cabman, who, in fact, rub every one the wrong way to start with by taking for granted that they are trying to shirk their duties and to ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... may have helped. The affair on Dee-side took place December 18th, 1684. On the 11th of the same month (just after Renwick's proclamation of war) a party of men, headed by James Macmichael, murdered Peter Peirson, minister of Carsphairn, at his own door. Wodrow cannot shirk this fact: he finds it detestable, and generally denounced and disowned by the more respectable of the Covenanters; but he also manages to find as many excuses for it as he conveniently can in the provocation given by the victim. Peirson, he says, was "a surly, ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... day would he stay away from his beloved Cuba, if it were not that that seal had to be broken in the presence of the proper authorities. So, however reluctant he might be to stay, it was not for him to shirk his task: he must wait for the ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... in accents of unmistakable sincerity, that there are many business men—not merely those in high positions or with fine prospects, but modest subordinates with no hope of ever being much better off—who do enjoy their business functions, who do not shirk them, who do not arrive at the office as late as possible and depart as early as possible, who, in a word, put the whole of their force into their day's work and are genuinely ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... to this. I am not one of those who shirk a duty, whatever the peril be in accomplishing it. You know what price I put on Micheline's happiness; you are responsible for it, and I shall ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... have to be our brothers' keepers," the old Squire continued. "We are all to a degree responsible for the good behavior and safety of our fellow beings. If we shirk that duty, troubles come and crimes are committed that might have been prevented. Especially in a family like ours, each ought to have the good of all at heart and do his best ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... wounded name behind him. 272. This is the shaping of his ends—so exactly to his needs, so different from his rough-hewn plans—which is the work of the Divinity. The man who desires to know his duty that he may do it, who will not shirk it when he does know it, will have time allowed him and the thing made plain to him; his perplexity will even strengthen and purify his will. The weak man is he who, certain of what is required of him, fails to meet it: so never once fails Hamlet. Note, ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... place, that the Government of the United States does not shirk responsibility. It puts the code into the hands of its officers "for the government of all persons attached to the naval service," and is doubtless prepared to stand by the rules contained in it, as being in accordance with ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... part of the community you enjoy the good roads, streets, schools, libraries and many other things; therefore, you have no right to shirk your duty in not helping to maintain your government. If we enjoy the good things in this life without doing our part to ...
— Citizenship - A Manual for Voters • Emma Guy Cromwell
... dear, don't cry; your father won't like to see you with red eyes. It was very wrong of him not to tell you about the sale of Arden—excessively wrong. But that's just like Marmaduke Lovel; always ready to shirk anything unpleasant, even to the writing ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... I knew he was right. If he should shoot Gooja Singh the troopers would ascribe it to nothing else than fear. A British officer might do it and they would say, "Behold how he scorns to shirk responsibility!" Yet of Ranjoor Singh they would have said, "He fears us, and behold the butchery begins! Who shall be next?" Nevertheless, had I stood in his shoes, I would have shot and buried Gooja Singh ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... alive, mark! Oh, worthy, your soul, Of strange ends, great results, novel labours! Take note, I reject this for one! (ay, now, straight to the hole! Safe in sand there—your skirts smooth out all as they float!) I, shirk drinking through flaws ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... with us all the elements of society, as has the Anglo-Saxon ever. Did any man offend against the unwritten creed of fair play, did he shirk duty when that meant danger to the common good, then he was brought before a council of our leaders, men of wisdom and fairness, chosen by the vote of all; and so he was judged and he was punished. At that time there was not west of the ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... the Doctor (Tom, by the way, even in the bosom of his family, always thought and talked of his father as the "Doctor")—as for the Doctor, well, Tom was inclined to shirk the risk of more tete-a-tetes than he could possibly help with so formidable a personage, even though ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Arabic. The effect in English remains to be seen, but of the value of Captain Burton's method as an experiment in literature there can be no doubt, or of its great interest to everybody who cares for Oriental habits of thought and language. He will not shirk any of the passages which do not suit the taste of the day, but these, Captain Burton thinks, will not commonly be found more objectionable than some which are in Shakespeare and in Shakespeare's contemporaries. At the same time it will be understood that the book is intended ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... possess property. Moreover, this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First, because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labour, and would leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens when there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... atrocious, the law which refuses the testimony of a black against a white is not only the law of the land, but of every man's private dealings; and lying being one of the natural results of slavery, and a tendency to shirk compelled and unrequited labour another, the overseer stands on excellent vantage-ground, when he refers to these undoubted characteristics of the system, if called upon to rebut any charge of cruelty or ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... his faults like us all, but they don't run in that line. No, no, Lewie will be modest enough. He may have the pride of Lucifer at heart, but he would never show it. His fault is just this infernal modesty, which makes him shirk fighting some blatant ass or publishing ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... "and I can't help thinking that it is just as well. One cannot shirk his responsibilities, Harry, and you are an Alton—of Carnaby. You see, nobody could take your inheritance from you, nor, though you did your best, could you give it away, and there is, I fancy, only one ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... average soldier is a sneak, a shirk, a failure, a coward. He is only valuable as he is licked into shape. It is pretty much the same in business. It seems hard to say it, but the average employe in factory, shop or store, puts the face of the clock to shame looking at it; he is thinking of his pay envelope and his intent is to keep ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... Mrs. Jerry had a headache, that day, and a fit of the blues; and from the first moment when Teresita had entered the cabin she had felt a lack of warmth in the pretty senora's manner that had piqued her, who had lived upon adoration all her life. Mrs. Jerry had even shown a disposition to shirk keeping her promise anent the new way of ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... protocols irk, Russian Bear; And therefore are matters to shirk. Berlin and Paris, No longer must harass This true friend of France—and the Turk. Hrumph! hrumph! Well, well, we shall see how ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... divert her thoughts from this constantly recurring topic. Twice within the hour had it been broached and dismissed, but Iris would not permit him to shirk it again. She made no reply, simply regarding him with ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... land, For we rest not, but stand, Off shaken our sloth. When the boils of war rattle To shirk not the battle, We make thee our oath. As we hope for a Heaven, Thy chains shall be riven, Thine ensign unfurled. And in pride of our race We will fearlessly face The might of the world. When our trumpet is blown, And our standard is flown, Then set we our watch. Our watchword, 'The ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... duty, than it does now—though, even now, I must confess things have occasionally to be done by the clergyman because there is no one else to do them, and hardly from other motive than a sense of duty,—a man not being able to shirk work because it may happen to be dirty)—I say, as I wanted to do my work well, or rather, perhaps, because I dreaded drudgery as much as any poor fellow who comes to the treadmill in consequence—I wanted to interest myself in it; and therefore I would ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... Life is the Soul's Nursery. I am a Man, and pine for the Illimitable! Mark you me! Has the Morrow any terrors for me, think ye? Did Socrates falter at his poison? Did Seneca blench in his bath? Did Brutus shirk the sword when his great stake was lost? Did even weak Cleopatra shrink from the Serpent's fatal nip? And why should I? My great Hazard hath been played, and I pay my forfeit. Lie sheathed in my heart, thou ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Miss Pat," said Elinor, the day before the party, "is that you know when to stop. I simply haven't accomplished a thing the last two days, and yet I couldn't have the courage to shirk the Academy. You stay away joyously, ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... into his habits as a husband and father, it is by no means clear to me that we must call him hard names. Before doing that, we ought to know not only that he stays away from his wife and children, but why he stays away; whether he is really a shirk, or absents himself unselfishly and for their better protection, at the risk of being misunderstood and traduced. My object in this paper is to raise that question about him, rather than to blacken his character; in a word, to call attention ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... who are to be the leaders, spend their hours in riotous living? No, never! Will they be false to duty? No, never! Will they shirk? No, never! Will they be disloyal to self, to home, to country, and to God? ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... to go back up there, Saunders. That was one period of my life that is constantly before me. I may as well speak of it and be done with it. You always seemed to shirk the subject, and I have hesitated to mention it, but there is no one else I could question. The last time I heard of Dolly Drake she was still unmarried. Is there any likelihood ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... or wooden paddle, first the baking powder with the flour and then the salt. Rub into this the cold grease (which may be lard, cold pork fat, drippings) until there are no lumps left and no grease adhering to bottom of pan. This is a little tedious, but don't shirk it. Then stir in the water and work it with spoon until you have a rather stiff dough. Have the pan greased. Turn the loaf into it and bake. Test center of loaf with a sliver when you think it properly done. When no dough adheres remove ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... labours made a deep impression upon him. No attempts were ever made to encroach upon his generosity and kindness, and if any man had dared to deceive him he would have been drastically punished by his colleagues. No man ever essayed to malinger or to shirk a duty to which he had been allotted by the doctor. If the doctor desired a task to be done, no matter how repugnant, it was shouldered lightly and cheerfully. Indeed, there was always a manifestation of keen eagerness among us to perform some duty as an expression of our heartfelt thanks for what ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... whispering to many like herself, 'Come to me, come to me! When the cruel shame and terror you have so long fled from, most beset you, come to me! I am the Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordinance to do my work; I am not held in estimation according as I shirk it. My breast is softer than the pauper-nurse's; death in my arms is peacefuller than among ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... was not as I said, especially as he knew my brother well, and was thoroughly acquainted with the exactness with which he always executed an errand. But he did not want to go; that I saw clearly, and laid it all to the little book; for he was the kindest man who ever lived, and never was known to shirk a duty because it was ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... shirk the consequences of her misdemeanour was only too clearly proved to Janice, when later she went to her room to prink for supper, for lying on her dressing stand was the miniature. Shocked as Miss Meredith was at the sight, she lifted ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... sun much work is done By clown and kaiser, by serf and sage; All sow and some reap, and few gather the heap Of the garner'd grain of a by-gone age. By sea or by soil man is bound to toil, And the dreamer, waiting for time and tide, For awhile may shirk his share of the work, But he grows with his dream dissatisfied; He may climb to the edge of the beetling ledge, Where the loose crag topples and well-nigh reels 'Neath the lashing gale, but the tonic will fail— What does it ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... mantel-block, There ticks a busy little clock— The measurer of time. It never stops or tries to shirk; Unceasingly it plies its work With ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... with a grin, and the certainty that he had got the better of Amos for the moment cheered his spirits. Then, too, after to-day there would be plenty to eat, for his wife could manage to earn money; nor was the man so mean in his villainy as to shirk any effort to earn money himself. After first looking at his wife critically and with a satisfied smile, he touched her on the shoulder to ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... being offered a commission, he laughingly said, "Oh, I must accept it. It isn't fair to shirk it, though I'd ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... enthusiasm, or an affection, generally seemed to him an indelicacy; only two or three people in the world knew what was the real quality of his heart. Yet no man feigns shirking without in some measure learning to shirk; and there were certain true indolences and sybaritisms in Ashe of which he was fully and contemptuously aware, without either wishing or feeling himself able to break the ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... measure, depended. Without pushing himself, or being the least bit officious, he had been equally helpful behind the scenes. He had held in check all those who, taking advantage of her father's absence, were disposed to dispute her authority and shirk their work—and he had also, on her behalf, successfully resisted their demand for higher wages. And, over and above all this, he had always considered her personal comfort. Her meals—which she could never bother about ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... hanging to each of his fetlocks. The gallant combatant came well primed by his master the duke as to how he was to bear himself against the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha; being warned that he must on no account slay him, but strive to shirk the first encounter so as to avoid the risk of killing him, as he was sure to do if he met him full tilt. He crossed the courtyard at a walk, and coming to where the duennas were placed stopped to look at her who demanded him for a husband; the marshal ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... German emperor you scorn, Seems to my mind a monarch born, Worthy to lead a column; I'll warrant he could talk and work, And, neither being used to shirk, Was rarely ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... He wants to shirk his act, that's all. Just wait till I get hold of him—-I'll teach him to get me into hot water with the audience!" ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... but we cannot evade it. Each day it calls loudly to every parent and every teacher for a solution. The health and happiness of the coming generations depend upon the right education of the present one, and this responsibility the home and the school can neither shirk nor shift. We take great unction to ourselves for the excellence of the horses, pigs, and cattle that we have on exhibition at the fairs, but are silent as to our failures in the form of children, that drag out a half-life in our hospitals. In one ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... itself; a clear, serene composure of truth, mingling so freely and smoothly with the issues of life, that while, and perhaps even because she is herself unconscious of it, she is never once tempted to abuse or to shirk her trust, though it be to play the attorney in a cause that makes so much against herself. In this respect she presents an instructive contrast to Malvolio, who has much virtue indeed, yet not so much but that the counter-pullings have rendered him intensely conscious of it, and so drawn ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... a cold heart. Why that cold sign? Ah, I don't wonder you try to shirk the confession. You feel in your soul how ungenerous a hint is there. And yet, barber, now that I look into your eyes—which somehow speak to me of the mother that must have so often looked into them before me—I dare say, though you may not think it, that the spirit of that notification is not ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Raynor Royk, with doffed bonnet and in a voice so changed from its usual gruffness that De Lacy and De Wilton both marked it with surprise, "it grieves me ill that I, who have followed the Sable Maunch so oft in battle, should lead you to your death. Yet I may not shirk my duty, as you, great warrior as you are, well know. But if there be aught I can do to aid you, that touches not mine honor (for, my lord, we have what we call honor as well as those who wear the yellow spurs), speak ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... responsible for the well-being of the ship, her crew, and her passengers. I could never forgive myself if I left those men to the mercy of the Indians. I cannot permit either you or Tollemache to take a risk which I shirk. Boyle and Walker must remain on board—lest I fail. Now, Christobal, don't make my duty harder. Shake hands! I am proud to ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... of thought and action; the second, by placing labor and laziness, skill and stupidity, and even vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort. For the rest, if property is impossible on account of the desire to accumulate, communism would soon become so through the desire to shirk. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... make an excellent subject for the artist. He delights to paint us a row of Venetian bead stringers or a band of Sevilhan cigarette makers, but why does he shirk a bevy of industrious girls working a telephone exchange? Let us peep into one of these retired haunts, where the modern Fates are cutting and joining the lines of electric speech between man and man ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... You are a very odd mixture. You will go to the ends of the earth on the scent of big game; but you shirk all social exertion with a cynical laziness. You will come from Damascus at a stretch without sleeping, and think nothing of it; but you find it a wretched thing to have to exert yourself to be ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... careless man. This method offers peculiar advantages for interpolation, as there is always a blank page opposite the one on which I am writing. After correcting the manuscript, it is put in typewriting and again revised. There are also two revisions of the proof. While I do not shirk the tasks which approach closely to drudgery, especially since my eyesight is not so good as it was, I also obtain expert assistance. I find that when a page has become very familiar and I am rather tired of it, my mind wanders from the close, fixed attention essential ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... Should I tell him; would he believe; was it best to unveil the working of my own heart to that degree? And how could I evade or shirk ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... should have that in the ordinary course of business. The legal formalities would take them some little time. But I must go, Clara, I must not seem to shirk. My place now must be ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... parks near Lunnun, where they make mountains just to look at; that must be much of a muchness with these here chaps. I never drift far from Wappin', when I'm at home, and so I can't say I've seen these artifice hills, as they calls them, myself; but there's one Joseph Shirk, that lives near St. Katharine's Lane, that makes trips regularly into the neighborhood, who gives quite a ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... money), and forbidding their wives and daughters to wear sashes, or girdles, trimmed with gold or silver. No man shall make me believe that this was a rude and beggarly race, compared with those who now shirk and shiver about in canvass frocks and rotten cottons. Nor shall any man persuade me that that was a rude and beggarly state of things, in which (reign of Edward the Third) an act was passed regulating the wages of labour, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... loved to have his shaggy curly head brushed, and scratched with the fine comb, and it was Jane's office to be comber-in-chief—a duty she was prone to shirk if she could. ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... your kind words about the Presidency. If I could only get rid of my eternal hypochondria the work of the Royal Society would seem little enough. At present, I am afraid of everything that involves responsibility to a degree that is simply ridiculous. I only wish I could shirk the inquiries I am going off to ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... she said this, and the little smile she gave were to give me to understand that this weakness had descended in the family. I felt my heart contract; my self-imposed task was a harder one than I had anticipated, but I could not shirk it now. "Did this wine-cellar you mention run all the way to this house?" I lightly inquired. "I stumbled on a passage leading here, which I thought you ought to know is now open to any one in Mayor ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... protest the polliwogs, 'We're anxious to be grown-up frogs; But don't push in to do the work Of Nature till she prove a shirk; 'Tis not by jumps that she advances, But wins her way by circumstances; Pray, wait awhile, until you know We're so contrived as not to grow; Let Nature take her own direction, And she'll absorb our imperfection; You ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... scene of trouble. There, after some ill-natured talk, Deshler ordered his men to lay down their arms. I rode into the fort, and found the parapet badly torn up by the fire from the fleet. On going to the embrasure where I had seen the gun while on the river-bank talking to Captain Shirk, the piece was found split back about eighteen inches, and the lower half of the muzzle dropped out. A battered but unexploded shell lying with the piece explained that it must have struck the gun in the muzzle, almost squarely. On passing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... back to the shop about seven o'clock. He was, indeed, back in London at that hour, but his state of mind tempted him to shirk squalid duty; instead of turning toward Fulham Road, he took his way into the Strand, and there loitered in the evening sunshine, self-reproachful, yet enjoying the unwonted liberty. It was dinner-time; restaurants exhaled their pungent ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... cried Marchmont, shaking his fist at the great steamship in a paroxysm of disappointed rage. "It's only an excuse to shirk your duty! We've brought them out to you, and you've got to take them! I'll report you to the ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... on the prisoner's behalf in the days that followed, nor did he set up any plea for his life on the ground of knowing of plots against the King's Majesty. This would be to shirk the day of reckoning, and he had boasted to his companions at the "Punch-Bowl" that they should see him play the game to the end. He would fulfil this promise to the letter. He had ridden up Holborn Hill scores of times, seeking spoil and adventure on Hounslow Heath or elsewhere; ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... muscular work A larger allowance of grub We need than is due if we shirk Exertion, and lounge in a pub; For the loafer who rests in a chair Everlastingly puffing at "cigs" Can live pretty nearly on air, So I gather ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... truism, but it is worth attention. Unlike the rest of us, labouring people are unable to shirk any of life's discomforts by "getting a man" or "a woman," as we say, to do the disagreeable or risky jobs which continually need to be done. If a cottager in this village wants his chimney swept, or his pigstye cleaned out, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... I shirk not. I long for work. I pant for a life full of striving. I am no coward, to shrink before the rugged rush of the storm, nor even quail before the awful shadow of the Veil. But hearken, O Death! Is not this my life hard enough,—is not that ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... entirely disappeared in my own person. With wealth and position it will be to me at home as though it were not; and when my dear mother passes away it will disappear entirely and be speedily lost to memory. I do not mean by this to shirk the position of the colored man, of which I have had a bitter taste. I only mean to show you the brightness and hope of my situation. I trust that you will approve of the course which I have marked out, and give me some credit for courage in meeting and conquering the grisly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands— Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich; I've done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch. I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not shirk; Threescore years of labour—Thine be the long day's work. And now, Big Master, I'm broken and bent and twisted and scarred, But I've held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou wilt not judge me hard. Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool— Whiskey and cards and women, they ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... bit of a temper, Joyce." Jared's eye gleamed. "I hope you ain't going to take the first chance you get to shirk your duty ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... was preparing dinner, aided by one of the Germans. To show that they did not wish to shirk any camp duties, Sam and Dick did what they could to assist. The dogs and the sleds were off to one side. Tom sat on one sled, wrapped in heavy blankets, for ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... guilty in the first instance, for she sent slaves from a land of ignorance, cruelty, and idolatry, to an enlightened and Christian colony. It is in vain for either England or the United States to shirk the guilty responsibility of introducing slaves on free soil. England has the additional guilt of having acted against the wishes of the colonists; the United States has the additional guilt of increasing slave territory a century ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the Social Democratic Congress in Erfurt, 1891, deserves mention. It is a passage from a speech delivered by the elder Liebknecht in the Reichstag: "As regards the defence of the Fatherland all parties will be united when it is necessary to meet an outside enemy. In that moment no party will shirk its duty." ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... and by loss of character parry the evil for a short space; but not long, depend upon it. You and I may not see it, but our children will, and be obliged to meet the struggle man to man, which we may now shirk. By God alone can we be saved from such consequences; may He shed his power and grace upon ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... once started on restrictions, drew article after article, until it seemed that manacles were put on the masters' hands. To these restrictions the decadence of Brussels is ascribed, but that were like laying a criminal's fault to the laws of the country. Primarily must have been the desire to shirk, the intent to do questionable work. And behind that must have been a basic cause. Possibly it was one of those which we are apt to consider modern, that is, the desire to turn effort into the coin of the realm. All of the enormous quantity of orders received ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... my life, and I want to hear someone appreciate the other side for a change. I'm young; I've got all my life to live. If I were a boy I should be allowed to choose. Surely! surely, I ought to have some say in my own affairs! Don't shirk now, Tom, but speak out and say what you think. If you are going to be a Principal you ought to be able to give advice, and I ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... grant you," replied Dr. Cairn, "but a duty—a duty, boy, and one that we must not shirk. I, alone among living men, know whom, and what, lies there, and my conscience directs me in what I do. His end shall be that which he had planned for you. Give me ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... storm which was to overwhelm Ministers. When the moment came, however, at which it should have burst—Pitt's motion for the Address—Fox was absent. "Fox is gone to Bath," says Mr. Grenville. "Whether he is very ill, as some say, or wants to shirk the discussion about Mrs. Fitzherbert, as others assert, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... politician and the shirk of Podunk are the creatures who are doing their noble best to blot out the words of Lincoln and make it possible for the government he died to save to perish from the earth. And between these two evils the least apparent is the most real. The man who votes more than once ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... sweeping the store, etc., quite new duties to us, who were fresh from Academic shades, and from communion with Homer, Virgil, and Horace. I can't say we enjoyed it much. Neither did we like the lifting of heavy packages and being ordered about as if we were inferiors. But we did not shirk our duty, and kept our tempers. John, good fellow, came out of the ordeal sweet-tempered, kind, and obliging; and I don't doubt that we both feel the benefit of this practical training to this day. Certain it is, that we mastered all the details of the business, and knew ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... imprisoned for refusing to do so; further, that the free men of England should no longer be seized by the King's special mandate or warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties and the laws of their country. At first the King returned an answer to this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether; but, the House of Commons then showing their determination to go on with the impeachment of Buckingham, the King in alarm returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word and honour on these points, over ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... neighbourhood for two days, off and on, in search of his man; and now, by careful watching, like an amateur detective, he had run his prey to earth by a dexterous flank-movement and secured an interview with him where he couldn't shirk or ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen |
