"Torpidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sentimental humility, O! then 'Liberality' is to call out for him in the best of her hacknied tones; the contest is to cease at the instant when his humour changes from mischief to melancholy; 'affetuoso' is to be the only word; and he is to be allowed his season of sacred torpidity, till the venom, new formed in the shade, make him glisten again in the sunshine ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... also affect the body and limbs. "Every day so many hours and so much energy are required for digestion; a gross torpidity, a carnal lethargy, seizes on mortal men after dinner. This may and can be avoided. Man's knowledge of organic chemistry widens daily. Already he can supplement the gastric glands by artificial devices. Every doctor who administers physic implies ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... sense of the atmospheric changes by their decreased activity, reminding us of the comparative torpidity in which the majority of them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... of mind under solemnity of aspect. His stolid instinctive conservatism grovels before the tyrant rule of routine, despite that turbulent and licentious independence which ever suggests revolt against the ruler: his mental torpidity, founded upon physical indolence, renders immediate action and all manner of exertion distasteful: his conscious weakness shows itself in overweening arrogance and intolerance. His crass and self- satisfied ignorance makes him glorify the most ignoble ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... middle between velocity and torpidity; the Italians say, it is not necessary to be a stag, but we ought ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... to her ears: She awoke from her torpidity only to be sensible of the dangers of her situation. She followed him hastily, and ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... dementia, idiocy, and old age, and the physiological and mental causes are the same; the power of fixing the attention and governing the thoughts is diminished, owing to the weakening of the vivid consciousness of the external world, produced by a torpidity of the afferent organs. In these cases the recollections which are not altogether lost sometimes reappear as hallucinations. The hallucinations of madness, in its various forms of dementia, idiocy, and dotage, ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... dreamed. Generally speaking, he mingled in these juvenile assaults with passion. But today it seemed to him a humming of idle words which he listened to from so far away, oh, so far away! in a bored and mocking demi-torpidity. Plunged in their discussions, the others were a long while in remarking his muteness. But at last Saisset, accustomed to find in Pierre an echo of his verbal bolshevisms, was astonished at failing to hear it reverberate any more and put the ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... across the seething valley; each night died into a stillness, lonely and awful. Nature changed her garb with monotonous regularity; the drowsing children of this tropic region passed their days in dull torpidity; Jose saw nothing of it all. At times a villager would bring a tale of grievance to pour into his ears—perhaps a jaguar had pounced upon his dog on his little finca across the lake, or a huge snake had lured a suckling pig into its cavernous maw. At times a credulous ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking |
