"Unforced" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... touch. It might have been a product of Shelley's own age. The metaphor is marvellous, exhibiting a soul overflowing with true spirituality, and a mind trained to express beautiful thought in language of corresponding beauty. Such unforced ornateness is rarely met in the domain of amateur poetry. We feel certain that Miss Salls has already become a fixed star in the empyrean of the United. Exalted poetry of quite another type is furnished by the work of our new Director, Rev. Frederick Chenault, whose two exquisite lyrics, "Birth" ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... world, various satire, general utility, united with great vivacity of composition, Gil Blas is unrivalled: but, as a merely agreeable book, the Memoirs of Grammont perhaps deserve that character more than any which was ever written: it is pleasantry throughout, pleasantry of the best sort, unforced, graceful, and engaging. Some French critic has justly observed, that, if any book were to be selected as affording the truest specimen of perfect French gaiety, the Memoirs of Grammont would be selected in preference to all others. This has a Frenchman said ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... upon &c (desirous) 865; predisposed, propense^. docile; persuadable, persuasible; suasible^, easily persuaded, facile, easy-going; tractable &c (pliant) 324; genial, gracious, cordial, cheering, hearty; content &c (assenting) 488. voluntary, gratuitous, spontaneous; unasked &c (ask) &c 765; unforced &c (free) 748. Adv. willingly &c adj.; fain, freely, as lief, heart and soul; with pleasure, with all one's heart, with open arms; with good will, with right will; de bonne volonte [Fr.], ex animo [Lat.]; con amore [It], heart in hand, nothing loth, without reluctance, of one's own ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dream had done its office when it had provided me with characters and materials for a more probable and less abstruse and difficult plot. All further dependence upon it should then have been relinquished, and the story allowed to work out its own natural and unforced conclusion. But it is easy to be wise after the event; and the event, at this time, ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... pleasure in them is as strong and as fresh as ever. I do not know of any quality they lack. Grace, dignity, poetry, spirit, imagination, these enrich them and make them charming and beautiful; and wherever humor appears it is high and fine—easy, unforced, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... has written a story which deserves a considerable success. The Jam Queen is to a large extent what would be called in drama a one-part affair. There are plenty of other characters, many of them drawn with much unforced skill, but the personality of the protagonist, the Jam Queen herself, overshadows the rest. Mrs. Quilter is an abiding joy. There have been plutocratic elderly women, uneducated but agreeable, in a hundred novels before ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... picturing eye, we repeat, so that by being able to visualize each scene as you plan it in your mind you cannot fail to produce in your scenario a series of scenes whose action is logically connected and essentially natural and unforced. ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... up to Don Juan, and it is hard to say which is the cleverer satire of the two. In both, the wit is so unforced and natural, the fun so sparkling, the banter and the persiflage so bright and scintillating, that they seem, as Sir Walter Scott said, to be the natural outflow from the fountain of humour. Byron's earliest satire, English Bards and Scots Reviewers, ...
— English Satires • Various
... a touch of pure poetic fancy in each of the tales, and the sunbeams here invested with life and tiny human forms, are lovable and mirth-provoking imps.... The children, too, are real children, and there is no mawkish sentimentality, but an unforced, tender pathos in the story of little Tom Riley, who was 'mos twelve,' but who had a heart big enough for a man, and so skilfully is it told that a child may read and miss much of the sadness of it. ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... well as Dale noticed the freshness and unforced music of Norah's singing, and it was not long before she received an invitation to sing among the regularly trained young women ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... boarder, Mr. John Preston, M. P. (interpreted with great relish and vigour by Mr. HUBERT HARBEN), remarked, "I call a spade a spade," she replied, "And I suppose you would call a dinner-napkin a serviette"—one of the pleasantest remarks in a play where the good things said were many and unforced. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... beneath Love's sword of flame? Yet may I not from passion cease Nor in forgetting seek release; For love's my comfort, pride and law, Public and private, aye the same. Blest eyes that have of thee their fill And look upon thee at their will! Ay, of my own unforced intent, The slave ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... nothing of real social intimacies. As she told her aunt in her wickedness, she would almost have preferred a shoemaker,—if she could have become acquainted with a shoemaker in a manner that should be unforced and genuine. There was a savageness of antipathy in her to the mode of life which her circumstances had produced for her. It was that very savageness which made her ride so hard, and which forbade her to smile and be pleasant to people whom she could not ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... King against a Nation, has given to England the treasures of statesmanship, the treasures of eloquence, a vast part of the splendor and the power which are now collected under the reign of that one royal woman in the world, to whom every American heart pays its eager and unforced ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Palmyra, for I know She will not need my prayers; but for myself: With a feigned tale I have abused your ears, And, therefore, merit death: but since, unforced, I first accuse ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... genius gives thee both; where true design, Postures unforced, and lively colours join. Likeness is ever there; but still the best, Like proper thoughts in lofty language dress'd: Where light, to shades descending, plays, not strives, Dies by degrees, and by degrees revives. 70 Of various parts ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... has the gift of writing naturally and simply, her pathos is true and unforced, and her conversations ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... pretty well on in years. The novelist only sought to make a strong expression of his good opinion of French manners, no doubt. In observing the blouse wearers of Paris in their hours of ease and relaxation, I have been struck with the great prevalence of a certain unforced courtesy of manner, even among the coarsest. No one would dream what a howling demon this creature could and did become in the days of the Commune who should see him enjoying himself at his ball, his concert, his theatre or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... truly beatific union of religion and science, so painfully longed after by so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, and the Good, these are the three august Divine Ones before which we bow the knee in adoration; in the unforced combination and mutual supplementing of these we gain the pure idea of God.[20] To this "triune" Divine Ideal shall the coming twentieth ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... charming cordiality, insisted on his taking tea with him, and then let loose a flood of small-talk, as though he were delighted with his visitor. His welcome was so perfect, his manners so gracefully unforced, that Barrant had an uneasy suspicion that he was being beaten at his own game, and was slightly out of countenance in consequence. Up to that moment he could not, for the life of him, decide whether Austin Turold's ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... produce broad grins and other broad effects at any cost. Naturally the peoples whom he visits, his readers, and the author himself, all suffer a good deal together, and do not so often combine in hearty, unforced laughter as could be wished. This is the more a pity because Mr. Browne is a genuine humorist, and must be very sorry to fatigue anybody. In his less boisterous moments he is really charming, and, in spite of all his liveliness, he does give ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... every scent, every attitude that we are encouraged to assume, gives us a push in the same direction if we let it do its rightful work. For other temperaments the collective, deliberate, and really ceremonial silence of the Quakers—the hush of the waiting mind, the unforced attitude of expectation, the abstraction from visual image—works to the same end. In either case, the aim is the production of a special group-consciousness; the reinforcing of languid or undeveloped individual feeling and aptitude by the suggestion ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... personal knowledge of this union of genius and affection, even MALONE commemorates, with unusual warmth, the literary friendships of Sir Joshua Reynolds; and with a felicity of fancy, not often indulged, has raised an unforced parallel between the bland wisdom of Sir Joshua and the "mitis sapientia Laeli." "What the illustrious Scipio was to Laelius was the all-knowing and all-accomplished BURKE to REYNOLDS;" and what the elegant Laelius was to his master Panaetius, whom he gratefully protected, and to his companion ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... deadly personal aversion, exhausted all their strength in attacks upon him. They assailed him with keen invective; they assailed him with still keener irony; but they found that neither invective nor irony could move him to any thing but an unforced smile and a goodhumoured curse; and they at length threw down the lash, acknowledging that it was impossible to make him feel. That, with such vices, he should have played a great part in life, should have carried numerous elections ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the Menorah movement has from the very beginning been a natural, unforced growth. The Intercollegiate Menorah Association makes no effort to organize new Menorah Societies; its policy is rather to encourage and assist the efforts of students who, wishing to join in the movement, have undertaken ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... turned into the avenue, holding a tolerable rein. He clucked and lightly touched the horses with the lash. This was true sport; this was humor, genuine, initiative, unforced. He could imagine the girls and their fright when he finally slowed down, opened the door, and kissed them both. Wouldn't they let out a yell, though? His plan was to drive furiously for half a dozen blocks, zigzag from one side of the street ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... content! To be at once secure and innocent. Windsor the next (where Mars with Venus dwells, Beauty with strength) above the valley swells 40 Into my eye, and doth itself present With such an easy and unforced ascent, That no stupendous precipice denies Access, no horror turns away our eyes: But such a rise as doth at once invite A pleasure and a rev'rence from the sight: Thy mighty master's emblem, in whose face Sate meekness, heighten'd with majestic grace; Such seems thy gentle height, made ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... without a trace of bias or curiosity, with an unforced accent, neither indifferent nor too interested—no one could have told whether it was meant for generosity or malice. Hilary ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... their Action to the Place of Meeting: For a Frolick carried farther may be better performed by other Animals than Men. It is not to rid much Ground, or do much Mischief, that should denominate a pleasant Fellow; but that is truly Frolick which is the Play of the Mind, and consists of various and unforced Sallies of Imagination. Festivity of Spirit is a very uncommon Talent, and must proceed from an Assemblage of agreeable Qualities in the same Person: There are some few whom I think peculiarly happy in it; but it is a Talent one cannot ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... regretted leaving. Winifred looked after the transfers from the kitchen at critical moments, while Mousie and Winnie were our waitresses. A royal blaze crackled in the open fireplace, and seemed to share in the sparkle of our rustic wit and unforced mirth, which kept plump Mrs. Jones in a perpetual quiver, ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... fancied she saw a great terror leap up in her eyes. Veronica looked at her a moment, the expression of astonishment frozen on her face, and then to Sahwah's great bewilderment she laughed aloud, a genuine, mirthful, unforced, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... have named the above engraving, because, for persons wishing to study the present qualities and methods of line-work, it is a pleasant and sufficient possession, uniting every variety of texture with great serenity of unforced effect, and exhibiting every possible artifice and achievement in the distribution of even and rugged, or of close and open line; artifices for which,—while I must yet once more and emphatically repeat that they are illegitimate, and could not be practiced in a revived school ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... is plain then what forced worship and unforced worship are like. Forced worship is corporeal, inanimate, obscure and sad—corporeal because it is of the body and not of the mind; inanimate because it has no life in it; obscure for lack of understanding in it; and ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... bearing the orator's sceptre were a voice of singular fulness, depth, and variety of tone; a falcon's eye with strange imperious flash; features mobile, expressive, and with lively play; a great actor's command of gesture, bold, sweeping, natural, unforced, without exaggeration or a trace of melodrama. His pose was easy, alert, erect. To these endowments of external mien was joined the gift and the glory of words. They were not sought, they came. Whether the task were reasoning or exposition or expostulation, the copious springs ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... theories and new ideals. A man of powerful though narrow intelligence, a passionate theorist, and an ardent specialist in grammar and the use of words, Malherbe reacted violently both against the misplaced and artificial erudition of the Pleiade and their unforced outbursts of lyric song. His object was to purify the French tongue; to make it—even at the cost of diminishing its flavour and narrowing its range—strong, supple, accurate and correct; to create a language which, though it might be incapable of expressing the fervours of personal passion or ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... pleased to be merciful, glad and ready to forgive, sweetly patient of mood, and distinguished throughout by such prominent virtues, that, while always sure of the affections of followers and comrades, he was not less secure in the unforced confidence of his enemies, among whom his integrity and mercy were proverbial. By their fruits, indeed, shall we know this community, the history of which furnishes as fine a commentary upon the benefit of good social training ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... embody in poems, and sing them therewith to suitable melodies and with the play of instrumental accompaniment. The music must follow the sense of the words; if they are simple and natural then also must the music be easy, unforced and without pretension. Music is the expression of soul-feeling. If now the soul of the musician be virtuous, so also will his music become noble and full of virtuous expression, and will set the souls of men in union with those ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... hours. Sacobie Bear was a great gossip for one of his race. In fact, he had a Micmac nickname which, translated, meant "the man who deafens his friends with much talk." Archer, however, was pleased with his ready chatter and unforced humour. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... prison. I do not doubt that there will one day be some legal restriction on Towers of Babel, and that the hygienic disadvantages of the microbe-breeding "well" or air-shaft will be more fully recognised than they are at present. A time may come, too, when the ideal of an unforced harmony in architectural groupings may replace the now dominant instinct of aggressive diversity. But whatever developments the future may have in store, I must own my gratitude to the "fierce individualism" of the present ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... hand, seems to me on the whole undoubtedly successful, though, for whatever reason, its merits do not appear to have been recognized by the public. It is unequal, and it is too prolix: but when it is good, which is not seldom, it is very good, unforced, idiomatic, and felicitous. In one of its features, the habit of supplying connecting links to Horace's not unfrequently disconnected thoughts, perhaps I should have done wisely to follow it more ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... very short sketches concerned with the War. They are a little unequal, some being better than others, and others (naturally) being worse than some. They all reveal their author, Miss EVELYN ORCHARD, as possessed of a pleasantly unforced style, and perhaps rather more ease than imagination. One of them, my own favourite, the story of a parson who enlisted, is conspicuous as containing so admirable a recruiting speech that I can only ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... calls "The Odour." In which he seems to rejoice in the thoughts of that word Jesus, and say, that the adding these words, my Master, to it, and the often repetition of them, seemed to perfume his mind, and leave an oriental fragrancy in his very breath. And for his unforced choice to serve at God's altar, he seems in another place of his poems, "The Pearl," (Matt. xiii. 45, 46,) to rejoice and say—"He knew the ways of learning; knew what nature does willingly, and what, when it is forced by ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... fighting men. We are bold and vigorous, and we call no man master. To the nation, from whom we are proud to derive our origin, we ever were, and we ever will be, ready to yield unforced assistance; but it must not, and it never ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... far-shooting beams the moral confusion of the tragedy. This is, at any rate, emphatically true of The Ring and the Book. The fulness and variety of creation, the amplitude of the play and shifting of characters and motive and mood, are absolutely unforced, absolutely uninterfered with by the artificial exigencies of ethical or philosophic purpose. There is the purpose, full-grown, clear in outline, unmistakeable in significance. But the just proprieties of place and season are rigorously observed, because Mr. ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... I am sure that they have been so because I have from the very beginning been on my guard against lies. There are passages in every work which will not yield immediately what one impatiently demands of them;—and then I have always waited, never tried; the thing has had to come itself unforced, and it is possible that what I have received has been a deception; but I have believed in it; to me it has been no deception. Before I finally conclude, I always, it is true, go over again what I have written (as in the case of ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... "The Invisible Playmate"; and W. V. again acts as guardian elf and guide to this new region of the child's earthly paradise. The Saints are here treated with a simplicity that is almost or altogether childlike, and with an unforced imagination which is only to be learnt by becoming as a child. And this is perhaps why, although comparatively a new book, it has the air of something pleasantly old, and written long ago; and thus wins its way into the children's library ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... had written a treatise on the question whether Juliet's nurse's husband was really "a merry man," or whether it was only his widow's affectionate partiality that induced her so to report him. But they knew the whole mass of the Plays with a natural and unforced intimacy; their speech was saturated with the immortal diction, and Hamlet's speculations were their nearest approach to metaphysics. Pope was quoted whenever the occasion suggested him, and Johnson was esteemed the Prince ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the old Flemming!" cried Lynde, with an unforced laugh. "I am glad that I have not succeeded in turning all your joyous gold into lead. I'm not always such dull company as I have been to- night, with my moods and my presentiments. I owe them partly, perhaps, to not seeing Miss Denham ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... pleasant and unforced can carry the name—is done at a window that overlooks this park. Were it not for several high buildings in my sight I might fancy that I lived in one of the older squares of London. There is a look of Thackeray about the place as though the Osbornes might be ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... lessons that something must be left for the servants in the kitchen, and never to take everything on a dish, there being only three of these unknown objects on that platter, so she refused with unforced politeness when they ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... the monarch's speech, All these their master will beseech, With trembling hearts and looks of woe, To spare them, for they fear to go. And many a plan will they declare And crafty plots will frame, And promise fair to show him there, Unforced, with none to blame. On every word his lords shall say, The King will meditate, And on the third returning day Recall them to debate. Then this shall be the plan agreed, That damsels shall be sent Attired ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Splendid Fairing (MILLS AND BOON). But the more credit to Miss CONSTANCE HOLME that, despite my increasing conviction that the wrong prodigal would return, and that the powers of nature were throughout almost visibly preparing to engulf him, the gentle and unforced power of her story did hold my attention till the final wave. Distinction shown in apparent absence of effort would, I think, be my verdict on her writing; she clearly knows her Northern farmer-folk with the sympathy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... all things fell and vile, Hate's yell, and envy's hiss, and folly's bray, Remember me; and with an unforced smile See riches, baubles, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... This unforced choice, this fond election of evil, would appear perfectly unaccountable, if we did not consider the composition of the National Assembly: I do not mean its formal constitution, which, as it now stands, is exceptionable enough, but the materials ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... him, your dear brother,—my dear friend! If he should have known me and conversed with me, I could lot have refrained from making the journey to see him. How easy his converse ever was, how natural, how sensible [176] and humorous by turns, but especially so unforced that for me it always had a charm by itself. The words seemed to drop from our lips almost without our will, and yet with nobody could I get through so much conversation in so little time. Neither of us seemed to want much explanation ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... one of the kindest and most gracious of hosts, and his genuine unforced good nature and good humour drew to him many whose tastes and sympathies were widely different from his own. Nature certainly never intended him for a sportsman, but he preserved game extensively and until the last ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... little, then made an unforced transition to other matters. She rose to leave before long. Whilst her hand was ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... happy, and faithful labor in accumulating and disciplining its powers, as well as by its gigantic, incommunicable facility in exercising them. Therefore, literally, it is no man's business whether he has genius or not: work he must, whatever he is, but quietly and steadily; and the natural and unforced results of such work will be always the things that God meant him to do, and will be his best. No agonies nor heart-rendings will enable him to do any better. If he be a great man, they will be great ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... limitations, for it barred her out of comedy. Her melancholy, morbid disposition was in the fullest sympathy with tragic heroines; but she failed when she tried to represent the lighter moods and the merry moments of those who welcome mirth. She could counterfeit despair, and unforced tears would fill her eyes; but she could not laugh and romp and simulate a gaiety ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr |
