"Unwitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sat they, The estranged two, Thrust in one pew By chance that day; Placed so, breath-nigh, Each comer unwitting Who was to be sitting ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... one's nerves as the most impertinent stroke in the world, that every blest thing coming up for her in any connection was somehow matter for her general recreation. There she was again with the innocent egotism, the gilded and overflowing anarchism, really, of her doubtless quite unwitting but none the less rabid modern note. Her grace of ease was perfect, but it was all grace of ease, not a single shred of it grace of uncertainty or of difficulty—which meant, when you came to see, that, for its happy working, not a grain ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... a theory that manner in church is the supreme test of the proprieties. He knew plenty of women who could charm at a dinner or dazzle at a dance, but who displayed their weaknesses at prayer. All unwitting to herself, poor Drusilla was inviting his final—or almost final—judgment on her future, so far at least as he was concerned, for the simple reason that she twitched and sighed and forgot to say ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... from speechless love the secret grace That binds it round with silence, and engirds Its heart with memories fair as heaven's own face, Let love take courage for a little space To speak and be rebuked not of the soul, Whose utterance, ere the unwitting speech be whole, Rebukes itself, ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... substance of what Mr. Kendal told his wife as they sat together, unwitting of the lapse of time, and shrinking from any interruption that might mar their present peace and renew the sense ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... soul Unwitting I keep white and whole, Unlatched and lit, if Thou should'st care To enter or ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... Son; Glory! there's Mary Carter, King's Son. Hallelujah!" How far he would have pursued the list of family names we don't know, had not the whole meeting burst into laughter and tears at Abe's unwitting mistake in calling Mary Carter a King's Son; but it was of no consequence to him; a little slip of his happy tongue didn't mar his meaning; the people cheered him, and on he ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... noblest man's compassionateness; and her imagined thousand emotions;—a rolling music within her, a wreath of cloudglory in her sky;—which had, as with virgins it may be, plighted her body to him for sheer urgency of soul; drawn her by a single unwitting-to-brain, conscious-in-blood, shy curl outward of the sheathing leaf to the flowering of woman to him; even to the shore of that strange sea, where the maid stands choosing this one man for her destiny, as in a trance. So are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... directing love, that at once heartens to duty and tells duty. We must be very near Him to catch that look, and very much in sympathy with Him to understand it; and when we do, we must be swift to obey. Our eyes must be ever toward the Lord, or we shall often be marching on, unwitting that the pillar has spread itself for rest, or idly dawdling in our tents long after the cloud has gathered itself up for the march. Do not let impatience lead you to hasty interpretation of His plans before they are fairly evolved. Many men by self-will, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... hast forgotten our lord's temper when he finds I have so disgraced his house by fighting 'neath the very windows? And if the fellow can talk and tells of the marriage, why, I'm undone, and they will begin a search." All the while he led her further up the stair, she unwitting, until they stood fairly inside the threshold and his foot struck ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... pignuts." "Pathetic" for it is boldly ingenuous as youth itself with a touch of youthful conceit and exaggeration. Another eager human soul on the threshold longing to find some suitable high work in the world, all unwitting of the fact that ideal strivings are everywhere despised and discouraged—jerry-built cottages for the million being the day's demand and not oratories or palaces of art or temples for ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... where it touched, carrying with it a fine dust of snow-powder. Gerald went out with the fine, blind face of a man who is in his state of fulfilment. Gudrun and he were in perfect static unity this morning, but unseeing and unwitting. They went out with a toboggan, leaving Ursula and ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... trip to San Francisco, he brought in with him fifteen pounds of prime cigarette tobacco. He had done this before, and delivered the stuff to Cecil Winwood. So, on that particular night, he, all unwitting, turned the stuff over to Winwood in the bakery. It was a big, solid, paper-wrapped bundle of innocent tobacco. The stool baker, from concealment, saw the package delivered to Winwood and so reported to the Captain of ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home— Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam. And least of all he holds the human swarm— Unwitting now that envious men prepare To make their dream and its fulfillment one When, poised above the caldrons of the storm, Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare His roads between the thunder ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... are among men, they are of a marvelous nature. Often his godlike nature is displayed by apparent sloth and indolence on his part, his followers performing miraculous feats while he remains inactive; hence he is reproached for idleness by the unwitting. Sometimes he acts as a transformer, changing the form of mountains and valleys with a step or stroke; sometimes as a culture hero bringing gifts to mankind and teaching them the arts learned from the gods, or supplying food by making great hauls of fish by means ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... "Vastly but softly, at thy prophecies. "The vines grow dusky with a deeper green— "And with their tendrils snatch thy passing harp, "And keep it by brief seconds in their leaves. "O Prophet Wind, thou tellest of the rain, "While, jacinth blue, the broad sky folds calm palms, "Unwitting of all storm, high o'er the land! "The little grasses and the ruddy heath "Know of the coming rain; but towards the sun "The eagle lifts his eyes, and with his wings "Beats on a sunlight that is never marr'd "By cloud or mist, ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... two world-menders were so infelicitous as to lend color to the belief—shared by the representatives of a number of humiliated nations—that greed of new markets was at the bottom of what purported to be a policy of pure humanitarianism. Some of the delegates were currently supposed to be the unwitting instruments of elusive capitalistic influences. Possibly they would have been astonished were they told this: Great Britain was suspected of working for complete control of the Baltic and its seaboard in ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... bit by bit, and listening to his happiness did much to ease the soreness of my heart—while the light lasted. It was in the night watches that my struggles came—though often some unwitting speech of his would bring back the pain. He took delight in telling me, for example, how for hours at a time I had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of the old fire-worshippers came with a very singular effect on the ear. When a boy, I have often passed through the fire myself on Midsummer eve, and such is still the custom. The higher the flame, the more daring the act is considered: hence there is a sort of emulation amongst the unwitting perpetrators of this Pagan rite. In many places cattle are driven through the fire; and this ceremony is firmly believed to have a powerful effect in preserving them from various harms. I need not ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... Bruce's office, was to lay her discovery before Doctor Sherman. She was certain that with her new-found knowledge, and with her entirely new point of view, they could quickly discover wherein he had been duped—for she still held him to be an unwitting tool—and thus quickly clear up the whole case. But for reasons already known she failed to find him; and learning that he had gone away with Blake, she well knew Blake would keep him out of her reach until the trial ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... herds. The shaking bogs and morasses were to become solidified, and the waters that permeated them to retreat into well defined chains of ponds and lagoons. This the first explorer could not foresee, he was disheartened by what he found, and unwitting of the change that was to follow he gave a hostile verdict. But although it did not fall to his lot to trace out the great system of the Murray watershed, he had, at any rate, the proud satisfaction of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... where the "good minister" lived, far behind, and now we approach a populous town. By our side travels a thoughtful man, all unwitting of his company. It is the Sabbath, and he has been ten miles to hear the gospel preached. No church-going bell has as yet ever gladdened the place which he calls his home. Deep sighs escape from his breast, as he rides slowly along. He meditates on the wretched condition of his neighbors ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... rule they never spoke of Manisty. What Lucy's attitude implied was that she had in some unwitting and unwilling way brought trouble on Eleanor; that she was at Torre Amiata to repair it; and that in general ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Full soon in the clear heavenly water, he Sleeps on unwitting of it, his little breast ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... who, all unwitting, was coming to his death; sudden as it came the voice was hushed and nought to hear save the hiss and murmur of the surge, and I saw the man Andy stir restlessly as minute after ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... moccasins; and, in a trice, he was flitting away over the face of the green earth at ten times the speed of a wild goose chased by the winds. He ran and ran, nor ceased to run, even when come to the land he was in quest of. All unwitting where he was, or whither going, on—right through with might and main speed—on and on, until he had put the Land of Sunrise as far behind him as the Land of Sunset was before him; nor yet had found the object of his heart's desire. And why? because he had gone ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... would have been a great shock to Wentworth had he suspected it. It remained for the duke to perceive the latent power in Michael, and to be taken instantly into his confidence on the matter, while Wentworth, unwitting, had remained for life outside ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... asked Mr. Keene, unwitting and bewildered. "Of course she doesn't know all I suffered, what with taking up one worthless claim after another month in and out—if you mean that! Why, I actually thought one time of giving ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... freedom. Whence it appears, how potent is the wise man, and how much he surpasses the ignorant man, who is driven only by his lusts. For the ignorant man is not only distracted in various ways by external causes without ever gaining, the true acquiescence of his spirit, but moreover lives, as it were unwitting of himself, and of God, and of things, and as soon as he ceases to suffer, ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... its somber mantle about the meadow, the wolves gathered to feast on the dead horses, till Hazel's nerves were strained to the snapping point. Continually she was reminded of that vivid episode, of which she had been the unwitting cause. Sometimes she would open the door, and from out the dark would arise the sound of wolfish quarrels over the feast, disembodied snappings and snarlings. Or when the low-swimming moon shed a misty glimmer on the open she would peer through a thawed place on the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Oedipus, in fact, does not struggle at all. His struggles, in so far as that word can be applied to his misguided efforts to escape from the toils of fate, are all things of the past; in the actual course of the tragedy he simply writhes under one revelation after another of bygone error and unwitting crime. It would be a mere play upon words to recognize as a dramatic "struggle" the writhing of a worm on a hook. And does not this description apply very closely to the part played by another great protagonist—Othello to wit? There is no struggle, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... moment the Major's heart thumped painfully, then the confusion of the unwitting eavesdropper compelled him to make his presence known. He did so with that fine discrimination and artful delicacy he summoned in times of ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... have beaten about Loveday's drooping head had not Cherry, all unwitting, come to the rescue with a cry on the discovery that her treasures, thus disturbed, had fallen to the ground, which was muddy enough, owing to the habit of the cattle of trampling ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... travelled on, to be filled and arrested by the great new fact of the present. She had made a new friend. And at the same moment she had found in her—at last—the rival with whom her own knowledge of life had threatened her these many years. A rival so sweet—so unwitting! Alice had read her. She had scarcely ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to work his will And secret wrong on some forspoken wight, Frames waxe, in forme to represent aright The poore unwitting wretch he meanes to kill, And prickes the image, framed by magick's skill, Whereby to vex the partie day and night." Son. 10; from Poems and Sonnets annexed to "Astrophil and Stella," ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... companion drove on unwitting of the vengeance-breeding wrath behind them. For a time they kept silence, each absorbed in his own thoughts. Flint was unpleasantly conscious that the girl was crying behind her veil, but realizing that he had no consolation to offer, ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... together with these rags: The little Mysian bonnet for my head; "For sooth to-day I must put on the beggar, And be still what I am, and yet not seem so." [6] The audience here may know me who I am, But like poor fools the chorus stand unwitting, While I trick them ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... on thee still. I followed thee to thy prison, unwitting it would turn into a palace. I follow thee to thy torture to-morrow, trusting it will be the crowning miracle and the fiery scourges will turn into angels' feathers. It is the word of Zechariah fulfilled. 'In that day will I make the governors of Judah ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... swords, axes, darts, and spears, Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clove; But in his breast stood fixed the fatal bough Of mistletoe, which Lok, the Accuser, gave To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw— 'Gainst that alone had Balder's ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... our intention in these words to cast doubt on the immortality of the soul, or to depreciate the value of a belief in it. We desire to vindicate morality and religion from the unwitting attacks made on them by many self styled Christian writers in their exaggeration of the practical importance of such a faith. The qualitative contents of human nature have nothing to do with its quantitative contents: our duties rest not on the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... drew me into society by degrees. I hardly knew where the line was passed, between quiet conversaziones and brilliant and courtly assemblies. It was passed when I was unwitting of it, or when I felt unable to help it. My mother had been so much alienated by my behaviour toward Marshall and De Saussure, that I thought it needful to please her by every means in my power, short of downright violation of conscience. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord," ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... native custom, to the side rooms, where a surprisingly good tiffin had been got ready for us, venison, chickens, French rolls, dulces (sweets), whiskey and soda, Heaven knows what else, to which, all unwitting of our doom, we did full justice. About two miles beyond Tayug lies San Francisco, the initial point of our real mounted journey. The people along this part of the road had simply outdone themselves in ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox |
