"Well-meaning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like the general characters of its supporters. They who propagate these stories believe them to be true. They do not, of course, assert that every supernatural story is what it professes to be. They may even admit that many are the mere creations of well-meaning but ill-informed report. Nor is every Catholic priest, monk, or layman to be accounted a sincere and honest man. There are betrayers of their Lord, from Judas Iscariot to the last wretched apostates, who remain for years in the Church, deceiving ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... be welcomed." The governor, Colonel Gore-Browne, was weak; but he felt that if he could have Sir William Martin and Bishop Selwyn on his council for native affairs, he might be able to walk uprightly. His proposal, however, was declared "inadmissible," and the well-meaning governor was soon hurried into a policy from which ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... has no position and no money. Apparently he is ready to let Meryl wreck her life, rather than bless his with herself and her fortune. Some men are like that. It is a mixture of pride and heroics very difficult for a well-meaning cousin like myself to cope with. I think it may even turn my hair grey yet." Again she spread out her hands. "Can you not see the rest?... You yourself led up to it. You urged your united service to South Africa (though why poor South Africa should be dragged ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... had no fibre of his being that responded to what were called civic claims, political urgencies, social reforms, definite organisations; he felt increasingly that these things were but the cheerful efforts of well-meaning and hard-headed persons to deal with the bewildering problems, the unsatisfactory debris of life. Hugh felt that the only possible hope of regeneration and upraising lay in the individual; and that if the tone of individual feeling could ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... worthy host at Marblehead, came out in a little boat to bring some of Clarendon's clothes, which had been left by accident. He is a clever fellow, for though Clarendon was not half civil to him, he was always polite in his way, and his frank, well-meaning civility so won upon brother, that when they parted he apologized for his rudeness, and told the Captain that he had shown himself the most of ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... Grandfather, "had two masters to serve—the king, who appointed him, and the people, on whom he depended for his pay. Few men, in this position, would have ingenuity enough to satisfy either party. Colonel Shute, though a good-natured, well-meaning man, succeeded so ill with the people, that in 1722, he suddenly went away to England, and made complaint to King George. In the mean time, Lieutenant-Governor Dummer directed the affairs of the province, and carried on a long and bloody war with ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and chivalrous man would be ashamed to take advantage of the misfortune of a woman for the satisfaction of his lowest passions. I will give you good advice as a well-meaning friend, as one who has a boundless respect for you. You tell me you have an uncle in Belgrade: go to him. He is your blood relation, and must receive you in a friendly way. I give you my word of honor that I will not marry, and if we meet again I shall always bring ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... MACNAMARA'S creations, and as she makes wife number one lie like a trooper in order to preserve the happiness of wife number two a soupcon of freshness is imparted to the rechauffe. Of course the well-meaning first wife is not allowed to succeed in her efforts, and Beau and Perry (you would never guess from that which was which, but in this case it doesn't matter) have a very bad time indeed until, reassured by a friendly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... whole House.) It is a mass by no means pure; but neither is it wholly corrupt, though there is a large proportion of corruption in it. There are many members who generally go with the Minister, who will not go all lengths. There are many honest well-meaning country gentleman who are in parliament only to keep up the consequence of their families. Upon most of these a good speech will have influence.' JOHNSON. 'We are all more or less governed by interest. But interest will not make us do ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... dissimilar have been given before by other artists in like case. But it was this rigid fidelity to her individual vision and personal conviction which constituted her strength. There are always stupid, well-meaning busybodies in the world, who go about making question of the sonneteer why he does not attempt something epic and homicidal, or worrying the carver of cherry-stones to try his hand at a Colossus; but ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... past, which still holds its ground in the back chambers of the brain, would persuade us that 'tis a demon-haunted world, where not God but the devil rules; we are not yet persuaded that this is a cheerful, homely, well-meaning universe, whose powers, if strict in their working, are nevertheless beneficent and not diabolic." Against these phantasmal fears the doctrine of God's immanence, rightly understood, offers the best of antidotes, and here lies its unquestionable value. At the ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... was not exactly a polished gentleman; he took no notice of me after the first searching glance. He made an unpleasant impression, but this wore off when I found that he was a well-meaning man, who had not cultivated fine manners. Why should he have cultivated what would have been of little or no use to him? These rural functionaries are just like the people with whom they live. The young sminariste ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... her new maid, however, there was no strife, therefore no tendency to dislike. She was thoroughly well-meaning, like the rest of her family, and finding her little mistress dwell in the same atmosphere, the desire to be acceptable to her awoke at once, and grew rapidly in her heart. She was the youngest of Janet's girls, about four years older than Donal, not clever, but as ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Observatory, and other scientific associations. At this juncture the discoveries of Captain Inglefield, R. N., in Smith Sound, afforded to Kane a new route for his activities. The scheme, as far as the search for Franklin was concerned, was well-meaning, but none the less fallacious and illogical. Kane was personally cognizant of the fact that Franklin had gone into Lancaster Sound, and had wintered in 1845-46 at Beechy Island, plainly following the direct and positive orders of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... the administration of a good theatre. That is the true reforming agency, with this great advantage, that reforms which come by public opinion are sure, while those which come without public opinion cannot be relied upon. The dramatic reformers are very well-meaning people. They show great enthusiasm. They are new converts to the theatre, most of them, and they have the zeal of converts. But it is scarcely according to knowledge. These ladies and gentlemen have scarcely studied the conditions of theatrical enterprise, which must be carried on as a business or ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... some use. You say it's fifty miles to the nearest doctor. But that needn't make a grass widow necessary. I can keep house—it looks better than when I came, and you know it." Which remark would have hurt the feelings of several well-meaning cow- punchers, ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... the case silently for a few minutes. He was a well-meaning man, but a doctor of the old school. He believed that if medicine was a good thing, the more one took the better. Also, if dieting was good, ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... would require considerable sacrifice on his part to smooth over. We are all human and vulnerable"—up went Mr. Avery's lower lip covering the upper one, and then down again—"and it does not behoove any of us to be too severely ethical and self-righteous. Mr. Sluss is a well-meaning man, but a trifle sentimental, as ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... so that when you begin to eat sparingly and chew your food to a cream you may fortify yourself against well-meaning but mistaken friends and relatives. And, oddly enough, it does seem that the individual with "nerves" has more friends and relatives than any other ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... And thousands of honest, well-meaning men and women, who had seen, year after year, lie after lie, one stupendous story after another, punctured, riddled, and proved a vicious and malignant slander, swallowed this latest one whole, and marvelled that the American officer could be the monster ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... had him in our synagogue," said Raphael. "Michaels is a well-meaning worthy man, but he ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... in going to a watering-place with a gay young Frenchwoman; but he has no objection, after raising twenty pounds by the sale of that extraordinary work 'Joseph Sell,' to set off into the country, mend kettles under hedgerows, and make pony and donkey shoes in a dingle. Here, perhaps, some plain, well-meaning person will cry—and with much apparent justice—how can the writer justify him in this act? What motive, save a love for what is low, could induce him to do such things? Would the writer have everybody ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... generations up and down. There is one other phrase which will soon come to be decisive of a man's social STATUS, if it is not already: "That tells the whole story." It is an expression which vulgar and conceited people particularly affect, and which well-meaning ones, who know better, catch from them. It is intended to stop all debate, like the previous question in the General Court. Only it doesn't; simply because "that" does not usually tell the whole, nor one half of the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... action. On November 27, he issued a proclamation, stating that sundry persons were confederating and conspiring together to begin a military expedition or enterprise against the dominions of Spain. Honest and well-meaning citizens were being seduced under various pretenses to engage in the criminal enterprises of these men. All faithful citizens and the civil and military authorities were therefore enjoined to be vigilant ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... means, one that is never pleased with his friends, O bull among men, one that becomes angry on occasions that do not justify anger, one that is of restless mind, one that quarrels without cause, that sinful bloke who feels no scruple in deserting well-meaning friends, that wretch who is always mindful of his own interests and who, O king, quarrels with friends when those do him a very slight injury or inflict on him a wrong unconsciously, one who acts like a foe but speaks like a friend, one who is of perverse perceptions, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... me a very secondary person; however, I was close to him as he tottered, like a good old well-meaning man, to Mass. On his return he appeared, as I described last Sunday, in the balcony facing the gardens for a few minutes and was loudly cheered, and then he came back to the Salle des Marechaux and sat down in a fine chair of Bonaparte's, covered all over with his ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... clear blue eyes were still baffled, uneasy, as though he felt he had not done the utmost that duty—not duty to the service but to humanity—required. That was the trouble with people, Johnson thought: when they were most well-meaning they became ...
— The Most Sentimental Man • Evelyn E. Smith
... had a salon so full of worked cushions, each of which was a keepsake—a souvenir of some first communion. The Abbe did not know his visitor, but the name Talbrun seemed to him connected with an honorable and well-meaning family. The lady was probably a mother who had come to put her child into his hands for religious instruction. He received visits from dozens of such mothers, some of whom were a little tiresome, from a wish to teach him what he knew better than they, and at one time he had set ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... suppose," said she, instigated now by sheer opposition and determination not to succumb. "You think Mr. Slope is a messenger direct from Satan. I think he is an industrious, well-meaning clergyman. It's a pity that we differ as we do. But, as we do differ, we had probably ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... day, partly because he was annoyed at the discovery of some wrongdoing in which, despite his repeated warnings, a few of the railroads had indulged (though the overwhelming majority were blameless) and partly at the prompting of plausible self-seekers or well-meaning specialists in the improvement of everybody and everything—one fine day he lost his temper and with it his sense of proportion. He struck blindly at the railroads, he appointed guardians (called commissions) to whom they would have to report daily, ...
— Government Ownership of Railroads, and War Taxation • Otto H. Kahn
... Barrister may think, Christ at least thought so difficult as to speak of it, not once or twice, but uniformly, as little less than miraculous, as tantamount to a re-creation. This Barrister may be likened to an ignorant but well-meaning Galenist, who writing against some infamous quack, who lived by puffing and vending pills of mercurial sublimate for all cases of a certain description, should have no stronger argument than to extol 'sarsaparilla', and 'lignum vitae', or ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... sorry you showed that letter to Mr. Evans,' said Mr. Burke; 'I don't like to expose Lord Clonbrony; he is a well-meaning gentleman, misled by ignorant or designing people; at all events, it is not ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... struck Bill. Though impeded by the weight of an indefinite number of sandwiches, he slowly rose and looked solemnly round on the little group. Dennis trembled, for he feared some dreadful bull on the part of his rough, though well-meaning friend, but Dr. Arten, in a state of intense enjoyment, cried, "Mr. Cronk ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... something less than justice has been done to it by later historians. He was inferior in strength of will to his father, in ability to his eldest brother, and in the higher virtues of a constitutional sovereign to his niece, who succeeded him. But he was not only a kindly and well-meaning man, a good husband to Queen Adelaide and a good father to his natural children, faithful to his old friends, and bountiful in his charities; he was also a loyal servant of the state, with a genuine sense of public duty, a natural love ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... college was otherwise engaged at the moment with a drama of more contemporaneous interest and authorship. An unusually severe January added to the eager and nipping air upon which the curtain rises in "Hamlet," and proved too much for the well-meaning players. Hastings (so ran tradition) had gallantly bestowed such money as he had upon the ladies of the company to facilitate their flight to New York. His father, a successful manufacturer of codfish packing-boxes at Newburyport, telegraphed ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... "If you were any one but yourself, I would let you go at once in your anger, and with the double charge on your conscience of doing an injustice to two well-meaning men. But as you are the granddaughter of Claudius Balbillus, I feel it to be due to myself to say, that if Pollux had really made this monstrous bust he would not be in this palace now, for I should have turned him out and thrown the horrid object after him. You look surprised—you do not know ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... down though the storms of centuries charged against it. And it was a relief to think of him and his work; it took her mind from an ugly little fear lurking in her heart. Her throat did not always behave as a well-meaning throat should. ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... to know he is ready to come when called. It is wrong to deceive patients with various recommendations from which they will vainly expect help during this stage; their welfare is best served when they are left alone. Generally the advice of well-meaning friends will be as harmless as it is futile, yet I must emphasize that during the first stage straining to expel the fetus is ill advised. Such effort will surely be ineffective then and may exhaust the patient; in that event it becomes harmful, for she will be fatigued ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... the Fall, cannot pass those examinations equally with a rich man's son of equal mind, who can take a tutor to the seashore or the mountains and coach up all summer. Thus foundations, established by well-meaning people to help poor boys self-respectingly through college, become intellectual prizes for those who do not need ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... least of the negro's cares. His demand for civil rights is no demand for "social equality." This is a mistaken view of the subject. It is this dread of social equality, this fear of social contact with the negro that precludes many well-meaning people from securing accurate information in regard to the aims, and purposes, and capabilities of those whom they desire to help. But there is light ahead, dark as at times it now may seem, and erroneous as are the views in regard to the negro's ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... bench, playing with his snuff-box and the charms on his watch-guard or unfolding a newspaper, which he never read. He was dressed like a bourgeois of the old school in a gold-laced cocked hat, a plum-coloured coat and blue waistcoat embroidered in silver. He looked well-meaning enough, and was something of a musician to judge by a flute, one end of which peeped from his pocket. Never for a moment did his eyes wander from the supposed stripling, on whom he bestowed continual smiles, and when he saw him leave his seat, he would get up himself and follow him at ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... its work. The instinct of domination is a weed that grows rank in the shadow of the temple, climbs over it, possesses it, covers its ruin, and feeds on its decay. The unchecked sway of priests has always been the most mischievous of tyrannies; and even were they all well-meaning and sincere, it would be ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... lamentable period Burke was actively employed in stimulating, informing and guiding the patrician chiefs of his party. "Indeed, Burke," said the duke of Richmond, "you have more merit than any man in keeping us together." They were well-meaning and patriotic men, but it was not always easy to get them to prefer politics to fox-hunting. When he reached his lodgings at night after a day in the city or a skirmish in the House of Commons, Burke used to find a note from the duke of Richmond or the marquess ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Well-meaning persons are now working for a new departure in the prison question,—reclamation, to restore once more to the prisoner the possibility of becoming a human being. Commendable as this is, I fear it is impossible ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... to duty at home. Don Carlos, while somewhat resenting the unfortunate ending of his scheme, made allowances for me when the whole story was related to him. He smiled a kindly smile as I expressed to him all my regrets that I had failed to take advantage of his well-meaning efforts in ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... endeavor to dissociate the gray car and the crime from their dangerous juxtaposition in the man's mind, so he spoke about Mrs. Lester's attractive appearance, harped on the apparent aimlessness of the deed, hinted darkly at clews in the possession of the police, and finally got rid of the well-meaning chauffeur. Back he went to his telephone, and having ascertained that Mr. Forbes was fully expected to put in an appearance at the city office before noon, settled down to ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... you must forgive him, because he is well-meaning, and because his conceit has made a fool of him. They're not all like him. But how ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... latest novel, The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman, is a series of monologues addressed by one Lady Ann Spenworth to "a friend of proved discretion." I quote from the London Times of April 6, 1922: "In the course of them Lady Ann Spenworth reveals to us the difficulties besetting a lady of rank. She is compelled to live in a house ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... insisted the well-meaning woman. "He will know that you forgot it, and all will be ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... autograph, or make haste to copy that poem they wish to have in the author's own handwriting, or it will be too late; but I have never before been huddled out of the world in this way. I take this rather premature obituary as a hint that, unless I come to some arrangement with my well-meaning but insatiable correspondents, it would be as well to leave it in type, for I cannot bear much longer the load they lay upon me. I will explain myself on this point after I have told my readers what ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... still an episode; to the regular, a permanent career. No doubt, if a man is thoroughly conscientious, or thoroughly ambitious, or thoroughly enthusiastic, a temporary pursuit may prove as absorbing as if it were taken up for life; but the majority of men, however well-meaning, are not thorough at all. How often one hears the apology made by volunteer officers, even those of high rank,—"Military life is not my profession; I entered the army from patriotism, willing to serve my country faithfully for three years, but of course not pretending to perfection in every ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... process of collaring a commercial monopoly from the railway companies, should be exalted into the supreme arbiters of what men or women may or may not be allowed to read—this surely is unjustifiable by any argument? Mr. Eason may on the whole be doing more good than harm. He is plainly a very well-meaning man of business. If he knows a good book from a bad—and the public has no reason to suppose that he does—I can very well believe that when his moral and literary judgment came into conflict with his business interests, he would sacrifice ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off. From an excess of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise an army, and trusted our cause to the temporary defence of a well-meaning militia. A summer's experience has now taught us better; yet with those troops, while they were collected, we were able to set bounds to the progress of the enemy, and, thank God! they are again assembling. I always considered militia as the best troops ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... what I have written that our administration, in my opinion, suffers from two main defects. First, it is internally too bureaucratic and centralizing in its tendencies; and, secondly, it is liable to be forced by the external pressure of well-meaning but irresponsible politicians and philanthropists to adopt measures which may be disapproved of by the authorities on the spot, and opposed to the wishes, requirements, and interests of the people. It seems to me that for many years to come the best form of government ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... revised his opinion of the mate to some extent. He saw that Swanson did not like him because he considered the wireless job a sinecure, and wanted to keep all the crew hard at work all the time. It was the usage of the sea, and the big mate himself was blunt and well-meaning. But Mart Judson had no mind to be ordered about by anyone, and he determined that if Swanson tried it, the mate would ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... random observations. It is a danger to which we are all of us exposed when we venture on general remarks in a society the circumstances of which we might have supposed were well enough known to us. Such casual wounds, even from well-meaning, kindly-disposed people, were nothing new to Charlotte. She so clearly, so thoroughly knew and understood the world, that it gave her no particular pain if it did happen that through somebody's thoughtlessness or imprudence she had her attention forced ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... his game," said Dr. O'Grady, "if he has a game. I may be wronging him. He may be simply an idiot, a well-meaning idiot ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... half-starved Irish peasantry at our very doors. Members of this school took too little account of the tremendous difficulties faced in South Africa by small handfuls of white colonists in contact with hordes of savages. The Colonial Government, with a knowledge of the conditions gained only from well-meaning but somewhat prejudiced missionaries, endeavoured from 1815 onwards to enforce an impracticable equality between white and coloured men, and abolished slavery at one sudden stroke in 1833 without reasonable compensation. A large number of the Dutch, unable to tolerate ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... subject; and it is this, that the teaching of my text and its context casts great light—and I think by many people much-needed light—on what the resurrection of the dead means. That doctrine has been weighted with a great many incredibilities and I venture to say absurdities, by well-meaning misconceptions and exaggerations. We have heard grand platitudes about 'the scattered dust being gathered from the four winds of heaven,' and so on, but the teaching of my text is that the contrast between the present physical frame and the future bodily environment is utter and complete; and that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... temptation to many men. I do not mean to hypocrites, but to really well-meaning men. They like religion. They wish to be good; they have the feeling of devotion. They pray, they read their Bibles, they are attentive to services and to sermons, and are more or less pious people. But soon—too soon— they find that ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... priests with whom he came in daily contact were a pitiable set. He found among them many honest, respectable, well-meaning men, conscientiously fulfilling their humble tasks, striving hard to serve the religious needs of the community. There were, on the other hand, however, fanatics and rogues, men representing the worse elements of society. The people shunned the clergy, and held them up to ridicule. ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... it into thy mind and heart, and take it for thy good. It was a frosty ending, exasperating in its air of patronage, of superior wisdom, and in its lack of any note of feeling. So, of course, it set Job's impatience alight, and his next speech is more desperate than his former. When will well-meaning comforters learn not to rub salt into wounds while they seem to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... mysteries of the pharmacopoeia and become "a simple and refreshing beverage" that any one might obtain for a penny in the coffee houses, or, if preferred, might prepare at home. In this they were aided and abetted by many well-meaning but misguided persons (some of them men of considerable intelligence) who seemed possessed of the idea that the coffee drink was an unpleasant medicine that needed something to take away its curse, or else that it required a complex method of preparation. Witness "Judge" Walter Rumsey's ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... while he delicately took his pinch with two fingers of the other. This and his bow were his chief acquirements, and his reputation for manners was based on the distinction of his manner. He could not drive in a public conveyance, but he could be rude to a well-meaning lady; he never ate vegetables—one pea he confessed to—but he did not mind borrowing from his friends money which he knew he could never return. He was a great gentleman, a gentleman of his patron's school—in short, a well-dressed snob. But ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... Sarawak, the warlike preparations were going on rapidly. I had saluted and paid my visit to Muda Hassim; he was delighted to see me again, and we went through the form of holding several conferences of war in his divan. He appears to be a good well-meaning man, well inclined toward the English, moderately honest, and, if roused, I daresay not without animal courage; and altogether, with the assistance of his clever younger brother, Budrudeen, a very fit person to govern that part of Borneo of which ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... death, should it occur, Kate is to remain with her for six months, as a final test of their ability to live happily together, and for the benefit of the schools in this city. At the end of that time, if these two well-meaning but uncongenial people decide that it is wisest to part, 'Kitty Quixote' will be sent to you, to do with as you see fit. In any case, she will be no pecuniary charge to any one; her own mother's little fortune, with such a portion of mine as is ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... am a well-meaning man, thank God! and simple hotelier as I am, there is in me the blood of a gentleman. My father was a servant and officer of the late Marechal d'Ancre. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to be understood as saying that there are no well-meaning men among those who were compromised in the rebellion. There are many, but neither their number nor their influence is strong enough to control the manifest tendency of the popular spirit. There are great reasons for hope that a determined policy on the part of the national government will ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... of the state of society under the old regime. Curious to know his opinions of their private characters, I asked a good many questions concerning the royal family. Louis XVI. he described as a-well-meaning man, addicted a little too much to the pleasures of the table, but who would have done well enough had he not been surrounded by bad advisers. I was greatly surprised by one of his remarks. "Louis XVI," observed Lafayette, "owed ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... am sorry to say, a good deal of truth in it, for though well-meaning, my brother was so stern and harsh that the poor little fellow was afraid of him, and took that very foolish step. It was long enough before I was able to trace him, and found the woman who kept the inn from ...
— The Powder Monkey • George Manville Fenn
... men, for I saw him, on another occasion, going to Holy Communion, at the Soldiers' Mass, where the altar was fixed up under a verandah in the officers' quarter, the men being assembled in the open square in front. He was a well-meaning man, and tried to carry on the Repeal Association after his father's death, but it soon collapsed, for the mantle of Dan was altogether ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world; to the end that well-meaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, I would desire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage, and to examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely allied to Truth, and lineally descended from Good Sense; ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... swept away by the prairie fires, went Jasper the Parable, with his cobbling-tools, his stories, and his gospel of universal love and good-will. The Tunkers welcomed him with delight, and the emigrants from New England looked upon him kindly as a good and well-meaning man. There were some fifteen or twenty children in the settlement, and here the peaceful disciple of Pestalozzi, and friend of Froebel, applied for a place to teach, and the school was by unanimous consent assigned ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Impresario with the suggestion that possibly, after all, the parts of Marie Vassilievna and the Boyar were suited to their respective talents; and that it was a pity to allow Russian musical progress to be intrusted to such well-meaning but incompetent persons as the second soprano ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... will; but if under your roof, those whom Jasper has induced to institute a search, that he has no means to institute very actively himself, might make statements which (as you are already aware) might persuade others, though well-meaning, to assist him in separating her from you. He might publicly face even a police-court, if he thus hoped to shame the rich man into buying off an intolerable scandal. He might, in the first instance, and more probably, decoy ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the kind. Mr. Clifton was a well-meaning man, who had never disturbed his mind by analyzing his own opinions nor any one else's, and who worked conscientiously in his parish. But no doubt Bertie had too much respect for truth to let it be mixed up ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... who were to follow Lafayette in his adventure to the New World in aid of American independence, and some who were to follow in another long procession equally adventurous and as likely to be fatal—the Revolution in their own country. During the Terror some of them, including their beautiful and well-meaning queen, were to lose their lives. Of any such danger as this, these young nobles, in the present state of seemingly joyous and abundant ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... Not often. You see, I'm too well-meaning to go far astray," said Nick, with becoming modesty. "You must remember that I'm well-meaning, Wyndham. It accounts for a good many little eccentricities. I think you were quite right to make her extract that needle. I should have done it myself. But you are not so wise in resenting her refusal ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... penetration to perceive that Liancourt, who was greatly moved by the beauty, the innocence, and the unprotected position of Fanny, had not confined caution to himself; that with his characteristic well-meaning bluntness, and with the license of a man somewhat advanced in years, he had spoken to Fanny herself: for Fanny now seemed to shun Philip,—her eyes were heavy, her manner was embarrassed. He saw ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... way Mrs. Parker kept watch over the child, but she had children of her own and a sick husband, and had to drudge and slave for her family and lodgers from morning until night. Oh, I must tell you her answer to a well-meaning district visitor one day, Anna. The lady had just said very sweetly, 'It is so good for us to count our blessings, Mrs. Parker; we are so apt to ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... cry, "Hands off!" I cannot desist, however, from this word-game until I have set down a few. Whatever is not one's own by first possession is second-hand. That is what I am told my knowledge is. But my well-meaning friends come to my defence, and, not content with endowing me with natural first-hand knowledge which is rightfully mine, ascribe to me a preternatural sixth sense and credit to miracles and heaven-sent compensations all that I have won and discovered ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... my brother Edward's son, For that I was his father Edward's son. That blood already, like the pelican, Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd: My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,— Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!— May be a precedent and witness good That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood: Join with the present sickness that I have; And thy unkindness be like crooked age, To crop at once a too-long withered flower. Live in thy shame, but ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... been zealous in neighborly offices, and had brought, in addition to a great basket of needed appliances, a silver porringer, which, with wonderful foresight, had been ordered from a Hartford jeweller in advance. The out-of-door man, Larkin, took a well-meaning pride in this accession to the family,—walking up and down the street with a broad grin upon his face. He also became the bearer, in behalf of the Tew partners, of a certain artful contrivance of tin ware for the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... you it makes me a little sick sometimes to see what excellent, well-meaning people will do with girls in respect of marriage. Oh, good Lord! it just does! But then a high moral tone doesn't come quite gracefully from me. I know that. I'm jolly well out of it. It's not for me to preach. And so I thought for ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... of the yet unconquered Dutch colony, was likely to be taken up with his duties to such an extent as to preclude his sharing prominently in the diplomatic part of his mission; Colonel George Cartwright, a soldier, well-meaning but devoid of sympathy and ignorant of the conditions that confronted him; Sir Robert Carr, the worst of the four, unprincipled and profligate and without control either of his temper or his passions; and, lastly, Maverick himself, opposed to the existing order in Massachusetts and convinced ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... group of enemies is perhaps less well-meaning. It includes those who for partisan purposes oppose each and every practical effort to help the situation, and also those who make money from undue fluctuations in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... this providential movement. But the immense good which immediately followed from it, and which, within a short time, was to be greatly increased, was never mentioned in reply to the reasons advanced by these well-meaning complainants. The first result of it was the sudden and necessary creation of many new episcopal sees in all large cities, where churches were being rapidly built, or had already been ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... think, however, you have reversed the parable, and are but a well-meaning sheep that has donned a wolf's skin, and so we will put you to the test. We young people will give you a chance to draw up our petition, which, if you would save your character, you must do at once with sheep-like docility, asking no questions and causing no delay. There, that will answer; ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the lady to visit all the families in town of her acquaintance, for the purpose of expressing her sympathy with "those poor dear Adamses, who were so proud, poor things, that really there was nothing hut starvation and the workhouse before them!" Another of those well-meaning persons—strong-minded and kind-hearted, but without a particle of delicacy—came to poor Mary, with all prestige of conferring ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... to be distributed as the word of God, like "seed thrown upon the wayside;" and the medicines, I trust, were to be kept locked up in the chest, as their distribution might have been fatal to the poor Jews. These worthy and well-meaning missionaries were prepared to operate mentally and physically upon the Abyssinians, to open their minds as well as their bowels; but as their own (not their minds) were out of order, I was obliged to assist them by an examination ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... Stafford was doing the honours and came forward to be introduced to Lawrence, a ceremony remarkable only because they both took an instantaneous dislike to each other. Lawrence disliked Rowsley because he was young and well-meaning and the child of a parsonage, and Rowsley disliked Lawrence because a manner which owed some of its serenity to his physical advantages, and his tailor, and his income, irritated the susceptibilities of the ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... him. As to Malcolm's longing for the cloister, he deemed it the result of the weakly health and refined nature which shrank from the barbarism of the outer world, and he thought it would pass away under shelter from the rude taunts of the fierce cousins, at a distance from the well-meaning exhortations of the monks, and at the spectacle of brave and active men who could also be pious, conscientious, and cultivated. In the renewed sojourn at Windsor which James apprehended, the training of such a youth as Malcolm of Glenuskie would be ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... throne has been overturned by the wild waves of human blood," said Kaunitz thoughtfully; "and many a well-meaning prince has been branded by history as a tyrant, because he would have forced reform upon nations unprepared to receive it. The insurgent states have some show of justice on their side; and if your majesty adopts ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of their minds. Now comes the reaction, when they have to fall back upon themselves. The effort has succeeded in accomplishing all that it could accomplish, namely, a deluge of emotional demonstrations and slogans, a verbal and not a real contract ostentatious fraternity skin-deep, a well-meaning masquerade, an outpouring of feeling evaporating through its own pageantry—in short, an agreeable ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... likely to engage the attention of the meeting, and stated many facts and figures in a loose and careless way, which every one knew the secretary would, as a matter of course, afterwards state much better and more correctly than himself. But the mayor was a respected, well-meaning man, and, although his speech was listened to with manifest impatience, his sitting down ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... that now burned with interest and intelligence—and the talk of the two was the lore of the viper. When the snake-catcher passed out of the life of his young disciple, he left behind him as a present a tame and fangless viper, which George often carried with him on his walks. It was this well-meaning and inoffensive viper that turned aside the wrath of Gypsy Smith, {12a} and awakened in his heart a superstitious awe and veneration for the child, the Sap-engro, who might be a goblin, but who certainly ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... again, in Arkansas. This makes six times that he is known to have died, and always in a new place. The death of Washington's body-servant has ceased to be a novelty; it's charm is gone; the people are tired of it; let it cease. This well-meaning but misguided negro has not put six different communities to the expense of burying him in state, and has swindled tens of thousands of people into following him to the grave under the delusion that a select and peculiar distinction was being conferred upon them. Let him stay buried for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... counter-shocks of demagogues like Clodius, conspirators like Catiline, and military adventurers such as Marius and Sulla—for whose statue the Senate could find no more constitutional title than "The Lucky General" [Sullae Imperatori Felici] Well-meaning individuals, such as Cicero and Pompey, were still to be found, and even came to the front, but they all alike proved unequal to the crisis; which, in fact, threw up one man, and one only, of force to become a real maker of history—Caius Julius ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... tolerable lawyer, to whom I paid twenty-five dollars in consideration of his conversing five minutes with a jury of my peers, the said jury consisting of twelve hungry individuals who wanted to go out to dinner. When my legal adviser had made a few well-meaning remarks, the jury retired to talk the matter over among themselves; and, after about fifteen minutes absence, they returned and expressed their opinion that I was "not guilty." This opinion induced me to believe that they were very sensible ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... depends upon this little conversation. Can you not put it out of your minds for a few moments that I am the dangerous Falkenberg, the mischief-maker, the ogre of all respectable Britons? Can you not remember only that I am a well-meaning, not unkindly old gentleman who has some good advice to offer? You at least will listen to me, Lady Anne. Do I look like an assassin by choice? Do I seem like the sort of person to indulge in these dangerous exercises for mere amusement? You are both young, you ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were wedded, they were looking forward, joyously; now they recall the past, its losses and trials and misfortunes. They remember the children who are dead, or far away; or the prosperity once theirs, but now fled. Few old folks would care to celebrate their golden wedding; it is usually some well-meaning grandchild who sees in it "an occasion." Often, too, the excitement, the fatigue, the unusual strain on mind and body, result in illness ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Samuel Butler, with a conviction that increased with his experience of life, preached the gospel of Laodicea, urging people to be temperate in what they called goodness as in everything else? Why is it that I, when I hear some well-meaning person exhort young people to make it a rule to do at least one kind action every day, feel very much as I should if I heard them persuade children to get drunk at least once every day? Apart from the initial ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... present, like himself, when the pianist-composer breathed his last. From the above we gather, at least, that it is very uncertain whether Chopin's desire to see George Sand was frustrated by her heartlessness or the well-meaning interference ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... a well-meaning young nobleman of great good looks and small political experience. His ruling characteristic was pride. Shortly before leaving Halifax he had his carriage-horses shot, lest on his departure they should fall into plebeian hands. His hauteur was ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... Windsor this last time. "My dear Effy," he cried, "you see me, all at once, an old man." I was so much affected by this exclamation, that I wished to run out of the room. Yet I could not but recover when Lady Effingham, in her well-meaning but literal way, composedly answered, "We must all grow old, sir,- -I am sure ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... the orthodox but untenable persuasion that Catholicism comprehends all that is good; he adds the heterodox though amiable sentiment that any well-meaning ambition of the mind, any hope, any illumination, any science, must be good, and therefore compatible with Catholicism. He bathes himself in idealistic philosophy, he dabbles in liberal politics, he accepts and emulates rationalistic ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... and simplicity of a wedding or the unmarred happiness of the occasion, but if one attempts to equal the joy of the event with the bigness of his words, one will produce upon the reader an effect of revulsion rather than interest. An ignorant, but well-meaning, reporter on an Eastern weekly concluded a wedding ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer |
