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Diligence   /dˈɪlədʒəns/  /dˈɪlɪdʒəns/   Listen
Diligence

noun
1.
Conscientiousness in paying proper attention to a task; giving the degree of care required in a given situation.
2.
Persevering determination to perform a task.  Synonyms: industriousness, industry.  "Frugality and industry are still regarded as virtues"
3.
A diligent effort.  Synonym: application.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Diligence" Quotes from Famous Books



... supposed to be for Ballochmyle Laird, and Adam-hill and Shawood were bought for Oswald's folks. This is so imperfect an account, and will be so late ere it reach you, that were it not to discharge my conscience I would not trouble you with it; but after all my diligence I could make it no ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... constitution on this occasion, there was not one more so, than a certain one whose name indeed is not openly known, but whose good offices and usefulness are too great ever to be forgotten; for it by its nice diligence and skill selected out things of the most noble and exquisite nature, by infusing and dispersing them to enliven and invigorate the whole body, which how effectually they did, our bold projector sadly experienced. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... cannot wonder that we know so little of Shakespeare, and that we must go to town records, cases at law, and book registers for our knowledge. Thanks to the diligence of modern scholars, however, we know much more of Shakespeare than of most of his fellow-actors and playwrights. The life of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's great predecessor, is almost unknown; and of John Fletcher, Shakespeare's great contemporary and successor, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The miserable fraction of Science which our united Mankind, in a wide Universe of Nescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... to-morrow. If there are windows to this building we ought to be able to get out of them, and if it is surrounded by walls we ought to be able to scale them. Besides, if we are set to work in the city we might find an opportunity of evading the diligence of our guards. For one thing, we must assume an air of cheerfulness while we work. In time, when they see that we do our work well and are contented and obedient, their watch will relax. Above all, we must not, like these poor fellows, make up our minds that our lot is hopeless. If ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... desire and seek and find the things that will please the eye, and cheer the brain, and gladden the heart of the people of this great city, so that when one prayeth, 'Give me, friend, of thy loaves,' a man may answer, 'Take of them, friend, as many as thou needest'—is that, I say, an incentive to diligence less potent than the desire to hoard or to excel? Is it not to share the bliss of God who hoardeth nothing, but ever giveth liberally? The joy of a man here is to enable another to lay hold upon that which is of his own ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... Difficulty malfacileco. Diffusion vastigo. Dig fosi. Digest digesti. Digit fingro, cifero. Dignify indigi. Dignitary rangulo. Dignity indeco. Dignity (rank) rango. Dilapidate ruinigi. Dilate plilargxigi. Dilatory prokrastema. Diligence diligento. Diligent diligenta. Dim dubeluma. Diminish (length) mallongigi. Diminish (price) rabati. Diminutive malgranda—eta. Din bruegado. Dine (midday) meztagmangxi. Dine (evening) vespermangxi. Dining-room mangxocxambro. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... little shop over a railroad depot; and we remember also the general incredulity with regard to the value of the machine with which his name was identified. Even after hearing him explain it at great length, we were very far from expecting to see him one day riding to the Central Park in a French diligence, drawn by five horses paid for by the sewing-machine. Still less did we anticipate that within twelve years the Singer company would be selling a thousand sewing-machines a week, at a profit of a thousand dollars ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... bees as models of diligence. Behold how these little hard workers gather the honey together! Not a sign of obstinacy. They never insist on a certain number of hours for their workday, nor do they crave time for leisure, meditation or rest. Indeed, they employ all their energies, so that the ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... gradually contracted, and immense trees that had been swept down it by floods, rendered the navigation dangerous and intricate. Its waters became so turbid, that it was impossible to see objects in it, notwithstanding the utmost diligence on the ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... Tucker will be arrested. Seize and search her baggage for papers, and also cause strict examination to be made to discover any papers concealed on her person. Much depends on your diligence and ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... exclaimed the tutor sharply. "I am very glad you have come, for I really feel it to be my duty to complain to you of the great want of diligence displayed by my pupil." ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... leaves for Korsor, on the island of Zealand, the terminus of the Copenhagen Railway. This is the most direct route between Hamburg and Copenhagen, though the trip may be very pleasantly varied by taking a steamer to Taars, and passing by diligence through the islands of Lalland, Falster, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... pitifully-unequal; for the row of silver cups on his mantel, engraved with many dates, bore witness to his athletic prowess. She wrote for a book on solitaire, but after a while the sight of cards became distasteful. With a secret diligence she read the reviews, and sent for novels and memoirs which she scanned eagerly before they were begun with him. Once, when she went into his study on an errand, she stood for a minute gazing painfully at the cleared space on his desk where once had lain the papers and letters ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... It is, indeed, difficult to avoid one, call it what you will, and quite as difficult to find a more absurd name than that adopted, unless, indeed, (why the machine goes but five miles an hour,) it is called a diligence from not being diligent, as the speaker of our House of Commons may be so designated from not speaking. It consists of three bodies, carries eighteen inside, and is not unfrequently drawn by nine horses. A cavalry charge, therefore, could scarcely make more noise. Hence, and from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various

... excused from her afternoon lessons, and inviting the teachers and young ladies of the school to join them in dressing the church. Here was a prospect for us of some rare enjoyment; and how we plead for permission, and promised diligence and good behaviour for the future, those who remember their own school-days can easily imagine. At length permission was granted that Anna and Lizzie Lincoln, Fan Selby, Clara Adams, and I, accompanied by one of the teachers, might assist them for an hour ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... instructive, too, to observe the diligence and accuracy with which the best lights of the age were brought to bear upon the great problem which Parma had undertaken to solve. All the science then at command was applied both by the Prince and by his burgher antagonists to the advancement of their ends. Hydrostatics, hydraulics, engineering, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... as I was, I still had the recollection to conceal the paper from the eye of Miss Wilmot, and that instant to go in quest of the body. The utmost speed and diligence were necessary; she must soon hear of the fatal event, and it was much to be dreaded that this would not be the last ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... the Preface to the Miscellanies, that he would thenceforth write nothing except over his own signature; and he complains that such a course has a tendency to injure him in a profession to which "he has applied with so arduous and intent a diligence, that he has had no leisure, if he had inclination, to compose anything of this kind (i.e. David Simple)." At the same time, he formally withdraws his promise, since it has in no wise exempted him from the scandal of putting forth anonymous work. From other passages in this ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... labour, men in weatherworn, grey-blue uniforms and knee-boots, while on the roadside were men who lounged, or sat smoking cigarettes, rifle across knees and wicked-looking bayonets agleam, wherefore these many German prisoners toiled with the unremitting diligence aforesaid. ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol

... years later that I made the visit on the way to the Prado. All day long the diligence rattled up hill away from the railroad, and it was dusk before I saw the Del Puente stronghold on its crag, evidently a half hour's walk from the miserable fonda where the diligence dropped me. ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... at the hotel kept by M. Gai (which is very good, clean, and cheap), we left next morning, i.e. Tuesday, June 16, at four by diligence for Pinerolo, thence by rail to Turin where we spent the day. It was wet and we saw ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... school of Christ he could not keep to himself. Holding, in addition to his academical position, a lectureship founded by two pious laymen for the preaching of the Word in the Bohemian tongue (1401), he soon signalized himself by his diligence in breaking the bread of life to hungering souls, and his boldness in rebuking vice in high places as in low. So long as he confined himself to reproving the sins of the laity, he found little opposition, nay, rather support and applause. But when he brought the clergy and monks also ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... if we shall do our diligence to live well, peace shall follow us. And yet how hard is it to find a man that does this? For almost all are led by human fears, choosing rather the present enjoyments, than the ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... about the 2d of July. After having reached the offing, while pursuing our course with diligence towards Cape Hatteras, we were overhauled by a New York pilot boat of the smallest size, apparently bound in the same direction. This little schooner was in ballast, and skimmed over the seas like a Mother Carey's chicken; ranged up on our weather quarter and hailed us. It proved to ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... but this witchcraft of folly, which wise Nature did of purpose give them into the world with them that they might the more pleasantly pass over the toil of education, and as it were flatter the care and diligence of their nurses? And then for youth, which is in such reputation everywhere, how do all men favor it, study to advance it, and lend it their helping hand? And whence, I pray, all this grace? Whence but from me? by whose kindness, ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... given plain directions, so that with proper diligence they should not have any trouble about keeping ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... of our early history and literature. In the former capacity he showed himself diligent, honest, and anxious, at a time when these qualities seemed to have been so entirely lost to the church as to form only a subject for clerical ridicule. In the latter, the same qualities are also prominent, diligence, honesty, bold outspokenness, an ardent desire for the pure, the true, and the natural, and an undisguised enmity to everything false, self-seeking, and vile. Everything he did was done in a pure way, and to a ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt

... and also saying and declaring it to the neighbours. And the said Dumesnil, knowing that he would incur blame and reproach if the matter were brought forward, seized and abducted the said servant woman in all diligence, and took her away from the town, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... contact with civilisation these savages are now rapidly disappearing, or at least losing the old habits and ideas which render them a document of priceless historical value for us. Hence we have every motive for prosecuting the study of savagery with ardour and diligence before it is too late, before the record is gone for ever. We are like an heir whose title-deeds must be scrutinised before he can take possession of the inheritance, but who finds the handwriting of the deeds so fading and evanescent that it threatens to disappear entirely ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... seated ourselves in the diligence. All the carriages of this description have the appearance of being the result of the earliest efforts in the art of coach building. A more uncouth clumsy machine can scarcely be imagined. In the front is a cabriolet fixed to the body of the coach, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... he dispatched to dwell in Kambia while I visited the interior. Moreover, I built a boat, and sent her to Sierra Leone with a cargo of palm-oil, to be exchanged for British goods; and, finally, during my perfect leisure, I went to work with diligence to study the trade in which fortune seemed to ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... afternoon the party started in the diligence which was to take them over the St. ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... here two days," said Sir John. "The chauffeur will have to go on by diligence to-morrow to get a new sparking plug. Perhaps we shall see more of you ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... answered by another and another. But no such summons came from the kitchen door to which his feet now turned. The quiet of the Seventh Day seemed to possess the wide, bright farm-yard. A flock of white ducks lay drowsing on a grassy spot. A few hens dusted themselves with silent diligence in the ash-heap in front of the shed; and they stopped to watch with bright eyes the stranger's approach. From under the apple-trees the horses whinnied to him lonesomely. It was very peaceful; but ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... accompanies great technical skill, he may at least find encouragement in the fact that he can never exhaust the interest afforded by his art in its infinite suggestion to the imagination and fancy; and also that by the exercise of diligence, and a determination to succeed, he may reasonably hope to gain such a degree of proficiency with the tools as will enable him to execute with his hands every idea which has a definite existence in his mind. Generally speaking, it will be found that his manual powers are always ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack

... break of day, after covering by diligence, on a road white with snow, the five miles between the little town of Pompignat, where he alighted, and the village of Bassicourt, he learnt that his journey might prove of some use: three shots had been heard during the night in ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... drawing-room. She put on her bonnet, slipped out at the garden door, and walked away with a book in her hand, to the remotest regions of the park, where she sat down under a thorn-tree, and read Schiller's Thirty Years' War with a sort of exemplary diligence and philosophy, till it was so late that she thought herself perfectly secure of the Faulkners' being gone. Yet she only just missed them, for their carriage was driving off at one door, as she ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... United States, but the fishery dispute was decided in favor of Great Britain. The "Alabama Claims" were settled by five arbitrators who sat at Geneva in Switzerland. They decided that Great Britain had not used "due diligence" to prevent the abuse of her ports by the Confederates. They condemned her to pay fifteen and one-half million dollars damages to ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... and aids of the several magistracies and offices thereto belonging, bring provided for as aforesaid, the overplus of the excise, with the product of the sum rising, shall be carefully managed by the Senate and the people through the diligence of the officers of the Exchequer, till it amount to L8,000,000, or to the purchase of about L400,000 solid revenue. At which time, the term of eleven years being expired, the excise, except it be otherwise ordered by the Senate and the ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... of Lord Mahon in the character of an author. His first book was creditable to him, but was in every respect inferior to the work which now lies before us. He has undoubtedly some of the most valuable qualities of a historian, great diligence in examining authorities, great judgment in weighing testimony, and great impartiality in estimating characters. We are not aware that he has in any instance forgotten the duties belonging to his literary functions in the feelings of a kinsman. He does no more than justice to his ancestor ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and this corporation, that, if the gentleman perseveres in the intentions which his present warmth dictates to him, I will attend their cause with diligence, and I hope with effect. For, if I know anything of myself, it is not my own interest in it, but my full conviction, that induces me to tell you, I think there is not a shadow of doubt in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... no doubt, that led me, in the absence of any other leading, to make Villette my destination. On my arrival there, an English gentleman, young, distinguished, and handsome, observing my inability to make myself understood at the bureau where the diligence stopped, inquired kindly if I had any friends in the city, and on my replying that I had not, gave me the address of such an inn as I wanted, and personally directed me part of the way. Even then, however, I failed in the gloom to find the inn, and was becoming quite exhausted, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... made good. We have considered the different interests which the confederates have in the success of this war, and the different shares they have contributed to its support: we have with our utmost care and diligence endeavoured to discover the nature, extent, and charge of it, to the end, that by comparing the weight thereof with our own strength, we might adapt the one to the other in such measure, as neither to continue your Majesty's subjects under a heavier burden, than in reason ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... tell you. I am setting out with all diligence for my father's house, I am bid to hope that he will receive his poor penitent with a goodness peculiar to himself; for I am overjoyed with the assurance of a thorough reconciliation, through the interposition of a dear, blessed friend, whom I always loved and honoured. I am so taken up with my ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... in his studies was owing, not so much to his uncommon aptitude at learning, as to the diligence and industry with which he applied himself to them. When other boys were staring out of the window, watching the birds and squirrels sporting among the tree-tops; or sitting idly with their hands in their pockets, opening and shutting their jack-knives, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... Gymnasiarch. Anniceris, the Cyrenaean, proudly displayed his skill in chariot-driving, by riding several times around the Academia, each time preserving the exact orbit of his wheels. The spectators applauded loudly; but Plato said, 'He who has bestowed such diligence to acquire trifling and useless things, must have neglected those that are truly admirable.' Of all sights in Athens, I most wish to see the philosophers; and none ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... with, great diligence as well as an enlightened mind, observed the operations of nature upon the surface of the earth, here says, "ce n'est pas sans etonnement que je remarque depuis long-temps que jamais aucune eau qui coule a la surface de la terre n'attaque le quartz, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... the first virtue which a democratic society would have to possess would be enthusiastic diligence. The motives for work which have hitherto prevailed in the world have been want, ambition, and love of occupation: in a social democracy, after the first was eliminated, the last alone would remain efficacious. Love of occupation, although it occasionally accompanies and cheers every ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... many traditions respecting the existence of a western land, he proceeded to the islands of Arran, and there remained for some time, holding communication with the venerable St. Enda, and obtaining from him much information relating to his voyage. Having prosecuted his inquiries with diligence, Brendan returned to his native Kerry; and from a bay sheltered by the lofty mountain that is now known by his name, he set sail for the Atlantic land; and, directing his course towards the south-west, ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... Algiers it is but four hours' journey, and the four hours are passed in a diligence. Yes, our circumstances are subdued to the conditions of the diligence! Adieu, our spahi guides, like figures from Lalla Rookh! Adieu, our dream of an African Switzerland! The Roumi, outside of Kabylia, quickly fades into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... impatience. His quiet, taciturn wife was a little put out by Sylvia's non-appearance too; but she showed her anxiety by being shorter than usual in her replies to his perpetual wonders as to where the lass could have been tarrying, and by knitting away with extra diligence. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... steal away in his shame. But the Father held him a while in playful remonstrance. The hours were not all saved that were stolen from the night, and his swelled eyes this morning were a testimony to the musty old maxim. Still, with a book like that, his diligence was not to be wondered at, and it would be interesting to hear what he thought of it. He couldn't say as yet. That wasn't to be wondered at either. Somebody had said that a great book was like a great ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... me, believing as I do that in time you will be able to dismiss them from your mind. But the temper of your mind must be changed to be worthy of the happiness I have designed for you. Patience must chasten that reckless spirit in you; for feverish diligence, alternating with indifference or despondence, there must be unremitting effort; and for that unsteady flame of hope, which burns so brightly in the morning and in the evening sings so low, there must be a bright, unwavering, and rational hope. It would ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... philosopher, and painted with the curiosity of a gossip, indicates any absence in his heart of sympathy with the great and sacred elements of personal happiness. An era like ours, which has with diligence and ostentation swept its heart clear of all the passions once known as loyalty, patriotism, and piety, necessarily magnifies the apparent force of the one remaining sentiment which sighs through the barren chambers, or clings inextricably round the chasms ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... so well as by faithfully and diligently performing the duties of his office, no matter what it may be. If a judge, let him administer justice with equity and from a conscientious principle; if a physician, a lawyer, a soldier, a merchant, or an artisan, let him with all diligence do the works that his hands find to do, not merely for gain, but because it is his duty to serve the public good in that calling by which he can most efficiently do it. If he act from this high motive, from this religious principle, all that he does will be well ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... was pre-eminently respectable. He was born in the Jura mountains, Aug. 15, 1813. His father was a small proprietor. Diligence and energy rather than brilliancy distinguished the young Jules in his college career. When his college life ended, he went up to Paris and studied for the Bar. MacMahon's kick roused his pugnacity. He went home, took down an old musket, and joined the insurgents, leading ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... the city are still being made with due diligence. If these indications do not suffice to bring the speculators into the ranks to defend their own property (they have no honor, of course), the city and the State are lost; and the property owners will deserve their fate. The extortioners ought to be hung, besides losing ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... in this respect, makes no demands upon my diligence. The prisoner is satisfied with her new abode and manifests no regret for her natural burrow. There is no attempt at flight on her part. Let me not omit to add that each pan must receive not more than one inhabitant. The Lycosa is very intolerant. To her, a neighbour is fair game, to be ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... instead of four having been harnessed to the diligence, on account of the heavy roads, a voice outside asked: "Is every one there?" To which a voice from the interior replied: ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... serious invasion of Dryden's pre-eminence can be said, however, to have taken place, till Pope himself, refining upon that structure of versification which our author had first introduced, and attending with sedulous diligence to improve every passage to the highest pitch of point and harmony, exhibited a new style of composition, and claimed at least to share with Dryden the sovereignty of Parnassus. I will not attempt to concentrate what Johnson has said ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... speeches. He did not know what to say to people whose daily habits and interests were not the same as his; he would have been very thankful for a handbook of small-talk, and would have learnt off his sentences with good-humoured diligence. He often envied the fluency of his garrulous father, who delighted in talking to everybody, and was perfectly unconscious of the incoherence of his conversation. But, owing to his constitutional reserve ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... man, Whom Belmour brought of late to my assistance, On whose kind care, whose diligence and faith, My surest trust was built, this very morn Was seiz'd on by the cruel hand of power, Forc'd from my house, ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... Minister, with the diligence which belonged to him, had mastered all the details of Mr. Monk's Bill before it was discussed in the Cabinet, and yet he found that his assistance was hardly needed in the absolute preparation. Had they allowed him he would have done it all himself. But it was ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... careless countrymen! look but on these fellows that we call the plump Hollanders! Behold their diligence in fishing and our most careless negligence! Six hundred of these fisherships and more be great Busses, some six score tons, most of them be a hundred tons, and the rest three score tons and fifty tons; the biggest of them having four and twenty men, some ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... and perceived that his eyes looked dull and glazed. Instantly it occurred to me, that his unexampled diligence in copying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with me might have temporarily impared ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... make any demand of what was not; and did prove really a terror to evildoers of various kinds, especially to prevaricators, defalcators, imaginary workers, and slippery unjust persons: How he urged diligence on all mortals, would not have the very Apple-women sit "without knitting" at their stalls; and brandished his stick, or struck it fiercely down, over the incorrigibly idle:—All this, as well as his ludicrous explosions and unreasonable violences, is on record concerning Friedrich ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... is the Diligence, twice or thrice a-day; with the dusty outsides in blue frocks, like butchers; and the insides in white nightcaps; and its cabriolet head on the roof, nodding and shaking, like an idiot's head; and its Young-France passengers staring out of window, with beards down ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... morning an express from England reached the young traveller. His father was dangerously ill; nor was it expected that the utmost diligence would enable the young man to receive his last blessing. The Englishman, appalled and terror-stricken, recalled his interview with the astrologer. Nothing so effectually dismays us, as to feel a confirmation of some idea of supernatural dread that has already ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... transition in Walter's life, viz. from nursery rhymes to books which deal with big people. For some time he had felt his admiration for "brave Heinriche" to be growing; and he was disgusted with the paper peaches that are distributed as the reward of diligence in the beautiful stories. Of any other peaches he had no knowledge, as the real article was never seen in ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... worth the paper they are written on; on all points connected purely with the British navy, or which can be checked off by official documents or ships' logs, or where there would be no particular object in falsifying, James is an invaluable assistant, from the diligence and painstaking care he shows, and the thoroughness and minuteness with which he goes ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... was dressing the wounds: Bossuet and Feuilly were making cartridges with the powder-flask picked up by Gavroche on the dead corporal, and Bossuet said to Feuilly: "We are soon to take the diligence for another planet"; Courfeyrac was disposing and arranging on some paving-stones which he had reserved for himself near Enjolras, a complete arsenal, his sword-cane, his gun, two holster pistols, and a cudgel, with the care of a young girl setting a small dunkerque in order. Jean Valjean stared ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... promise in the treaty to use its influence with the authorities of the states to open up their artificial waterways to Canadians. The Fenian claims were abruptly laid aside, although, if the principle of "due diligence," which was laid down in the new rules for the settlement of the Alabama difficulty had been applied to this question, the government of the United States would have been mulcted in heavy damages. In this case it would be difficult to find a more typical instance of responsibility assumed by a state ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... desire of becoming acquainted with her, but she had been so strongly recommended to the care of the old governess of this respectable sisterhood, and was so narrowly watched by the pious missionary, who labored for her conversion with more zeal than diligence, that during the two months we remained together in this house (where she had already been three) I found it absolutely impossible to exchange a word with her. She must have been extremely stupid, though she had not the appearance of it, for never was a longer course of instruction; the holy man ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... novelist began so late in life that when he once discovered his particular field he cultivated it with persistent diligence and would not allow himself to be drawn away by enthusiasts into other fields. Strength of character was not, however, a new phenomenon in his life, for as long ago as the days when he was an active member of the "Tunnel" he had come in close contact ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... unaffected, as a vehicle of more poetical matter, but one laboured and complicated as the sole legitimate channel of tragic effect; and thus tend to withdraw the mind of the poet from the spontaneous exhibition of pathos or imagination, to a minute diligence in the formation of a plan. To explain our views on the subject, we will institute a short comparison between three tragedies, the Agamemnon, the Oedipus, and the Bacchae, one of each of the tragic poets, where, by reference ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... phrases are formed, in which there can be felt the mixture of the two preceding elements, the direct creation and the metaphor: le cab jaspine, je marronne que la roulotte de Pantin trime dans le sabri, the dog is barking, I suspect that the diligence for Paris is passing through the woods. Le dab est sinve, la dabuge est merloussiere, la fee est bative, the bourgeois is stupid, the bourgeoise is cunning, the daughter is pretty. Generally, to throw listeners off the track, slang confines itself to adding to all the words of the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... acknowledge that the greater number of these lady-students, who soon were driven to seek for an opportunity of acquiring knowledge at a foreign university—that is, at Zurich—distinguished themselves by much diligence and talent, as well as by a spirit of personal sacrifice in regard ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... relaxed his diligence, even writing criticism. He saluted the literary debuts of Paul Hervieu and Edouard Rod in an article which appeared in Gil Blas. At the time of his death he was contemplating an extensive study of Turgenieff. Edmond de Goncourt did not like him, suspecting ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... you," concluded Brigham. "Double your diligence and put her up again. If you do not you ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee

... Thus ends this year, to my great joy, in this manner. I have raised my estate from L1,300 in this year to L4,400. I have got myself greater interest, I think, by my diligence, and my employments increased by that of treasurer for Tangier and surveyor of the victuals. It is true we have gone through great melancholy because of the plague, and I put to great charges by it, by keeping my family long at Woolwich, and myself and my clerks at Greenwich, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... of the girls stared blankly into space, as if powerless to tackle such a subject. Rhoda was one of the few exceptions, and scribbled unceasingly with a complacent sense of being on her own ground until the limit of time was reached. Tom had evidently noticed her diligence, for she called out a peremptory, "Rhoda, read aloud your answer!" which was flattering, if at the same time ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the Preface to his "History of the Reformation," and it contains also the bishop's rejoinder against Wharton's method of criticism in the "Specimen": "He had examined the dark ages before the Reformation with much diligence, and so knew many things relating to those times beyond any man of the age; he pretended that he had many more errors in reserve, and that this specimen was only a hasty collection of a few, out of many other ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... of the diligence (at a time when it was obliged to go very slowly), in order to make an excursion on foot in search of the picturesque, being told that we might meet the carriage at a certain point, about a mile further on. We saw many magnificent views, ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle

... watch and pray, my child. The Bible bids us keep our hearts with all diligence, and set a watch at the door of our lips that we sin not with our tongues. Also to pray without ceasing. We need to cry often to God for help to overcome the evil that is in our own hearts, and the snares of the world and the ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... great diligence the Austrians had to some extent succeeded. Leuthen was the centre of the new position. Lucchesi was hastening up, while Nadasti swung backwards and tried, as he arrived, to form the left flank of the new position. All this was being done ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... wealth of the presumed heiress had become dearer to him,—had become at least more important to him,—since he had learned that it must probably be lost. Sir William Patterson was a gentleman as well as a lawyer;—one who had not simply risen to legal rank by diligence and intellect, but a gentleman born and bred, who had been at a public school, and had lived all his days with people of the right sort. Sir William was his legal adviser, and he would commit Lady Anna's secret to the keeping ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... sins and the avoiding them, the eschewing of intoxicating drink, diligence in good deeds, reverence and humility, contentment and gratefulness, ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... the fashionable dressmaker in the morning, all the boxes that were brought to the house, and the laced cap of the employe of the Magasin du Louvre, whose heavy wagon stopped at the gate with a jingling of bells, like a diligence drawn by stout horses which were dragging the house of Fromont to bankruptcy ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... me all patience and all diligence; Patience, that thou mayst have thy time with me; Diligence, that I waste not thy expense In sending out to bring me home to thee. What though thy work in me transcends my sense— Too fine, too high, for me to understand— I hope entirely. On, Lord, ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald

... Wales. I had heard of that clergyman, as having buried many scores of the shipwrecked people; of his having opened his house and heart to their agonised friends; of his having used a most sweet and patient diligence for weeks and weeks, in the performance of the forlornest offices that Man can render to his kind; of his having most tenderly and thoroughly devoted himself to the dead, and to those who were sorrowing for the dead. I had said to myself, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... Dogmatic sect, for his method was to reduce all his knowledge, as acquired by the observation of facts, to general theoretical principles. These principles he, indeed, professed to deduce from experience and observation, and we have abundant proofs of his diligence in collecting experience, and his accuracy in making observations; but still in a certain sense at least, he regards individual facts and the details of experience as of little value, unconnected with the principles which he had laid down as ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... house of Antoine Lecorbeau things went on more pleasantly than with most of his fellow-Acadians. With the good will of Vergor, the commandant of Beausejour, who made enormous profits out of the Acadian's tireless diligence, Lecorbeau became once more fairly prosperous; and Le Loutre had grown again friendly. But most of the Acadians found themselves in a truly pitiable plight. There were not lands enough to supply them all, and they pined ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts

... Marget sent and asked him to defend her uncle in the approaching trial, and he was greatly pleased, and stopped drinking and began his preparations with diligence. With more diligence than hope, in fact, for it was not a promising case. He had many interviews in his office with Seppi and me, and threshed out our testimony pretty thoroughly, thinking to find some valuable grains among the chaff, but the ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... allayed their internal discomfort by a slender meal of biscuits, got their skates, and went out across the rimy meadows, past patient cows breathing clouds of steam, to Wickens's pond. Here, to their surprise, was Smilash, on electro-plated acme skates, practicing complicated figures with intense diligence. It soon appeared that his skill came short of his ambition; for, after several narrow escapes and some frantic staggering, his calves, elbows, and occiput smote the ice almost simultaneously. On rising ruefully to a sitting posture he became aware that eight young ladies ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... how certain it was for industrious people to recover their fortunes in such a manner. 'Madam,' says he, ''tis no reproach to any many in that country to have been sent over in worse circumstances than I perceive your cousins are in, provided they do but apply with diligence and good judgment to the business of that place ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... hand, and to appoint a dictator in times of need, yet now, having to deal with an enemy of whom they had had before no experience or knowledge, they neglected all these things. They whose rashness had brought about the war, having the charge of the thing committed to them, used no more diligence in the levying of an army than if they were dealing with one of the nations round about, but made light of the matter. In the meanwhile the Gauls, when they heard that the very men that had set at nought the ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church

... amidst the rustling leaves. Even the birches were fragrant in that vivifying air, and seemed to rejoice as all animate creatures did, but the man's face grew more somber as the day of toil wore on. Still, he did his work with the grim, unwavering diligence that had already carried him, dismayed but unyielding, through years of drought and harvest hail, and the stars shone down on the prairies when at last he loosed his ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... 'stony,' or 'thorny' ground. Wherever a heart opens to receive the gospel, and keeps it fast, there the increase will be realised—not in equal measure in all, but in each according to faithfulness and diligence. Mark arranges the various yields in ascending scale, as if to teach our hopes and aims a growing largeness, while Matthew orders them in the opposite fashion, as if to teach that, while the hundredfold, which is possible for all, is best, the smaller yield is accepted by the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... titles alone of their numerous productions would furnish evidence of an acquaintance with the stores of history, mythology, classical fiction, and romance, strikingly illustrative of the literary diligence and intellectual activity of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... them to take up the hatchet against his Majesty's rebellious subjects in America. It is a service of very great importance; fail not to exert every effort that may tend to accomplish it; use the utmost diligence and activity.'" (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap. xxxiii., ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... diminished in numbers by only three men besides the lieutenant, to a point in the field abreast of the farther side of the first hill. At this place he could see the riflemen posted behind trees and rocks, plying their deadly office with the utmost diligence, and after the manner the captain had ordered on the hill and at the meadow. He was operating upon the head of the enemy's column. The sergeant found that there was space enough between the hill and the end of the breastworks for him to charge the regiment on the flank, and at least make ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... to Meounes and Brignoles by Belgentier, by diligence. As far as Meounes the road traverses a picturesque country (p. 129), to Collobrires by La Crau and Pierrefeu ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... continued for many years. In the meantime my sisters' diligence and constant practice enabled them in course of time to exhibit their works in the fine art exhibitions of Edinburgh. Each had her own individuality of style and manner, by which their several works were easily distinguished ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... very plain. Comparing it with the sixth chapter of Commentary in the Great Learning, it seems to inculcate what is there called 'making the thoughts sincere.' The passage contains an admonition about equivalent to that of Solomon,— 'Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.' The next paragraph seems to speak of the nature and the path under other names. 'While there are no movements of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, we have what may be called the state of equilibrium. When those feelings have been ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... English, the accent is indifferent, and may be vsed for sharp or flat and heauy at our pleasure. I say Saxon English, for our Normane English alloweth vs very many bissillables, and also triffilables as, reuerence, diligence, amorous, desirous, ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... women, that the impending calamities of the year were carried away by this ablution, and that blessings succeeded in their place. Hence this ceremony is annually renewed, and the ablution performed with unremitting diligence." ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... the town at the head of the bay, and the music, and of how time was going; and then his thoughts went back to the great body of dangerous criminals shut up in the huge, grim buildings, and of how much depended on the care and diligence of those in charge—a mere handful compared to those ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... instance in one delight more, the most natural and best natured of all others, a perpetual companion of the husbandman: and that is, the satisfaction of looking round about him, and seeing nothing but the effects and improvements of his own art and diligence; to be always gathering of some fruits of it, and at the same time to behold others ripening, and others budding; to see all his fields and gardens covered with the beauteous creatures of his own industry; and to see, like God, that ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... no more than ask the Lord constantly in prayer, to either send supplies of business, or open ways of relief. Committing his cares all to the Lord, he endeavored to throw off his burden and with diligence in trade do what was possible ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... influences of slavery, by honesty, native ability and persevering study, placed his name in the forefront, leaving his career as a model. With an astuteness of perception for the retention of friends, he had suavity of manner for the palliation of foes; with diligence and faithfulness winning a constituency that honored him with a seat in ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... which by examination and study he may have mastered, may be swept away, and no longer stand as the laws which govern the interest he may have acquired; and the change has been one which by no reasonable diligence could he be expected to have knowledge of." Of course these facts thus officially stated in the interest of the miners of Nevada, were applicable to California, and all the mining States and Territories, and they fitly and very ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... doesn't remain idle. If we are working, he's at work too. No matter what side I turn, I find him on the defensive. He foiled you, papa, in your effort to obtain a clue concerning Gustave's identity; and he made me appear a fool in arranging that little comedy at the Hotel de Mariembourg. His diligence has been wonderful. He has hitherto been in advance of us everywhere, and this fact explains the failures that have attended all my efforts. Here we arrive before him. But if he came here, it was because ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... creators of the outer and inner life of the Commonwealth, but in their intellectual sympathies they went neither with the sectaries of the time—"the squalid sluttery of fanatic conventicles," as S. P. puts it—nor with the prevailing Puritan theology. They read Calvin and Beza with diligence, at least Whichcote did, but their thought did not move along the track which the great Genevan had constructed. They discovered another way of approach which made the old way and the old battles seem to them futile. Instead of beginning with the eternal mysteries of the inscrutable divine Will, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... rejoice much to see that you do not work alone; for we know how much is due to the whole body of your clergy. With the greatest charity, and with unconquered efforts, they have provided schools for their children; and with wonderful diligence and assiduity, they endeavor by their teaching to form them to a Christian life, and to instruct them in the elements of knowledge. Wherefore, with all the encouragement and praise that our voice can give, we bid your clergy to go ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... fail to lend the most attentive ear to their discourse, and heard her address herself thus to her gallant: 'I do not deserve,' she said, 'to be reproached by you for want of diligence. You well know the reason; but if all the proofs of affection I have already given you be not sufficient to convince you of my sincerity, I am ready to give you others more decisive: you need but command me, you know my power; I will, if you desire it, before sunrise convert this great ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... like this, and I had written about Abbots, and Archery, and Armor, and Architecture, and Attica, and hoped with diligence that I might get on to the B's before very long. It cost me something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my writings. And then suddenly the whole business came to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... be an eye sore, and cost in a manner cast away. To gain some time in that regard, I have already taken order for setting sawyers a-work, and for procuring besides all other materials; wherein my diligence and speed shall bear me witness of my willingness to accomplish all that I pretend, to every man's good liking. And thus I leave and commend you to God's good tuition. From London, March ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... aptitudes inclined him to the life of an artist, and he determined to live by painting. With this object he returned to Milan, and had himself rigged out for Rome. As a painter he might have earned his bread, for he wanted only diligence to excel, but when at Rome his mind was carried away by other things: he soon wrote home for money, saying that he had been converted to the Mother Church, that he was already an acolyte of the Jesuits, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... slow progress in his studies. Poverty and hard work increased with the increase of his family, and obliged him to give up his mathematics altogether. He laboured early and laboured late; he hacked and hewed at the hard material out of which he was doomed to cut a livelihood, with unremitting diligence; but times went so ill with him, that in despair of ever finding them better, he took a sudden resolution of altering his manner of living, and retreating from the difficulties that he could not overcome. He went to the hill on which the Cheese-Wring stands, and looked about among the rocks until ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... is not only sin, but also a blunder. It may sleep to-day, but it sleeps to wake. When you can least afford it, it will be more than awake, it will be hungry. Educate and cultivate your conscience, and never disregard its voice. Keep your heart with all diligence; keep your heart, and always have ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... kind, I heed Thy call to prayer. I have a soul to save; A heart which needs, I think, a double share Of sweetnesses which noble ladies crave. Hope, faith and diligence, and patient care, With meekness, grace, and lowliness of mind. Lord, wilt Thou grant all these To one who prays, but cannot sit ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn

... my sister was perfectly right in desiring you to use the utmost diligence; the affair was most pressing." And he again began to laugh louder than ever. The courier, the valet, and Miss Stewart hardly knew what sort of countenance to assume. "Ah!" said the king, throwing himself back in his ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... trade, and by starts, when he could bring his mind to it, excelled in the business. Nobody could train a dog like Dandie; nobody, through the peril of great storms in the winter time, could do more gallantly. But if his dexterity were exquisite, his diligence was but fitful; and he served his brother for bed and board, and a trifle of pocket-money when he asked for it. He loved money well enough, knew very well how to spend it, and could make a shrewd bargain when he liked. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 'snubbing.' All his fellow-students avoided him habitually. In the recitation-room and upon the parade ground, by day and by night, he was made to feel that he belonged to an inferior and despised race, and that no excellence of deportment, diligence in study, or rank in his class could entitle him to the recognition accorded to every white dunce and rowdy. Yet with rare strength of character he persevered, and when, having maintained the standing of No. fifty in a class of seventy-six, he received ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... a certain work of Nepos, on which they rely confidently, as if it proved beyond dispute that there will be a reign of Christ upon earth, I confess that in many other respects I approve and love Nepos for his faith and industry and his diligence in the Scriptures, and for his extensive psalmody with which many of the brethren are still delighted; and I hold the man in the more reverence because he has gone before us to rest.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} But as some think his work very plausible, and as certain ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... like to see beautiful Switzerland, to travel through Italy, and,"—It was well for him that the goloshes acted immediately, otherwise he might have been carried too far for himself as well as for us. In a moment he found himself in Switzerland, closely packed with eight others in the diligence. His head ached, his back was stiff, and the blood had ceased to circulate, so that his feet were swelled and pinched by his boots. He wavered in a condition between sleeping and waking. In his right-hand pocket he had a letter of credit; in his left-hand ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... 1874: "In most of the townships a commendable interest is manifested in the support of Negro schools, which I am happy to report, is appreciated by the Negroes[12] themselves. The schools have been well attended with considerable diligence manifested by the pupils." A.A. Neal, Superintendent of Pettis County, reported:[13] "The Negro schools are doing better than could be expected under existing circumstances." The Superintendent of Bay County said:[14] "The Negro schools ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... He was energetic, industrious and painstaking in whatever he undertook to do, therefore always employed. Early in his struggle he realized the need of an education, in the acquirement of which he applied himself with eager diligence. Nature had endowed him with keen perceptive powers, a retentive memory and great mental vigor, by means of which he soon accumulated considerable knowledge. Every moment that could be spared from his daily toil was spent ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... and observation of the best physician; the diligence and vigilance of the best nurse; and the tenderness and ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward

... to Westminster Hall with Sir W. Pen, and while he went up to the House I walked in the Hall with Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, that I met there, talking about my business the other day with Holmes, whom I told my mind, and did freely tell how I do depend upon my care and diligence in my employment to bear me out against the pride of Holmes or any man else in things that are honest, and much to that purpose which I know he will make good use of. But he did advise me to take as few occasions as I can of disobliging Commanders, though this is one ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... with the work done thereon by the accountant and inspector of them, they were despatched in the last session of the council up to the accounts for the year past, nineteen. They are sent sealed with this despatch to Nueva Espana. [In the margin: "It is well; and let him continue this diligence, always sending the accounts to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various

... Hobbes, the Leviathan of his time, but whose reply, as well as Hobbes' own book (like a whale disappearing from a Shetland "voe" into the deep, with all the hooks and harpoons of his enemies along with him) has been almost entirely forgotten. At Cambridge, Dryden was noted for regularity and diligence, and took the degree of B.A. in January 1653-4, and in 1657 was made A.M. by a dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Once, indeed, he was rusticated for a fortnight on account of some disobedience ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... then the knaves asked for more silk and gold, saying that it was necessary to complete what they had begun. However, they put all that was given them into their knapsacks, and continued to work with as much apparent diligence as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... not quit sight of him till he do go. [Hirsch's Narrative; see Voltaire's Letter to D'Arget (—OEuvres,—lxiv. 11).] Hirsch's hour of departure for Dresden is not mentioned in the ACTS; but I guess he could hardly get over Wednesday, with Picard dogging him on these terms; and must have taken the diligence on Wednesday night: to arrive in Dresden about December 4th. 'Well; at least, our shot is off; has not burst out, and lodged in our person here,—thanked be ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... and from which the truest pleasure and the least pollution would flow. He contemplated no other scheme than to return, as soon as his health should permit, into the country, seek employment where it was to be had, and acquit himself in his engagements with fidelity and diligence. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... loathing of sin and his pity for sinners; will fire his zeal and make his words burn, and will often urge him to cast himself upon the mercy-seat that his labours may not be in vain. Let the merchant, or the manufacturer, or the man of business have it, and it need neither bate his diligence nor hold him back from riches; but it will smite down his avarice and restrain his greed of gold; it will make him abhor the fraud that is gainful, and eschew the speculation that is hazardous, and shrink from the falsehood ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King



Words linked to "Diligence" :   sedulity, determination, sweat, studiousness, concentration, travail, purpose, painstakingness, sedulousness, conscientiousness, exertion, elbow grease, assiduity, diligent, effort, assiduousness



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