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Discouragement   /dɪskˈərɪdʒmənt/   Listen
Discouragement

noun
1.
The feeling of despair in the face of obstacles.  Synonyms: disheartenment, dismay.
2.
The expression of opposition and disapproval.
3.
The act of discouraging.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Discouragement" Quotes from Famous Books



... Carlos—a night of painful reflections. Bereft of his property—in the midst of hostile Indians, who might change their minds, return, and massacre him and his party—many hundred miles from home, or from any settlement of whites—a wide desert to be traversed—the further discouragement that there was no object for his going home, now that he was stripped of all his trading-stock—perhaps to be laughed at on his return—no prospect of satisfaction or indemnity, for he well knew that his government would send out no expedition to revenge ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... Caverswall, Staffordshire, the s. of a Scottish schoolmaster and socialist, and ed. at Glasgow, was the friend of David Gray (q.v.), and with him went to London in search of fame, but had a long period of discouragement. His first work, a collection of poems, Undertones (1863), had, however, some success, and was followed by Idylls of Inverburn (1865), London Poems (1866), and others, which gave him a growing reputation, and raised ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... inspired him, was the belief that it was implanted in man, that he might have, for some inscrutable reason, a motive for experiencing, and for desiring to continue to experience, the strange discipline of the world. If men did not love life and ease so intensely, at the first discouragement, at the first touch of pain, they would languidly and despairingly cease to be. Hugh seemed to discern that men were put into the world that they might apprehend something that it was worth their while to apprehend; that for some reason which he had no means of divining, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... chickens for soup, and so have spent a quiet, but not wholly useless, existence; but nothing of the kind took place, and therein we must do justice to the strength of his character. In other words, although he had undergone what, to the majority of men, would have meant ruin and discouragement and a shattering of ideals, he still preserved his energy. True, downcast and angry, and full of resentment against the world in general, he felt furious with the injustice of fate, and dissatisfied with the dealings of men; ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... observes the amount of industry which A's profusion feeds; he observes not the far greater quantity which it prevents from being fed; and thence the prejudice, universal to the time of Adam Smith, that prodigality encourages industry, and parsimony is a discouragement to it. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... and to exercise but their legitimate rights, we should not see such a great number of mendicants in their realms. A greedy, unjust, tyrannical government multiplies misery; the rigor of taxes produces discouragement, idleness, indigence, which, on their part, produce robbery, murders, and all kinds of crime. If the sovereigns had more humanity, charity, and justice, their States would not be peopled by so many unfortunate ones whose ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... instruction. I am too painfully conscious of the disastrous errors and abuses to which you used to call my attention—though I very well know that I am not strong enough to hope for any success were I to struggle ever so valiantly against them. I was overcome by a feeling of general discouragement; my recourse to solitude was the result neither of pride nor arrogance. I would fain describe to you what I take to be the nature of the educational questions now attracting such enormous and pressing attention. ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... pouring forth in clamorous fashion, in singing, dancing, and gesticulation. As Miette passed along she was carried away by a farandole[*] which spread whirling all round the Grand' Place. Silvere followed her. His thoughts of death and his discouragement were now far away. He wanted to fight, to sell his life dearly at least. The idea of a struggle intoxicated him afresh. He dreamed of victory to be followed by a happy life with Miette, amidst the peacefulness of the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... fancy tale. The movement described is genuine and powerful. The busy city world may not note the signs of progress. Well-minded philanthropists may feel that the rural districts are in special need of their services. Even to the watchers on the walls there is much of discouragement in the advancement that isn't being made. Yet it needs no prophet's eye to see that a vast change for the better in rural life and conditions is ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... unfortunate in lighting on only one class of men under the present regime, but whether it be in France, Switzerland, Belgium, or Italy, that I have come across Frenchmen and had a talk with them of late years, I have noticed a prevailing discouragement, a pessimism, that certainly was absent in former days. The very character of a French table d'hote is changed. Instead of Gallic vivacity, merriment, and general conversation, such as one was wont to find there, one encounters silence, reserve, and a marked absence ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... 1886, accompanied by Dr. Hubbell, the journey was undertaken. We proceeded to Albany, Texas, made headquarters—traveled over the stricken counties, found wretchedness, hunger, thirst, cold, heart-breaking discouragement. The third year of drought was upon them, and the good people of that great State, misled by its press, its press in turn misled by the speculators, innocently discredited every report of distress, and amused themselves ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... books in his father's library. Repelled by the dull discourses, the young man missed the religious exaltation and poetic mysticism which the New England divines concealed in their polemic argument. Franklin's liking for Bunyan and his confession that his father's discouragement kept him from being a poet—"most probably," he says, "a very bad one"—show that he would have responded to the right kind of religious literature, and not have remained all his life such a ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others

... think he is to be applauded for it. But why then does he not write now and then on the living manners of the times?' In writing on April 22, 1752, just after the Rambler had come to an end, Miss Talbot says:—'Indeed 'tis a sad thing that such a paper should have met with discouragement from wise and learned and good people too. Many are the disputes it has cost me, and not once did I come off triumphant.' Mrs. Carter replied:—'Many a battle have I too fought for him in the country, out with little success.' Murphy ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... transition—that is to say, by a meal prepared for two persons, which has been already eaten by one, and which has not yet been approached by the other. It must be a hardy appetite which can contemplate without a momentary discouragement the battered egg-shell, the fish half stripped to a skeleton, the crumbs in the plate, and the dregs in the cup. There is surely a wise submission to those weaknesses in human nature which must be respected and not ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... of blue and gold, with just wind enough to set the barley-heads a-talking. But, whether from the heat of the sun, or the pain of his foot operating on the general discouragement under which he laboured, Robert turned faint all at once, and dragged himself away to a cottage on the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... important statue in the court is that which stands at the opening on the Avenue of Palms-called The End of the Trail. An Indian, bowed at last under the storm, sits astride a dejected horse utter weariness, discouragement, lost hope, expressed in every line of man and animal. Some see in the statue only the abject despair of a horse and rider when the consciousness finally comes that the trail is definitely lost in the wilderness; ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney

... trifle chilled with weariness and discouragement and the lack of light. She clasped her arms together as a kind of wrap and huddled herself close to herself. Her head teetered and tottered and gradually sank till her delicate chin rested in her delicate bosom. Her big hat shaded ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... Mother in a tone of positive discouragement, "I don't know what I will do if I have to undo another one of Tom Mayberry's prescriptions to-day. But you couldn't expect a man to untangle a children quirk like that; and oil woulder been the thing for the ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... our way. Through what difficulties have we been brought! Though we knew not where means were to come from, yet means have been furnished every step of the way, and in every time of need. I was just in some discouragement with regard to my writing; thinking that the editor of the 'Era' was overstocked with contributors, and would not want my services another year, and lo! he sends me one hundred dollars, and ever so many good words with it. Our income this year will be seventeen ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... until he had spent nearly two years of hard work and discouragement in the Netherlands that Sir Philip was at last allowed to proceed against the ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... the purchase of the schooner were conveyed to her by letter, but the feminine desire of talking the matter over with somebody became too strong to be denied. She even waylaid Mr. Stobell one evening, and, despite every discouragement, insisted upon walking part of the way home with him. He sat for hours afterwards recalling the tit-bits of a summary of his personal charms with which she ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... instance, awoke one morning and found himself famous, it was because he had previously done the work which was suddenly recognized by the world. Indeed, none of us need look for success who does not choose a definite aim in life. And, more than that, no discouragement must turn us aside from it. We may fail in the end then, but we shall have followed the only ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... zeal, in heroic efforts, in journeyings oft, in tact that never failed in many a trying hour, in success most marvellous, in a vivacity and sprightliness that never succumbed to discouragement, in a faith that never faltered, and in a solicitude for the spread of our blessed Christianity that never grew less, James Evans stands among ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... prefer imperturbable coolness in battle. Both have unmistakable advantages and disadvantages. Enthusiasm impels to the performance of great actions: the difficulty is in maintaining it constantly; and, when discouragement ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... so sorry to hear the tone of discouragement in his voice. He is just a man, Aunt Jennie, with a man's weaknesses and a man's strength, and for the moment the latter had forsaken him. I suppose that some of his self-reliance had gone, for after a moment he smiled at us, ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... shall be most agreeable to her; her will is mine; for her my heart is wax to be moulded as she pleases but enduring as marble to retain whatever impression she shall make upon it. If you believe me I shall fear no discouragement from any other quarter, but if you doubt me, I shall despond. My name is——; my father's I have already given you; he lives in such a house in such a street and you may inquire about him and me of ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... next day Washington received the commander's reply to Governor Dinwiddie's letter, and therefore was ready to return. The snow was deep, the weather stormy, and the horses exhausted, so that the homeward journey was undertaken with much discouragement. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... since read many of the revelations made subsequently as to the action of the Ohio delegation, and came to the conclusion that they did what they thought best to promote my nomination, and had just ground for discouragement when my vote fell ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... and emotion that kept the isolated settlements from utter spiritual stagnation. They were men of great physical and moral endurance, absolutely devoted to their work, which they pursued in the face of every hardship and discouragement. Their circuits were frequently so great in extent that they were forced to be constantly on the route; what reading they did was done in the saddle. They received perhaps fifty dollars from the missionary fund and half as much ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... it is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings. For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in me. For far worse than any verdict as to the proportion of good and evil in our work, is the painful impression that we write for a public which has no discernment ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... night, and yet another morning and as the father, the mother, the cousin who was almost brother to both, the assistants, and poor broken-hearted Susan, looked into each other's wan, worn faces, they found nothing there but discouragement, and almost hopeless despair. ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... to arrive, and if his discouragement began at once, the first steps masked themselves in a reckless welcome, which seemed to fill him with joy, and Mrs. Bowen with silent perplexity. The girl ran on about her evening at the opera, and about the weather, and the excursion they were going to make; and after an apparently ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... was an earnest student of navigation, of cosmography, and of books of travel; thus he thoroughly prepared himself for the great undertaking which led to the discovery of America. He struggled against every discouragement for almost ten years before he could persuade a sovereign to authorize and equip ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... the English people and Lord Rosebery has not exaggerated when he has said that the debt was felt deeply in the mind of every Englishman, however little they might talk of it at the time and when the opportunity arrived with what eagerness, in spite of any possible discouragement—with what eagerness the opportunity was seized. [Cheers.] It was a campaign—the campaign which your gallant guest has won—it was a campaign marked by circumstances which have seldom marked a campaign in the history of the world. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... numerous, and splendidly equipped colony, and the founding of a Christian city in the heart of the American continent. As usual in such Spanish enterprises, the missionary work was undertaken by a body of Franciscan friars. After the first months of hardship and discouragement, the work of the Christian colony, and especially the work of evangelization among the Indians, went forward at a marvelous rate. Reinforcements both of priests and of soldiers were received from Mexico; by the end of ten years baptisms were reported ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... were handling an explosive that might at any moment wreck their most carefully laid plans. They would very much have preferred to have made a tool of the reigning Duke, but Selpdorf, who had been plying him for more than a month with a ceaseless and exhaustive course of innuendo, discouragement, and veiled temptation, was at length convinced, by the Duke's reply on the day of the review, that nothing further was to be hoped ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... upon a state was not Mr. Gladstone's only point. His propositions were, that the state is cognisant of the difference between religious truth and religious error: that the propagation of this truth and the discouragement of this error are among the ends for which government exists; that the English state did recognise as a fundamental duty to give an active and exclusive support to a certain religion; and finally ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... 1828.—In the midst of all this discouragement as to foreign affairs and this contest over the tariff, the presidential campaign of 1828 was held. Adams and Jackson were the only two candidates. Jackson was elected by a large majority of electoral votes. ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... attended his ministrations at Haddington, grieved him exceedingly. He called upon Mr. Knox, who then attended him, and told him, That he was weary of the world, since he perceived that men were become weary of God.—Notwithstanding the anxiety and discouragement which he laboured under, he went immediately to the pulpit, and sharply rebuking the people of that town for their neglect of the gospel, he told them, "That sore and fearful should be the plagues that should ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... appreciate your disappointment in my marriage, though I should be the one to make complaint and receive sympathy, instead of discouragement; but I do not desire it; indeed, I will not permit any person to disparage my husband, or draw odious comparisons between my poverty and his exertions. If there are in my body, or my society, any merits to please a man, they have fallen to him under the law of Providence, that he that hath shall ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... hayrack she had yesterday discovered some ends of planking hidden away in the rank, ripened weeds and grass. She went there now, but there were no more, look closely as she might. She circled the evil-smelling stable in discouragement, picked up one short piece of rotten board, and came back to the post. As she neared it she involuntarily caught her skirts and held them close, in terror of ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... party in which he found himself pleasantly seated. Waverley, whose life was a dream, gave ready way to the predominating impulse, and became the most lively of the party. He had at all times remarkable natural powers of conversation, though easily silenced by discouragement. On the present occasion, he piqued himself upon leaving on the minds of his companions a favourable impression of one who, under such disastrous circumstances, could sustain his misfortunes with ease and gaiety. His spirits, though not unyielding, were abundantly elastic, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... washing away of headgates by floods that came down Kanab Creek. Miss Hall continued, "I am constantly impressed with the courage and persistence of the Mormon colony; they have good, comfortable houses here that have been built with the hardest labor amidst floods and drought and all sorts of discouragement. It is one of the most beautiful valleys I have seen in Arizona and has a fine climate the year round; but these first settlers deserve a special place in history by the way they have turned the wilderness into good ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... he had not—and that for some time—had enough to eat. Voluntary poverty is among the most beautiful, involuntary poverty among the ugliest, sights upon earth; and to which order of poverty that of de Courcy Smyth belonged, Mr. Iglesias was in no doubt. This was a sordid sight, a sight of discouragement, adding the last touch to the melancholy which oppressed him. The seedy figure crossed the road, fumbled for a minute with a latchkey. Then nerveless footsteps ascended the stairs, passed the door, and took their joyless way up and onward ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... in comparatively early life, leaving perhaps the most interesting of his works in a relief (purchased by Professor George Ticknor, the distinguished historian of Spain) "representing in touching beauty and expression a sculptor in an attitude of dejection and discouragement before his work, while a hand from above pours oil into his dying lamp, an allegory illustrative of the struggles of genius and the relief which timely patronage ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... that amongst democratic nations in time of peace the military profession is held in little honor and indifferently followed. This want of public favor is a heavy discouragement to the army; it weighs down the minds of the troops, and when war breaks out at last, they cannot immediately resume their spring and vigor. No similar cause of moral weakness occurs in aristocratic armies: there the officers are ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... improve their condition. After years of agitation by the friends of sailors the advance pay is now wholly abolished in the coastwise trade in America and the three months' advance cut down to one in the foreign trade, immensely to the benefit of the sailor and the discouragement of the "crimp.'' The argument that without this system of bondage and "crimpage'' it would be impossible to secure crews is fully answered by the experience of Great Britain since the passage of the Plimsoll Acts and in the United ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... with which hot breads are produced. A heavy touch and excessive handling, both of which are usually characteristic of the beginner, are more likely to result in a tough product than is the light, careful handling of the expert. However, as skill in this matter comes with practice, no discouragement need result if successful results are not forthcoming at the very start in this work. A good rule to follow in this particular, and one that has few exceptions, is to handle and stir the ingredients only enough ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... State. Slaves were not to be brought into Tennessee unless for use, or procured by descent, devise, or marriage.[20] This enactment was made in 1826, and prepared the way for far more severe measures later. The idea of all legislation of this nature argues clearly the discouragement of slavery as a prevailing institution, by means of preventing fresh importations for sale. Tennessee was not to be, if it could be prevented, a slave market, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... the conspirators who were in London, alarmed by the discovery, hastened to the appointed rendezvous at Dunchurch; but the news which they brought with them caused general discouragement. With a band of about one hundred men, they set off to make their escape to Wales, the home of most of the Catholics, hoping to receive the promised reinforcements and the support of the population on their way. They once actually attempted to assure themselves of the latter; but on ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... and secure regular and increased collections, and if benevolent friends of these struggling races will bear them in remembrance by special contributions, an uplift of hope and help will be given where now they are threatened with discouragement in their great conflict with poverty, ignorance and ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various

... in Christ's stead, and are warranted to beseech in God's name, and with the full assurance that we are not working alone, but "together with God." We can visit any spot in heathendom, cheered and borne up by the same assurance amidst every difficulty, discouragement, and danger. Whatever else is doubtful, this, at least, is certain, that in every endeavour to save sinners, we are but expressing our sympathy with Jesus in His love to them, in His longing to see of the travail of His soul, and to be satisfied in their salvation; and that ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... what those who are crying out that things are wrong are trying to do. Are they trying to serve the country, or are they trying to serve something smaller than the country? Are they trying to put hope into the hearts of the men who work and toil every day, or are they trying to plant discouragement and despair in those hearts? And why do they cry that everything is wrong and yet do nothing to set it right? If they love America and anything is wrong amongst us, it is their business to put their hand with ours to the task of setting it right. When the facts are known ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... Nation to whom allusion has occasionally been made in these pages, was by now well accustomed to the discouragement that she had ever received from the two young lovers whose betrothal she had been powerless to forbid. She had fled from the benign fairy influences of the Tober an Sidhe; but now, full of hope, she ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... the earth, if not directly preparing the way for a greater manifestation, illustrates that manifestation by showing how mighty has been the witness borne to it even under circumstances of such discouragement, and even with effects inadequate ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... man, whatsoeuer thou art, and from whencesoeuer thou art come: Let not our present aspects any whit dismay thee, or occasion thy discouragement nor be no whit afrayde, for here thou shalt not finde any cruell customes, or cause of discontent, but free from displeasures, and therefore be not afrayde to discouer thy selfe, and tell vs ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna

... children do, who have been trained along these lines, i.e. to write down two-, three-, or four-part exercises in dictation, to transpose at sight, to extemporize without hesitation at the piano, &c. The feeling of working against time, of examinations to be passed, of discouragement at apparently slow progress, has possibly produced a state of mental indigestion, and the only cure for this is ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home

... work of God on earth seems magical the more we reflect on it," returned the lady. "The fact that our Institute was conceived, planned, and carried into successful operation by an invalid lady, in spite of discouragement, and, at first, with inadequate means, is itself little short of miraculous, but what is even more surprising is the fact that the Government, which began by throwing cold water on her Portsmouth work, has ended by recognising it and by ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... To this discouragement on the part of his friends, was added, on that of Ayoket, the same wavering and inconstant disposition which most other savages possess, rendering it impossible to place any dependance on his promises and intentions for two hours together. Indeed, the more our scheme was pressed ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... intended it should, this speech had given the other a chance to recover himself. The Lieutenant-Governor's habitual poise was already restored, and his voice, as he answered, was quite steady, but eloquent of his desperate discouragement and weariness. ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... in a moment of discouragement at that patient labour, which for him, certainly, was the condition ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... point of finally leaving Galilee, and travelling towards Jerusalem. It was an epoch in His ministry. The hostility of the priestly party in the capital had become more pronounced, and simultaneously the fickle enthusiasm of the Galilean crowds, which had been cooled by His discouragement, had died down into apathy. He and His followers are about to leave familiar scenes and faces, and to plunge into perilous and intrude paths. He is resolved that, if they will 'come after Him,' as He bids them in a subsequent verse, it shall ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... the first physiologists to dissect the human body, and his great work "The Structure of the Human Body" was an open attack on the physiology of Galen. The book excited such violent opposition, not only in the Church but in the University, that in a fit of discouragement he burned his remaining manuscripts and accepted the post of physician at the Court of Charles V., and afterward of his son, Philip II, of Spain. This closed his life of free enquiry, for the Inquisition forbade all scientific research, and the ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton

... thus, a profound discouragement settling on her sweet face, some one took a seat by her—on the same bench, that is to say. Glancing aside, she saw that it was an oldish man, with grizzled whiskers and rather ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... soaring ambitions and consequently was not affected with the unrest attendant thereon. For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement. Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more minutes she would know who had won the medal and who the Avery. Beyond those ten minutes there did not seem, just then, to be ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... read the history of France, and see through how many noble but mistaken efforts that fair European land struggled from tyranny to freedom. In these efforts Napoleon had a share; and it was his boyhood of privation and his youth of discouragement that made him a man of purpose, of persistence and endeavor, raising him step by step, in the days when men needed leaders but found none, until this one finally proved himself a leader indeed, and, grasping the reins of command, advanced steadily ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa

... in the face of great discouragement. Aunt Kate foretold a three days' rain—it looked to be settlin' that way, and besides, look at that old gray hen, she hadn't gone in, and that was a sure sign of a long rain. This brought a renewed downpour in ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... first filled with gossip of the steamer, and later telling of excursions around Cairo. If they held any touch of feeling they seemed to show that she was sorry for him, and as she could not regard him in any way more calculated to increase his discouragement, he, in utter hopelessness, retreated to the solitude of the farm. In New York he left behind him two trunks filled with such garments as a man would need on board a steamer and in the early spring in Egypt. They had been packed and in readiness since the day she sailed away, when ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis

... such letters; but, Monseigneur, will you permit me to point out to you that it is precisely this moral impossibility for a gentleman, who has no claim but zeal, to reach his master, which leads to that discouragement that is noticeable in all the country nobility, ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... because of their ill-luck, and only the sanguine spirit of Anookasan kept them from utter discouragement. Their slight repast had been taken and each man had provided himself with abundance of dry grass and twigs for a bed. They had built a temporary wigwam of the same material, in the center of which there ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... Sabbath and on week days; in the common details of the family; in dress; and in regard to the hours of rising, meals and rest. But she has a herculean task to accomplish—no small part of which is, to bring her husband and the other members of her family to co-operate with her. Yet, amid every discouragement, she perseveres, and at length succeeds. Is not such a victory ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... marking time at Lone Moose," he went on after a pause. There was a note of discouragement in his voice. "I'm—well, completely superfluous there. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... companions, and the manner in which her evenings were spent; and she, Janet, had grown too self-absorbed to be curious. Lise, with her shopgirl's cynical knowledge of life and its pitfalls and the high valuation at which she held her charms, had seemed secure from danger; but Janet recalled her discouragement, her threat to leave the Bagatelle. Since then there had been something furtive about her. Now, because that odour of alcohol Lise exhaled had destroyed in Janet the sense of exhilaration, of life on a higher plane she had begun to feel, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... His discouragement over the Ballena reception caused him to travel slowly, and it was nearly sunset when he drew near the Elcuanam village. It had been a cool day, so he had kept all the clothes on (except the extra stockings). ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase

... answered, trying to speak as lightly as he could. "And the best way I knew to find you was to let one of the monsters bring me. Cheer up!" But even to himself, his voice had a tone of discouragement. ...
— The Pygmy Planet • John Stewart Williamson

... grave, I told them always to remember that brothers should be kind to each other; afterward I see Henry returning from school with his books for the last time. He must go into my printing-office. He learned rapidly. A word of encouragement or a word of discouragement told upon his organization electrically. I could see the effects in his day's work. Sometimes I would say, "Henry!" He would stand full front with his eyes upon mine—all attention. If I commanded him to do something, without a word he was off instantly, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... freedom, she was afraid of it. Suppose she did not make good? Suppose she had no talent, after all? Suppose Papa Claude was as visionary about her career as he was about everything else? At such times a word of discouragement would have broken her spirit and ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... it is not a satisfactory answer. It overlooks the real difficulty in the case, and seeks to remove an imaginary one. The question is, not whether a necessary connexion between our volitions and their effects is a discouragement to practice, but whether a necessary connexion between our volitions and their causes is so. It is very true, that no man would be accountable for his external actions or their consequences, if there were ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... could be found from an American war was forced on the British public at a moment of much discouragement. Almost simultaneously a series of misfortunes occurred which brought the stoutest and most intelligent Englishmen to the verge of despair. In Spain Wellington, after winning the battle of Salamanca in July, occupied Madrid in August, and obliged Soult to evacuate ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... realize just what they are. With these comes, when the art is conscientious, a desire to discover the noblest goal and to formulate the best methods of reaching it. Some, casting the horoscope for this struggling art of ours, find in these facts a great discouragement, believing that the vital germ of art is spontaneity—believing that there cannot again be a genuine form of art until there arise a fresh race of artists, unfed by the mummy-wheat of tradition, unfettered by the cere-cloths of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... heavily upon him, costing him more thought and more anxiety than did the improvement or welfare of his pupils. He soon discovered that he had been hugely duped, and this discovery had the worst effect on the passionate, weak nature of the Creole. His discouragement degenerated into absolute incapacity and indolence. The pupils had no supervision whatever. Provided they went to bed early, so that they used the least possible fire and light, he was satisfied. Their day was cut up into class hours, to be sure, but these were interfered ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... remark which I have to offer to adventurers on the above subject, is not to suffer discouragement by concluding that bad weather only is to be found on the coast of New South Wales, where the whales have hitherto been seen. Tempests happen sometimes there, as in other seas, but let them feel assured that there are in every month of the year many days in which the whale fishery may be safely carried ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... money-lender who had fleeced poor Russian Peter. When a farmer once got into the habit of going to Cutter, it was like gambling or the lottery; in an hour of discouragement ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... fiction is an inestimable boon. Incidentally the novel may teach, encourage, refine, elevate. Even for these purposes, that novel is the best which shows us the best possibilities of our lives—the novel which gives hope and cheer instead of discouragement and gloom. Familiarity with vice and sordidness in fiction is a low entertainment, and of doubtful moral value, and their introduction is unbearable if it is not done with the idealizing ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... chamber after her nurse has left her, and, weakened and embarrassed with the demands of the new-comer, begins to look once more into the affairs of her little world, she is ready to sink with vexation and discouragement. Poor little princess! Her clothes are made as princesses wear them, her baby's clothes like a young duke's, her house furnished like a lord's, and only Bridget and Biddy and Polly to do the work of cook, scullery-maid, butler, footman, laundress, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... inviting the existing Jewish organizations of all countries to have themselves represented by a delegation on a permanent board or committee. It would be a matter of regret if they refused, but this ought by no means to be a reason for discouragement nor for discontinuing further endeavors. In this case the initiators would simply have to do fundamental work and try to fall back on elements that at present stand outside, or intentionally keep aloof from, existing organizations. It would be the business of the permanent board to secure financial ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... ways so special," Sage would reply in cavalier discouragement, his disaffected gaze resting upon the champion scholar, who stood elated, confident, needing no commendation to assure him of his pre-eminence; "but he air disobejient, ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive characteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, the disinterested objectivity have disappeared: the dialogue of the mind with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we hear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... restored to Gideon Spilett that self-possession which he had lost in a moment of discouragement on feeling his great responsibility. He seated himself close to the bed. Cyrus Harding stood near. Pencroft had torn up his shirt, ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... the Virgin of ivory. Her two arms extended, implored her, but it seemed to Esperance that they were opened also to whatever discouragement Destiny might have in store. She fell asleep in her chair, worn out by ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... expense and delay incident to this had seriously interfered with the prospects of the voyage, and to such of the crew and officers as were on shares left but little hope of returns. This naturally produced a feeling of discouragement and despondency. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... at Chaudiere's that Griswold had eaten his first breakfast in the Crescent City; and it was at Chaudiere's again that he was sharing a farewell supper with Bainbridge, of the Louisianian. Six weeks lay between that and this; forty-odd days of discouragement and failure superadded upon other similar days and weeks and months. The breakfast, he remembered, had been garnished with certain green sprigs of hope; but at the supper-table he ate like a barbarian in arrears to his appetite ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... no forgetfulness of past sorrow, but there was that perfect submission to God's will, which is the highest and most enduring happiness. There was trust for the future, such as left no room for doubt or for discouragement; and so there was peace for the present, which is better than happiness. She did not speak of all this to David, but he knew by many tokens what was passing in her heart, and he shared both the sadness and the gladness of ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson

... tailors are not accustomed to fitting giants and they charge for it. He had hung those clothes in his shanty two months ago and had never put them on, partly from fear of ridicule, partly from discouragement, and partly because there was something in his own soul that revolted at the ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... of roses to this new home in the West. Riggs would follow her, if he could not accompany her, and to gain his own ends he would stoop to anything. Helen felt the startling realization of being cast upon her own resources, and then a numbing discouragement and loneliness and helplessness. But these feelings did not long persist in the quick pride and flash of her temper. Opportunity knocked at her door and she meant to be at home to it. She would not have been Al Auchincloss's niece if she had faltered. And, when temper was succeeded by ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... being a new word invented to designate the bourgeoisie, and the latter, strengthened by the workmen in blouses, to the number of a hundred thousand men, made a counter-demonstration, singing the Marseillaise. In 1850, on the eve of the Coup d'Etat, "a profound discouragement prevailed among the bourgeoisie. The sudden fall in public securities, the rise in the premium on gold, the significant increase in the purchase of foreign bonds, the departure of the numerous strangers ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... annexed to the Ottoman Empire for four centuries. More than once during that period it would have been torn away but for the aid of the British. The government of Syria by the Ottoman Turk had been oppressive and corrupt and marked by the discouragement of all progress and enterprise. It was high time that it ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... heavy storms which recur almost regularly every year, and often destroy an entire plantation in a single day. In 1856 a hurricane visited the Island just before the harvest, and completely tore up several large plantations by the roots; a catastrophe that naturally has caused much discouragement to the cultivators. [76] One consequence of this state of things was that the free importation of cacao was permitted, and people were enabled to purchase Guayaqual cacao at fifteen dollars per quintal while that grown at home cost ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... house of the British Minister; John Bull's wise policy in sustaining the influence of his Embassies and Legations, its happy results so far as Great Britain is concerned. Work on the arbitration plans progressing. Discouragement. Germany, Austria, Italy, and some minor powers seem suddenly averse to arbitration. Determination of other powers to go on despite this. Relaxation of the rule of secrecy regarding our proceedings. Further efforts in behalf ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... mention of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided into it again. The hedges were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this. It was agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The river looked chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace—which was a great point. The canal was rather slow and torpid; ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... the cheerful patience of the small penetrating eyes as they turned upon her. And at the same time—strangely—she became aware of a sudden and painful impression; as though, through and behind the patience, she perceived an immense fatigue and discouragement—an ebbing power of life—in ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Helbeck had known the most blessed, the most intimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with a strange sense of wrench—of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he went to his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from his watch-chain and opened a large locked ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in his heart that the enterprise was a wild and foolish one, but, having promised to engage in it, he resolved not to cast the slightest hindrance in the way, or to say a single word of discouragement. He therefore approved of all that Heika suggested, and said that he would give ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... bees. The defenders met them with showers of arrows and shot, and hurled them back with lance and hatchets. Constantly beaten back, they returned as constantly to the charge. For six hours this fight lasted, and weariness and discouragement fell on the French. Joan, who had been all these hours in the thick of the engagement, seeing her men were losing heart, redoubled her efforts; and, helping to raise a scaling-ladder, she placed it against the parapet of one of the towers. While thus engaged she was ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... period there was such desperate need of fuel that even the olive trees, one of the region's chief sources of revenue, were sacrificed. The Italians have set about the task of regeneration with an energy that discouragement cannot check. But the undertaking is more than Italy can accomplish unaided, for the resources of her other provinces are seriously depleted. We are fond of talking of the debt we owe to Italy, not merely for her sacrifices in the war, but for all that ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... in search of an oracle from the lonely sage, as Boswell and as Gibbon and a hundred others had gone before him. Rousseau was wont to use his real adorers as ill as he used his imaginary enemies. Robespierre may well have shared the discouragement of the enthusiastic father who informed Rousseau that he was about to bring up his son on the principles of Emilius. 'Then so much the worse,' cried the perverse philosopher, 'both for you and your son.' If he had been endowed with ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... turned and glanced at his face and wondered what could have happened, for she had never seen him like this before, even in his darkest moments. There was a new element in his bearing, an element never there before. Discouragement, apathy, she had seen, and bitterness. She had seen wistfulness, hopelessness, chagrin, humiliation, but never until now had she seen set determination, smoldering embers of rage. What, she wondered, could this boy's father ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... Wayworth less eager to help himself. He did what he could and felt that she, on her side, was doing no less; but at the end of a year he was obliged to recognise that their united effort had mainly produced the fine flower of discouragement. At the end of a year the lustre had, to his own eyes, quite faded from his unappreciated masterpiece, and he found himself writing for a biographical dictionary little lives of celebrities he had never heard ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James

... it is vain to expect they will at once become prudent and useful, when the cares of life press heavily upon them. Generally speaking, when misfortune comes upon those who have been accustomed to thoughtless expenditure, it sinks them to discouragement, or, what is worse, drives them to desperation. It is true there are exceptions. There are a few, an honorable few, who, late in life, with Roman severity of resolution, learn the long-neglected lesson of economy. But how small is the number, compared with the whole mass of ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... this, Basil's mother left home for a fortnight. She said a few words to him before she went, about his violin lessons, but not much, for she had heard him practising again with more attention, and she had begun to hope his impatience and discouragement had been merely a passing fit. So she only repeated to him what she had said already. Basil listened in silence, with an expression on his face she did not quite understand. But she thought it better to say no more, ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... Defeat and discouragement attend well-nigh every step of the attempt to reach any conclusions regarding women workers in the early years of the century. It is true that 1832 witnessed an attempt at an investigation into their status, but the results were of slight value, actual figures ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... was disappointing, as its presence would have settled the whole question. When, these efforts all exhausted, the two detectives faced each other again in the small room given up to their use, Mr. Gryce showed his discouragement. To be certain of a fact you cannot prove has not the same alluring quality for the old that it has for the young. Sweetwater watched him in some concern, then with the persistence which was one of his strong points, ventured ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... triumphantly, and even rapidly, one and all of them, beaten back, till at length they seemed as if intending to cease altogether, and leave Hakon alone of them. But such was not their issue after all. The sons of Eric had only abated under constant discouragement, had not finally left off from what seemed their one great feasibility in life. Gunhild, their mother, was still with them: a most contriving, fierce-minded, irreconcilable woman, diligent and urgent on them, in season and out of season; and as for King Blue-tooth, ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... faith possesses the Negro. He has such confidence in justice,—the flow—of which he believes will yet soften hard hearts. We have a wonderful example of a patience that defies discouragement; the "Souls of Black Folk"! When values are truly measured, some things will be ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... roughing it in the deserts or the mountains until in physique he was hard as hickory, and in spirit wellnigh as elastic. Never until this recent experience in the Apache Mohave country had he shown symptom of discouragement. Now it was the more noticeable because coupled, it would seem, with distrust—distrust of him who had been for two years past an inseparable guide and even comrade, 'Tonio, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... discouragement swept over Jerry. Perhaps storekeepers wouldn't give change to anybody who wasn't buying anything. But he had to get his ten-dollar bill changed. He didn't have the heart to wait in another line to see if another clerk might give him change. He ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson

... by repressing emulation, tended to a general diminution of the efforts of genius for some time; while the banishment of Ovid, it is probable, and the capital punishment of a subsequent poet, for censuring the character of Agamemnon, operated towards the farther discouragement of poetical exertions. There now existed no circumstance to counterbalance these disadvantages. Genius no longer found a patron either in the emperor or his minister; and the gates of the palace were shut against all who cultivated the elegant ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... stone. Every time, the stone, abandoned by them, sunk deeper into the damp earth, which rendered the operation more and more difficult. A third effort was followed by no better success, but with progressive discouragement. And yet, when the six men were bent towards the stone, the man with the feathers had himself, with a powerful voice, given the word of command, "Ferme!" which regulates maneuvers of strength. Then he ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... that Dugald Stewart began his course of lectures on political economy. Hitherto all public favour had been on the side of the Tories, and independence of thought was a sure way to incur discouragement from the Bench, in the Church, and from every Government functionary. Lectures on political economy were regarded as innovations; but they formed a forerunner of that event which had made several important changes in our literary and political hemisphere: the commencement of the ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... fact that the present tariff in some cases imposes a higher duty upon the raw material imported than upon the article manufactured from it, the consequence of which is that the duty operates to the encouragement of the foreigner and the discouragement of our ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... startled. He knew his friend. When his deep voice had such a tone of gloomy discouragement, and his head drooped so mournfully, some ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... bring in prizes, to stay more than twenty-four hours, to leave within twenty-four hours of the start of a ship of the other belligerent, to take more coal than enough to carry them to the nearest home port, and to take any further supply of coal within three months. We might, no doubt, carry discouragement of privateers by so much further as to make refusal of coal absolute in their case, but hardly so far as to deny entry to them under ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland

... the opposing mass, and crumble his adversary's host to pieces. With this design he prepared to throw the brunt of the fighting on the strongest half of his army, while he kept the weaker portion of it in the background, knowing certainly that if worsted it would only cause discouragement to his own division and add force to the foe. The cavalry on the side of his opponents were disposed like an ordinary phalanx of heavy infantry, regular in depth and unsupported by foot-soldiers interspersed among the horses. (14) Epaminondas again differed in strengthening the attacking point ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon



Words linked to "Discouragement" :   despair, disheartenment, deterrence, dismay, intimidation, dissuasion, discourage, encouragement, determent, disapproval



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