"Idle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to me of secrets or alarms, whilst I am in such a blissful rapture. After what has just taken place, I ought not to listen to any suspicions. The unequalled kindness of a divine object ought to shut my ears against all such idle reports. ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... Greek science. It involves the doctrine that the Theoretic Life is the highest way of life for man, a belief still held by Plato and Aristotle, and to which we shall have to return. We may note at once, however, that it is not an 'intellectualist' ideal. There is no question of idle contemplation; it is a strenuous way of life, the aim of which is the soul's salvation, and it gives rise to an eager desire to convert other men. Just for that reason, the Pythagorean philosopher ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... but the rich and idle take taxis, and he seems to think he can in some way insure the welfare of his dog ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... ancestors be went to the Germans and informed against me! The sneak-thief! The turn-coat! The maggot! I shall not forget! I, Georges Coutlass, forget nothing! He informed against me, and they set askaris* on my trail who prevented me from making further search. I had to sit idle in Usumbura or Ujiji, or else come away; and idleness ill suits my blood! I came here, and Hassan followed me. The Germans made a regular, salaried spy of him—the semi-Arab rat! The one-tenth Arab, nine-tenths mud-rat! Here he stays in Zanzibar and spies ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... so painstaking and voluminous as that of Rostafinski, and in view of the almost universal confusion that preceded him, it would seem idle to change for reasons purely technical the nomenclature which the Polish author has established. Especially is this true in the case of organisms so very perishable and fragile as those now in question where comparative revision is apt to result in uncertainty. We had preferred to leave the Rostafinskian, ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... was making the pies, and the cake, and the pudding, Ann Mary was sitting idle, for her part of the Thanksgiving cooking was done. She had worked so fast the day before and early that morning that she had the raisins all picked over and seeded, and the apples pared and sliced; and that was about all that her grandmother thought she could do. Ann Mary herself ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, at that critical moment, began the daily period when I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business, then; far from it. The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All his blots upon ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... such sights as those, and live idle?" Richard resumed. "I feel ashamed of asking my men to work for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... conflicting social and political systems—perfect equality for Dutch and British in the British Colonies side by side with the permanent subjection of the British to the Dutch in one of the Republics. It is idle to talk of peace and unity under ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... strange and a sad home-coming, she thought, as they rode over the drawbridge and through the sodden and weed-smothered pleasaunce to the familiar door. Yet it might have been worse, for the tenants whom Bolle had warned had not been idle. For two hours past and more a dozen willing women had swept and cleaned; the fires had been lit, and there was plenteous food of a sort in the kitchen ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... perfectness. Nay, and no jot of time, at any time, Rests any actionless; his nature's law Compels him, even unwilling, into act; [For thought is act in fancy]. He who sits Suppressing all the instruments of flesh, Yet in his idle heart thinking on them, Plays the inept and guilty hypocrite: But he who, with strong body serving mind, Gives up his mortal powers to worthy work, Not seeking gain, Arjuna! such an one Is honourable. Do thine allotted task! Work is more excellent than idleness; The body's life proceeds not, ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... it, as if at the instant of the apparition he had offered that majestic, silent figure some grotesque indignity: thrown a pillow at it, or hailed it in tones of mocking offence. He was profoundly and exquisitely ashamed even before he ceased to tell the story for his listeners' idle amusement. When he stopped doing so, and snubbed solicitation with the curt answer that everybody had heard that story, he was retrospectively ashamed; and mixed with the expectation of seeing the vision again was the formless wish to ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... after noon-time before Barton actually rallied his aching bones, his dizzy head, his refractory inclinations, to meet the fluctuant sympathy and chaff that awaited him down-stairs in every nook and corner of the great, idle-minded hotel. ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... heroic sufferer that he was. This is a most interesting historic fact, and bears out wonderfully the truth of God's words. But I did not mean to give a lecture on history. It is out of place here. I meant to do you good yesterday, and discourage you from becoming an idle rhymer—a vain dreamer. You are not getting angry I hope, little girl, for ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... to tell. I must surely have begun work early in the day, he remarked, which was perhaps the best way for getting it soon over. I remembered having seen similar markings on the hewn-work of ancient castles, and of indulging in, I daresay, idle enough speculations regarding what was doing at court and in the field, in Scotland and elsewhere, when the old long-departed mechanics had been engaged in their work. When this mark was affixed, I have said, all Scotland was in mourning for the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... I won't call you that; and mind, as you grow up, that you do not get into an idle and wicked habit of calling yourselves that. You are something better than dust, and have other duties to do than ever dust can do; and the bonds of affection you will enter into are better than merely "getting in to order." But see to ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... visited by travellers. The answer was, "If we went, you should go too; but even we dare not go now. The two doors have been closed, one for seventy years, and the other for one hundred and fifty years." Speaking generally, we found Hebron a dirty, depressing place, full of lazy, idle people, and a shaykh told us that there was not a Christian in the place, as though that were something to ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... in this idle fingering of the cards. His eyes which already were burning with hot tears, seemed to take on an almost savage glitter. A hoarse ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... without reason, ridiculous, absurd, idiotic, silly, stupid, asinine; ill-imagined, ill-advised, ill-judged, ill-devised; mal entendu[Fr]; inconsistent, irrational, unphilosophical[obs3]; extravagant &c (nonsensical) 497; sleeveless, idle; pointless, useless &c. 645; inexpedient &c. 647; frivolous &c. (trivial) 643. Phr. Davus sum non [Lat][Oedipus]; "a fool's bolt is soon shot" clitellae bovi sunt impositae [obs3][Henry V.][Lat][Cicero]; "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... accustomed to arms, ingenious, energetic, brave and strong. The same qualities that have enabled a single generation of men to develop the resources of a continent, would enable us to destroy more rapidly than we have constructed. It is idle for individuals of either section to suppose themselves superior in military power. The French and English tried that question for a thousand years. We ought to know it now. The result of the contest would not depend upon the first blow of the first ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of laws. He ordered the German language alone to be used in public documents and offices; declared the Roman Catholic religion to be dominant. There were two thousand convents in Austria. He reduced them to seven hundred, and cut down the number of thirty-two thousand idle monks to twenty-seven hundred; and nobly issued an edict of toleration, granting to all members of Protestant churches the free exercise of their religion. All Christians, of every denomination, were declared to be equally eligible to any offices ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... of course. He does not know anything about them, and does not want to. His idea of business is to get real estate, and "hold on" till somebody else makes it valuable. Gentlemen of new Washington, Hercules will stand idle till he sees your own shoulders at the wheel. When you shall have the faithful, enlightened manual labor of New England, you may expect such flowers as Yale and Harvard and the aesthetic fruits they enfold. You may be unable to see any intimate connection between such labor and such culture, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... amongst the repealers. It is manifest that the great majority of the Repeal Association must exert themselves strenuously to support the association, or the persons to whom I allude will divide its ranks, and finally destroy the association itself. For my poor part, I will not be an idle spectator of such a struggle. 'Tis true that the people may be induced to desert me, but I never will desert the people. I perceive that it is—I will not use the proper term—but I will say, most unhandsomely suggested that, in the event ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... character, motive, and action. You are reminded that the authoress writes with a purpose, as well as a power, that the earnest, God-fearing soul of the philanthropist has travailed here for the good of her kind, not the mere 'sensation' romancist writer for the entertainment of an idle hour.' We quote ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... (love-talker). He does not appear, like the Leprechaun, with a purse in one of his pockets, but with his hands in both of them, and a dudeen (short pipe) in his mouth, as he lazily strolls through lonely valleys making love to the foolish country lasses and "gostering" with the idle "boys." To meet him meant bad luck, and whoever was ruined by ill-judged love was said to ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... be San Miniato's boatman this summer, is waiting outside the Count's door, until that idle gentleman wakes from his late sleep and calls him. The final agreement is yet to be made, and Ruggiero makes calculations upon his fingers as he sits on the box in the corridor. The Count wants a boat ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... "Bessie" and "Elinor" tattooed on his arm was enjoying a pipe and mending a net, not to be too idle. The glass might be rising—or not. He was independent of Science. A trifle of wind in the night was his verdict, glass or no! The season was drawing nigh to a close now for a bathing-resort, as you might ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... nothing better or more life-like than the sketch of the court in the chill morning, and before the actors came on the scene—the inimitable description of the idle barristers hanging about "the Bar of England," which is ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... has some little means, aside from a salary, a father and mother to visit through the idle months and so eke that salary out—is bound to be tormented by the question of clothes; for she is human, and wants to look as well as those about her, and besides she knows the stage manager is not likely to seek out the poorest dresser for ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... can break, and in the midst of which the weakest can sit secure. Peter thinks that every Christian has assailants whom no Christian by himself can repel, but that he may, if he likes, have an impregnable ring of defence drawn round him, which shall fling back in idle spray the wildest onset of the waves, as a breakwater or a cliff ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... at this moment, as she sat, an idle, desultory, neither happy nor unhappy woman, rapidly growing old, watching the century draw to a close amid chaos and misery,—it was at this moment that an eccentric English prelate, Lord Bristol, Bishop of Derry, introduced at the ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... thing that shortens life, and is used as the most cruel of punishments in our prisons, is the thing that will destroy all the life and force of a speech. Avoid it as you would shun a deadly dull bore. The "idle rich" can have half-a-dozen homes, command all the varieties of foods gathered from the four corners of the earth, and sail for Africa or Alaska at their pleasure; but the poverty-stricken man must walk or take ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the maritime republics, the army, idle and unwarlike as it was in most cases, continued to be one of the three careers open to the younger sons of good family; the civil service and the Church were the other two. In Genoa, nobles had engaged in commerce with equal honor and profit; ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... that couldn't possibly be altered?" asked Mr. Perkins, with his quizzical smile. "I shall be very sorry to lose you. In schools the rather stupid boys who work always do better than the clever boy who's idle, but when the clever boy works—why then, he does ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... arose and partook of a hurried, half-eaten breakfast. It was not likely that he would hear from Dick Cronk before the middle of the forenoon. Until then he was to be harassed by doubts and fears that would not be easy to suppress in his present unquiet frame of mind. While he was obliged to stand idle and impotent, the very foundation of all the future happiness of the girl he loved might be irreparably shattered. Silent, deadly, purposeful forces were working toward that end. Her mother would, no doubt, prepare ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Baptist Chapel, and straight back again; and before he got home he made a solemn resolution to rouse himself from the idle lethargic state into which he felt himself slipping deeper and deeper. Thinking about business and other matters, he decided now that the odd weariness which he had been experiencing must be struggled with, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... never fought," said de Laval sullenly. "Only Stewart and his Scots stood up against Fastolf's spears. You would not have me stay idle in face of such odds. I was not the only French knight who charged. There was La Hire and de Saintrailles and ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... altogether exclude the roar of the people outside. "Wards! Wards! Wards!" they seemed to be saying. Through it there were visible the beams and supports of metal scaffoldings that rose and fell according to the requirements of a great crowd of workmen. An idle building machine, with lank arms of red painted metal that caught the still plastic blocks of mineral paste and swung them neatly into position, stretched gauntly across this green tinted picture. On it were still a number of workmen staring ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... a fine job, boys," he said. "The fleet is in good formation." He paused as he settled back in his chair. "But I'm not the one who believes in idle hands. I've assigned you to Professor Sykes. He needs help in charting the unexplored regions of space we're approaching. And you three need that kind of training. Report to him ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... faithful and industrious man, and he will be willing to do work for moderate wages. Indeed, he cares more for a permanent place than high pay. Where he is now, he is liable to be idle for some months ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... he had reached the farther end of the piazza. In wheeling about to come back, the woman whose profile he now faced attracted his eye again, in spite of himself, and he gave her another idle thought. How absorbing was the subject upon which she was brooding, and how ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... round the waist and neck; an old woman or a little child occupies the lower floor of the cage; and the confinement lasts only a month. Probably the long period mentioned by Dr. Brown is that prescribed for chiefs' daughters. Poor people could not afford to keep their children so long idle. This distinction is sometimes expressly stated. See above, p. 30. Among the Goajiras of Colombia rich people keep their daughters shut up in separate huts at puberty for periods varying from one to four years, but poor people cannot afford to do so for more than a fortnight or a month. See ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... do now? We simply propose to stop the purchase. We do not say when we will renew it again, but we simply say we believe, in view of a panic or any possibilities of a panic, that it would be idle for us to waste either our credit money or our actual money to buy that which must be put down into the cellar of our treasury and there lie unused, except as it is represented by promises to pay gold. I say that such a policy as that would ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... idle questions! Two o'clock? That camel's hair at Stewart's will be sold, Unless we go this minute. Such a bargain! Come, my dear, come!" And so, cajoling, coaxing, She drew away her daughter, and the door Closed quickly on the ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... writers to whom the past was an open book. Even Westminster had long ago had her chronographer, and far away in furthest Wales, Geoffrey, the Monmouth man, was making men open their eyes very wide indeed with tales—idle tales they might be, but they were well worth the reading—and there was talk too of another young Welshman, Giraldus, who was on the way towards outdoing the other by-and-bye. What are we coming ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... surrendered to Krupp. Through every cogwheel in that incomparable machinery, through every link in that iron and unending chain, ran the mastery and the skill of a certain kind of artist; an artist whose hands are never idle through dreaming or drawn back in disgust or lifted in wonder or in wrath; but sure and tireless in their touch upon the thousand little things that make the invisible machinery of life. That artist was there in triumph; ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... long months idle They have kept you ready and fit, All shining from hock to bridle, All burnished from hoof to bit; The set of your silk coat's beauty, The lie of its lightest hair, Was an anxious trooper's duty And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... irresistible, and she came back in high spirits with report of progress. Denzil, who had just been badgered by a deputation of voters who wished to discover his mind on seven points of strictly non-practical politics, listened with idle amusement. ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... the back settlements the news travelled. It was discussed at the store, the blacksmith shop, the mill, and in the homes at night, wherever a few were gathered together. The Fletchers had never been idle since the night of old Billy's death. They stirred up others by various stories and conjectures, fashioned in their own suspicious minds. "Why," they asked, "did not the parson explain about that ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... parties," replied he. "In the first place, for one respectable carriage driving up to the door, there are twenty cabs and jarveys, so that the company isn't so good; and then at parties, when there is a good supper, I get my share of it in the kitchen. You don't think we are idle down below. I have been to Mrs Allwood's twice, and there's no supper, nothing but feast of reason, which remains upstairs, and they're welcome to my share of it. As for the drink, it's negus and cherry-water; nothing else, and if ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... nevertheless, it has a broad field of independent action. Otherwise, why give it a separate personality and a separate organization? Cities are permitted to exercise vast powers of police and of taxation. It is idle to say that a few commissioners can give satisfactory legislation. They cannot represent community interests. Their executive functions will naturally bias their judgment. Moreover, each commissioner, knowing little of the needs of the other departments, will naturally take the word ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... hoped for a play upon the sea, with a tall mast rocking from wing to wing and a tempest roaring at the rail. Alas! Our pirates grow old and stiff. They have retired, as we say, from active practice and live in idle luxury on shore. Yet we shall see ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... of death, who makes it possible for these fellows to spend their days in pleasant exercise in the fields. The soldier bears civilization on his back, he supports all the rest, he is the pedestal which bears without complaint the civilian as an idle ornament. The soldier, in short, is the real man, the ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... at the audacity of this idle demonstration, when all at once, from the heights on their left, an enemy's battery began firing. Its bullets crossed the road; at the same time thirty squadrons showed themselves on the same side, threatening the Westphalian corps which was advancing, the commander of which ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... amply supplies all that the army needs, without its calling on its abundant reserves. I propose, Sir, to write to you twice a week, to give you the news about His Majesty, and details about the operations of the army. These communications will enable you to contradict the idle rumors which malicious persons ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... mothers will make indolent and unfaithful children. You cannot expect neatness and order in any house where the daughters see nothing but slatternness and upsidedownativeness in their parents. Let Hannah be idle, and most certainly Samuel will ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... of Bishop Carileph the see of Durham remained vacant for three years. The monks, however, were not idle during this period, and they continued the work vigorously, completing the west walls of the transepts and the vaulting of the north transept. In 1099 Ralph Flambard was appointed bishop, and he held ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... to get the strength?... And he would have liked to busy himself in the department of writing also,—he knew how to do that beautifully, as you are aware; but his hands shook so, and he could not hold the pen properly.... He was always reproaching himself: 'I'm an idle dog,' he said. 'I have done no one any good, I have helped no one, I have not toiled!' He was very much afflicted over that same.... He used to say, 'Our people toil, but what are we doing?...' Akh, Nikolai Nikolaitch, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... respects to Mrs. Gibson,' said he. 'I shall come as soon as I may. Your father has been a very kind friend to me ever since I was a boy. And when I come, I shall expect my pupil to have been very diligent,' he concluded, smiling his kind, pleasant smile at idle Molly. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not idle upon deck; the carpenter was busy fixing a step for one of the spare topmasts instead of a mainmast, and the men were fitting the rigging; the ship unfortunately had sprung a leak, and four hands ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the room, before his inflammable brain was on fire with a new idea. Other idle men in trouble had found the solace and the occupation of their lives in books. Why should he not be one of them? Why not plunge into study in this delightful retirement—and perhaps, one day, astonish Regina and ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... ripened moment, not a sheaf Of arrows should be wasted, not a brave Should perish aimlessly, nor discord reign Amongst our tribes, nor jealousy distrain The large effects of valour. We must now Pack all our energies. Our eyes and ears No more must idle with the hour, but work As carriers to the brain, where we shall store, As in an arsenal, deep ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... in their right places?" To his credit be it spoken, Mount Dunstan managed to say it as if in the mere putting together of idle words. What man likes to be reminded of his right place! No man wants to be put in his right place. There is always another ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... less than twelve feet under full cargo, which made possible her use of the shorter and smoother inland water-way from Norfolk to Beaufort, North Carolina, where was the factory. Zeke, who would remain idle until the first catch of fish, went early to his bunk the first evening aboard, wearied by the long and exciting day. He had, indeed, scarce time to contemplate a guardian vision of Plutina ere his senses were locked in slumber, and his next ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... the open water and Geneva already lies far behind. Not a ripple on the blue water that shades into deep blue behind us. Ahead the scene melts into a milky haze. A little boat, with idle sails embroidered with sunlight, vanishes into it. On the right rise the mountains of Savoy, dotted with forests, veiled in clouds which cast their shadows on the broken slopes. The contrast is happy, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Her own child, she said, was then in her arms; and she could not forbear wishing it were possible to give her the fortune which seemed so little valued for me. This wish once raised was not easily suppressed; on the contrary, what at first appeared a mere idle desire, in a short time seemed a feasible scheme. Her husband was dead, and she had little regard for any body but her child; and, in short, having saved money for the journey, she contrived to enquire a direction to my father; and, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... the men of Kentucky and Tennessee, standing on the lines of New Orleans, under the eye of Andrew Jackson, fight with colored battalions whom he had summoned to the field, and whom he thanked publicly for their gallantry in hurling back a British foe? It is all talk, idle talk, to say that the volunteers who are fighting the battles of this country are governed by any such narrow prejudice or bigotry. These prejudices are the results of the teachings of demagogues and politicians, who have for years undertaken to delude and ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... bat-fowling in the summer twilight; or catching treats in that shadowy little stream, which, I suppose, is still wandering riverward through the forest,—though you and I will never cast a line in it again,—two idle lads, in short (as we need not fear to acknowledge now), doing a hundred things that the Faculty never heard of, or else it had been the worse for us,—still it was your prognostic of your friend's destiny, that he was to be a writer of fiction." ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... and always, and intentionally, I am sure, most amusing to contemplate. In addition to all this he had an air of well-being, force and alertness which belied the other surface characteristics as anything more than a genial pose or bit of idle gayety. ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... like to see a man sewing, Charley? I don't. I don't believe that their great muscular arms were intended to wield a needle, especially when so many feminine fingers are forced to be idle for want of employment; so I never like to see a tailor.—Oh, yes, I do, too. I came very ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... at all fond. My friends have often remarked upon it. A palmist once told me that I had one of those rare spiritual natures which cannot be satisfied with substitutes but must seek and seek till they find their soul-mate. When other men all round me were frittering away their emotions in idle flirtations which did not touch their deeper natures, I was ... I was ... well, I wasn't, if you see ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... boy, not quite so fast. I shall not turn him out to-night, if he has no home to go to; but we cannot keep a lot of idle ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... story, they laughed and said, 'Verily, thou art dung, the son of dung! Thou liedst most abominably!' Then said they to the third slave, 'Tell us thy story.' 'O my cousins,' replied he, 'all that ye have said is idle: I will tell you how I came to lose my cullions, and indeed, I deserved more than this, for I swived my mistress and my master's son: but my story is a long one and this is no time to tell it, for the dawn is near, and if the day surprise us with this chest yet unburied, we shall be blown upon ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... I passed under the ruined walls of the castle. In the little town itself, early as was the hour, many people were stirring. One gave me good-morning—a man of singular character, for here, in the very peep of day, he was sitting on a doorstep, idle, lazy and contented, as though it was full noon. Another was yoking oxen; a third going out singing to work in ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... little, and made innumerable inquiries, I was very much gratified to find that the whole party were in good health, and that every thing had been conducted in a satisfactory manner during my absence. No one had been idle, and every thing that I could have wished, had been properly arranged. The stores had been safely brought up from the WATERWITCH, including a barometer kindly sent by the Governor, and a large packet of English letters, at any time ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... brilliant schoolboy, then an idle law student, George Henry Moore was driven to travel by the complications of a passionate love affair, and he travelled adventurously, being a pioneer of exploration in the Caucasus and Syria. Sketches reproduced in the book show that he could draw no less well than he wrote. Returning ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... Little snow had fallen. The stars were all out overhead, and the great night was round her, enclosing, watching her. She tried to rise, and could just move her limbs. Had she fallen asleep again, she would not have lived through the night. But it is idle to talk of what would have been; nothing could have been but what was. Mercy wondered afterwards that she did not lose her reason. She must, she thought, have ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... gifts of free land, stock, and money, it was hard to secure a suitable class of settlers. Many of those who came up from Mexico to live in the pueblos were idle or dissipated, and nearly all uneducated. When, after several years, a Spanish officer was sent down from Monterey to convey to the Los Angeles settlers full title to their lands, he found that not one of the twenty-four heads of families could sign his ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... things better than men, though at the same time what good they do is by their advice. It would be odd indeed, if I, who laid this plot myself, could not carry it on as well as you. But let us lose no time in idle discourse; lie down in my place, and witness if I do not come off with ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... little as he stood up, and his arms both required a rub, especially about the elbows; but while he performed these little comforting offices he was not idle, for he carefully inspected the shelf. Escape on the one side did not seem possible, for it was over into the gorge; the other side, a curve, was one nearly perpendicular wall of rock, along which he walked from where he stood ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... these little things that help the soul at first, as you will find, like—like—the bindings of a peach-tree, that it may learn how to grow and bear its fruit. And the Rule will be given you, and what a monk must have by rote, and how to sing. You will not be idle, Chris." ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... Paderewski tuft, a rolling collar that exposed the points of his right and left clavicles, a Windsor tie, and, to preserve the unity of his characterization, a slight nondescript foreign accent, despite the circumstance that he was born in Newark, N. J. All this, however, was not an idle pose on Felix's part. He merely applied to a dry-goods store the business principles of the successful virtuoso, and he had found them so efficacious that personally he sold more garments than any six of his clerks. He was no less astute in the buying end of the business; for in pitting ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... revealed his plan for defying all parties, and for deciding the fate of the Dragon Throne. The only reply he received was the cold one that it would be better and wiser to confine his attention to the question of whether he intended to yield or not, instead of discussing idle schemes ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... "Sit down, if you can find chairs. I'm hard at work as you see, but a poor lone widder can't afford to be idle." ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... idle to assert that Poe disposed of all the narrative problems which confronted him while constructing this story precisely in the order I have indicated. Unfortunately, he never explained in print the genesis ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... the coquette, using her eyes, which had remained idle so long, "this famous compact which you proposed to me, the right of always giving me your arm, of visiting me when you liked; did that give you ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... time for the intruders to make it known that business of some sort, not idle curiosity, had brought them on the scene, and Nevill stepped forward, holding out the visiting card given him by Josette, and the crimson velvet case containing the watch which Stephen ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... serious, I hope," said the Doctor. "It is a pity to take the boy away unless there is. He is a very good boy, rather idle and unenergetic, but he is a very honest gentlemanlike little fellow, though I can't get him to construe as I wish. Won't you come in and have some luncheon? My wife will be ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... probably true enough, and only as a general picture does it matter; its details are supremely unimportant. The river here is pouting through the gorges, or shallowly meandering the meads. It is watering Farmer Balbus's fields; Grazier Ahenobarbus's cows drink at it; idle Dolabell angles in its quiet reaches: there are bloody tribal affrays yearly at its fords. It is important, certainly, to Babbus and Dolabella, and the men slain in ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... fire, a nurse of trembling fear, A path that leads to peril and mishap, A true retreat of sorrow and despair, An idle boy that sleeps in Pleasure's lap; A deep distrust of that which certain seems, A hope of ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... their bodies, other some of more milder spirit sought to saue the soule by deuout prayer and meditation to the Almightie, thinking indeede by no other meanes possible then by a diuine Miracle to haue their deliuerance: so that there was none that were either idle, or not well occupied, and he that helde himselfe in best securitie had (God knoweth) but onely bare hope remayning for ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... an idle lad, And loung'd about all day; And though he many a lesson had. He minded ...
— Phebe, The Blackberry Girl • Edward Livermore
... shovels was 159 cu. yd. in one shift, and the best average in any month—which was between July and December, 1907, during which time only the enlargement and bench of the Central Shaft headings was being taken out from the western end—was 60 cu. yd. per shift. As the shovels were generally idle for one shift out of three, the quantity actually handled averaged 90 cu. yd. per shift during the shifts the shovel worked. All these quantities were "measured in place," and, as previously noted, would be about equal to twice as much measured ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... creature is determined by its individual qualities; whereas in civilised societies a man may obtain the highest position and the most beautiful wife because he is rich and well-born, although he may be ugly, idle or improvident; and then it is he who will perpetuate the species. The wealthy man, ill constituted, incapable, sickly, enjoys his riches and establishes his stock under the protection of the laws." Haycraft in England and Jentsch in Germany have strongly emphasised these "anomalies," ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... be idle, madame. Yet your interest in me is very flattering, and I thank you. It is unfortunate for me that I am ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... civilisation and of eternal religion. Shakespeare, in the heart of his fantastic forest, turns with a splendid suddenness to the Cockney ideal as being the true one after all. For a jest, for a reaction, for an idle summer love or still idler summer hatred, it is well to wander away into the bewildering forest of Arden. It is well that those who are sick with love or sick with the absence of love, those who weary of the folly of courts or weary yet more of their wisdom, it is natural ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... their apostle and teacher, and so treated him, whether present or absent. Leaving that employment, he went forth to the Filipinas, where he arrived, as we have said, in June of the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-five. During the voyage he was not idle, but rather kindled the fervor of all on the ship with discourses and sermons, as I was told in his praise by the commander of the fleet, and by the father commissary of the Holy Office in the province of Pintados, the associate of the right reverend bishop of Sebu. I conducted him ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... kind well," persisted Cassidy. "Th' idle rich! Small use have they f'r th' wur-r-r-kin' man! Souls no wider than th' ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... lost his leg at the battle of Vittoria, and after suffering amputation with the greatest courage, thus addressed his servant who was crying, or pretending to cry, in one corner of the room, "None of your hypocritical tears, you idle dog; you know you are very glad, for now you will have only one boot to clean instead ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... deal amused and should have felt a little rebuked, had I asked a single question from idle curiosity. "Yes, it's a sort of one, ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Nuremberg," Hans Sebald Beham, Bartholomew Beham, and George Penz. The first named expressed some doubts about various Protestant doctrines. Bartholomew went further, asserting that baptism was a human device, that the Scriptures could not be believed and that the preaching he had heard was but idle talk, producing no fruit in the life of the preacher himself; he recognized no superior authority but that of God. George Penz went further still, for while he admitted the existence of God he asserted that his nature was unknowable, and that he could believe neither in Christ ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... he had seen for a moment through the doors of the Milan. The red seal ring upon the finger—what did it mean? A doubt chilled him for a moment. He told himself with passionate insistence, that it was not possible that she could know of these things. Her words were idle, her theories a jest. He turned away from the window and caught up a morning paper, resolved to escape from his thoughts. The first headline ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in vain has he lived that such a treasure be given him? What is ambition compared to that but selfish vanity? To be rich, to be famous: what do these profit a year hence when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under the ground along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? Only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessing or precedes you and intercedes for you. 'Non omnis moriar'—if dying I yet live in a tender heart or two, nor am lost ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... founded, and has attracted a fair number of candidates. Naturally I rejoice in this change, knowing from experience the value of these studies; and knowing also from experience, if I may speak boldly, how idle is that dream which flits about in Oxford and whispers that the mastering of Old English, on the basis of Teutonic phonology, and the conquest of the worlds opened by Chaucer and Shakespeare and Swift and Burke ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... not let his eyes see the painful sight. He would try to forget, would deny to himself that he had seen. For to his shallow, conventional nature Susan's expression could only mean delight in wealth, in the opportunity that now offered to idle and to luxuriate in the dead man's money, to realize the crude dreamings of those lesser minds whose initial impulses toward growth have been stifled by the routine our social system imposes upon all but the few with the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... shall be brought into judgment for every idle word I say, I will endeavor never to engage in trifling conversation, but on every proper occasion to speak of the wondrous ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... Kate merely sat in a pleasant place and allowed her nerves to settle, after the short nap she had enjoyed in the rocking chair. It was such a novel experience for her to sit idle, that despite the attractions of growing things, running water, and singing birds, she soon veered to thoughts of what she would be doing if she were at home, and that brought her to the fact that she was forbidden her father's house; so if she might not go there, she was ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... suggest, in order to mark that due gradation which in every well regulated society must necessarily exist in the scale of rewards to be accorded to such as may be subordinate or refractory,—industrious, or idle; that these latter encouragements should only be extended in this double ratio to those who might quit the establishment with a certificate of good conduct from ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... Hall and took up my wife, who is mighty sad to think of her father, who is going into Germany against the Turkes; but what will become of her brother I know not. He is so idle, and out of all capacity, I think, to earn his bread. Home and at my office till is at night making my solemn vowes for the next year, which I trust in the Lord I shall keep, but I fear I have a little too severely ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... fraught with immediate danger to the integrity of the Empire, as in truth it was, for the Republican nature of the insurrection had become an established fact, whilst the squadron which, months before, ought to have sailed to quell the revolt, was, from, want of men, lying idle in the port ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... of plaint, Or the starling's courtship quaint, Heart made much of; 'twas a boon Won from silence, and too soon Wasted in the ample air: Building rooks far distant were. Scarce at all would speak the rills, And I saw the idle hills, In their amber hazes deep, Fold themselves and go to sleep, Though it was not yet ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... of our birds which afford more surprise and pleasure to a novice than the family of warblers. A well-known ornithologist has related how one day he wandered into the forest in an idle mood, and accidentally catching a gleam of bright color overhead, raised his gun and brought the bird to his feet; and how excited and charmed he was with the wondrous beauty of his little trophy. Were there ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... shut it off from the street; it was dinner-time with the humbler people of the town, and there was not a soul visible, when Donal put the key in the lock of the front door, opened it, and went in: he had timed his entrance so, desiring to avoid idle curiosity, and bring no gathering feet about the house. Almost on tiptoe he entered the lofty hall, high above the first story. The dust lay thick on a large marble table—but what was that?—a streak across it, brushed sharply through the middle of the dust! It ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... order that in this world I might prosper, and excel in tongue-science, which should serve to the "praise of men," and to deceitful riches. Next I was put to school to get learning, in which I (poor wretch) knew not what use there was; and yet, if idle in learning, I was beaten. For this was judged right by our forefathers; and many, passing the same course before us, framed for us weary paths, through which we were fain to pass; multiplying toil and grief upon the sons of Adam. But, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... other men, must needs love with constancy and faith. You must not be jealous of what is called the Muse. Happy is the wife of a man whose days are occupied. If you heard the complaints of women who have to endure the burden of an idle husband, either a man without duties, or one so rich as to have nothing to do, you would know that the highest happiness of a Parisian wife is freedom,—the right to rule in her own home. Now we writers and men of functions and occupations, we leave the sceptre to our wives; we ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... going to pay servants," she persisted, "why should I idle about the house? Why should not I, an able-bodied person, be out helping in the world's work somehow—and also helping you to ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott |
