"Mindless" Quotes from Famous Books
... the huntsman's call, Obedient to the unwelcome note That stays them from the quarry's bursting throat?— Famine and Pestilence and Earthquake dire, Torrent and Tempest, Lightning, Frost and Fire, The soulless Tiger and the mindless Snake, The noxious Insect from the stagnant lake (Automaton malevolences wrought Out of the substance of Creative Thought)— These from their immemorial prey restrained, Their fury ... — Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... that this raw material is sufficiently wrought up to yield a self-conscious personality. Hence the dissolution of a human brain implies the dissolution of a human mind; and hence also the universe, although entirely composed of mind-stuff, is itself mindless. Now, all I have to say about these two deductions is this—they do not necessarily follow from the theory which is before us. In holding that the mind of man perishes with his body, and that above the mind ... — Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... tottering, muttering, mumbling with a mindless docility, they are, like Browning's men of the Paris morgue, only "apparent failures"; there was in them that spark of divine illumination which can never be wholly extinguished. Positive misdeeds, the presence ... — Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... softened. It was a perplexing smile that sat on his features. While he had talked with Greta there had run through his mind, as a painful undertone, the thought of Mercy Fisher. He had now dismissed the last of his qualms respecting her. To be tied down for life to a mindless piece of physical prettiness—what man of brains could bear it? He had yielded to a natural impulse—true! That moment of temptation threatened painful consequences—still true! What then? Nothing! Was the dead fruit to hang about his neck forever? Tut!—all natural law ... — A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... leave her alone when he saw in his fancy the clean, simple, mindless, honest life that her fanciful girlhood would settle down into as time should go on. But when in the figure of the woodman there was painted visibly on the dusky sky that end for her which he had foreseen, he was not indifferent to it; ... — Bebee • Ouida
... Old Year had gone out. The mindless old man—he who had been President—went with it. A New Year had come in, and on its infant heels shambled a tall, gaunt shape that seated itself by the White House windows and looked out into the murk of things with eyes that no ... — Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... it. This sapience was all a big fake; he had to believe that. The Fuzzies were only little mindless animals. ... — Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... hasn't one," snapped Lady Martin. "She is one of those mindless, soulless women who are simply parasites, clinging to men for what they can get—a home, money, position—and give nothing in return because they have ... — The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... and repassed me, and my glance rested on her idly, even cynically. For she seemed so happy, and at that time happiness won my languid wonder, if ingenuously exhibited. To be happy seemed almost to be mindless. But by degrees I found myself watching this girl, and more closely. Another dance began. She joined it with another partner. But she seemed just as pleased with him as with her former one. She would ... — The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... second objection against this fundamental position of metaphysical teleology. This objection, it will be remembered, was, that it is as impossible to conceive of cosmic harmony as an effect of Mind [i.e. Mind being what we know it in experience to be], as it is to conceive of it as an effect of mindless evolution. The argument from inconceivability, therefore, admits of being turned with quite as terrible an effect on Theism, as it can possibly be ... — Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... thing caused death, it was to be cast beyond the borders in like manner, and expiation was to be made. /2/ Nor was all this an ideal creation of merely imagined law, for it was said in one of the speeches of Aeschines, that "we banish beyond our borders stocks and stones and steel, voiceless and mindless things, if they chance to kill a man; and if a man commits suicide, bury the hand that struck the blow afar from its body." This is mentioned quite as an every-day matter, evidently without thinking it at all extraordinary, only to point an antithesis to the honors heaped ... — The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... sensuous and verbal images may breed after their own kind in an empty brain; but these fantasies are often supported and directed by sexual longings and vaguely luxurious thoughts. An Oriental Paradise, with its delicate but mindless aestheticism, is above everything a garden for love. To brood on such an Elysium is a likely prelude and fertile preparation for romantic passion. When the passion takes form it calls fancy back from ... — The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... helpless passion move? What kindle in thee this unpitied love? Thy own warm blush within the water glows, With thee the coloured shadow comes and goes, Its empty being on thyself relies; 40 Step thou aside, and the frail charmer dies. Still o'er the fountain's watery gleam he stood, Mindless of sleep, and negligent of food; Still viewed his face, and languished as he viewed. At length he raised his head, and thus began To vent his griefs, and tell the woods his pain. 'You trees,' says he, 'and thou surrounding grove, Who oft have been the kindly ... — The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... went to see him, and told him his father was well, but melancholy. He told me he was as much grieved for his father as for himself. I wondered at his speech, for I thought I had enough upon my spirit in reference to myself, to make me mindless of my husband and everyone else; they being safe among their friends. He told me also, that awhile before, his master (together with other Indians) were going to the French for powder; but by the way the Mohawks met with ... — Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
... man's clumsy attitude it was almost possible to divine his slow, mindless nature—for there is expression in the very turn of a man's leg as he stands—and it was easy to see that he was guarding the little path down the cliff ... — The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... creativity and your worldwide success and we support your freedom of expression but you do have a responsibility to assess the impact of your work and to understand the damage that comes from the incessant, repetitive, mindless violence and irresponsible conduct that permeates our media all ... — Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various |