"Secondhand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... except the innate holiness of her heart, and the dictates of her keen though untutored understanding; yet when the hour of trial comes, she can obey the commands of both, and draw from herself a genuine nobleness of conduct, which secondhand prudence, and wealth, and titles, would but render less touching. Her filial affection, her angelic attachment to her lover, her sublime and artless piety, are beautifully contrasted with the bleakness of her external circumstances: she appears before us like ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... any collectors of playbills? In the catalogues of secondhand booksellers are occasionally to be found such entries as: "Playbills of the Theatre Royal, Bath, 1807 to 1812;" or "Hull Theatre Royal—various bills of performances between 1815 and 1850;" or "Covent Garden Theatre—variety of old bills of the last century pasted ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... picked up in some secondhand book-store for a quarter or a dime. He had erased the pencilled name of the original owner on the fly-leaf and had written mine and the date over it in ink. Then turning to the inside of the back cover he had rubbed out the price mark and ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... entertain but it would too long detain us to repeat Smith's information, probably all secondhand, about this barbarous region. We must confine ourselves to the fortunes of our hero. All his hope of deliverance from thraldom was in the love of Tragabigzanda, whom he firmly believed was ignorant of his bad usage. But she made no ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is no use to talk in that way. I've quite set my heart on Ester's going. I never expect to have an invitation there myself, so I must take my honors secondhand. ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... blindness; this was what people did not hesitate to utter over his grave yet barely closed, and what indeed they are still saying—commonly too without any knowledge of what Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at secondhand bad caricatures of ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... visitor, and, once in a while, he made a purchase; however, to day he must not spend too much time "browsing" among books. He would, however, just slip around to Twenty-fifth street and take a look at the secondhand store there. Not to buy shoes, of course, but sometimes there were other interesting things there, ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... and influential, and because the head of the family saw that that influence was brought to bear upon his neighbors and acquaintances, their custom followed. Hamilton and Company put a delivery wagon—a secondhand one—out on the road, and hired a distinctly secondhand boy to drive it. And Mary and Shadrach and Zoeth and, in the evenings, the boy as well, were kept busy waiting on customers. The books showed, since the silent partner took ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had done its work. All frayed and secondhand loves may be made ashamed by the fearlessness of these two walking to their farewell trysting-place, lonely amid the world of heather. Only daft Jock Gordon above them, like a jealous scout, scoured the heights—sometimes ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... she was Miss Chudleigh. He said pretty things—for he was Mr. Cibber; and all the company, men and women, seemed to think they had an interest in what was said, and were half as well pleased as if they had said the sprightly things themselves; and mighty well contented were they to be secondhand repeaters of the pretty things. But once I faced the laureate squatted upon one of the benches, with a face more wrinkled than ordinary with disappointment 'I thought,' said I, 'you were of the party at the tea-treats—Miss Chudleigh has gone into the tea-room.'—'Pshaw!' said he, 'there is no ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... the facts to the extent of doubting one's veracity, or else nearly all testimony must go for nothing; but there is in these matters always room for doubting whether the narrator has not been deceived; and, moreover, even if accepted at secondhand, I doubt whether facts so accepted ever become, as it were, assimilated, so as to have ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... of being back for luncheon. I picked up a London morning paper and glanced at the personal column. I have read it every day since when I could get hold of the London Times. All of human nature and the ups and downs of man are there, from secondhand lace to the mortgaged jewels of broken-down nobility, from sporting games and tickets for sale to relatives wanted, and those mysterious, suggestive, unsigned messages from home or to home. I read the news of the ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... have seen, had already emigrated,—with a view of putting France to the blush. Neither are arms now the peculiar property of Seigneurs; but of every mortal who has ten shillings, wherewith to buy a secondhand firelock. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... pick," said the pawnbroker, going to the shop and returning with two or three secondhand revolvers ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... more seriously than he deserves or perhaps desires. One would think that Mr. Butler was the travelled and laborious observer of Nature, and Mr. Darwin the pert speculator who takes all his facts at secondhand." {36} ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... pocket—naphtha it was—and gave it to Inger with orders to take it regularly and get well again. And there were the windows and the painted doors that he could fairly boast of; he set to work at once fitting them in. Oh, such little doors, and secondhand at that, but painted up all neat and fine again in red and white; 'twas almost as good as having pictures on ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... 122) says:—"Long Lane, so called from its length, coming out of Aldersgate Street against Barbican, and falleth into West Smithfield. A Place also of Note for the Sale of Apparel, Linnen, and Upholsters Goods, both Secondhand and New, but chiefly for old, for which it is of note." See also p. 284 of the same book, and Cunningham's Hand Book of London, edit. 1848, in voce, with the authorities and illustrations there given. Rowlands, in his Letting of Humors ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... and smug you with your secondhand suit and hand-me-down knowledge!" He jumped up in a fury and turned his back on Timmy, addressing himself directly to Homer whose patient, pain-filled eyes held undeniable understanding. "Look at you! The telepathic genius with personal immortality—at ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... father and mother had perished, an idea can be formed of the terrible chief of the assassins of Avignon, who had for his lieutenants, Farges the silk-weaver, Roquefort the porter, Naudaud the baker, and Magnan the secondhand clothes dealer. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was unaware what steps he might have taken between the time of my telling him and the time of his death to prove or disprove the truth of the story. In the second place, Rung had disappeared. I could only tell the story at secondhand. It had been told me by an eye-witness, but that witness was a native, and the word of a native does not go for much in those parts. In the third place, the Russian had also disappeared, and had left no trace behind. What could I do? Had I told ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... long as ignorant people go into the secondhand book business ... It's a tedious business, but if you look over enough stalls, you're ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... don't mind seven in one party," said Riley Sinclair, "I think I'll go along to see justice done. You see, I got a sort of secondhand interest ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... history is the preservation and communication of truth. In weighing a historical work, we should consider both the writer's sources of information and the use he has made of them. Has he gone to original and trustworthy sources of information or has he taken his materials at secondhand? Has he given them thorough or only partial examination? Has he well digested his materials, so that he writes from the fullness of assimilated knowledge, or does he present only the raw materials of history? While delightful and useful histories may be written largely of secondhand materials, it ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter |
