Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Ungrateful   /əngrˈeɪtfəl/   Listen
Ungrateful

adjective
1.
Not feeling or showing gratitude.  Synonyms: thankless, unthankful.  "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!"
2.
Disagreeable.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Ungrateful" Quotes from Famous Books



... understand you; no more he does, but don't go on thinking about it. You think it is a great bore to be your father's only son, and wish Francis was instead. That's cross; you may think it's fine, but it isn't, and it is also ungrateful. You can have great fun if you will ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... gasoline and some provisions, we set out for the Ferry; and it was a sorry, bedraggled trio that limped up to camp eight hours later. We did little more than creep the last five miles. And all for a spiteful little engine that might prove ungrateful in the end! ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... Intention. Whatever may have been his Meaning, finding fault is certainly the easiest Task of Knowledge, and commonly those Men of good Judgment, who are likewise of good and gentle Dispositions, abandon this ungrateful Province to the Tyranny of Pedants. If one would enter into the Beauties of Shakespear, there is a much larger, as well as a more delightful Field; but as I won't prescribe to the Tastes of other People, so I will only take the liberty, with all due Submission to the Judgment of ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe

... next room the passionate melancholy of a waltz was mocked and travestied by the frantic and ungrateful whirl that only Americans are capable of executing; the music lived alone in upper air; of men and dancing it was all unaware; the involved cadences rolled away over the lawn, shook the dew-drooped roses on their stems, and went upward into the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... very ungrateful to her if I ever am so," said the poor Italian, with all his natural gallantry. Many a good wife, who thinks it is a reproach to her if her husband is ever 'out of spirits,' might have turned peevishly from that speech more elegant than sincere, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... write any more; I get rather shaky when I sit up too long. Please forgive me for being impertinent and ungrateful. I ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster

... then that are wronged generally mention what they have done well to those who are ungrateful. And the person who is blamed for what he has done well is altogether to be pardoned, and not censured, if he passes encomiums on his own actions: for he is in the position of one not scolding but making his defence. This it was that made Demosthenes' freedom of speech splendid, and prevented ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... leopard is an audacious animal, although it is ungrateful of me to say a word against him, after the way he has let me off personally, and I will speak of his extreme beauty as compensation for my ingratitude. I really think, taken as a whole, he is the most lovely animal I have ever seen; ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... a loss what to reply to this. His impulse was to say firmly and frankly that it was no good; but after not far short of two years at Malford it would be ungrateful and disloyal to criticize the Order, particularly to the Bishop ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... and courteous acts,—a thousand faces that melted individually out of my recollection as the April snow melts, but only to steal away and find the beds of flowers whose roots are memory, but which blossom in poetry and dreams. I am not ungrateful, nor unconscious of all the good feeling and intelligence everywhere to be met with through the vast parish to which the lecturer ministers. But when I set forth, leading a string of my mind's daughters to market, as the country-folk fetch in their strings of horses—Pardon me, that was a coarse ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... ever reads history, it was natural enough that there should be a great deal of disappointment and a great deal of astonishment. Men at the head of affairs who ought to have known better cried aloud, "How ungrateful these people are, after all we've done for them!" and the people underneath shouted that everything had been muddled and spoiled and that they would have done much better had they been at the head of affairs, an assertion for which there was no sort ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... years together in all his wants and dangers, saving him from want of bread by his care and management, and with a promise of having his help in his advancement, and an engagement under his hand for L1000 not yet paid, and yet the Duke of Buckingham so ungrateful as to put him by: which is an ill thing, though Dr. Wren is a worthy man. But he tells me that the King is kind to him, and hath promised him a pension of L300 a-year out of the Works; which will be of more content to him than the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... the Epitaphium Damonis. This piece is an elegy to the memory of Charles Diodati. It unfortunately differs from the elegy on King in being written in Latin, and is thus inaccessible to uneducated readers. As to such readers the topic of Milton's Latin poetry is necessarily an ungrateful subject, I will dismiss it here with one remark. Milton's Latin verses are distinguished from most Neo-latin verse by being a vehicle of real emotion. His technical skill is said to have been surpassed by others; but ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... ideal, to be adored and longed for, placed amongst the stars for worship. Ah, madame, you are not willing to make the gulf between you impassable! You say you wish, at least, to retain the respect of Prince Henry. I ask you, madame, what you have done to deserve his respect? You were an ungrateful and undutiful daughter; you did not think of the shame and sorrow you prepared for your parents, when you arranged your flight with the gardener. I succeeded in rescuing you from dishonor by marrying you to a brave and noble cavalier. It depended upon you entirely to gain ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... Themistocles, who soon after took the same walk upon a worse occasion. Wherefore as Machiavel, for anything since alleged, has irrefragably proved that popular governments are of all others the least ungrateful, so the obscurity, I say, into which my Lord Archon had now withdrawn himself caused a universal sadness and clouds in the minds of men upon the ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... woman from the standpoint of a higher ethics, who abhor the notion that she should be only the vehicle for her husband's passions, and who demand that she shall be mistress of her own body, will not be ungrateful for any guidance that physiology can afford them. It will be seen presently, moreover, that the study of the weekly rhythm does afford us some less inexact ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... it, a low, ungrateful dog. She had given him life and every fiber in him clamored to save her pride and champion ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the way things were thrown at you at Sothern ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... eh? Well, if Shake is satisfied, I am. Do you know, Renny, I calculate that, line for line, I've written about ten times as much as Shakespeare. Do the literati recognize that fact? Not a bit of it. This is an ungrateful world, Stilly." ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... is hard—this is hard. You rich, and with everything comfortable, while I am poor, and unrewarded for all my labour and risk by an ungrateful Scot." ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... moaned. "How ungrateful I must be! You offer me the unselfish love of a strong, brave man. I cannot take it. I have no love to ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... honour to bestow now," he said; "but believe me, if I ever mount the throne of England you shall see that Charles Edward Stuart is not ungrateful." ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... Vienna; and the difficult task of a suitable French translation, plus the rehearsals with a set of artists little disposed to take trouble, frightens me. I much prefer to employ my time in a manner less ungrateful and more agreeable; consequently I shall not put out anybody in Paris, which I shall not visit; and invite you to come and see me in Rome. Here, dear Monsieur St. Saens, we can talk and musiquer [make music] at our ease. Try and procure me this great pleasure soon, and believe fully in my sentiments ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... had been the means of bringing these forward on these occasions, they naturally came to me, when thus persecuted, as the author of their miseries and their ruin. From their supplications and wants it would have been ungenerous and ungrateful to have fled[A]. These different circumstances, by acting together, had at length brought me into the situation just mentioned; and I was therefore obliged, though very reluctantly, to be borne out of the field, where I had placed the great ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... no better; and I know no one more aggravating than folks who keep sayin' they are no better when you ask 'em how they are. It always seems so ungrateful. Only this morning I asked our Peter how his tooth was, and he says, 'No better, mother; it was so bad in the night that I fairly wished I was dead.' 'Don't go wishing that,' says I; 'for if you was dead you'd have far worse pain, and it 'ud last for ever and ever.' I really spoke quite ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... it sounds ungrateful; but even when we care for people, we must get weary of them when they're ill a long time. I don't mean you, but the ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... for the hopes of man! The little ungrateful wretches—what must they do but take advantage of my oversleeping myself, the next morning, to clear out for new quarters without so much as leaving me a P. P. C.! Such was the fact; at eight o'clock I found the new ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... with the work of his hands, and with the conduct of the mice who had been promoted to a residence in its elegant and spacious quarters. If there was not five dollars in that establishment, then the rich men of Boston were stingy and ungrateful. If they could not appreciate that superb palace, and those supple little beauties who held court within its ample walls, why, they were not worthy to be citizens ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic

... Republican army on the Rhine; but in the Terror he was denounced, arrested and executed at Paris on the 27th of June 1794. His dying admonition to his little son was to remain [v.04 p.0627] faithful to the principles of the Revolution, however unjust and ungrateful. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... name till he was dust, and then got the more aristocratic epithet of Bowdoin. Posterity has paid him by effacing what would have been his noblest epitaph. We may expect, after this, to see Faneuil Hall robbed of its name, and called Smith Hall! Republics are proverbially ungrateful. What safer claim to public remembrance has the old Huguenot, Peter Faneuil, than the old Englishman, Mr. Middlecott? Ghosts, it is said, have risen from the grave to reveal wrongs done them by the living; but it needs no ghost ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor

... she were to fail on a later day, the fault would not be hers, but would be God's punishment of French ingratitude. 'Let us not harm, by our unbelief or injustice, the help which God has given us so wonderfully.' Unhappily the French, or at least the Court, were unbelieving, ungrateful, unjust to Joan, and so she came to die, leaving her work half done. The Archbishop of Embrun said that Joan should always be consulted in great matters, as her wisdom was of God. And as long as the French took this advice they did well; when they distrusted and neglected the Maid they failed, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... ungrateful to his royal friend, and he rewarded her in a truly royal manner for sometimes banishing ennui from his apartments. Finding that the countess had no intimate acquaintance with the contents of the Bible, he gave ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... much business that he never could find leisure to see me. I believe it was partly my lady's fault, too, who did not think my dress good enough for the gentry at her table. However, I must do him the justice to say he never was ungrateful; and I have always found his kitchen, and his cellar too, open to me: many a time, after service on a Sunday—for I preached at four churches—have I recruited my spirits with a glass of his ale. Since my nephew's death, the corporation ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... dangerous citizen of a Commonwealth, ridiculing both the friend of equality and the defender of prerogatives; no exact definition can be given, from his past conduct and avowed professions, of his real moral and political character. One thing only is certain;—he was an ungrateful traitor to Louis XVI., and is a submissive slave under ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... tree, and they keep on flourishing, and setting wisdom and righteousness at defiance in the most successful manner. Which, indeed, makes the life of a philosopher and sagacious adviser extremely difficult and ungrateful. ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett

... replies the gentleman, "and the next post brought us an account of the battle of Almanza." The approach of disaster in Spain had been for some time indicated by omens much clearer than the mishap of the salt-cellar; an ungrateful prince, an undisciplined army, a divided council, envy triumphant over merit, a man of genius recalled, a pedant and a sluggard intrusted with supreme command. The battle of Almanza decided the fate of Spain. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... from him whom I have just described; but, now the terrors of the rod, and of a temper a little too hasty to leave the more nervous of us quite at our ease to do justice to his merits in those days, are long since over, ungrateful were we if we should refuse our testimony to that unwearied assiduity with which he attended to the particular improvement of each of us. Had we been the offspring of the first gentry in the land, he could not have been instigated by ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... but she has another exactly just like this," said Aunt Maria. "Well, I don't mean to be ungrateful, and I know Shakespeare is called a great writer, and they who like him can read him. I would no more sit down and read all those books through, myself, than ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Mariana, we do instate and widow you withal, to buy a better husband.' 'O my dear lord,' said Mariana, 'I crave no other, nor no better man': and then on her knees, even as Isabel had begged the life of Claudio, did this kind wife of an ungrateful husband beg the life of Angelo; and she said: 'Gentle my liege, O good my lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part! Lend me your knees, and all my life to come I will lend you all my life, to do you service!' The duke said: 'Against all sense you importune her. Should ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... sorely tried in his country's service—the perfect slave of office, spending nights long at his desk, but not appreciated, not valued at home. It was delightful, therefore, to him, to find a man like Atlee to whom he could tell this—could tell for what an ungrateful country he toiled, what ignorance he sought to enlighten, what actual stupidity he had to counteract. He spoke of the Office—from his tone of horror it might have been the Holy Office—with a sort of tremulous terror and aversion: the absurd instructions they ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... {154} them in it. These letters no doubt made their due impression upon Whately and upon Grenville. Letters like them were always being despatched across the Atlantic by governors and deputy governors to persons of importance in England, pointing out how ungrateful the colonists were for their many blessings, and what a good thing it would be for them if a few of these blessings were taken away. These letters had their influence upon the persons of importance to whom they were addressed. They formed the minds of ministers; ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... to talk of Catiline and Lentulus. Indeed, he filled his books and writings with his own praises, to such an excess as to render a style, in itself most pleasant and delightful, nauseous and irksome to his hearers. This ungrateful humor, like a disease, always clove to him. Still, though fond of his own glory, he was very free from envying others, but was, on the contrary, most liberally profuse in commending both the ancients and his contemporaries, as any ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... it thrills in response to a new, strange feeling, never known before. It fancies—curious caprice!—that it has changed owners." "And why is that?" "The fact is, that it has learned, it knows not where, that men are ungrateful and inconstant, and this is the reason why Berta sighs." "Ah! And what does the mirror tell her to console her?" "Why, the mirror tells her that she is beautiful." "Yes?" "Yes; that her eyes are dark and lustrous, her eyebrows magnificent, her cheeks fresh and rosy." "And what then?" "It is plain; ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... way most agreeable to everyone. Johnston and sixteen officers—myself being one of the company—were allotted to the Sultan, who placed his whole palace, except that part devoted to his harem, at our disposal, and entertained us in a truly princely manner. Yet, ungrateful as it may seem, I must say that we seventeen elect had every reason to envy those of our colleagues who were entertained less splendidly, but very comfortably, in the bosom of European families. Our host did only too much for us: the ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... Lord has patience with us, as he had with Adam, and does not take us at our word. He did not say to Adam, You lay the blame upon your wife; then I will take her from you, and you shall see then where the blame lies. Ungrateful to me! you shall live henceforth alone. And he does not say to us, You make all the blessings which I have given you an excuse for sinning! Then I will take them from you, and leave you miserable, and pour out my wrath ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... suggested by a visit from foreigners, while he did not hesitate to expose, with patriotic zeal, the follies and abuses which opposed the march of civilisation in his native country. Such characters are rare. We had unexpectedly stumbled on a delicate flower, nurtured on an ungrateful soil, and destined to shed its sweetness in an atmosphere where, I fear, it is little appreciated. I may be excused, then, for devoting a page to the adventure, and allowed to inscribe on that page, a name of which ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... from these feelings. In the memorandum which he read to the Cabinet on the 1st of November, amongst many other things, he says: "There will be no hope of contributions from England for the mitigation of this calamity. Monster meetings, the ungrateful return for past kindness, the subscriptions in Ireland to Repeal rent and O'Connell tribute, will have disinclined the charitable here to make any great exertions for Irish relief."[65] There was even, I fear, something behind all this—the old feeling of the English colony in Ireland, that it was ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... alienation," "powers," "perpetuities" and the mysteries of "the next eventual estate," he was frankly short on the patience to add and subtract. So while Mr. Tutt drew their clients' wills, it was Tutt who attempted to probate and execute them. Then, if by any chance, there was any trouble or some ungrateful relative thought he hadn't got enough, it was Mr. Tutt who reluctantly tossed away his stogy, strolled over to court and defended the will which he ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... she paused in her arguments, "I refuse, Eunice, to give you a stated allowance. If you haven't sufficient confidence in your husband's generosity to trust him to give you all you want or need, and even more than that, then you are ungrateful for what I have given you. And that's my ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells

... within its sacred halls of learning. This was a late act of grace from a college whose inception was in the mind of a woman[146] longing for a better opportunity than the new colony could give to educate her afterward ungrateful son. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... would do anything for me! You asked me to name my crime! But I knew at the time you didn't mean it; you didn't go back on me to-night, and that ought to satisfy me, goodness knows! I suppose I'm ungrateful, and unreasonable, and all that. I ought to let it end at this. But you're the very man for me, Bunny, the—very—man! Just think how we got through to-night. Not a scratch—not a hitch! There's nothing very terrible in it, you see; there never ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... an ungrateful young dog of a Texan," said Cos, laughing maliciously, "but I will confer my hospitality upon you, nevertheless. You will go with these men and so I ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... of Law and Physick, you shall find I will not be ungrateful for your service: To you, good Harlequin, and your allies, And you, Squeekaronelly, I will be A most propitious queen—But ha! [Music under the stage. What hideous music or what yell is this? Sure 'tis the ghost ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... Virginia Bells and make (both in that country and Mary-Land) during the Night, a very hoarse ungrateful Noise.] ...
— The Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to Maryland • Ebenezer Cook

... at 'm an' say: 'Wot yuh take me foh? Yuh take me foh a sneakin' nigger? No, sub, you kin du wot yuh like wid dis chile; he ain't goin' to act no Judas. No, suh!' And deh Yankee major he put 'm up ag'in' dat tall live-oak dar, an' he say: 'Yuh darn ungrateful nigger! I's come all dis way to set yuh free. Now, whar's dat silver plate, or I shoot yuh up, such!' 'No, suh,' says my fader; 'shoot away. I's neber goin' t' tell.' So dey begin to shoot, and shot all roun' 'm to skeer 'm up. I was ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a power that we have no power to do. Ingratitude is monstrous: and for the multitude to be ungrateful, were to make a ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... because of an impatient rebuke. When a young man serving in the army of Virginia, Washington had many a tussle with the obstinate Scottish Governor, Dinwiddie, who thought his vehemence unmannerly and ungrateful. Gilbert Stuart, who painted several of his portraits, said that his features showed strong passions and that, had he not learned self-restraint, his temper would have been savage. This discipline he acquired. The task was not easy, but in time he was able to say with truth, ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... Interest of Mankind to lye under the same Delusion. For the contrary Notion naturally tends to dispirit the Mind, and sinks it into a Meanness fatal to the Godlike Zeal of doing good. As on the other hand, it teaches People to be Ungrateful, by possessing them with a Perswasion concerning their Benefactors, that they have no Regard to them in the Benefits they bestow. Now he that banishes Gratitude from among Men, by so doing stops up the Stream of Beneficence. For though in conferring ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... come next, but that drive, short as it was, with Potter freezingly silent, and Mrs. Ess Kay alarmingly polite, made me feel that the end had come. I was sure she had been told by her brother what an obstinate, ungrateful girl I was, and I had a guilty sinking of the heart, as if I really had been both. There was no Sally to protect me now, no one to advise me what to do, and there was a big lump in my throat as I said good night and went ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... wishes "in his own time and way." Having gained time by these manoeuvres, he adroitly endeavoured to cool the ardour of Mary's new friends, in her cause, by representing her as an abandoned and worthless woman, ungrateful towards him, and undeserving of sympathy from others; allegations which he supported by the ready affirmation of some of his West India friends, and by one or two plausible letters procured from Antigua. By these and like artifices he appears ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... are recollected, it is a painful duty to advert to the ungrateful return which has been made for them by some of the people in certain counties of Pennsylvania, where, seduced by the arts and misrepresentations of designing men, they have openly resisted the law directing the valuation of houses and lands. Such defiance was given to the civil authority as ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Adams • John Adams

... is the great prayer. What an example He has left us! It was not enough to die for the sinful—the ungrateful—the abominable—He must needs pray for them. Dear friend, you may have done many things for the ungodly around you—you may have preached to them, and set them also a lofty example of goodness; you may even have greatly suffered on their behalf; but I can imagine one thing still wanting: ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth

... would be ungrateful of you to leave her in her present condition? She's not likely to be strong for some ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... I 'm ungrateful, an' sich thoughts must be a sin, But I find myself a wishin' that the times was back agin. With the huskin's an' the frolics, an' the joys' I used to know, When I lived at the settlement, a dozen years ago. I ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... same value on them as if he had accepted them, because they had put themselves in his power. For he had determined that they ought to be restored, rather by the judgment of the people, than appear admitted to it by his bounty: that he might neither appear ungrateful in repaying an obligation, nor arrogant in depriving the people of their ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... acceptable to all classes and all sects. But for their labors, education would still be where it was centuries ago, and our children would still have continued to grow up like wild beasts. Is there any one among us so bigoted, so ungrateful, as not to appreciate these benevolent labors; so blind as not to see their fruits? True, other European Missionaries have come here from France and Italy, and we will not deny their good intentions. But ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... The Fair Maids of February The Loveless Youth The Wind Flower The Fate of Hyacinthus St. Leonard and the Fiery Snake A Fair Prisoner The Ungrateful Traveler The Star of Bethlehem The Angel's Gift The Holy Hay The Search ...
— The Enchanted Castle - A Book of Fairy Tales from Flowerland • Hartwell James

... counsel. In the disposition of a portion of her property, he had evinced so great a respect for her interest, had regarded his own profit and advantages so little, that had Margaret not been satisfied before of his probity and good faith, she would have been the most ungrateful of women not to acknowledge them now. But, in fact, poor Margaret did acknowledge them, and in the simplicity of her nature had mingled in her daily prayers tears of gratitude to Heaven for the blessing which had come to her in the form of one so fatherly and good. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... the necessary changes in the courses of study, certain other changes were also necessary; methods of teaching which were advanced for the '70's and '80's had been superseded in the '90's, and must be modified or abandoned for Wellesley's best good. To all that was involved in this ungrateful task, Mrs. Irvine addressed herself with a courage and determination not fully appreciated at the time. She had not Mrs. Palmer's skill in conveying unwelcome fact into a resisting mind without irritation; neither had she Miss Shafer's ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... I always treated him well. He's been a great expense to me, and now he's got old enough to help me he must clear out. He's the most ungrateful cub ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger

... O sweetest Dulcinea of Toboso, sends thee the health which he wants himself. If thy beauty disdain me, I cannot live. My good Squire Sancho will give thee ample account, O ungrateful fair one, of the penance I do for love of thee. Should it be thy pleasure to favour me, I am thine. If not, by ending my life I shall satisfy both ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... the next time I travelled that road would have been on my present errand, I should have supposed him insane. I enjoyed the mountains, as I rode along. The views are magnificent—the valleys so beautiful, the scenery so peaceful. What a glorious world Almighty God has given us. How thankless and ungrateful we are, and how we labour to mar his gifts. I hope you received my letters from Richmond. Give love to daughter and Mildred. I did not see Rob as I passed through Charlottesville. He was at the University and I could ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... approbation, others expressed indignation at his presumption, in uttering it. As to Quinctius, he was so inflamed with anger, that, raising his hands towards heaven, he invoked the gods to witness the ungrateful and perfidious disposition of the Magnetians. This struck terror into the whole assembly; and one of the deputies, named Zeno, who had acquired a great degree of influence, by his judicious course of conduct in life, and by having been always an avowed ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... cigars, and not a few of the more sagacious reporters succeeded in getting at least three boxes by interviewing him on as many separate occasions without being detected in the act of repeating. Then came the disgusting denials in Paris by his daughter and the ungrateful Prince. This was too much. He couldn't understand such unfilial behaviour on the part of one, and he certainly couldn't forgive the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... was ungrateful enough not to know quite what to think of Mary. He raised his hat, and gave her a look of passionate gratitude, in case anything were to be got by it: but the deep meaning of the gaze was lost on the lately emancipated Sister Rose. She blushed, because it happened to be the first time she had ever ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... I am not ungrateful:—indeed, my Lord, I am not insensible to the obligations you ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning

... grandmother don't deserve that from you! In her day she worked her hands to the bone for you. With the kind of father you had we might have died in the gutter but for how she helped to keep us out, you ungrateful girl—your poor old grandmother, that's ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... Sheep to a wood, saw an oak of unusual size, full of acorns, and, spreading his cloak under the branches, he climbed up into the tree, and shook down the acorns. The sheep, eating the acorns, frayed and tore the cloak. The Shepherd coming down, and seeing what was done, said: "O you most ungrateful creatures! you provide wool to make garments for all other men, but you destroy the clothes of him who ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... was no longer by Napoleon that he was threatened, it was by Louis XVIII that he was proscribed; it was no longer the military loyalty of Marshal Brune who came with tears in his eyes to give notice of the orders he had received, but the ungrateful hatred of M. de Riviere, who had set a price [48,000 francs.] on the head of the man who had saved his own.[Conspiracy of Pichegru.] M. de Riviere had indeed written to the ex-King of Naples advising him to abandon himself to the good faith and humanity of the King of France, but his vague ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... stranger lady told them she hoped they would henceforth always ask themselves her curious question whenever they sat down to a good meal again. 'For,' said she, 'my dears, it will teach you to be thankful; and you may take my word for it, it is always the ungrateful people who are the ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... nieces, celebrated toasts, who have been with him this fortnight past; and who, he says, want to see me. So, Jack, all women do not run away from me, thank Heaven!—I wish I could have leave of my heart, since the dear fugitive is so ungrateful, to drive her out of it with another beauty. But who can supplant her? Who can be admitted to a place in it after ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... Away, ungrateful doubt, away! At least she is our own to-day. Break into rapture, my song, Verses, leap forth in the sun, Bearing the joyance along 220 Like a train of fire as ye run! Pause not for choosing of words, Let them but blossom and sing Blithe as the orchards ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... what recompense For such a charity would come, Before the fire stretch'd him, And back to being fetch'd him. The snake scarce felt the genial heat Before his heart with native malice beat. He raised his head, thrust out his forked tongue, Coil'd up, and at his benefactor sprung. "Ungrateful wretch!" said he, "is this the way My care and kindness you repay? Now you shall die." With that his axe he takes, And with two blows three serpents makes. Trunk, head, and tail were separate snakes; And, leaping up with all their might, They ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine

... think me ungrateful for all your kindness," Virgie cried, the tears dropping thick and fast from her eyes; "but, believe me, I can never marry again. I feel, morally speaking, that I am just as truly Sir William Heath's wife to-day as I ever was, even though the law has rent the bond ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... Mr. Newman,—I am afraid that my conduct at Venice, a week ago, seemed to you strange and ungrateful, and I wish to explain my position, which, as I said at the time, I do not think you appreciate. I had long had it on my mind to propose that we should part company, and this step was not really so abrupt ...
— The American • Henry James

... was another literary genius of the same period whom I had the pleasure of knowing. He was cordially welcomed into the social world of New York; but, unfortunately for his popularity, he wrote a prose effusion entitled, "Those Ungrateful Blidgimses," which was generally recognized as a direct attack upon two old ladies who were held in high esteem in New York. It was known to many persons that he had had a misunderstanding with them and that he had employed this manner of taking his revenge. New York society frowned upon ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... of me for not guessing—not knowing who sent it?" she returned. "I feel guilty of something all those days that I touched it, not thinking of you. Wicked, filthy little creature that I was! I despise ungrateful girls." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... it was better to acquaint my father with my conduct, the Commissioner had done so; and thus I was kept in prison till my father sent the money which was needed for my traveling expenses, to pay my debt in the inn, and for my maintenance in the prison. So ungrateful was I now, for certain little kindnesses shown to me by my fellow-prisoner, that, although I had promised to call on his sister, to deliver a message from him, I omitted to do so; and so little had I been benefited by this my chastisement, that, though I was going home to meet an angry ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller

... you say, you ungrateful child? Don't you eat whenever the rest of us do?" However harsh she seemed, the mother was only angry at the thought of there being nothing in the house to eat, and she felt so badly to think the children were hungry that ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... wishes it, and lead the conversation, no matter what genius or distinction other men there present may have; and, in any public assembly, him who has the facts, and can and will state them, people will listen to, though he is otherwise ignorant, though he is hoarse and ungrateful, though he ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... of the Israelites during these forty years in the wilderness is marked by transcendent ability on the part of Moses, and by the most disgraceful conduct on the part of the Israelites. They are forgetful of mercies, ungrateful, rebellious, childish in their hankerings for a country where they had been more oppressed than Spartan Helots, idolatrous, and superstitious. They murmur for flesh to eat; they make golden calves to worship; they seek a new leader when Moses is longer on the Mount than they ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... their power, the trophies of their vanity, the pastime of their idleness. It is not so much the welfare of their children that they propose to themselves, as their submission and obedience; and if among children so many are seen ungrateful for benefits received, it is because there are among parents as ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... enacted along the shores of Minas and Chignecto Bays. The Massachusetts Archives contain no pay-rolls of this expedition, and no papers of Captain Abijah Willard are known to exist throwing any light upon its history. That the service was not only inglorious in part, and ungrateful to the truly brave, but attended with much hardship, is attested by the following documents copied from Massachusetts Archives, lv, 62 and 63. They are there in the handwriting of Secretary ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... perfidious Missing Link; the ungrateful Missing Link that I warmed in this bosom, and that has turned and stung the hand that fed him. But now I know all, the villain is unmasked, and if the slimy trail of the serpent enters the abode of peace again, by Heaven! I'll beat ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... altogether a very ungrateful fellow, and appreciated neither the goodness of my father nor any of the other blessings which I had. Of the advantages of a moderate education which were offered to me I did not avail myself,—preferring mischief and idleness to my studies; and I manifested so little desire ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... you think of the idea, Alec?" asked Hugh, turning to their young host. "Will your father think we are ungrateful guests if we go off for a day or two so soon after ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler

... of genius could not forever avert. Ungrateful Oeil-de-Boeuf! did he not miraculously rain gold manna on you; so that, as a Courtier said, "All the world held out its hand, and I held out my hat,"—for a time? Himself is poor; penniless, had not a 'Financier's ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... for a downright bachelor equipment," affirmed Pike, "but I've scandalized this outfit enough, or thereabout, and that venison has killed all our appetites until breakfast, so why hang around where ungrateful children swat a man's ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... quarrel with Michael Angelo broke out more violently than ever. The Pope too, who loved better a gentler, more accommodating spirit, seemed to slight Lionardo, and the great painter not only quitted Rome in disgust, but withdrew his services altogether from ungrateful Italy. ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... ungrateful in me to feel any displeasure at so glowing an eulogy on my dear eldest son Arthur, though after such a length of time, so unusual, as you have written in the North British Review. I thank you, on the contrary, for the strong language of admiration ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... person short, thin, and pale, but his melancholy and pensive physiognomy bore traces of his long, unquiet, and ungrateful labours. A simple clerk, he did not venture, when he published his writings, to sign them with any other name than that of Charles, declaring himself ready, under that name, to answer any objections that might be addressed to him. Alas! there were few ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... for with his ships and his comptoirs and his ledgers he has traded himself into being the richest man in New France, while we, with our nobility and our swords, have fought ourselves poor, and receive nothing but contempt from the ungrateful courtiers of Versailles." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... sing. Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling, So that it wean me from the weary dream Of selfish grief or gladness—so it fling Forgetfulness around me—it shall seem To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... slowly, it came to him. It was at the last council to decide on his release from captivity, five years before. The Long Arrow had come from a distant village to urge the death of the prisoner. He had argued eloquently that to release Menard would be to send forth an ungrateful son who would one day strike at the hand ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... most ungrateful of the restrictions on females is that forbidding them to hold office in churches. This has been put on all sorts of high grounds, chief among them being that women could do so much abler work in little auxiliaries of their own. This contention was challenged about two ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... when men and vessels narrowly escaped going to the bottom, the discoverer of the New World was denied the privilege of the only seaport in it! It makes one's blood boil, even to-day, to think that at San Domingo the Comendador Ovando and the whole group of ungrateful landsmen went safely to bed every night in the very houses that they had hated Columbus for making them build, while he was lashing about on the furious waves, thinking his other three ships lost, and expecting every minute a similar fate ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... and your hatred. Understand well, against the Spaniards; never against the Americans. Do not heed the Governor-General's decree, calling you to arms, even though it cost you your lives. Die rather than be ungrateful to our American liberators. The Governor-General calls you to arms. Why? To defend your Spanish tyrants? To defend those who have despised you and in public speeches called for your extermination—those who have treated you little better than ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... a fool,' rejoined the bishop, coldly, 'and an ungrateful fool to boot, or you would not thus answer one who has your interest at heart. But as you take up such a position, I shall be brief. You must leave my house at once, and, for very shame, I should advise you to ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... animals was the same. A horde of mange-corroded curs lived off his bounty, wolfish, ungrateful, often marking him with their teeth, yet never knowing the meaning of a harsh word. A burro, over-fed, lazy, incorrigible, browsed on the hill back of the Mission, obstinately refusing to be harnessed to Sarria's little cart, squealing and biting whenever the attempt was ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... won't think me ungrateful, Mr. Ballard,' I said as calmly as I could. 'In some ways you've been very like a father to me. I want you to understand that I appreciate all that you and the other co-executors have done for me. I've been very happy. But ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... the child. She had realized that it would hurt her kind friends if she tried to go home again. She knew now that she could not leave, as her Aunt Deta had promised, for they all, especially Clara and her father and the old lady, would think her ungrateful. But the burden grew heavier in her heart and she lost her appetite, and got paler and paler. She could not get to sleep at night from longing to see the mountains with the flowers and the sunshine, and only in her dreams she would be happy. When she woke ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri

... rascalities at so opportune a moment—paid you the honour of a visit, you explained to him your ideas of education with all the fervour of high enthusiasm. Then you attempted to put that system of yours into practice;—Jeanne is certainly an ungrateful girl, and Gelis a ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... writing the "AEneid," executed an imperial commission, and an ungrateful commission; it is the sublime of hack-work, and the legend may be true which declares that, on his death-bed, he wished his poem burned. He could only be himself here and there, as in that earliest picture of romantic love, as some have called the story of "Dido," not remembering, ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... burst out the now thoroughly angry King, always jealous of the popularity of this brave young Prince of Wales. "And am I, sirrah, to be badgered and browbeaten in my own palace by such a thriftless ne'er-do-weel as you, ungrateful boy, who seekest to gain preference with the people in this realm before your liege lord the King? Quit my presence, sirrah, and that instanter, ere that I do send you to spend your Christmas where your great-grandfather, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... for Lesley, but I have reason to believe that they have never touched a farthing of it. You see they've put me at a disadvantage all round. And what is to be done when she marries, unless she marries with their consent, I don't quite see. She won't like to offend them or seem ungrateful when they have done so much for her; and I—according to the account that they will give her—I have done nothing. So I don't suppose I shall be consulted about ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... by Leicester's potent hand, Brought succour, safety, to this threaten'd land: One thing alone embitters every thought, He to ungrateful men these blessings brought. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... of His goodness, not out of our worthiness," said Dolly, the tears dripping from her eyes. "To Him, Dolly is Dolly, and Rupert is Rupert, just as truly. I know it, and yet I am so ungrateful!" ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... most deeply that your generosity has burthened me with, pecuniary obligations which I may never be able to repay, and has, in some measure, deprived me of independence. But even at the hazard of being considered ungrateful, I must tell you that I trust we may meet ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... she was, she had adopted the ruthless and ungrateful Italian custom of ascribing every ache and pain of the body to some almost imperceptible change in their too beautiful weather. The smallest cloud goes laden with more accusations than it holds drops of rain, and the ill winds ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... that my solitude was, strictly speaking, voluntary, and that I could at any time, albeit through a resolve smacking of insubordination and a forty hours' journey, put an end to it, made me see once more that my heart is ungrateful, dismayed, and resentful; for soon I said to myself, in the comfortable fashion of the accepted lover, that even here I am no longer lonely, and I was happy in the consciousness of being loved by you, my angel, and, in return for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... they live hard. A delicate lady quietly sets to work in a filthy tenement; her white hands raise up and cleanse the foulest of the poor little infants who swarm in the slums; she calmly performs menial offices for the basest and most ungrateful of the poor—and no one who has not lived among those degraded folk can tell what ingratitude is really like. Day after day that lady toils; and the only word of thanks she receives is perhaps a whine from some woman who wishes to cajole her into bestowing some gift. These sisters of Sorrow ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... proudest military bearing, with floating plumes, crowds of attendants and courtiers in the ante-chambers and upon the staircases. In the courtyards, where the grass had formerly been allowed to luxuriate, as if the ungrateful Mazarin had thought it a good idea to let the Parisians perceive that solitude and disorder were, with misery and despair, the fit accompaniments of fallen monarchy, the immense courtyards, formerly silent and desolate, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... loyalty to my interests The makeshift policy of Burke during my father's lifetime helped to bring about this pretty state of things. We'll see what firmness will do. New broom. Sweep the place clean. Rid it of slovenly, ungrateful tenants. Clear away the tap-room orators. I have a definite plan in my mind. If I decide NOT to sell I'll perfect my plan in London and begin operations as soon as I'm satisfied it is feasible and can be put upon a proper business basis. There's too much sentiment in Ireland. ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... me to sincerely congratulate you upon your signal triumph at Columbus. I can assure you that no recent event has given me so much sincere gratification as your election, which I think a most worthy reward to a faithful public servant. Republics are not so ungrateful as I supposed when I ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... any of the claims which he made under the fundamental laws, nor sparing to shed the blood of those who opposed him, often in the field, sometimes upon the scaffold. Because he knew how to make his virtues respected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those, whom if they had lived in his time, he would have shut up in the Bastile, and brought to punishment along with the regicides whom he hanged after he had famished ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... sinfulness deeply affected me. When I called to mind the many years I had passed in forgetfulness of this great God; in indifference to, or in a culpable unbelief of his existence; I felt that I must indeed be, in his sight, the most ungrateful, and the most sinful of his creatures. My next feeling was an anxious desire to amend my conduct, and I determined to lay down such a plan for my future life, as I hoped might not be unworthy of that Being whose eye I then felt was upon me. After having made many ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous

... could trust him, and would have done so, but he had no right to intrust any one with a secret which involved his father's life. No, that would not do; yet, to leave him and Mrs McShane after all their kindness, and without a word, this would be too ungrateful. After much cogitation, he resolved that he would run away, so that all clue to him should be lost; that he would write a letter for McShane, and leave it. He ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... was everything on the earth made so beautiful if we were not intended to be beautiful too? How would you like it if everything was just as useful, but looked ugly instead of pretty? When you have the choice of being one or the other it's very ungrateful to ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... a fastidious, ungrateful wretch," he said to himself, as he saw his trunk started off to a better neighbourhood and prepared to follow it. "They've been very kind to me, and little Maggie would do almost anything for me"—little Maggie, whom he treated as a mere asexual biped and hectored in the most lordly ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... is wretched, and the man who has friends is afraid of grieving them by behaving badly. As Polyte says, all this is for the sake of letting you know that you must do your best to behave well, if you want to prove to me that you are not ungrateful for my interest in you. You ought to get rid of the bad habit of boasting that you have adopted through frequenting young men as foolish as yourself. Do whatever your position and your health allow you to do, provided that you do not compromise ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... say!" gasped Mr. Haswell, "all you have to say, you impertinent and ungrateful minx!" Then he fell into a furious fit of rage and in language that need not be repeated, poured a stream of threats and abuse upon Alan and herself. Barbara waited until ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... violent temper, and thinking of coming days, I proceeded to deliver a lecture to the effect that there was not another enlisted man in the regiment who would use such language in our house, or be so ungrateful for kindness that we had shown him. Above all, to make it unpleasant for me when I ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... what do I see? Oriana Courting my Rival, and despising me! False, cruel and ungrateful Maid; I'll never more believe a Woman's Tears. But now my Heart is quite opprest With Sorrow which her Cruelty hath caus'd. ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... stupid and ungrateful did I not, Mr. McKaye. I am sorry I spoke just now as I did, but ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment. They do, me, moreover (who am so perfect in nothing as in friendship), a great wrong in this, that they make the same words which accuse my infirmity, represent me for an ungrateful person; they bring my affections into question upon the account of my memory, and from a natural imperfection, make out a defect of conscience. "He has forgot," says one, "this request, or that promise; he no more remembers his friends; he has forgot to say or do, or conceal ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... found; and that ungrateful age, With losing him went back to blood and rage; Mistaken Brutus thought to break their yoke, But cut the bond of union ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... indignant soil repudiated the ungrateful race that had exhausted and degraded its once exuberant bosom. The land refused to hold those who would not hold the land on terms of justice and of science. All the economical palliatives and political pretences of long years seemed only to ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... came to fetch something, order her maid, or relieve herself by a few sad words to her guest. Gratified by the eager sisterly acknowledgment of poor Edna, she touched Lucilla deeply by speaking of her daughter's fondness for Miss Sandbrook, grief at having given cause for being thought ungrateful, and assurances that the secret never could have been kept had they met the day after the soiree. Many had been the poor thing's speculations how Miss Sandbrook would receive her marriage, but always with confidence ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... for many years, and are now our greatest earthly friends and benefactors—the English. If not so, go to our brethren, the Haytians, who, according to their word, is bound to protect and comfort us. The Americans say that we are ungrateful—but I ask them for heaven's sake, what we should be grateful to them for—for murdering our fathers and mothers?—Or do they wish us to return thanks to them for chaining and handcuffing us, branding us, cramming fire down our throats, or for keeping us in slavery, ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet

... bud and blossom in every vale and hamlet of this fair domain? And yet were a people ever more unmindful of, or more ungrateful for their blessings? Bickering and strife, dissension and hatred, grew fiercer with the growth of the nation's grandeur. Slavery, on one hand said, "I will," and Freedom, on the other, "You shall not." So the ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... the thin lady, fanning herself furiously. "Look how ungrateful these Indians are! Is it possible to treat them as if ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... the trial imposed on me by the terms on which Mr. Sherwin's restrictions, and my promise to obey them, obliged me to live with Margaret, it was Mrs. Sherwin who was generally selected to remain in the room with us. By no one could such ungrateful duties of supervision as those imposed on her, have been more ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... innocence of the villages through which he floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... "Oh, Georgie! How ungrateful! how sinful of you! Go to them. They may even be able to tell you how to enjoy yourself in a ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... long time ago," she said in a remorseful tone: "I should be very ungrateful if I ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... that I'm ungrateful, sir, for your kindness last night, but my mind's pretty well made up now. I can't face Dixon and Allison, and all the lot of 'em calling me a fool who can't take his glass without getting drunk; I'll show 'em different. But ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... that for the help Americans have given France and her Allies, the Allies are ungrateful. That the French certainly are not ungrateful I was given assurance by no less an authority than the President of the republic. His assurance was conveyed to the American people in a message of thanks. It is ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... be, and in evil hands their misdirected energies may for a time become the instruments of evil. Mistaken in judgment they may often be, for such is the lot of humanity, but regardless of right and justice they seldom are, and ungrateful or ungenerous they cannot be. The evidence of their native spirit of enterprise is found in their daily braving destitution in the hope of bettering their hard lot. Their hatred of oppression is proved by their ill-directed, but constant struggles for equal rights; and, if kind-heartedness ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... that faith I have pledged to you, and to take him for my husband; giving me to understand I need not entertain hopes of ever seeing you again, for that you were dead, having had your head struck off by my father's order. He added, to justify himself, that you were an ungrateful wretch; that your good fortune was owing to him, and a great many other things of that nature which I forbear to repeat: but as he received no other answer from me but grievous complaints and tears, he ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... for you, and you make that an excuse for doing nothing for God; God gives you health and strength, and you make that an excuse for using your health and strength just in the way He has forbidden. What can be more ungrateful? What can be more foolish? Oh, my friends, if one of our children behaved to us in return for our care and love a hundredth part as shamefully as most of us behave to God our Father, what should we think of them? What should we say ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... the great change in her position, from absolute affluence to becoming the recipient of another's bounty, Edith would have been, if not quite happy, at least contented. Yet it must not be imagined that she was ungrateful or the less thankful to her kind protectors, the Bartons, for she could now well realize what might have been her situation had she been compelled to act upon the plan that had first suggested itself to her on leaving Vellenaux—that of becoming a governess or companion to some antiquated ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... high notions will bring upon you the excessive hatred of man! You will be very eager in your desire after chastity, but the human race will despise you! Alas, you will wax old in that antique temple hall under a faint light, where you will waste ungrateful for beauty, looks and freshness! But after all you will still be worldly, corrupt and unmindful of your vows; just like a spotless white jade you will be whose fate is to fall into the mire! And what need will there be for the grandson of a prince or the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... shove us aside as importunate intruders. They come to decisions unknown to us, and carry them out in secrecy, as though we were enemies or spies. If we protest or remonstrate, we are imperialists and ungrateful. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... observant of all, could not bring herself fully to respond. What business had the pretty little creature to reject kindly-meant hospitality in the pettish way she did, thought Hester. And, oh! what business had she to be so ungrateful and to try and thwart Philip in his thoughtful wish of escorting them through the streets of the rough, riotous town? ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... have you four thanes deserved of me and of all, and you shall not say that the king is ungrateful. And I think that each of you has said less of your own selves than might be said, or, indeed, than is said in these letters. Now have Ceorle and I and my council spoken of this matter, and we have thought of rewards fitting for the shield wall ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... in vain! Not a single servant that I have ever taken into my house have I allowed to leave me; to each one I have paid double wages and closed my eyes to all remissness, in order to buy their silence! And yet—the false, ungrateful creatures! Oh, my poor children! Only for your sake did I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... for twenty-two years. It is melancholy to be forced to add that all this toil was as good as thrown away, and that the strong man went broken-hearted to the grave, through seeing too clearly that he had labored in vain for an ungrateful egotist. His great visions of a prosperous France, increasing in wealth and contentment, were blighted; and he closed his eyes upon scenes of improvidence and waste more injurious to the country than the financial robbery which he had combated in his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... "I'm not ungrateful to Henrietta," Damaris said, breaking silence softly yet abruptly, as speaking to herself rather than addressing him, in apology and argument. "And I'm dreadfully sorry to have vexed her—for she was vexed with me for not staying at the Pavilion ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... of them, having filched a collection of laundry from a farmer's backyard, had placed it in charge of his mate while he went off for a second helping, and had returned just in time to stop the latter from decamping with the swag. The talk the original purloiner was giving his ungrateful assistant was one of the best expositions of virtue and honesty I've ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... a courtesan is kind, even at her own expense, to a man who is very stingy, or to a man proud of his looks, or to an ungrateful man skilled in gaining the heart of others, without any good resulting from these connections to her in the end, this loss is called a loss of wealth not attended by ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana

... was ending; it was dusk when they reached the house, and perhaps none of the three were ungrateful for the shadows which veiled them from one another. On the veranda, Corrie detained his sister, allowing Mr. Rose to ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... glorious fool That wise men are afraid of every word You utter? Wasn't it I that made you free Of fairyland—that showed you how to pluck Fern-seed by moonlight, and to walk and talk Between the lights, with urchins and with elves? Is there another fool twixt earth and heaven Like you—ungrateful ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... on thee. Thou art my own lieutenant, and mayest one day be more. In Algiers there is none above thee save myself. Art, then, so thankless as to deny me the first thing I ask of thee? Truly is it written 'Ungrateful is Man.'" ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... a little bit more of what you mean? I know you are speaking as my friend, and, believe me, I am not ungrateful. I am sure there is a definite story against me. I wish you would call a ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... know all about it; and I'm leaving because I can't do what he wishes. You see it is this way, Miss Mary—your father has been very good to me, and I am his debtor. I must not stay here and help you to thwart him—that would be ungrateful—and yet I can't take his side against you. Master has got reasons why you should not ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... hundred acres in the whole, if they had been so inclined? If either of these should happen to be your opinion, I am very well convinced that you will be singular in it; and all my concern is that I ever engaged myself in behalf of so ungrateful and dirty a fellow as ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... the ladies that there was nothing for supper save the items I have already referred to," said Kidd. "I see it all now. We had tried to make them comfortable, and I put myself to some considerable personal inconvenience to make them easy in their minds, but they were ungrateful." ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs



Words linked to "Ungrateful" :   unthankful, ungrateful person, thankless, unappreciative, ungratefulness, grateful, unpleasant



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com