"Unsatisfying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not know George Eliot would do well to begin with The Mill on the Floss, her finest work, which is full of humor, lovely pictures of English rural life and an analysis of soul in Maggie Tolliver that has never been surpassed. Yet the end is cruel and unnatural, as hard and as unsatisfying as the author's own religious creed. Next read Adam Bede, one of the saddest books in all literature, with comic relief in Mrs. Poyser, one of the most ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... taking hold on the covenant faithfulness of Jehovah, she makes a solemn vow. The turmoil within is hushed. She rises and goes forth like one who is prepared for any trial—who is endued with strength by a mighty though unseen power, and sustained by a love which has none of the imperfect and unsatisfying elements that must always mingle with the purest earthly affection. Meek, confiding, and gentle as ever, she is yet not the same. She meets reproach even from the High Priest himself with calmness. ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... nations, and "to (his) own country, after some time is past over." His own time could neither appreciate nor reward them. Here is an element of greatness worthy of all imitation: he who works for popular applause, may have his reward, but it is fleeting and unsatisfying; he who works for truth alone, has a grand inner consequence while he works, and his name will be honored, if for nothing else, for this loyalty to truth. After what has been said of his servility and dishonesty, it is pleasing to contemplate this unsullied side of his escutcheon, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... has been accepted by many generations of men as a picture of the world, with its temptations, its sins, its moral bankruptcy, and its illusionary and unsatisfying pleasures. Preachers have always been fond of allusions to the husks and swine, and the desperate hunger which there is nothing to satisfy in the Far Country. The story is true, God wot; it gives many a man a wholesome ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... protecting rail there at that time. The injury proved so serious that he had to see a surgeon; and this surgeon happened to be Mr. John Dinham, Hawker's brother-in-law. Two days after the accident Tennyson drove over to Morwenstow with Dinham to see Hawker. His own note on the visit is brief and unsatisfying: "In a gig to Rev. S. Hawker, at Morwenstow, passing Comb Valley, fine view over sea, coldest manner of vicar till I told my name, then all heartiness. Walk on cliff with him; told of shipwreck." This ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... least practical and least popular: they set up an anti-social ideal and are mainly occupied with psychological theories. But the Buddha addressed a public such as we now find it hard even to imagine. In those days the intellectual classes of India felt the ordinary activities of life to be unsatisfying: they thought it natural to renounce the world and mortify the flesh: divergent systems of ritual, theology and self-denial promised happiness but all agreed in thinking it normal as well as laudable that a man should devote his life to meditation and study. Compared with this frame of mind the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... pact); and then "Sacerdos" (A priest), and finally "Finis," or "Finit," for even those nearest could not catch the word distinctly, as the devil, afraid doubtless of perpetrating a barbarism, spoke through the nun's closely clenched teeth. This being all decidedly unsatisfying, the magistrates insisted that the examination should continue, but the devils had again exhausted themselves, and refused to utter another word. The priest even tried touching the superior's head with the pyx, while prayers and litanies were recited, but it was all in vain, except that some of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... its soul. There is no other people on earth who have carried the doctrine of incarnation (Avatar) to such excess of imaginings as to create such abundantly grotesque and fanciful appearances of their many divinities. Normally, then, the Mohammedan faith, at its very core, must be unsatisfying and even repulsive to the tropical Hindu mind. It was brought here at the point of the sword; and, for centuries, it was the faith of a ruling power whose custom was to tax heavily all people who did not conform, outwardly at least, to ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... in the meanwhile, their bodies are well provided for, their estates much regarded, and the things of this present life are highly prized, as if the darling was of less value than a clod of earth; an immortal soul, than a perishing body; a precious Saviour, than unsatisfying creatures. Yea, though they have been often wooed with gracious entreaties, glorious promises, and fresh bleeding wounds, to make choice of the better part, that shall never be taken from them; yet, alas! such ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... civilizations and epochs which were being dissolved in the common melting-pot, and even the man in the street was conscious of its chilling influence. Life in the capital grew agitated, fitful, superficial, unsatisfying. Its gaiety was forced—something between a challenge to the destroyer and a sad farewell to the past and present. Men were instinctively aware that the morrow was fraught with bitter surprises, and they deliberately adopted ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... may be practiced carefully night and morning. Her attention should be diverted by outdoor exercise on foot, and additionally in a carriage if necessary. When the mother's milk, though apparently not deficient in quantity, proves unsatisfying to the child, great attention should be paid to varying the diet of the mother, while such staple foods should be taken as are most easily and thoroughly assimilated into milk. The unsatisfying quality of the milk will generally be remedied by taking a more ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... Smollett's old chum, Dr. W. Smellie, died 5th March 1763.] In the circumstances (bearing in mind that it was his original intention to prune the letters considerably before publication) it was only natural that he should say a good deal about the state of his health. His letters would have been unsatisfying to these good people had he not referred frequently and at some length to his spirits and to his symptoms, an improvement in which was the primary object of his journey and his two years' sojourn in the South. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... death must have been to these people, whose ideas of the future world were so vague and unsatisfying, and who had really no knowledge of ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... which, despite her utmost effort, she was powerless to escape. Also, for weeks now she had received no letter from Guy, and that fact disheartened her more than any other. She had never before had to wait so long for word from him. Very brief, often unsatisfying, as his letters had been, at least they had never failed to arrive. And she counted upon them so. Without them, she felt bereft of her mainstay. Without them, the almost daily, nerve-shattering scenes which her step-mother somehow ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... much for honour and nothing for learning, the professional man who will sacrifice reputation to win a fortune, and all who wrong others in order to better themselves, only gain what is transient and unsatisfying. It would be well for all to learn the lesson (not least he for whom the ceremony is primarily intended), which is symbolically taught when a Pope is crowned. The Master of the Ceremonies takes a lighted taper in one hand, and in the other a reed with a ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... unsatisfying in it self, but the Desire of it lays us open to many accidental Troubles which those are free from who have no such a tender Regard for it. How often is the ambitious Man cast down and disappointed, if he receives no Praise where he expected it? Nay how often is he mortified with the very ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... "curtain," not with a great decisive moment, but with the appearance of a god who says a few lines of either exhortation or consolation or reconciliation, which, after the strain and stress of the action itself, strikes some people as rather stilted and formal, or as rather flat and somehow unsatisfying. Worse still, there are in many of the scenes long dialogues, in which the actors wrangle with each other, and in which the action does not advance so quickly as we wish. Or again, instead of beginning with the action, and having our curiosity ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... good world! What a handsome, merry, sweetly-colored world! Unsatisfying? disappointing?—not a bit of it! It must be people's own fault if they ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... proving equally unprofitable, I began scientifically to consider in detail the attributes of the supposititious paragon,—attributes of body and mind and heart. This was soon done; but again, as I thus conned all those virtues which I was to expect united in one unhappy woman, the result was still unsatisfying, for I began to perceive that it was really not perfection that I was in search of. As I added virtue after virtue to the female monster in my mind, and the result remained still inanimate and unalluring, I realised that the lack I was conscious of was not any new perfection, ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... talk and the elder woman said "Well what with the pigs and the goats that have been sacrificed during this Sohrai we have had plenty of meat to eat lately and yet I don't feel as if I had had any." "That is so," answered her daughter-in-law; "fowls' and pig's flesh is very unsatisfying." "Then what are we to do?" rejoined the old woman, "I don't know unless you do for the father of your grandchild." When he heard this Chandrai shivered with fright and hid himself further under the rice shelf, for he saw that the ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... for industrial production; I see some who are extravagant and yet contemptible creatures of luxury, and some leading lives of shame and indignity; tens of thousands of wealthy people wasting lives in vulgar and unsatisfying trivialities, hundreds of thousands meanly chaffering themselves, rich or poor, in the wasteful byways of trade; I see gamblers, fools, brutes, toilers, martyrs. Their disorder of effort, the spectacle of futility, fills me with a passionate desire to end waste, to create order, to develop understanding... ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... less gay about it, and had thought up a lot of fresh objections; but Tom said there was only one thing to worry about, and that was whether the whole concern wouldn't show plain against the sky. We got off a ways to take a look, and very unsatisfying it was, too. A big, leafy tree seems a mighty solid affair, till you stand off and look right through it; and Old Dibs was for giving up the idea and trying the cellar, which was Tom's other notion. But the tree business appealed to Tom ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... wounded by his new passion, and she already began to feel that she never could have any such regard for him as her friend was possibly cherishing. Therefore it was, perhaps, not unnatural that her tranquil regard should prove unsatisfying to Burt in contrast with the passion of which Miss Hargrove was capable. She had seen his vain efforts to remain loyal, and had smiled at them, proposing to let matters take their course, and to give little aid in extricating him from his dilemma. But, if she had interpreted her ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... Politics was the very shaking of the government sieve, where if there were any solid result it was accompanied with a very great flying about of chaff indeed. Society was nothing but whip syllabub,—a mere conglomeration of bubbles,—as hollow and as unsatisfying. And in lower departments of human life, as far as he knew, he saw evils yet more deplorable. The Church played at shuttlecock with men's credulousness, the law with their purses, the medical profession with their lives, the military with their liberties and hopes. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... not warped, by the fatalistic Calvinism which was drummed into him by father, mother, and nurse in his tender years, is taken fully into account; then (2) the peculiar action on such a nature of the unsatisfying and, on the whole, distracting effect of the bohemian and hail-fellow-well-met sort of ideal to which he yielded, and which has to be charged with much; and (3) the conflict in him of a keenly social animus with a very strong egotistical effusiveness, fed by fancy, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... and it walked on her foot and tried to bite her, and she hastily had to send it away. She wished for a pet lamb, but it baaed so loudly that she was almost discovered by the farmer, so that had to go too. And she had been wishing for these vain and unsatisfying things for more than a week before she thought of asking for a little ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... whatever you have done'—instead of that rather abstracted, faintly quizzical air, his manner had become absorbed and gloomy. He seemed to jib away from his friends. His manner at the "Pen and Ink" was wholly unsatisfying to men who liked to talk. He was known to be writing a new book; they suspected him of having "got into a hat"—this Victorian expression, found by Mr. Balladyce in some chronicle of post-Thackerayan manners, and revived by him in his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of which I have attempted to describe; and every one is aware that the results of overstrained energies are feebleness and lassitude—want of nourishment might likewise have something to do with it. During my sojourn in the dingle, my food had been of the simplest and most unsatisfying description, by no means calculated to support the exertion which the labour I had been engaged upon required; it had consisted of coarse oaten cakes, and hard cheese, and for beverage I had been indebted to ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a large tree. He seemed to have been trying to carve his name; for a large E and half of an N were there. But he was tired of that; and a book he had brought with him seemed to have proved equally unsatisfying; for it was lying closed at his feet. He seemed very much surprised at seeing Arthur; but all he said, when he came near was: "Well?" Arthur did not quite know what to say himself, but he asked him ...
— Left at Home - or, The Heart's Resting Place • Mary L. Code
... of it," she said. "I should love to do more, but travel as travel is such an unsatisfying thing. If a place attracts you, you want to imbibe it. Travel leaves you no time to do anything but sniff. Life is so short. One must concentrate or one achieves nothing. I know what the general idea of a stay-at-home is," ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a difficult question, and brought out a world of unsatisfying conjecture. Various men were mentioned as possibilities, but one by one they were discarded as not being eligible. No one but young Hillyer had been intimate with Flint Buckner; no one had really had a quarrel with him; he had affronted every man who had tried to make ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... who only want your money seem to me very unsatisfying folks," replied Amphillis. "Will they smooth your pillows when you are sick? or comfort you when your ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... are ceasing to pretend that these childish games—this dancing and singing and mating—do not become tiresome and unsatisfying after a while. And you no longer care to pretend that you are younger than you are. These are the signs of adolescence. And then, see these fantastic rags with which you have draped yourself. [He takes up a piece of her draperies in his hand]. It is rather badly worn ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... sympathy for others, a fellow-feeling with humanity, remarkable in one whose enthusiasm for human nature was not large, whose ruling passion, until the circumstance of love tinctured it, had led him by ways which the bulk of men had pronounced arid and unsatisfying. Now this larger insight was making a finer character of him and planting, even at the core of his professional pursuits, something deeper than is generally to be found there. His experience, in fact, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... accomplished. She knew but one path to charity, and that was paved with gold. She did not know how to offer sympathy, or to enhance a gift by the manner of giving. Her father had sacrificed everything to multiply and keep his wealth; all earthly happiness had been given up for it; and unsatisfying as it had been to her own heart, it had satisfied his. Inclination prompted to give, habit to withhold; and certainly Sarah Bond felt far more enjoyment in obeying inclination than in following habit; though sometimes what she believed a duty ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... ruled in mythic times; it has no hoary ruins, too old to be historic and too legendary to be inspiring. But Madras is old enough for its records to be romantic, and at the same time is young enough for its earliest accounts of itself to be—not unsatisfying fables, but interesting fact. The story of Madras fills an absorbing page of history, and the sights of Madras are well worthy of sympathetic interest—especially on the part of those whose lines of life are cast in the ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... has his moments. I knew a young man who married somebody else's mother, and was allowed by her fourteen gardeners to amuse himself sometimes by rolling the tennis-court. It was an unsatisfying life; and when rash acquaintances asked him what he did he used to say that he was reading for the Bar. Now he says he is writing a play—and we look round the spacious lawns and terraces and marvel at the run his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... which they knew would not be acceptable. But through faith in Christ they have been lifted up to a holy and blessed communion with God, and thus enabled to render to God's law an obedience of love "in the spirit and not in the letter." They were oppressed with a painful sense of the empty and unsatisfying nature of every thing earthly; but they have found in Christ and his glorious service an all-sufficient portion. In a word, they are assured that the gospel is from God, because it meets all their wants as sinners. They have ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows |
