"Humble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wretch, with his obsequious smile, "Monsieur has travelled, has shone, has succeeded; Monsieur must have made enemies: let him name them, and his poor, old, faithful servant will do his best to become the humble instrument of ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... came to Fort Le Boeuf and ordered the French to leave the country; but was received by Marin with such contemptuous haughtiness that he went home shedding tears of rage and mortification. The Western tribes were daunted. The Miamis, but yesterday fast friends of the English, made humble submission to the French, and offered them two English scalps to signalize their repentance; while the Sacs, Pottawattamies, and Ojibwas were loud in professions of devotion.[131] Even the Iroquois, Delawares, and Shawanoes on the Alleghany had come to the French camp and offered their help ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... provisions. Their stock of merchandise was reduced so low, that they were obliged to cut off the buttons from their clothes, and to present them, with phials and small tin boxes, as articles of barter with the Indians; and, by means of these humble commodities, they were enabled to procure some roots and bread, as provision during their passage over the Rocky Mountains, which they commenced ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... were called in, Laurie was standing by their mother with such a penitent face that Jo forgave him on the spot, but did not think it wise to betray the fact. Meg received his humble apology, and was much comforted by the assurance that Brooke knew nothing of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... likeneth the kingdom of heaven to a certain king which made a marriage-feast for his son and thereby he declared future happiness and splendour. For as he was wont to speak to humble and earthly minded men, he would draw his parables from homely and familiar things. Not that he meant that marriages and feasts exist in that world; but in condescension to men's grossness, he employed these names when he would make known to them the ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... O'Garraghty, Esq., College Green, Dublin, who in future will act as agent, and shall get, by post, immediately, a power of attorney for the same, entitling him to receive and manage the Colambre as well as the Clonbrony estate, for, Sir, your obedient humble servant, CLONBRONY. ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... Caulaincourt, in a low voice, "do not rely too much on the attachment of the Emperor Francis. I know that, though he is your father-in-law, he has never forgotten the day when, after the battle of Austerlitz, he met you as an humble supplicant at your camp-fire, and begged you to spare him and make peace with him. I know that that recollection has greater power over him than any bonds of relationship. I know that Metternich, who is still devoted to your majesty, vainly tried a few days ago ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... happened early, the wrecks of his originally small fortune, scarcely afforded her subsistence for a year. By many humble but grating concessions on her part, and no less proud upbraidings on the part of her father, she was first allowed a trifling annuity, almost too scanty to afford the means of life, and, as it were in resentment ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... noble blood; To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known, And ev'ry author's merit, but his own. Such late was Walsh—the Muse's judge and friend, Who justly knew to blame or to commend; 730 To failings mild, but zealous for desert; The clearest head, and the sincerest heart. This humble praise, lamented shade! receive, This praise at least a grateful Muse may give: The Muse, whose early voice you taught to sing, 735 Prescrib'd her heights, and prun'd her tender wing, (Her guide now lost) no more attempts to rise, But in low numbers short excursions ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... As a humble gleaner after the editorial scythe,—or, to be truly modern, I should say mowing-machine,—I have gathered some strange sheaves of this sort of humor. Like many provincial newspapers, that to which I am attached makes a feature ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... sensibility which compels the true poet into verse. This must not be said without exception. The Threnody, written after the death of a deeply loved child, is a beautiful and impressive lament. Pieces like Musquetaquid, the Adirondacs, the Snowstorm, The Humble-Bee, are pretty and pleasant bits of pastoral. In all we feel the pure ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... to forward this note to M. l'Abbe de Hautefeuille, who is with Madame la Duchesse de Bouillon. I sometimes meet the friends of M. l'Abbe Dubois, who complain that they are forgotten. Assure him of my humble regards. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... tone than he could have foreseen, remained silent; but De la Roche, impatient to humble his brother's foe, and judging it also discreet to arouse ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... or Malizspini, an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of happiness than the name. Bless me in this life with but the peace of my conscience, command of my affections, the love of thyself and my dearest friends, and I shall be happy enough to pity Caesar! These are, O Lord, the humble desires of my most reasonable ambition, and all I dare call happiness on earth; wherein I set no rule or limit to thy hand or providence; dispose of me according to the wisdom of thy pleasure. Thy will be done, though in my ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... send you enclosed an exercise by one of my pupils chosen at random, for all of them are animated by the same sentiments. You will see how the immortal glory of your son shines even in humble villages, and that the admiration and gratitude which the children, so far away in the country, feel for our greatest aviator, will be piously and faithfully preserved ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... Christian Fathers like St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great, St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzus learned at their schools and universities. Some of these Fathers were educated at the great universities, like Athens, others at comparatively humble provincial institutions; some of them were men of powerful intellect, while others were more commonplace. What they learned was the general intellectual system of the late Empire, and what they learned they handed on to the ...
— Progress and History • Various
... glass could have done. The flagstone floor was strewn with fallen leaves that had drifted in. Up and down, in every nook and corner of the roof and windows, last year's empty birds nests perched. And here and there along the walls, the humble "mason's" little clay ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... it be not too late, to improve both in wisdom and in Christian virtue. My Gracious God, it is Thy wish that Thy people 'should be conformed to the image of Thy Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren.' Oh, if I could but approach that point, and be worthy to take some humble place as a brother of that glorious embodiment of all moral and spiritual excellence, what would I not give,—what would I not ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... solida, a very old inhabitant of our gardens, is a plant of very humble growth, rarely exceeding three or four inches in height, and producing its spike of purple flowers in April, which continue ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 7 - or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... Aunt Kate had explained that if Mary Rose did not wear the dress she might have to go to jail Mary Rose had no choice. She would have to wear the frock and go to school and try her very hardest not to be proud. She had only to think of Jenny Lind to humble her spirit. ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... will trouble you. I'd as soon have a cinder in me eye as a man I don't like sitting beside me fire; and if the old man is a burden to ye, out he goes." He rose, and came painfully to where she sat, and in a voice of humble sorrow, slowly said: "I don't ask ye to love me—now—I'm not worth it; and once I thought I'd like a son to bear my name, but 'tis better not. I'll never lay that burden upon ye. All I ask is the touch of yer hand ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... aforesaid Adorable Church, does not come in for his share of Immorality, and other frailties; and consequently is not as fit to be detected, by the Wit of a Satyrical Poet; as the Poet by the positive Authority of an Angry Malecontent, tho in the garb of an humble Churchman. ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... bars, looking at the hills that rose far off, through the thick sodden clouds, like a bright, unattainable calm. As she looked, a shadow of their solemn repose fell on her face; its fierce discontent faded into a pitiful, humble quiet. Slow, solemn tears gathered in her eyes: the poor weak eyes turned so hopelessly to the place where Hugh was to rest, the grave heights looking higher and brighter and more solemn than ever before. The Quaker watched her keenly. She came ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... regiment.—He can read it, quoth my uncle Toby, as well as I can.—Trim, I assure you, was the best scholar in my company, and should have had the next halberd, but for the poor fellow's misfortune. Corporal Trim laid his hand upon his heart, and made an humble bow to his master; then laying down his hat upon the floor, and taking up the sermon in his left hand, in order to have his right at liberty,—he advanced, nothing doubting, into the middle of the room, where he could best see, and be best ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... been his companions through life,—his mother, his aunt, his sister. Whichever the case there was no question that the old man's bearing toward her placed her on a pinnacle where gossip was silenced, and transformed her humble ministrations from those of a hireling into acts of ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... terrific explosion occurred. It is no longer "My dearest Lady! Mind you bring the blouse! Ever yours most affectionately, Wellington," but "My dear Lady Shelley," who is addressed by "Her Ladyship's most obedient humble servant, Wellington," and soundly rated for her conduct. The reason for this abrupt and volcanic change was that owing to an indiscretion on the part of Lady Shelley a very important letter about the defenceless state of the country, which the ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... and educated himself, in striking contrast to the loose ways and so-called aristocratic society-life of Lord Byron, on which I have just spoken. And certainly though the lords and earls of his day may have looked down upon Burns as a humble person, many of us have greatly enjoyed his pieces about the mouse and other rustic subjects, with their message of humble beauty—I am so sorry I have not got the time to quote ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Tavora reached Sir Terence O'Moy, the Adjutant-General at Lisbon, about a week later in dispatches from headquarters. These informed him that in the course of the humble apology and explanation of the regrettable occurrence offered by the Colonel of the 8th Dragoons in person to the Mother Abbess, it had transpired that Lieutenant Butler had left the convent alive, but that nevertheless he continued absent ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... determination to go through with the business that had brought her there. She was just the sort of woman who can be seen by the hundred—laundress, seamstress, charwoman, caretaker, got up in her Sunday best. Odd, indeed, it would be, thought Allerdyke, if this quiet, humble-looking creature should give information which would place fifty thousand pounds at ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... he had heard an angel singing in the woods, and a feeling of humility stole over him. It was usual for Sir Basil, who rarely thought about himself, to feel modest, but very unusual for him to feel humble. ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... on with variations on the same air, 'In that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses, "Holiness unto the Lord,"' and adds that 'the pots in the Lord's house'—the humble vessels that were used for the most ordinary parts of the Temple services—'shall be like the bowls before the altar,' into which the sacred blood of the offerings was poured. The most external and secular thing bearing upon religion shall be as sacred as the sacredest. But that is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... angry. There were many soldiers on the Boulevard Montparnasse. He turned into a side street, feeling suddenly furtive and humble, as if he would hear any minute the harsh voice of a sergeant shouting ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... reaping hook; for it was a late harvest in the north, and he foresaw he should have to work his way and play his way, or else beg, and he was too much of a man for that. His child's face won her many a ride in a wagon, and many a cup of milk from humble women ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Claud, but seeing that he was to answer for himself, he did so frankly and candidly. He was not ashamed of his humble birth, and made no secret of it; nor did he deny that he should never have found himself in such fine company save for the introduction and good offices of ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... just a few drops. My poor grandmother would come in and beg and implore her husband not to taste the brandy; and he would become annoyed and swallow his few drops all the same, and she would go out again sad and discouraged, but still smiling, for she was so humble and so sweet that her gentleness towards others, and her continual subordination of herself and of her own troubles, appeared on her face blended in a smile which, unlike those seen on the majority of human faces, had no trace in it ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... one else, and had no reverence or awe for any but him. But as iron which is softened by the fire grows hard with the cold, and all its parts are closed again; so, as often as Socrates observed Alcibiades to be misled by luxury or pride he reduced and corrected him by his addresses, and made him humble and modest, by showing him in how many things he was deficient, and how very far from perfection ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... tired of gazing; of examining it from every point of view. It was a dream picture and a marvel. Nothing we saw in Brittany compared with it, excepting the Cathedral of Quimper. Before it stretched the dreary plain; behind it were the humble houses composing the village, very much out of sight ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... of State to the financial department of the humble shop of the Colonnas, in other words, the son of our ragionato. Poor boy! he could not come by the Saint-Gothard, nor by the Mont-Cenis, nor by the Simplon; he came by sea, by Marseilles, and had to cross ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... most squalid room. There is nothing standing against its rough gray walls but a wooden chest, near this a few earthen bowls stand on the ground with a wooden cup and a gracefully wrought jug of pure and shining gold, which looks strangely out of place among such humble accessories. Quite in the background lie two mats of woven bast, each covered with a sheepskin. These are the beds of the two girls who inhabit the room, one of whom is now sitting on a low stool made of palm-branches, and she yawns as she begins to arrange her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ramification of those mysterious regions. Sometimes a group of courts develops itself, and you may even chance to find your way into a small market-place. Those, however, who are accustomed to connect these hidden residences of the humble with scenes of misery and characters of violence, need not apprehend in this district any appeal to their sympathies, or any shock to their tastes. All is extremely genteel; and there is almost as much repose as in the golden saloons of the contiguous palaces. At any rate, ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... new world had begun to shine at last for the humble but ambitious woman who had borne five strong children to be the athletic sons and daughters of a free country. Her soul rose in a triumphant song that made her little home the holy of holies of a new religion. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... knelt at the foot of the tree, while the old sailor in simple, uncouth speech, offered up a little prayer of humble thanks for the deliverance of the two lads he loved ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... From the humble academy kept by the old soldier Goldsmith was removed in his ninth year. He went to several grammar schools, and acquired some knowledge of the ancient languages. His life at this time seems to have been far from happy. He had, as appears ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... mending gloves, taking ink stains out of white dresses with lemon juice, etc., etc.; but there were certain exigencies in the remote and exalted life of those who go on "missions" which their humble though loving skill must ever ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... trip out to sea—and the second, a coloured slide, showing a review of a number of our own British troops. This, as you may imagine, reduced the king— only temporarily, as it proved—to a condition of servile submission, and he went home that night a humble and terrified man. ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... saw advancing toward their humble residence the stout, ponderous figure of Nahum Jones, the landlord ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... young mistress in front of her school. It was a humble enough affair—a mere shed in fact, built on to the end of Mrs. McAravey's cottage, and adorned over the door with a plainly printed sign-board, "Tor Glen National School." But the place did not look uncared for. The school indeed was bare enough, and surrounded by a brown wilderness, ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... there is a strength in cold roast chicken, plum puffs, and cream-cheese, that will, or did in this case, sweep everything before it; and, after making a very hearty meal, the midshipman almost wished that he had Ram there to talk to as a humble companion in that ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... opportunity for revenge. The humble laborer was his employer's captain, but the opportunity was never improved. Mr. Lincoln frequently confessed that no subsequent success of his life had given him half the satisfaction that this election did. He had achieved public recognition; and to one so ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... afforded the highest gratification to several among us, I may mention the musical parties we were enabled to muster, and which assembled on stated evenings throughout the winter, alternately in Captain Lyon's cabin and my own. More skilful amateurs in music might well have smiled at these our humble concerts; but it will not incline them to think less of the science they admire, to be assured that, in these remote and desolate regions of the globe, it has often furnished us with the most pleasurable ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... heard coming solemnly down the aisle, bringing to the prayer-meeting the champion of orthodoxy. Nor did the holy air of the prayer-meeting even one single evening fail to vibrate to the voice of the Deacon, as he made, in scriptural language, humble confessions and tearful pleadings before the throne, or—still strictly scriptural in expression—he warned and exhorted the impenitent. The contribution-box always received his sixpence as long as specie payment lasted, and the smallest fractional currency note thereafter; and to each of the ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... listening with gleaming eyes, followed them, running along in the rear as quickly as her short legs could carry her. She had no thought, now, of waiting for Florent. From the Rue Rambuteau to the Rue de la Cossonnerie she manifested the most humble obsequiousness, and volunteered to explain matters to ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... you know. They may hurt and grieve others in some degree, but they sear your own heart with the wounds of agony and shut the light of God's tenderness from your soul. Can you not see it, Maggie, how you have marred your own happiness? Do try, dear, to humble your stubborn spirit? Ask God to help you forgive those who wrong you. Believe me, it will make you far happier than this ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... mention that, at Vincennes, seven sportsmen had been out all day, before we arrived, to procure game for us, and were much disappointed at not being able to get us any prairie hens, which are a humble imitation of grouse, though Americans are pleased to consider them better than that best of birds; but "comparisons are odious," and the prairie-hens are very praiseworthy and good in their way. We had, however, abundance of venison and quails, and ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... forty-five Commonwealths. It is lived in the commonplaces of the shop, the factory, the office, the mine, and the farm. Through the Commonwealths the spirit of the Nation is expressed. Every American community, however humble, participates in the formation and expression ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... she was very poor. This room which had become his sanctuary in Warsaw was in a humble house of a common quarter. She laughed at this, and at her many hours of work each day, for which the return was meager. There was the sweetest pathos to him in her little purse, and her pride in these matters was ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... gave him little concern; but then he could not look into the immediate future, and see what it held for him. The coming of "Just" Smith would yet turn out to be an event of the first magnitude in Hugh's humble opinion; as the reader ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... such a party; and there being no parties at home, fears from abroad would vanish. But seeing it was otherwise determined by the Senate and the people, the best course was to take that which they held the safest, in which, with his humble thanks for their great bounty, he was resolved to serve them ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... taken by his inspiration; it came to him directly, honestly in the light of his day, not on the tortuous, dark roads of meditation. His realities came to him from a genuine source, from this universe of vain appearances wherein we men have found everything to make us proud, sorry, exalted, and humble. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... selection, and the subsequent conduct of the men who would compose the industrial state presented no appreciable difficulties. For the state would, according to this theory, be in no sense the director of the labourers; it would merely be their humble servant. It would be like an old woman who sat all day long in a barn, counting, sorting, and making up into equal shares the different products brought in to her by her sons, who worked out of her sight in a dozen different fields; or, to quote the words of ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... a complete upheaval in our lives. In Lawrence we had around us the fine flower of New England civilization. We children went to school; our parents, though they were in very humble circumstances, were associated with the leading spirits and the big movements of the day. When we went to Michigan we went to the wilderness, to the wild pioneer life of those times, and we were all old enough to keenly feel ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... the commercial instinct to gain public recognition. The safe rule for men of talent to follow is to make themselves conspicuously great in their present position, and make it a stepping-stone for something greater. Charles Kingsley occupied, in England, an apparently humble position in his rural pastorate, but the thinking world has felt the power and influence of ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... was youth, beauty with humble port, Bounty, richess, and womanly feature: (God better wot than my pen can report) Wisdom, largess, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... be content with whatever may be your lot, however humble your place in the church and world. Soon will it be changed for the better. In this world we are working men, and must be content to be clad and fed as such, that we may be fitted for our solemn and joyful change. Soon we shall put on our church-going holiday ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he, "an humble servant of the Most High, the obscure priest of a poor village, has left you to offer up his prayers for the insurgent cause. And now an instrument, not less humble, by the will of God takes leave of you ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... The humble children of St. Francis had already evangelized the Huron tribes as far as the Georgian Bay, when the Company of the Cent-Associes was founded by Richelieu. The obligation which the great cardinal imposed upon them of providing for the maintenance of the propagators ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... Bursley. It had no traffic across it, being only a sloping rectangle, like a vacant lot, with Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street for its exterior sides, and no outlet on its inner sides. The buildings on those inner sides were low and humble and, as it were, withdrawn from the world, the chief of them being the ancient Duck Inn, where the hand-bell ringers used to meet. But Duck Square looked out upon the very birth of Trafalgar Road, that wide, straight thoroughfare, whose name dates it, which had been invented, in the lifetime ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... he may be, especially as he is convinced that one or other of the parties is keeping back a part of the truth, he is determined that the subject shall be searched to the bottom. The petty village shopkeeper and the humble cottager obtain as full or fuller attention than the well-to-do Plaintiffs and Defendants who can bring down ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... way of thinking. Of all the women I have known, she is the best. Don't be too proud to learn from her, Nancy. In all these twenty years that she has been in my house, whatever she undertook to do, she did well;—nothing too hard or too humble for her, if she thought it her duty. I know what that means; I myself have been a poor, weak creature, compared with her. Don't be offended because I ask you to take pattern by her. I know her value now better than I ever knew it before. I owe her ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... lights began to play about the island, as the fire-flies lit their fairy lamps. Overhead the stars came out. The warm wind of the summer night sighed through the treetops, and the sad chorus of humble earthly pipers answered from below. It seemed to Peggy as if the dear familiar world with its cheery homes and friendly faces, had been blotted out, and Dorothy and herself were alone on an unfamiliar ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... humble opinion, for sound copper-bottomed snobbery, registered A1 at Lloyd's, give ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... domestic love. He requires the conscious intellect to call forth and guide his powers in exertion, and a faculty for repose and recuperation in sleep. He requires self respect to sustain him in elevated positions, and humility to fit him for humble duties and positions. We can conceive no faculty which has not its opposite,—no faculty which would not terminate its own operation, like a flexor muscle, if there were no antagonist. Benevolence would exhaust the purse and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... heart swelled with the humble gratitude of the self-abased. "Good Leam! dear girl!" she cried, kissing her with tearful eyes and wet lips—poor Learn! who hated to be kissed, and who had by no means intended that her grave caress on the day of betrothal should be taken as a precedent and acted on unreservedly. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... possessed some feelings of humanity and some love of their country, we willingly accepted the magistracy, thinking that by our gentleness we should overcome your ambition. But we perceive from experience that the more humble our behavior, the more concessions we make, the prouder you become, and the more exorbitant are your demands. And though we speak thus, it is not in order to offend, but to amend you. Let others tell ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... whence she came To run her holy race. To meet great Ganga here she hies With tributary wave: Hence the loud roar ye hear arise, Of floods that swell and rave. Here, pride of Raghu's line, do thou In humble adoration bow." ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... any other considerations respecting trees, than the probable price of timber. I shall limit myself, therefore, to my own simple woodman's work, and try to hew this book into its final shape, with the limited and humble aim that I had in beginning it, namely, to prove how far the idle and peaceable persons, who have hitherto cared about leaves and clouds, have rightly seen, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... listening to that preaching, which was, as Cotton Mather says, "as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice"; and as the holy pastor utters those blessed words, which are not of any one church or age, but of all time, the humble place of worship is filled with their perfume, as the house where Mary knelt was filled with the odor of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... set in, the heavens. There is no longer a perfect community; nor are philosophers to be its kings. Laws more or less similar to those of Sparta fill about half the book. But the old spirit of obedience and self-sacrifice and community is not forgotten; and on all men and women, noble and humble alike, the duty is cast, to bear in common the ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... ear-rings, three-rowed collane of well-worn coral and gold, long silver and gold pins and arrows in their hair, and great worked brooches with pendants,—and the men of the Trastevere in their peaked hats, their short jackets swung over one shoulder in humble imitation of the Spanish cloak, and with rich scarfs tied round their waists. Most of the ordinary cries of the day are missed. But the constant song of "Arancie! arancie dolci!" is heard in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... horizon—namely, motives. If we do anything for His sake, He will take care of what it comes to. That is true even on earth, and still more true in heaven. 'Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, and fed Thee?' What surprises will wait Christ's humble servants in heaven, when they see what was the true nature and the widespread consequences of their humble deeds! 'Thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, ... but God giveth it a body as it hath ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... serve was even as I am— poor and friendless. He spake as I speak, the truth that welled up in his heart. Cruel things were said of him, but he resented it not. He was beaten with many stripes, and mocked, and crucified; but he freely forgave. Be thou humble as he was humble; be thou forgiving even as he forgave. Love God and thy fellow-men. That is the whole law given by him ye serve. Words are but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, but a good example ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... in Longman's Magazine for November 1882, Vol. I, pp. 69-79. Five years later it was published in the volume Memories and Portraits (1887), followed by an article called A Humble Remonstrance, which should really be read in connection with this essay, as it is a continuation of the same line of thought. In the eternal conflict between Romanticism and Realism, Stevenson was heart and soul with the former, and ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Christians was so remarkable that in many cases the Boxers cut out the hearts of their victims to find the secret of such sublime faith, declaring: "They have eaten the foreigner's medicine.'' In those humble Chinese the world has again seen a vital faith, again seen that the age of heroism has not passed, again seen that men and women are willing to die for Christ. Multitudes withstood a persecution as ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... kynge of Babylone In vnsure fortune set to great confydence Commaundynge honour vnto hym to be done As vnto god: with all humble reuerence, God by his power and hye magnyfycence Made hym a beste, for that he dyd offende And so in proces of tyme ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... years he acquired an enviable reputation as one of the best farmers in all the region of which Pomfret was the center, and had it not been for the lamentable struggle between the French and the English for supremacy in North America, he might have continued as the humble and prosperous citizen-cultivator to the end of his days. The breaking out of the prolonged strife which is known in history as the French and Indian War, found Putnam in possession of what in those ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... Monte Carlo. Most of the girls were pretty, but there were people of all sorts of shapes and sizes; and you can't conceive how the pretty, just right ones, back in rocking-chairs on the veranda after luncheon, looked at the plain, just wrong ones who ventured to amble past them in humble quest of other chairs. Good gracious me! I wouldn't have run that gauntlet for any prize less than winning Jack's love, unless I simply adored ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... for a story-teller," cried one of his hearers (I believe it was I, his humble amanuensis, Barrington Beaver). "You leave the honest Delaware in the clutches of the bear; you leave yourself surrounded by a band of fierce Dacotahs thirsting for your blood; and poor Noggin even in a worse predicament; indeed, I would not ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... preaching about your indictment of that scoundrel king of the Belgians and telling my people to buy the book. I am only a humble item among the very many who offer you a cordial welcome in England, but we long to see you again, and I should like to change hats with you again. Do ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her regrets which were despairing, and distracted dreams. She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, lit by tall bronze candelabra, and of the two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... humble apology for the slang I have used in these pages, but it has seemed almost impossible to describe the scenes in connection with Jerusalem and Cairo without it—in ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... monument is more humble than that of Sir Thomas Raffles' statue at Singapore, it is scarcely less interesting; and the repair and preservation of the stonework is secured by a special clause in the treaty of cession. I think it was just here that Dr. Treub turned away from the Canary Avenue, ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... mighty proud the other night that you could not come to see a humble ward of the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... very robust constitution, and my indisposition will very soon be over. I shall have the honour of sending, this afternoon, my humble wedding present to ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... was sought by a youth of humble parentage, one who had no other merits to recommend him, but such as might arise from a graceful person, a manly step, and an eye beaming with the fires of youth and love. These were sufficient to attract the favourable notice of the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... that any one of these theories, if accepted, is much more 'minute in detail' than our humble suggestion. He who adopts any one of them, knows all about it. He knows that Cronus is a purely Greek god, or that he is connected with the Sanskrit Krana, which Tiele, {62b} unhappily, says is 'a very dubious word.' Or the mythologist ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... changed. In the wearing of furs, we have bumped down steps both high and steep. In 1880 American women wore sealskin, marten, otter, beaver and mink. To-day nothing that wears hair is too humble to be skinned and worn. To-day "they are wearing" skins of muskrats, foxes, rabbits, skunks, domestic cats, squirrels, and even rats. And see how the taste for game,—of some sections of our population,—also has ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... considerations seem almost to exclude moral and social ones. To modern feelings there is a degree of coarseness in Plato's treatment of the subject. Yet he also makes some shrewd remarks on marriage, as for example, that a man who does not marry for money will not be the humble servant of his wife. And he shows a true conception of the nature of the family, when he requires that the newly-married couple 'should leave their father and mother,' and have a separate home. He also provides against extravagance ...
— Laws • Plato
... cried the girl, "but I'm only a humble member of the procession, following the band and the chariot wheels of the conqueror." Her strong brown face was all ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... gentleness thou givest me so high a place, I pray to God that there may never be strife between us two by any fault of mine. Sir, I will be thy true and humble ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... began his career by writing amatory epistles for serving maids, realized (and showed his genius thereby), that if the hard fortunes and eventful triumph of the humble Pamela could but be sympathetically portrayed, the interest on the part of his aristocratic audience was certain to ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... heart was a feeling such as a man's heart can only know once in all his life—such humble gratitude, and praise, and adoration of her who had given him her all. There should be nothing for her now but joy—like the joy of this last hour. She should never know less happiness! And kneeling down before her at the water's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a final swallow of the choking lump in her throat, and began her humble confession that she had framed up-stairs among the rows of dismal blue wall-paper parrots. She started with Clotilde Robard's story of Jules, told of her accidental meeting with him, of all that she knew of his hard life with ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the instrument of religion, if his only thought is to disseminate its morality and its benefits on the earth, he will be gentle, tolerant, humble, charitable, and full of zeal; his life will reflect that of his divine model; he will preach liberty and equality among men, and peace and fraternity among nations; he will repel the allurements of temporal power, and will not ally himself with that which, of all things in this world, ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... reason is that there was a secret harmony between Virgil's soul and the soul of Augustin. Both were gracious and serious. One, the great poet, and one, the humble schoolboy, they both had pity on the Queen of Carthage, they would have liked to save her, or at any rate to mitigate her sadness, to alter a little the callousness of AEneas and the harshness of the ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... caravanserai to the west, just outside the town wall. From the roof—the only clean part of the hostelry—one obtains a good panoramic view of the town. It is built in a most irregular shape, and is encircled by a castellated mud wall with round turrets. There is a humble dome of a mosque rising somewhat higher than all the other ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... out that the drawings supplied his solitary excuse for being in the locality at all. He saw that—unwillingly, it is true, but with painful clearness—so I assume that his visit to Miss Manning was expiatory, a sort of humble obeisance to a goddess whom he had offended unwittingly. I assume, too, that his plea for mercy has not proved wholly unsuccessful or Miss Manning would not now be walking with him across ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... of your absence, the unnatural infidel above referred to charged this to my account. As is my humble wont, I bent my head to the storm, strong in the fearless confidence that France is France, and that, late as we were, the ever-open ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... makes flowers all the more carefully tended. In the rudest domestic quarters a few pet plants are seen whose arrangement and nurture show womanly care. Every window in the humble dwellings has its living screen of drooping, many-colored fuchsias, geraniums, forget-me-nots, and monthly roses. The ivy is especially prized here, and is picturesquely trained to hang about the window-frames. The fragrant sweet-pea, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... your thoughts be humble, and obedient, Love your Commanders, honour them that feed ye: Pray, that ye may be strong in honesty As in the use of arms; Labour, and diligently To keep your hearts from ease, and her base issues, Pride, and ambitious wantonness, those spoil'd me. Rather lose all your limbs, than the least ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... combat and ruse, always at war, with no friend except far-off Russia,—had developed the natural Slav indifference to the truth into a fine and singularly subtle habit of communicating nothings to any inquiring outsider, which never failed even the most humble clansman. I was, however, pushed on from hand to hand by casual suggestions until I reached the Prince, who gave us audience under the famous tree where he heard appeals of all kinds, from petitions for help to the last ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... the great Fathers, his parentage was humble. He owed nothing to the circumstances of wealth and rank. His father was a heathen, and lived, as Augustine tells us, in "heathenish sin." But his mother was a woman of remarkable piety and strength of mind, who devoted herself to the education of her son. Augustine ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... two Ziska stood in doubt as to what he would next do or say. Then he took up his hat and went away without another word. On that same evening some one rang the bell at the door of the house in the Windberg-gasse in a most humble manner—with that weak, hesitating hand which, by the tone which it produces, seems to insinuate that no one need hurry to answer such an appeal, and that the answer, when made, may be made by the lowest personage in the house. In this instance, however, Lotta Luxa ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... when he heerd this, but he was pretty deep too; so, says he, 'Lawyer, that's a great deal of money, but I have more cases there; if I give you the one thousand dollars will you plead the other cases I shall have to give you?' 'Yes,' says Daniel, 'I will to the best of my humble abilities.' So down they went to Rhode Island, and Daniel tried the case and carried it for the Quaker. Well, the Quaker he goes round to all the folks that had suits in court, and says he, 'What will you give me if I get the great Daniel to plead for you? It cost me one thousand dollars for a ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... abode of the blessed, where the amiable remembrance of the good we have done here below is the eternal reward of our benevolence. Go, gentle and beneficent shade, to those of Fenelon, Berneg, Catinat, and others, who in a more humble state have, like them, opened their hearts to pure charity; go and taste of the fruit of your own benevolence, and prepare for your son the place he hopes to fill by your side. Happy in your misfortunes that Heaven, in putting to them a period, has spared you the cruel spectacle of his! Fearing, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Phineas reproachfully, "the facts of my being a guest beneath your roof and my humble military rank, render it difficult for me to ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... Nore, and with her proceed to Plymouth where my stay will be but short. Permit me to assure you that I shall always have a due sense of the favour you have done me, and that I am with great esteem and regard, Dear Sir, your obliged and very humble servant, ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... nothing for it but to obey. Abashed, humiliated, rebuked and in her presence, where he had looked but a moment before to humble and humiliate his rival, Fitzroy, could only lift his hand in salute, follow the captain out of earshot, and there make his plea as best he could, leaving Lanier and the silent young trooper, Dora and her grave-faced old father, in ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... asks the saint, unmoved by those frequent passages in the Psalms in which are proclaimed the immensity, the omnipotence, the infallible justice, the goodness, the clemency of God? Or who is not moved by the prayers and thanksgivings for benefits received by the humble and trustful petitions, by the cries of souls sorrowing for sin, found in the Psalms? Whom will the Psalmist not fill with admiration when he recounts the gifts of the Divine loving kindness towards the people of Israel ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... in which the young brood are reared. These cells vary in form from those which are quite regularly hexagonal, like those of the Hive bee, to those which are less regularly six-sided, as in the stingless bee of the tropics (Melipona), until in the Humble bee the cells are isolated and ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... not gained very exceedingly by slaving of late Years; but be their Gain much or little, I am persuaded that if fewer Slaves were imported to Virginia, it would be better for the Virginia Planters and Merchants; and with humble Submission I am of Opinion that the African Traders might prosecute more gainful ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers—who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... cannot possibly condense its substance here, or convey its astonishing synthetic power, which succeeds in contracting a complete metaphysic, and in gripping it so firmly that the examination ends by passing to the discussion of a few humble facts relative to the philosophy of the brain! But its technical severity and its very conciseness, combined with the wealth it contains, render it irresumable; and I can only in a few words ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... accustomed to these manifestations against his humble person, and when they scolded him he retorted with the most bare-faced impudence ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... fair to do go in the present case; and I would press it upon some of you who, I think, urgently need to consider the dilemma. Either the Pharisees were quite right, and Jesus Christ, the meek, the humble, the Pattern of all lowly gentleness, the Teacher whom nineteen centuries confess that they have not exhausted, was an audacious blasphemer, or He was God manifest in the flesh. The whole context forbids us to take these words, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee,' as anything less ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... be the foremost candidates. Their quarrel had never been finally adjusted, and their different pretensions now retarded all thoughts of a reconciliation. Cecilia, though she was capable of acknowledging any of her faults in public before all her companions, could not humble herself in private to Leonora. Leonora was her equal; they were her inferiors, and submission is much easier to a vain mind, where it appears to be voluntary, than when it is the necessary tribute to justice or candour. So strongly did Cecilia feel this truth, that ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... breach of etiquette. In the new volume of your Records, you print an article dealing with the history from remote times of the family of which I am a member, and possibly the best-known member at the present day. The fact that that family is of humble origin is nothing to me. What I object to is the circumstance that you should publish this material, most of which is of very little interest to the outside world, without first ascertaining my views on the subject. I may now tell you that I object so strongly to the ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... attention, discernment, and impartiality; and whenever he deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in favor of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from any sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a despot to humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects to the same common level of absolute dependence. His expensive taste for building, magnificent shows, and above all a constant and liberal distribution of corn ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... there; the man replying in the affirmative, still heightened his satisfaction. Will you have the goodness to be an unfortunate prisoner's friend, said he to the person he was talking with, and present my humble duty to any of them, but particularly to Captain Hervey, and inform them I am here. The man very civilly replied he would do it; and asked what he should tell them was his name? Carew, replied our hero. Away ran the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... States. They had toiled and fought to make these rude abodes the homes for those dearest to them; here children, the first-born of the Republic, had been nurtured; here, too, were the graves of the first fathers and mothers of America. Humble and comfortless as those dwelling-places would have seemed to the men and women of to-day, they were dear to the wives and mothers of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... the honour to subscribe ourselves, With every respect, Your most obedient humble servants, BROWN, JONES, ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... hastily, and his daughter, calling in the assistance of Elise, proceeded to arrange her little boudoir in a somewhat more sedate, though by no means less joyful, frame of mind than that in which she had made her entry into her new and unquestionably humble residence. ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... do what I desired. I will let it rest a while, and then resume it; and if Ppt writes to Filby, she may advise him to diligence, etc. I told Griffin positively I would have it done, if the man mended. This is an account of poo Ppt's commission to her most humble servant Pdfr. I have a world of writing to finish, and little time; these toads of Ministers are so slow in their helps. This makes me sometimes steal a week from the exactness I used to write to MD. Farewell, dee logues, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Thus humble let me live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch; If Heaven more generous gifts deny, I shall not miss them much,— Too grateful for the blessing lent Of simple tastes and ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... were on our way to the sand dunes of the Rio Grande, where these poor outcasts had squatted and built their humble homes of terron, or sod, which they cut from the alkali-laden soil of the vega. They held their dance orgies in the estufa, the meeting house of the tribe. This was a long, low structure built of adobe, probably ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann |
