"Insignificant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... billows of the fretful surface leave the deep parts of the ocean undisturbed, and to him who has a hold on vaster and more permanent realities the hourly vicissitudes of his personal destiny seem relatively insignificant things. The really religious person is accordingly unshakable and full of equanimity, and calmly ready for any duty that the day may bring forth. This is charmingly illustrated by a little work with which I recently became acquainted, "The Practice of the Presence of God, the Best Ruler ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... the most insignificant, were worked afresh for the purpose, and thus, not merely faithful representations, but also lucid and intelligible explanations ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... substitution as a necessity for the continued life of the Review. For, says he, "you will oblige the public much more by giving them an account of such books as are worthy of their regard than by filling your paper with all the insignificant literary news of the time, of which not an article in a hundred is likely to be thought of a fortnight after the publication of the work that gave occasion to it." He then proceeds to a review of contemporary continental literature, which he ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... for the apprehension of a great purpose should fix the thoughts upon the faultless performance of their duty, no matter how insignificant their task may appear. Only in this way can the thoughts be gathered and focussed, and resolution and energy be developed, which being done, there is nothing which may not ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... only what he had "seen" by Divine illumination. His visions are not (with insignificant exceptions) authenticated by any marvellous signs; he simply asserts that he has been allowed to see into the heart of things, and that the very Being of God has been laid open to his spiritual sight.[348] His was that type ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... He was clerk in the office of Bordin, procureur of Chatelet. In 1798 he lent one hundred crowns in gold to Monegod his life-long friend. This sum not being repaid, M. Alain found himself almost insolvent, and was obliged to take an insignificant position at the Mont-de-Piete. In addition to this he kept the books of Cesar Birotteau, the well-known perfumer. Monegod became wealthy in 1816, and he forced M. Alain to accept a hundred and fifty thousand ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... daily life in which we are involved by the thousand superfluous wants of modern "civilization," one is prone to assume that existence is complete only when it reckons to the good an incalculable number of petty incidents, each more insignificant than the last. Why lose time in thinking or dreaming? We must live at fever heat, must agitate, and be infatuated for inanities, must create imaginary ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... pioneer. He came to Victoria in 1859 and is one of the best informed men in the city concerning the history and material development of this portion of the province, and he himself has taken no insignificant part in affairs of a general public nature. He has written many reminiscences of early days in Victoria and is a ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... painful part of his life in those days was in his visits to his mother. These were agony to him, feeling as he did more and more how utterly insignificant and helpless he was; but he had one satisfaction to keep him going and make him look forward longingly for the next meeting—paradoxical as it may sound—so as to suffer more agony and despair, for he could plainly see that his mother clung to him now as her only ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... will be generally allowed, the Governor of the world, should not have an important relation to all other existences; much less, that the relation which He bears to man, the most noble existence of which we have any actual experience, should be of an insignificant character. Looking, too, upon man as a free and moral agent, accountable, as conscience declares, for his actions to his fellow-men, it seems almost certain that he must be also responsible for his acts in relation to the Deity. The general belief of mankind, in all ages and in all ...
— Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram
... Christian faith bids each person in his life, and all in common, to be diligent in the works of love, humility, patience. It teaches that one be not intolerant of another, but rather render him his due, remembering that he whose condition in life is the most insignificant can be equally upright and blessed before God with the occupant of the most significant position. Again, it teaches that man must have patience with the weakness of his fellow, being mindful of how others must bear with his own imperfections. In short, it says one must manifest to another the ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... argue with a guest," returned the Nome King. "But you will pardon me if I am not yet satisfied that you are stronger than my famous magic. However, I beg you to believe that I bear you no ill will, King Rinkitink; but it is my duty to destroy you, if possible, because you and that insignificant boy Prince have openly threatened to take away my captives and have positively refused to go back to the earth's surface and let me alone. I'm very tender-hearted, as a matter of fact, and I like you immensely and would enjoy ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... present state, and in the protection of it through the present war, that no man can doubt, but Providence has some nobler end to accomplish than the gratification of the petty elector of Hanover, or the ignorant and insignificant king of Britain. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... lack of character spread.[785] Slavery proved a great corrupter of both slaves and owners. It was the chief cause of the downfall of the state which had been created by it. It made cowards of both owners and slaves. "The woes of negro slaves were insignificant, like a drop to an ocean, in comparison with the sufferings of ancient slaves, for the latter generally belonged to ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... only to spring back into sight with a ghastly life-like motion. Stonor cautiously straddled the log, and groped beneath it. His principal anxiety was that log and all might come away from the jam and be carried down, but there was little danger that his insignificant weight would disturb so ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... home and friends, rushing to her doom! Passengers and crews alike had by that time, doubtless, become so familiar with whistling gales and heaving seas, that they had ceased to fear them; but some among them had yet to learn, when too late, that the dangers of the deep are insignificant compared with the perils of ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... first a carpenter, and the son of a carpenter, born and reared in English Yorkshire, in a village too insignificant to appear on any but a county map. Faulby is about twenty miles from York, and there John Harrison was born in 1693, when William and Mary reigned in England. He was thirty-five years of age before he was known beyond his own neighborhood. He was noted there, however, for being a most skillful ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... cause of all our evil days is the inability of England to feed these few million Jews I'd answer: "I don't know how you can be so silly!" Why, the whole human race, friends, can find room on the Isle of Wight—the earth laughs at the insignificant drawings upon her made by the small infantry called Man. Then, why do we suffer, friends? We do suffer, I suppose? I was once at Paris, and at a place called 'the Morgue' I saw exposed young men with wounded temples, and girls with dead mouths twisted, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... the tube was not moved from under the mercury, and as it formed part of the flask, and there was neither cork nor india-rubber, any introduction of air was consequently impossible. The small quantity of air introduced during the impregnation was insignificant and it might even be shown that it injured rather than assisted the growth of the organisms, inasmuch as these consisted of adult individuals which had lived without air and might be liable to be damaged or even destroyed by it. Be this as it may, in a subsequent ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... did lose the old hole!" exclaimed the wronged young lady. "What does it amount to if you lose one insignificant hole when there are ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... there too, and the flaxen-haired Faustula—Livia, gay even, through excess of life—Faustula sad and almost terrified at the scene, and clinging to Julia as to her haven of safety. The Caesars were also there, insignificant as always, but the youngest, Vabalathus, armed for the war; the others are not to be drawn away from the luxuries and pleasures of the city. Antiochus, sullen and silent, was of the number too, stalking with folded arms apart from the company, or else arm ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... beating, now, like a trip-hammer. Even the next day's graduation, and the entrance into the Army looked insignificant to him compared with the question of his fate that was now seething in his brain and which he must now ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... proverb which says, "Every hair has its shadow." So. in like manner, every lady, however insignificant her social position may appear to herself, must exercise a certain influence on the feelings and opinions of others. If, therefore, the art of dressing appears either too irksome or too frivolous to such of the fair ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... practically no interstate business save such as was conducted by water, and this the National Government at once proceeded to regulate in thoroughgoing and effective fashion. Conditions have now so wholly changed that the interstate commerce by water is insignificant compared with the amount that goes by land, and almost all big business concerns are now engaged in interstate commerce. As a result, it can be but partially and imperfectly controlled or regulated by the action of any one of the several States; ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... to escape if we could; but the question was, In what direction should we fly? The desert was terminable on the east by the Nile; on the north, by the barbarous empire of Morocco, or by Algiers, Tripoli, or Tunis; while to the south were hordes of savages of whom we knew nothing, with only one insignificant French settlement where we might expect a kind reception: and we should undoubtedly have many hundred miles of an almost barren region to traverse, either to the east or to the north or south, with but a bare possibility of escaping on board some vessel which ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... but insignificant orders; such as guarding the castle, guarding every lodging, allowing none of M. de Gesvres's guards to occupy a single ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... I have nothing special to say. They are what they are, and I am by now too hardened a sinner to feel ashamed of insignificant indiscretions. And as to their appearance in this form I claim that indulgence to which all sinners against themselves ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... still the rule by which the Chinese regulate all the relations of life. No every-day ceremony is too insignificant to escape notice, and no social or domestic duty is beyond its scope. No work of the classics has left such an impression on the manners and customs of the people. Its rules are still minutely observed, and the office of the Board ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... ago, without taking thought, mechanically he crumbled on the cloth a bit of the gilded bread which was placed near his napkin. As a viand, a mere bit of fancy, insignificant in such a repast, it made him think of the naif phrase of the great lady concerning the starving wretches—"Let them eat cake." Nevertheless, this little cake is bread all the same—bread made of flour, which in turn is made of wheat. Great heaven! yes, it is bread, simply bread, like the loaf ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... written. This is evident from the fact, among others, that the same exceptions recur, and are mentioned over and over again, in the grammarians, and that so much is made of comparatively, and confessedly, insignificant points. Such, we may be sure, would not have been the case had exceptions been numerous. Then we have the authority of Quintilian—than whom is no higher. He speaks of the subtleties ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... Shelbourne. Here they sold their ponies and arms, and renting a little house, went busily to work cleaning and preparing the damaged plumes for market. When the task was finished and the last plume sold, they found themselves the happy possessors of the not insignificant sum of $3,200, which divided between them gave each ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the Headquarters men, the coroner busied himself with a preliminary examination of the clerks. The coroner was a small, fussy individual, smooth-shaven, with reddish-brown hair brushed back in pompadour fashion. Because of his small stature and insignificant appearance he was compelled to adopt a brisk air of command, lest witnesses presume ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... are you making so much noise about?" demanded one of the second classmen. "You come in with a roar, and all you bring with you is—-just a poor, insignificant little freshie." ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... rendered in English as "tailing the bull." It is only in the very large cities of Mexico where a regular plaza de toros, or arena for the bull-fight, is to be found; but in every tillage, however insignificant, the spoil of bull-tailing may be witnessed, as this only requires an open plain, and as wild a bull as can be procured. The sport is not quite so exciting as the bull-fight, as it is less perilous to those engaged in it. Not unfrequently, however, a gored horse or a mutilated ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... woman, with hard eyes, low, unintelligent forehead, and sneering yet self-indulgent mouth, had been for five years the mistress of her fate. The slave had feared to speak lest she should say the wrong thing, had hesitated before taking the most insignificant step, knowing that Mrs. Ellsworth's sharp tongue would accuse her of foolishness or worse. But now Annesley wondered at her bondage. If only the man upstairs could escape, never again would she be afraid ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Magalang, there are the remains of the vast temple of that name; and about a mile distant, on the nearer bank of the Prago river, is the small and externally insignificant temple of Mendoet. Inside this latter is a vaulted chamber, the roof of which springs from walls twenty feet in height, and rises to sixty feet in the centre, covering a ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... from the sea, or things connected with it; so that in the very act of minding your own affairs you are training yourselves to enter the lists of naval combat. (4) Again, no other power in the world can send out a larger collective fleet, and that is no insignificant point in reference to the question of leadership. The nucleus of strength first gained becomes a rallying-point, round which the rest of the world will gladly congregate. Furthermore, your good fortune in this department ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... therefore, seeing that Decimus was not inclined to yield, left him to the charge of his brother Lucius, and himself proceeded against Caesar and Hirtius. The two armies faced each other for a number of days and a few insignificant cavalry battles occurred, with honors even. Finally the Celtic cavalry, of whom Caesar had gained possession along with the elephants, withdrew to Antony's side again. They had started from the camp with the rest and had gone on ahead as if intending to ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... one point on which she was exquisitely sensitive. The slightest encroachment of any other European power even on the outskirts of her American dominions sufficed to disturb her repose and to brace her paralysed nerves. To imagine that she would tamely suffer adventurers from one of the most insignificant kingdoms of the Old World to form a settlement in the midst of her empire, within a day's sail of Portobello on one side and of Carthagena on the other, was ludicrously absurd. She would have been just as likely to let them take possession of the Escurial. It was, therefore, evident that, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... besides which Cide Hamete Benengeli was a historian of great research and accuracy in all things, as is very evident since he would not pass over in silence those that have been already mentioned, however trifling and insignificant they might be, an example that might be followed by those grave historians who relate transactions so curtly and briefly that we hardly get a taste of them, all the substance of the work being left in the inkstand from carelessness, perverseness, or ignorance. A thousand ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... lasted two or three weeks, during which period Sir Luke and Lady Tallant conscientiously improved their acquaintance with the new sphere of their labours. They visited hospitals, inspected public buildings, inaugurated social schemes, and, to the strains of 'God Save the Queen,' performed many other insignificant public functions, from which, as often as not, their guest, Lady Bridget, basely ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... the fact take one for the other. Every time a body is perceived, as I previously explained, there are images which affix themselves to the sensation unnoticed. We think we perceive when we are really remembering or imagining. This addition of the image to the sensation is not a petty and insignificant accessory; it forms the major part, perhaps nine-tenths, of perception. Hence arise the illusions of the senses, which are the result, not of sensations but of ideas. From this also comes the difficulty of knowing exactly what, under certain circumstances, is observation or perception, where ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... tormented with the onrush of business as Thou art this day. They wish to see, judge, and command everything; hence the affairs of their states are entangled for a century to come. But were some insignificant scribe to go from Egypt to those kings, explain their errors of management, and give them our official system, our pyramid, in a year's time Judaea and Phoenicia would fall into the hands of the Assyrians, and in a few tens of years powerful armies, coming from ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... doubt. Verily as the illustrious Hari had slain the Nagas in the great lake, he, by sight alone, is capable of slaying those Asuras called the Nivatakavachas, along with their followers. But the slayer of Madhu should not be urged when the task is insignificant. A mighty mass of energy that he is, it swelleth to increasing proportions, it may consume the whole universe. This Arjuna also is competent to encounter them all, and the hero having slain them in battle, will go back to the world of men. Go thou at my request to earth. Thou ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... forgive me, I pray! I will render to you all my treasure. Just see those precious stones lying there! Grant me my life! What would you do with such an insignificant little fellow? You would not notice me between your teeth. See, though, those two children, they would be delicate morsels, and are as plump as partridges; I beg of you to take them, good Mr. Bear, and let ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... selfishness there are in the home life! Every day brings the choice between selfishness and self-sacrifice. Shall I take for myself the choicest apple? or shall I share in that which is not so agreeable? These may appear to be very insignificant questions. But, boys and girls, do you know that the habitual decisions at which you arrive in childhood, determine largely whether or not you will live by principle later on? "As the twig is bent, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... never was curious about nothing so insignificant,' said Ellen. 'All I wish is, that that boy may not be running into ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... emperor took no effect; but it served to rekindle the war between France and England before the expiration of the truce. This war was not distinguished by any more remarkable instances than the foregoing. After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers, and made an exchange of some territories with each other [c]. [MN 1196.] Their inability to wage war occasioned the peace: their mutual antipathy engaged ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Gallician, north-west regions. Which was perfectly successful,—Lord Cobham leading;—and made much noise among mankind. Filled all Gazettes at that time;—but now, again, is all fallen silent for us,—except this one thrice-insignificant point, That there was in it, 'in Handyside's Regiment,' a Lieutenant of Foot, by name STERNE, who had left, with his poor Wife at Plymouth, a very remarkable Boy called Lorry, or LAWRENCE; known since ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... hat, stout shoes, strong gray trousers, to brave shrub-oaks and smilax, and to climb a tree for a hawk's or a squirrel's nest. He waded into the pool for the water-plants, and his strong legs were no insignificant part of his armor. On the day I speak of he looked for the Menyanthes, detected it across the wide pool, and, on examination of the florets, decided that it had been in flower five days. He drew out of his breast-pocket his diary, and read the names of all the plants that should bloom on this ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... unsmiling, sunburnt company of very few words indeed. Even the children were silent and as if contemptuous of each other and of their elders. Fyne muttered sometimes deep down in his chest some insignificant remark. Mrs. Fyne smiled mechanically (she had splendid teeth) while distributing tea and bread and butter. A something which was not coldness, nor yet indifference, but a sort of peculiar self-possession ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... ill learned, who made such a fuss about trifles, and set such hard tasks, and made such unreasonable rules, behold! they were just as anxious and troubled as if Lobelia had been one of their own number, instead of the most insignificant freshman in the whole school. Miss Boyle was not simply a mathematical machine, Rose Barclay found out. She really cared about them, cared enough to call them into her room, and want to hear all about that last walk, when Peggy had killed the ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... adventuress and filled Russia with foreigners. Such is the Old Believers' explanation of the portentous phenomenon of a Russian czar engaged in destroying the institutions of Holy Russia. In the midst of the nineteenth century the incidents of Peter's career, whether insignificant or important—his vices not less than his glory—are used as proofs of his infernal mission. The remarkable victories with which he recovered from terrible disasters were miracles wrought by the help of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... mighty Captain of this warship accepts the advice of the insignificant pilot—who happens to know the channel. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sized orchards in proper locations and proper soil, of proper varieties, with proper care in handling, are good investments, and, as proof of my confidence, I am planting orchards both in the north and south. The adjective "proper" which I have used here may seem insignificant at the start but, believe me, before you have begun to clip the coupons off your orchard bonds this adjective will loom up as important as Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. In fact you will wonder how it has been possible for anyone to forecast ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... aware of the change in Ditmar, and knew the cause of it. Her feelings were complicated. He, the most important man in Hampton, the self-sufficient, the powerful, the hitherto distant and unattainable head of the vast organization known as the Chippering Mill, of which she was an insignificant unit, at times became for her just a man—a man for whom she had achieved a delicious contempt. And the knowledge that she, if she chose, could sway and dominate him by the mere exercise of that strange feminine force within her was intoxicating ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Ettrick, Grant Duff, Connemara, and others. Excepting the King's they all looked rather dark against so much marble-white wall space. Overhead, I am told, there was once a line of crystal chandeliers, which must have given a perfect finish to the room; but these have been improved away for rather insignificant modern lights, and all over the roof are these hideous whirling electric fans which spoil the whole effect of the classic Georgian style—the swinging punkah can at least be good to look at, and even tolerable, if it is ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... coil. When the discharge is sent through the tube, there proceeds from the anode—that is, the wire which is connected with the positive pole of the battery—certain bands of light, varying in colour with the colour of the glass. But these are insignificant in comparison with the brilliant glow which shoots from the cathode, or negative wire. This glow excites brilliant phosphorescence in glass and many substances, and these "cathode rays," as they are called, were observed and studied by Hertz; and more deeply by his assistant, Professor Lenard, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... road on leaving Uri takes a long bend of some miles to the right to a point where the Haji Pir River is crossed, and then sweeps back along its right hank to a spot almost opposite the dak bungalow, we thought that a short cut down to the water, which from our height seemed quite insignificant, and thence up to the road on the other side, would be a desirable stroll. As we walked down the steep path into the nullah a brace of red-legged partridges (chikor) rose in a great fuss, and sailed gaily across the river, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... How insignificant, how miserable and wretched in the midst of this expanse of sky and earth, seemed the huddling bunch of dejected buildings, and yet the whole interest of heaven above and earth around centred in those straggling shacks, for they ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... object of Henry's policy. For this purpose the primary condition was that none of his subjects should be sufficiently powerful to challenge his authority and raise the standard of revolt, as the King-Maker and others had done in the past. The old nobility were practically wiped out. Insignificant husbands were chosen for the daughters of York. The blood of the Plantagenets ran in the veins of the house of Buckingham; but it was only in the last generation that the De la Poles had mated with the royal house, and ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... safe the chance of Pauline's being killed during the flight on the following day was insignificant. He must give up all hope of wealth from the permanent control of her estate. As the evening wore on Owen began to feel how he had unconsciously relied on this hope. He doubled his evening dose of morphine, but it neither soothed his disappointment ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... interested in different things," and "Milly doesn't care for ideas, you know." Mrs. Fredericks, who considered herself to be in the flood-tide of the modern intellectual movement, had few moments to spare for her insignificant friend. Milly realized this with a touch of bitterness. "I can't do anything for her in any way. I can't help on her game." She knew that these ambitious, modern, intellectual women, with whom she had been thrown, had no use for ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... vegetables are grown. Occasionally a considerable planting of bananas will be found, while many villages are buried beneath the shade of coconut trees, but in comparison with rice the cultivation of other crops becomes insignificant. Nevertheless, a considerable amount of food stuff, as well as of plants and trees used in household industries, are planted in prepared land; while many of wild growths are utilized. The following list is doubtless ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... it is doubtful if a young ash is anywhere to be found; if so it is an accident. The ash is even rarer than the rest. In their places are put more laurels, cedar deodaras, various evergreens, rhododendrons, planes. How tame and insignificant are these compared with the oak! Thrice a year the oaks become beautiful in ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... and halting effort it seemed to me, for all that we had paid him twenty-five thousand dollars for his services—pointing out how neither Dillingham nor Hawkins was worthy of belief, and how the case against us rested entirely upon their testimony and upon that of the clerk, who was an insignificant and unimportant witness injected simply for the sake of apparent corroboration. Faugh! I have heard Gottlieb make a better address to the jury a thousand times, and yet this man was supposed to be one of the best! Somehow throughout the trial he had seemed to me to be ill at ease and sick of his ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... course there was a great deal of miserable struggle even then, but I remember it as insignificant compared with the hours of contented work. I seldom did anything in the mornings except think and prepare; towards evening I felt myself getting ready, and at last I sat down with the first lines buzzing in my head. And I used to read a great deal at the same time. Whilst ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... operations. Desertion was fairly common among the Turks about this time, partly because rations were poor, but mainly because they had no stomach for the fight that they knew to be imminent. In so far as this raid affected us, our trenches were badly smashed by the artillery, but our casualties were insignificant. ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... can come in to dispute the decisive result of the experiment, or explain away its failure. The least vivid fancy will have no difficulty in taking up the interrupted design, and by wholly enfeebling, or materially emboldening, the insignificant nature of Charles; and by according some half-dozen years of immunity to the 'fretted tenement' of Strafford's 'fiery soul',—contemplate then, for itself, the perfect realization of the scheme of 'making the prince the most absolute lord in Christendom.' ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... that all the creeds of men which limit the divine favour are false. With whatsoever panics worms of the dust may have struck their fellow worms by challenging them to a decision of their weak, insignificant notions at a tribunal of an omnipotent judge, such solemn appeals can have but little effect on the humble mind who leans not to his own wisdom, and who views every thing already decided in the ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... any thing of an air distinguishable it will please. There are at present a host of composers in France whose fame will probably be not so long as their lives; Paris is inundated every year with a number of insignificant ballads which just have their day, and if perchance there should be one or more that are really clever amongst the mass of dross which comes forth, after a twelvemonth no one would think of singing it because ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... syphilis, then, as a serious but by no means hopeless constitutional disease. Dismiss chancroid as a relatively insignificant local affair, seldom a serious problem under a physician's care. Separate syphilis from gonorrhea for the reason that gonorrhea is a problem in itself. Against its train of misfortune to innocence ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... could not see. Far away on the port bow a long gray shape lay—a moored vessel. To starboard were faint blurs, indistinguishable, insignificant; ahead, a black dot with a faint comet-like tail—the pursued cutter—and ahead of that, again, a streak across the blackness, with another dot slightly to the left ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... was a fresh in it; and as we had had rain, and saw that the clouds hung on the mountains behind us, we were in hopes the supply the river was receiving came from Laidley's Ponds. On the following morning the waters of the Darling were half-bank high, and from an insignificant stream it was at once converted into a broad and noble river, sweeping everything away on its turbid waters at the rate of these or four miles an hour. The river still continues to rise, and is fast filling ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... composition was completed. "M. de Buffon gives reasons for the preference he shows as to every word in his discourses, without excluding from the discussion even the smallest particles, the most insignificant conjunctions," says Madame Necker; "he never forgot that he had written 'the style is the man.' The language could not be allowed to derogate from the majesty of the subject. 'I made it a rule,' he used to say, 'to always fix upon the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... is heavy, and even the merest pebble has a perceptible weight, yet the entire planet, toward which both gravitate, floats more lightly than any feather. In literature somewhat analogous may be observed. Here also are found the insignificant lightness of the pebble and the mighty lightness of the planet; while between them range the weighty masses, superior to the petty ponderability of the one, and unequal to the firmamental float of the other. Accordingly, setting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... unending roar of rifles and crash of shells, that I merely mechanically wake at the appointed hour, mechanically perform my duty and as mechanically fall asleep again. My ego has been crushed out of me, and I have become, doubtless, quite rightly so, an insignificant atom in a curious thing called a siege. No mortal under such circumstances, no matter how faithful to an appointed task, can put pencil to paper, and attempt to sketch the confusion and smoke around him. You may try, perhaps, as I have tried, and then, suddenly, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... honors to General Greene, who, by his prudence, wisdom, and valor, had, with such insignificant forces and miserable equipments, achieved so much for the cause of liberty. He never gained a decided victory, yet his defeats bad all the effect of successes, and his very retreats strengthened the confidence of his men and weakened that ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... asked "What is all this fuss that is being made about negroes? What does it amount to? And where will it end?" These questions imply that those who ask them consider the slavery question a very insignificant matter they think that it amounts to little or nothing and that those who agitate it are extremely foolish. Now it must be admitted that if the great question which has caused so much trouble is insignificant, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... remonstrance rang out on deck—to be echoed in clamour. His cigarette stopped behind, on the taffrail, carefully placed at precisely the height of his head, its little glowing tip the only spot of light on the decks. No matter whether or not it were noted; no precaution is too insignificant to be important when life and death are ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... blinded us and fled! I have since then contended and rejoiced; Amid the glories of the house of life Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld: Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love Fall insignificant on my closing ears, What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind In our inclement city? what return But the image of the emptiness of youth, Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice Of discontent ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... last, feeling about in the darkness. His hands encountered smooth, blank walls, on each side of the door. He dared not step forward lest he should run against machinery or meet with some cavity in the flooring. And reflecting that the small, insignificant gleam which it would make could scarcely be noticed from outside, he struck a match, and carefully holding it within the flap of his outstretched jacket, looked around him. A first quick glance gave him ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... join the Colonial Dames because it meant raking over the bones of all my ancestors—whom may the Saints rest! Most Southern relationships amount to no relationship at all, and Harriet's is too insignificant to mention." ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Infinite Intelligence which knows all that is hidden in that darkness, and all that man will discover therein, how poor a thing is the telephone or phonograph, how insignificant are all his 'great discoveries'! This thought should imbue a man of science with humility rather than with pride. Seen from another standpoint than his own, from without the circle of his labours, not ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... or spirituality the less spiritual, for such a doctrine; and I must believe it even on the hypothesis of you spiritual folks; for you generally affirm that the Belief of a Future Life does not really exercise any thing more than an insignificant influence on human nature; the hopes and the fears of that so distant a morrow are too vague to be operative. Now, if it be so, immortality can be no more a ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the society of the lively, attractive ladies of New York? Of course there are exceptions, where active and superior minds become highly cultivated by their own persevering exertions; but the aids offered by ladies' schools are comparatively insignificant. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... could he suppose the human race would be nearer, by the veriest fraction of a millimetre, to universal liberty, equality, and prosperity, through his insignificant death? Modesty, and a natural instinct of self-preservation alike answered, "never a jot." Whereupon with pertinacious, if furtive, activity he sought means of escape. And, at length, after months of hiding and anxious flitting, found them in the shape of a doubtfully seaworthy, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... that many people live and die without, consciously at least, recognising this relation. The thought of death may have had a very small place in their lives, and when death itself comes it may, for various reasons, be a very insignificant experience to them. It may come in a moment, suddenly, and give no time for feeling; or it may come as the last step in a natural process of decay, and arrest life almost unconsciously; or it may come through ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... to regard as unendurable. But in this time of discouragement there were cases brought to my notice, the severity of which fairly humbled me in the dust, filling my heart with thankfulness at the exemption extended to us, and showing me that afflictions are really great or insignificant only by comparison. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... Skinner. And we wondered precisely what George Moore means when he says that Stevenson is all right except when he tries to tell a story. According to Moore, a story is not a story if it keeps you up half the night; "it is only the insignificant book that cannot be laid down," he ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... the Chaplain twelve hundred, the Purser of a line-of-battle ship receives thirty-five hundred dollars. In considering his salary, however, his responsibilities are not to be over-looked; they are by no means insignificant. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... hippopotamus and crocodile hunting is a piece of soft steel about eleven inches long, with a narrow blade or point of about three-quarters of an inch in width, and a single but powerful barb. To this short, and apparently insignificant weapon, a strong rope is secured, about twenty feet in length, at the extremity of which is a buoy or float as large as a child's head formed of an extremely light wood called ambatch (Anemone mirabilis), that is about half the specific ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... strange thing, how a man's physical body may be his fortress or his enemy. All the world has at times beheld those whom an insignificant figure and an ill-modelled face handicapped with a severity cruel to the utmost. A great man but five feet high, and awkward of bearing, has always added to his efforts at accomplishing great deeds the weight ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... perception in his feeling for Savina; carried along in the tempestuous flood of her emotion, he yet had time to linger over and enjoy the occurrences by the way. He liked each day for itself, and she regarded it only as an insignificant detail of their unity. All her planning, her dress and ardor and moods, were directed to one never-lost-sight-of end; but he disposed his attention in a hundred channels. Lee began to be aware of the tremendous single economy of women, the constant bending back of their ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Mutiny, in which Roberts and many another British soldier was to be plunged, had its immediate cause in a strange thing—greased cartridges! How so insignificant a thing could have started so great a trouble is one of the strange, true stories of history. There were, of course, other contributory factors, but this was the match ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... of any one type,—that of the 'Crocodilia', has persisted from at least the commencement of the Mesozoic epoch up to the present time with so much constancy, that the amount of change which it exhibits may fairly, in relation to the time which has elapsed, be called insignificant. And the imperfect knowledge we have of the ancient mammalian population of our earth leads to the belief that certain of its types, such as that of the 'Marsupialia', have persisted with correspondingly little change through a similar ...
— Time and Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... expressed in the camp of Borealis, which appeared like a herd of small, brown houses, pitifully insignificant in all that immensity, and gathered together as if for company, trustfully nestling in the hand of the earth-mother, known to be so gentle with her children. On the hill-sides, smaller mining houses stood, each one emphasized ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... been severely taken to task by some insignificant writers of our day for the above passage, let us, not for his vindication, but excuse, take a moment's glance at Speght's edition (1602,) which, in Dryden's day, was in high esteem, and had been at first published on the recommendation of Speght's "assured and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... one near the east end of the wing, which is twenty-seven feet in diameter, was three stories in height. The floor-beams are removed, but the remains show this plainly. The interior is nearly filled up, but it was originally over twenty-five feet in depth. The ruins of the other estufa are insignificant compared with this, and it probably consisted of but one low room. Facing the center of the court are remains of what were three circular rooms. At the end of the wings, outside of the building, are faint outlines of other circular ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... breathlessly ten minutes late, was very thin, badly dressed and insignificant-looking, wore her hair short, and could not see you if you were more than four feet away from her. She had been on various lonely and distant travelling excursions, about which she had written books, had ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... points were given in Sampson's favour, and some against him; and the upshot was, that, instead of being desired to travel for a time in foreign parts, he was permitted to grace the mother country under certain insignificant restrictions. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... garden, separated on the further side by a low hedge from the old ivy-covered church. On the back steps of the church, Sextoness Jane was shaking out her duster. She was old and gray and insignificant looking; her duties as sexton, in which she had succeeded her father, were her great delight. The will with which she sang and worked now seemed to have in it something of reproach for the girl stretched out idly in ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... Foreign affairs were mingled with domestic politics, and the Democratic and Federalist parties became avowedly organized. Washington was for a time allowed to keep aloof from the contest—not for a long time. A circumstance insignificant in itself increased the bitterness of the contest out of doors. Democratic societies had been formed on the model of the Jacobin clubs of France. Washington regarded them with alarm, and the unmeasured expression of his sentiments on ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... A purple pourpoint, crimson breeches, an amber-colored cloak, and a huge hat with a blue feather set off a figure of extravagantly martial presence. Where the face of the first-comer was pale, insignificant, and timid, that of the second-comer was ruddy, assertive, and bold. The only point in common with his predecessor was that he, too, swung at his side a monstrous rapier. The sight of this whimsical stranger was ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... poorhouse was about a mile and a half. For the first half mile Deacon Pinkerton kept silence. Then he began to speak, in a tone of cold condescension, as if it were a favor for such a superior being to address an insignificant child, about to ...
— The Cash Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... did not appear to be quite satisfied with the conduct of Perth, and, reaching over the shoulder of the second master, he took the paper from the atlas. Of course this act produced a sensation among the boys; the most insignificant event creates a sensation in the school-room. Mr. Mapps lowered the pointer, and intimated by his actions that he did not intend to proceed till order was restored. Perth was confounded this time, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... be remembered that an Austrian force had been reported approaching from the south, moving on Krupanie, and that it had seemed so insignificant that a small detachment of third reserve troops had been sent to hold it back. But this enemy force now ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... "Radial Paralysis" and "Brachial Paralysis," there is to be found in veterinary literature a discussion of conditions which vary in character from the almost insignificant form of paresis to the incurably affected conditions wherein the whole shoulder is ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... strength, and the absence of drill was of no consequence whatever in such an engagement. They were perfectly sheltered from the enemy's fire while engaged in calmly shooting him down, and their loss, up to the moment when the British rushed among them, was altogether insignificant. Their casualties took place after the position was stormed and on their retreat along the peninsula, and amounted in all to 145 killed and captured and 304 wounded. It may be said that both sides fought well; but, from the circumstances under which they ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. "It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... ejaculated bitterly, "that we should have been compelled to strike to such an insignificant craft as that!" pointing to the schooner. "But," he added, "you did not fight fair; you never gave us a chance. Had you but once fairly come within range of our guns we would have blown you out of ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... millions from the civil list. The first chamber, however, refused its assent to these resolutions, the law of censorship was retained, and the saving in the expenditure of the crown was reduced to an extremely insignificant amount. In the autumn of 1832, Prince Otto, the king's second son, was, with the consent of the sultan, elected king of Greece by the great maritime powers intrusted with the decision of the Greek question, and Count Armansperg, formerly minister of Bavaria, was ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... after he had studied those few bold words in the telegram, trying to squeeze the utmost meaning out of the brief sentence. "You see, Captain Winstanley does not say that your mother is dangerously ill, or even very ill; he only says ill. That might mean something quite insignificant—hay-fever or neuralgia, ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... what had been expected to lead off a large defection from the colonial clergy were numerically insignificant; but very far from insignificant was the fact that in Connecticut a sincere and spontaneous movement toward the Episcopal Church had arisen among men honored and beloved, whose ecclesiastical views were not tainted ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... they had their representatives, and hand in hand with the liberal and counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, they began a furious and insane campaign against the proposed demonstration, as soon as they heard of it. All their forces were marshalled against us. We had an insignificant minority in the Council and withdrew. The demonstration ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... youth. She looked as though she were four-and-twenty, but in truth she was no more than eighteen. When seen beside her aunt, she seemed to be no more than half the elder lady's size; and yet her proportions were not insignificant. She, too, was tall, and was as one used to command, and walked as though she were a young Juno. Her hair was very dark,—almost black,—and very plentiful. Her eyes were large and bright, though too bold for a girl so ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Siberia, where much ethnological work yet remains to be done, and where a tendency toward this form of numeration has been observed to exist. But the total number of Asiatic vigesimal scales must always remain small—quite insignificant in comparison ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... low. I've seen him forget, just once, and turn on a man, humiliate him, wound his pride, crush him under foot and think no more of the matter than if he had stepped on a worm. And I've seen that man, the most insignificant of the politician's followers, work and plot and scheme to overthrow him; and in the end succeed. The big man never knew what struck him. He thought it was luck, chance, a turn of the wheel. He never dreamed that it was his own character hitting back. I've seen it so often, I'm a fatalist. ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... that now overshadows us does not arise from real grievances. Plotters for disunion avail themselves of the weakness of the executive to precipitate revolution. South Carolina has taken the lead. The movement would be utterly insignificant if confined to that state. She is still in the Union, and neither the President nor Congress has the power to consent to her withdrawal. This can only be by a change in the constitution or the acquiescence of the people of the other states. The defense of the property of the United States and the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... was but an insignificant town in comparison with what it has since become, although from its confined situation it is unlikely ever to attain to any great size. It is the port of the capital of the province, Christchurch, ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... more; and so, drenched, chilled, and weary, the lonely lad crept back into the "shanty." How dreary it was to be its sole occupant! If he only had some one to talk, plan, and consult with! He felt so helpless and insignificant there in the dark, drifting down the great river on a raft that, without help, he was as incapable of managing as a baby. What ought he to do? What should he do? It was so hard to think without putting his thoughts into words. Even Elta's presence and counsel ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... whether you prefer the word Mozart-Gesellschaft [Mozart Society] or Mozart-herein for the Publication of the Complete Works of Mozart, or any other title.) Together with this I repeat that certainly there is no need to fear any loss in this matter, but that probably there will be a not insignificant gain. This gain, according to my ideas, should be formed into a capital, until the edition is completed, to be then employed, or perhaps not till later, by the Society of Austrian Lovers of Music for some artistic ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... official report, there was a reconnaissance in force under General Ducrot in the direction of Bougival and Rucil. The Mobiles, we are told, behaved well, but the loss on either side was insignificant. Our amateur strategists are divided as to the expediency of taking Versailles, with the whole Prussian quartier-general, or reopening communications with the provinces by the way of Orleans. The relative advantages ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... upon their victim, until at length the slight wound becomes a sore of great magnitude, and never heals. Mortification at length ensues, and the death of the snake is then certain. You can see that if the insects are weak and insignificant, nature teaches them a method of avenging their wrongs, and they are not ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... it. The world of tape measures and calico counters seemed so far away; the interior of his quondam lodgings in a by-street of Islington, so unfamiliar and impossible. He felt himself swallowed up in this new and bewildering existence, of which he was so insignificant an atom, the existence where tragedy reared her gloomy head, and the shadows of great things loomed around him. Down there in the cold restless waste of black waters—what was it that he saw? The sweat broke out upon his forehead, the blood seemed turned to ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... one might as well say that Romeo and Juliet is a dramatic study of pharmacy because the catastrophe is brought about through an apothecary. Duels are not sex; divorce cases are not sex; the Trade Unionism of married women is not sex. Only the most insignificant fraction of the gallantries of married people produce any of the conventional results; and plays occupied wholly with the conventional results are therefore utterly unsatisfying as sex plays, however interesting they may be as plays ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... introduced the new Military Service Bill, establishing compulsion for all men married or single, Colonel CRAIG made a vain appeal to Mr. REDMOND to get the measure extended to Ireland. Nothing would do more to show the world that the recent rebellion was only the work of an insignificant section ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... and pressure of the time (to repeat Hamlet's phrase) is such that thoughtful men—and of such the Club is exclusively composed: men of great heart, men of nice susceptibility—are continually oppressed by the fumbling, hasty, and insignificant manner in which human contacts are accomplished. Let us even say, masculine contacts: for the first task of any philosopher being to simplify his problem so that he can examine it clearly and with less distraction, the Club makes a great and drastic purge by sweeping away altogether the enigmatic ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... to reason, justice, and nature, must those act, who apply this, the severest of human punishments, to the most insignificant offence! yet such is the custom with the Africans: for, from the time, in which the Europeans first intoxicated the African princes with their foreign draughts, no crime has been committed, no shadow of a crime devised, that has not immediately been ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... himself and other friends should advise. And I heartily wish his Grace had entirely stifled that comedy, if it were possible, than do an injury to our friend's reputation, only to get a hundred or two pounds to a couple of, perhaps, insignificant women. It has been printed here, and I am grieved to say it is a very poor performance. I have often chid Mr. Gay for not varying his schemes, but still adhering to those he had exhausted; and I much doubt whether the posthumous Fables will prove equal to the first. I think it is incumbent upon ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... the average woman would not have ventured, and she stood now courageously intent only upon having the way of what she felt was right and justice. There came to me as I looked at her a curious sense that I and all my friends were very insignificant creatures; and it was so, I think, in sooth, she ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... what changes they passed, or when they were endowed with the power of giving light to the universe, the Bible nowhere declares; but on the fourth day, it tells us, they were made lights, or, literally, light-bearers, to this earth. The comparatively insignificant place allotted to the stars, in the narrative of this earth's formation, corresponds, with the strictest propriety, to the nature of the discourse; which is not an account of the system of the universe, but of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... the property," he said, "the house looked very differently. It was stuck full of little insignificant windows that affected me like staring eyes; its two or three inches of cornice stole timidly out, as if ashamed of itself, over the side, and the whole wore an awkward and sheepish air. It made me uncomfortable every ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Fields, "you have suffered loss. I have a hundred thousand dollars which I have forced you to present me with. That is a large sum, though to us who are so familiar with millions it seems small, almost insignificant; but, in reality, it has a great importance. You now see, my friends, what a part of your money-making mechanism may achieve. There is no bank, even of third-rate importance, in this city, whose receiving ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... to public estimation as a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources within himself to support his borrowed dignity, he dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and shrunk out the rest of his insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the vilest of mankind." And then on he goes, in a style of rhodomontade, but filled with living indignation, to declare his right to a political opinion, and his ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... produced no woman of greater or more incontestable genius. She has left but one book behind her, a novel, called "Wuthering Heights," a curious title, which seems to suggest a storm on a mountain peak. She was the daughter of an English clergyman, the Rev. Patrick Bronte, who was the most insignificant, selfish, lethargic, pretentious creature the mind can conceive. There were only two things in life that seemed of importance to him—the purity of his Greek profile, and solicitude for his digestion. As for Emily's unfortunate mother, her whole life would seem to have been ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... up in battle array, and threw forward their muskets; but as there were only a dozen of them, they presented a very insignificant group compared with the crowds of Esquimaux who appeared on the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the eye; the mudbank in the river; the hen in the road! Just think of the outcome of such insignificant incidents. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... immediate impression of her had been that she was dressed in mourning, but during the few moments she stood talking with our friend I made more discoveries. The figure from the neck down was meagre, the stature insignificant, but the desire to please towered high, as well as the air of infallibly knowing how and of never, never missing it. This was a little person whom I would have made a high bid for a good chance to paint. The head, the features, the colour, the whole facial oval and radiance ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... appearance but rather attractive in its way, is that the comparative critic becomes too much of a universal lover, and too little of an enthusiast, that he has an irritating and ungentlemanly habit of seeing blemishes in the greatest, a pottering and peddling fancy for discovering beauties in the most insignificant; that he lacks the exclusiveness and the fastidiousness of intellectual aristocracy, the fervour and rapture of aesthetic passion. To this, one can answer little more than, "It may be so." Certainly the critic of this kind will very rarely be able ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... away: there was no evading that. An insignificant boy thousands of miles away had sent out a cry for help, and she, the proud and blessed, who had always considered herself quite as spunky as another person, had bolted in a panic. And she had bolted too fast, it seemed, to consider even that, with that cry, there had come a new element ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... swathed in the mists of legend and doubt, was discovered the most reverend, because most ancient record of the new dispensation which dethroned that mountain, and silenced the thunders of the pedagogue law! Is it not possible that yet, in some ancient convent, insignificant to the eye of the traveller as modern Nazareth would be but for its ancient story, some one of the original gospel-manuscripts may lie, truthful and unblotted from the hand of the very evangelist?—Oh lovely parchment!' I thought—'if eye of man might but see thee! if lips ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... the winds of adversity howl about our dwelling, we shall find it will stand, being founded on a ROCK. But if we build upon "the sands" of fame or self-aggrandizement, and, like the towering oak, lift our insignificant heads in proud defiance of the coming storm, we may expect that our superstruction will fall! "And great will be ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... a small member of a large organization has an excellent effect upon the mind. From the presence of numbers a certain dignity gathers round many things that would in themselves be insignificant. Ideas of corporate life with its obligations and responsibilities are gained. Honoured traditions and ideals are handed down if the school has a history and spirit of its own. There are impressive and solemn moments in the life of a large school which remain in the memory as something ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... horn, but the horse did not look fit to carry "gear," and seemed to require two men to hold and coax him. There were many loafers about, and I shrank from going out and mounting in my old Hawaiian riding dress, though Dr. and Mrs. H. assured me that I looked quite "insignificant and unnoticeable." We got away at nine with repeated injunctions from the landlord in the words, "Oh, you should ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... Revolution, however, the men from the sea-coast region formed but an insignificant portion of the western pioneers. The country beyond the Alleghanies was first won and settled by the backwoodsmen themselves, acting under their own leaders, obeying their own desires, and following their own methods. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... hands. This stands for him, undertakes to represent him, though, from its partial nature, it can only typify certain aspects or functions of him. A Gothic cathedral is an attempt at a universal expression of humanity, a stone image of society, in which each particle, insignificant by itself, has its meaning in the connection. It was the fresh interest in the attempt that gave birth to that wonderful architecture. This is the interest it still has, but now only historical, since the discovery was made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... members of each class were received in the order of their seniority. We change our Ministers with every Administration. So the Minister of the United States is likely to be among the juniors. He might have to wait all day, while the representatives of insignificant little States were received one after another. If, before the day ended, his turn came, some Ambassador would arrive, who would get there, perhaps, five minutes before it was time for Mr. Lincoln to go in, he had precedence at ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... which nothing can, upon a superficial view, be considered more insignificant, was, a few years back, of very considerable value, far surpassing the value of many things acquired by difficulty and danger, and for which the breadth of oceans are traversed, through storms and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... nature of the land and the lack of water they would not be in the possession of the people at all, but would long ago have been taken by the nearest hacienda. Indeed, possibly they may be upon the territory claimed by such, but of too insignificant a nature to be disturbed. Let us survey briefly these poor dwellers on Nature's waste places. We have ridden for hours under the sun and wind; our faces are scorched and our lips are cracked. "Is there no sombra where we ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... emotion, "I shall never be able sufficiently to testify my gratitude to the generous King of France. I am a poor, insignificant woman, who can thankfully accept but never requite ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... informed the moment the Captain put in an appearance. But, alas! what is friendship—even friendship reinforced by gratitude—beside love? As the poets have often remarked, in language not here to be attained, its power is insignificant, and its claims go to the wall. On fire with the emotions excited by the Countess's message, the Count forgot both Dieppe and all that he owed to Dieppe's intercession; the matter went clean out ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... of a perfectly similar kind has existed in the Shetland Islands, which furnishes a striking example, perhaps the only one now existing, of the very lasting propagation by sympathy of this species of disorders. The origin of the malady was very insignificant. An epileptic woman had a fit in church, and whether it was that the minds of the congregation were excited by devotion, or that, being overcome at the sight of the strong convulsions, their sympathy was called forth, certain it is that many adult women, and ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... past seemed those events! And as to my mother's anger against Winifred, that anger and cruel scorn of class which had concerned me so much, how insignificant now seemed this and every other obstacle in love's path! I looked up at the moonlit sky; I leaned upon a gate and looked across the silent fields where Winifred and I used to gather violets in spring, hedge-roses in summer, mushrooms in ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... certain, legal proofs were apparently lacking; but in consequence of this glaring infraction of the rights of both author and publisher, on December 28th, 1838, Balzac became a member of the Societe des Gens-de-Lettres. This Society, which was insignificant when he first joined it, owed everything to his reputation, and to the energy with which he worked for its interests. On October 22, 1839, he spoke at Rouen in its behalf, in the first action brought by it against literacy piracy. Later in the same year he was elected President, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... long breath as he saw with me that the gig's crew were on board the cutter, and that the boat was being hoisted up, while, at the same time, with the speed to be seen on a man-of-war, even if it be so insignificant a vessel as a revenue cutter, sail was being hoisted, and she was off ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... of the Brotherhood of Science, I desire to contribute, in however insignificant a degree, to the Great Cause of Learning. I will therefore, with Your Permission, read" (loud cries of 'No! No!' 'Put him out!' etc., to which of course I paid no attention,) "the following papers: 'An ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... undersized, insignificant-looking chap toddling aimlessly along the street a few blocks away from the station. We grappled with him and hustled him back to the crowd. He slept with us on the floor, and no one paid any further attention to him, except to remark that he talked to himself a ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... safe? If they could thus roast them slowly to death, why not kill them at once, by throwing the waxen image in the fire? Who can have given such power to the devil? Is it the Almighty, to satisfy the revenge of an insignificant woman, or the jealousy of lovers ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... Aeliana (third series, 1914, xi. 279-310); see also a short account by myself in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London (xxvi. 185-9). The discoveries were comparatively few; they comprised some ill-preserved and mostly insignificant buildings on the north side of the site, some ditches, and a stretch of the road leading to the north (Dere Street). Among small objects were an interesting but imperfect altar to 'Panthea ...', a bronze 'balsamarium' showing a puzzling variety of barbarian's ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield |
