"Unreadiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like electric sparks. He proposed just to run through the morrow's evidence with "our young friend there"; and in the course of this rehearsal said more than once: "Good ... good! Why, sonny, you're quite smart." This when Johnny succeeded in grasping his drift. But at the least hint of unreadiness or hesitation, he tut-tutted and drew his brows together. And as it went on, it seemed to Mahony that Ocock was putting words into the boy's mouth; while Johnny, intimidated, said yes and amen to things he could not possibly know. Presently he interfered to this effect. Ocock ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... followed, we find in it such unity of subject and thoroughness of treatment as to give to the whole both beauty and worth beyond the sum of these qualities exhibited in the several parts. Vigilant waiting in the Lord's cause, and the dangers of unreadiness are exemplified in the story of the virgins; diligence in work and the calamitous results of sloth are prominent features of the tale of the talents. These two phases of service are of reciprocal and complementary import; it is as necessary at times to wait as at others ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... throughout Western India. Nor is there anything in such a natural sentiment that need give umbrage to Englishmen; although the liberality of a recent English governor of Bombay who headed a list of subscriptions for public commemoration of the deed, betrayed a somewhat simple-minded unreadiness to appreciate the significance ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... admiral looked very keenly at his subordinate, and asked him to explain his ship's unreadiness, while the rest of the captains looked the astonishment they were too polite to put into words. The ensuing explanation was somewhat unintelligible to Frobisher, notwithstanding the valiant efforts of his interpreter. But he gathered that the admiral considered Prince Hsi's reasons as quite ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... during the night down came so thick a fall of snow that it completely covered up the stacks of arms and the men themselves lying down. It cramped and crippled the baggage animals; and there was great unreadiness to get up, so gently fell the snow as they lay there warm and comfortable, and formed a blanket, except where it slipped off the sleepers' shoulders; and it was not until Xenophon roused himself to get up, and, without his cloak on (1), began to split wood, that quickly ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... Belgium. They would have been held at Liege and in the Ardennes. Five hundred thousand men would have held them indefinitely. But the Allies had never worked trench warfare; they were unready for it, Germans knew of their unreadiness, and their unreadiness it is quite clear they calculated. They did not reckon, it is now clear that they were right in not reckoning, the Allies as contemporary soldiers. They were going to fight a 1900 army with a 1914 army, and ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... indistinguishable from play as it partakes of its characteristics, or it may swing to the other extreme and be almost drudgery. The difference between the three activities is a subjective matter—a difference largely in mood, in attitude of the person concerned, due to the readiness or unreadiness of the neurone tracts exercised. The same activity may be play for one person, work for another, and drudgery for still another. Further, for the same person the same activity may be play, work, or drudgery, at different times, even within ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... month of March then, the departure of the Spanish fleet was delayed only by its own unreadiness to sail, due in part to the obvious incompetence of the Duke of Medina Sidonia who had been appointed, very much against his own will, to the command; for he was absolutely devoid of any naval or even military experience. The English ships were in admirable order; [Footnote: Laughton, i., ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... blockheads!" he growled, apostrophizing his own unreadiness. "But I'll find her again. She said she'd send her brother to the hotel with the dinner money, and when I get hold of him it will go hard with me if I don't manage some way to ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... on the Continent; but, still, there is often to be found a crowd of people ready to eat if only the wherewithal were there. We are often told in our newspapers that England is disgraced by this and by that; by the unreadiness of our army, by the unfitness of our navy, by the irrationality of our laws, by the immobility of our prejudices, and what not; but the real disgrace of England is the railway sandwich,—that whited sepulchre, fair enough outside, but so meagre, poor, and spiritless within, such ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... unnatural about his heel; but he could lift, and he did not drag, his leg. Also he spoke of some strangeness of his left hand and arm; missed the spot on which he wished to lay that hand, unless he carefully looked at it; felt an unreadiness to lift his hands towards his head, especially his left hand—when, for instance, he ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... one of the few men who can do almost any kind of literary work at will—you, of whom it is said that your 'brains are on tap'—will they be lenient with you? Bah! Can't you see that the very fact of your invariable readiness heretofore is going to make your present unreadiness ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs |
