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More "Idle words" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reflection, who is not disturbed at home and meddles not with the affairs of the world, may keep his mind at ease and his thoughts in one even course. But such a man has not been tried. All his Ethical philosophy and his passive virtue might turn out to be idle words, if he were once exposed to the rude realities of human existence. Fine thoughts and moral dissertations from men who have not worked and suffered may be read, but they will be forgotten. No religion, no Ethical philosophy is worth anything, if the teacher ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... beginning, middle, or end, that which is left will be more reasonable and nearer to sense than the whole, and yet he is paid for all; for when he draws up a business, like a captain that makes false musters, he produces as many loose and idle words as he can possibly come by until he has received for them, and then turns them off and retains only those that are to the purpose. This he calls drawing of breviates. All that appears of his studies is, in short, time converted into waste-paper, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... the rest may wait. If lost, No great loss, I divine; 150 And idle words will better suit A fair maid's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... for it were loyal to our Puritanic antecedents, and considered it all-important that our lightest actions should be moved by some earnest impulse from behind. We might write playfully, but there must be conscience and reverence somewhere within it all. We had been taught, and we believed, that idle words were a sin, whether spoken or written. This, no doubt, gave us a gravity of expression rather unnatural ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... women. She had taken advantage of the privilege of her sex when she feigned to doubt Paul's fervent declaration that afternoon. She did believe him. Her keen feminine instinct told her that his simple "I love you" were not the idle words she ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... sudden nightfall over bloom and green The curtain dropped: and, momently, between The clank of fetter and the crack of thong, Half sob, half laughter, music swept along; A strange refrain, whose idle words and low, Like drunken mourners, kept the time of woe; As if the revellers at a masquerade Heard in the distance funeral marches played. Such music, dashing all his smiles with tears, The thoughtful voyager on Ponchartrain hears, Where, through the noonday dusk of wooded ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... work and the morrow's plans and went to bed. Rachel had not been knitting for some time, but she folded up her work and passed in without a word. Friends of the stricter sort were as careful of vain and idle words as ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... must also, by consequent, be their use and helpe, and no lesse all they that trust unto them. . . . How can religion or reason suffer men that are not void of both, to give such impious credit unto an insignificant and senseless mumbling of idle words contrary to reason, without president of any truly wise or learned, and justly suspected of ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... with the line of opinions which you had adopted. In them I never acquiesced. Doubtless I may have used at times sentiments and expressions, which I should not now use; but I believe these had no root in my mind, and as such they were mere idle words which I ought ever to be ashamed of, because they were idle. But the opinions to which I especially alluded in my former letter as associated by the world with your Grace's name under the title of 'Liberal,' (but not, as you suppose, received by me on the world's authority,) ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... cabs, and the cries of drivers, and all the varying rush and turmoil of a great metropolis. Green fields, and running rivers, and fruit that did not grow in wooden boxes or brown paper cones, were myths and idle words to Snipes, but this "unclean, wicked city" ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... not shout thy resolves into a man's ear didst not thou want him to hear them," replied John carelessly, and forgot the idle words which were to bear an ill and unexpected crop for him ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... their own and others' spiritual improvement, disputes and quarrels had given way to the most edifying concord. The servants, moved by their example, performed their duties with exemplary zeal, frequented the churches and the sacraments, and abstained from profane or idle words. They accordingly entreated their mother to give up her fruitless attempts, and allow the two young women liberty to follow the rule of life they had adopted; and thus put an end to the kindly meant but trying ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... unless something of the kind be done—unless some great and radical change be effected, and some little compensation made for the wrongs and injuries we inflict—I feel thoroughly satisfied that all we are doing is but time and money lost, that all our efforts on behalf of the natives are but idle words—voces et preterea nihil—that things will still go on as they have been going on, and that ten years hence we shall have made no more progress either in civilizing or in christianizing them than we had done ten years ago, whilst ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... start and sicken, because it hurts your tender susceptibilities. Yet hear me, Philip." Suddenly changing her tone of passionate scorn to one of entreaty as passionate, "Do not cast me off for a few idle words. They have done no harm. Let us be as ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... have eaten it. I gad, sir—Pardon me, ma'am." With a nod she pronounced her forgiveness. The slip was but a pretense, foisted to change the talk to suit his purpose. "Ah," said he, "I have not yet weeded out all my idle words, and it grieves me when I am surprised by the recurrence of one which must be detestable; but, ma'am, I try hard, and there is always ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... about Voltaire—"Irony incarnate for the salvation of mankind." Like Gambetta, Victor Hugo is to be buried without religious rites, according to his will. No priest is to profane the sanctity of death by mumbling idle words over his grave concerning what he is as ignorant of as the corpse at his feet. In death, as in life, the Freethinker would confront the universe alone from the impregnable rock of ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... may and do happen to a good man in this life, and therefore presumably misfortunes may also overtake him in any other life that there may be. The only evil that can never befall him is vice, because that would be a contradiction in terms. Unless therefore Socrates was uttering idle words on the most solemn occasion of his life, he must be taken to have meant that there is no evil but vice, which implies that there is no good but virtue. Thus we are landed at once in the heart of the Stoic morality. To the question why, if there be a providence, ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... a sudden pause, as they all came to a realizing sense that Sally's idle words had sent them sliding out upon thin ice. Bobby ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... compromises; I have sworn a vow against idle words—they may dislike me as they will. I give my work, for which I am paid; I can not give ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... silent after this, for some time, but at last Rowland addressed certain idle words to Miss Garland. She made no reply, and he turned to look at her. She was sitting motionless, with her head pressed to Mrs. Hudson's shoulder, and the latter lady was gazing at him through the silvered dusk with a look which gave a sort of spectral solemnity to the sad, weak meaning ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Indeed, her warm, breathing self threw a spirit of life into the moonlight and gainsaid his idle words. ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
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