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More "Procrastination" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but although the inventions be greate, the first and last I meane, yet when I survei your storehouse, I see they are the smallest things and such as in comparison of manie others are of smal or no value. Onlie let this remember you, that it is possible by to much procrastination to be prevented in the honor of some of your rarest inventions and speculations. Let your Countrie and frinds injoye the comforts they would have in the true and greate honor you would purchase your selfe by publishing some of your choise workes, but you know best what you have ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... cried James. "The mair reason he suld tell his secret, to us without procrastination. Harkye, prophet of ill!" he continued, as he strode forward. "The judgment of Heaven ye predicated for us, seems to have fallen on your ainsell, and to have laid you low, even afore our arm could touch you. ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... promised overnight, they found reasons in the morning for breaking their promises. Nothing was done on the 1st of May, and Lord Cochrane, tired of their excuses for procrastination, paid a brief visit to the authorities at Poros. The result was, that he thought of going without the Greek leaders. "I have seen the Government," he wrote to Sir Richard Church on the 2nd, "and prepared them for the worst, should things go on as they have hitherto done. They ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... Carthew. I told myself, I say; but I was no such fool as to believe it, even then. In these circumstances I displayed the two chief qualities of my character on the largest scale—my helplessness and my instinctive love of procrastination—and fell upon a course of action so ridiculous that I blush ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Borgia. But they were for the most part stained themselves with crime, and dared not trust each other, and could not gain the confidence of any respectable power in Italy except the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was the first weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sow among his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next made overtures to the leaders separately, and so far succeeded in his perfidious policy as to draw Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Paolo Orsini, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... every question. If thou hast genius and poverty to thy lot, dwell on the foolish, perplexing, imprudent, dangerous, and even immoral, conduct of promise-breach in small things, of want of punctuality, of procrastination in all its shapes and disguises. Force men to reverence the dignity of thy moral strength in and for itself,—seeking no excuses or palliations from fortune, or sickness, or a too full mind that, in opulence of ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... pursued Llewellyn, pushed him, as it were, along the track of what he had to put up with, you would have come upon the further fact that as a woman of business Miss Howe had no parallel for procrastination. Next season was imminent in his arrangements, as Christmas numbers are imminent to publishers at midsummer, and here she was shying at a contract as if they had months for consideration. It wasn't, either, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... least was an event beyond his power to evade. He loved her and had promised to wed her. He was a man who might be weak, but had never explicitly behaved in a manner to make her tremble for such a situation as the present. Procrastination ceased to be possible. What now had happened must demand instant recognition of her rights, and that given, she assured herself the future held no terrors. Now he must marry her, or contradict his own record as a gentleman and a man ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... quality preferred a prolongation of the exquisite agony of suspense. In short, the brides-elect were obdurate. They insisted on waiting, even to the end of time, for the realization of their fondest, dearest hopes. Several heartbroken gentlemen, preferring anything to procrastination, ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... of novelists has incurred for the tedious procrastination and the minute details of his fable; his slow unfolding characters, and the slightest gestures of his personages, is extremely unjust; for is it not evident that we could not have his peculiar excellences ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... cautious freebooter, who well understood the value of a separate command, instead of joining, sent various apologies which the pressure of the times compelled Fergus to admit as current, though not without the internal resolution of being revenged on him for his procrastination, time and place convenient. However, as he could not amend the matter, he issued orders to Donald to descend into the Low Country, drive the soldiers from Tully-Veolan, and, paying all respect to the mansion of the Baron, to take his abode somewhere near it, for protection ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... in 1693, wrote thus about William:—"He suffers matters to run till there is a great heap of papers; and then he signs them as much too fast as he was before too slow in despatching them." Burnet MS. Harl. 6584. There is no sign either of procrastination or of undue haste in William's correspondence with Heinsius. The truth is, that the King understood Continental politics thoroughly, and gave his whole mind to them. To English business he attended less, and to Scotch business least ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... contrary was all on fire for military glory; and at this time he was urging the queen with unceasing importunities to make a fresh attack upon her capital enemy in the heart of his European dominions. In this favorite object, after encountering considerable opposition from her habits of procrastination and from some remaining fears and scruples, he succeeded; and the zeal of the people hastening to give full effect to the designs of her majesty, a formidable armament was fitted out in all diligence, which in June 1596 set sail ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Elizabeth to place herself at the head of her troops; and the enthusiasm which her attitude inspired, when she had at last emancipated herself from the delusions of diplomacy and the seductions of thrift, was some recompense at least for the perils caused by her procrastination. But Leicester could not approve of this ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ranged that unknown country 14 weeks: I had but 18 to subdue them all." This is better than Sir John Falstaff. But he goes on: "When I first went to those desperate designes it cost me many a forgotten pound to hire men to go, and procrastination caused more run away than went." "Twise in that time I was President." [It will be remembered that about the close of his first year he gave up the command, for form's sake, to Capt. Martin, for three hours, and then took it again.] "To range this country of New England in like manner, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... opening for them by its treatment of von Jagow's renewed intimation that Germany would gladly accept American good offices in negotiations with this country as to the character and conditions of maritime war. The Wilhelmstrasse can discover in this and some other passages material for procrastination ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... requesting the favour of his remarks; and this he did about six weeks before it was necessary to deliver it in. Mr. C. in an immediate letter, expressed his approbation of the Poem, and cheerfully undertook the task; but with a little of his procrastination, he returned the MS. with his remarks, just one day after it was too late to deliver ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... (Oct. 18, 1596), replying to the special envoy sent by the king, they said: "Since the former envoys left us we have used every means in our power, as we promised we should do, to gain time and procrastination from one day to another. But how could we impose on so clever an enemy so skilled in every kind of cunning and cheating if we did not use much dissimulation, and especially if we did not pretend we were anxious for peace? We will keep firm and unshaken ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... meals decently and keep his buttons sewed on and doesn't nag him he will think that life is a pretty comfortable affair. And that reminds me, I saw holes in your black lace stockings yesterday. Better go and darn them at once. 'Procrastination is ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sees the economic foundation of the new slavery in the United States, which rose in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Manifestly the fatal procrastination in dealing with slavery in the eighteenth century received in the nineteenth century its terrible reward. The change in the attitude toward slavery was manifest in various ways. The South no longer excused slavery, but began to defend it as an economic system. The enforcement of the slave ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... peace, with the delightful consciousness of having performed your duties well, and may lay your heads on your pillows, saying to yourselves 'Aut Caesar, aut nullus.'" And this was his remark on detecting the trick of an attorney to delay a trial: "This is the last hair in the tail of procrastination, and ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the most part, been thought out for several years, and various portions of it reduced to writing. Though we have long cherished the design of preparing it for the press, yet other engagements, conspiring with a spirit of procrastination, have hitherto induced us to defer the execution of this design. Nor should we have prosecuted it, as we have done, during a large portion of our last summer vacation, and the leisure moments of the first two months of the present session of the University, but for the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... and cannot act of themselves. But in the Netherlands more than elsewhere the forms, if not the reality, of freedom were preserved, and the sovereign was not absolute. Moreover, he governed from a distance, and, in addition to his constitutional caution and procrastination, correspondence was ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.—DE QUINCEY. ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... lieutenants, but jealously guarded his own opinions from the least question or discussion, and at every step he antagonized the easy-going people among whom he had come to work. He had no patience with their habits of procrastination, and he was continually offending their lazy good-nature and their pride. He treated the rich planters, who owned the land between the mines and the harbor over which the freight railroad must run, with as little consideration as he showed ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... aimlessly about the park, his exhausted forces slowly recuperating. At the end of an hour he returned to the house and took a cold shower-bath and ate his breakfast. Then he felt more like himself. He had a strong desire to return to his study and the lost manuscript, but, with the wilful and pleasing procrastination of one who knows that satisfaction is within his grasp, he put the temptation aside for the present, and spent the day riding over his estates with his steward. He also gave his business affairs a minute attention which ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... my brow were chasing each other over my cheeks, and trickling down upon my breast. So prolonged was the suspense, I began to fancy that the Arapaho was designedly dallying with his aim, for the purpose of sporting with my fears. He may have had such motive for procrastination. I could have believed it. Distant though he was, I could mark his fiendish smile, as he repeatedly dropped the piece from his shoulder, and then returned it to the level. That he meant more than mere menace, however, was proved ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... snug bed to fumble about in the dark for his clothes, and, these donned, having loosed his speech before the grateful blaze in the fireplace, he did not argue fatigue or freezing as an excuse for procrastination; he passed over these rather too briefly and enlarged upon his safe status ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... comparatively quiet and much at home. Often he was excessively irritable and exasperating in words and manner, but no longer violent from bestial excess. He put off the project of going to a curative institution, with the true opium inertia and procrastination, and all efforts to lead him to definite action proved fruitless. His presence, however, and his quiet, haughty ways, with Roger's frequent visits, did much for a time to restrain the ill-disposed people around them, but the inevitable ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... exactly intended for myself individually. These kind people greet in me the first hope dawning to them after a long period of darkness; and, therefore, I will joyfully indulge them, and I will thank them by brave deeds. Yes, by deeds! The time of procrastination is over. I must hesitate no longer: ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... which the opium-eater will find in the end as oppressive and tormenting as any other, from the sense of incapacity and feebleness, from the direct embarrassments incident to the neglect or procrastination of each day's appropriate duties, and from the remorse which must often exasperate the stings of these evils to a reflective and conscientious mind. The opium-eater loses none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations; he wishes and longs as earnestly ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... My darling, remember what Pilcher said about procrastination. And remember our resolutions last night. If we break them on the first night of the year, where shall we be on the ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... the statement respecting the Calabar Mission of our Church, which I take blame to myself for having so long delayed to send. My avocations are very numerous, and a habit of procrastination, where anything is to be written, has sadly grown on me with time. I cannot even send you this brief note without testifying, what I could not so well utter in your presence, my unabated admiration of your philosophical genius and learning, and my profoundly ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... followed by that of their successor, poignarded at Stirling by the hand of his prince. His brother, Earl James, appears neither to have possessed the abilities nor the ambition of his ancestors. He drew, indeed, against his prince, the formidable sword of Douglas, but with a timid and hesitating hand. Procrastination ruined his cause; and he was deserted, at Abercorn, by the knight of Cadyow, chief of the Hamiltons, and by his most active adherents, after they had ineffectually exhorted him to commit [Sidenote: 1453] his ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... strategy, too. So during the perusal of his paper he bemoaned the mistakes his government was making. Why waste time with ultimatums? he argued to himself. He had never done so. Experience had taught him that the way to win a battle was to beat the other fellow to the draw; hence this diplomatic procrastination filled him with impatience. It seemed almost treasonable to one of ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... lamentations and speculations, interjecting at the end of each apostrophe, "It's terrible—terrible!" until at last I felt that I would gladly give up my own "good time" for the sake of seeing him freed without further procrastination. I was convinced, and so told him, that the delay could be due to nothing but neglect, inadvertent or criminal, on the part of LaDow, the President of the Parole Board, or of the Attorney-General himself; the papers ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... There seemed to be a combination among the market-men not to sell us any food. Indeed, this action of the governor made him very unpopular with the Rhett faction. Rhett rushed over to inform him that the people demanded that Fort Sumter should be taken without any further procrastination or delay. The governor made a very shrewd reply. He said, "Certainly, Mr. Rhett; I have no objection! I will furnish you with some men, and you can storm the work yourself." Rhett drew back and replied, "But, sir, I am not a military man!" "Nor I either," said the governor, "and ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... question, and the still more urgent desire to connect her past with her future—for which we have, perhaps intemperately, an especial consideration. It is only necessary, therefore, for us to step into and out of the Grand Duchy without the procrastination usual in a sojourner, stopping long enough only to see how tiresome it would be to stay, and to wonder why any one remained who could get away. Not that the Grand Duchy was an utterly undesirable place, but that too much time already had been wasted ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... Whigs became the poor man's foe, Mix'd ashes in his cup of sorrow; Nor thought the pauper's "lot of woe," Perchance might be their own to-morrow. The Tories said they were his friend, That they abhorr'd procrastination; So give—till next July shall end— Exchequer bills and ventilation. Oh! the artful Tories dear, Oh! the dear and artful Tories; They alone perceive, 'tis clear, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... advantage of our generosity, and had not left Toledo till nine. Therefore, according to our contract, we were obliged to wait until eleven, surprising Ropes by our procrastination. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... it would not be possible to grant an immediate conference, but that as soon as possible he would have pleasure in selecting a "felicitous day'' on which they could hold a "pleasant interview'';[49] and when the envoys, worn out by the never-ending procrastination, finally gave up in disgust and announced their intention of returning home, the typical Chinese official blandly replied, as the notorious Yeh did to United States Minister Marshall in January, 1854,—"I avail myself ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... asking more time. This created the impression that Richmond's delegation, at the last moment, proposed to slaughter Douglas[561] as it did at Charleston, and the latter's friends, maddened and disheartened over what they called "New York's dishonest and cowardly procrastination," would gladly have prevented an adjournment. But the Empire State held the key to the situation. Without it Douglas could get nothing and in a hopeless sort of way ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Majesty for Kaiser: is authorized to offer 60,000 men, with money corresponding, and no end of brilliant outlooks;—must keep back his offers, however, if he find the people indisposed. Which he did, to an extreme degree; nothing but vague talk, procrastination, hesitation on the part of Bruhl. This wretched little Bruhl has twelve tailors always sewing for him, and three hundred and sixty-five suits of clothes: so many suits, all pictured in a Book; a valet ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... client, makes use of every technical artifice to secure delay, by claiming that there are flaws in the indictment, or by moving for commissions to take testimony in distant points of the country. The opportunities for legal procrastination are so numerous that in a complicated case the defence may often delay matters for over a year. This may be an important factor ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... will be surprised to find me still guilty of procrastination, and to hear me describing French manners, instead of the mode in which I addressed a youth whom I have accused myself of having, in a certain sense, misled, and kept in suspense. I can only answer that my intentions have been frustrated; chiefly indeed by this country excursion, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... doubtless the indirect occasion of a liberal percentage of all John's misfortunes. From his earliest school-days in the little town, up to his tardy graduation from a distant college, the influence of his father's wealth invited his procrastination, humored its results, encouraged the laxity of his ambition, "and even now," as John used, in bitter irony, to put it, "it is aiding and abetting me in the ostensible practice of my chosen profession, a listless, aimless undetermined man of forty, and a confirmed bachelor at ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... 'tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead. Procrastination is the thief of time. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves; then ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... my father felt, and, blaming himself for having encouraged me in the indolence of genius, he determined to counteract his former imprudence, and was resolved, he said, to cure me at once of my habit of procrastination. For this purpose he took down from his shelves Young's Night Thoughts; from which he remembered a line, which has become a stock line among ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... young girl were thus occupied in surveying the valley and the adjacent mounds and hummocks, the horse, considering doubtlessly that there had been enough inaction, tapped the ground with rebellious energy and tossed his head in mutiny against such procrastination. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... or in his workshop, as an American citizen, protected by and subject to the laws of the republic. What is needed is that not only these schools should be more liberally supported, but that new ones should be opened without delay. The matter does not admit of procrastination. The work of education and civilization must be done. The money needed must be contributed with no sparing hand. The laudable example set by the Friends and the American Missionary Association should be followed by other sects and philanthropic societies. Christianity, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... delay till Wednesday night the acknowledging your despatches, and the assuring you that there shall be no remissness whatever on my part to follow up this business as much as possible, and to press it forward in this strange scene of procrastination. Nothing can make me happier than your approbation of my conduct, and your kind disposition to trust so much to that most unfeigned affection with which ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... for us. Immediately following my departure, I discovered, my wife re-entered the Catholic Church. Soon afterward I heard that her father had extended his forgiveness, and that she had been welcomed back by her kinfolk in Ireland. Hearing nothing from her whatever, with the procrastination which was ever one of my great faults, I put off doing anything about the annulment of the marriage until the father of Quantrelle le Rouge wrote me that he had heard of her death as well as that of the child. But before my marriage to Mademoiselle ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... settles over many a girl's days, the indifference, comes from no longer being compelled to do certain tasks. "Get work, get work: be sure 'tis better than what you work to get." Do not delay the task that must be done. Procrastination is worse than the thief of time: it is the robber of our own character, our own growth and happiness. We need to work continually to be strong, mentally, physically, or spiritually, even; and the ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... the mad desire to get away at last, to cease with this fateful procrastination and to fly from this country with the golden booty, which he had gained at such awful risks, these caused him finally to turn the mare's head towards home, leaving Editha to follow as best she might, in the company ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... country intersected by several rivers. Anything was welcomed by Metternich that seemed likely to avert, or even to postpone, a struggle with Napoleon for life or death. Bluecher correctly judged the march through Switzerland to be mere procrastination. He was himself permitted to take the straight road into France, though his movements were retarded in order to keep pace with the cautious steps of Schwarzenberg. On the last day of the year 1813 the Prussian general crossed ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... own modes of life have become so complex by comparison, that we pass over these mere elements to plunge at once into more refined speculations. A modern essayist starts where Addison or Johnson left off. He assumes that his readers know that procrastination is an evil, and tries to gain a little piquancy by paradoxically pointing out the objections to punctuality. Character, of course, becomes more complex, and requires more delicate modes of analysis. Compare, for example, the most delicate of Pope's delineations with one of Mr. Browning's elaborate ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... learn right at the outset not to play with the spoon before you take the medicine. Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible. Procrastination is the longest word in the language, but there's only one letter between its ends when they occupy their proper places ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... not do business like Messrs. Smith and Elder; a different spirit seems to preside at —— Street, to that which guides the helm at 65, Cornhill. . . . My relations have suffered from exhausting delay and procrastination, while I have to acknowledge the benefits of a management at once business-like and ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... now are kept by the word of God in store to be destroyed by fire in the day of judgment, when the perdition of ungodly men shall be sealed." "The delay of the Lord to fulfil his promise is not from procrastination, but from his long suffering who is not willing that any should perish." He waits "that all may come to repentance." But his patience will end, and "the day of God come as a thief in the night, when the heavens, being on fire, shall pass ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... receive ideas on divine subjects slowly. They listen, but never suppose that the truths must become embodied in actual life. They will wait until the chief becomes a Christian, and if he believes, then they refuse to follow,—as was the case among the Bakwains. Procrastination seems as powerful an instrument ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... true. If, in consequence of the Sultan's procrastination, we were to arrive too late and the whole of the provinces of Hamadan and Kermanshan were to be lost—even then we should all be in the hands of Allah. Come, let us go to prayer and then ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... powerful every hour. Publicity is the sustaining food of a powerful store and the only strengthening nourishment for a weak one. The retailer who delays his entry into advertising must pay the penalty of his procrastination by facing more giant competitors as each month ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... month of procrastination and delay, the Rangoon Commissariat Department, under an energetic new official, decided to embark a collection of sixty elephants, which had long been awaiting transport from the neighbourhood of Rangoon, ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... behave with greater incompetence than that manifested by General Burgoyne from the day of his leaving Ticonderoga, and the disaster which befell his army was entirely the result of mismanagement, procrastination, and ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... with shame; he could not escape from Debendra's banter and taunts. He consented to allow Debendra to make the acquaintance of his wife. Then fear arose lest Surja Mukhi should be displeased. A year passed in evasion and procrastination; when, seeing that this could be carried on no longer, he made an excuse that his house was in need of repair, and sent Kunda Nandini to Nagendra's house. When the repairs of the house were completed, Kunda Nandini returned home. A few days ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... managed to stave off the evil day until lunch was half over; but procrastination was not nearly as wholesale a thief of time as they wished ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... upon to face. He looked at Barbara. She had closed her eyes and made absolutely no sign. For some reason of her own she had elected that he should determine this vital point without the slightest assistance from her. And it must be determined at once; procrastination was impossible. For a moment he hesitated. On the one side was Barbara, on the other his conscience. After long doubts he had come to a certain conclusion which he quite understood to be inconvenient to his partners. Should he throw ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... distresses failed to diminish his joy in the very fact of living, even less did they affect his powers of work. His father had declared that 'procrastination was his besetting sin,' and Mozart was certainly given to putting off the evil day as far as possible; but no one knew better than Leopold Mozart himself how tireless was Mozart's industry, or how ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... poor, and see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of your indifference to other aims. You may wonder at my saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or experience, but I know it for a certainty from my ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the affairs of the Diet were neglected, either through the procrastination of the Emperor, or through the fault of the Protestant Estates, who had determined to make no provision for the common wants of the Empire till their own grievances were removed. These grievances related principally to the misgovernment ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... given to proceed against the heretics with fire and sword. He lamented, in bitter terms, the fact that the Emperor had not made use of stern measures as soon as he arrived in Germany. For now, said he, procrastination and the conciliatory demeanor of the Evangelicals, especially of Melanchthon and Brueck, had made it impossible to rouse the Emperor to such a degree as the exigency of the case demanded. (Plitt, 63.) Luther wrote: "For that shameless gab ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... 1709. In the child, the physical, intellectual, and moral peculiarities which afterwards distinguished the man were plainly discernible; great muscular strength accompanied by much awkwardness and many infirmities; great quickness of parts, with a morbid propensity to sloth and procrastination; a kind and generous heart, with a gloomy and irritable temper. He had inherited from his ancestors a scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of medicine to remove. His parents were weak enough to believe that the royal touch was a specific for this malady. In his third ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to China was at an end; and nothing had yet arrived from England, though hourly expected. It was the natural and general opinion, that our present situation was to be attributed to accident rather than to procrastination. It was more probable, that the vessels which had been dispatched by the British government had met with some distress, that had either compelled them to return or had wholly prevented them from any further prosecution of the voyage, than that ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... saying to himself that it did not matter what her birth may have been, so long as she lived at this hour in his life, and yet a still, cool voice was whispering procrastination with ding-dong persistency through every avenue of his brain. "Wait!" said the cool voice of prejudice. His heart did not hear, but his brain did. One look of submission from her tender eyes and his brain would have turned deaf to the small, cool voice—but ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... this time suspected the purpose of my friend's procrastination; and it saddened my heart to reflect that I was not to get the information which I desired, excepting in the shape of a legacy. I found accordingly, in the packet transmitted to me after the excellent lady's death, several anecdotes respecting the Highlands, from which ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... by whose unwearying assistance We of the Ruling Race, when sorely tried, Can keep intrusive persons at a distance, And let unseasonable matters slide; Thou at whose blast the powers of irritation Yield to a soft and gentlemanly lull Of solid peace and flat Procrastination, These to thy praise ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... the American branch and the directors of the German company had acted in perfect good faith in an attempt to advance the interests of the German cause. It was merely a question of the result. If their policy of procrastination had succeeded in delaying the contracts and had kept our enemies for a considerable time from building their own factory for fuses and aeroplane magnetoes, their action would have been justified; in the contrary event it would have been vain, but ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... hundred dollars. I may also state that when he retired from the bar, he had several thousand dollars on his books which could have been collected on application to the parties, but, whether from inadvertence or procrastination, or mere indisposition, ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... already been permitted to possess themselves of the county of Wexford in its whole southern division—Ross and Duncannon only excepted; of which the latter was not liable to capture by coup de main, and the other was saved by the procrastination of the rebels. The northern division of the county was overrun pretty much in the same hasty style, and through the same desperate neglect in previous concert of plans. Upon first turning their views to the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... have arisen if Servia had held out a hand after the murder of the Archduke. Servia had, however, shown no sign of sympathy or help, though some weeks had already elapsed since the murder; a time limit, said his Excellency, was essential, owing to the procrastination on Servia's part. ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... The habit of procrastination is a deadly foe to all prosperity in temporal or in moral affairs. We ought to do every duty as soon ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... sorry, but important and profitable business took him out of town, but he trusted to return soon and welcome his old partner. He was also, for the first time, jocose, and hoped that Uncle Billy would not "see all the sights" before he, Uncle Jim, returned. Disappointing as this procrastination was to Uncle Billy, a gleam of hope irradiated it: the letter had bridged over that gulf which seemed to yawn between them at the post-office. His old partner had accepted his visit to San Francisco without question, and had alluded to a renewal ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... behind hand in the matter of a church building, the proposal having been shelved by the authorities with the usual procrastination. The Roman Catholic missionary lived in ascetic simplicity in the Station, and took his meals in native fashion ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... generally in his opposition to Jackson, yet once he deserves credit for the contrary course. This was in the matter of our relations with France. The treaty of 1831 secured to this country an indemnity of $5,000,000, which, however, it had never been possible to collect. This procrastination raised Jackson's ever ready ire, and casting to the winds any further dunning, he resolved either to have the money or to fight for it. He sent a message to Congress, recommending that if France should not promptly settle the account, letters of marque ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... hay at all in a land where the sun always shines. It is thought that unless people are spurred on incessantly by the exigencies of the changing seasons they will lose energy, and fall into an idle floating along with gracious nature. Will not one sink into a comfortable and easy procrastination if he has a whole year in which to perform the labor of three months? Will Southern California be an exception to those lands of equable climate and extraordinary fertility where every ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... known zeal and efficiency, had scruples of conscience against signing, the authorities, both civil and military, appear in many places to have exercised a discretion and winked at disobedience or procrastination.—The case of the Earl of Bridgewater may here be of some interest, on its own account, and as illustrating what went on generally. The Earl, known to us so long as "the Earl of Milton's Comus" had been living in retirement as an invalid during the war, his ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... things in particular were his matter of meditation now; he had wanted, at the end of his walk, to sit apart a little and think—and had been doing that for twenty minutes, even though as yet to no break in the charm of procrastination. But he had looked without seeing and listened without hearing: all that had been positive for him was that he hadn't failed vaguely to feel. He had felt in the first place, and he continued to feel—yes, at forty-eight quite as much as at any point of the supposed reign of younger ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... saloon?" The points of the big moustaches twitched ironically. "I promise you there'll be no procrastination ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the continent, reserving the work which the Institute had put first to be done in the following spring. Peron blamed him for this decision, inasmuch as the course prescribed in the instructions was the result of careful thought and extensive research. But though the procrastination which had let slip the months best suited for exploration in southern waters was caused by Baudin's own lack of energy and knowledge, his resolve not to entrust his ships on an unknown coast, where he knew of no secure harbours, ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... of my pleasure. I contented myself with thinking over my complacent feelings, and breathing forth solitary gratulations and thanksgivings, which I did in many a sweet and many a wild place, during my late Tour. In this shape, procrastination became irresistible to me; at last I said, I will write at home from my own fire-side, when I shall be at ease and in comfort. I have now been more than a fortnight at home, but the uneasiness in my chest has made me beat ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... there would be competition with slave labor. It was soon apparent, however, that a State with such a diversity of interests, one-half slave and one-half free could not legislate on slavery. This compromising resolution of procrastination, therefore, was adopted as the best Virginia could under the circumstances be induced to do for the extermination[34] of its ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... stated to me that he had never professed to be a military man, or to know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere with them; but that procrastination on the part of his commanders, and the pressure of people at the North, and of Congress, had forced him into issuing the 'executive orders.' He did not know but that they were all wrong, and did not know that some of ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... The procrastination of which I am speaking was however productive of one advantage. It put off the evil day. She did not suspect the calamities that awaited her, till the close of the year. She gained an additional three months of comparative happiness. But she purchased it at ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... her lips a dozen times, but courage failed her. When she heard his footsteps in the hallway she was ready to cry out the truth to him and end the suspense. As he opened the door to enter, the spirit of fairness turned frail and fled before the appeal of procrastination. Wait! Wait! Wait! cried the powerful weakness in her heart, and it conquered. She could not tell him then. To-morrow—the next day, yes, but not then. It was too much to demand ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... he was never in a hurry to do to-day what he should have done yesterday, because having no faith in procrastination, he left nothing undone to-day to be performed on the morrow, if by any means it could be accomplished, or the duty performed at once. In going to the House of God, he left all worry about the world on the outside of it, the moment he entered ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... trouble to follow in some detail the course of this small boy going to school, for though it may be of no interest in itself save as a study in scientific procrastination, a good deal of our history directly ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he come, to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where you ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... think of such as these? Of some we perhaps say within ourselves, "Would that there had been but a little amendment of this blemish! A little more of strength and purpose against that fault! If only this besetting hardness had not been the spoiler of his life, that great heedlessness, that fatal procrastination, this too frequent sin! Oh! but for this or that which marred the fair and well rounded character! But for this we should have been full of hope: there was so much on the better side, that we should have been full of trust, and even of confidence. But, now, ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... presence. "You are right," said Henry, "he is a great captain, but I have always five hours' start of him." Henry rose at four in the morning, and Mayenne at about ten. This made all the difference between them. Indecision becomes a disease and procrastination is its forerunner. There is only one known remedy for the victims of indecision, and that is prompt decision. Otherwise the disease is fatal to all success or achievement. He who ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... be paid immediately after his death, having taken due care that the money should be ready in his exchequer. For the rest he ordered different times of payment. In some of his bequests he went as far as twenty thousand sesterces, for the payment of which he allowed a twelvemonth; alleging for this procrastination the scantiness of his estate; and declaring that not more than a hundred and fifty millions of sesterces would come to his heirs: notwithstanding that during the twenty preceding years, he had received, in legacies from his friends, the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... which thou wouldst ask?" inquired the Jinnee, with grim indulgence; "or wilt thou encounter thy doom without further procrastination?" ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... the military condition and resources of India, especially of the Bengal provinces. This was essential to any consecutive plan of operations, and in this work, and in other important preparations, his time was consumed, when every day's delay, every hour's hesitation, every act of procrastination or ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... never waited upon the old. He that cannot control sudden accession of joy or grief, is lost even though he may have obtained prosperity, like an unburnt earthen vessel in water. That king who is entirely destitute of courage, who hath no spark of manliness, who is the slave of procrastination, who always acts with indiscretion, who is addicted to sensual pleasures, is seldom respected by his subjects. Benefited as thou has been, whence is this unreasonable grief of thine? Do not undo this graceful ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... general human tendency to procrastination is shown in the progressive weakening of the various words in this group. Immediately primarily signifies without the intervention of anything as a medium, hence without the intervention of any, even the briefest, interval or lapse of time. By and by, which was once a synonym, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... a leading part in a late railroad accident had had his life insured for twenty thousand dollars. Unfortunately the policy expired just before he did, and he had neglected to renew it. This is a happy illustration of the folly of procrastination. Had he got himself killed a few days sooner his widow would have been provided with the means of setting up ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... given to James Harlowe, and which he had answered for as well on Mr. Harlowe's part as his own) I acknowledged nakedly and fairly the whole truth—to wit, 'That we were not yet married. I gave him hints of the causes of procrastination. Some of them owing to unhappy misunderstandings: but chiefly to the Lady's desire of previous reconciliation with her friends; and to a delicacy ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Alpujarras, to conduct by stratagem a war which they are not able to sustain against us in the field. Let us then hasten to chastise their insolence before the evil gain ground. Not that I entertain any doubts of success, but for the purpose of saving the valuable lives which such procrastination might endanger. Amongst the rebel chiefs, who appear to possess in the greatest degree the confidence of their comrades, and most resolutely to defy our power, are el Negro,[2] of Lanjaron, and el Feri de Benastepar. The former, blockaded ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... Procrastination was not one of Bell Cameron's faults, and for full half an hour before her mother and Juno came home, the stolen letter had been lying in the mail box where Bell herself deposited it, together with a few hurriedly written lines, telling how it came into her hands, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... his son was the offspring of the same illegal relations. It was signed and written by his wife. The wretched man debated whether he should send the infant to an asylum or keep it upon his premises. Through procrastination, continued for twenty years, the child had derived all the advantages of legitimacy, and still the demon of the husband's peace was the test of ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... the nation favorable to their designs. The nobility and gentry were in general displeased with the preference which Somerset seemed to have given to the people; and as they ascribed all the insults to which they had been lately exposed to his procrastination, and to the countenance shown to the multitude, they apprehended a renewal of the same disorders from his present affectation of popularity. He had erected a court of requests in his own house for the relief of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... her, to resolve was to act; she was ill at ease under enforced procrastination; and had often to fight against a burning impatience, when circumstances delayed the immediate carrying out of her will. In this case, however, she had voluntarily postponed Maurice's return for twenty-four hours, when he ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... easy prospect of indefinite procrastination was cut off the next morning by Grandcourt's saluting him with ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... conference Mr. Oldfield returned to town to see what he could do in the way of procrastination, and Lady Bassett promised to leave no stone unturned to cure Sir Charles in the meantime. Mr. Oldfield was to write immediately if any ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... then about the foreign tour; but Kate deigned no reply whatever; and the chilled topic died out before the wet hay could be got in: and so much for Procrastination. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... here, however well disposed, to spend twenty pounds in a contest about as many pence, or to ruin himself in order to secure the possession of half an acre of land. In general, redress is easily obtained without unnecessary procrastination, and with little or no cost. Perhaps most legal codes may be simple and efficacious at their first institution, and the circumstance of their being encumbered with forms which render them complex and expensive, may be the natural consequence of length of time and change of manners. ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... see not, then do we with patience wait for it,' says the Apostle, though most of us would have said exactly the opposite. We generally suppose that the more ardent the hope, the more is it impatient of delay. Paul had learned better. The more certain the assurance, the better we can tolerate the procrastination of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... encumbered with mortgages. The average Hindu village clerk also is not to be depended on, and as they are dealing with illiterate people, they have many opportunities of falsifying village records. Also, the inveterate habit of procrastination leads to vagueness in the record, and transactions take place which are never noted. But there never can be any real doubt as to where each bit of property begins and ends, and that is a ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... she'd let us have them now. Procrastination is not agreeable," observed Amy, taking a ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... accuse him of his half-heartedness indirectly, if not openly. It would have made his conscience more comfortable, and his conscience troubled him sorely to-night. It was that fatal habit of procrastination that had brought this thing about. He had hesitated all these weeks about Judith, and while he had threshed out the pro and con of her disadvantageous family connection, this hideous ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... 1886. None of the original claimants survive, but they have left heirs and legatees, executors and assignees, who have perennially presented their cases, and who are now indulging in high hopes of success. Government, after more than fourscore years of unjustifiable procrastination, is at last having the claims adjudicated, and in time the heirs of the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... There was one by the side of the bed and reaching for it he pointed out an advertisement. In large letters was the name of a firm well-known to Philip, Lynn and Sedley, Regent Street, London; and below, in type smaller but still of some magnitude, was the dogmatic statement: Procrastination is the Thief of Time. Then a question, startling because of its reasonableness: Why not order today? There was a repetition, in large letters, like the hammering of conscience on a murderer's heart: Why not? Then, boldly: Thousands of pairs of gloves from the leading markets of the world at astounding ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... seemed to have petered out, in that he manifested no immediate intention of climbing to the roof of the cabin. The truth of the matter was, Lub always showed a disposition to put things off; procrastination was one of his greatest faults, even as too much haste had always been X-Ray Tyson's besetting sin. There was the whole day before him; so what need of undue speed. Taking things easy had become second ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... means, provided only that it be equally decisive. But the conviction that something must be done and must be done immediately, that this something must be radical and final, and that the time for half-measures and procrastination is past—this conviction these addresses would fain produce, if they could, in you personally, as they still cherish the utmost ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... for some time, postponed their trip, and on the very day that they arrived at Delville Wood they remembered that that was the day they should have been basking in the sun at Le Treport. Such is the folly of procrastination. On the 28th August the command devolved on Major P.G.A. Lederer, M.C., as the Commanding Officer had been evacuated sick. On the 30th August the Battalion marched by a tortuous route to Pont Remy, where it entrained and arrived next day at Mericourt. It eventually was installed in close ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... of these transactions, recalled his commissioners, and ordered the general court to send agents to England, to answer the complaints made against its proceedings. The court, having more than once experienced the benefits of procrastination, affected at first to disbelieve the authenticity of the letter; and afterwards excused themselves from sending agents by saying that the ablest among them could not support their cause better than had already ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... consternation that would prevail. A trusted servant, to whom he told this design, revealed it to the senate. It filled them with fear and rage. Yet even in so dire a contingency they could not be prevailed upon to act with vigor, and all might have been lost by their procrastination and timidity but for the two men ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... with pleasure. He enjoyed the procrastination as much as she did. "But the month's only just begun! However! Yes, you shall have your way. I won't ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... loss of all his friends, not by death, but estrangement. He tries to account for the enmity of the world to him, a harmless and humane man, who wishes well to all created things, and "of his wondering finds no end." He upbraids himself with indolence, procrastination, neglect of his worldly concerns, and all other bad habits,—and then, with incredible inconsistency, vaunts loudly of his successful efforts in the cause of Literature, Philosophy, Morality, and Religion. Above all, he ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... tarry so suspiciously long on the Oxus, or wherever "the youngest" may have placed him in his "nascent state" after the latter "saw his brothers all depart towards the setting sun." We find reasons to believe that the chief motive for alleging such a procrastination is the necessity to bring the race closer to the Christian era. To show the "brother" inactive and unconcerned, "with nothing but himself to ponder on," lest his antiquity and "fables of empty idolatry," and perhaps his traditions of other people's doings, should interfere with the chronology ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... patrons of the King street house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming to kick him upstairs, so to speak, a big if, however, with some impetus of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often tripped-up a too much feted prince of good fellows. And it need not detract from the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would have heaps of time to practise literature in his spare moments when desirous of so doing without its clashing with his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... procrastination the doctor put on his hat and coat, took the candelabra and went off ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to see in you a sad habit of procrastination, and want of punctuality. I assure you, my dear boy, that, to a man of business, such a habit is more ruinous; and if not subdued in youth, will surely grow the more confirmed by age, and ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... of Defense's integration drive. This change in policy was substantive, but the traditionalists who feared the sudden intrusion of the services into local community affairs and the reformers who later charged McNamara with procrastination missed the point. More than a declaration of racial principles, the directive was a guideline for the progressive application of a series of administrative pressures. Endorsing the Gesell Committee's concept ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Spanish monarchy, "une societe vieille dans une contree neuve." Some Spanish writers, it is true, have exaggerated the virtues of their old colonial system; yet that system had excellences which we cannot afford to despise. If the Spanish kings had not choked their government with procrastination and routine; if they had only taken their task a bit less seriously and had not tried to apply too strictly to an empty continent the paternal administration of an older country; we might have been privileged to witness the development and operation of as complete and benign a system ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... have my faults, but procrastination in the presence of rats is not one of them. I didn't hesitate for a second. Here was my chance. If there is one thing women hate, it is a rat. Mother always used to say, 'If you want to succeed in life, please the women. They are the real bosses. The men don't count.' ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... citizen, protected by and subject to the laws of the republic. What is needed is that not only these schools should be more liberally supported, but that new ones should be opened without delay. The matter does not admit of procrastination. The work of education and civilization must be done. The money needed must be contributed with no sparing hand. The laudable example set by the Friends and the American Missionary Association should be followed by other sects and philanthropic societies. Christianity, patriotism, and enlightened ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Llewellyn, pushed him, as it were, along the track of what he had to put up with, you would have come upon the further fact that as a woman of business Miss Howe had no parallel for procrastination. Next season was imminent in his arrangements, as Christmas numbers are imminent to publishers at midsummer, and here she was shying at a contract as if they had months for consideration. It wasn't, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... reflection. He was conscientiously convinced that, all things considered, it was the promptest and most feasible process of re-establishing civil government in the insurrectionary States. Mr. Lincoln was especially anxious that neither the ruling power nor the conquered rebels should be needless procrastination become accustomed to military government—a form of administration which he regarded as very tempting, but very sure to undermine, and in time to destroy, the real spirit of independence and self-government. It was his belief, as he expressed it himself, that "We ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... be, if you will unite sound judgement to your usual energy in your operations. As to the indictments, I hope you, at last, may not be prosecuted. I see no other reason for it than for prosecuting ALL who ever engaged in the war. I think, however, we may expect procrastination in measures of relief, denunciatory threats, etc. We must be patient, and let them take their course. As soon as I can ascertain their intention toward me, if not prevented, I shall endeavour to procure some humble, but quiet, abode for your mother and ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... ease: "We will speak of that, gentlemen, some other day," and so calmly turning from the subject in dispute—not solving it, but at least imposing delay as the penalty which ministers must pay for a difference of opinion. That policy of quiet procrastination no minister of his time would have dared to withstand without first making for it a certain time-allowance. So much at least would have been secured, not of right, but through the weight ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... their complaints, petitions, and grievances with decision and despatch, he all the time in good humour with the people and they delighted with him, though he often rated them roundly when they stood before him perverse in litigation, helpless in procrastination, detected in cunning or convicted of falsehood. They saw into his character almost as soon as ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... the bottles of curious liquors, and left them behind. They traveled in many lands, and had many strange adventures. They were virtuous young men, and lost no opportunity that fell in their way to make their livelihood. Their motto was in these words, namely, "Procrastination is the thief of time." And so, whenever they did come upon a man who was alone, they said, Behold, this person hath the wherewithal—let us go through him. And they went through him. At the end of five years they had waxed tired of travel and adventure, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the last noteworthy object, and reminds us that Mark Tapley noticed the time there, on the occasion of his last meeting with Mary Graham in St. James's Park, before starting for America. It also reminds us of Mr. Micawber's maxim, "Procrastination is the thief of time—collar him;"—a few minutes afterwards we are comfortably seated in the train, and can defy the storm, which overtakes us precisely in the manner described in The Old ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... the inventions be greate, the first and last I meane, yet when I survei your storehouse, I see they are the smallest things and such as in comparison of manie others are of smal or no value. Onlie let this remember you, that it is possible by to much procrastination to be prevented in the honor of some of your rarest inventions and speculations. Let your Countrie and frinds injoye the comforts they would have in the true and greate honor you would purchase your selfe by publishing some of your choise workes, but you know ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... had he with Lord Ostermore in the library ere he departed. His lordship it was who reopened again the question, to repeat much of what he had said in the arbor on the previous day, and Mr. Caryll replied with much the same arguments in favor of procrastination that ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... so suspiciously long on the Oxus, or wherever "the youngest" may have placed him in his "nascent state" after the latter "saw his brothers all depart towards the setting sun." We find reasons to believe that the chief motive for alleging such a procrastination is the necessity to bring the race closer to the Christian era. To show the "brother" inactive and unconcerned, "with nothing but himself to ponder on," lest his antiquity and "fables of empty idolatry," and perhaps his traditions of other people's doings, should interfere with the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Grace! never put off until to-morrow what can be done to-day," observed Sir Harry, in his joking voice. "What is it the copy-books say?—is it procrastination or money that is the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... he said. "When you have anything to do, let it be done firmly and well. Let there be no procrastination. Your father ought ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... their character and train their intellect. This good lady, in whose name Mary sermonizes, seizes upon every event of the day to teach her charges a moral lesson. The defects she attacks are those most common to childhood. Cruelty to animals, peevishness, lying, greediness, indolence, procrastination, are in turn censured, and their opposite virtues praised. Some of the definitions of the qualities commended are excellent. For example, Mrs. Mason says to the ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Death of Nedham Almolk Lines to a Lover Verses to My Daughters Serenade to My Sleeping Mistress The Inconsistent The Capture of Jerusalem To a Lady An Epigram On a Little Man with a Very Large Beard Lamiat Alajem To Youth On Love A Remonstrance with a Drunkard Verses On Procrastination The Early Death of ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... always led by few, and cannot act of themselves. But in the Netherlands more than elsewhere the forms, if not the reality, of freedom were preserved, and the sovereign was not absolute. Moreover, he governed from a distance, and, in addition to his constitutional caution and procrastination, correspondence ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... itself back—for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as love. Love is success. Love is happiness. Love is life." "Where love is, God is. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. God is love. Therefore love." "Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference between trying to please ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... and general human tendency to procrastination is shown in the progressive weakening of the various words in this group. Immediately primarily signifies without the intervention of anything as a medium, hence without the intervention of any, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... exclusive authority to originate new laws was vested in them absolutely. It was at length determined between the contending parties that the question should be decided by a reference to the opinion of the Attorney-General. The Directors, after much procrastination, drew up and submitted their case. The Attorney-General (Mr. William de Grey, afterwards Lord Walsingham) was of opinion, in answer to the questions put to him, that under the charter the Directors were to ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... confusion. I shall not afterwards allude to this part of the case. It is one, however, which the opium-eater will find, in the end, as oppressive and tormenting as any other, from the sense of incapacity and feebleness, from the direct embarrassments incident to the neglect or procrastination of each day's appropriate duties, and from the remorse which must often exasperate the stings of these evils to a reflective and conscientious mind. The opium- eater loses none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations. He wishes and longs as earnestly as ever ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... and richest empire in the world, would probably have been saved from its loss of territory and its present impoverished condition. And had the early Filipinos, to whom splendid professions and sweeping promises were made, dared to complain of the Peninsular policy of procrastination—the "manana" habit, as it has been called—Spain might have been spared Doctor Rizal's terrible but true indictment that she retarded Philippine progress, kept the Islands miserably ruled for 333 years and in the last days of the nineteenth century was still permitting mediaeval ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... should certainly have read very little, if I had not been up while my acquaintances were in bed. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination; never put off till to-morrow what you can do today. That was the rule of the famous and unfortunate Pensionary De Witt; who, by strictly following it, found time, not only to do the whole business of the republic, but to pass his evenings at assemblies ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... will be inquisitive next time I see him after your opinions of his proposals. I doubted not your approbation of them, and had written an answer on that presumption; which is ready for him. He must study for occasions of procrastination, and to disoblige me, if now any thing happens to set us ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Having promised overnight, they found reasons in the morning for breaking their promises. Nothing was done on the 1st of May, and Lord Cochrane, tired of their excuses for procrastination, paid a brief visit to the authorities at Poros. The result was, that he thought of going without the Greek leaders. "I have seen the Government," he wrote to Sir Richard Church on the 2nd, "and prepared them for the worst, should things go on as they have hitherto done. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... monarchy, "une societe vieille dans une contree neuve." Some Spanish writers, it is true, have exaggerated the virtues of their old colonial system; yet that system had excellences which we cannot afford to despise. If the Spanish kings had not choked their government with procrastination and routine; if they had only taken their task a bit less seriously and had not tried to apply too strictly to an empty continent the paternal administration of an older country; we might have been privileged to witness the development and operation of as complete ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... art, and that I was somehow fortifying Carthew. I told myself, I say; but I was no such fool as to believe it, even then. In these circumstances I displayed the two chief qualities of my character on the largest scale—my helplessness and my instinctive love of procrastination—and fell upon a course of action so ridiculous that I ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... secrecy, that no advantage might be given to James Harlowe, and which he had answered for as well on Mr. Harlowe's part as his own) I acknowledged nakedly and fairly the whole truth—to wit, 'That we were not yet married. I gave him hints of the causes of procrastination. Some of them owing to unhappy misunderstandings: but chiefly to the Lady's desire of previous reconciliation with her friends; and to a delicacy ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... in Schumann a wild outcry of disappointment, that after all these years he should accept as his dole only further procrastination. He wrote her that his family were beginning to say that if she loved him she would ask no further delay. Clara's letter seems to have been only her last tribute to her father, for, at Schumann's first protest, she hastened to write that she could endure anything, except his doubt; ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... honest, observant man can deny it. Fire and water may as well mingle as we two hope to inhabit the same continent. It is hammer or anvil with us now, and no escape. They realize with delight that our year of procrastination has been to them more than two years of preparation, and so confident are they of success as to even wish ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... understood the value of a separate command, instead of joining, sent various apologies which the pressure of the times compelled Fergus to admit as current, though not without the internal resolution of being revenged on him for his procrastination, time and place convenient. However, as he could not amend the matter, he issued orders to Donald to descend into the Low Country, drive the soldiers from Tully-Veolan, and, paying all respect to the mansion of the Baron, to take his abode somewhere near ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... unfortunate moment for the man to approach her in, and, though he did not know why it should be so, he recognized it; but there were reasons that made any further procrastination ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the valley and the adjacent mounds and hummocks, the horse, considering doubtlessly that there had been enough inaction, tapped the ground with rebellious energy and tossed his head in mutiny against such procrastination. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... in any way connected with this habit of my feelings; or that it needed any other parents or fosterers than constitutional indolence, aggravated into languor by ill-health; the accumulating embarrassments of procrastination; the mental cowardice, which is the inseparable companion of procrastination, and which makes us anxious to think and converse on any thing rather than on what concerns ourselves; in fine, all those close vexations, whether chargeable ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... prince. His brother, Earl James, appears neither to have possessed the abilities nor the ambition of his ancestors. He drew, indeed, against his prince, the formidable sword of Douglas, but with a timid and hesitating hand. Procrastination ruined his cause; and he was deserted, at Abercorn, by the knight of Cadyow, chief of the Hamiltons, and by his most active adherents, after they had ineffectually exhorted him to commit [Sidenote: 1453] his fate to the issue of a battle. The border chiefs, who longed for independence, shewed ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... pocket. On the 1st August, the sultan sent a messenger to inform them that they were at liberty to pay their respects, and take their farewell of him previously to their departure from the city, which they were assured should take place on the following day, without any further procrastination or delay. They were glad to obey the summons, for such they considered it, and on their arrival at his residence, they were introduced into a large, gloomy, uncomfortable apartment; a number of swallows' nests were attached to the ceiling of the room, and their twittering owners, which were ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... which he feels ought never to cease, signifies the necessity of his taking his departure. To take leave of this strange man, however, is not so easy a matter as one might rashly suppose. There is a genius of procrastination about him. Was he ever known to make his appearance at any dinner in season, or indeed at any entertainment? Yes, he did once, at the recital of a Greek tragedy on the Edinburgh stage; but that happened through a trick played on him by an acquaintance, who, to secure some remote chance of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was gone she began to bemoan her weak procrastination, and begged her father's pardon for her presumption in taking the matter out of his hands. "You would not have put it off a day. Now, see what I have done by ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... it—the idiot was gone—who could tell whither? After two hours' unprofitable labour, Doctor Mayhew was again in his library, very much disturbed in mind, and reproaching himself bitterly for his procrastination. "Had I acted," said he, "upon my first determination, this would never have happened, and my part in the business would have been faithfully performed. As it is, if any mischief should come to that man, I shall never cease to blame ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... made an end of his ambiguousness and hesitation, and that he should once for all fix his mind, there being nothing more injurious than leisurely deliberation when a man has need of prompt decision and action. I told Mr. Windebank further, that the King's procrastination was simply putting the sceptre into the hands of the Puritans, was ruining the State, his children, and himself, and that a really wise prince not only provides for the safety of his kingdom during his own life-time, but orders things in such ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... ground which he abandoned when he crossed the Potomac into Maryland. It is at this point, and in this juncture of affairs that the policy of Mr. Lincoln requires the explanation of a friendly critic. The historian of the future may wonder at the procrastination of the President. He may criticize his conduct in neglecting to relieve McClellan when it was apparent that he would not avail himself of the advantages that were presented by the victory at Antietam. The explanation or apology, is this, in substance: ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... stipulated date the Servian Government rendered a reply which, though complying in some points with the conditions of Austria-Hungary, yet showed in all essentials the endeavor through procrastination and new negotiations to escape from the just demands of the monarchy, the latter discontinued her diplomatic relations with Servia without indulging in further negotiations or accepting further Servian assurances, whose value, to its loss, she had ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... these transactions, recalled his commissioners, and ordered the general court to send agents to England, to answer the complaints made against its proceedings. The court, having more than once experienced the benefits of procrastination, affected at first to disbelieve the authenticity of the letter; and afterwards excused themselves from sending agents by saying that the ablest among them could not support their cause better ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... they are not able to sustain against us in the field. Let us then hasten to chastise their insolence before the evil gain ground. Not that I entertain any doubts of success, but for the purpose of saving the valuable lives which such procrastination might endanger. Amongst the rebel chiefs, who appear to possess in the greatest degree the confidence of their comrades, and most resolutely to defy our power, are el Negro,[2] of Lanjaron, and el Feri de Benastepar. The former, blockaded in the Castle of Lanjaron, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... remarkable for precipitancy than Eldon for procrastination, Sir John Leach, Vice-Chancellor, was said to have done more mischief by excessive haste in a single term than Eldon in his whole life wrought through extreme caution. The holders of this opinion delighted to repeat the poor and not ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Murray advertised the book as Life, A Drama; and Dr. Knapp, who had in his collection the original proof-sheets of Lavengro, reproduces the title-page of the book which then stood as Life, A Drama, and bore the date 1849. Borrow's procrastination in delivering the complete book worried John Murray exceedingly. Not unnaturally, for in 1848 he had offered the book at his annual sale dinner to the booksellers who had subscribed to it liberally. Eighteen months later Murray ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... against the nervous child to allow it to hesitate, to debate, or to falter about any matter that pertains to the execution of parental commands. Let your rule be—speak once, then spank. Never for a moment countenance anything resembling dilatoriness or procrastination, let the child grow up to recognize these as its greatest dangers, never to be tolerated ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... opinions within his political household and not a little alarmed at the possibility of war with Spain. The Secretary of State was coolly taking the measure of his chief. "There is a slowness, want of decision, and a spirit of procrastination in the President," he confided to his diary. He did not add, but the thought was in his mind, that he could sway this President, mold him to his heart's desire. In this first trial of strength the hardier personality won: Monroe sent a message to Congress, on January 13, 1818, announcing his ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... France and to become our allies!" exclaimed Napoleon, proudly. "The electress of Wurtemberg is a daughter of George the Third of England, a daughter of my mortal enemy; hence, she shall bow to me or feel my power and my wrath. The time for hesitation and procrastination is over. I want to have my friends at my side and my enemies opposite me. Let the German princes choose whether they will go with France against Austria, their common despot, or whether, like Austria, they wished to be ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... This dissipation of time, to say nothing of its unfair appropriation of what belongs to the library, defeats the prompt accomplishment of the work in hand, and fosters the evil habit of scattering your forces, in idleness and procrastination. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... having raised their standard before the 26th, the rebels had already been permitted to possess themselves of the county of Wexford in its whole southern division—Ross and Duncannon only excepted; of which the latter was not liable to capture by coup de main, and the other was saved by the procrastination of the rebels. The northern division of the county was overrun pretty much in the same hasty style, and through the same desperate neglect in previous concert of plans. Upon first turning their views to the north, the rebels had taken up a position on the Hill of Corrigrua, as ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... meaning of the words timidity and procrastination. His plans were instantly laid. The time fixed for the conflagration was midnight. He gave orders that the hall in which the conspirators were assembled should be surrounded exactly at eleven. Soon ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... found the letter; one felt so scientific in explaining gas that one never found the leak; and one felt so judicial, so impartial, in weighing evidence that one had to be bribed to come to any conclusion at all. This was the last note of the Victorians: procrastination ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... by virtue of their age, rank, or talents; and living as though they held their present being by no precarious tenure, they trifle away their time in criminal indulgences, and "lose their own souls" by a guilty procrastination. To persons of this class, Solomon suggests a most important truth, in the form of a sarcastic appeal—"Rejoice, O young man in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... preventive measures, if taken, are in no true sense offensive but defensive. Decadent conditions, such as we observe in Turkey—and not in Turkey alone—cannot be indefinitely prolonged by opportunist counsels or timid procrastination. A time comes in human affairs, as in physical ailments, when heroic measures must be used to save the life of a patient or the welfare of a community; and if that time is allowed to pass, as many now think that it was at the time of the Crimean war, the last state is worse than the first,—an ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... shame; he could not escape from Debendra's banter and taunts. He consented to allow Debendra to make the acquaintance of his wife. Then fear arose lest Surja Mukhi should be displeased. A year passed in evasion and procrastination; when, seeing that this could be carried on no longer, he made an excuse that his house was in need of repair, and sent Kunda Nandini to Nagendra's house. When the repairs of the house were completed, Kunda Nandini returned home. ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... by demanding of the Rajah, in addition to his settled tribute, a large contribution towards the war expenses. The sum was paid, but similar requisitions in the following years were met with procrastination or evasion, and a demand that the Rajah should furnish a contingent of cavalry was not complied with. This conduct on the part of Cheyt Sing appeared to the Governor-General and his Council "to require early punishment, and, as ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... that Cal Harris was at least possessed of self-confidence and that procrastination was certainly not to be numbered among his failings. It came to her that his interests, for the present, were identical with her own. As half-owner in the Three Bar it would be as much to his advantage as to her own to build ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... brings results: David turned his feet unto the testimonies of the Lord. Thought, if worthy of the name, prompts a man to do something or to leave off doing something." With strength and effectiveness the young preacher dwelt upon the latter part of the text, and closed with a warning against procrastination, declaring it senseless, dangerous, ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... upon Philip's part to inform his sister that his object was to gain time. Procrastination was always his first refuge, as if the march of the world's events would pause indefinitely while he sat in his cabinet and pondered. It was, however, sufficiently puerile to recommend to his sister an affectation of ignorance on a subject concerning ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the exquisite agony of suspense. In short, the brides-elect were obdurate. They insisted on waiting, even to the end of time, for the realization of their fondest, dearest hopes. Several heartbroken gentlemen, preferring anything to procrastination, threatened ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... never written home. Whether from diffidence or shame, or a touch of anger, or mere procrastination, or because (as we have seen) he had no skill in literary arts, or because (as I am sometimes tempted to suppose) there is a law in human nature that prevents young men - not otherwise beasts - from the performance of this simple act of piety - months and years had gone by, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mad desire to get away at last, to cease with this fateful procrastination and to fly from this country with the golden booty, which he had gained at such awful risks, these caused him finally to turn the mare's head towards home, leaving Editha to follow as best she might, in the company of ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... earnest will, there was a habit of putting off till to-morrow what should be done to-day, of which he was himself fully sensible, and which he speaks of in one of his letters, as that "fatal habit of delay and procrastination, for which I am ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... a wider experience, and therefore the administration of their state has improved faster than yours. But here let your procrastination end; send an army at once into Attica and assist your allies, especially the Potidaeans, to whom your word is pledged. Do not allow friends and kindred to fall into the hands of their worst enemies, or drive us in despair to seek the alliance of others; in taking such a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... any other questions which thou wouldst ask?" inquired the Jinnee, with grim indulgence; "or wilt thou encounter thy doom without further procrastination?" ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Ruthenians is, we claim, a necessity of the hour; its possibilities are beyond realization. Procrastination in this matter is nothing short of treason and will prove a disaster to the Ruthenians, and to the Church. Turning to the Knights of Columbus in Canada and pointing to the feverish and unceasing activities of other agents among this our people I ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... military reservations became potential targets of the Department of Defense's integration drive. This change in policy was substantive, but the traditionalists who feared the sudden intrusion of the services into local community affairs and the reformers who later charged McNamara with procrastination missed the point. More than a declaration of racial principles, the directive was a guideline for the progressive application of a series of administrative pressures. Endorsing the Gesell Committee's concept of command responsibility, McNamara enjoined the local ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... doubtful whether a more decided, a more straight-forward policy would have been as successful as the somewhat devious one she pursued. Her chief rival, Philip II (1556-1598), as much averse as Elizabeth herself to energetic action, even more fond of procrastination, lacked her relative religious and political tolerance, and left Spain weaker than he had found it. And still his tenacity, his devotion to the cause he believed to be that of heaven, his consistency, and even the gloomy seriousness of his life, testify to a strong soul, ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... hour. Publicity is the sustaining food of a powerful store and the only strengthening nourishment for a weak one. The retailer who delays his entry into advertising must pay the penalty of his procrastination by facing more giant competitors as each ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... Prudence encourages procrastination. But while the consideration of the advisability of the retention of Chitral may be deferred, a description of the means is convenient, if not necessary, ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... weeks' notice of my intention to give up my work, I hastened to arrange my affairs, fearing that procrastination might allow some event to change my mind and thus alter the whole course of my life. Two weeks after giving notice to my employer, I started for Tuskegee. I bought a ticket to Atlanta, where I spent the night. The next morning I went to the station and asked for a ticket to Tuskegee. The agent, ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... upon Wolston and Ernest, who, in the exuberance of their joy, had also come out to meet the hunters. They were, however, a little behind; but that was nothing new. These two members of the colony had become quite remarkable for procrastination and absence of mind. When Wolston the mechanician, and Ernest the philosopher, travelled in company, it was rare that some pebble or plant, or question in physics, did not induce them to deviate from their route or tarry on their way. One day they both started for ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... and they would start at noon. Noon came, and they would start at night. But nothing is eternal in this world; not even the procrastination of an American skipper; and at ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... love and its boisterous demonstrations are not exactly intended for myself individually. These kind people greet in me the first hope dawning to them after a long period of darkness; and, therefore, I will joyfully indulge them, and I will thank them by brave deeds. Yes, by deeds! The time of procrastination is over. I must hesitate no longer: ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... to have petered out, in that he manifested no immediate intention of climbing to the roof of the cabin. The truth of the matter was, Lub always showed a disposition to put things off; procrastination was one of his greatest faults, even as too much haste had always been X-Ray Tyson's besetting sin. There was the whole day before him; so what need of undue speed. Taking things easy had become second nature with Lub. Besides, as a final argument, he had gorged himself with the fine breakfast, ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... of roughly L300,000 is required, in addition to a further sum of about L330,000 to meet non-recurring expenditure. These are, admittedly, moderate estimates. The matter, anyway, is now ripe for settlement, and procrastination can only aggravate the financial difficulty. So far as the educational problem is concerned, it is a manifest obligation upon the Nationalist Party to outline their proposals for the redress of these grievances, and to indicate the means by which they can be carried out, before a separate Legislature ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... I declined to see him,' replied the surgeon; 'but I warn you, that if you persist in this extraordinary procrastination, and the individual dies, a ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... modes of life have become so complex by comparison, that we pass over these mere elements to plunge at once into more refined speculations. A modern essayist starts where Addison or Johnson left off. He assumes that his readers know that procrastination is an evil, and tries to gain a little piquancy by paradoxically pointing out the objections to punctuality. Character, of course, becomes more complex, and requires more delicate modes of analysis. Compare, for example, the most ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... never won over by bribes, nor do they wrongly decide the disputes that arise between the rich and the poor. Dost thou keep thyself free from the fourteen vices of kings, viz., atheism, untruthfulness, anger, incautiousness, procrastination, non-visit to the wise, idleness, restlessness of mind, taking counsels with only one man, consultation with persons unacquainted with the science of profit, abandonment of a settled plan, divulgence of counsels, non-accomplishment of beneficial projects, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... afterwards distinguished the man were plainly discernible; great muscular strength accompanied by much awkwardness and many infirmities; great quickness of parts, with a morbid propensity to sloth and procrastination; a kind and generous heart, with a gloomy and irritable temper. He had inherited from his ancestors a scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of medicine to remove. His parents were weak enough to believe that the royal touch was a specific for ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of Ralegh to the scaffold. Its preparation had been immediately taken in hand. The reason for the delay in publication is unknown. Probably the royal editor was extremely fastidious. Whatever the cause of the procrastination, at last, on November 27, the day after Stukely's Petition, an apology appeared with the authority of the Crown. James himself supplied part of the contents, 'additions,' wrote Bacon to Villiers, 'which ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... not show themselves quickly enough to satisfy the most practical, and, (to its credit be it spoken,) the most exacting of Governments; and Macaulay was under the necessity of explaining and excusing a procrastination, which was celerity itself as compared with any codifying that had been done since the days ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... esteem where he could command a stiff figure and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for the patrons of the King street house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming to kick him upstairs, so to speak, a big if, however, with some impetus of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often tripped-up a too much feted prince of good fellows. And it need not detract from the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would have heaps of time to practise literature in his spare moments when desirous of so doing without its clashing with his vocal career or ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Often he was excessively irritable and exasperating in words and manner, but no longer violent from bestial excess. He put off the project of going to a curative institution, with the true opium inertia and procrastination, and all efforts to lead him to definite action proved fruitless. His presence, however, and his quiet, haughty ways, with Roger's frequent visits, did much for a time to restrain the ill-disposed people around ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the Indians, excited to these outrages by the subjects and emissaries of France. Commissaries had been appointed, by both crowns, to meet at Paris and compromise these disputes: but the conferences were rendered abortive by every art of cavilling, chicanery, and procrastination, which the French commissioners opposed to the justice and perspicuity of the English claims. They not only misinterpreted treaties, though expressed with the utmost precision, and perplexed the conferences with difficulties and matter foreign to the subject, but ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Why waste time with ultimatums? he argued to himself. He had never done so. Experience had taught him that the way to win a battle was to beat the other fellow to the draw; hence this diplomatic procrastination filled him with impatience. It seemed almost treasonable to one of Blaze's ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... vessels or destroy" and the elimination of the sea power of Spain in the Orient. The battle of Manila Bay was a practical demonstration of the value of the "fighting edge," as exemplified in an Assistant Secretary who fought procrastination, timidity, and political expedience at home and in a naval officer who fought the enemy's ships on the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... beamed with pleasure. He enjoyed the procrastination as much as she did. "But the month's only just begun! However! Yes, you shall have your way. I won't ask ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... departure! . . . . . At length comes the end—the end of all things, joys or sorrows—even in The Desert, where delay and procrastination are the dull and wearying gods of ceaseless worship. Rose early to pack up, and pay take-leave visits. Weather is mild; the caravan will move slowly on account of the slaves; the journey is short; the route is safe; all things promise a favourable end of my Saharan tour. The mind looks ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... subsequent letter, our friend says: "As to detail, the whole transaction was like a flash to those who saw the miserable ending. I was impelled to write without delay, by the thought that it would be in time for the 'Freeman,' and that any procrastination on my part, might jeopard others of these suffering people, who are living, as was this poor girl, in fancied security. Our consternation was inexpressible; our sorrow and indignation deepen daily, as the thought returns of the awful announcement with which we were awakened: ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... they know a better means, provided only that it be equally decisive. But the conviction that something must be done and must be done immediately, that this something must be radical and final, and that the time for half-measures and procrastination is past—this conviction these addresses would fain produce, if they could, in you personally, as they still cherish the utmost confidence in ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... prophesied truly; from that moment he had no peace till he withdrew all semblance of dissent, and even of procrastination. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... profitable either to themselves or their fellow-creatures; and Mrs. Wilton in her daily instructions had so combined practice with theory, that her pupils almost unconsciously imitated her in the paths of industry and perseverance, no longer feeling (as heretofore) the sad effects of procrastination; but "whatsoever their hands found to do, they did it with ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... reserve the right to herself of marrying if she chose. She also wished to keep Mary dependent upon her as long as she could. Hence, while she would not absolutely refuse to comply with Mary's proposition, she would not really accede to it, but kept the whole matter in suspense by endless procrastination, ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... opportunity, both in England and America, of observing the literary habits of Thackeray, and it always seemed to me that he did his work with comparative ease, but was somewhat influenced by a custom of procrastination. Nearly all his stories were written in monthly instalments for magazines, with the press at his heels. He told me that when he began a novel he rarely knew how many people were to figure in it, and, to use his own words, he was always very shaky about their moral conduct. He ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Providence we shall devote to purposes of beneficence, may not be passed over; and the consecration, not to say the disbursement, should be made immediately, while the idea that our possession are from God is fresh in our minds, and before selfishness shall seize them as her own. Procrastination is often but giving heed to her treacherous voice, and ere we are aware, she carries us captive. As we receive our increase from the hand of God, like faithful stewards, we should set apart the portion belonging to others without delay. To ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... years Redworth had in his memory, for a comment on procrastination and excessive scrupulousness in his calculating faculty, the blue ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... self-interested; nevertheless it is doubtful if the negotiations would have led to any definite result, had not the news of the fall of Antwerp made both parties feel that this was no time for haggling or procrastination. Elizabeth therefore promised to send at once 6000 troops under the command of a "gentleman of quality," who should bear the title of governor-general. He was to co-operate with the Council of State (on which two Englishmen ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... little social chilliness, the symbolical "gracious duchess" showing a touch of hauteur and disappointment. It was in the reactions of the issue upon Canadian politics that Laurier met with his real difficulties. He could not, by tactics of procrastination or evasion, keep the question out of the domestic field; the era of abject, passive and unthinking colonialism was beginning to pass; and the spirit of nationalism was stirring the sluggish waters of Canadian politics. Sir Wilfrid had to face the issue and ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... with affairs on the West Coast of Africa, and this Committee 'by its delays and hesitations lost us the Cameroons,' where two native Kings had asked to be taken under British protection. [Footnote: See Chapter XXVII., p. 431.] On the East Coast there was a more serious result of procrastination in regard ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... Tattiana's love was quite sincere, A love which knew no limitation, Even as the love of children dear. She did not think "procrastination Enhances love in estimation And thus secures the prey we seek. His vanity first let us pique With hope and then perplexity, Excruciate the heart and late With jealous fire resuscitate, Lest jaded with satiety, The artful prisoner should seek ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... embodiment of Righteousness and become freed from malice. Such a man, who becomes devoted, besides, to the discharge of all the duties Religion, becomes endued with the merit of Righteousness. Freed from drowsiness and procrastination, the pious person, who adheres to the path of Righteousness to the best of his power, and becomes possessed of pure conduct, and who is venerable in years, comes to be regarded as ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... put off for several hours without much inconvenience, and all may be postponed without absolute danger. A little delay may try the patience of those who are waiting; but the act itself will be equally perfect and equally valid. Procrastination sometimes is rather advantageous than prejudicial. It gives time for reflection, and may prevent our taking a step which would have made us miserable for life; the delay of a courier has prevented the conclusion of a convention, the signing of which might have occasioned ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... not enforced with any undue haste; ample time was given for compliance with its provisions. Possibly misled by this procrastination, the Portuguese at Macao continued to strive for the re-establishment of commercial relations until 1640, when a very sad event put an end finally to all intercourse. Four aged men, selected from among ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Broad's soul. She remembered some "procrastination"—to use her husband's favourite word—in settling a draper's bill, even when it was diminished by the pew rent, and she wondered if Mrs. Allen knew the facts. Of course she did; all Cowfold knew every fact connected with everybody in the ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... of character," Mr. Jarndyce said to me, "is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or confirmed in him a habit of putting off—and trusting ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... does not do business like Messrs. Smith and Elder; a different spirit seems to preside at —— Street, to that which guides the helm at 65, Cornhill. . . . My relations have suffered from exhausting delay and procrastination, while I have to acknowledge the benefits of a management at once business-like ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... happened in the Spanish colonies, complicated by an inquiry into the conduct of the Governor (Balmaceda), in progress at the High Court of Charcas, which court, as in the case of Cardenas, acted most cautiously, both on account of its position, so far from Paraguay, and on account of the inordinate procrastination of everything connected with the Spanish law. If Balmaceda were condemned, then Antequera would step into his shoes at once. If, on the other hand, he were acquitted, Antequera would have to wait until the legal time of office had run its course. So far all ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... temporisation was nearly over, and by mid-October Turkey had something like 800,000 men under arms, and for nine weeks Enver Pasha had had his signed treaty with Germany in his pocket. Possibly this diplomatic procrastination was useful to us, for it enabled us to bring troops from India in security, and send others to Egypt. But without doubt it was useful to the Turks, for it enabled them to mobilise their armies, and to strengthen enormously the defences of the Dardanelles. Then came the day when Germany ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... French custom of surveying the land along the river front in deep narrow strips, rather than according to the chessboard pattern taken over by Canada from the United States. Red tape, indifference, procrastination, rather than any illwill, delayed the redress of the grievances of the half-breeds. In despair they called Louis Riel back from his exile in Montana. With his arrival the agitation acquired a new and dangerous force. Claiming to be the prophet ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... bring down her rival in proportion to this deduction. The French are and always have been sensible of these great truths.... But allowing that there can be no certainty, but mere chances, in our favor, I do insist upon it that these chances render it our duty to adopt the measure, as, by procrastination, our ruin is inevitable. Should it now be determined to wait the result of a previous formal negotiation with France, a whole year must pass over our heads before we can be acquainted with the result. In the mean time, we are to struggle through a campaign, without arms, ammunition, or any one ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... willingly perform, and such as those are inclined to delay who yet intend some time to fulfil them. It was, therefore, necessary that this universal reluctance should be counteracted, and the drowsiness of hesitation wakened into resolve; that the danger of procrastination should he always in view, and the fallacies ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... kept themselves, and confusion grew upon confusion until the partners were quite confounded. Garrison naively confesses this fault of the firm to his brother-in-law thus: "Brother Knapp, you know, resembles me very closely in his habits of procrastination. Indeed I think he is rather worse than I am ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... dined alone, so I had an opportunity of speaking seriously to John; but I fear procrastination. It is the cry of Friar Bacon's Brazen head, time is—time was; but the time may soon come—time shall be no more. The Whigs are not very bold, not much above a hundred met to support Lord Grey ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... says the Apostle, though most of us would have said exactly the opposite. We generally suppose that the more ardent the hope, the more is it impatient of delay. Paul had learned better. The more certain the assurance, the better we can tolerate the procrastination of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... perhaps say within ourselves, "Would that there had been but a little amendment of this blemish! A little more of strength and purpose against that fault! If only this besetting hardness had not been the spoiler of his life, that great heedlessness, that fatal procrastination, this too frequent sin! Oh! but for this or that which marred the fair and well rounded character! But for this we should have been full of hope: there was so much on the better side, that we should have been full of trust, and even of ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... to follow the condition of her mother, who was a slave. Mr. Duncan fell in love with her, bought her, and remained strongly attached to her until the day of her death. It had always been his intention to manumit her, but, from inveterate habits of procrastination, he deferred it, till the fatal fever attacked them both; and so his child also was left to "follow the condition of her mother." Having neglected to make a will, his property was divided among the sons of sisters married at a distance from him, and thus the little daughter, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... was a kind, amiable little girl, between ten and eleven years old; she was dutiful and obedient, but had an evil habit of procrastination, which her mother had tried in vain to overcome. It was always "time enough" with Emily to do everything, and consequently her lessons were frequently imperfect, and her wardrobe in a sad state, as Mrs. Manvers insisted upon her daughter sewing ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... with a stock of wine, a grand piano, and the laying out of a superior flower-garden, it followed in the most rigorous manner, either that these things must be procured by some other means, or else that the Rev. Mr. Stelling must go without them, which last alternative would be an absurd procrastination of the fruits of success, where success was certain. Mr. Stelling was so broad-chested and resolute that he felt equal to anything; he would become celebrated by shaking the consciences of his hearers, and he would by and by edit a Greek play, and invent several new readings. He had ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... "I mean that if it could ever have been right to answer you as you wished, it would have been right all at once; thinking would not alter it. I am sorry, chiefly, that I allowed this—this procrastination; that I did not make you take my decision that night, at Lady Mallory's. Yes, for that I was to blame. Only, some day I think you will see that I was right, that it would ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... abolishing slavery; but without the existence of separate States, with their independent local legislation and administrations, the gradual undermining and destruction of the old system would have been a process of extreme procrastination and difficulty. It would have been a gigantic undertaking, convulsing the whole nation whenever attempted, and yet demanding the exercise of its united authority for its accomplishment. We should not have had the effective antagonism of the Free ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... seemed to disturb and impair the sanctity of my pleasure. I contented myself with thinking over my complacent feelings, and breathing forth solitary gratulations and thanksgivings, which I did in many a sweet and many a wild place, during my late Tour. In this shape, procrastination became irresistible to me; at last I said, I will write at home from my own fire-side, when I shall be at ease and in comfort. I have now been more than a fortnight at home, but the uneasiness in my chest has made me beat off the time when the pen was to be ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... which was adopted with such supreme success. We, of course, cannot officially know that such is the fact: but even admitting it, why did not Lord Palmerston do this far earlier? What excuse can be offered for this vacillation and procrastination in an affair of such vast urgency? "We had not the means to equip a sufficient force," his lordship may reply, in his usual strain of bitter flippancy. And why had he not the means? The extravagance and profligacy of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... nonsensical procrastination. Does not the doctor declare that a year will not better ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... in confusion, from the field, and bear away the prize himself. Pensee's observations with regard to Agnes had cleared away most, if not all, of his difficulties in that particular quarter. No one had ever accused him of cowardice. Whenever he took refuge in procrastination or deceit, it was never because he was afraid, but in order that nothing might interfere with the purpose he had in hand. The growing miseries of the situation which he saw, already in part, served only to augment the violence of his resolve. His vanity forbade ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... commandment of her lord; and after many interviews, to which she assented only to gain time, and to complete the provisioning and fortifying of her little garrison, they began to find her answers too full of policy and procrastination, dangerous to the fidelity of their troops. In the end, seeing she was only amusing them by vain pretences, they sent the following as their final terms, by Colonel Morgan, commander of the engineers, who had been appointed by Sir Thomas Fairfax to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... continues favourable for the workman, but the manufacturers generally complain that, for the season, sales are late of commencing, and many of them are already rather slackening their operations to keep their stocks down. The unexpected procrastination in the commencement of the fall trade is reasonably accounted for by ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... wrote, on this point: "In my first interview with Mr. Lincoln alone, he stated to me that he had never professed to be a military man, or to know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere in them; but that procrastination on the part of commanders, and the pressure of the people at the North and Congress, which was always with him, forced him into issuing his series of 'Military Orders'—one, two, three, etc. He did ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... why, I was thinking of your father all last night—I don't sleep very well just now. I thought of the old days, a lifetime ago; and I said to myself that I would write him a letter. So I will, to-day. And in a month or two I shall see him. I'm a walking-copybook-line; procrastination—nothing but putting off pleasures and duties these last years; I don't know how it is. But certainly I will go over to Hawes when I'm in Yorkshire. And I'll write today, tell him ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... whom and without cost of blood and violence I can get rid, I would rather wait him out, and starve him out, than fight him out. Fabius fought Hannibal skeptically. Who was his Roman coadjutor, whom we read of in Plutarch when we were boys, who scoffed at the other's procrastination and doubted his courage, and engaged the enemy and was beaten ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Hedwig until I sat at my table with his letter before me, overcome with the sense of my own weakness in not having effectually checked this mad passion at its rise; or, since it had grown so masterfully, of my wretched procrastination in not having taken my staff in my hand and gone out into the world to find the woman my boy loved and bring her to him. By this time, I thought, I should have found her. I could not bear to think of ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... my people surpassed in procrastination, as yours in deceiving. However, their minds ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... a polite man but not to the point of procrastination. He advanced to meet the puzzled American, smiling amiably and twirling his imposing mustachios with neatly ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... by Frederick. The King hastened to defend Silesia, for which Soltikoff's procrastination allowed him ample opportunity. Daun had, it is true, succeeded in forming a junction with Laudon at Liegnitz, but their camps were separate, and the two generals were on bad terms. Frederick advanced close in their vicinity. An ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... for all that you require, if you only do not throw it away, nor let some quick-fingered thief like Procrastination steal away your treasure of Time," replied Mr. Learning with a smile. "Think of the pleasure which it will give your mother if she find each of you, on her return six months hence, comfortably settled in a well-furnished ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... submitted this question: "Lord, are there few that be saved?" Jesus replied: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able."[944] The counsel was enlarged upon to show that neglect or procrastination in obeying the requirements for salvation may result in the soul's loss. When the door is shut in judgment many will come knocking, and some will plead that they had known the Lord, having eaten and drunk in His company, and that He had taught upon their streets; ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... then, in Christian diligence is economy of time as of most precious treasure, and the avoidance, as of a pestilence, of all procrastination. 'To-morrow and to-morrow' is the opiate with which sluggards and cowards set conscience asleep, and as each to-morrow becomes to-day it proves as empty of effort as its predecessors, and, when it has become yesterday, it adds one more to the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... that; the errand that engaged him was of a nature to brook no more procrastination. The girl must wait. He was sorry if, as she had protested, solicitude for his welfare must interfere with her night's rest. But what must be, must: until he saw the end of this adventure he could be influenced by no minor ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... stave off the evil day until lunch was half over; but procrastination was not nearly as wholesale a thief of time as they wished ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... of not attending is formed in you; then a habit of deferring your attention. And continually from time to time you drive away by deferring it the happiness of life, proper behavior, the being and living conformably to nature. If then the procrastination of attention is profitable, the complete omission of attention is more profitable; but if it is not profitable, why do you not maintain your attention constant? Today I choose to play. Well then, ought you not to play with attention? ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... find no will of Lord Thomond's as yet; so his poor nephew will by his procrastination be the loser of a considerable estate; for he certainly intended to have made him his heir, and the attorney had left with him a will to be filled up. But we are never sure of doing anything but what we have but one minute for doing; what we think we may do any day, we put ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... war? I have often been asked the question; in answering it I always feel that I am giving only a partial answer. On the one hand there is the record of her two and a half years of procrastination, on the other the titanic upspringing of her warrior-spirit, which happened almost in a day. How can one reconcile the multitudinous pacific notes which issued from Washington with the bugle-song to which the American boys march: ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... himself to believe that the young people could ever prevail; but nevertheless, as the idea of the thing had not alarmed Lady Cantrip as it had him, it was necessary that he should make some apology to Mrs. Finn. Each moment of procrastination was a prick to his conscience. He now therefore dragged out from the secrecy of some close drawer Mrs. Finn's letter and read it through to himself once again. Yes—it was true that he had condemned her, and that he ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... which he never will be; still he will not be allowed by these men to act as if he were so. In the mean time, time will be wasted. The preparations for war will cool. How is it that the war has been protracted as long as this, if it be not by procrastination and delay? ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... now and then about the foreign tour; but Kate deigned no reply whatever; and the chilled topic died out before the wet hay could be got in: and so much for Procrastination. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... not be possible to grant an immediate conference, but that as soon as possible he would have pleasure in selecting a "felicitous day'' on which they could hold a "pleasant interview'';[49] and when the envoys, worn out by the never-ending procrastination, finally gave up in disgust and announced their intention of returning home, the typical Chinese official blandly replied, as the notorious Yeh did to United States Minister Marshall in January, 1854,—"I avail myself of the occasion to present my compliments, and trust that, of late, your ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... you will begin to consider me intrusive with my frequent letters. I ought by right to let an interval of a quarter of a year elapse between each communication, and I will, in time; never fear me. I shall improve in procrastination ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... made me copy out those variations in Pope's "Homer" which are printed in the "Poets' Lives." "And now," said he, when I had finished it for him, "I fear not Mr. Nicholson of a pin." The fine 'Rambler,' on the subject of Procrastination, was hastily composed, as I have heard, in Sir Joshua Reynolds's parlour, while the boy waited to carry it to press; and numberless are the instances of his writing under immediate pressure of importunity or distress. He told me that ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... of the Diet were neglected, either through the procrastination of the Emperor, or through the fault of the Protestant Estates, who had determined to make no provision for the common wants of the Empire till their own grievances were removed. These grievances related principally to the misgovernment of the Emperor; the violation of ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... food. Indeed, this action of the governor made him very unpopular with the Rhett faction. Rhett rushed over to inform him that the people demanded that Fort Sumter should be taken without any further procrastination or delay. The governor made a very shrewd reply. He said, "Certainly, Mr. Rhett; I have no objection! I will furnish you with some men, and you can storm the work yourself." Rhett drew back and replied, "But, ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... vaguely aware of the fact, this philosophy of procrastination (but another form of selfishness) was the spawn of a supposition; the supposition that his love for Sue Desha was not returned; that it was hopeless, absurd. He was not injuring her. He was the moth, she the flame. He did not realize that the moth can extinguish ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... line of conduct which reason had long since recommended, could no longer be the subject of procrastination. Mr. Bidmore was destined to foreign travel for a twelvemonth, and Mr. Cargill received from his patron the alternative of accompanying his pupil, or retiring upon a suitable provision, the reward of his past instructions. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... again when it chanced she was passing by. At Great Titchfield Street, when Miss Rabbit and Gertie happened to be, for the moment, alone, the forewoman begged her in a low, confidential whisper not to put off till to-morrow anything she could do to-day, adding that procrastination was the ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
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