"Obduracy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forms of mourning were observed in Glenallan House, notwithstanding the obduracy with which the members of the family were popularly supposed to refuse to the dead the usual tribute of lamentation. It was remarked, that when she received the fatal letter announcing the death of her ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... know exactly the relation in which she stood to her father. However, he went on to relate how she had been born to him by a beautiful mulatto, for whom he had given a great sum; yet at this she startled not, moved not, blushed not. But hers was not the calmness of obduracy, but of innocence. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... had possessed no power over the warm tide of the affections. It is the triumph of nature over art; it is the voice of the angel which is yet within us. Nor is this all: the tenderness of age is twice blessed,—blessed in its trophies over the obduracy of encrusting and withering years, blessed because it is tinged with the sanctity of the grave; because it tells us that the heart will blossom even upon the precincts of the tomb, and flatters us with the inviolacy and immortality ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... penetrated the study. The crowd had again started cheering. Impatient as the watchers were, they felt that no news was good news. The longer the interview accorded by the Home Secretary to the chairman of the Defense Committee, the greater the hope his obduracy was melting. The idol of the people would be saved, and "Grodman" and "Tom Mortlake" were mingled in ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... wished to show it to, and she (a She) can do very well without it. I sent it to you directly I got it, because I thought you would be as pleased as I was with C.'s encomium on Spedding, which will console him (if he needs Consolation) for the obduracy of the World at large, myself among the number. I can indeed fully assent to Carlyle's Admiration of Spedding's History of the Times, as well as of the Hero who lived in them. But the Question still remains—was ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... futurity, imposed but little restraint on the turbulence of deified tyrants, who were sufficiently powerful not to fear the reproaches of their subjects—who had the insensibility to be deaf to the censure of their fellows—who were gifted with an obduracy of soul, that prevented their having compassion for the miseries of mankind, from whom they fancied themselves so pre-eminently distinguished; which, in fact, they were, if crime can be allowed for the standard of distinction. Neither heaven nor earth furnishes a balsam of sufficient efficacy ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... aside all discord and pride, and to allow divine mercy and peace to prevail instead of strife. But the paternal words were spoken in vain, and the legates also who were sent by the Pope to Constantinople were powerless to move the obduracy of the patriarch. He persistently refused all communication with them by speech or writing. Having therefore formally laid their complaints in the most distinct terms before the Emperor and Senate, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... Turk clutched the arm of Will Turk's wife in fingers that were tight with the obduracy ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... ridiculous in his own eyes. He thought that all her pretence of not wishing to accept his sacrifice, all the reproaches and tears, were only the devices of a depraved woman, who wished to use him to the best advantage. He seemed to remember having seen signs of obduracy at his last interview with her. All this flashed through his mind as he instinctively put on his ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... her to lift her clasped hands in supplication. Her eyes she could not lift. But neither her agony, nor the lovely features on which it was depicted, nor the slender grace of the form which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of the young man. He was the personification of ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... properly reared to know the world, to see it, hear it, and suffer it, tunes all the attributes of the mind and heart to make sweet music. Nothing mellows the heart like sorrow; nothing so softens the obduracy of our natures as experience. None, sir, man or woman, are fitted for the world without the experiences its contact brings. These experiences are teachings, and the bitter ones the best. To be happy, we must have been miserable; it is the idiosyncracy ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... two British vessels, an apology for the insults offered by the governor of Rangoon to the representatives of the British government, and the re-establishment of at least the appearance of friendly relations by the reception of a British agent by the Burmese government. But the obduracy of King Pagan, who had succeeded his father in 1846, led to the refusal alike of atonement for past wrongs, of any expression of regret for the display of gratuitous insolence, and of any indication of a desire to maintain ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the conscience and spiritual affairs, namely, to induce us to despise and disregard both the Word and works of God to tear us away from faith, hope, and love and bring us into misbelief, false security, and obduracy, or, on the other hand, to despair, denial of God, blasphemy, and innumerable other shocking things. These are indeed snares and nets, yea, real fiery darts which are shot most venomously into the heart, not by flesh and blood, but by ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... order that these scoundrels may persist in their obduracy! Encourage them by a culpable weakness! Never! Besides to pay one must have money! and ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... terrible struggle, too often victorious against nature and truth, the man was for once vanquished. But it would be idle to imagine that a character of this temperament and of this obduracy could transform itself, or could be materially modified under the stroke of a few transitory emotions, or of a few nervous shocks. M. de Camors rallied quickly from his weakness, if even he did not repent ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... visibly contemptuous, she hastened to make substantial additions to her fleet and her army in far-eastern Asia. It was impossible to mistake her purpose. She intended to yield nothing, but to prepare such a parade of force that her obduracy would command submission. The only alternatives for Japan were war or permanent effacement in ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... you talk your hog-latin to me for?" cried the cripple, who, throughout the address, betrayed the most illiterate obduracy; and, with an incensed look, anew he ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... letter, in English, runs thus:—"After telling you how much I desire to see you in all health and prosperity, I send you news respecting the wretch Asaad Esh Shidiak, otherwise called lord of hell. His obduracy, with which you are acquainted, has exceedingly increased. It is not unknown to you, how much care I have bestowed on him for his good, how much I have laboured for his salvation, and under what severe discipline I have put him; and all to no effect. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... lightness and grace, yet so firm in its welded strength that thousands of tons of merchandise pass over it daily without causing, the slightest oscillation of its airy arches. Here, too, the wonders of mechanical skill are placed in striking juxtaposition with the wonders of Nature, whose obduracy has been so signally overcome. The sense of security was heightened in our case by a furious storm which burst upon us. We were seated on the fender or' cow-catcher,' watching the majestic marshaling of the thunder-clouds ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... romance, would elope without regard for the canons of romance? Not so; depend upon it, a letter was left upon her pin-cushion announcing her removal with you, and in the most approved heroic style arraigning the obduracy of her unsympathetic grandchildren. D'ye think Gerald Allonby will not follow her? Sure, and he will; and the proof is," I added, "that you may hear his horses yonder on the heath, as I heard ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... Jane was obduracy itself in respect to his pleadings. A certain light in her eyes had, at last, brought conviction to his soul. He began to fear—with a mighty pain—that she would not retreat from the stand she ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... I represent to him how terribly his obduracy will distress you all, should he insist on my return, I feel sure he will relent," ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... orchestra was all at sixes and sevens, not one of them had any idea of accompaniment Lauretta screamed—raved—wept with impatience and anger. The organist was presiding at the piano; she attacked him with the bitterest reproaches. He got up and in silent obduracy marched out of the hall. The bandmaster of the town, whom Lauretta had dubbed a 'German ass!' took his violin under his arm, and, banging his hat on his head with an air of defiance, likewise made for the door. The members of his company, sticking their bows under the strings ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... comfortable circumstances, who have so much blindness of mind, and such an utter disregard for the welfare of their offspring, as to deprive them of the advantages of even a common school education; and, secondly, those who have such an obduracy of heart as absolutely to refuse to allow their children to attend school, and who, although the abundant provisions of the law are made known unto them, in meekness and love, by "man's guardian ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... wrote now would alter matters." Still with a somewhat leaky logic she added: "But I'll give him a month to answer before I fix the date." When the month had passed without result she granted herself other continuances, facing alike, with a gentle obduracy, the pleas of her elderly lover and the importunities of a father who threatened to murder himself with the self-inflicted tortures ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... of Misrule, but of Hearts. Had a throne been his, she should have shared it, and he wooed her with a shy intensity, which ennobled him, even in her austere regard. Alas! she was unable to return his passion, and she lamented her own obduracy with characteristic humour. She made no attempt to conceal her admiration. 'A notable and famous person,' she called him, confessing that, 'he was right for her tooth, and made to her mind in every part of him.' He had been bred up in the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... the name of Thisbe, Pyramus, at point of death, opened his eyelids and looked at her, what time the mulberry became vermilion, so, my obduracy becoming softened, I turned me to the wise Leader, hearing the name that in my memory is ever welling up. Whereat he nodded his head, and said, "How! do we want to stay on this side?" Then he smiled as one doth at a child who is conquered by ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... ye will now, f'r the Orphanage.' But Mr. Jones was obdurate. Well, then, he would give a few pounds of tea and sugar? But he was right out of both commodities. Some of his fine eggs, or, maybe, a young pig? Mr. Jones continued in his obduracy. He was a poor man, he said, and could ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... movement inside, leading me to believe that the sleeper had slipped from his bed and was approaching the door. Again I rapped, this time with greater impatience over the delay, but not the slightest sound rewarded the effort Shivering there in my wet clothes, the stubborn obduracy of ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... mold," answered Ashley, with more animation, but the mask of reserve fell quickly over his features. "Enough of me and my affairs, though. How is it with you? Have you won the lady of your own heart's desire? When last I saw you, you were lamenting, the obduracy of some fair one, if ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... party the hope of reconquering. Tiberius had sincere friends and admirers, especially among the nobility, less numerous than those of Julia, but more serious, because his merits were real. Many people among the higher classes—even though, like Augustus, they considered the obduracy of Tiberius excessive—thought that Rome no more possessed so many examples of illustrious men as to be able to retire its best general at thirty-seven. Very soon there arose in the circles about Augustus, in the Senate, in the comitia, ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... Already some of the burlier slaves were licking their lips and sizing him up. His efforts to improve the life of the slaves were being blocked completely by the slaves themselves. With a mumbled curse at the continued obduracy of the human race Jason sank the toe of ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... the many horrible Scotch trials on record. One Dr. Fian was suspected of having aroused the wind and a confession was wrung from him by torture which, however, he almost immediately retracted. Every form of torture was in vain employed to vanquish his obduracy; the bones of his legs were broken into small pieces in the boot. All the torments that Scottish law knew of were successively applied. At last, the king (who personally presided over the tortures) suggested a new and more horrible device. The ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... free from the intrusion, since the doors could not be shut against him. Sometimes, he came accompanied by his partner, though more frequently alone, but ever with the same purpose,—namely, that of protesting the violence of his passion, and seeking to soften her obduracy. As may be well supposed, his pleadings, however urged, were wholly ineffectual, and excited no other feelings, except those of detestation, in her bosom. Such a state of things could not endure for ever; and her only hope was, that finding all ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... describe the pleasure with which Natura found his father was apprized of this affair, without being obliged to relate it himself, as he was now determined to have done:—all his obduracy being now intirely vanquished, and converted into the most ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... the obduracy of this undaunted convict who had been recalled to her by the clergyman at their strange interview, had reached Sylvia's ears. She had heard gloomy hints of the punishments inflicted on him by her husband's order, and as—constantly revolving in her mind ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... my obduracy, went to foul extremes. I drew plans of all the floors from memory. I actually descended upon my friends in the neighborhood, with the sole object of obtaining snap-shots over our own old garden wall. Even Raffles could not keep his eyebrows down when ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... the common herd by an affectation of the glory of martyrdom, the commission was to devise means for putting in force the final sentence of the Inquisition with greater privacy, and thereby depriving condemned heretics of the honor of their obduracy." In order, however, to provide against the commission going beyond its prescribed limits Philip expressly required that the Bishop of Ypres, a man whom he could rely on as a determined zealot for the Romish faith, should be one of the body. Their deliberaations were to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of extraordinary obduracy," he said, "for one of your years. I should like to know how much the Stanbury influence has had to do with strengthening your unwise, unamiable, and stiff-necked resolution! If I were Claude Bainrothe, I should lay heavy damages against you in the ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... of the same fact in the history of Christianity. The beautiful example of the Saviour, and the wonderful miracles which he performed—all for the good of man—failed to attract the high boasted reason of the Greek, or the Roman, or to soften the obduracy of the blind and hard Pharisaic hearted Jew: it was still the few who had sympathy with the character He exhibited, and the truths which He spoke, and who found Him to be to their souls "the power of God unto salvation." And even when these few were gathered together, and under the ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... the Second Part. Obduracy is a serious obstacle to conversion because the obdurate sinner has confirmed his will in malice(532) and by systematic resistance diminished the influence of grace. The question here is whether or not God in such cases ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... perfectly disinterested man, this may become a very beautiful and tender thing. Such a man, from long and intimate relations with humanity, will have a very deep knowledge of the human heart. He will be surprised at no weakness or frailty; he will be patient with all perverseness and obduracy; he will be endlessly compassionate, because he will realize the strength and insistence of temptation; he will be endlessly hopeful, because he will have seen, a hundred times over, the flower of virtue and love blooming in an arid and desolate heart. He will have seen close at hand the transforming ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is there which generally would be held weightier? First, there are the confessions of dying criminals;—I mean, that, logically, we must reserve such a head, as likely to offer itself sooner or later. Tempers vary as to obduracy, and circumstances vary. All men will not share in the obstinacy of partisan pride; or not, by many degrees, equally. And again, some amongst the many thousands who leave families will have favours to ask. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... thoughts have woven around the woman who is their object. Evesham had grown impatient; he had broken the spell of her sweet remoteness. He had touched her and found her human, deliciously, distractingly human, but with a streak of that obduracy which history has attributed to the Quakers under persecution. In vain he haunted the mill-dam, and bribed the boys with traps and pop-guns, and lingered at the well-curb to ask Dorothy for water that did not reach ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... engaged had repeatedly suggested the propriety of including the former also in the contest. While the severity of the struggle would, I supposed, be enhanced, the self-respect and self-reliance, the opposition and even obduracy of the will would, I hoped, be enough increased as not seriously to hazard the one great object of leaving off opium forevcr. Still I dreaded the experiment of adding a feather's weight to the sufferings I was then enduring. ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... November; and it became a question how the intermediate time should be passed. The Countess was resolved that she would hold no pleasant intercourse at all with her daughter. She would not even tell the girl of her purpose of going abroad. From hour to hour she assured herself with still increasing obduracy that nothing but severity could avail anything. The girl must be cowed and frightened into absolute submission,—even though at the expense of her health. Even though it was to be effected by the absolute crushing of her spirits,—this ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... at the sight of her apparent obduracy, and at the hearing of words which by a crowning fatality can only reconvince him of her guilt, these feelings give way to others, it is to righteous indignation they give way, not to rage; and, terribly painful as this scene is, there is almost nothing here to diminish the admiration ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... those affections to accomplish that which he knows must be her ruin, and plunge her into misery for life;—when a young man does this, I say he must be either a selfish and unfeeling brute, unworthy of the name of man, or he must have a heart little inferior, in point of obduracy, to that of the murderer. Let young women, however, be aware; let them be well aware, that few, indeed, are the cases in which this apology can possibly avail them. Their character is not solely theirs, but belongs, in ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... could scarcely compose himself sufficiently to follow the seder and ask the conventional question concerning the significance of the Pesach festival. In reply, the head of the house recited from his Hagada how the Lord punished Pharaoh for his obduracy, how the children of Israel were eventually led from captivity, how the Red Sea was divided that the chosen people might traverse its bed while the Egyptian perished miserably, and how the Lord conducted his people safely through the wilderness ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... wigs; a seditious Heretic, physical-force Chartist, and enemy of his country and mankind: To the gallows and the cross with him! Barabbas is our man; Barabbas, we are for Barabbas!" They got Barabbas:—have you well considered what a fund of purblind obduracy, of opaque flunkyism grown truculent and transcendent; what an eye for the phylacteries, and want of eye for the eternal noblenesses; sordid loyalty to the prosperous Semblances, and high-treason ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... not limit ourselves to the obduracy of the Covenant-people. This we are taught, not only by the relation of chap. i. and ii. to iv. 2, but, with especial distinctness, by the renewal of this threatening in Rev. xiv. 14-20, where the image of the vintage and winepress, in particular, is borrowed ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... lobby, a sinister example of respectability, waiting patiently for the return of his enemy. The self-appointed guardian coaxed him away from the place, conducting him to the cheap, ill-favored thieves' lodging-house where he had taken a single room for temporary occupancy. Braddock, after a show of obduracy, finally had consented to make an effort to see his wife before visiting his wrath ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... the empress, as much excited by her son's obduracy as by Josepha's touching confession. "This scene must end, and so help me God, it shall never be enacted a second time! You are bound to one another for life, and together you shall remain. Each mortal has his weight of grief to ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... when they arrived there, as a thing very awful to think of. Every shop was shut, and every window closed; for it was the usage in those days, when death was in a house, to close all the windows, so that the appearance of the town was as if, for the obduracy of their idolatrous sovereign, the destroying angel had slain all the first-born, and that a dead body was then lying in ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... thereof, and that, if thou shalt not relent of the harshness that thou didst manifest the other day, thou mayst rest assured that her life will be short: wherefore I pray thee to be pleased to give her solace of her desire, and shouldst thou persist in thy obduracy, I, that gave thee credit for not a little sense, shall deem thee a great fool. How flattered thou shouldst be to know thyself beloved above all else by a lady so beauteous and high-born! And how indebted shouldst ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... welcomed me back, and I returned the compliment by sulking like the recaptured runaway I was at heart. The world showed a sudden interest in me; so I took no further interest in the world, but, on the contrary, resented its attentions with unreasonable warmth and obduracy; and my would-be friends I regarded as my very worst enemies. The majority, I feel sure, meant but well and kindly by the poor survivor. But the survivor could not forget that his name was still in the newspapers, nor blink ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... bandages hid the tears that came to his smarting eyes. He had made arrangements to be read aloud to, he said; and as for music, that must wait awhile. The kind woman retired dismayed,—she could not understand such obduracy,—and her husband felt rebuffed. Stannard of the cavalry, too, came in with his gentle wife. She was loved throughout the regiment for her kindliness and grace of mind, as well as for her devotion to the sick and suffering in the old days of the Indian ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... will test such a man almost to breaking point. Then she yields, and, being feminine, her obduracy is the measure of her favors, for she will bestow on her dogged suitor all, and more than all, ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy |
