"Obesity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from becoming commonplace and obscure and—and everything you promised not to be when you married me," she retorted from the doorway, her eyes still alight with that disturbing and tantalizing fire. "It is my last desperate effort as a wife to save you from baldness, obesity, and nonentity." Wherewith she disappeared into her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... also a question of quality. A soft, flabby flesh makes as good a show as a firm one; but though to the careless eye, a child of full, flaccid tissue may appear the equal of one whose fibres are well toned, a trial of strength will prove the difference. Obesity in adults is often a sign of feebleness. Men lose weight in training. Hence the appearance of these low-fed children is far from conclusive. In the third place, besides size, we have to consider energy. Between children of the meat-eating classes and those of the bread-and-potato-eating ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... struggler: our mental changes are like our grey hairs or our wrinkles—but the fulfilment of the plan of mortal growth and decay: that which is snow-white now was glossy black once; that which is sluggish obesity to-day was boisterous rosy health a few years back; that calm weariness, benevolent, resigned, and disappointed, was ambition, fierce and violent, but a few years since, and has only settled into submissive repose after many a battle and defeat. Lucky he who can bear his failure so generously, and ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... warm air like his familiar spirits, and then bent over the lamp. She watched his face grow yellow in the diminishing glare, and moaned, knowing herself weak with motherhood. Then in the blackness his weight threshed down on her. Even his form was a deceit, for his vast bulk was not obesity but iron-hard strength. All consciousness soon left her, except only pain, and she wandered in the dark caverns of her mind. Her capacity for sexual love lay dead in her. She saw it as a lovely naked boy lying with blue lips and purple blood pouring from his side, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... is a fault; except when caused by the disease known as obesity, it is a bad habit. Getting thin and at the same time retaining one's health is a virtue. Never does the reductionist feel quite so virtuous as when for the first time, perhaps in decades, he can stand straight up and look straight down and behold the tips of his toes. His virtue ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... masts, sails, and cordage; the abundance of fish lying about; the rafters of the houses laden with dried and smoked meat; and the full and jolly proportions of most of the inhabitants, who would have rivalled Scott's worthy in height and obesity, immediately struck my eye; and I might have imagined myself transported to the Shetland isle, had it not been for the lodges of the Indians on the beach, and the Indians themselves either running about, or lying stripped in the porches before the ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... honest man and a gentleman, regretted it. All the Chapter were somewhat ashamed of it. The Minor Canons were agreed that it was below the dignity of a dean. Dr. Pountner, who had not yet forgotten the allusion to his obesity, whispered in some clerical ear that nothing better could be expected out of a stable; and Canon Holdenough, who really liked the Dean in spite of certain differences of opinion, expostulated with ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... money in patent medicines. For instance, in a new cure for obesity if properly worked. A man like you can ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... in the snug parlour of "mine host" Paddy White, whom we used to denominate the Falstaff of the island. Though from the land of shillelaghs and whiskey, Paddy is entirely devoid of that gunpowder temperament which characterizes his country; and his genuine humour, ample obesity, and originality of delivery, entitle him to honourable identification with "Sir John." Now, by the soul of Momus! who ever beheld a woe-begone face at Paddy White's? Even our own, remarkable for "loathed melancholy," ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... resignation and a child-like acquiescence in things as they are. The elephant stands first as a soothing influence, and then the giraffe, the latter having special powers, due to its beautiful eyes and agreeable perfume. Sometimes the hippopotamus may diffuse a charm of his own, an aura of rotund obesity, especially when he is bathing or sleeping; but there are moments when one has to flee from his presence. I never could get on very well with rhinoceroses, but the large deer, bison, and wild cattle have the quality ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... the feats of youth not handicapped by obesity. Later, when a heavy paunch, dilated with eggs and silk, has to be trailed along, those gymnastic performances become impracticable. The Lycosa then digs herself a settled abode, a hunting-box, and sits in her watch-tower, on the look-out ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... then a pretty face was seen, rarely a beautiful one. Many were plump, even to corpulence, and these were the closest veiled, being considered the greatest beauties I presume, since with the Turk obesity is the chief element of comeliness. As the carriages passed along in review, every now and then an occupant, unable or unwilling to repress her natural promptings, would indulge in a mild flirtation, making overtures ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... BLOOM: (Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and reads solemnly) Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the alert, he sounds his surroundings with his long vibrating antennae; he toddles and leaps along with a vigour which his future obesity will no longer permit. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... man of amazing obesity, a red-faced man with a bull neck and enormous shoulders, clad in pink striped pajamas and a tasselled nightcap ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... and a woody knoll for our left;—totally inactive for four days long; attempting nothing upon D'Estrees and his intricate shufflings, but looking idly noonward to the courses of the sun, till D'Estrees should come up. Royal Highness is much swollen into obesity, into flabby torpor; a changed man since Fontenoy times; shockingly inactive, they say, in this post at Hastenbeck. D'Estrees, too, is ridiculously cautious, 'has manoeuvred fifteen days in advancing about as many British miles.' D'Estrees did at last come ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... was handsome and striking. His countenance was fine, open, and bland, his features high, and his eyes large and sparkling. His figure was remarkable for its fine proportions; and though somewhat inclined to obesity in his latter years, we are told that, whether sitting or standing, there was always something in his appearance which breathed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... tavern-waiters who expect to put it in the bill. Once-sacred Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof men grudge even the expense; a World becoming dismantled: in one word, the STATE fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy; the STATE shrunken into a Police-Office, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... true I have given myself up to observing anxiously such an advancement as you describe—a vulgar one you will say. When I was a very young man I was a very thin man. I determined to amplify my dimensions. I followed with careful interest my daily increase toward my present—let us not say obesity, ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... distinguish herself, for a more monstrously fat beast was never seen. At last the day of slaughter came—an eventful day in the annals of a mountain farm—the killing of a fat cow, and such a monster of obesity. No wonder all the neighbours were gathered together to see the sight. The old farmer looked upon the preparations in self-pleased importance; the butcher felt he was about no common feat of his craft, and, baring his arm, he struck the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... that he should call her teacher 'my darling,' and that the good lady should seem to think it quite natural, but her reflections on obesity and the manners of theatrical people were interrupted, though not by any means arrested for the night, by the clattering sound of high-heeled shoes in the corridor. The act was over, and Madame Bonanni was coming back from the stage. In a moment she was in the doorway, ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... crown of England and setting it on his own brow, destroying homesteads that he might have a larger game forest, making a Doomsday Book by which he could keep the whole land under despotic espionage, proclaiming war in revenge for a joke uttered in regard to his obesity. Harvest fields and vineyards going down under the cavalry hoof. Nations horror-struck. But one day while at the apex of all observation he is riding out and the horse put his hoof on a hot cinder, throwing the king so violently against ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... witness imperceptibly her increase, and not seeing any other females, except at a distance. For the last two years she had seldom quitted her bed—certainly she did not crawl out of the cabin more than five minutes during the week— indeed, her obesity and habitual intoxication rendered her incapable. My father went on shore for a quarter of an hour once a month, to purchase gin, tobacco, red herrings, and decayed ship-biscuits;—the latter was my principal fare, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... malnutrition and a host of other abnormal states might be either cured or prevented. Innumerable adults would also benefit by such exercises: those who are in health, in order to keep so; those who are depressed mentally, or who are suffering from constipation, dyspepsia, anaemia, obesity, debility, etc. ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... Age and obesity had made her inapt for love, but she took a keen interest in the amatory affairs of the young. She looked upon venery as the natural occupation for men and women, and was ever ready with precept and example from ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... out by her thoughtless father, he paid, in the selection of some of them, very little attention to her feelings. There was the sheriff, Mr. Oxley, and his lady—the latter a compound in whom it was difficult to determine whether pride, vulgarity, or obesity prevailed. Where the sheriff had made his capture of her was never properly known, as neither of them belonged originally to that neighborhood in which he had, several years ago, purchased large property. It was said he had got her in London; and nothing was more certain than that she ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... in this year (1798), Bonaparte ordered to be brought to the house of Elfy Bey half a dozen Asiatic women whose beauty he had heard highly extolled. But their ungraceful obesity displeased him, and they were immediately dismissed. A few days after he fell violently in love with Madame Foures, the wife of a lieutenant of infantry. She was very pretty, and her charms were enhanced by the rarity of seeing a woman in Egypt who was calculated ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... certainly resembles, in its square obesity, that of the great Emperor in his latter days. Possibly for this reason, Major Darr affects a Napoleonic curtness and decision of speech. Nevertheless, he was amenable to reason, and on my agreeing to pay the expenses of an escort, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Povey and Constance waded on in front through the drifts. Sophia balanced that enormous swaying mass, her mother. Owing to their hoops, she had much difficulty in keeping close to her. Mrs. Baines laughed with the complacent ease of obesity, yet a fall would have been almost irremediable for her; and so Sophia had to laugh too. But, though she laughed, God had not helped her. She did not know where she was going, nor what ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... was the antithesis of the other. Whilst "Poker" John was the picture of florid tanning—While his face, although perhaps a trifle weak in its lower formation, was bold, honest, and redounding with kindly nature, Lablache's was bilious-looking and heavy with obesity. Whatever character was there, it was lost in the heavy folds of flesh with which it was wreathed. His jowl was ponderous, and his little mouth was tightly compressed, while his deep-sunken, bilious eyes peered from between heavy, ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... the previous day the monk put about a story in Petrograd to account for the Empress's hysterical state. He started a rumour that Her Majesty was, against the advice of the Court physicians, following a system of German Entfettungscur, or cure for obesity, the result having been a complete breakdown of ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... God-made King; whom not the Champion of England cased in tin, but all Nature and the Universe were calling to the throne? It is absolutely necessary that he get thither. Nature does not mean her poor Saxon children to perish, of obesity, stupor or other malady, as yet: a stern Ruler and Line of Rulers therefore is called in,—a stern but most beneficent perpetual House-Surgeon is by Nature herself called in, and even the appropriate fees are provided for him! Dryasdust ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... unromantic obesity, it appears from the excessive eulogies he lavishes upon JESSIMINA that he is already the tangled fly in the web of her feminine enchantments. What a pity that such a prominent barrister should be so unskilled in seeing through such a ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... In a steam-launch he had gone four days up the Ajo River, a tributary to the Barito from the east, which passes between limestone cliffs. In that locality the Dayaks are rarely visited by Malays and therefore have retained their excellent tribal characteristics. The men are inclined to obesity. ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... have been a glutton and a drunkard. "Let us examine the facts. What is the evidence? Luther's obesity and his gout. Is that evidence? Not in any court. It would be evidence if both conditions were caused, and caused only, by gluttony and tippling. But this notoriously is not the case. Obesity may be due to disease. A man may even eat little and wax stout if what he eats turns into adipose rather ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... the wall. The fat master, unable to bear it any longer, gives the maid notice. It turns out that the doctor told her to put the slippers as far as possible under the bed so as to cure the man of his obesity. ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... Father, detached itself like a Rembrandt on the obscure depth of the passage at the extremity of which he had stopped; from fear of the cold, the monk had drawn over his head the warm hood of his black cloak. A soft soutane of white wool draped itself in large folds about his enormous obesity. ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... Therefore I shall not mince the fact that the next change in Denry's career was due to an enormous and complicated coincidence. On the following morning both Mrs Codleyn and Denry were late for service at St Luke's Church—Mrs Codleyn by accident and obesity, Denry by design. Denry was later than Mrs Codleyn, whom he discovered waiting in the porch. That Mrs Codleyn was waiting is an essential part of the coincidence. Now Mrs Codleyn would not have been waiting if her ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... there were shown in to us an old, worn, purblind, ascetic-looking priest, and a lay brother, a type of all that is most sound in France, with a broad, clever, honest, humorous countenance, an eye very large and bright, and a strong and healthy body inclining to obesity. But that his blouse was black and his face shaven clean, you might pick such a man to-day, toiling cheerfully in his own patch of vines, from half a dozen provinces of France; and yet he had always for me a haunting resemblance to an old kind friend of my boyhood, whom ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... organic disease. For that reason, the practical uses of self-hypnosis will be limited to measures that can be taken safely by the layman. The only possible exception to this will be instructions on how to curb obesity, but even here it is suggested that a physician be consulted before embarking on a ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... not differ in this respect from Australians and Polynesians. The horrible obesity of the squaws on the Pacific Coast used to inspire me with disgust, as a boy, and I could not understand how anyone could marry such fat abominations. Concerning the South American tribes, Humboldt says (Trav., I., 301): "In several ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... bare idea of Charlie's being brought to such a state of obesity, Kinch, who, during the interview, had been in the back part of the room, making all manner of faces, was obliged to leave the apartment, to prevent a serious explosion of laughter, and after their visitor ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... modern Mahometan ladies of Algiers have almost abandoned this seclusion. They are seen gadding about everywhere, and are reported as being by no means particular or difficult in their conquests. French ideas and morals have percolated them considerably. Excessive obesity is regarded among Mahometans as the perfection of beauty; so that, instead of using powders and other nostrums to reduce themselves, like some of my friends at home, they devour seeds and couscous, the ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... was his delicacy or his obesity which prevented Davidson from clambering upon the wharf. He stood up in the boat, and, above him, Heyst stooped low with urbane smiles, thanking him and apologizing for the liberty, exactly in his usual manner. Davidson had expected some ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... its feeble limbs, which for that matter could not assist it in any way. In short, the tiny creature of the first stage, so active and alert, is succeeded by a ventripotent grub, deprived of movement by its very obesity. Who would recognize in this clumsy, flabby, blind, hideously pot-bellied creature, with nothing but a sort of stumps for legs, the elegant pigmy of but a little while back, armour-clad, slender and provided with highly perfected organs for performing ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... and squaring timber, and boats from Ceram and Goram were constantly unloading their cargoes of sago-cake for the traders' homeward voyage. The fowls, ducks, and goats all looked fat and thriving on the refuse food of a dense population, and the Chinamen's pigs were in a state of obesity that foreboded early death. Parrots and Tories and cockatoos, of a dozen different binds, were suspended on bamboo perches at the doors of the houses, with metallic green or white fruit-pigeons which cooed musically at noon and eventide. Young cassowaries, strangely striped ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... was of that obesity which seems often to incline people to sarcasm. "No, I don't think he's insincere. I think he always means what he says and does—Well, do you think a little more concentration of good-will would hurt him for Miss Pasmer's purpose —if she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lead any of his military bands, in the fierce onsets which they were incessantly making. At length De Soto learned that Capafi, though a man of great mental energy, was incapacitated from taking the field by his enormous obesity. He was so fat that he could scarcely walk, and was borne from place to place on a litter. He could give very energetic commands, but the execution of them must be left to others. He also ascertained that this formidable chief had taken up his almost unapproachable quarters about twenty-five ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... order to reduce their growing obesity, and to combine physical exercise with mental recreation, the prisoners decided, on the suggestion of one of their number who was interested in knight's tours, to try to form themselves into a perfect knight's ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... has many faults no doubt but firstly he's poor, secondly he's notoriously unhappy and in a most miserable position, thirdly he's a better writer than any of your little crowd and fourthly, instead of pleading his age and his fat and taking refuge from service in a greasy obesity as your Brother has done, he is serving his country. His book is a great book and —— just lies about it—I guess he's a dirty minded priest or some such unclean thing—when he says it is the story of a stallion and so forth. The whole outbreak is so envious, so base, so cat-in-the-gutter-spitting-at-the-passer-by, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... still between his teeth. A pair of haggard, ill-conditioned young vagabonds were playing at cards, fixing one another in the pauses with a look of tigerish eagerness. The woman of the inn, corpulent to obesity, carried in her arms a child which she rocked ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... saying that a woman should be a load for a camel, and in deference to this taste they fatten themselves up until they become mountains of flesh. Where obesity is considered a charm, delicacy of outline ceases to be regarded, and a woman who has not rotundity is regarded as an unfortunate being. They are decidedly the greatest collection of well-fed females to be seen in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... could realize his position, Lovelace closed with him, beat him under, and struck the horsewhip smartly cross his back and shoulders. He uttered a yell of pain and fury, and strove vigorously to defend himself, but, owing to his obesity, his muscles were weak and flabby, and he was powerless against the activity and strength of his opponent. Lash after lash descended regularly and mercilessly—his cries, which gradually became like the roarings of a bull of Basban, were unheard, as the office-boy below, profiting ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... first met him at Carlsruhe, in 1862: "While the sight of the swan-knight, approaching in his little boat, gave me the somewhat odd impression of the appearance of a young Hercules (Schnorr suffered from obesity), yet his manner at once conveyed to me the distinct charm of the mythical hero sent by the gods, whose identity we do not study but whom we instinctively recognize. This instantaneous effect which touches the inmost heart, can only be compared to magic. I remember to have been similarly ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... rage of the hideously corpulent king, who, on account of his unwieldy obesity, was unable to let his arms hang by his side, and who thus gesticulated wildly, and perspired incessantly, and had the habit, moreover, of continually addressing his favourite, generally present on these occasions, with the appeal, 'Pas vrai, Dillen?' after each broken sentence,—would ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... sisters, each with two flaxen tails, and all good for sixpence apiece, once a month at least, promptly deserted an old gentleman whom he had just lathered for shaving, and handing him over to the journeyman, (who was not very popular among the ladies, by reason of his obesity and middle age,) waited on the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens |
