"Shirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... people may, without uproar and harassing of magnates and mighty men, have access whenever it be desirable to the Lord Priors and the Standard-Bearer of Justice), affords a comment on his own criticism of his fellow-citizens, whose disposition to shirk the burden of public duty is more than once the subject of his satire. "Many refuse the common burden, but thy people, my Florence, eagerly replies without being called on, and cries, 'I load myself'" ('Purgatory,' vi. 133-135). His counsel ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... all things work, I must busy be; There are tasks I must not shirk, Duties set for me; And since nothing idle stands, I must work ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... tendency, I am sure, in books, to shirk the whole subject of fear, as though it were a thing disgraceful, shameful, almost unmentionable. The coward, the timid person, receives very little sympathy; he is rather like one tainted with a shocking disease, of which the less ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... member became dissatisfied with the high-handed and radical pastor, he simply withdrew. Had each one stood by the church, realizing that he had a responsibility toward it which duty forbade him to shirk, the conservative and substantial members of the church would soon have been united in their opposition to the radical pastor and, being in the majority, could have set matters right. In the case of perversion of trust funds by the trustees of the Kumamoto School, many Japanese felt ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... watch, lying in the boat, night and day. You couldn't get rid of that watchman except by cutting his throat or throwing him overboard by force. Consult your own courage as to whether that can be done or not. And as far as my coming with you is concerned, I shirk no danger which holds out any hopes of success, but to throw away life without a reason, as if it were a thing of no moment, is something which I do not believe that even you would sanction—see what you think of this: ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... makes me angry. I know your type inside out. You overwork and shirk exercise, and let your temper run away with you, and smoke strong cigars on an empty stomach; and when you get indigestion as a natural result you look on yourself as a martyr, nourish a perpetual grouch, and ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... look for 'The Curlew' in ten days," Raed remarked. "And I don't think we had better leave here, to go off any great distance, till we feel sure she's not coming back for us. If she's not back in two weeks, I shall think we have got to shirk for ourselves." ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... working well and their crop promises to be large, he will permit and even encourage them to draw upon him liberally; it is only a partial failure of the crop, or some intimation of the negro's intention to shirk his obligations, that induces his country factor to preach the virtue of self-restraint, or moralize upon the ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... hard work are distasteful to human beings. They are avoided by those who can avoid them. It is lucky for the world that the number of those who can shirk is limited. —— ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... entertain, I can assure you that it is out of no motives of weakness that I boggle at this combat. Though I confess that I am no ferrailleur, and that I abhor the duel as a means of settling a difference just as I abhor all things that are stupid and insensate, yet I am not the man to shirk an encounter where an encounter is forced upon me. But in this affair—" he paused, then ended—"there is more than meets your grace's eye, or, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... full of pins, decided that he could defeat the Austrians at Austerlitz, the Prussians at Jena. That is genius. The general-in-chief makes his plan on the supposition that all his orders will be obeyed promptly, that no one will shirk responsibility, that not one of all the vast multitude will fail ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... the chance to shirk, And watch, instead of do, the work; But no! They chose a bigger thing And blocked the bully; gave us breath To get our coats off. Sure as death They're Men—a King of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... the door and halting, remarked: "Yes, may think better when he's by hisse'f, but not as fast. When he's got thinkin' to do that he don't want to do he mout shirk it if left by hisse'f. Well, I'll give you a leetle mo' time, but not much. My plan is that when you've got a bad piece of work on hand, git through with it as soon as possible. I'm goin' down the road a piece an' will drap in on my way back," and as he passed out he ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... "Don't shirk it, Eliza. Don't try to get away from it. I asked you which of us you thought was the fonder of the other, and ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... everything will be plain sailing this year. That would be asking too much. Still I hope I shall not have any serious misunderstandings with my girls. I'm going to remember my motto, 'Blessed are they that have found their work,' and not shirk anything that comes within the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... and protocols irk, Russian Bear; And therefore are matters to shirk. Berlin and Paris, No longer must harass This true friend of France—and the Turk. Hrumph! hrumph! Well, well, we shall see ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... better be! Pooh! Rubbish! Nonsense! You talk like a great Molly. Now, no nonsense, Rodney. Speak out frankly and candidly. You mean that now it has come to the point you think it too serious, and you want to shirk?" ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... heather, ling, or golden starry ragwort; and in spite of their determination the desire was strong upon them to turn and hurry back. But for either to have proposed this would have been equivalent to showing the white feather; and for fear that Vince should for a moment fancy that he was ready to shirk the task, Mike said roughly, "Come on," and continued the climbing, reaching the top first, and stretching out his hand, which was grasped by Vince, who pulled himself up and sank down by his companion's side to gaze in wonder from the ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... it over a few minutes, and then he said, "I guess you are right, Will, for they might think we wanted to shirk our duty in leaving them here, although I am sure there will be no more danger ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... with some impatience. I had regretted my beginning and had meant to shirk a finish if she would let me; but it ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... is an Idea behind this war—whether on our own side or on that of the enemy. A dangerous question, this!—a question posed again and again by the jingoes and the fanatics of history, and invariably answered according to the dictates of their own convenience. And yet a question which we dare not shirk, a question which a Carlyle, a Ruskin, a William Morris would not have hesitated to formulate. Does Britain stand for an Idea? Is it true that we are fighting in the main for the cause of Liberty and Democracy, for progress in Europe and the world at large? And if this be really true ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... ratification of the federal Constitution, David Bradford, the "empty drum," and Judge Brackenridge of Pittsburgh, attended this meeting. Bradford, the most unscrupulous of the leaders, sought to shirk his responsibility, but was intimidated by threats, and thereafter did not dare to turn back. Brackenridge was present to counsel the insurgents to moderation. In spite of his efforts the meeting ended in an invitation, which the officers had not the boldness ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... her widowed sister, who is too proud to see her go to the poor house; and this is just the trouble with a lot of people; they not only have their own burdens to bear but somebody else's. You may call me an old fogy, but I would rather live cheap and dress plain than shirk my burdens because I had wasted when they had saved. You and John Hanson are both young and have got your health and strength, and instead of buying sealskins, and velvets and furbelows, you had better be laying up for a rainy day. You have no more need for a sealskin cloak than ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... terribly from the task. But to relieve myself from this persistent sense of surrounding mystery, and to free others from suspicion, I felt compelled to discover him. It seemed to me like a duty laid upon me from without. I dared not shirk it. ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... name of the Law I must request Less noise while we're having a well-earned rest. For the Judge and the Usher never must shirk A well-earned rest in the middle of work. It's the duty of both they are well aware To preserve their precious lives with care; It's their duty, when feeling overwrought, To preserve their lives with Puddin' ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... 31, 70. MY DEAR SISTER,—I know I ought to be thrashed for not writing you, but I have kept putting it off. We get heaps of letters every day; it is a comfort to have somebody like you that will let us shirk and be patient over it. We got the book and I did think I wrote a line thanking you for it-but I suppose ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... isn't really the thing that's changed. I've never been willing to pay, in liberty and leisure, for things I didn't want. The only difference is that there's something now that I do want. And I shan't shirk paying for it. I want you ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... clothes-horses; foolishest coxcomb Valori has seen: it is visibly his notion that it was he, Bruhl, by his Saxon auxiliaries, by his masterly strokes of policy, that checkmated Friedrich, and drove him from Bohemia last Year; and, for the rest, that Friedrich is ruined, and will either shirk out of Silesia, or be cut to ribbons there by the Austrian force this Summer. To which Valori hints dissent; but it is ill received. Valori sees the King; finds him, as expected, the fac-simile of Bruhl in this matter; Jesuit Guarini ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... investigation into his habits as a husband and father, it is by no means clear to me that we must call him hard names. Before doing that, we ought to know not only that he stays away from his wife and children, but why he stays away; whether he is really a shirk, or absents himself unselfishly and for their better protection, at the risk of being misunderstood and traduced. My object in this paper is to raise that question about him, rather than to blacken his character; in a word, to call attention ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... much of the constitutional machinery that was in full working order in the spring of 1919 now falling into rust and disrepair. He would not be able once a week or so to attend All-Russian Executive and hear discussions in this parliament of the questions of the day. No one tries to shirk the fact that the Executive Committee has fallen into desuetude, from which, when the stress slackens enough to permit ceremonial that has not an immediate agitational value, it may some day be revived. The bulk of its members have been at the front or here and there about the country ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... universal prerogative of seeing the glory of Christ, as it is for an Apostle. The business of all such is to make known the name of Jesus, and if from idleness, or carelessness, or selfishness, they shirk that plain duty, they are counteracting God's very purpose in shining on their hearts, and going far to quench the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... go back up there, Saunders. That was one period of my life that is constantly before me. I may as well speak of it and be done with it. You always seemed to shirk the subject, and I have hesitated to mention it, but there is no one else I could question. The last time I heard of Dolly Drake she was still unmarried. Is there any likelihood of ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... his brethren at every street-corner," continued she. "Well, I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am and a witch I'm likely to be and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... war like all my comrades. But the French have not offended anybody, and yet they threaten us, wishing to enslave us. . . . But we French can be fierce, since they oblige us to be, and in order to defend ourselves it is just that nobody should shirk, that all should obey. Discipline does not quarrel with Revolution. Remember the armies of the first Republic—all citizens, Generals as well as soldiers, but Hoche, Kleber and the others were rough-hewn, unpolished benefactors who knew how to ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Haw were the sons of sin, Created to shally and shirk; Hem lay 'round and Haw looked on While God did all ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... Punch hears of you? Can't you dissipate his fears? Did the bugle ring out vainly for the British Grenadiers? Once the regiment was famous for its deeds of derring-do, And you followed where the flag went when on alien winds it flew. Has the soldiers' "oath of duty" been forgotten, that you shirk, Not the face of foe, we're certain, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... Parliament, and the Government was warned that it was alienating its best friends. The Pall Mall Gazette voiced the general feeling. "What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure the Government in the country? Of one thing we may be sure, that if they shirk the Bill they will do no good to themselves at the elections. Nobody doubts that it will be made a test question, and any Liberal who declines to vote for such a Bill will certainly lose the support of the Northampton sort of Radicalism in every constituency. ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... spoke Charles's hands dropped from his face and clinched themselves together; "but I cannot go by what any one thinks unless I think so myself as well. I can't take other people's judgments. When God gave us our own, he did not mean us to shirk using it. What you say is right, but there is something which after a little bit seems more right—at least, which seems so to me. I cannot look at the future. I can only see one thing distinctly, now in the present, and that is that I cannot break my word. I never have ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... her refuser perform in front of them, but should show consideration for her companions by keeping a backward place, supposing that several horses are taking their turn at jumping the only practicable part in a fence. Refusers are detested in the hunting field, and a lady whose hunter is known to shirk his fences and stir up equine rebellion, is soon classed among the large number of those ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... should receive careful consideration. She should be known to be honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her own ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... are greedy for the toast Of confidence before our guest, The loyal song, the manly boast Your splendid faith to manifest. In works of art and livelihood Shirk not the creed, "What's ours is good," Dread not to ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... now a place of wild confusion. Men were rushing here and there, to arm themselves with tent pegs, stakes—anything they could grab up. They were alive to the danger, but they did not shirk. The elephants were trumpeting loudly, and some were tugging at their foot chains attached to stakes driven in the ground. The big beasts ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... had forgotten to post, and that had led to there being no welcome for them when they arrived. Of course it was surprising that Mr. Runciman had not written again; but then everyone knew that Mr. Runciman never wrote a letter when he could possibly shirk the task, and that was why they had been so urgent in their entreaties that he should write the letter while they waited on that momentous occasion when they went to see him to ask him to send them out to the land of the ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... criticizing the unfortunate wording of the American Notes, it must be conceded that President Wilson has rendered a conspicuous service to the Allies by compelling them to face the formidable difficulties of the problem of peace. Henceforth it will be impossible for our rulers to shirk those difficulties. They will have to give us something more tangible than mere vague and solemn abstractions, than mere rhetorical phrases and catchwords: they will have to depend on the support of public opinion. The peace settlement will ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... they cannot continue to shirk this part of their civic duties. These "painted tragedies" of our streets have got to be recognised and dealt with; and this not so much for the sake of the prostitute, but for all women's safety and the health of the race. The time is not far distant when the mothers ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... had cleared off and leveled for the dwelling-place of Liberty. In his own way he enjoyed the scene; but he could not, as he usually did, let the peace of it sink into his heart. He had suddenly become aware that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and to shirk a duty was a thing impossible to him. Until he had obeyed the voice of Conscience, all other voices would fail to arrest his ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... in her eyes that he did not like to see there, and yielded. Obviously, from her viewpoint that was the only thing to do. A cowpuncher who has ridden the range since he was sixteen should not shirk a night ride in a blizzard, or fear losing the trail. It was not storming so hard a man might not ride ten miles—that is, a ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... here—why, I have five hundred with me. Take it, Lou. There's more behind it, but the colonel mustn't think that there's as much money in the mines as people say. No idea how much living costs up here. Heavens, no! And the prices for labor! And then they shirk the job from dawn to dark. I have to watch 'em every minute, ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... granted, therefore, that the Assistant Commissioner knew what he was about in uttering his satisfaction at the Superintendent's choice of an assistant. Possibly he had the earlier bond robbery in mind, and expected now that another "mystery" would be solved. Scotland Yard guards many secrets which shirk the glare of publicity. Some may never be explained; but by far the larger proportion are cleared up unexpectedly by incidents which may occur months or years afterward, and whose connection with the original crime is indiscernible ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands their principles better than they did themselves; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than we ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... intended to shirk the consequences of her misdemeanour was only too clearly proved to Janice, when later she went to her room to prink for supper, for lying on her dressing stand was the miniature. Shocked as Miss Meredith was at the sight, she lifted ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... full excuse. No effort that a man can make is better than a true effort at independence. But this insolence is a false effort, it will be said. It should rather be called a false accompaniment to a life- long true effort. The man probably is not dishonest, does not desire to shirk any service which is due from him, is not even inclined to insolence. Accept his first declaration of equality for that which it is intended to represent, and the man afterward will be found obliging and communicative. If occasion offer he will sit down in the room with you, and will talk ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... existence of a race, with all its immeasurable possibilities of sin and suffering, is one from which the boldest might recoil. But the only effective way of improving the lot of man is to rear up a new generation of better stock. For the reflecting to shirk parentage is to make over the future to the spawn of unreflecting indulgence. In the world's great field of battle no duty is higher than to keep the ranks of the forces of Light well filled with recruits. It is to no holiday that our offspring are called—rather ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... her—upon a white, strained face with passionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his, refusing to shirk the ultimate significance ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... generally, I suppose the tone of the house insensibly communicated itself to me. The Manor was cock-house at games and work. I began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was too much for me. I couldn't shirk that. Some jolly old boys, we all know them and like them, are always saying that their early school-days were the happiest of their lives. They're fond of telling this big lie just as they're settling ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... work and herding slackers, getting her breakfast and packing off Ellen to the little school she went to at Rye, Joanna found all too soon that the market hour was upon her. It did not strike her to shirk this part of a farmer's duty—she would drive into Rye and into Lydd and into Romney as her father had always driven, inspecting beasts and watching prices. Soon after ten o'clock she ran upstairs to make herself splendid, as ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... shirk the call to arms when the bugle sounds," remarked Tom Loker, "but I must say I've no stomach for this going before I'm sent. It's a sheer temptin' ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... was sitting big with rage, but her words were cordial still: "Indeed, Mr. Albumblatt, the way officers who have influence in Washington shirk duty here and get details East is something I can't laugh about. At one time the Captain was his own adjutant and quartermaster. There are more officers at this table to-night than I've seen in three years. So we are doubly glad to ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... here, who will not listen to God or their conscience or even their instinct in the matter, who live comfortably apart from the evil places, and so hear only now and then a message from the dying wafted on the sable wings of cholera or typhus. Is it not shabby this, to shirk their share of the work and the trouble, and to leave it to be done by softer hearts and a ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... in silence; the problem of what to do with the Bomb was evidently weighing on his mind. At last he spoke: "It is our duty," he said, "to see that the movement be not unduly crippled by the loss of these two men. Poor fellows, they are doing their duty by the Cause, and we must not shirk ours. The Bomb must be kept going at all costs; we can ill afford to lose two workers just now, but the loss of the paper would be a yet more severe blow to our movement. How thankful I am that you are with us! It is always so. The governments think to crush us by imprisoning or murdering our comrades, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... Mr Darvell, that, as he expressed it, "it fairly haggled him." Weakness and delicacy were conditions entirely unknown to him and all his other relations, and might, he thought, be avoided by everyone except very old people and women; so Frank must be hardened, and taught not to shirk his work. ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... the theory of bacteriology a micro-organism is to blame for appendicitis. If this were true it would relieve humanity of all responsibility. There is a disposition on the part of man to shirk responsibility and the germ theory is not the first theory of vicarious atonement that he has spun. Those who wish to shirk all kinds of responsibility by adopting the germ theory and by making micro-organisms the scape-goat ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... he had seen of William Longworth on board the Caloric had not given him a very high opinion of that gentleman, and he wondered if it would not have been better to have told Wentworth that nothing was to be expected from the Longworths. However, he resolved not to shirk the interview, so passed up the steps and into the outer office. He found the establishment much larger than he had expected. At numerous desks there were numerous clerks writing away for dear life. He approached the inquiry counter, ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... "Shirk away out of the club. Only if you do that it seems to me that you'll have to go on shirking for the rest ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... as to the general duties of a man, be he married or single. You have no right to shirk your duties as a man to your home, as a Christian to your Church, or as a citizen to your country. The support and training of your family is your first duty, and nothing may rightly come in the way of that, ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... fingers, He's a-clingin' in the riggin' of a wreck, He knows destruction's nearer every minute that he lingers, But it do'n't appear ter worry him a speck: He's draggin' draggled corpses from the clutches of the combers— The kind of job a common chap would shirk— But he takes 'em from the wave and he fits 'em fer the grave, And he thinks it's all included in ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a giant above all human affairs for the next two decades, and the speech of Mars is blunt and plain. He will say to us all: "Get your houses in order. If you squabble among yourselves, waste time, litigate, muddle, snatch profits and shirk obligations, I will certainly come down upon you again. I have taken all your men between eighteen and fifty, and killed and maimed such as I pleased; millions of them. I have wasted your substance—contemptuously. Now, mark you, you have multitudes of male children between the ages of nine ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... thin procession through narrowed lids. In theory he condemned equally the blind obstinacy of the authorities, who went on tightening the screw, and the foolhardiness of the men. But—well, he could not get his eye to shirk one of the screaming banners and placards: "Down with Despotism!" "Who so base as be a Slave!" by means of which the diggers sought to inflame popular indignation. "If only honest rebels could get on without melodramatic ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... did not shirk any of the other expeditions nor the garrison duty, but always marched with the foremost and retreated among the last. You ought to estimate from such considerations, those who live well and in order, and not hate ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... Moreover this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labor and leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens where there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there would be ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... he had not tried to escape, and did not sulk or shirk, they grew to look upon him as one of them forever. Did he not mingle with them, and eat as they ate, and sleep as they slept, and appear perfectly satisfied? Other white men had become Indians; so why not he! The Indian life was the best life, ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... against a weaker nation in order to add more slave states to the Union, he formed a very positive opinion that the war was unjustifiable. But though he was forced to this disagreeable conclusion, the young Lieutenant was not the sort of man to criticize his country once she was attacked, or to shirk his duty as a soldier because he did not agree with his superiors on questions of national policy. He thought and said what he liked in private, but he kept his mouth closed in public, feeling that his duties as an officer were quite sufficient without assuming ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... I cannot shirk. I will consult the doctor about it. I will make him see that I both understand and shall insist upon my rights in this matter. But you may tell Miss Doris that I will sit out of sight, and that ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... I said, especially as he knew my brother well, and was thoroughly acquainted with the exactness with which he always executed an errand. But he did not want to go; that I saw clearly, and laid it all to the little book; for he was the kindest man who ever lived, and never was known to shirk a duty because it was ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... men and women whose hearts were firm and bold, But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I'm old"; So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years, Make him stand up at a table and ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... noblemen's and gentlemen's parks near Lunnun, where they make mountains just to look at; that must be much of a muchness with these here chaps. I never drift far from Wappin', when I'm at home, and so I can't say I've seen these artifice hills, as they calls them, myself; but there's one Joseph Shirk, that lives near St. Katharine's Lane, that makes trips regularly into the neighborhood, who gives quite a particular account ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to shirk; you want to leave me to get out of the mess for myself. Oh, of course, you're not legally involved; I am aware of that; you can leave the sinking ship if you ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... attempts were ever made to encroach upon his generosity and kindness, and if any man had dared to deceive him he would have been drastically punished by his colleagues. No man ever essayed to malinger or to shirk a duty to which he had been allotted by the doctor. If the doctor desired a task to be done, no matter how repugnant, it was shouldered lightly and cheerfully. Indeed, there was always a manifestation of keen eagerness among us to perform some duty ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... and pray; Fast if thou wilt; and yet, throughout the day, Neglect no labour and no duty shirk: Not many hours are left thee for thy work - And it were meet That all should ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... passed, a month which it is safe to say was neither satisfactory to Sam nor his employer. The deacon discovered that the boy needed constant watching. When he was left to himself, he was sure to shirk his work, and indulge his natural love of living at ease. His appetite showed no signs of decrease, and the deacon was led to remark that "Samuel had the stiddyest appetite of any boy he ever knew. He never seemed to know when he ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... it was borne in on Steve's consciousness that he was the man to whom Sarah Maria must look for relief. The situation was a critical one, but Steve's was not a nature to shirk responsibilities or shun sacrifices. Accordingly, arming himself with a hatchet and a club, on the end of which latter instrument he suspended the milk pail, he set out, and in this new business worked with such gentle deliberation that at the end of ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... shall open the eyes of the blind. I would that He might open my sister Naomi's eyes. If Thou wilt answer this prayer, Lord, I will promise Thee anything. I will be Thy faithful servant, I will be an obedient son, I will learn my lessons well at school and never shirk. I will no more throw stones at stout Solomon nor even call him names. I will promise anything Thou mayst ask of me, if Thy Messiah will only open my sister Naomi's eyes. Hear my prayer, ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... not think so, for he motioned away a bowl of the delightful mixture, though it was proffered him by the fair hands of Mrs. Mudge. The lady was somewhat surprised, and said, roughly, "I shouldn't wonder if he was only trying to shirk." ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... was another uneasy pause. Hozier felt that the question was addressed to him, but he was tongue-tied, almost shame-faced. Coke, however, did not shirk the task ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... him with all the preparation necessary for heroic achievement. He, Chamberlain, was unexpectedly called upon to act as an agent of justice against chicanery and violence, and it was not in him to shirk the task. His labors, which, for the greater part of his life, had been expended in tracing the evolution of blind fish in inland caves, had not especially fitted him for dealing with the details of such a case as Agatha's; but they had left him eminently well equipped for discerning ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... provide for all mothers and all children and we will find that the birthrate will increase among the "rich and respectable," where now we note a determined desire to shirk the ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... must not shirk danger," his father said, "and he must needs go well in the fight; but he is still but a boy, not fit to enter upon a hand-to-hand contest with the picked warriors of Egypt. In time I hope he will fight abreast ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... needed help. I was within hearing of this, and I was in great alarm. Sophie looked so too, and I don't think she liked disagreeable things any better than her brother, but she was a woman, and could not shirk them as ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... about the Presidency. If I could only get rid of my eternal hypochondria the work of the Royal Society would seem little enough. At present, I am afraid of everything that involves responsibility to a degree that is simply ridiculous. I only wish I could shirk the inquiries I am going off to hold ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... doing this, because of occupations that have allowed me no time for it, and have neglected to give advice of the condition of these islands, at present I have not, although my occupations are not fewer than in the past, attempted to shirk my duty in reporting what has happened this year in these regions, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... towards whom this appeal—or shall I say command- -was directed, flushed a fine colour under so many eyes, but immediately began her ingenuous tale. She had already related it a half dozen times into as many sympathising ears, but she was not one to shirk publicity, for all her retiring manners ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... love to be a Turk with an Oriental smirk and an ornamental dirk, and a tendency to shirk when the others go to work; for the workers I can't bear 'em and ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... minute, considering how best to present his case. Reflection decided him in favor of frankness, for it was only by frankness on his side that Diane would be able to carry out his wishes on hers. The responsibility imposed upon him by his wife's death, he said, was one he had never wished to shirk by leaving his child to the care of others. Moreover, he had had his own ideas as to the manner in which she should be brought up, and he had put them into practice. The results had been good in most respects, and if in others there was something still to be desired, it was not too late ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... these preparations, one duty had been firmly fixed in Debby's mind. It was not a pleasant one, yet she did not mean to shirk it; but she did put it off to the very last morning when she and Hester had brought down the trunks and were preparing to ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... don't tell lies, I hope—and I don't shirk things. But you see that I can stultify my own acts. I believed, and acted on my belief; and then I ceased to believe, and acted on that. I cannot trust myself—I ought to be ashamed to say so, and ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... society sinners, Who chatter and bleat and bore, Are sent to hear sermons From mystical Germans Who preach from ten to four: The amateur tenor, whose vocal villainies All desire to shirk, Shall, during off-hours, Exhibit his powers To Madame Tussaud's waxwork: The lady who dyes a chemical yellow, Or stains her grey hair puce, Or pinches her figger, Is blacked like a nigger With permanent walnut juice: The idiot who, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... He wants to shirk his act, that's all. Just wait till I get hold of him—-I'll teach him to get me into hot water with the audience!" ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... been cowardly to back out. We borrow the ideas of these Frenchmen, of association as opposed to competition, as the true law of industry and of organizing labor—of securing the laborer's position by organizing production and consumption—and it would be cowardly to shirk the name. It is only fools who know nothing about the matter, or people interested in the competitive system of trade, who believe or say that a desire to divide other people's property is of the essence of Socialism.' 'That ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... sure to be always meeting them. And besides, I'll be hanged if I'm going to shirk the Hickses. I spent five whole months on the Ibis, and if they bored me ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... from one to another; until it has spread around these two as it were an atmosphere of terror. Everybody doffs his hat to them, bowing very low indeed. But when they pass by, folk stand aloof, and get out of the way. In order to shirk them they turn up cross roads, with backs bended, with eyes turned carefully down. Such a change makes them first savage, but afterwards sorrowful. They walk alone through all the district. The wife's ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... was sure of it all along. I knew it was just a phase which would have no second edition. So put any question of shame or need of forgiveness out of your precious head. You were rushed up against circumstances, against a revelation, calculated to stagger the most seasoned campaigner. You did not shirk; but it took you a little time to get your bearings. That was all. Don't vex your sweet soul with quite superfluous reproaches.—Sugar? Yes, and plenty of it I am afraid.—But you, too, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... thou'rt free to act without control; I ne'er have cherished hate for such as thee. Of all the spirits who deny, The scoffer is least wearisome to me. Ever too prone is man activity to shirk, In unconditioned rest he fain would live; Hence this companion purposely I give, Who stirs, excites, and must, as devil, work. But ye, the genuine sons of heaven, rejoice! In the full living beauty still rejoice! May that which works and lives, the ever-growing, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the world's a great property-exchanging machine, where everything has its weight and value; a great, inexorable machine,—and whoever tries to shirk his work in it will be crushed! Crushed! Think ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... could not make out what was the matter, and as long as Bowler did not shirk the football match, and Gayford stuck up as usual for his house, they did not particularly care. It was certainly a novelty to see Braintree diligently reading a book in his odd moments, but when it transpired that the ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... She would have driven him mad with her petty whims, her petty emotions. She doesn't know the meaning of loyalty, consideration, or even an open, honest hatred. And I've stood it all these years—because I don't shirk responsibilities, and I ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... having been acquitted. The official inspection of the country, especially for the sake of the natives, Fajardo has committed to Auditor Mesa, but the latter is unwilling to undertake it. The Council order that no auditor shall shirk this important duty. The governor mentions in detail various minor matters, showing anxiety to act as the home government shall approve. He has been ordered to reduce military salaries, but objects to this, and enumerates the amounts paid to each officer. Directions for arranging this ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... The men of the village were inside. Too bad that a Sunday had intervened, otherwise they might have harvested the last load. Now they must on the morrow go out once more into the fields. But—all hands on deck! Women, the older children too, even the old men must not shirk tomorrow, and then, hurrah! it would be ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... scholar he, Yet simple as a child could be. He'd shirk his meal to sit and cram A goodish deal of Eton Gram. No man alive could him nonplus With vocative of filius; No man alive more fully knew The passive of a verb or two; None better knew the worth than he Of words that end in b, d, t. Upon his ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... sure I should! Who wouldn't? Mind ye," she said, earnestly raising her black, heavy hand, "'ta'n't dat I want to go off, or want to shirk work; but I want to feel free. Dem dat isn't free has nuffin to gib to nobody;—dey can't show what dey ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... glad to hear that Anthony, though he did shirk the welcome on the quay, behaved admirably, with the simplicity of a man who has no small meannesses and makes no mean reservations. His eyes did not flinch and his tongue did not falter. He was, I have it on the best authority, admirable in his earnestness, in his sincerity ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... U. Shirk, commanding the Tuscumbia, was especially active and deserving of the highest commendation for his personal attention to the repairing of the damage done our transports ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... against our sacred front They muster, miles on miles, I am resolved to stick the brunt," Said bold HORATIUS BYLES; "For Liberty I'll take my stand, Just like a stout Berserk, And still defend with bloody brand Our glorious Right to Shirk. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... often of temper. None are exempt. It is not hard work, and yet every one objects to doing it. The third and fourth classes, by regulations, are required to do the policing. When I was a plebe, the plebes did it all. Many indeed tried to shirk it, but they were invariably "hived." Every plebe who attempted any such thing was closely watched and made to work. The old cadets generally chose such men for "special dutymen," and required them to bring water, pile bedding, sweep the floor, ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... Has been through the same meadows in childhood: in youth Through the same silent gateways, to manhood. In truth, There is none that can know me as you do; and none To whom I more wish to believe myself known. Speak the truth; you are not wont to mince it, I know. Nor I, shall I shirk it, or shrink from it now. In despite of a wanton behavior, in spite Of vanity, folly, and pride, Jack, which might Have turn'd from me many a heart strong and true As your own, I have never turn'd round and miss'd YOU From my side in one hour of affliction or doubt By my own blind ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... Darwin puts the distinctive feature that differentiates Mr. C. Darwin from his predecessors clearly before his readers, enabling them to seize and carry it away with them once for all—if he shows no desire to shirk this question, but, on the contrary, faces it and throws light upon it, then we shall know that his work is sincere, whatever its shortcomings may be in other respects; and when people are doing their best to help us and make ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... to face calmly the necessity of doing away with a human life. I didn't shirk it for a moment. That's what a short twelvemonth has brought me to. Don't think I am reproaching you, O blind force! You are justified because you are. Whatever had to happen you would not even ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... business; so we stood our ground likewise, as cool and calm as John the Baptist. I do not know how he did it; but whenever he spoke, a something in his words made our hearts burn within us; and just to let him see that we were his children, and that it was not in us to shirk or flinch, we used to walk just as usual right up to the sluts of cannon that were belching smoke and vomiting battalions of balls, and never a man would so much as say, 'Look out!' It was a something that made dying men raise their heads to salute him ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... John was going back to fight. She must have some explanation with him which could make him return to France at peace in a measure. It was cowardly to shirk telling him the truth, and she could not let him go again into danger with this ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... other countries, and we think we may safely say, that we have more men of that class, in this country, who devote themselves to the high duties of their station, regardless of its pleasures, than in any other: men who recognize practically the responsibility of their rank, and do not shirk from them; men who think they have something to do, and something to repay, for the accidents of birth and fortune—who, in the senate, in the field, or in the less prominent, but not less noble, career of private life, act, as they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... man mixes with the world in the rough-and-tumble, and takes his share of the dangers, and the falls, and the temptations. His duty is to work and to help, and not to shirk and keep his hands white. His business is not to be holy, but ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... no wicked side: life is all one. And I never wanted to shirk my share in whatever evil must be endured, whether it be sin or suffering. I wish I could cure you of middle-class ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... a great administrator or agriculturist; for though I do not mean to shirk my duties, I could not devote my whole life to them,—for the simple reason that my aspirations aim much higher. Sometimes I ask myself whether we Ploszowskis do not delude ourselves as to our abilities. ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... I. "You fellows are simply trying to shirk the thing. I declare two eggs, no bacon and three mushrooms, assuming an average size for mushrooms. One cup and a half of coffee. Three lumps ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... Harald hotly the war-ships towards the River, At nightfall Norway's King anigh the marches is. A Thing the King now holds at Thumla, there where Svein Will meet to war if so be the Danes shirk not the tryst.' ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... scorned the business, and Robt. M., would cut off his right hand, rather than engage in it. He only meant that other people should do what would degrade him. He was not a good citizen, and did not intend to be. As for his Reverence, he would shirk his Christian duties; would not pray by that lamppost, or any other lamp-post, for the success of slave-catchers. He had turned his back upon Paul, and had fallen from grace since preaching his famous sermon. The ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... lungs, and became an amphibian; an aesthetic guinea-fowl admired bright colours, so it bought a paint-box, studied Mr. Whistler's ornamental designs, and, painting itself a gilded and ocellated tail, was thenceforth a peacock. But how about plants? Mr. Butler does not shirk even this difficulty. The theory must be maintained at all hazards.... This is the sort of mystical nonsense from which we had hoped Mr. Darwin had for ever ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... matter—but organised to serve certain definite purposes in each living organism. I have dwelt on this in my chapter on "The Mystery of the Cell." Now I have been unable to find any attempt by any biologist or physiologist to grapple with this problem. One and all, they shirk it, or simply state it to be insoluble. It is here that I state guidance and organising power are essential. My little physiological parable or allegory (p. 296) I think sets forth the difficulty fairly, though by no means adequately, yet not one ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... it was your duty to vote. You have felt yourselves to be secure and happy enough in your privileges and prerogatives, and have left the great mass of your sisters, that shed tears and bore burdens, to shirk for themselves. You have felt that you had rights more than you wanted now. O yes, it is as if a beauty in Fifth Avenue, hearing one plead that bread might be sent to the hungry and famishing, should say, "What is this talk about bread for? I have as much bread as I want, and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... should view the nomination to the Presidency as a real and serious misfortune. Nothing would persuade me to take it, unless it appeared that the people really wished me to do a given job, which I could not honorably shirk. ..." ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Don't shirk your duty. Don't deviate from the path along which your best impulses and highest ideals would lead you. Life is worth while. It is filled with glorious opportunities. Reach out and grasp them as they come up. Hold your head up and be a ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... gathered in Shanghai, did not offer him the society he desired. He was often obliged to associate with them, however, more or less, in a business way, for his humble position as minor clerk in a big corporation entailed certain responsibilities out of hours, and this responsibility he could not shirk, for fear of losing his position. Thus, by these acts of civility, more or less enforced, he was often led into a loose sort of intimacy, into companionship with people who were distasteful to his rather fastidious nature. But what can ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... does all he can to stop its whirlin' round. If he was king he'd loaf an' sing—and guzzle, I'll be bound, He always shirk de hardest work, an' t'ink he's awful clebbar, But boder his head to earn his bread, Oh! no, he'll nebber, nebber. Chorus—Oh when de ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... many officials; the corridors are pervaded with young healthy men, with the red cross on their arms, who are supposed to be making themselves useful in some mysterious manner, but whose main object in being here is, I imagine, to shirk military service. The ambulance which is considered the best is the American. The wounded are under canvas, the tents are not cold, and yet the ventilation is admirable. The American surgeons are far more skilful in the treatment ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... the table of death. I began to feel a strong natural disinclination to swallow the stuff. "This," said I, "is sheer animal cowardice." I again uncorked the phial. A new phase of the matter appeared to me. "It is the act of a craven to shirk the responsibilities of life. Can you be such a meanspirited creature as not even to have the courage to live?" "No," said I, "I have a valiant spirit," and I set down the bottle. "Bah," whispered the familiar imp of suicide at my elbow. "You are just afraid to die." I took up the bottle again. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... deter us,—surely!" Lord Henry rejoined. "Everything relating to parenthood is responsibility, why shirk ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... forms of work [Roosevelt wrote years after], so on the round-up, a man of ordinary power, who nevertheless does not shirk things merely because they are disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. There were crack riders and ropers, who, just because they felt such overweening pride in their own prowess, were not really very valuable men. Continually on the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... did not know, she did not shirk her share of the work. She stayed up after everybody else had retired and washed every pot and pan and plate, and set her bread to rise for morning, and stirred up a big pitcher of flapjack flour to rise over night, peeled potatoes to fry, leaving ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... the first place, of my own accord. I wouldn't shirk. Sometimes I think that real good old-fashioned hard work is what I do want. I should like to find the right, honest thing, and do it, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... cause of sight-seeing, but as neither words nor gestures prove intelligible to Western obtuseness, a brown coolie seizes each arm, and rushes us up a grassy hill to a huge cavern, hung with myriad bats, and containing a pool of crystal water. The simple minds of these kindly mountaineers shirk no trouble for the benefit of the stranger, who, though regarded as a madman, must be humoured as such, not only to the top of his bent, but often beyond it. A descent through rice-fields and desas skirts the serrated cliffs of Gedeh's ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... "you never shirked a battle and I wouldn't shirk this contest either. If I loved a woman I'd try to win her, and you won't have to go back to the mountains when this war is over. You've made too great a name for that. We ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... boys, To find some nice wet moss to lie on, For today we march Thro' (dum ti dum) to Ellenburg, Dum, dum, ti dum dum (here memory fails) Prepare to rush, Thro' mud and slush, God help the man that tries to shirk!" ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... horror at some of the names chosen to serve on committees. "If a secretary proves inefficient, the others will very soon call her a 'slacker,' and she will have to reform or resign. It will be a question of public opinion. A girl may shirk her lessons in school and her classmates don't much care, but if she shirks the work she has undertaken to do for a society they will be very indignant. These clubs are an elementary object-lesson in community life, and will teach ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... they might well be so red in the face that you wouldn't know them. She reconciled in fine his disclaimer about Milly with that honour of having discovered her which it was vain for him modestly to shirk. He had unearthed her, but it was they, all of them together, who had developed her. She was always a charmer, one of the greatest ever seen, but she wasn't the person he ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... a wether flock that had come to hand, Great struggling brutes, that the shearers shirk, For the fleece was filled with the grass and sand, And seventy sheep was a big day's work. 'At a pound a hundred it's dashed hard lines To shear such sheep,' said ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And the temptation is to some natures a very great one. Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In common life we shirk it by forming habits, which take the place of self-determination. In politics party-organization saves us the pains of much thinking before deciding how to cast our vote. In religious matters there are great multitudes watching us perpetually, each propagandist ready with his bundle ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... breath that was like a sobbing sigh; only too well did he understand what he had done, but he had counted the cost, and was not going to shirk the consequences. ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... needs it must meet, a clearer and humbler understanding of our human limitations. We must also clearly realize as makers of the future, that as the Church has its special dangers of conservatism, cosiness, intolerance, a checking of initiative, the domestic tendency to enclose itself and shirk reality; so the cultus has also its special dangers, of which the chief are perhaps formalism, magic, and spiritual sloth. Receiving and conserving as it does all the successive deposits of racial experience, ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... courage and a conscience. She felt that she must not shirk the consequences to herself of ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... person. With wealth and position it will be to me at home as though it were not; and when my dear mother passes away it will disappear entirely and be speedily lost to memory. I do not mean by this to shirk the position of the colored man, of which I have had a bitter taste. I only mean to show you the brightness and hope of my situation. I trust that you will approve of the course which I have marked out, and give ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... That is why I mentioned it. I see in you every inclination to help and defend the suffering sex, and every quality except the habit of handling facts. The subject's repulsive enough, I allow. Right-minded people shrink in disgust even from what is their obvious duty in the matter, and shirk it upon various pretexts, visiting their own pain—like Betsey Trotwood, when she boxed the ears of the doctor's boy—upon the most boxable person they can reach, and that is generally the one who has ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... proper sense am I a buyer of old books. I admit a bookish quirk maybe, a love of the shelf, a weakness for morocco, especially if it is stained with age. I will, indeed, shirk a wedding for a bookshop. I'll go in "just to look about a bit, to see what the fellow has," and on an occasion I pick up a volume. But I am innocent of first editions. It is a stiff courtesy, as ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... armored gunboats, Essex, Commander Wm. D. Porter; Carondelet, Commander Walke; St. Louis, Lieutenant Paulding; and Cincinnati, Commander Stembel; as well as the three wooden gunboats, Conestoga, Lieutenant Phelps; Tyler, Lieutenant Gwin; and Lexington, Lieutenant Shirk. The object of the expedition was to attack, conjointly with the army, Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and, after reducing the fort, to destroy the railroad bridge over the river connecting Bowling Green ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... calls, No job I'll shirk of the hardest work, To shun the workhouse walls; Where savage laws begrudge The pauper babe its breath, And doom a wife to a widow's ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... that he can work; So can I! So can I! Strain and long hours he will not shirk. Nor do I, nor do I. But he may work at his sweet will; So they say, so they say. Whilst I must toil my pouch to fill; A long day, a long day! So there's some difference I see Betwixt the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... working off the stock for want of other kinds. The British who by this time were settled in the offensive joked about the deluge of gas shells with a gallant, amazing humor. Going up to the Ridge was going to their regular duty. They did not shirk it or hail it with delight. They simply went, that was all, when it was a ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... sorrowful topic to write upon, and yet why shirk it? Let me attempt what I have never before done—a description of a deathbed. It is but human to hasten over the tragic scenes of life, but this evening I ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... occupation in this world more soul and body trying than the care of young children. What patience and wisdom, skill, and unlimited love it calls for. God gave the work to mothers and has furnished them for it, and they cannot shirk it ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... powerful ally. It was only natural for him to think this. Ever since the beginning, men have assigned to women the role of the dissuader, the drag, the hinderer. It is always the woman, tradition tells us, who persuades the man to be a coward, to stay at home, to shirk a ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... I had sold myself? I had been very poor, and had been so placed that poverty, even, such poverty as mine, was a curse to me. You know what I gave up because I feared that curse. Was I to be foiled at last, because such a creature as that wanted to shirk out of his bargain? I knew there would be some who would say I had been false. Hugh Clavering says so now, I suppose. But they never should say I had left him to die alone in ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... other people; but, unfortunately, they are not the only or the worst sort of fools. For one born-fool there are a thousand wilful ones. For one man that will honestly face an honest argument, there are ten thousand that will dishonestly shirk it. There's that curate-fellow now—Wingfold I think aunt called him—look ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... too soon. There's something white and shiny in that pool— Throw in a stone, and you will hit the moon. Listen, the church-bell ringing! Do not say We must go back to-morrow to our work. We'll tell them we are dead: we died to-day. We're lazy. We're too happy. We will shirk. We're cows. We're kettles. We'll be anything Except the manikins of time and fear. We'll start away to-morrow wandering, And nobody will notice in a year.... Now the great sun is slipping under ground. Grip firmly!—How the earth is ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... suffrage is not alone for women, or to enable us to secure certain readjustments of law. It is for our country, which cannot exist half enfranchised and half irresponsible, half democracy and half a feudalism; half of it privileged to shirk or exercise its civic rights, and half denied aught but the burden of those rights. Women need the franchise if only to make their influence, of which we hear so much, effective, but more than they need the ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... Idomeneus, the leader of the Cretans, addressed: "No man, O Thoas, as far as I know, is at present to blame; for we are all skilled in warring. Neither does disheartening fear detain any one, nor does any one, yielding to sloth, shirk evil strife; but thus, doubtless, it will be agreeable to the all-powerful son of Saturn, that here, far away from Argos, the Greeks shall perish inglorious. But, Thoas—for formerly thou wast warlike, and urged on others when thou didst behold them negligent—so now ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... little as you can and get something better soon, but make up your mind that you will do as much as possible, and make yourself so necessary to your employer that he will never let you go. You have been a good son to me, and I can truly say that I have never known you to shirk. Be as good in business, and I am sure God will bless ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... reality that fine quality of brain and heart which is so often a prey to the temptation of intoxicants. He was now working out all the theory of the new life in a mind that would not flinch before, or shirk the gleams of truth struck from, sharp contact of fact with fact as the days and hours knocked them together. For this reason it could not be that his path would remain that plain path in which a man could run ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... I knew he was right. If he should shoot Gooja Singh the troopers would ascribe it to nothing else than fear. A British officer might do it and they would say, "Behold how he scorns to shirk responsibility!" Yet of Ranjoor Singh they would have said, "He fears us, and behold the butchery begins! Who shall be next?" Nevertheless, had I stood in his shoes, I would have shot and buried Gooja Singh to forestall trouble. I would have shot Gooja Singh and the Turk and Tugendheim all three ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... and gentlest feelings of man were there admired and loved, while vice and debauch, in any from highest to lowest, were condemned and punished more severely than they are among those who stay at home and shirk the dangers and toils of the soldier's life. Indeed, the demoralizing effects of the late war were far more visible "at home," among the skulks and bomb-proofs and suddenly diseased, than in the army. And the demoralized men of to-day are not those who served in the army. The defaulters, ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy |
