"Worldly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stalls. Boots, straw hats and Salvation bonnets, ribbons, kerchiefs, books and engravings. There was even a reduced household selling off all their worldly goods, lamps, chairs, prayer-books, kettles, crocks, linen—and a spinning-wheel. I looked lovingly, longingly at that spinning-wheel, and might have bought it for a franc and a half, and would have done so, had I not been encumbered with the hurdy-gurdy. That had brought me into such difficulties ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... ever more thoroughly prepared to feel and to love. To understand my history, let your mind dwell on that pure time of youth when the mouth is innocent of falsehood; when the glance of the eye is honest, though veiled by lids which droop from timidity contradicting desire; when the soul bends not to worldly Jesuitism, and the heart throbs as violently from trepidation as from the generous impulses ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... a pretty thing to watch young people mating. When they're older and marry from disappointment or deliberate choice, thinking themselves so worldly-wise.... ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... most part at the time of the German invasion; and evacues—those who were sent out of the war zone by the military authorities. Naturally a large percentage of this million and a half have lost everything and, irrespective of their former worldly position, now live with the narrowest margin between themselves and starvation. The French Government has treated them with generosity, but in the midst of a war it has had little time to devote to ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... as it is for a blind man to speak of colours. To adopt the warmest sentiments of poetry, to realize its boldest imagery, to yield to every impulse of enthusiasm, to submit to the illusions of fancy, to retire with the poet into his ideal worlds, were dispositions wholly foreign from the worldly sagacity and stern shrewdness of Johnson. As in his judgment of life and character, so in his criticism on poetry, he was a sort of Free-thinker. He suspected the refined of affectation, he rejected the enthusiastic as absurd, ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... dearest husband that no considerations of worldly advantage will make you neglectful of the precepts of humanity and of the duties of religion. Be persuaded to return to me at once; for you can gain nothing in Florida which can repay me for the sorrow and anxiety I feel in ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... have already noted (page 133) a changing attitude on the part of the rural church toward play and recreation.[65] In the past it has too often been simply a negative condemnation of the so-called "worldly amusements," with no effort to understand the normal cravings of human nature which they satisfy or to furnish any satisfactory substitute for them. It is true that socials of the older classes in ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... to say of harmony? We cannot suppose that the appreciation of this, which is relatively modern, can have arisen by descent from the men in whom successive variations increased the appreciation of it—the composers and musical performers; for on the whole, these have been men whose worldly prosperity was not such as enabled them to rear many children inheriting their special traits. Even if we count the illegitimate ones, the survivors of these added to the survivors of the legitimate ones, can hardly be held to have yielded more than average numbers of descendants; and ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... 'Verily it is bearing—bearing up under the full weight; and the long bent spring is the slower in rebounding in proportion to its inherent strength. Poor lad, what protracted endurance it has been! There is health and force in his face; no line of sin, nor sickness, nor worldly care, such as it makes one's heart ache to see aging young faces; yet how utterly unlike the face of one and-twenty! I had rather see it sadder than so strangely settled and sedate! Shall I speak to him again? Not yet: those green hill-sides, those fields ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as Mr. Sloan and Forrest were enjoying a cigar together, they, too, had had a chat upon the subject, and Sloan had turned and looked upon the officer in some surprise. In common with most of his class, the man of wealth and worldly wisdom had regarded the genus regular officer as a something impressive, possibly, on parade, useful probably on the frontier, but out of place anywhere else. That he should have read or studied anything beyond drill ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... forms an impressive background, congruous with the many relics of irrepressible old paganism there, but in entire contrast to the bourgeois comfort of the place where his journey is to end, the abode of an aged antiquary, loud and bright just now with the celebration of a vulgar worldly marriage. In the midst of this well-being, prosaic in spite of the neighbourhood, in spite of the pretty old wedding customs, morsels of that local colour in which Merimee delights, the old pagan powers are supposed to reveal ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... the pure mountain air, along the margin of the clear running water of the sea, which is driven up this river at every tide. We went to church and found truly there a wild worldly people. I say wild, not only because the people are wild, as they call it in Europe, but because most all the people who go there, partake somewhat of the nature of the country; that is peculiar to the land ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... find the least attempt made upon your virtue, be sure you leave every thing behind you, and come away to us; for we had rather see you all covered with rags, and even follow you to the churchyard, than have it said, a child of ours preferred any worldly ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... orator, of the controversialist, and of the historian. His moral character might have passed with little censure had he belonged to a less sacred profession; for the worst that can be said of him is that he was indolent, luxurious, and worldly: but such failings, though not commonly regarded as very heinous in men of secular callings, are scandalous in a prelate. The Archbishopric of York was vacant; Sprat hoped to obtain it, and therefore accepted a seat at the ecclesiastical ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had certainly no pretensions to dignity of descent, and the old Derbyshire barber, Sir Richard, or his son could hardly have stood out long upon that ground, though the immense wealth realized by their ingenuity and industry was abundant worldly reason for objections to ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... future wife should become accustomed to the outside world, so as to take her place as Castellan of Evesham with a dignity befitting the position. I wrote at once to him saying, that in another year it would, in my poor judgment, be quite time to think about such worldly matters; that at the present the Lady Margaret was receiving an education suitable to her rank; that she was happy here; and that unless constrained by force—of which, I said, I could not suppose that ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... this crisis of my worldly affairs, so trying to a clergyman who is dependent on his salary, that I experienced the benefit of a rule that early in life I prescribed to myself; and that was, always to lay up for a future day some portion of my annual income. I insisted ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... will be able to decide from reflection, without being biassed against your own judgment, by his workings upon feelings which, to the honour of women, when the heart is concerned, spurn at the cold reasonings of prudence and worldly wisdom." ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... other in the mere lust of fighting, as boars or stags might run. Sometimes he interferes to protect the oppressed serf; sometimes to rescue the hunted deer which has taken sanctuary at his feet. Sometimes, again, his influence is that of intellectual superiority; of worldly experience; of the travelled man who has seen many lands and many nations. Sometimes, again, that of sympathy; for he has been a knight himself, and fought and sinned, and drank of the cup of vanity and vexation of spirit, like the fierce warrior ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... church time about the tangle of struggling building enterprise that constituted the rising urban district of Easewood. Johnson was off duty that morning, and devoted the time very generously to the admonitory discussion of Mr. Polly's worldly outlook. ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... was old and feeble, and had devised his property to his wife, to be divided at her death between her sons. My husband, as her agent, would come into possession of the whole, and they thought I might object to the "prophet's chamber;" but it required no worldly motive to stimulate these fiery zealots to save a sinner from the toils of Calvinism. It is probable many of them would have laid down his life for his religion, and when they got on the track of a sinner, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... who hath paid His vows to fortune; who, in cruel slight Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right, Hath followed wheresoe'er a way was made By the Wind goddess—ruthless, undismayed; And so hath gained at length a prosperous height, Round which the elements of worldly might Beneath his haughty feet like clouds are laid. Oh, joyless power that stands by lawless force Curses are his dire portion, scorn, and hate, Internal darkness and unquiet breath; And if old judgments keep their sacred course, Him from that height ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... other on the part of the aunt and niece; and the affection she had been able to inspire, together with the solemn feelings towards the newly dead, gave her memory a softness that almost enabled Violet to think of her in Lady Martindale's point of view, forget her harshness, and the worldly pride for her niece and her family, to which she had ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... against social reform—never against "the cause that needs assistance"; never against the oppressed wherever and whenever they crossed his path. Newman thus gave up his Balliol Fellowship, and with it—more or less—his chances of a brilliant worldly career. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Simeon, and the actor came and immediately commenced the usual actor's play. In the door he paused, in his long frock coat, shining with its silk lapels, with a glistening opera hat, which he held with his arm in the middle of his chest, like an actor portraying in the theatre an elderly worldly lion or a bank director. And approximately these persons he ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... in earthly things. Ambition has left me altogether; for years I have had no wish to succeed in the profession which I adopted in my youth, or in any other. Indeed I doubt whether the elements of worldly success still remain in me; whether they are not entirely burnt away by that fire of wisdom in which I have bathed. How can we strive to win a crown we have no longer any desire to wear? Now I desire other crowns and at times I wear them, if only ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... concocting such beverages. Hoping that I shall, at no distant day, meet your excellency in the bush, where I can return a few of the civilities which I have received this evening, and, I trust, relieve you of a portion of your worldly cares, in the shape of wealth, allow me to humbly subscribe ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... fixed, beyond a doubt, that everything there must have been wrong and fashionable; and even poor dear Aunt Kitty was only spoken of with a charitable hope that affliction had taught her to see the error of her days of worldly display. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Wastrels, desperadoes, scamps of every sort luxuriated at Indian expense. It was no wonder that false muster rolls had to be guarded against.[758] The Texans showed throughout so great an aversion to the giving of themselves or of their worldly goods[759] to the salvation ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... in a nation has also compensations. Max O'Rell says that to be American is to be both fresh and mature, and I have certainly known many Americans who were fresh. The shoulders are too young for the head to be very old. But when a man—let us say an Englishman of sixty—full of worldly wisdom, having travelled much and seen many men and cities, looks on a young man, just out of the university, perhaps, very keen on his profession, very certain of making his way in the world, with a hundred ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... not what the worldly wise may say, We owe deliverance to the God of Heaven, Whose Power Omnipotent the worlds obey, 'Gainst whose decrees mankind in ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... quiet living would suit him well, he thought, after the London banquets. He dressed himself laboriously every morning and afternoon: he took regular exercise up and down the terrace walk. Thus with his cane, his toilet, his medicine-chest, his backgammon-box, and his newspaper, this worthy and worldly philosopher fenced himself against ennui; and if he did not improve each shining hour, like the bees by the widow's garden wall, Major Pendennis made one hour after another pass as he could, and rendered his captivity ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one place he says of him, "He had a great reputation with many who knew him, for he led an honorable Christian life, was a patient man, gentle, in peace with everyone and always thankful to God. He had no desire for worldly pleasures, was of few words, did not go into society and was a God-fearing man. Thus my dear father was most anxious to bring up his children to honor God. His highest wish was that his children should be pleasing to God and man; therefore he used to tell ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... and on the morning itself of the concert at five guineas. Rachel was to recite, Liszt to play, and my sister was requested to sing, which she agreed to do, the occasion being semi-public and private, so to speak. A large assembly of our finest (and bluntest) people was not a bad audience, in a worldly sense, for her debut. She sang beautifully, and looked beautiful, and was extremely admired and praised ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... them that correct other," etc., fol. liii. has been exchanged with the cut of the succeeding chapter. The cut illustrating "The unyuersall shyp and generall Barke," fol. cclxii., is repeated at the succeeding chapter. The one illustrating Barclay's new chapter "Of folys that ar ouer worldly" is an imitation of the illustration of "De singularitate quorundam novorum fatuorum" in the Latin edition of March 1497. The cut illustrating the ballad of the Virgin appears in the original at the head of "Excusatio Jacobi ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... know, but not all. The persons here be men of great power, some of them being those by whom I am employed in managing their worldly affairs, and shortly we shall hear what is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... demon of curiosity which appeared to possess her mother, Mrs. Linley obeyed. Listening throughout with the closest attention, Mrs. Presty reckoned up the items of information, and pointed the moral to be drawn from them by worldly experience. ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... puts our bravery to shame, submitted herself to the will of God. She called for a small cabinet in which her most important papers were locked up, gave orders that, as soon as she was no more, it should be delivered to the King, and then dismissed worldly cares from her mind. She received the Eucharist, and repeated her part of the office with unimpaired memory and intelligence, though in a feeble voice. She observed that Tenison had been long standing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... if thou needest it," was ever the Basin code: "even my life!" Before such a spirit the admission of worldly wealth and ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... oats. And they also had their mother's blue eyes, but their faces were elongated like that of their father. Dressed in white, with their locks curled, arrayed indeed in the most coquettish style, they looked like big fragile dolls. The parents were touched in their worldly pride at sight of them, and insisted on their playing their ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... sublimely self-confident, imposes his view of himself upon other men and especially upon women. He had strength—strength of body and strength of mind. And he had the strength which a devouring ambition sheds through a man. A fine type of the worldly clergyman he was, of the ardent climber up the ladder of preferment. To him the church was a career, and he meant to succeed in it. If he had to begin as a curate he meant to end as a bishop, perhaps as an archbishop. And ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... who sighed to its vanishing through vanished years; the dying turn to its beckoning radiance; happy is the maiden for whose bridal it wears brightness; blessed is the child thought to be that holds out tiny hands for the glittering cross as for a star. Even to the most worldly it often seems flinging beams of heaven, and to all who love its shining that is a dark day when it yields no ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... to refuse him would be absolute madness; Mrs. Morriston's face grew black at the very thought of it. She soon got my father on to her side, and between them I had a hateful time of it. It's the old story, which will be told as long as there are worldly, selfish women on the earth, but it was none the less fresh and poignant to me who had to live ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... English shareholders. The colony thus achieved its freedom, and its members were able to proceed in building their settlement according to their own ideas of religion and civil government without restraint from partners who had sought only for worldly profit. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... will,[1166] "which when the soul is departed, shall then remain but as a cadaver, and so return to the vile matter it was made of, were it not for the crown and dignity which God hath called us unto, and that We would not be counted an infringer of honest worldly policies and customs, when they be not contrary to God's laws, We would be content to have it buried in any place accustomed to Christian folks, were it never so vile, for it is but ashes, and to ashes it shall ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... perpetual requirement of loving words, looks, and caresses, and misconstruing their absence into absence of love, had been the great trial of her former married life. Now, all went on clear and straight, under the guidance of her husband's strong sense, warm heart, and powerful will. Year by year their worldly prosperity increased. At Mrs. Wilson's death, Norah came back to them, as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father; who declared that if he found out that ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... to shock the young and enthusiastic scholar. There was quite enough to daunt him in the prospect of a life spent among the narrow-minded. Sinners who feel waves of repentance may be better house-mates than those who have worldly credit enough to ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... it makes a devil of a difference," replied Paul, disregarding the allusion to his wealth. As the leading man, he was the most highly paid member of the disastrous company, and he had acquired sufficient worldly wisdom to know that to him who has but a penny the possessor of a shilling appears arrogantly opulent. "But still," said he, "what can we do? We must get back to London ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... being thus pacified, is seen in worldly honour under the powers of the Spiritual and Temporal Rulers. The Pope, with Cardinal and Bishop descending in order on his right; the Emperor, with King and Baron descending in order on his left; the ecclesiastical body of the whole Church on the right side, and ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... adultery, polished savage nations, banished slavery, and introduced new and unknown virtues, charity for men, their equality in the sight of God, forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries, the restraint of all the passions, the contempt of worldly greatness, a life ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... the heart of friends with friends and promote the happiness of society. But notwithstanding I was thus secluded from my particular friends and acquaintances yet I enjoyed my share of comfort and worldly felicity. I felt no disposition to murmer and repine in my then condition. Every day afforded me its enjoyments excepting a time when I had a pretty severe attack with the ague and fever which reduced me low. The whole term of my Captivity was three years and three months lacking one day. I was ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... recourse to wine to effect this purpose: the opulent indulge in the libations of 330 claret, burgundy, and champagne; the middling classes have recourse to brandy, rum, and gin; but the African effects this purpose at far less expense. A muselman procures ample temporary relief from worldly care for a mere trifle: he buys at the (attara), drug shop, for a penny, a small pipe of el keef or hashisha; this completely effects his purpose. The leaves of this drug, which is a kind of hemp, are called el hashisha; the flower ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... the son, as their story goes, of a great and wealthy king. And he was of such an holy temper that he would never listen to any worldly talk, nor would he consent to be king. And when the father saw that his son would not be king, nor yet take any part in affairs, he took it sorely to heart. And first he tried to tempt him with great promises, offering to crown him king, and to surrender all authority into his ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... revolutions. In the interior of her palace she passed happy days; her world, her life, and her pleasures were there. Princess Elizabeth desired not to reign; her only wish was to love and be loved. The intoxicating splendor of worldly greatness was not so inviting to her as the more intoxicating pleasure of blessed and happy love. She would, above all things, be a woman, and enjoy the full possession of ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Idiot" by Fedor Dostoieffsky, an epileptic genius who saw that for those like him, happiness could be got through peace of mind alone, and not in the cut-throat struggle for worldly success. He projected his stabler self into Prince Muishkin, the idiot, and every one of the six hundred odd pages of this amazing description of a neuropathic nation is stamped ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... which the young speaker uttered with all the flippant self-sufficiency of worldly people with whom the world is going well, the face of the young nobleman who listened presented a picture ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... sins. Human nature would be exalted, could the countless noble actions which, in times of most imminent danger, were performed in secret, be recorded for the instruction of future generations. They, however, have no influence on the course of worldly events. They are known only to silent eyewitnesses, and soon fall into oblivion. But hypocrisy, illusion, and bigotry stalk abroad undaunted; they desecrate what is noble, they pervert what is divine, to the unholy purposes of selfishness, ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... me there once. Oh, they were engaged—the day before, and he had called on me and all that. I had known 'Lucky' Richard Forrest, and I knew all about his son. From a worldly standpoint, Paula couldn't have made a finer marriage. It was quite a romance. Paula had seen him captain the University of California eleven to victory over Stanford. And the next time she saw him was ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... The stated events of life—its regular meals, its trivial pleasures—had quite filled any void in her existence made by her father's death. If he had come back to earth, if some one had said to her, "He is here," she would have been far more embarrassed than delighted. The worldly advantages built upon the extinction of a great love! Sophia could contemplate them ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... could," admitted the general, as he eyed his miserable little pile of worldly goods in the basket. "I suppose I could," he ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... this young, innocent, lovely girl appear to him when he compared her with the mature, self-possessed, worldly woman of whom he could only hope that he might be her last love, while he knew that ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... the educated, the rich and the worldly wise who blunder most in the training of their children. Poverty is a better trainer ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... several days. Finally they were released (Sept.6), on promise that they remove their converts from the line of the warpaths. September 11, the Moravians and their teachers left Salem in a body, with but few worldly goods, for most of their property had been destroyed by the Wyandots. They proceeded down the Tuscarawas to the mouth of the Walhonding, thence up the latter stream and Vernon River, and across country to the Sandusky, where they arrived October 1, and erected a ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... do, Miss Earp?" said Denry, in a worldly manner, which he had acquired for himself by taking the most effective features of the manners of several prominent citizens, and piecing them together so that, as a whole, they ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... that the piety of the puritans was of a merely speculative kind, or that it took no cognizance of the course of worldly affairs. Puritanism, as I have already remarked, was scarcely less a political than a religious doctrine. No sooner had the emigrants landed on the barren coast, described by Nathaniel Morton, than their first care was to constitute a society, ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... to find relief and justification for himself in contemplating the treasure for whose sake he had accepted it. As in other circumstances a man would solace himself for all sacrifices by gazing on the face of a mistress for whom he had relinquished worldly ambitions, and find excuses for himself in her beauty, telling himself a hundred times she was worth it all; so Stephen now gazed upon his claims, for which he had given up his scruples, his principles, his conscience, and his God, and tried to hug to himself the comfort that they were ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... note on Piozzi Letters, i. 311, says:— 'Mr. Thrale, who was a worldly man, and followed the direction of his own feelings with no philosophical or Christian distinctions, having now lost the strong hope of being one day succeeded in the profitable Brewery by the only son he had left, gave himself silently up to his grief, and fell in a few ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the worldly possessions of the dubious Mrs. Lewis had lain exposed on the pavement, and for three hours Dan had sat beside them keeping guard. From every tenement window inquisitive eyes watched each stage of the proceeding, ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... certain friend of hers who, having become a ritualist, never lost an opportunity of emphasizing the difference between her own views and the views of her family; and of Kate Righton at Greyshot who had adopted the most rigid evangelical views, and treated her good old father and mother as "worldly" ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... indelibly impressed on my memory. Very shortly after leaving Le Cateau I was met by streams of Belgian refugees, flying from Mons and its neighbourhood. They were lying about the fields in all directions, and blocking the roads with carts and vans in which they were trying to carry off as much of their worldly goods as possible. The whole country-side showed those concrete evidences of disturbance and alarm which brought home to all our minds what this retreat meant and all that it might come ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... to us, is morally far worse than the unconscious hypocrisy which here and there exists in professors of the old religion; there is something more nauseous about self-deceiving 'altruism' than in the attitude of a man who, thoroughly worldly in fact, believes himself a hopeful candidate for personal salvation." Certain recent letters of Dyce appeared in a new light when seen from this point of view. It was too disagreeable a subject; the vicar strove to dismiss ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... that never-ceasing pity in her soul for Giles as a man whom she had wronged—a man who had been unfortunate in his worldly transactions; while, not without a touch of sublimity, he had, like Horatio, borne ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Edmund for having come home, Lord and Lady Marchmont welcomed him with as much warmth as if it was the most prudent thing he could have done. They insisted on his coming to stay at their house, and as it was full time to set off, left him to see about his worldly ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... doer of a good and charitable deed. I have always, I hope, valued the station to which it has pleased God to call me, because it especially offers me the privilege of being the friend of all my fellow-christians, whether richer or poorer, higher or lower in worldly rank, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... plodded down the hill, "we must be careful, very careful, my boy. These are greatly innocent and pure natures with which we have come in contact: the world must have grown vague and dim to them long ago, wrapped in their high communings. We must leave all worldly words and thoughts outside, as a snake drops his skin. No talk of money here, lad. It would be as well, too, not to mention any family ties, such as wife or child: such bonds must seem to this lofty human brotherhood ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... analyze a living thing; the analysis is at best imperfect. Many more motives may blend with the three trends; possibly the desire for a new form of social success due to the nicety of imagination, which refuses worldly pleasures unmixed with the joys of self-sacrifice; possibly a love of approbation, so vast that it is not content with the treble clapping of delicate hands, but wishes also to hear the bass notes from toughened palms, may mingle ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... where prizes are often won by craft and persuasive eloquence rather than by strength of arm. The story of Ulysses is a signal lesson in the study of human character, and receives a luminous commentary in Shakespeare's adaptation of it. The advice which Ulysses gives to Achilles[29] is a piece of worldly wisdom and may well be acted on by those who desire advancement in life and are little scrupulous in regard to means. The first part of Goethe's "Faust" is another book which has profoundly affected my view of life. I read it first ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... True poetry is not a thing to laugh at and disdain, for it is the salt of life, which makes existence endurable, and gives a savour to our worldly toil. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... occurred to her before. If she followed the desire of her own heart, she stood in the way of two people. True, she might make Jervis Ferrars happy with her love, more especially as she was quite sure that he cared for her. But would there ever come a time when he might be tempted to wish for more worldly advantages, and to long for the power that money brings? Lying there in the twilight of the northern summer night, which was never in that month quite dark, Katherine faced the future with a steady, single-hearted desire to do the right thing at ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... having been given up to Christ in baptism follows worldly pleasures, and so "makes ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... family must be practical and worldly-minded, and I seem to be the one. YOU wouldn't ask her for a cent. You wouldn't ask anybody for money, even if they owed it a thousand years. You sell everybody anything they want from the store; and trust them for it. You ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... became conscious of the condition of affairs and wrote to consult me, I had no hesitation in replying that, though Viola's connections might warrant greater expectations in a worldly point of view, yet I thought that there was every reason for promoting an attachment to a gentleman of family equal to her own on one side at least, and whose noble exertions during the past two years for the welfare of all concerned with him, not only obliterate all recollection ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... colours as if carried by them into the infinite. On the blue-violet side, space itself seems to fluoresce mysteriously5. Following Goethe's conception of the physical-moral effect of colours, we may describe the experience received thus from the two poles of the spectrum by saying that an 'other-worldly' character belongs to the colours of the blue-violet pole; an 'earthly' character to those of the yellow-red; while that of green, which appears when both sides are made to overlap, witnesses to its mediating ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... would then be condemning the objects of God's creation. His meaning is that it is vain to pursue any one thing to the exclusion of every other. He then proceeds to name three prominent objects of pursuit, wisdom, pleasure and worldly gain—all is vain when taken by itself. A proper combination of all is to be recommended as is delicately hinted in the same book (2, 3), "I searched in mine heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, mine heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... political disabilities), it would be easy for the loyal white men to obtain control of the local governments. Out of these circumstances there came into political power the class of men known as "Carpet-baggers"—so described from the insulting presumption that the entire worldly estate of each one of the class was carried in a carpet-bag, enabling him to fly at any moment of danger from the State whose domestic policy he sought to control. The prospect of the success of the new movement induced a number of former rebels to join ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... especially in the earlier half of the era, prior to Kant, are in great part not philosophers by profession but soldiers, statesmen, physicians, as well as natural scientists, historians, and priests, give modern philosophy an unprofessional, worldly appearance, in striking contrast to the clerical character of mediaeval, and the prophetic character ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... the Bloomsbury garret, and had never even written. But Paul was anxious that Hay—whom he regarded as a clever man-of-the-world—should see the old man, and, as our trans-Atlantic cousins say, "size him up." Norman's manner and queer life puzzled Paul not a little, and not being very worldly himself he was anxious to have the advice of his old school friend, who seemed desirous of doing him a good turn, witness his desire to buy the brooch so that Paul might be supplied with money. So Beecot wrote to Grexon Hay at his Camden Hill chamber and told ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... wonder. Such words of cynical unbelief were in dark, terrible contrast with the fair young face. He saw the mind and training of her father in all she said, but he bitterly condemned the worldly, inconsistent life of multitudes in the church who do more to confirm unbelievers than all their sophistries. But as she went on, seemingly having the argument all her own way, his whole soul burned to meet and refute her fatal views. For her own sake and ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... they ruled; for at their departure there were very few buildings besides the church; just what civilised life absolutely requires, and no more. Their only capital was their cattle; for if rich men gave them money, they presently gave it to the poor. Of funds and halls for entertaining the worldly great they had no need, as such personages never came but to pray and hear the word of God. The King himself, when occasion required, would come with just five or six thanes, and after prayer in church would depart; and if it chanced they took refreshment there, they were ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... operations are conducted, it is unnecessary to enlarge. If Mr. Mueller is right, I think it is evident that we are all wrong. We cannot go into this subject in detail. We may, however, be permitted to remark, that the means which are frequently employed to secure the approbation and pecuniary aid of worldly men, in carrying forward the cause of Christ, are intensely humiliating. It would seem as though God was the last being to be relied on in carrying forward the work which he has ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... less completely under their control,— for us it is difficult to fancy the change produced in the mind of the early disciples of Christ by the reception of the truths which he revealed. During the first three centuries, while converts were constantly being made from heathenism, brought over by no worldly temptation, but by the pure force of the new doctrine and the glad tidings over their convictions, or by the contagious enthusiasm of example and devotion,—faith in Christ and in his teachings must, among the sincere, have been always connected ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... The worldly condition seems to have much to do with the size of a family. Rich and fashionable women have fewer children than their poor and hard-worked neighbours. Wealth and pleasure seem to be often gladly exchanged ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... preferred staying at home to tempting the dangers of a long sea-voyage. The prudent said, there was a possibility of success; but it was better to take care of the little you had, than run the risk of losing it while seeking for more.—The worldly sneered, and criticised, and turned the golden anticipations of the hopeful and the benevolent into ridicule, prophesying disappointment, ruin, and a speedy return. Lyndsay listened to all their remarks, endeavoured to combat unreasonable ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... his ancient tutor, especially now when reputed to be decaying; and with the same view he brought Lord Belgrave, who had become his son-in-law after his rejection by Lady Carbery. The whole was a very natural accident. But Lady Carbery was not sufficiently bronzed by worldly habits to treat this accident with nonchalance. She did not to the public eye betray any embarrassment; but afterwards she told me that no incident could have been more ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... this time may be briefly described. He was a man who had made religion the single aim and object of his life, who was prepared to encounter for it every form of danger, discomfort, and obloquy; who devoted exclusively to it an energy of will and power of intellect that in worldly professions might have raised him to the highest positions of honor and wealth. Of his sincerity, of his self-renunciation, of his deep and fervent piety, of his almost boundless activity, there can be no question. Yet with all these qualities he was not an amiable man. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... however, he will be stayed in his guilt. A death in a family of some favorite object, or be attacked by some disease himself, is brought to the portals of the grave. Then for a little time, perhaps, he is stayed in his wickedness, but before long he returns to his worldly lusts. Oh, it is indeed hard for a sinner to go down into perhaps perdition over all the obstacles which God has placed in his path. But many, I am afraid, do go down into perdition, for wide is the gate and broad is the way ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... was not one of thrilling adventure, hairbreadth escapes, and deeds securing worldly applause, but quiet, unobtrusive and useful. Her constitution was naturally weak—her brain too active for her body, and as a consequence much mental and physical suffering was her portion. To her studies—French, Latin and drawing, besides the English branches—she ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... nightmare. Do not say 'No.' I am sure I do! As to the vain parlance of the world, I did not talk of the 'honour of your acquaintance' without a true sense of honour, indeed; but I shall willingly exchange it all (and now, if you please, at this moment, for fear of worldly mutabilities) for ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... ancient, and much more celebrated and honored, than that at Gerizzim, which was nothing to the present purpose. The whole evidence, by the very oaths of both parties, being, we see, obliged to be confined to the law of Moses, or to the Pentateuch alone. However, worldly policy and interest and the multitude prevailing, the court gave sentence, as usual, on the stronger side, and poor Sabbeus and Theodosius, the Samaritan disputants, were martyred, and this, so far as appears, without any direct hearing at all, which is like the usual ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... than a dream of youth that there may be here a satisfaction of the heart, without which, and in comparison with which, all worldly success is failure. In spite of the selfishness which seems to blight all life, our hearts tell us that there is possible a nobler relationship of disinterestedness and devotion. Friendship in its accepted sense is not the highest of the different grades in that relationship, but it has its place ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... knowledge, realizing its relation to his daily work, could fail of an enthusiastic fondness for his profession. But the worst of it is that all efforts in this direction have generally ended in producing a "smatterer," whose theories are baffled by constant disappointment, and whose worldly prosperity is ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... with one of our German friends here just now, and he complained that the American girls—especially the rich ones—seem very calculating and worldly and conventional. I told him I didn't know how to account for that. I tried to give him some notion of the ennobling influences of society in Newport, as I've ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... to make my English reader understand? Let me try by analogy. Suppose a man of great birth and fortune, who in his youth had been an enthusiastic friend of Lord Byron and a jocund companion of George IV.; who had in him an immense degree of lofty romantic sentiment with an equal degree of well-bred worldly cynicism, but who, on account of that admixture, which is so rare, kept a high rank in either of the two societies into which, speaking broadly, civilized life divides itself,—the romantic and the cynical. The Count ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... annals of Great Britain! Day of the coronation of Queen Victoria! ... We were up at six, and Lizzy, Bob'm, and I, being the Abbey party, dressed in all our grandeur. The ceremony was much what I expected, but less solemn and impressive from the mixture of religion with worldly vanities and distinctions. The sight was far more brilliant and beautiful than I had supposed it would be. Walked home in our fine gowns through the crowd; found the stand here well filled, and were quite in time to ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... of their ages, had few secrets from one another. Rene burned to pour out his story of the wonderful Madame de Medici, of the secret house in Chinatown with its deceptively mean exterior and its gorgeous interior, to the shrewd and worldly elder man. That was his way. But Fate had an oddly bitter moment in ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... members of each generation followed various honourable professions, but they failed to rise to high rank in them, owing, I fancy, to a want of worldly ambition—the general characteristic of our race. Altogether, however, I believe them to have been a simple-minded, upright, clear sighted set of people, who did whatever their hands found to do honestly and with all their might. Such people ought to rise, ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... a wealthy and highly talented man who could pursue his own bent without needing to make concessions merely to earn a living. He remained quite independent of the cares which oppressed those less well endowed in worldly goods or native talent. Sometimes, of course, necessity can impose a discipline and rigor which ultimately may serve as a disguised benefit, but in the seventeenth century, when Boyle was active, the lack of systematic training and rigorous background seemed actually an advantage. ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... a curious story about the first marriage that took place between a heretic and a Jalapina. The hero held the important position of agent of the English Real del Monte Company at Jalapa. In one of the families that had been greatly reduced in their worldly circumstances by the ruin of the Consulado of Vera Cruz, was a dark beauty with whom he became deeply enamored. But how to make her his wife was the difficulty. The lady was willing—was more than willing; "for when the fires of Spanish love are kindled, they burn unextinguishably," ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... and night Mr. Robinson devoted himself to the task of consoling my mother, and of attending to her darling boy; hourly, and indeed momentarily, Mr. Robinson's praises were reiterated with enthusiasm by my mother. He was "the kindest, the best of mortals!" the least addicted to worldly follies, and the man, of all others, whom she ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... four families, I finally fixed upon a banker. Offers more advantageous from a worldly point of view were open to me. I could have gone to a public-house, where the victuals were simply unlimited, and where the back door was left open all night. But about the banker's (he was also a churchwarden, and his wife never smiled at anything less than a joke by the ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... During the fall and winter of 1869 and 1870 he held high revels at Fort Garry, and amused himself by arresting and imprisoning all loyal Canadians he could lay hands on. Several prominent citizens were confined in the fort by Riel's order and subjected to insults and indignities, while their worldly possessions were pillaged and destroyed. Among those who especially fell under Riel's displeasure was a loyal Canadian named Thomas Scott. He was a bold and fearless young man, and his sturdy patriotism to his country and his determined manner of expressing his views, angered Riel, ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... a sloping hillside, over-looking a quiet country village. Happy homes are embowered in living groves, whose summer foliage is emblematical of innocence, progress, and peace. We have here a social life, with natural impulses, cultivated worldly interests, moral and religious sentiments, all on the side of virtue. Crime here is not social. If it appear at all, it is segregated; and, as the burning taper expires when placed at the centre of the spirit lamp's coiling sheet of flame, so vice and crime cannot ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... mature widower of fifty-three, was still mourning his first wife when he obtained the hand of Doa Mara, a young widow whose first husband, a lieutenant in the same regiment, was recently deceased. The marriage was satisfactory in a worldly way, for Doa Mara brought as a dower four hundred thousand reales to be added to the two hundred thousand which Don Juan already possessed. By his first marriage Don Juan had had a son, Don Jos de Espronceda y Ramos, who became ensign in his father's regiment, then studied in the Artillery ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... better engaged in reading "Thrump's Legacy," or "The Blind Washerwoman of Moorfields," or any work of a more serious nature; but Miss Sharp said her dear mother used often to play the same game with the old Count de Trictrac and the venerable Abbe du Cornet, and so found an excuse for this and other worldly amusements. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sign that Andrew, though he prospered in his wooing, was specially successful in acquisition of worldly gear. Otherwise, however, he became an outstanding character not only in the village, but in the adjoining city and district. A 'brainy' man who read and thought for himself he became associated with the radical weavers of Dunfermline, who in ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... very freely in letters which are still preserved. "I have lived," he wrote, "to see that damnable rebel Tyrone brought to England, honored, and well liked. Oh! what is there that does not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters? I adventured perils by sea and land, was near starving, ate horseflesh in Munster, and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those who did harass their lives to destroy him; and now doth Tyrone dare us, old commanders, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... all the appetites and passions of the body before it can be reabsorbed into the god. Those who have so mortified the body that the life merely subsists in it, almost unwillingly as it were, and absolutely unaffected by human desires or affections or worldly events, have rendered their individual spark of life capable of being at once absorbed into the divine life and equal in merit to it, while still on earth. Thus Hindu ascetics in the last or perfect stage say, 'I am God,' or 'I am Siva,' and are revered by their disciples ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... are represented by beasts. Their cruelty and the destruction of life which they caused were uppermost in a prophet's view; their vulgar splendour dazzled a king's sleeping eyes, because it had intoxicated his waking thoughts. Much worldly glory and many of its aims appear as precious metal to dreamers, but are seen by an illuminated sight ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... sir! what pleasure can I have In jewels, treasure, or any worldly thing That want my sight that should deserne thereof? Ah, sir, I must leave you: The pain of mine eyes is so extreme, I cannot long stay in a place. I ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... that the true disciple of Christ will be favored with the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit whenever it is needful to direct his steps; it appears to me especially important, that, in matters of self-sacrifice and conflicting with our worldly interest or reputation, we should guard against being deluded into a neglect of duty, by waiting for this direct Divine intimation, where the path of duty is obvious and clearly understood, and when testimonies are concerned, which we have long considered ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Krishna looks down from heaven with most favour on such as minister to the wants of his successors and vicars on earth, a peculiar rite called Self-devotion has been instituted, whereby his faithful worshippers make over their bodies, their souls, and, what is perhaps still more important, their worldly substance to his adorable incarnations; and women are taught to believe that the highest bliss for themselves and their families is to be attained by yielding themselves to the embraces of those beings in whom the divine nature mysteriously coexists with the form and even the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... circumstances of the rise of Protestantism, lies its justification, and, on the whole, its wholesome soundness. It took the form, which may seem strange in a religious movement, of proclaiming that marriage is not a religious but a secular matter. Marriage is, said Luther, "a worldly thing," and Calvin put it on the same level as house-building, farming, or shoe-making. But while this secularization of marriage represents the general and final drift of Protestantism, the leaders of Protestantism were themselves not altogether ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... thought To lord it over painting's field; and now The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclipsed. Thus hath one Guido from the other snatched The lettered prize; and he, perhaps, is born, Who shall drive either from their nest. The noise Of worldly fame is but a blast of wind, That blows from diverse points, and shifts its name, Shifting the point it blows from. Shalt thou more Live in the mouths of mankind, if thy flesh Part shrivelled from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... the world. Struggling against Patriotism, she pleaded for humanity; and struggling against Imperialism, she pleaded for spirituality. And again: struggling against heretics, she pleaded for unity, and struggling against worldly philosophers, she pleaded for a sacred and pragmatic wisdom. She looked sometimes defeated and on her knees before her enemies, but she rose again and again like the phoenix from its ashes. In her dramatic struggle ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... importance of our worldly affairs," she went on dreamily, "appears to change when one sees that they are all to stop at once. They recede into the background of the mind. What counts then is, oh, I don't want to think of it! My father—he——" ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... disdainfully thrown into the yard, are often secretly picked up by the children, who obey the impulses of nature, and devour them most greedily. Even in the old people themselves, there is occasionally some backsliding into the depravity of worldly appetite. You might have perceived, that while the old man was abusing the wine you drank as unripe, and making wry faces at it, he still kept tasting it; and if I had not reached it to you, he would probably, ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... it not very hard,' cried Sophy, 'that even you, who own all her excellences, should turn against him, and give in to all this miserable conventionality, that wants riches and station, and trumpery worldly things, and crushes down true love ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... But the worldly popes of the fifteenth century also aspired to be temporal princes. They established the most elegant court in Europe; they supported large armies; they sought to restore the splendor of imperial Rome; they became ambitious of founding great families; ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... she has a little secret she would keep from the king. Yes; the secret will save you!" And Louise smiled knowingly, as one who, although most devout, perhaps had missed a few paters or credos in listening to idle worldly gossip. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... days. I never saw any one so spruced up, shall I call it? He has gained fifteen pounds, is growing whiskers, and is beginning to look the embodiment of worldly prosperity." ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... by, of an otherwise dull play, the original type of the comic valet of the stage of all subsequent periods—consults the Delphic Oracle concerning his son, whether he ought not to be instructed in injustice and knavery and the other arts whereby worldly men acquire riches. By way of answer the god only tells him that he is to follow whomsoever he first meets upon leaving the temple, who proves to be a blind and ragged old man. But this turns out to be no other than Plutus himself, the god of riches, whom Zeus has robbed of his eyesight, so that ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... use making enemies, when you can have 'em for friends just as easily as not," Dresser retorted, with an air of superior worldly wisdom. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... If you and I attend to it as a kind of by-occupation; if we give the balance of our time and the superfluity of our energy, after we have done a hard day's work—say, an hour upon a Sunday—to seeking God, and devote all the rest of the week to seeking worldly prosperity, it is no wonder if our religion languishes, and is mainly a matter of forms, as it is with such hosts of people that call ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that luckless saddle had excited the derision of the girl, and drawn down on him the contumely of the tavern-keeper, he looked around for some safe spot in which to deposit it before it brought him into further disgrace. His linen and all his worldly possessions, except his money, which he carried on his person, were in the valise; he could not afford ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Gustav stayed. It is true that at first he decided to leave Berlin by the early train next morning; but his wife employed the hours of darkness addressing him, as he lay sleepless, in the language of wisdom; and the wisdom being of that robust type known as worldly, it inevitably produced its effect ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... for her looks. Alice, the divorcee, appeals to one.—She is gentle and feminine and clinging—she is the cruelest and most merciless of the three, Maurice tells me, and the most difficult to analyse: But most of one's friends would find it hard to stand the test of denuding them of their worldly possessions and outside allurements, it is not only the fluffies, who would come out of not ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... unsympathetic, nothing could bring her to overcome her dislike. She was in this particular more like some wild thing than a creature of the nineteenth century; indeed, one of her marked traits was a curious intractability of nature. I believe that no worldly motive ever influenced her relation with any human creature. Of course these native qualities made her more ardently devoted in her friendships; but it went hardly with her to ingratiate those persons for whom she felt a natural repulsion, or even ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... welfare too. In very truth he did not like Lady Carbury. He saw through her character, judging her with almost absolute accuracy. The woman was affectionate, seeking good things for others rather than for herself; but she was essentially worldly, believing that good could come out of evil, that falsehood might in certain conditions be better than truth, that shams and pretences might do the work of true service, that a strong house might be built upon the sand! It was ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... answer for Birmingham—for any great working town to which we chose to go. We have won a position for the idea which years upon years of labour could not have given it. I believe its worldly fortunes have been advanced in this last week fifty years at least. I feebly express to you what Forster (who couldn't be at Liverpool, and has not those shouts ringing in his ears) has felt from the moment ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... pictures as to what my work in this new life with its greatly altered meaning should be, and before we had reached the grave's edge I had mapped out my ongoings for a long stretch of the future, and that in such eager, worldly fashion that I almost forgot that at the end of all this bright-hued future there lay for me, as well as for Daniel Blake's wife, an open grave. My busy thoughts were recalled by hearing the penetrating voice ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... to the races, and again. Alcee Arobin and Mrs. Highcamp called for her one bright afternoon in Arobin's drag. Mrs. Highcamp was a worldly but unaffected, intelligent, slim, tall blonde woman in the forties, with an indifferent manner and blue eyes that stared. She had a daughter who served her as a pretext for cultivating the society of young men of fashion. Alcee Arobin was one ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... at Christmas-times drives a snow-storm of bills. He must keep the wolf from the door, and he has only his goose-quills to confront it with. And here it is, having to deal with alien powers, that his special temperament comes into play, and may work him evil. Wit is not worldly wisdom. A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles on the road. A man may be able to disentangle intricate problems, be able to recall the past, and yet be cozened by an ordinary knave. The finest expression will not liquidate a butcher's account. If Apollo puts his ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... studies, he never heard of public events till they were forced upon his attention. He knew nothing of current life until the last moment, and often amused his intimate friends by his naive astonishment—the more so that from a little worldly vanity he desired to have it appear as if he were fully acquainted with the course of events, and tried to conceal the surprise he experienced at every fresh intelligence. He was now in this situation, and to this vanity was added the feeling of friendship; ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... living representatives of the Gentile Church of the country in primitive days, down through continuous ages,—their families enduring martyrdom, and to this day persecution and oppression, for the name of Christ, in spite of every worldly inducement to renounce it. While we Europeans are reciting the Nicene Creed in our churches, they are suffering for it. They are living witnesses for the "Light of light, and very God of very God;" and although with this they mingle sundry superstitions, they are a people who salute each ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... Sir Count; your keen and worldly wit Is good for worldly uses, not to tilt Withal at holy men and holy things. He pleases well the spiritual sense Of my most peerless lady, whose discernment Is still the touchstone of my grosser fancy: He is her friend, and mine: and ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... turning-point of Raleigh's life. What does he intend to be? Soldier, statesman, scholar, or sea-adventurer? He takes the most natural, yet not the wisest course. He will try and be all four at once. He has intellect for it; by worldly wisdom he may have money for it also. Even now he has contrived (no one can tell whence) to build a good bark of two hundred tons, and send her out with Humphrey Gilbert on his second and fatal voyage. Luckily ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... pointed to that affinity of mind which unites in sentiment those possessing it, in spite of worldly distinctions. And song, too, we have found, is a prevalent and far-pervading agency, which become the mean of binding together a nation's population on the ground of that which is true to nature. It, therefore, does so in a manner more congenial ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... donkey. Any live man has succeeded in living; any dead man may have succeeded in committing suicide. But, passing over the bad logic and bad philosophy in the phrase, we may take it, as these writers do, in the ordinary sense of success in obtaining money or worldly position. These writers profess to tell the ordinary man how he may succeed in his trade or speculation—how, if he is a builder, he may succeed as a builder; how, if he is a stockbroker, he may succeed as a stockbroker. They profess to show him how, if he is ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... to pursue this worldly criticism of a religious rule; but there is yet another point in which the Trappist order appeals to me as a model of wisdom. By two in the morning the clapper goes upon the bell, and so on, hour by hour, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enforcement is openly snubbed in the interests, and it would seem at the instance, of illicit and murderous dealers in a contraband article, from the transport of which your Company seeks profit, we may fairly ask the question whether the Company is acting even the part of worldly wisdom. Your declaration that if one of the Company's officers or employees so conducts himself as to antagonize a section of the community, or even in a manner which is likely to bring about that result, ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... rays of light, divinely bright, Thy sunny smiles o'er all disperse; And let the music of thy voice, More softly flow than Lesbian verse. By all the witchery of love, By every fascinating art— The worldly spirit strive to move, But spare, O spare, the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... I do hereby recommend, that Wednesday, the 9th day of May next, be observed throughout the United States as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens of these States, abstaining on that day from their customary worldly occupations, offer their devout addresses to the Father of Mercies agreeably to those forms or methods which they have severally adopted as the most suitable and becoming; that all religious congregations do, with the deepest humility, acknowledge before God the manifold sins and transgressions ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... of both Catharine and Charles he fully understood. But he knew not where the blow would fall, and he was extremely perplexed in deciding as to the course he ought to pursue. The apartments assigned to him and his bride were in the palace of the Louvre. It would be so manifestly for his worldly interest for him to unite with the Catholic party, especially when he should see the Protestant cause hopelessly ruined, that the mother and the brother of his wife had hesitatingly concluded that it would be safe to spare his life. Many of the most conspicuous members ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... practice in the navy on Sundays to muster clothes at divisions, and to take a list of what slops are required by the men to complete their kit, or stock of worldly goods. This overhaul or inspection happens once a month; and when such is the intention, the word is passed along the lower deck at breakfast-time, that the ship's company are to "muster clothes at divisions." ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... bark and rolling them up placed them upon the star-chi-gan—the stage—along with other things which they intended leaving behind. The lodge poles were left standing in readiness for their return next summer, and it wasn't long before all their worldly goods—save their skin tepees and most of their traps, which had been left on their last winter's hunting grounds—were placed aboard their three canoes, and off they paddled to the Post, to say good-bye, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... suggestion. Wherefore, since prudence implies direction to some appetible end, we do not speak of "prudence of the devil," as of a prudence directed to some evil end, which is the aspect under which the world and the flesh tempt us, in so far as worldly or carnal goods are proposed to our appetite. Hence we speak of "carnal" and again of "worldly" prudence, according to Luke 16:8, "The children of this world are more prudent [Douay: 'wiser'] in their generation," etc. The Apostle includes all in the "prudence of the flesh," ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... eye. His morning coat had been cut by London's best tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace Hignett, considered him worldly. ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... catastrophe on board the steamer, he had forgotten Doctor Glyphic. He felt small inclination to meet his relative now; but certain considerations of personal interest no longer wore the same color as yesterday. Robbed of his self-respect, he could ill afford to surrender worldly wealth into the bargain. On the other hand, to palm himself off on his uncle for a true man was adding ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne |
