"Conscientious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disappointed and chagrined at the conduct of Pitt on this occasion, for it was generally supposed by them, that if he did not support them, he at least would not have discountenanced their efforts. It is probable, however, that Pitt himself was in reality in their favour, but at court a conscientious, and therefore insuperable hostility existed against such a measure, and a determination on his part to force it through parliament, would doubtless have led to his dismissal. Moreover, as there were many ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... smiled as if she were making fun of him. His breath caught in his chest. Fanny—Fanny. His wife. Why hadn't his wife the loyalty and intelligence of Barbara, the enthusiasm, the seriousness of Elise? He needn't have any conscientious scruples on Fanny's account; she had driven him to Elise with her frivolity, her eternal smiling. Of course he knew that she cared for him, that he had power over her, that there had never been and never would be any other man for Fanny; but he couldn't go on with ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... received with peculiar graciousness, and immediate advantage was taken of his timely offer. The prince was now supplied with means adequately to support the royal state which he had assumed, and the last lingering relics of suspicion were dissipated, for Lievain was known to be a thoroughly honest and conscientious man, and one well acquainted with his master's family and affairs, and it was surmised that he would not thus have committed himself unless he had had very good ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... some deep and deadly benumbing of his faculties. He could not welcome the new days. His memory was set rather on the old days, so recent and in some way so dear. He loved the forgotten thunder of the buffalo, but in his heart there rose no exultation at the rumble of the wheels. Still conscientious, he plodded, nor did he cease to aspire even in his own restricted avocations. Because of his level common sense, which is the main ingredient in the success-portion, he went easily into the first councils of the community. Joylessly painstaking and exact, he ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... holiday and hear all the news. It was pitiful to see their fumbling haste as they helped one another to put up the shutters; and almost more pitiful to mark, as they hurried down the street arm in arm, their conscientious but feeble endeavour to look something more staid than a couple of children just out ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... them very conscientious persons. A bright idea struck Balkishen. "We may blow up the fort," he whispered to his friend, "destroy the ranee and her brother, and make our escape in the confusion. You are a brave man, Khan Cochut, and shall have the post of honour. ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... promises to his mother and the Archbishop, and in despite, too, of his own conscientious endeavor to keep every contaminating influence from entering his mind, he could not prevent this same Tito from assiduously cultivating his friendship, and voicing the most liberal and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... this group have been founded, and even in some instances those of its ORDERS" (Foraminifera, Preface, x). Yet this same group had been divided by D'Orbigny and other authors into a number of clearly defined families, genera, and species, which these careful and conscientious researches have shown to have been almost ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... consequence of this conscientious act, O'Donovan, the Ribbon ringleader, was capitally convicted; but through the interest of some leading gentlemen of the parish, who were ignorant of his habits and connections, the sentence was, by the mercy of government, commuted to ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... in which he worked. His genius was "an infinite capacity for taking pains." That delicacy of insight, that gift of penetrating into the heart of things, that subtleness of interpretation, which with him seems an instinct, is the outcome of hard, patient, conscientious study. If he had chosen, he might, without difficulty, have produced a far greater body of work of less value; and from a worldly point of view, he would have been wise. Such was not his understanding ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... hater subjects his mind to the domination of what he hates; he loses his independence and volition and becomes the prey of the hated idea. At last he cannot free his mind from the obsession; and the deliberate cultivation of hate in the conscientious German manner is a kind of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... in the world so much as a ridiculously fat edition of Miss Eliza. But she lacked Miss Eliza's precision, and she could never, even with several conscientious trials, get her hair parted exactly in the middle. Arethusa sometimes on very special occasions parted it for her. Miss Eliza liked to see her sister as neat as herself. She liked Miss Letitia's apparel to have the ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... forefathers, and have worshipped the Almighty after their fashion, form, and ceremonies? And are not all religions good if they be sincere?—do not they all tend to the same object, and have the same goal in view—that of gaining heaven? Would you not prefer a good, honest, conscientious man, were he a Catholic, to a mean, intriguing, and unworthy person, who ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... time, and get out of your rut, before you awaken to its unique characteristics. Then, if you detach yourself from the amusement-seekers, the time-killers, the apathetic, the bored, the blase and the conscientious tourists, you begin to realize that the metropolis of the Riviera (including its suburbs and Monte Carlo) is a world in itself—an inexhaustible reservoir for exploration and reflection. Because it is the only place in Europe where Americans (North and South) can honestly ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... ratified by posterity, has pronounced Demosthenes the greatest; orator that ever lived. The principal element of his success must be traced in his purity of purpose, which gave to his arguments all the force of conscientious conviction. The effect of his speeches was still further heightened by a wonderful and almost magic force of diction. The grace and vivacity of his delivery are attested by the well-known anecdote of AEschines, when he read at Rhodes ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... a conscientious moment over the name. Then she turned her startled eyes on the boy, who was regarding her ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... special consideration had the little story? Did it bear the impress of self-forgetful, conscientious purpose, or was this a thing only feebly struggling into life within herself—not yet the compelling force that indelibly stamps itself upon the earnest labor of consecrated hands? How often in the silent hours of night did she ask herself questions ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... generation, the grandson clothed with the same gait, gesture, mode of thought and expression as the grandfather he has never seen, it is evident that each individual may reap some advantage and development from those predecessors whose lives in all matters great and small are governed by law, by a conscientious sense of duty, not by feeling, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... lies in his readiness to lose it. It was Satan who said, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." The pathos in the story is naturally inherent in the situation and is never emphasized for its own sake. Mrs. Ewing was always a thoroughly conscientious artist. She believed that the laws of artistic composition laid down by Ruskin in his Elements of Drawing applied with equal force to literature. "For example," says her brother in an article on her methods, "in the story of 'Jackanapes' the law of Principality is very ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... human faculties intact—although, it may be, not so bright as those of some of our own people who call themselves Americans—is it not possible that by fair and manly dealing with them, by a just trade, and conscientious regard for the sanctity of treaty rights and obligations—that you, whom it may more particularly concern, might so win their good will as to make them friends instead of enemies? The devil that lies at the bottom of all savage natures ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... words are not plain, the idee is. In short, Master Cap, while Sergeant Dunham has been preparing himself for a long journey, like a conscientious and honest man as he is, deliberately, the Quartermaster has started, in a hurry, before him; and, although it is a matter on which it does not become me to be very positive, I give it as my opinion that they travel such different roads ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... attended a child study class twice a week and Hannah had more or less minded the two in their mother's absence. The incongruity of this had never struck her. Or if it had she had never mentioned it to Marcia. There were a good many things she never mentioned to Marcia. Marcia was undoubtedly a conscientious mother, thinking of her children, planning for her children, hourly: their food, their clothes, their training, their manners, their education. Asparagus; steak; French; health shoes; ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... I think," said the conscientious and uncompromising notary. "You are not rich enough to commit such regal folly. The estate of Lanstrac, if estimated at three per cent on its rentals, represents, with its furniture, one million; the farms of Grassol ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... it to be so—quite the contrary—but wrong comes about from good intentions to the full as often as from evil ones. Her design was simply to be truthful, as so much conscientious self-respect, in the first instance, and to do justice to Leam in the second; but between her good-natured advocacy and Adelaide's undisguised hostility maybe the former did Leam the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... accepted thy gift, it was after consultation with my wife. I should not like to return it without first acquainting her with what is about to happen." His wife charged him to say to the old man who had come to resume possession of his property: "If thou canst find any who will be more conscientious stewards of the pledges entrusted to us than we have been, I shall willingly yield them up to thee." God recognized that these people had made a proper use of their wealth, and He granted it to them as ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... that in such cases the chance of a jury finding for the defendant is merely a chance, once in a while rather arbitrarily interrupting the regular course of recovery, most likely in the case of an unusually conscientious plaintiff, and therefore better done away with. On the other hand, the economic value even of a life to the community can be estimated, and no recovery, it may be said, ought to go beyond that amount. It is conceivable that some day in certain cases we may find ourselves imitating, ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... her own interests, and of placing in the scales the repose of Europe entire: it was said that she abused Philip's good-nature, and that she ought not to have availed herself of her ascendancy over that conscientious prince save to release him from his promise, to free him from all trammel, and incline him towards the wishes of ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... did not feel ill at all; on the contrary, he was remarkably hungry. Buller was with him when he washed and changed his shirt, for he had been applying a cold key to the back of his neck to stop the nose-bleeding, and now remained, like a conscientious second, lest it should ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... way for another. This circumstance also shews the impropriety of attempting to magnify faults, when perhaps no fault was designed; and the evil consequences, as well as the injustice, of refraining to commend a child, when commendation is due. The timorous fear, in many conscientious parents, of making children vain, is the common excuse for this unnatural conduct. Such persons seem to confound things vain with things valuable, though they are perfectly opposed to each other. Approbation for any definite quality, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... ground, sometimes without reference to the direction we wanted to move afterwards. He was subordinate to his superiors in rank to the extent that he could execute an order which changed his own plans with the same zeal he would have displayed if the plan had been his own. He was brave and conscientious, and commanded the respect of all who knew him. He was unfortunately of a temper that would get beyond his control, at times, and make him speak to officers of high rank in the most offensive manner. No one saw this fault more plainly ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... interpretation of the blind impulse. [6] And perhaps this is one of the commonest subjective assurances of faith, namely, that our faith grows and declines with what we know intuitively to be our better moods; that when lax we are sceptical, and believing when conscientious. ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... not be neutral. Every one should join the church to which his own conscientious convictions would lead him. Yet when we do this, we must love all who think differently. Those who have been martyrs for the Christian faith were in the right path; we cannot do better than to follow them in love and doctrine. The outpouring ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... genus of Americans abroad comes together with the other genus—with the people who think the most wretched daub that hangs in the most obscure corner of a European gallery, labelled with prudent indefiniteness "of the school of ——," better far than the most conscientious work by the most gifted of American artists—and a discussion arises, as it is sure to do, on the relative merits of Europe and America, then indeed does Greek meet Greek, and, both starting from equally false premises and with equally false views, the cross-purposes, the rabid comparing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... and his holy word help me, my young knights, when I say that I consider, after my best and most conscientious belief, that this affair of yours is now honorably at an end. Twice have you met each other in contest on account of those irritating words which escaped the lips of Don Fadrique Mendez and if indeed the ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... resemblances often mislead the politician who seeks a sure foothold in the past, as well as the historian who seeks it in the present. The Muse of history has the widest intellectual horizon and the full courage of her convictions; but in forming them she is thoroughly conscientious, and we might say jealously bent on her duty. To introduce the interests of the present time into the work of the historian usually ends in restricting ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... young, was by no means deficient in shrewdness; he was naturally of an obliging turn—a quiet conscientious lad—a great favourite with his young mistress, and he was sometimes made the bearer of those paper messengers ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... Charles Sumner, was an excellent and conscientious man, with a much deeper sense of his duties as a bishop than his immediate predecessors, and of great kindness and beneficence; but he had been much alarmed and disturbed by the alleged tendencies of the Tracts for the Times, and shared in the desire of most of the authorities to ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... they are drawn irresistibly to the other; and usually very little is needed to work the change. The conversion of Omar is a striking instance in point, and has been cited by M. Renan himself. The character of Omar bears a strong likeness to that of Paul. Previous to his conversion, he was a conscientious and virulent persecutor of Mohammedanism. [25] After his conversion, he was Mohammed's most efficient disciple, and it may be safely asserted that for disinterestedness and self-abnegation he was not inferior to the Apostle of the Gentiles. The change in his case was, moreover, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... not allow me to preach in any place indiscriminately, where the Lord might open a door for me; and to the ordination of English bishops I had still greater objections, than to the ordination of a Prussian Consistory. 2. I further had a conscientious objection against being led and directed by men in my missionary labours. As a servant of Christ it appeared to me, I ought to be guided by the Spirit, and not by men, as to time and place; and this I would say, with all deference to others, who may ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... overreach and take in the other it is a cunning endeavor to obtain by peaceful manoeuvre and the chicanery of cabinets those advantages which a nation would otherwise have wrested by force of arms; in the same manner as a conscientious highwayman reforms and becomes a quiet and praiseworthy citizen, contenting himself with cheating his neighbor out of that property he would formerly ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... innocent freedoms and love of fun, brought upon that narrow margin where politeness must be natural to walk without a fall. He was once seriously angry, and that in a grave, quiet manner, because they supplied no fish on Friday; for Barney was a conscientious Catholic. He had likewise strict notions of refinement; and when, late one evening, after the women had retired, a young Scotsman struck up an indecent song, Barney's drab clothes were immediately missing from the group. His taste was for the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The Nights we must bear in mind that the work has never been edited according to our ideas of the process. Consequently there is no just reason for translating the whole verbatim et literatim, as has been done by Torrens, Lane and Payne in his "Tales from the Arabic."[FN305] This conscientious treatment is required for versions of an author like Camoens, whose works were carefully corrected and arranged by a competent litterateur, but it is not merited by The Nights as they now are. The Macnaghten, the Bulak and the Bayrut texts, though printed from MSS. identical in order, often differ ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... treasurer. "There is nothing we can do to-night to stop the fraud, is there?" he asked. Mr. Moyne was a very conscientious treasurer. It disturbed him greatly to ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... too, through the general atmosphere of kindness which pervades the epistle; for a special recommendation of those distinguished and doomed seigniors, whose attachment to her person and whose chivalrous and conscientious endeavors to fulfil her own orders, had placed them upon the edge of that precipice from which they were shortly to be hurled. The men who had restrained her from covering herself with disgrace by a precipitate retreat from the post of danger, and who had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... strange mixture of sorrow and happiness. Was the country really so very beautiful, or was it the contrast to all the misery that made it evident? There was a curious exhilaration in working for those grateful, patient men, and in helping the Director, so loyal to his country and so conscientious in his work, to bring order out of chaos; and yet the unhappiness in the Serbian houses, and the physical wretchedness of those cold, hungry prisoners, lay always like a dead weight on our spirits. Never shall we forget the beauty ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... of dialogue he raised. Bets on the Dauphin, bets on Roy: they were matched as on a racecourse. The Dauphin remembered incidents of his residence in the Temple, with a beautiful juvenile faintness: a conscientious angling for recollection, Wedderburn said. Roy was requested to remember something, to drink and refresh his memory infantine incidents were suggested. He fenced the treacherous host during dinner with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... production of costly works of art, by the various causes which promote the sudden accumulation of wealth in the hands of private persons. We have thus a vast and new patronage, which, in its present agency, is injurious to our schools; but which is nevertheless in a great degree earnest and conscientious, and far from being influenced chiefly by motives of ostentation. Most of our rich men would be glad to promote the true interests of art in this country: and even those who buy for vanity, found their vanity on the possession of what they ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... and receave them; and even with them, who were able to praeserve themselves from his infusions, and decerned those opinions to be fixed in him, with which they could not comply, he alwayes left the character of an ingenious and conscientious person. He was indeede a very wise man, and of greate partes, and possessed with the most absolute spiritt of popularity, that is the most absolute facultyes to governe the people, of any man I ever knew. For the ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... said the squire, "you gratify me. It has ever been my aim to discharge with conscientious fidelity the important trusts which the town has committed to ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... young ones under the fiction of a broken wing. Is God angry, think you, with this pretty deviation from the letter of strict accuracy? or was it not He who whispered to her to tell the falsehood, to tell it with a circumstance, without conscientious scruples, and not once only but to make a practice of it, so as to be an habitual liar for at least six weeks in the year? I imagine so. When I was young I used to read in good books that it was God who taught the bird to make her nest, and, if so, He probably taught each species the other domestic ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... before any dark Creator of an untamed Universe, no Deity of freaks and miracles and sinister hocus-pocus; but to pay our duty to a highly respected Anglican First Cause—undemonstrative, gentlemanly and conscientious—whom, without loss of self-respect, we ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... happen nowhere save in the England of today. At first the talk was general, ranging over a number of subjects from that of the personality of certain politicians to the conduct of the war and the disturbing problem raised by the "conscientious objector"; little by little, however, the rest of us became silent, to listen to a debate which had begun between the labour leader and the ship-builder on the "labour question." It is not my purpose here to record what they said. Needless to add that they did ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... where Johnny came from. It appeared that in an easier day Tom was hired by some cattle men to thin out the sheep herders who insisted upon invading the public ranges. By Johnny's account Tom did the thinning with conscientious attention to detail and gave general satisfaction for a while; but eventually he grew careless in his methods and took to killing parties who were under the protection of the game laws. Likewise his own private collection of yearlings began ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... a comfortable abode, he discovered these rooms in Bayswater. They were to let furnished, the house being occupied by a widow not quite of the ordinary type of landlady, who entertained only bachelors, and was fairly conscientious in the discharge of her obligations. Six months later, during Harvey's absence abroad, this woman died, and on his return the house had already been stripped of furniture. For a moment he inclined to take a house of his own, but from this perilous experiment he was saved ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... conscientious," and even Rie Blauvelt wished that she would not think it wicked to "tell" in the class, and to whisper about something else when they had permission to whisper ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... buried amidst the mass of East-End misery. It was shortly before the foundation of the Work that he was converted at one of his mother's own Meetings. The shrinking from publicity, which seems an essential part of every conscientious person, held him long back from resolving to become one of their Officers. But during all the years between his being saved and that great decision, he was constantly helping, first in Children's Meetings, ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... he learnt to distinguish all the different sounds of Tim's voice, and would sit on guard for any length of time if once told to do so. When on duty in this way, a more conscientious dog could not have been found, for not even the urgent temptation of a cat-chase could lure him from his post—although, sometimes, a short cry of anguish would be wrung from him at being obliged to forego such ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... every Scot—secured to him by the Treaty of Union and confirmed by the Disruption—to criticise his minister with much freedom, but this privilege is exercised with a delicate charity. When it is not possible for a conscientious hearer to approve a sermon, he is not compelled to condemnation. "There wes naething wrang wi' the text," affords an excellent way of escape, and it is open to suggest efficiency in another ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... seriousness and with immense solemnity whole races have given themselves up to exploiting these shabby mysteries; and while a new survey of the facts, in the light of natural science and psychology, is certainly not superfluous, it can be expected to lead to nothing but a more detailed and conscientious description of natural processes. The thought of employing such investigations to save at the last moment religious doctrines founded on moral ideas is a pathetic blunder; the obscene supernatural has nothing to do with rational ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... value of the conscientious work done by my secretaries during all these years. Miss Rebecca Savage (now Mrs. R. V. Cooke) served in this capacity for fourteen years and Miss O. H. Williamson has served one way or another for five ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... my opinion of tow-lines in general. Of course, there may be honourable exceptions; I do not say that there are not. There may be tow-lines that are a credit to their profession - conscientious, respectable tow-lines - tow-lines that do not imagine they are crochet- work, and try to knit themselves up into antimacassars the instant they are left to themselves. I say there MAY be such tow-lines; I sincerely hope there are. But I ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... some sudden stress or temptation, but lives ever after a law-abiding life. The two types of the single offender are the criminal by passion and the accidental criminal. The criminal by passion is a moral, and oftentimes a conscientious, person who commits a crime through some sudden stress of passion, under great provocation. The accidental criminal, on the other hand, is the weak type of moral person who yields once through some sudden temptation, but who regrets it ever afterward. It is estimated that single offenders constitute ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... perhaps half a dozen times in as many weeks. Once settled in my chair, I might well have fancied myself at home in a New York theatre, except that the playing seemed rather better, and the English intonation not quite so scrupulously English as that which our actors have produced after a conscientious study of the original. I heard that the English actors had studied the American accent for a play imported from us; but I did not see this play, and I am now very sorry. The American accent, at least, must have ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... fancied it was the assurance of my heart she meant; but she very frankly replied, "Sir, you may spare your pains, and five hundred pistoles will ease you of a great deal of trouble, and be the best argument of your love." This generous conscientious humour of hers, of suffering none to die that had five hundred pistoles to present for a cure, was very good news to me, and I found I was not at all obliged to my youth or beauty, but that a man with half a nose, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... to reach the wider circle of the intelligent public, it would be unworthy cowardice were I to ignore the repugnance with which the majority of my readers are likely to meet the conclusions to which the most careful and conscientious study I have been able to give to ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... birth of my child, came the baptism. I had no conscientious objection to the tenets of the Established Church of my country; but I belonged to no religious community. I had never thought of it as an obligation beyond that of custom, and deferred it from year to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... points of spelling, accentuation, and rhythm, he must now and again be found tripping; he can only ask any reader who may detect all that he could himself point out as being amiss, to set off against inevitable mistakes and misjudgements, the conscientious labour bestowed on the book, and the broad consideration of its fitness for the ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... city and village, camp and wigwam, peopled with the children of many races, and all the blended panorama seen in the magic light of imagination. So, too, the poetic character of the Indian legend is preserved with conscientious care and fit monotony of rippling music in Hiawatha. But this is an accident and an incident. It is not the theme which determines the poet. All Scotland, indeed, sings and glows in the verse of Burns, but very little of England is seen or ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... This is a reason why an Irishman is never a bore unless, to gain his private ends, he wants to be. Even an Irish advocate of total abstinence, or an Irish antivaccinationist, if such a thing exists, is not a bore, because he will always trot out his conscientious objections with a half-humorous, half-deprecating smile. This same capacity for avoiding the slavery of serious fanaticism enables an Irishman to cease quite joyfully from the pursuit of his own particular fad in order to corner an ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... at this man I can understand why Gerard de Lairesse exclaimed in his great book on painting: "In Rembrandt's pictures the paint is running down the panel like mud!" But it was only his conscientious narrow-mindedness which made him say it. Genius never fails to get ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels
... is a fattener. It is when, by virtue of its absorption, certain phases of the body are allowed to function naturally. It is true in the case of meddling minds, also in more or less conscientious natures. Mary Louise's nerves had temporarily ceased to feed upon her. She was getting plump. The lace frill at the bottom of her elbow sleeve lay flat against a curve that was full and round. In fact, one was conscious of a general well-roundedness about her. And her face, ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... "It never will, so long as there's a conscientious editor at the helm. Raphael flatters nobody and reserves his praises for people with no control of the communal advertisements. Why, it quite preys upon his mind to think that he is linked to an advertisement canvasser with a gorgeous imagination, who goes about representing ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... people of various kinds, old and young, kind and severe, amiable and harsh, gentle and dry, rude and polite, tiresome and interesting. One meets men who are, one recognises, virtuous, honourable, conscientious, and able; one meets women of character, and ingenuousness, and charm, and beauty. But the thing that really interests me is to meet a person—and it is not a common experience—who has made something of himself ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Lake found it impossible not to blame himself subconsciously for what circumstances had forced him to do. It was irrational—but conscientious men were quite often a little irrational in their sense ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... his feet. He put his hand on my shoulder. He was the very prototype of the self-respecting, conscientious, prospective ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... might exert over their sons. Three times in the year all the men were to appear before the Lord. Why the women were not commanded to appear has been a point of much questioning. Probably the women, then as now, were more conscientious in their religious duties, and not so susceptible to the attractions of alien men and their ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... an image that can't turn nor change her position. I feel no air between this arm and the background of the picture; space and depth are wanting. All is in good perspective; the atmospheric gradations are carefully observed, and yet in spite of your conscientious labor I cannot believe that this beautiful body has the warm breath of life. If I put my hand on that firm, round throat I shall find it cold as marble. No, no, my friend, blood does not run beneath that ivory skin; the purple tide of life does not swell those veins, ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... true. No conscientious judge of character could have denied that Paul had hit the bull's eye. Bredin was a pig. He looked like a pig; he ate like a pig; he grunted like a pig. He had the lavish embonpoint of a pig. Also a porcine soul. If you had tied a bit of blue ribbon round his neck you could have ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... some years ago to the editor of the Magazine of Art regarding some of the difficulties with which artists illustrating books have to contend. In that I questioned whether authors and artists worked sufficiently together. Few authors are as conscientious as Dickens was, or, in fact, care to consult with their illustrators at all. In operatic work the librettist and composer must work hand in hand. Should not the artist ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... "Next to a conscientious discharge of my public duties, to carry along with me the approbation of my constituents would be the highest gratification of which my mind is susceptible. But the latter being secondary, I cannot make the former yield to ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... It was more a sentiment than a principle with him, for he had not yet regarded politics with conscientious study. In 1826 a publisher made a collection of his poems, and issued them in one volume. It brought him wealth and renown. But though all this while Hugo was very happy in his family, yet the critics ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... example. It is only to be regretted, that a gentleman possessing such influence with the public as Dr. Johnson does, should have so long with-held his powerful aid on the occasion; but his motives were, I am quite sure, most conscientious; and I believe that he, as well as others, might have been prevented by a feeling of delicacy from going beyond ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... Hellenizers, and classifies the modern English and Americans as Hebraizers. The fundamental maxim of Hebrew ethics, according to him, is 'Walk by the light you have'; of Greek ethics, 'Take heed that the light which is in thee is not darkness'. The Hebraizer is conscientious but unenlightened; the Hellenizer is clear-headed but unscrupulous. Professor Santayana has lately noted the same difference between the type of character developed by the Latin nations and by the Anglo-Saxons. ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... draw together. Imogen confessed to herself that it was only right that they should do so, but it hurt all the same, and it was still a sore spot in her heart that Isabel should love Clover so much, and that they should write such long letters to each other. She was a conscientious girl, and she fought against the feeling and tried hard to forget it, but there it was ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... his, and so little restrained by conscientious scruples, speedily discovered several modes of relieving the financial embarrassments of the government. The allowance of the Nabob of Bengal was reduced at a stroke from three hundred and twenty ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... greater care than, for instance, the length of the road from Paris to Marseilles, or the weight of a pound of sugar at the grocer's. (And we may add without comment, that the astronomers are incomparably more conscientious in their measurements ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... of her toilet at the ferry, and the driver of Mr. Withers's team had gone back to ask the people at the ferry-house to find it. This was the cause of their waiting at the cross-roads. Mr. Withers and Daphne were on their devoted way like conscientious tourists, though both were deadly weary, to prostrate themselves before the stupendous beauty of the great lone falls at Shoshone. Thane, with Kinney's team, was prosaically bound down the river to examine and report on a placer-mine. But before his business would be finished Mr. Withers and ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... entered the hall, the look was quite gone from her face. She had been very gentle, all that morning and afternoon. They had talked a little of the incident that had occurred on the previous day, of Gregorio's feeling about not letting Veronica spend money uselessly. He was so conscientious, Matilde had said. Though the guardianship had expired, he still felt it his duty to watch his former ward's expenditure. And he was not charitable—no, it had always been a cause of regret to Matilde that Gregorio, with all his good qualities, was hard to ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... these deserts there are men without heads, men who have one single eye placed in the centre of their breasts. You may suggest that the saint was quoting from the heathen pages of Herodotus, the Father of Lies. Nothing of the kind. He is too conscientious to speak from hearsay of such marvellous matters; he says that he personally went among these headless monocular folk; he says that he spoke to them and lived with them; that he made a study of their morals and social institutions, which, in this ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... Goethe says that only poets and artists have method, because they require to see a thing before them in a completed, rounded form. Writing is a fine art, and one of the finest; and he who would be a master in this art must unite genial gifts with conscientious culture. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... and, to many, wholesome drink, became on its first introduction, a subject of strong agitation, and warm contest, with many conscientious ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... to hand derived to them; for he conveys money out of one man's pocket into another's with much more sincerity and ingenuity than those that do it in a legal way, and for a less considerable, though more conscientious, reward. He will fetch money out of his own throat with a great deal more of delight and satisfaction to those that pay him for it than any haranguer whatsoever, and make it chuck in his throat better than ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... very smoothly, cooperating generally with what was called the Jackson party. In 1829 he was again reelected by an overwhelming majority. On the 4th of March of this year, Andrew Jackson was inaugurated President of the United States. It may be doubted whether there ever was a more honest, conscientious man in Congress than David Crockett. His celebrated motto, "Be sure that you are right, and then go ahead," seemed ever to animate him. He could neither be menaced or bribed to support any measure which he thought to be wrong. Ere long he found it necessary to oppose ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... felt to be better out of this house than in it. I could not destroy them, so I gave them into the guardianship of the most conscientious person I know. I hope you won't demand to see those letters. Indeed, sir, I hope you won't demand to see them. They were not written for your eye, and I would rather rest under your displeasure than have them in ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... obtain another carriage, that in which he had travelled having broken down. The king ordered refreshment, but all he could get was a pot of coffee for himself and Lord Delawar, and two bottles of gin made into punch for his footmen; however, when the bill was called for, the conscientious Dutchman, knowing his customer, presented it as follows: "To refreshments for His Sacred Majesty, King George the Second, and his household, L91." Lord Delawar was so provoked at this imposition, that the king overheard his altercation ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... He already began to experience that remorse which the comte had promised D'Artagnan he would inflict upon him. He reflected that, in fact, these young persons had loved and sworn fidelity to each other; that one of the two had kept his word, and that the other was too conscientious not to feel her perjury most bitterly. And his remorse was not unaccompanied; for bitter pangs of jealousy began to beset the king's heart. He did not say another word, and instead of going to pay a visit to his mother, or the queen, or Madame, in order to amuse himself a little, and make the ladies ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... misappreciated and invaded, as in my ignorance I placed them, as we do, on the same level with other servants. She has her fire made for her, and LOAF sugar in her tea, which she and Cates sip in solitary majesty. However, she is most conscientious and worthy, as well as dignified, and thoroughly accomplished in her business. As all these things are pictures of English life, I mention them to amuse Aunty, who likes to know how these ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... the top of a three-legged stool, and, from the slow and intensely earnest manner in which his head turned from side to side as he wrote, it was quite evident that he dotted all his i's and stroked all his t's with conscientious care. As he sat there—a sturdy little broad-shouldered fellow, so deeply engrossed with his work that he was oblivious of all around—he seemed the very beau-ideal of a painstaking, hard-working clerk. ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... Education, Art, and Religion, the Forces of Free Labor, and the Gold Dollar, exhibit equal independence of thought and extent of information. In the essay on the Position of Woman in America, a difficult theme is discussed with candor and sagacity. We have rarely seen a volume to which the conscientious adversaries of the reforms of the day could go for a more lucid statement of the opinions they oppose; and it is admirably calculated to effect the purpose the author had in view, namely, "to aid the young men and women of our land ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... a revolutionary Bill, to turn the world upside down and inside out; on the contrary, it was a Bill which, if vitiated in any respect, was vitiated by the element of compromise. Immense concessions were made in it, and rightly, I think, to conscientious and agitated minorities. It was a Bill which so moderate and consistent a statesman as the Duke of Devonshire, of whose ill-health the House learns with grave concern, urged the House of Lords to ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... "Papists," intentional ribaldry no doubt began. But such a thing as, for example, the "Missa de Potatoribus"[6] is much more significant of an unquestioning familiarity than of deliberate insult. It is an instance of the same bent of the human mind which has made very learned and conscientious lawyers burlesque law, and which induces schoolboys and undergraduates to parody the classics, not at all because they hate them, but because they are ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... having a "prettier green," and we are accommodated, of course. What can a dealer do but meet the imperious demands of his patrons? The required color is obtained by adulterating the pure tea with a mixture of indigo and gypsum, which the most conscientious dealers are compelled to do. But we saw used in one case Prussian blue, which is poisonous—this, however, was not in Messrs. Walsh, Hall & Co.'s—and I was told that ultramarine is sometimes resorted ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... Kamran Mirza, Hindal Mirza, and Askari Mirza. Before his death he had introduced Humayun to a specially convened council of ministers as his successor, and had given him his dying injunctions. The points upon which he {48} had specially laid stress were: the conscientious discharge of duties to God and man; the honest and assiduous administration of justice; the seasoning of punishment to the guilty with the extension of tenderness and mercy to the ignorant and penitent, with protection to the poor and defenceless; he besought ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... much to be duly said in high praise of the diffuse and picturesquely-circumnavigating Novelist through whose labyrinthine pages the simple Baron finds it hard to thread his way, and yet keep the clue. When the unskippingly conscientious peruser of GEORGE M.'s novels is most desirous that the author shall go ahead, GEORGE, like an Irish cardriver, will stop to "discoorse us," and at such length, and so diffusely, and with such a wealth of eccentric word-coming and grammar-dodging, that at last the Baron ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... very conscientious and affectionate sister, Belle," said her husband, with a sarcastic laugh. "What do you suppose Eben Huntington ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and our hopes of relief came nearer. It was a great misfortune for our comrade, especially as it was his first experience of such a climate, and he had applied himself to work with enthusiasm and perhaps in an over-conscientious spirit. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... eucalyptus, and palms. The first part of it, which forms the main street of Accra, is remarkable. The untidy, poverty- stricken native houses or huts are no credit to their owners, and a constant source of anxiety to a conscientious sanitary inspector. Almost every one of them is a shop, but this does not give rise to the animated commercial life one might imagine, owing, I presume, to the fact that every native inhabitant of Accra who has any money to get rid of ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... told him that she intended to begin to sit next day—"and I will bring a bag of corn with me, so that I need never leave my nest until the eggs are hatched. They might catch cold," said the conscientious Jemima. ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... been happier and more edifying, but he would hardly have given us anything better than "Christabel" and "The Ancient Mariner." Romantic poetry of the higher type is essentially the creature of mood. Even Wordsworth's long and conscientious labors produced but a small bulk of poetry of this character, amid dreary reaches of uninspired preaching. Coleridge waited—in despondency often, in self-upbraidings, in the temporary deception of opium dreams with their consequent misery—for ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... thus, in the exercise of a legitimate right and in the conscientious discharge of an obligation imposed upon her by a solemn compact, that the State of Maine has done those acts which have given rise to complaints for which no adequate cause is perceived. The undersigned feels confident that when ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... been a devotee of hundreds of them as individuals; and though in that time his ideal had received several severe shocks, he still believed that the "not impossible she" existed somewhere, and his conscientious efforts to find out whether every women he met might not be that one had led him not ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... not see, as we do now, in every town and city even, the whole burden of its support resting on one or two individuals. If it has life enough it will stand; if it refuse light, such persons only retard its progress, although strictly conscientious in their position. I think one of its greatest errors is in keeping one pastor too long. How can the people be fed, and draw life from ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... eminently courteous and gentlemanlike. "Even with those," says Clarendon, "who were able to preserve themselves from his infusions, and who discerned those opinions to be fixed in him with which they could not comply, he always left the character of an ingenious and conscientious person." His talents for business were as remarkable as his talents for debate. "He was," says Clarendon, "of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed upon by the most subtle ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... reason. And since I could not see any special reason, they would give the verdict: "Better not, then." I daresay they were honest enough, as things go. They probably imagined that the mere associations of the steamer might have effects on Florence's nerves. That would be enough, that and a conscientious desire to keep our money on ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... George Muller was not the man either to resent or to resist. He was too honest and conscientious to dismiss without due reflection any challenge to search the oracles of God for their witness upon any given question. Moreover, if, at that very time, his preaching was emphatic in any direction, it was in the boldness with which he insisted that all pulpit teaching and Christian practice ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... school, demanded less than a fourth of the time,—a seventh or an eighth of it would have probably answered. The schoolmaster might have yielded somewhat, but would not; Nature could not. The pupil, therefore, was compelled to undertake both tasks at the same time. Ambitious, earnest, and conscientious, she obeyed the visible power and authority of the school, and disobeyed, or rather ignorantly sought to evade, the invisible power and authority of her organization. She put her will into the education of her brain, and withdrew it from elsewhere. The system does not ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... be a conscientious teacher, dear; and I hope that the regular occupation, and the consciousness that you are being of real use will make life brighter for you. Maud will promise to be an industrious pupil, won't ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... early morning train drew up at a station, a pleasant looking gentleman stepped out on the platform, and, inhaling the fresh air, enthusiastically observed to the guard, "Isn't this invigorating?" "No, sir, it's Croydon," replied the conscientious employe. ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... people in this country before the Abolitionists—conscientious, zealous, intelligent—but somehow they lacked the ability, in the language of the pugilists, to "put up a winning fight." They had been brushed aside or trampled under foot. Not so with the Abolitionists. They had learned all ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... fuddy-duds who do not approve of tobacco, particularly the fussy-old-maids. Personally, when I hear any of these conscientious objectors to My Lady Nicotine air their opinions, I wish that they could be placed in the trenches for a while. They would soon change their minds about rum issues and tobacco, and I'll wager they would be first in the line ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... was seriously, and not transiently, injured. The effect was far greater on his mind than on his body; and the intellectual being greater than the physical power, the healthy reaction was greater. But that reaction was also, especially in early youth, principally marked by horror and antagonism. Conscientious, far beyond even the ordinary maximum amongst ordinary men, he felt bound to denounce the mischief from which he saw others suffer more severely than himself, since in them there was no such reaction. I have no doubt that he himself would have spoken even ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... and scarcely disguised revocation of all the concessions which had been wrung from him. We have already seen that its authenticity is not to be challenged.[6] This double example will, I hope, suffice to show the necessity of beginning this study by a conscientious ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... kindled at different furnaces, but all furnaces of affliction, one clear, steady flame of liberty. Bold and daring enterprise, stubborn endurance of privation, unflinching intrepidity in facing danger, and inflexible adherence to conscientious principle, had steeled to energetic and unyielding hardihood the characters of the primitive settlers of all these colonies. Since that time two or three generations of men had passed away, but they had increased and multiplied with unexampled rapidity; and the land itself had been ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams
... day for the game with Bogg's Farm, a wild protest went up from the boys. Willie experienced his first bitterness as a manager. Out of forty aspirants for the Madden's Hill team he could choose but nine to play the game. And as a conscientious manager he could use no favorites. Willie picked the best players and assigned them to positions that, in his judgment, were the best suited to them. Bob Irvine wanted to play first base and he was down for right field. Sam Wickhart ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... illegitimate and parasite, consisting of democratic influence from both above and below. For them, as for the prefect, public welfare descends to the second rank and the electoral interest mounts upward to the first rank. With them as with him self-respect, professional honor, the conscientious performance of duty, reciprocal loyalty go down; discipline relaxes, punctuality falters, and, as the saying goes, the great administrative edifice is no longer a well-kept house, but ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that they admitted it too much as being capable of fulfilment in two senses, either of them a practicable sense. True it was that my eye was preternaturally keen for flaws of language, not from pedantic exaction of superfluous accuracy, but, on the contrary, from too conscientious a wish to escape the mistakes which language not rigorous is apt to occasion. So far from seeking to "pettifogulize"—i.e., to find evasions for any purpose in a trickster's minute tortuosities of construction—exactly in the opposite direction, from mere excess of sincerity, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... sheriff remained resolute; Reigart acted a most courageous part; my ci-devant host, and proportion of stripes on the complaint of a conscientious master—for, after all, such theoretical protection ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... was on the leaden roof of the old tower, amid the fat, noonday Gascon scenery. He saw, in bird's-eye view, the country he was soon to become closely acquainted with, a country (like its people) of passion and capacity, though at that moment emphatically lazy. Towards the end of life some conscientious pangs seem to have touched Montaigne's singularly humane and sensitive spirit, when he looked back on the [89] long intellectual entertainment he had had, in following, as an inactive spectator, "the ruin of his country," through a series of chapters, every one of which had told emphatically ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... Mussulman creed. It was also stated that the young man had entered the service of grand vizier; but whether he had become a renegade through love for some Turkish maiden, or with the hope of ameliorating his condition in a worldly point of view, whether, indeed, self-interest or a conscientious belief in the superiority of the Moslem doctrines over those of Christianity, had swayed ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... at Bull Run was so great, that the more conscientious Union officers expected to be held responsible for it and duly court-martialed; but to Colonel Sherman's surprise, his superiors saw beyond the demoralization of the moment, and in August, 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers and transferred to the Department of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various |
