"Cringe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. Under the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of bravely solving a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution of another. As long as a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in the presence of their supposed creator and God? Under such circumstances, what can their thoughts ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... cringe, and fawn, eh? back with you!—the girl, I say." For poor Emily, wild with fear, was clinging to ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... contrary, had been as carefully brought up in the opposite conviction. To him it was the Gentile who was the refuse of humanity, and it was a perpetual humiliation to be forced to cringe to, and wait upon, such contemptible creatures. Moreover, the day was coming when their positions should be reversed; and who could say how near it was at hand? Then the proud Christian noble would be the slave of the despised Jew ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... had become problems to each other. The very breath each drew was a challenge and a menace to the other. Their hate bound them together as love could never bind. Leclere was bent on the coming of the day when Batard should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet. And Batard—Leclere knew what was in Batard's mind, and more than once had read it in Batard's eyes. And so clearly had he read, that when Batard was at his back, he made it a point to ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... describe the effects of the British bayonet charges and the way the Germans—Uhlans, Guards, and artillerymen—recoil from them. "If you go near them with the bayonet they squeal like pigs," "they beg for mercy on their knees," "the way they cringe before the bayonet is pitiful"—such are examples of the hundreds of references to this ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... "Suppose I don't cringe," said the outcast, dropping the fawning tone of the mendicant for the threatening ferocity of the social wolf; "you'd better give me a trifle to keep body and soul together for the next few weeks. I'm a ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... I; "things are better as they are. Those mountains of bread and beef, and those rivers of ale merely encouraged vassalage, fawning and idleness; better to pay for one's dinner proudly and independently at one's inn, than to go and cringe for it at a great ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... for their adulation and their doctrine of passive obedience, he would never have ventured to be guilty of such tyranny. Their chief business, during a quarter of a century, had been to teach the people to cringe and the prince to domineer. They were guilty of the blood of Russell, of Sidney, of every brave and honest Englishman who had been put to death for attempting to save the realm from Popery and despotism. Never had they breathed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the dust, lick the dust; be at one's feet, fall at one's feet; craven; crouch before, throw oneself at the feet of; swallow the leek, swallow the pill; kiss the rod; turn the other cheek; avaler les couleuvres [Fr.], gulp down. obey &c 743; kneel to, bow to, pay homage to, cringe to, truckle to; bend the neck, bend the knee; kneel, fall on one's knees, bow submission, courtesy, curtsy, kowtow. pocket the affront; make the best of, make a virtue of necessity; grin and abide, grin and bear it, shrug ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... voluntary act Without man's motion, and must move just so In spight of their creation: one that weighs His breath between his teeth, and dares not smile Beyond a point, for fear t'unstarch his look; Hath travell'd to make legs, and seen the cringe Of several courts, and courtiers; knows the time Of giving titles, and of taking walls; Hath read court common-places; made them his: Studied the grammar of state, and all the rules Each formal usher in that politic school Can teach a man. A third comes, giving nods To his repenting ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... hundreds of wee lights began dancing outside the window, making the room bright; the hands of the clock began chasing each other round the dial, and the bolt of the door drew itself out. Slowly, without a creak or a cringe, the door opened, and in there trooped a crowd of the Good People. Their wee green cloaks were folded close about them, and each ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... have been beggared by you, and scores of other families too. The whole of Kadampur and Simulgachi are clamouring for your blood, and Allah has appointed me to be the minister of his vengeance. Time was when I had to cringe to you, just as you are doing to me, but never did I receive mercy from you. Now the tables are turned. I might kill you, and who would dare to inform the police folk?" (Here Karim made a vicious prod with his talwar, which passed within half an inch of the terror-stricken victim's throat.) ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... dogs, and a hireling will turn our Princes from the gate lest the soles of our shoes should defile their sacred places. And are they not right, Huzoor?" he asked cunningly. "Since we submit to it, since we cringe at their indignities and fawn upon them for their insults, are ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... they could not make any arrangements with him to get the money back, together with interest thereon, but the people of this country are intelligent enough to know what that means, and they will be patriotic enough to see to it that no man needs to bow or bend or cringe to the rich ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... life gave to me. Let that pass! It perish'd, and all perish'd with it. Ambition? Wealth left nothing to add to my social condition. Fame? But fame in itself presupposes some great Field wherein to pursue and attain it. The State? I, to cringe to an upstart? The Camp? I, to draw From its sheath the old sword of the Dukes of Luvois To defend usurpation? Books, then? Science, Art? But, alas! I was fashion'd for action: my heart, Wither'd thing though it be, I should hardly compress 'Twixt the leaves of a treatise ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... fear and before whom I used to humiliate myself because of my poverty. I thought of the time when I had already entered the cloak business, but was struggling and squirming and constantly racking my brains for some way of raising a hundred dollars; when I would cringe with a certain East Side banker and vainly beg him to extend a small note of mine, and come away in a sickening ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... slender hand in his broad, white-swathed palm and pressed it fervently, regardless of the pain which would have caused him to cringe if engaged ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... baffling ones who remain enthusiastically ignorant of my existence; to the moral ones upon whom Beauty exercises a lascivious and corrupting influence; to the moral ones who have relentlessly chased God out of their bedrooms; to the moral ones who cringe before Nature, who flatten themselves upon prayer rugs, who shut their eyes, stuff their ears, bind, gag and truss themselves and offer their mutilations to the idiot God they have invented (the Devil take them, I grow bored with laughing ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... lash the long lean winds are laid on the back of the land, Curling over the breast of the hills and cutting the feet of the plain, Till the naked limbs of the forest host cringe at the lift of the hand, And the white-ribbed waves on the granite shore moan and ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... What, cringe to Europe! Band it all in one, Stilt its decrepit strength, renew its age, Wipe out its debts, contract a loan to wage Its venal battles,—and, by yon bright sun, Our God is false, and liberty undone, If slaves have power to win your heritage! ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... be, woman. No bastard shall reign here as Mother of the Trees while the nations round cringe before her feet. I have spells; I have poisons; I have slaves who can ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... she wants to herself, under cover of the bolder efforts of these nobler spirits, then settles back upon the ease and comfort of that position, and turns her small artillery on her own sisters? I feel a sense of shame for American literature, when I think how our literary women shrink, and cringe, and apologize, and dodge to avoid being taken for "strong-minded women." Oh, there's no danger. I don't wonder that their literary efforts are stricken with the palsy of weakness from the beginning. I don't ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Jerry came back. As any screaming creature of the jungle, he hysterically squalled his indignation. But he made no whimper. Nor did he wince or cringe to the blows. He bored straight in, striving, without avoiding a blow, to beat and meet the blow with his teeth. So hard was he flung down the last time that his side smashed painfully against the rail, ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... changed them, they say in a wonderful way, To toys, for his Christmas cheer. The big dolls stare with a goblin air, The small ones cringe with fear. ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson
... the gods that England, in the majesty of her State, in the sovereignty of her chartered weal, must abase herself to then. To the vices of tyranny, to low companions and their companions, and their kindred, the State must cringe and kneel then. To these,—men who meddled with affairs of State,—who took, even at such a time, the State to be their business,—must address themselves; for these were the councils in which England's peace and war were settled then, and the Tribune could enter them only in disguise. His ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... waiting outside," answered the boy, with trepidation. It was part of the law that the lion of the ante-room should cringe like a cold monkey, more or less, as soon as he was out of his private jungle. "Oh, Tallerman," cried the Sunday editor, "here's this Arctic man come to arrange about his illustration. I wish you'd go and talk it over with ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... now. Fairchild went to a junk yard or two, searching for the materials which Harry had ordered, and failed to find them. Then he sought a hotel, once more to struggle with the problems which the interview with Barnham had created and to cringe at a thought which arose like a ghost ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... can help it," he said, "don't make me see the brand I have put on you. Don't, for Heaven's sake, cringe to me if you can ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... temple that might have sanctified the gold is of no account. This worship of mere wealth has, it is true, this advantage over the old adoration of birth, that something may possibly be got out of it; to cringe and fawn upon the people that have blue blood is manifestly futile, since the peculiarity is not communicable, but it is hoped that, by being shaken up in the same social bag with millionaires, something may be attained ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... forsooth to southern rule? What! cringe and crawl to souther's clay, And be the base, the supple ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... itinerant tinker was also an itinerant political preacher, and seeing that he could prevail nothing by secular pleas, he betook himself to his spiritual armory, and in a voice of sour derision that made Bessie Fairfax cringe asked the doctor if he had yet received the Devil's Decalogue according to h'act of Parliament and justices' notices that might be read on every wall?—and he proceeded to recite it: "Thou shalt remove ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... his full height. His eyes blazed with anger and he raised his arm to strike Alyrus, who did not cringe but faced him boldly, though ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... been killed, but the rapidity of his action saved him, for the spear passed his shoulder so close that it tore away a shred of his coat, and stuck in the wall behind him. In another instant Doltaire had his sword-point at Voban's throat. The man did not cringe, did not speak a word, but his hands clinched, and the muscles of his face worked painfully. There was at first a fury in Doltaire's face and a metallic hardness in his eyes, and I was sure he meant to pass his sword through the other's body; but after standing for a moment, death hanging on his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pleasure in letting them feel the weight of his authority, and sometimes of his fist. It was amusing to see the various ways in which they behaved toward him. Some would try to plead with him, for the sake of old times; some would cringe and whine to him; some would try to reason with him, to touch his conscience. But mostly they would be haughty, they would glare at him with hate, or put a sneer of contempt on their faces. So Peter would set his "bulls" to work to improve their manners, and a little thumb-bending and ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... Lopez to embark on his career of international madness and prosecute it with the rage of a demon is not entirely clear. A vision of himself as the Napoleon of southern South America, who might cause Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to cringe before his footstool, while he disposed at will of their territory and fortunes, doubtless stirred his imagination. So, too, the thought of his country, wedged in between two huge neighbors and threatened with suffocation between their overlapping folds, may well have suggested the wisdom of ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... early Beams attract and warm, So Ladies with their easie glances Charm; Vain Coxcombs cringe with transport and surprize, Feel kindling Fire, and feed upon their Eyes; 'Till like the Sun, the dazling Nymphs display Meridian heat, and ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... back and knelt beside the bed, and prayed as her mother had taught her to pray. And not all of her petition was for her mother. Every lightning flash, every crack, every distant boom of the thunder made her cringe. Lance—Lance was out in the storm, at the mercy of its terrible sword-thrusts that seemed to smite even the innocent. Her mother—even her own mother, who had held unswervingly to her faith—even she had ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... in her clenched hand as she said that, and arose, fastening her steady eyes on the crouching form of the cripple, who appeared to cringe under the blast of the storm. He had tried to be prepared, but he failed utterly when he attempted to speak. He was seen to raise his hand and elevate his eyebrows, but now words were impossible; a low murmur and heavy breathing, an effort to stand and a surrender ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Taxes on inhabited houses, windows, male servants, horses, carriages, etc. The trebling of these imposts took the House by surprise, and drew from Tierney, now, in the absence of Fox, the leader of Opposition, the taunt that Pitt had to cringe to the Bank for help. A few days later Pitt explained that the triple duty would fall only upon those who already paid L3 or more on that score. If the sum paid were less than L1 it would be halved. Those who paid L3 or more would be charged at an ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... world from the eyes of the immigrant who has lost all his illusions of the land where dollars grow on the street and where everyone has an equal chance to be president, and if you do not cringe in abject humility, you are not unlikely to be insufferably self-asserting, considering that the world has robbed you and that now it is your turn to get all that is coming to you. So you make loud demands in a rude, ordering ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... his way hunting trouble. Totally dissatisfied with any answer I could make, he kept roaring louder and louder. There was no doubt that he was venting his spleen upon an unprotected and humble civilian, and that he was thoroughly enjoying seeing me cringe under his bulldozing. It flashed upon me that he might be a self-appointed guardian of the way. So when he began to wax still more arrogant, I simply said, "Take me ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... What was new was that the turncoat should try to throw his own guilt and shame on the Church of England, and should proclaim that she had taught him to turn against the weak who were in the right, and to cringe to the powerful who were in the wrong. Had such indeed been her doctrine or her practice in evil days? Had she abandoned her Royal Martyr in the prison or on the scaffold? Had she enjoined her children ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... enough: they stood aloof then, Shaking their dripping ears upon the shore, All roaring "Help!" but offering none; and as For duty (as you call it)—I did mine then, 440 Now do yours. Hence, and bow and cringe him here! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... something over and over, but when her cousin appealed to her to leave the scene she seemed not to hear him. She only stood and stared at the exhausted man until he could bear it no longer and, hiding his face in his hands, he began to shiver and cringe and sob. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... he felt, within, "is it not enough to create us so unequal that we must also cringe in spirit, and acknowledge it! I expected to feel triumphant when I lodged my despised hat in this man's house, but I feel meaner ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... law-shielded ruffians slay The men who fain would win their own! the heroes of to-day! Are we pledged to craven silence? O, fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind! That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child
... Earth, or in mid Aire; 940 Though for possession put to try once more What thou and thy gay Legions dare against; Whose easier business were to serve thir Lord High up in Heav'n, with songs to hymne his Throne, And practis'd distances to cringe, not fight. To whom the warriour Angel soon repli'd. To say and strait unsay, pretending first Wise to flie pain, professing next the Spie, Argues no Leader, but a lyar trac't, Satan, and couldst thou faithful add? O name, 950 O sacred name of faithfulness profan'd! ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Sivad fitted the first arrow to the string, and Stern was about to apply the torch, a rattling crash from above caused all to cringe ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... his nephew by the collar of his jacket, gave him a hearty shake; "rare fun would it be,—and what do you call this? You dare twit your sister with cowardice!—you who sneaked off yesterday like a fox because you had not the spirit to look an old man in the face!—you who bully the weak and cringe to the strong!—you who have the manners of a bear with the heart of a pigeon!" Every sentence was accompanied by a violent shake, which almost took the breath from the boy; and Jonas, red with passion, concluded ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... esteem "open rebuke better than secret love" (Proverbs xxvii. 5). They believe that the Lord has yet many things to say unto them, and they are willing and glad for Him to say them by whom He will, but especially by their leaders and their brethren. While they do not fawn and cringe before men, nor believe everything that is said to them, without proving it by the word and Spirit of God, they believe that God "gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... his cringe, and shrink back, and looking down saw the look upon her sweet frightened face; following her glance his own face hardened into what might have been termed righteous wrath. But not a word did he say, and ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... a unit of the dumb creation. That he should feel so, humiliated and angered Granger. Was there not enough of ignominy for him to endure without that? He drew his revolver, took aim at this yellow devil—but could not fire. The beast did not cringe and run away, zigzagging to avoid the bullets, stooping low on its legs, as is the habit of huskies when firearms are pointed at them; it sat there patiently blinking, a little in advance of its four grey comrades, with a mingled expression of amusement and boredom ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... you, mother," said Florence, whose own eyes had a suspicion of tears in them. "It was just a passing weakness, and I am all right now. Yes, I will get the Scholarship, and I will stoop to Aunt Susan's ways—I will cringe to her if necessary; I will do my best to propitiate Sir John Wallis, and I will act like a snob in every sense of the word. There now, Mummy, I see you are dying to have the box opened. We will open it and ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... 'There is Jones; he is worth $500,000; he lives with a display and extravagance I cannot equal. I must increase my fortune to half a million.' Jones, on the other hand, is measuring himself against Brown, who has a million. He knows that men cringe lower to Brown than they do to him. He must have a million—half a million is nothing. And Brown feels that he is overshadowed by Smith, with his ten millions; and so the childish emulation continues. Men are valued, not for ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... that unceasing roars, While cringe the trees from its wrath in vain, And the lightning-flash, And the thunder-crash, And skies, from whose Erebus depths outpours In slanting ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... his breath. "A woman! I know nothing of women. In all my life I have seen but two—my mother and a nautch-girl—who cringed to me. I should not like my wife to cringe to me. Are there not such as could be my companion, my comrade? Or are they all ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... cringe, sir saint," she sneered. "Having cast me off and taken up holiness, you have the right, of course." And with that she moved past me, and down the terrace-steps without ever turning her head to look at me again. And that was the last I ever saw of her, as you ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... and every sentence stung like the lash of a whip, "those are cowardly words, unworthy a French gentleman and soldier. Did you leave all your courtesy behind in Montreal, or dream that in this wilderness I should cringe to any words you might speak? You wish the truth; you shall have it. Three days ago, through an accident, I drifted, in an oarless boat, out from the river-mouth at Fort Dearborn to the open lake. None knew of my predicament. A storm blew me helpless ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... embodied impertinence, and the floor manager who allows it an offender against every law of propriety; and thus it happens that seats are slipped out of sight, and exhausted women smile and ask, as the purchase is made, "And what is the next pleasure?" in a tone that makes the American hearer cringe for the abject humility that is the first condition of ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... said Pratinas, who knew perfectly how to cringe low, yet preserve his ascendency; "first of all, it is very necessary that the murderers of the amiable Drusus should receive a meet reward for their crime—that justice should be speedy ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... I'd hit you down for that," he said, clenching his fists. "What do you know about things to talk to me like that? Who are you to take his side and cringe to him? If you can't judge him, there's plenty that can, and it's you who are pig-headed, not me, because you don't see I'm fighting your battle for you. It may seem too late to fight for you; but it's never too late to hate a wicked beast, and if I can help to keep him from getting ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... before he would have confided all this to any living soul, but the secret thought that was growing more and more in his heart he told to Baree. The dog came into their camps now, but not until the Missioner and Mukoki had gone to bed. He would cringe down near David's feet, lying there motionless, oblivious of the other dogs and showing no inclination to disturb them. He was there on the tenth night, looking steadily at David with his two bloodshot eyes, wondering what it was that his master held in his ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... not looking at her. Something else seemed to have caught his attention. For the moment he had ceased to cringe and implore. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... I believe that there lived Others like thee in the past. Not like the men of the crowd. Who all around me to-day, Bluster, or cringe, and make life Hideous, and arid, and vile, But souls temper'd with fire, Fervent, heroic, and good; Helpers, and friends ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... echoes of their lord and master. She had behaved badly, of course; in a few days she supposed the report of her outburst would be all over the place. She did not care. Even for Roger's sake she was not going to cringe to these ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my doubts on the subject were well founded or not. Enough for me to know that my yeomen ancestors did their duty in war and peace, were honest, straightforward, God-fearing men and women, who owned their own lands, and never knew what it was to cringe before any human being. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... his aspect was nearly that of a man. He held his head erect, the cringe disappeared from his back, the obsequiousness from his manner. Then while an eye might wink, he took on the appearance of a snake with high-held ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... under heaven Stab one for getting it? Had he wished power, The thing was in the market-place for sale At stated rates—so much for a man's soul! His was a haughty spirit that bent not, And one to rise had need to cringe and creep. So had his brother into favor crawled, Like slug into the bosom of a rose, And battened in the sun. At thought of him, Forgotten for a moment, Wyndham winced, And felt his wound. "Why bides he not in Town With ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... buy this Coward's Comfort, quickly buy; what Fop would be abus'd, mimick'd and scorn'd, for fear of Wounds can be so easily cured? Who is't wou'd bear the Insolence and Pride of domineering great Men, proud Officers or Magistrates? or who wou'd cringe to Statesmen out of Fear? What Cully wou'd be cuckolded? What foolish Heir undone by cheating Gamesters? What Lord wou'd be lampoon'd? What Poet fear the Malice of his satirical Brother, or Atheist fear to fight for fear of Death? Come buy ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... Tush! these be but dreams of poets, or imaginings of children!—the commons be but slaves to the nobles; the nobles to the senate; the senate to their creditors, their purchasers, their consuls; the last at once their tools, and their tyrants! Go, young man, go. Salute, cringe, fawn upon your consul! Nathless, for thou hast mind enough to mark and note the truth of what I tell thee; thou wilt think upon this, and perchance one day, when the time shall have come, wilt speak, act, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... you fool!" she said fiercely, panting for breath with which to end me. "Oh, you dream-child, you moonraker, what are you doing in a world where men work for their pleasures and women have to cringe for the scraps? What was I to do when Porfirio shut me out of doors, and you—you, who had caused it, refused to come with me? Was I to spread my wings and fly straight into the lap of the Madonna? You would say ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... laugh, Rod thought, and that very thought made him hunch closer to the fire. The young hunter was not superstitious, or at least he was not unnaturally so; but what man or boy is there in this whole wide world of ours who does not, at some time, inwardly cringe from something in the air—something that does not exist and never did exist, but which holds a peculiar and nameless fear for the soul ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... said Holmes sternly. "It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... themselves to tread these tortuous ways, to stoop, to cringe, and creep through the mire of these cloacas, where the presence of a fine mind only alarmed the other denizens. The ambitious man of genius grows old in obtaining his triple crown; he does not follow in the steps of Sixtus the Fifth merely to become head of a bureau. No one comes or ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... Could touch with unclean transformation, or alter To the likeness of courtiers whose consciences falter At the smile or the frown, at the mirth or the rage, Of a master whom chance could inflame or assuage, Our Lady of Laughter, invoked in no psalter, Adored of no faithful that cringe and that palter, Praise be with thee yet from a ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... things as I am telling leaves marks upon the flesh and spirit. I remember little children in Polotzk with old, old faces and eyes glazed with secrets. I knew how to dodge and cringe and dissemble before I knew the names of the seasons. And I had plenty of time to ponder on these things, because I was so idle. If they had let me go to school, now—But of course ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... if I seem crotchety, dear. Indeed, it is no pretense on my part. You cannot imagine how that man Ventana persecuted me. The mere suggestion of any one's paying me compliments and trying to be fascinating is so repellent that I cringe at the thought. And even our sailor-like captain will think it necessary to play the society clown, I suppose, seeing that we are young and ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... mob cringe before Coriolanus. When he appears, the stage directions show that the "citizens steal away." ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... companion but his mules and his dog. This last-named animal is such as may be met in Spain or even in France at any street corner—not a retriever, nor a foxhound, nor anything at all but a dog as distinguished from a cat or a goat, living a troubled and uncertain life in a world that will always cringe to a pedigree, but has no respect for nondescripts. It was on these journeys that the Mule had so much leisure for thought. For even he could think, according to his dim lights. He was only conscious, however, of an ever-increasing feeling of a sickness—a physical nausea (for he was, of course, ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... You let me go I keel you," shrieked Pedro. But the words, that would have made the bear cringe and skulk a few hours before, held no terror for him. He was master now, and this man who had clubbed and prodded, sworn at, and outraged him, was a pigmy in his arms. His powerful jaw too was close to the man's neck. One ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... barrage crash; The bullets whine and the bullets sing From the mad machine-guns chattering; Black smoke rolling across the mud, Trenches plastered with flesh and blood— The blue ranks lock with the ranks of gray, Stab and stagger and sob and sway; The living cringe from the shrapnel bursts, The dying moan of their burning thirsts, Moan and die in the gulping slough— Where ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... this day I resolve me,—for King Raedwald will cringe not, nor lie!— I will bring back the altar of Woden; in the temple will have it, hard by The new altar of this your white Christ. As my mood may ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... the cringe of a nervous woman suddenly frightened, Commines, the man of iron nerves, turned to the door, the colour rushing in a flood to his face. Neither had heard its latch click nor seen it open, but the broad figure of a burly man was massed in the gloom ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... is no joke at all," Lind said, gloomily. "Those Swiss people are craven. What can you expect from a nation of hotel-waiters? They cringe before every bully in Europe; you will find that, if Bismarck insists, the Federal Council will expel Armfeldt from Switzerland directly. No; the only safe refuge nowadays for the reformers, the Protestants the pioneers of Europe, is England; and the English do not know it; they do not think of ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... throne. If aught in prophecy deserves belief, 'Tis certain, whom thou favourest, those shall win. Now by the wells whereof our fathers drank And by the Gods they worshipped, hear our prayer, Grant this petition: since alike in woe, Alike in poverty and banishment, Partakers of one destiny, thou and I Cringe to the stranger for a dwelling place. Whilst he at home, the tyrant, woe is me, Laughs at us both in soft luxurious pride. Whose might, so thou wilt favour my design, I will lightly scatter in one little hour; And plant thee in thy ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... wide round eyes turning and twisting in their sockets, ever watchful for food and danger. Without warning a terrific splash scatters them, and when the ripples and bubbles cease, five frightened sunfish cringe in terror among the water plants of the bottom mud. Off to her nest goes the kingfisher, bearing to ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... souls honor'd and blest By former ages, who else— Such, so soulless, so poor, Is the race of men whom I see— Seem'd but a dream of the heart, Seem'd but a cry of desire. Yes! I believe that there liv'd Others like thee in the past, Not like the men of the crowd Who all round me to-day Bluster or cringe, and make life Hideous, and arid, and vile; But souls temper'd with fire, Fervent, heroic, and good, Helpers and ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... one on the brink of the grave," said the boy, "and so my words may be prophetic. Before many weeks are over, you shall kneel and sue for mercy to my father, and it will be denied you. You will grovel in the dirt, and crawl and cringe in abject misery; but it will be hopeless, and in the bitterness of your despair you will think of this moment, and curse the hour you ever molested one of my race, or anyone in whom ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Did Thomas Paine recant? Mr. Paine had prophesied that fanatics would crawl and cringe around him during his last moments. He believed that they would put a lie in the mouth of death. When the shadow of the coming dissolution was upon him, two clergymen, Messrs. Milledollar and Cunningham, called to annoy the dying man. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... I mingle in Fashion's full herd? Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules? Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd, Why search for delight ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... and her almost painful shrinking from it appears in a letter of March 25, 1911, to Mr. Charles Scribner: "With this note I send the introduction to Father Damien. I didn't see how to touch upon the others when I know so little about them. I know this thing is about as bad as anything can be. I cringe whenever I think of it, but I seem incapable of doing better. If, however, it is beyond the pale, write and tell me, please, and I will try once again. Louis's work was so mixed up with his home life that it is hard to see just where to draw the line between telling enough and yet ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... among men will long continue in its stability and integrity, can only be matter of conjecture, but certain it is, the Chinese are greatly dissatisfied, and not without reason, at the imperious tone now openly assumed by the Tartars; and though they are obliged to cringe and submit, in order to rise to any distinction in the state, yet they unanimously ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... was bound to struggle, an' never to cringe or fall— Still I worked for Charley, for Charley was now my all; And Charley was pretty good to me, with scarce a word or frown, Till at last he went a-courtin', and brought a wife ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... the gloom of the canyon's womb; in the valley's lap we lie; From the white foam-fringe, where the breakers cringe to the peaks that tusk the sky, We climb, and we peer in the crag-locked mere that ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... things is the grovelling tendency of that section of human nature which has not yet been educated sufficiently to lift itself up above temporary trappings and ornaments; pitiful it is to see men, gifted in intellect, or distinguished for bravery, flinch and cringe before one of their own flesh and blood, who, having neither cleverness nor courage, but only a Title, presumes upon that foolish appendage so far as to consider himself superior to both valour and ability. As well might a stuffed boar's head assume ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... put forward by the German spy, Lieut. Carl Lody, at his court-martial in London, was that "he would not cringe for mercy. He was not ashamed of anything that he had done; he was in honour bound not to give away the names of those who had employed him on this mission; he was not paid for it, he did it for his country's good, and ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... does not matter now what he said or I said. We fenced round and about a quarrel during the whole interview. I was meek, because I wanted him to let me have part of the money at all events on loan again; and he was blatant and insolent because he fancied I cringed to him—and I did cringe. ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... as he walked afield Deep thoughts of the world and the folk of Gosh. He saw the idols to which they kneeled; He marked them cringe to the name of Splosli. Is it meet," he asked, "that a soul should crawl To a purple robe or a gilded chair?" But his father walked to the garden's wall And stooped to a rose-bush ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... decisive note in the affairs of that great department store known as "The Colossus," may not by design have carried an air that would indicate the man to whom small tradesman regarded it as a mark of good breeding to cringe, but even in a place where his name was not known his appearance would strongly have appealed to commercial confidence. That instinct which in earlier life had prompted fearless speculation, now crystalized into ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... guardian of the rock, custodian of the Cave of Terrible Things, bone of contention for the jealous and terror of the strongest, filled the entrance with his colossal frame and looked out with a calm dignity that made the whites cringe with hatred. Slowly, with stately grace, the giant advanced until he stood before Dolores, and in his coal-black eyes shone the light of limitless devotion. He knelt, kissed the sequins on her tunic's hem, then, with both hands pressed to his forehead, he bowed his face ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... withhold its wealth sometimes? Very well then, she can serve God without it, in spite of her rights. If men whine and cringe, or bully and shout, for the jewels with which their forefathers honoured God, she will fling them back again down her altar stairs and worship God in a barn or a catacomb without them. For, though she does not serve God and Mammon, she yet makes to herself friends of the Mammon of iniquity. ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... heroes seek renown in arms, Pant after fame and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort And dunces cringe to be esteemed at court. Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote and ignorant of strife, Far from the painted belle and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, lap-dogs, courtiers, garters, stars, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... of mankind is this: Calm and serene and unconcerned to court Fate's heaviest blows, and then, when these have fallen, To whine and cringe, bewailing one's sad lot.— Such folly we will none of, thou and I. For now I seek King Creon, to proclaim My right as guest-friend, and to clear away These clouds of dark distrust that threaten storm.— Meanwhile, take thou the babes and get ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... men become more independent themselves, and sympathise more with the independence of others. The feeling which makes the modern gentleman tell the labourer standing bareheaded before him to put on his hat—the feeling which gives us a dislike to those who cringe and fawn—the feeling which makes us alike assert our own dignity and respect that of others—the feeling which thus leads us more and more to discountenance all forms and names which confess inferiority and submission; is the same feeling which resists despotic power and inaugurates ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... stir: Do you mark, I will not. Let me see the wretch That dares attempt to force me. Why, you slaves Created only to make legs, and cringe; To carry in a dish, and shift a trencher; That have not souls to hope a blessing Beyond your master's leavings; you that were born Only to consume meat and drink; Who advances? Who ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... They want no pecuniary aid, being used to self-help, and liking it best. Stiff in opinion, they know their own minds, and are accustomed to victory. They do not in turn threaten and complain and cringe and curse and fawn. They keep a level course and run on an even keel. They are bad to beat, and can do with much letting alone. They are pious in their way, and talk like Cromwell's Puritans. They abhor Popery, judging the tree by its fruits, a test recommended by their chiefest ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... delay. New guns were seeking position, which was scarcely taken before there was a puff of smoke and their iron message. Heavens! what a vicious sound those shells had! something between a whiz and a shriek. Even the horses would cringe and shudder when one passed over them, and the men would duck their heads, though the missile was thirty feet in the air. I suppose there was some awfully wild firing on both sides; but I saw several of our men carried to the rear. But ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... unresisting hinge Threw wide her hospitable door, To one whose spirit did not cringe Though he was weak, and knew he bore No right ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... "Cringe—why, he doesn't know the meaning of the word. Hatchments! To commemorate that sniveling tramp and his, fraternal duplicate. And he is going to send me the remains. The late Claimant was a fool, but plainly this new one's a maniac. What a name! Mulberry ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and contempt for slackers of all kinds, and when she let it loose on that audience in her one grand outburst she electrified it. Susan always vows she is no suffragette, but she gave womanhood its due that night, and she literally made those men cringe. When she finished with them they were ready to eat out of her hand. She wound up by ordering them—yes, ordering them—to march up to the platform forthwith and subscribe for Victory Bonds. And after wild applause most of them did ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... menace!—when the band Of feeble spirits cringe and plead To the gigantic strength of Greed, And fawn upon ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... beggar asks for, does not at all represent their idea of charity. They expect any fairly well-to-do person, such as a shopkeeper, to give sufficient food for the whole community for one day, and they sit in his house till they get it. They do not stand at the door and salaam and cringe, like the ordinary mendicant. They boldly enter in uninvited and demand alms. They are much disliked on account of the largeness of their wants. But they are also feared on account of the terrible nature of their denunciations if they do not get what they ask for. They profess to be celibates, but ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... Galahad, Parsifal, and Marcus Aurelius might have done it, but to an ordinary erring man, conscious of things done which should not have been done, and other things equally numerous left undone, he was too oppressive. One conscience is enough for any man. The employer of Master Bean had to cringe before two. Nobody can last long against an office-boy whose eyes shine with quiet, respectful reproof through gold-rimmed spectacles, whose manner is that of a middle-aged saint, and who obviously knows all the Plod and ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Empress. M. de Remusat remained in the Emperor's service until the fall of the Empire, and then went over to Louis XVIII. Both of these sycophants were content to accept the favours of the Imperial couple and eat their bread and cringe at their feet while they plotted with the ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... about it! And there was the soul of Corydon calling to him, there were all the heights of music and poetry—and instead of climbing, he must torture his brain with hack-writing! He must go down to the editors, and fawn and cringe, and try to get books to review; he must study the imbecilities of the magazines and watch out for topics for articles; he must rack his brains for jokes and jingles—he, the master of life, the bearer of a new religion, the proud, high-soaring eagle, whose foot had ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... servant over-presumptuous? Your scorn will soon teach him his duty. Is the slave disobedient? Blows will cure him of his faults. Does your dog fawn upon you too familiarly? Thrust him from you with your foot and he will cringe and cower till you smile again. Your friendship—I have no words ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... in regard to money. What does it come to? That you are to cringe at his heels for a beggarly allowance which he has been pleased to bestow upon you without your asking. 'Very well, my dear fellow,' I should say to him, 'you can stop it the moment you please. For certain objects of your own,—that ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... be a slave, when Freedom smiling stands, To strike the gyves from of his fettered hands? Who'd be a slave, and cringe, and bow the knee, And kiss the hand that steals his liberty? Behold the bird that flits from bough to bough; What though at times the wintry blasts may blow,— Happier it feels, half frozen in its nest, Than caged, though fed and fondled and caressed. ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... Ulyth tragically. "I've had the shock of my life. She's—oh, she's too terrible for words! Her voice makes me cringe. And she pawed all my things. She snatched up my photos, and turned over my books with sticky fingers; she even opened my drawers and ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... depressed. The gentry gave themselves airs of superiority, really as if their characters were as good as their manners; but they did not impose upon the people, who despised them for their veneer. Each class displayed its contempt for the other openly when it could safely do so, but was ready to cringe when it suited its own convenience, the workers for employment, and the gentry for political purposes. But human beings are too dependent on each other for such differences to exist without detriment to the whole community. Society must cohere if it is to prosper; individuals ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... from a catapult,—rules a church with iron rods, organizes, denounces, intrigues, executes, keeps an unarmed soldiery to do his behests, and hurls ecclesiastic thunders at kings and emperors with the grand audacity of a commission presumedly divine, while Greeks cringe, and Jews blaspheme, and heathen flee into, or away from, conversion; and the Church itself canonizes this spiritual father, this Sphinx-son of an instinct ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... who insulted one another shrilly.... But the white horse plodded on. On a stretch of level road he passed a pair talking, noting casually that the woman was a lady from her carriage, and from his threatening cringe that the man was a cad. Italian riff-raff of ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... but pardonable in a man trying in the Tower to get out of that doleful prison. But all his writings are thirty years too late; they express the creed of a buried generation, of the men who defied Spain in the name of a God of righteousness,—not of men who cringe before her in the name of a God of power and cunning. The captive eagle has written with a quill from his own wing—a quill which has been wont ere now to soar to heaven. Every line smacks of the memories of Nombre and of Zutphen, of Tilbury Fort and of Calais Roads; and many a gray-headed veteran, ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... sees himself surrounded by admirers, and whose vanity is hourly feasted with all the luxuries of studied praise, is easily persuaded that his influence will be extended beyond his life; that they who cringe in his presence will reverence his memory, and that those who are proud to be numbered among his friends, will endeavour to vindicate his choice ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... to myself, when night comes round me, And the soft chain of thought has bound me, I whisper, "Sir, your eyes are killing— You owe no mortal man a shilling— You never cringe for star or garter, You're much too wise to be a martyr— And since you must, be food for vermin, You don't feel much desire for ermine!" Wisdom is a mine, no doubt, If one can but find it out— But whate'er I think or say, I'm an April ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... he'd been using threats because my father, himself, was almost paralyzed with fear. And then I lost my head—in blind rage, I suppose. I must have talked like a common fish woman, but my one desire was to see them cringe. So I told about leaving the message for you, pretending to 've written a great deal more—twisting the knife all I knew how, and being thoroughly catty. It must have been a disgusting exhibition," she gave a sigh of despair, as if for ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... of Carthage, nor even Rachel weeping for her Hebrew children. But there were on every hand manifestations of adherence to the Southern cause, except among a few males who feared unutterable things, and were disposed to cringe and prevaricate. The women were not generally handsome; their face was indolent, their dress slovenly, and their manner embarrassed. They lopped off the beginnings and the ends of their sentences, generally commencing with a verb, as thus: "Told soldiers not to carr' ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... as profane and carnal; and some even, when pretending to call themselves men of science, have stooped to the miserable policy, of tampering with the truth, investing the real facts in false disguises, to cringe to the prejudices of the many, and to pervert science into a seeming accordance with popular prepossessions." I cannot believe that this will be regarded as justifiable language: it seems scarce worthy of a man of ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... contentment assured her that this trial of her courage and self-control was not without one blessed result. He would rest for several days in the pleasure of what he had done or thought he had done. She need not cringe before that image of Dread for two, three days at least. Meanwhile, he would grow strong in body, and she, perhaps, in spirit. Only one precaution she must take. No hint of Mr. Challoner's presence in town must reach him. He must be guarded from a knowledge of that fact as certainly as from ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the letter of application. The applicant should state simply his qualifications for the place he wants. He should not make an appeal to sympathy (sob stuff) nor should he beg or cringe. He should not demand a certain salary, though he may state what salary he would like, and he should not say "Salary no object." It would probably not be true. There are comparatively few people with whom money is no object. If it is the first ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney |
