"Discontent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rising, my dear. We have had no news, but Master Pawson has had letters from London, and he tells me that what was supposed to be a little petty discontent has grown ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... thing," answered the Knight, indignantly; "you ought to know that these attempts were commenced long before Dr Luther was heard of. Discontent has been fermenting among them for many years. They have some reason and a great deal of folly on their side. They have done their work like foolish savages as they are, and they will suffer the fate of fools, though, in the meantime, they may do ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... in an equally ill-disguised discontent, but an evident desire to placate the woman before him. "It's all right, you know. I've had my say. It'll come right, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... But I must end by admitting that though we have done all we could, the hidden distress that still exists in rich homes is widespread. Families continue to engage in poisonous quarrels, idleness and chronic unemployment remain unabated, and discontent is gradually darkening the minds of its victims, depriving them of true mental vigor ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... actuated by the keen desire "to make a fortune;" the desire was contagious. They were not absolutely poor in the proper sense of the word "poverty," with Dalibard's annuity and the interest of Lucretia's fortune; but they were poor compared to those with whom they associated,—poor enough for discontent. Thus, the image of the mighty wealth from which, perhaps, but a single life divided them, became horribly haunting. To Gabriel's sensual vision the image presented itself in the shape of unlimited ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sounded, nor have all the vials of the Apocalypse been emptied of the wrath of God. And so, till the nations have emerged from spiritual darkness; till God's Word is an open book, and duly honoured in all lands; till immorality has ceased to weaken the bonds of social happiness, discontent to rankle in the bosom of the people, and ambition to fire the breasts of kings, the world may expect ever and anon to hear the voice of Joel sounding out this trumpet call, "Prepare ye war; wake up the mighty men; ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... be the characteristic of man in all ages and climates. So far, however, from being an evil, as at first might be supposed, it has been the great civiliser of our race; and has tended, more than anything else, to raise us above the condition of the brutes. But the same discontent which has been the source of all improvement, has been the parent of no small progeny of follies and absurdities; to trace these latter is the object of the present volume. Vast as the subject appears, it is easily reducible within such limits as will ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... wasn't so. I knew he loved me,—that Le meant nothing,—that it was a passing discontent, a hateful feeling engendered by the sight of the costly trifles before us. Yes,—I knew that. But, good heavens! to tell his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... the great light, of which he had only the dim glimmerings, kept his face turned westward, while he hoped and yet dreaded to meet the young Shawanoe, who, unsuspected by himself, was the cause of his strange discontent. ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... true. The thing maintained is, that the method taken by them to remove this prejudice was neither peaceful nor christian in its tendency, but, on the contrary, was calculated to increase the evil, and to generate anger, pride, and recrimination, on one side, and envy, discontent, and revengeful feelings, ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... instrumental music, which frequently begins at sunset and ceases only with the daylight that recalls them to their labour. Since they were first carried thither, from different parts of Africa and Madagascar, to the present hour, not so much as the rumour of disturbance or discontent has ever been known to proceed from them. They hold the natives of the island in contempt, have a degree of antipathy towards them, and enjoy any mischief they can do them; and these in their turn regard the Caffres as devils ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... fierce and settled discontent lay on this woman's features, which was aggravated by the dress of dark blue that fell scant and ill-shapen around her stately figure, and was fastened tightly over the bosom with a succession of coarse horn buttons that but half filled ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... have mainly originated in social rather than political discontent, and there is good reason to suppose that some of the wealthy plebeians admitted to the senate were no less opposed to these movements than the patricians. For they too benefited by the privileges against which the agitation was mainly directed; and although in other ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... estate Are rapture-fraught, re-risen above the dust. Then were I torture-proof, and on the crust Of one kind word, though as a pittance thrown, I'd live for weeks! My tears I would disown And pray, contented with my discontent, As hermits pray when storms ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... soon rather intimate. The young Rajah, having the usual native taste for luxury well developed and his income stopped, I became of some monetary assistance to him. Also, judiciously fostering his discontent against the government, I soon had him in a desired frame of mind. Through his influence on the native clerks, I was able to gain all the plans, data and photographs of England's new naval base in the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... The discontent of the Dutch only strengthened Napoleon's desire to please and win them. "It seemed at that time," M. Beugnot goes on, "as if Heaven had given him every means of securing happiness. A son had just been born to him, whose future ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... would have been possible. The failure of the attempt to get control of the federal government in the interest of the Populist program was only a temporary defeat, for the revival of unrest, although checked by the war with Spain, was sure soon to reappear. In President Roosevelt, the forces of discontent, especially in the Middle and Far West, saw their hoped-for champion, and their support of him was instant and complete. The dominant leadership and much of the rank and file of the Republican party had become liberal. The situation was anomalous, however, for no great ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... nearly two hours with the Deputies of this last city. He testified to all of them the regret of the King in having to withdraw from them his favors, and to permit one patriotic city alone to enjoy them. All manifested more discontent at this distinction, than at the privation, and there is danger of I know not what fatal consequences. They pretend that it is a thing without example and against their constitution to treat with one city only. The Ambassador replied ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... one of the books which are at present coming singly and at long intervals, like early swallows, to herald, it is to be hoped, a larger flight. When the larger flight appears, the winter of our discontent will have passed, and we shall be able to boast that the short story can make a home east as well as west of the Atlantic. There is plenty of human nature—of the Scottish variety, which is a very good variety—in 'The Stickit Minister' ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... To me those peaks always did and always will represent silent defiance; there were times when they made me shudder, but it is good to have looked upon them and to remember them in those post-War days of general discontent, for they remind me of the four Antarctic voyages which I have made and of the unanimous goodwill that obtained in each of the little wooden ships which were our homes for so long. How infinitely distant those towering mountains ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... thought himself in some town in England. Some of the soldiers knowing him, cried out, Here's Bampfylde Moore Carew! upon which they took him along with them to their quarters, and they passed the day very merrily: the soldiers expressed great discontent at their being discharged, swearing they would never come over to England any more, saying, if they had not come over then, they should have been either starved or hanged. He then inquired how they lived in France? They replied, never better in their ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... gratify reasonable desires, and yet make their gratifications always a novelty and a pleasure, the family occupied that just mean in life which is so rarely attained, and still more rarely enjoyed without discontent. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The eighteenth century was, however, a wonderful epoch in England. Agriculture became a new thing under the leadership of great landowners like Lord Townshend and Coke of Norfolk. Already was abroad in society a divine discontent at existing abuses. It brought Warren Hastings to trial on the charge of plundering India. It attacked slavery, the cruelty of the criminal law, which sent children to execution for the theft of a few pennies, the brutality of the prisons, ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... to laugh at himself. His fury was foolish, a mere generalization of discontent from very little data. Still, it was a relief to be out in the purring night sounds. He had passed from the affluent stone piles on the boulevard to the cheap flat buildings of a cross street. His way lay through a territory ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... in Dewey's day that among intelligent Americans the much-talked-of lack of "capacity" referred to the mass of the people's want of political experience and not to any alleged racial inferiority. To wounded pride has the discontent been due rather than to ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... familiar with his genius, and it no longer surprised her into overlooking his frailty. His fame no longer flattered her. His gentleness was gone, and had left, not hardness nor violence, in its place, but a sort of irritable palsy of discontent. That was what she called it ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... the two languages of the country were issued and sold in all the public-houses. Congregations were gathered in all the cities, and even small towns, and everywhere the authorities could see that no spirit of discontent with anything but sin and evil habits was being created, but that the police would find their tasks lightened, and the life of the poorest of the people brightened and bettered, if they ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... fort a great deal of hay was necessary for the winter months. This was obtained from the broad prairies of the military reservation. A group of men called the "Hay Party" were employed during the summer in cutting and stacking the long grass. But one officer was of the opinion that this task caused discontent—the enlisted man was no more than a common laborer and hence he lost the ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... so that in a short time they will be a source of profit rather than of loss to the crown. Some of them pine away and die; others appear happy. Generally, however, when a fresh prisoner comes among them, great discontent prevails; they enquire eagerly about their friends and families; and what they hear in reply recalls vividly to their minds their wild roving life, their corrobories, the delights of their homes; and of these, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... said she. "You can't escape me, however hard you try. But why should you wish to escape? I shall give you new forms that are much better than the ones you now have. Be contented with your fate, for discontent leads to unhappiness, and unhappiness, in any form, is the greatest evil ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... she took a spite against poor Oldfield; but to Mr. Angelo she suppressed the real reason, and entered into that ardent gentleman's grounds of discontent, though these alone would not have entirely dissolved her respect for the ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... They set law at defiance-they scoff at the depths of hell that yawn for them,—the blackness of their villainy is known only in heaven. Earth cares little for it; and those familiar with the devices of dealers in human bodies shrink from the shame of making them known to the world. There was a discontent in the party, a clashing of interests, occasioned by the meagre manner in which Graspum had divided the spoils of their degradation. He had set his dignity and position in society at a much higher value than they were ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... intellectual power to see through the tricks of Papal priestcraft, which had, indeed, been the jest of the educated and thoughtful for generations. But it required gigantic courage to become the spokesman of discontent, to attack an imposture which was supported by universal popular credulity, by a well-nigh omnipotent Church, and by the keen-edged, merciless swords of kings and emperors. Still more, it required ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... yarns and their jokes, and to hear them sing their simple ditties. The odd mixture of manliness and childishness—of boldness and superstitious fears; of preposterous claims for wages and thoughtless extravagance; of obedience and discontent—all goes to make the queer compound called 'Jack.' How often have I laughed over the fun of the forecastle in these small fore and aft packets of ourn! and I think I would back that place for wit against any bar-room ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... had been lying fast asleep below deck in the cutter, were considerably astonished and certainly far from pleased at the idea of the nocturnal passage. But a few words from the skipper in a language unintelligible to Edith speedily removed their discontent. They now readily set to work to set sail and weigh anchor. The skipper's powerful hands grasped the helm; the small, strongly-built vessel tacked a little and then, heeling over, shot out ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... the world was torn with conflict, we of the United States were not placid and peaceful. The defection of the great unions had prevented our proletarian revolt, but violence was everywhere. In addition to the labor troubles, and the discontent of the farmers and of the remnant of the middle class, a religious revival had blazed up. An offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists sprang into sudden prominence, proclaiming ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... afternoon, though cloudy and cold. It was so near Christmas that the shops were gay with Christmas goods; but in those who have no money to spend in such luxuries, the Christmas display can only awaken a dull feeling of envy and discontent. By dint of much asking, after leaving the car, Gladys found the street where the Hepburns lived. It was not so squalid as the immediate neighbourhood of her own home, but it was inexpressibly dreary—one of these narrow long streets, with high 'lands' on either side, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... nothing. Your blacks have no hope, no chance to rise; and they submit—though I judge not cheerfully—to an iron necessity. The Northern laborer, if very poor, may be discontented; but discontent urges him to effort, and leads to the bettering of his condition. I tell you, my friend, slavery is an expensive luxury. You Southern nabobs will have it; and you have ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... to protest, but the surgeon would not hear of it, and marched him incontinently to his berth. Returning, Trendon reported, with growls of discontent, that his patient ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... painful contrast still being felt by Charles between his court and that (p. 303) of his heir-apparent. The young King had put the spirit of the Parisians to the test by a strong measure, in levying a most unpopular tax; but the discontent did not break out into any open tumult. Indeed (as the chroniclers record) their resentments were abated, or rather turned into affection, when they felt the kind influences of King Henry's just and moderate government, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... to this mundane theology, was obedience, and this doctrine was closely interwoven with the caste system of German society. The virtue of obedience required the German to renounce discontent with his station, and to accept not only the material status into which he was born, with science aforethought, but the intellectual limits and horizons of that status. The old Christian doctrine of heresy was broadened to encompass the entire ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... his kingdom. Thenceforward trouble is never far away; and his later years are shaded with the saddening consciousness of his great fault, as well as by hatred and rebellion and murder in his family, and discontent and ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... Discontent and longing, and then hate, passed into oblivion. These useless passions could not long survive in such an environment. By and by the old trapper's only link with the past was memory of a stalwart youth, and of a girl with violet ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... people not a party, but a sentiment. The "Lollards," as they were called, were not an organization, but rather a pervading atmosphere of revolt, which naturally combined with the social discontent of the time, and there came to be more of hate than love in the movement, which was at its foundation a revolt against inequality of condition. As in all such movements, much that was vicious and unwise in time mingled with it, tending to give some excuse for its repression. The discarding of ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... crockery, and disposing of his wares among the cottagers. At last he took out a pedlar's license—perhaps one of the most dangerous permits ever allowed by a government, and which has been the cause of much of the ill-will and discontent fomented among the lower classes. Latterly, the cheapness of printing and easiness of circulation have rendered the profession of less consequence: twenty years ago the village ale-houses were not provided with newspapers; ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... kinds of association, that they very much assist and forward each other, and that the transition is more easily made where they both concur in the same object. Thus a man, who, by any injury from another, is very much discomposed and ruffled in his temper, is apt to find a hundred subjects of discontent, impatience, fear, and other uneasy passions; especially if he can discover these subjects in or near the person, who was the cause of his first passion. Those principles, which forward the transition of ideas, here concur with ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... having mounted on any Christian woman, soon turned his back to her, and a few poor kisses was all she had of him, but nothing on her back. You may guess his wife was not well pleased at this; nevertheless, she concealed her discontent. ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... and many an hour the man spent in restless longing to know how he might find it; for—so he read—if a person could once pass within the portals of that palace, he would never again know sorrow or discontent, but one happy day would follow another in ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... the two, in the place rightfully appertaining to Flimsey, who this time was fairly dislodged, to her great wonder and discontent, the Doctor was the emblem of true Domestic Felicity, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... of a man far more happily employed than in the composition of political pamphlets, or in the nurture of political discontent. Nay, when his friend Mr. Carlyle is about going out with Lord Elgin to Constantinople, the very headquarters of despotism, we do not perceive, amongst the multitude of most characteristic hints and queries which Paley addresses to him, a single fling at the Turk, or a single hope ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... awaiting its tenant, but the controversies and bitternesses were still swinging and swaying and developing when King George was being crowned. Close upon that event came a wave of social discontent, the great railway strike, a curious sense of social and political instability, and the first beginnings of the bishop's ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... hardly parted from Pryer before there occurred another incident which strengthened his discontent. He had fallen, as I have shown, among a gang of spiritual thieves or coiners, who passed the basest metal upon him without his finding it out, so childish and inexperienced was he in the ways of anything but those back eddies of the world, schools and universities. Among the bad threepenny ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... But I must say, modern books are very consolatory and congenial to my feelings. There is, as it were, a delightful north-east wind, an intellectual blight breathing through them; a delicious misanthropy and discontent, that demonstrates the nullity of virtue and energy, and puts me in good humour with ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... was due to treachery, for many of the men broke and fled, directly the action began; and these, he avowed, could have been none other than Vendeans who had disguised themselves, and enlisted for the purpose of causing discontent among the men, and confusion in their ranks, the first time ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... basement front room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl of about nineteen, with an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and petulant expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which in her sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playing draughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest of the House of Wilfer. Not to encumber this page by telling off the Wilfers in detail and casting them up in the gross, it is enough for the present that the rest were what is called 'out ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... beginning to say that they had stood this sort of thing long enough, when the measure of their discontent was filled to overflowing this morning by a bombardment fiercer than ever. It opened with the barking of "Pom-Poms" as early as half-past five, and ran through the whole gamut from lowest bass of a big gun's boom to the shrillest ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... All the discontent had gone from her face, and she lay back among the cushions of the window-seat quietly, while Anne told her of the young life that had ended in a land of exile. Of a singer whose song had been stilled so soon, but who would not be forgotten ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... weather, and how fortunate it was that the frost had not yet come to stop the great harbor works. Then it touched upon the "Great Power," and from him it glanced at the crazy Anker, and poverty, and discontent. The Social Democrats "over yonder" had for a long time been occupying the public mind. All the summer through disquieting rumors had crossed the water; it was quite plain that they were increasing their power and their numbers —but what were ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... in the congregation, to which the human mind is everlastingly prone, caused discontent: Individuals began to sting each other, which in 1745, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul. By that good lady the Houris are said to be held in ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... ultimate motive powers of the Revolution. Faith prepared the Revolution and discontent accomplished it. Idealists who, in varied planes of thought, preached the doctrine of human perfectibility, succeeded in slowly permeating the dull toiling masses of France with hope. Omitting here any notice of philosophic speculation as such, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... to logical theories. Under the leadership of old revolutionary thinkers like Bebel it has failed to adapt itself to the facts of modern German life. The vague phrases of its republican programme, survivals from a past epoch of European thought, have attracted to it a large mass of inarticulate discontent which it has never been able to weld into a party of practical reformers. In the municipal sphere and in the field of Trade Unionism, under the education of responsibility, German Socialism can show great achievements; but in national ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... Masson touchingly says, "only as tiny voices of complaint going about in the darkness." The tiny voices did not move him to love or pity. His impatient and imperious nature had doubtless undergone exquisite misery from the moaning discontent of his wife; the daughters took the mother's part so soon as they were able to understand her sorrows; and the grave Puritan displeasure with which Milton regards the mother seems to have been transferred to the children. His austerity as ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... and again interrupted by political troubles between 1437 and 1449, the advance at sea went on, and never again was there a serious danger of the failure of the whole movement through general opposition and discontent. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... with a sudden rising accent of unruly discontent, as genuine as every other outward showing of her ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... maid, that wishing and discontent be alway one and the same. I may carry a burden right willingly and cheerfully, and yet feel it press hard, and be glad to lay it down. Surely there is no ill that thou shouldest say to thy Father, 'If it be Thy will, Father, ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... ornament. A frayed top hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... the state the factory's in! The discontent you saw in those men—that's the fault of the capitalistic system! There aren't twenty workmen in the place that ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington
... poor had these grounds of discontent, the rich likewise had theirs; and they made bitter complaint against the protracted processes in the consistorial courts, and the frequent appeals to the Roman Curia, by which both their means and their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... granary and the storehouse; but, alas! if he is shrunken and shriveled toward the spiritual realm. To all rich in physical treasure, but bankrupt toward the unseen realm, comes some divine influence arousing discontent. Then lower joys are seen to be uncrowned, and sordid pleasures to have no scepter. The soul becomes restless and disappointed where once it was contented. Looking afar off it sees in its vision hours the goodly estate to which God shall some day bring it. Here we recall the peasant's dream. His ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... man named Lysander, of the royal line, though not a king, had come into command at Sparta, and he had a sea-fight at Notium, just opposite to Ephesus, with the Athenians, and gained no very great advantage, but enough to make the discontent and distrust always felt for Alkibiades break out again, so that he was removed from the command and sailed away to the Chersonese, where in the time of his exile he had built himself a sort of little castle ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it. She asks no concessions on account of sex. Men's passions are but weapons forged for her necessity; and as for genuine love-affairs, like Cleopatra, she had but two, and the second ended in disaster to herself. This tale is of the first one that succeeded, although fraught with discontent for ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... justice and could never be found, so that though his two associates Donald Maclaine and Donald Maclaury, with their commanding officer Alexander Murray, were proceeded against for the murder, the prosecution came to nothing and only contributed to heighten the general discontent." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... gone, humming his favourite waltz as he departed; and Noel turned back to his partner with a grunt of discontent. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... in a position best for his special mission ordained by Providence or the Hum-total of the fruits of his actions and reactions since all eternity. He should be contented and happy, and do what is right with might and main. Discontent and vexation only make him more worthy of his ruin Therefore our positions, no matter, how high or low, no matter how favourable or unfavourable our environment, we are to be cheerful. "Do thy best and leave the rest to Providence," says a Chinese ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... acquired is taken out of my scale; I will not, however, moralize, though I am in a very proper humour for it, being just come home from an outrageous crowd at Northumberland-house, where there were five hundred people, that would have been equally content or discontent with any other five hundred. This is pleasure! You invite so many people to your house, that you are forced to have constables at your door to keep the peace; just as the royal family, when they hunted, used to be attended by surgeons. I allow honour and danger to keep company with one another, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... expected things that were not there; he had thought that his dreams were realities, and when he had demanded golden colours and had been shown stuff of sombre grey, there had been wild rebellion and impatient discontent with the world. He had thought Pendragon amazing in its utter disregard of the things that were to him necessities, but he had forgotten that he himself despised so completely things that were to Pendragon essentials. He had asked for beauty and they had given him an Esplanade; he had ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... treason to his memory if they encouraged the charges against him by making any change in their life. But it was a relief to them, especially to Suzette, who held the purse, when the changes began to make themselves, and their costly establishment fell away, through the discontent and anxiety of this servant and that, till none were left but Elbridge Newton and his wife. She had nothing to do now but grieve for the child she had lost, and she willingly came in to help about the kitchen and parlor work, while her husband looked after the horses and cattle as well as he could, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... were innocent That slaughter drank, and laughed with rage, Bland virtue sighed, "A former age Taught murder: souls long discontent Can aught save ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... now found themselves possessed of almost the same political powers as they had enjoyed at home. It was still possible, as was thereafter shown, for unjust and selfish governors to inflict misery and discontent upon the people; but it was also possible, under the law, to give them substantial freedom and happiness; and that was a new light ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... called her, died suddenly of a sharp attack of pleurisy. That left Jonathan alone in the household of his son and family. He seemed, so the old Squire told me later, to lose heart entirely after that, and sat about or wandered over the farm in a state of constant discontent. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... observed distinctly a flash of joy illuminate her pale face and he felt a sudden and singular discontent, amounting almost to physical ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... conversation by saying that the discontent of America was so great, that, in 1766, the British Parliament was compelled to repeal the Stamp Act. The people made great rejoicings, but took care to keep Liberty Tree well pruned and free from ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... loudly complained that whilst fighting in the field for liberty and empire they were oppressed and enslaved by their fellow-citizens at home; their freedom was more secure in war than in peace, safer amongst the enemy than amongst their own people. The discontent, which was becoming of itself continually more embittered, was still further aggravated by the striking sufferings of an individual. A man advanced in years rushed into the forum with the tokens of his utter misery upon him. His clothes were covered ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... Court had never vexed or thwarted me, suddenly altered his whole manner towards me, from which I readily concluded that the Queen had got hold of him. This priest, of gentle, easy-going, kindly nature, never spoke to me except in a tone of discontent and reproach. He sought to induce me to leave the King there and then, and retire to some remote chateau. Seeing that he was intriguing, and had, so to speak, taken up his position, like a woman of experience I took up mine as well, and politely dismissed him, at which he was somewhat surprised. ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... war appeared before his capital, he was on a friendly visit to Governor Winthrop of Connecticut. War had again broken out between England and Holland, and the Dutch inhabitants of New York had shown signs of discontent at the abridgment of their political privileges and a heavy increase in their taxes without their consent. Personally, they liked Lovelace; but they were bound to consider him as the representative of ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... came through was awaiting trial. But a deputation had come in to wait on Mr. Forbes, and ask for the slayer, so that they might kill him in turn, with proper ceremonies. Naturally the request was refused; but these people could not understand why, and went off in a state of sullen discontent. Here, again, was a conflict between our laws, the application of which we are bound to uphold, and native customs, having the force of law and so far regarded by the highlanders as meeting all necessities. The practice of head-hunting still ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... the voyageurs. Brandy flowed at the lake post freely as at a modern mining camp. The explorer kept military discipline over his men. They received no pay which could be squandered away on liquor. Discontent grew rife. Taking Father Messaiger, the Jesuit, as chaplain, M. de la Verendrye ordered his grumbling voyageurs to their canoes, and, passing through the Straits of the Sault, headed his fleet once more for the Western Sea. Other explorers had preceded him on this part of the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... easily into a chair and glanced at his cousin's profile. The delicate oval of her face was firelit; her night-black hair one with the deeper shadows of the room. There was mystery in the lovely dusk of Diane's eyes—and discontent—and something mute and wistful ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... foreign governments, however, did not cease with the organization of State government. The Spanish governor at New Orleans continued to send emissaries into the State, seeking to arouse a spirit of discontent, and if possible bring about a separation of the State from the Union. So successful were these agents that they were able to secure the good will of some men in high places, by paying as high as two thousand dollars a year salary. One Thomas Power ...
— The story of Kentucky • Rice S. Eubank
... bound to the German people. Bismarck also believed in the dynastic fidelity of the Germans. It seems to me that there is just as little dynastic as republican spirit in nations—just as little in the Germans as in others. There is merely a feeling of content or discontent which manifests itself either for or against the dynasty and the form of government. Bismarck himself was a proof of the justice of this argument. As he himself always maintained, he was thoroughly ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... secondary sense, in the hope of escaping in some degree from factions. For equity and indulgence are infractions of the perfect and strict rule of justice. And this is the reason why we are obliged to use the equality of the lot, in order to avoid the discontent of the people; and so we invoke God and fortune in our prayers, and beg that they themselves will direct the lot with a view to supreme justice. And therefore, although we are compelled to use both equalities, we should use that ...
— Laws • Plato
... began to talk warmly about the Salon of the Rejected. He, who belonged to the Institute, but who lived apart from his colleagues, made very merry over the affair; the everlasting discontent of painters; the campaign conducted by petty newspapers like 'The Drummer'; the protestations, the constant complaints that had at last disturbed the Emperor, and the artistic coup d'etat carried out by that silent dreamer, for this Salon of the Rejected was entirely his work. Then the great painter ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... work. There were at least a dozen petty kings in camp, all of whom had to be kept in a good temper, and this was by no means the smallest of Captain Glover's difficulties, as upon the slightest ground for discontent each of these was ready at once to march away with his followers. The most reliable portion of Captain Glover's force were some 250 Houssas, and as many Yorabas. In addition to all their work with the native ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... he at first evaded with ardent professions, but in time appeared offended at my importunity and distrust; and having one day endeavoured to sooth me with uncommon expressions of tenderness, when he found my discontent immoveable, left me with some inarticulate murmurs of anger. I was pleased that he was at last roused to sensibility, and expecting that at his next visit he would comply with my request, lived with great tranquillity upon the money in my hands, and was so much pleased with this pause of persecution, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... extraordinary rigour? There might be disaffection among the Catholics. The prohibition of their worship would naturally produce it. But it is from their situation, not from their conduct, from the wrongs which they had suffered, not from those which they had committed, that the existence of discontent among them must be inferred. There were libels, no doubt, and prophecies, and rumours and suspicions, strange grounds for a law inflicting capital penalties, ex post facto, on a large body ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... data on what children and young people hope to be, do, whom they would like to be, or resemble, etc. Only a few at adolescence feel themselves so good or happy that they are content to be themselves. Most show more or less discontent at their lot. From six to eleven or twelve, the number who find their ideals among their acquaintances falls off rapidly, and historical characters rise to a maximum at or before the earliest teens. From ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... ugly furrow of discontent between her heavy brows, Hannah obeyed, and as she renewed the fire smouldering in the dining-room, she slowly shook her grizzled head: "Many a time I have heard my father say, 'Mystery breeds misery,' and take my word ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the fruits of one's labor is a part of success. Some make a fetish of success and thus lose out. Others are so ambitious that in their striving they forget to live. A little ambition is good; too much sows the seed of struggle, strife and discontent and defeats its own ends. Those who do evil because the end justifies the means have already buried some of the ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... "The restless spirit of the modern world is hourly voicing its discontent with a faltering faith which has no other basis than blind belief. It wants demonstrable fact upon which to build. In plain words, mankind would be better if ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and drank too much wine. In the bottle, discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness tot confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which he obtained from the servile timidity ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... to eke the discomfort, he became quite of the same mind with Tabitha. Even the most flaming love of royalty and realm serves not to keep warm toes extended beyond short blankets at Christmas-tide. It is not strange that late in December, 1776, all Jersey was mined with discontent, and needed but the spark of Continental ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... author; but as soon as his Majesty returned, he entered upon the office of surveyor of his Majesty's buildings, in the room of Inigo Jones, deceased; and at the coronation of King Charles II. was created a knight of the Bath. Upon some discontent arising from his second marriage he lost his senses, but soon recovering from that disorder, he continued in great esteem at court for his poetical writings. In the dedication of his poems to King Charles II. he tells us that he ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... To him the Kaffir hero is Umbooni, a half-witted ruffian, whom we afterwards caught and hanged. He mentions Laputa only in a footnote as a renegade Christian who had something to do with fomenting discontent. He considers that the word 'Inkulu,' which he often heard, was a Zulu name for God. Mr Upton is a picturesque historian, but he knew nothing of the most romantic incident of all. This is the tale of the midnight shepherding of the 'heir of John' by ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... will learn to make the home pleasant, I will work harder, and leave no time for ennui and discontent. I promised to make your happiness, and I can do it better here than ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... of my father in the face, but it is my father transformed and glorified; his hesitating discontent drowned in a kind of triumph. From my first day in that house, I continually turned to this handsome kinsman of mine, wondering in what terms he had lived and had his hope; what he had found there to look like that, to bound at one, after all ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... never banished, snubbed, and kept in the background as children are kept with us, and yet they are wretched and uncomfortable. My heart has bled for them as I have heard them squalling by the hour together in agonies of discontent and dyspepsia. Can it be, I wonder, that children are happier when they are made to obey orders, and are sent to bed at six o'clock, than when allowed to regulate their own conduct; that bread and milk are more favorable to laughter and soft, childish ways than ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... unwonted emotion. "Veronica," she said, sadly and lovingly, "this pains me. I had no idea of your feeling; no conception of your having suffered so. You are always so quiet and reserved that I thought you had peace within, though your face is so often clouded with apparent discontent. Now I see that your heart is heavy. If I could only show you the way to peace—that is the way ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... occurred, which, as it seemed to augur badly for the welfare of our expedition, gave me much concern and anxiety. My two blacks, the companions of my reconnoitring excursions, began to show evident signs of discontent, and to evince a spirit of disobedience which, if not checked, might prove fatal to our safety. During my recent reconnoitre, they both left me in a most intricate country, and took the provisions with them. They had become impatient ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... awaken. Indeed, many a misventurous cowering peasant continues to live on bread and olives in his little village, chained in the fear of dying of hunger in a foreign land. Only the brave and daring spirits hearken to the voice of discontent within them. They give themselves up to the higher aspirations of the soul, no matter how limited such aspirations might be, regardless of the dangers and hardship of a long sea voyage, and the precariousness of their plans and hopes. There may be nothing noble in renouncing one's country, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... in the first instance, to be thanked for these ornaments to our language, it is impossible to deny. Nor would it be common hardiness to contend, that worldly discontent had no hand in these joint productions of poetry and piety. Yet am I by no means sure that, at any rate, we should not have had something of the same colour from Young's pencil, notwithstanding the liveliness of his satires. In so long a life, causes for discontent ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... the night, and Ali Hafed went to bed, but not to sleep. All night long he tossed restlessly from side to side, thinking, planning, scheming how he could secure some diamonds. The demon of discontent had entered his soul, and the blessings and advantages which he possessed in such abundance seemed as by some malicious magic to have utterly vanished. Although his wife and children loved him as before; although his farm, ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... any time heard any convict on the island express any discontent at the conduct of officers, or ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... also says that Cook had been to the Tower to try to secure a draughtsman, and towards the end of the letter applies for the instruments necessary to carry on the operations. Graves was hurriedly called away to his ship, the Antelope, as the spirit of discontent, then very rife in the Navy, was developing itself in a very threatening manner during his absence. However, on his arrival on board, by judicious reforms, which he saw were carried out, and by quietly replacing some few of the most dangerous of the malcontents, he was very ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... saw with much discontent. Though he was well fed, he had much work to do; besides, the Master hardly ever took any ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... rolling ball of the civilized world, it is only women that are made restless and uneasy? Do you not see amid the masses congregated in the wealthiest cities of the world, writhings and struggles against the received order of things? In this sentiment of discontent there is a certain truthfulness, because it is an element of human nature, and how best to deal with it is a problem yet unsolved; but in the opinions and doctrines to which, among the masses, the sentiment gives birth, the wisdom of the wisest ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his imagination Lord Rhondda saw that the first step towards saving a very perilous situation was to convince this vast world of seething discontent that absolute justice should characterize the administration of his office. To this end, satisfied that those about him were men of devoted zeal and real talent, he set himself to the creation of a public opinion favourable to ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... wished it were possible in my state to go about begging, for the love of God—to have no house of my own, nor anything else. But I was afraid that others—if our Lord did not give them the same desire—might live in discontent. Moreover, I feared that it might be the cause of some distraction: for I knew some poor monasteries not very recollected, and I did not consider that their not being recollected was the cause of their poverty, and that their poverty was not the cause of their distraction: distraction ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... went on slaying the common people right and left in mere wanton savagery. All the surviving nobles were in his pay; the least suspicion of an uprising was crushed with an iron hand, the least murmur of discontent brought death. Never had Sweden seemed more helpless in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... overcast, and as we neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and it began to rain. The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the triumphant arrival of the successful travelers was of the lowest order of mechanics and artisans, among whom great distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with the Government at that time prevailed. Groans and hisses greeted the carriage, full of influential personages, in which the Duke of Wellington sat. High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces a loom had been erected, at which sat ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... with their spiritual affairs. The discussions that ensued seem to have led to no results. So we find one Habsburg after another on the throne of Bohemia, trying to coerce its people, and each one reducing the country to a state of greater discontent and disorder, until the crash came in 1618, when King Matthias had roused the Bohemian Estates to such a pitch of desperation that they proceeded to the act which precipitated the ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... lawyers were paid thus moderately in the seventeenth century, the complaints concerning their avarice and extortions were loud and universal. This public discontent was due to the inordinate exactions of judges and place-holders rather than to the conduct of barristers and attorneys; but popular displeasure seldom cares to discriminate between the blameless and the culpable members of an obnoxious ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Better to be condemned by all the periodical publications in Great Britain than your own conscience. Let the dunce, with diseased spleen, who edits one obscure Review, revile and rail at you to his heart's discontent, in hollow league with his black-biled brother, who, sickened by your success, has long laboured in vain to edit another, still more unpublishable—but do you hold the even tenor of your way, assured that the beauty which nature, and the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... well said that "patriotic mothers nursed the infancy of the Republic." During the progress of British encroachment and arbitrary power, producing great colonial discontent, every sagacious politician could discern in the distant future the portentous shadow of the approaching conflict. In the domestic circle was then nurtured and imparted that love of civil liberty which ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... luck because he cannot climb the sky, or plunge into the depths of the sea at Sicily and come up at Cyprus, or soar on wings and fly within the day from Greece to India; what is responsible for his discontent is his basing of hopes on a dream-vision or his own wild fancy, without ever asking whether his aspirations were realizable or consistent with humanity. You too, my friend, have been having a long and marvellous ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... now, while you have time before you. Remember all that Christ has done for you, and remember that all He asks of you in return is to do for Him nothing but good, which is good for you as well as for your neighbours. The devil's wages now are shame, discontent, unhappiness, perhaps poverty, perhaps sickness, certainly punishment as traitors to Christ after we die. Christ's wages are love, joy, peace, the answer of a good conscience, the respect and love of all good men, as long as we live, and after death, ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... political societies participated in 2006 parliamentary and municipal elections. Al Wifaq, the largest Shia political society, won the largest number of seats in the elected chamber of the legislature. However, Shi'a discontent has resurfaced in recent years with street demonstrations and occasional ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... in the deepest discontent, deeming themselves affronted by others being ordered to the post of honour after they had by their bravery cleared the way. The Swedish troops forced their way in after hard fighting; and the Castle of Marienburg, so long deemed impregnable, was ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... he would certainly start it amidst immense clapping of hands, yet he could not have any reasonable prospect of stable parliamentary support; on the one hand would stand Derby with his phalanx, on the other Lord J. Russell, of necessity a centre and nucleus of discontent, and between these two there would and could be no room for a parliamentary majority such as would uphold his government. He argued only rather faintly the other way, and seemed rather to come ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... province; whereby they will be made not only altogether independent of the people, but wholly dependent upon the ministry for their support. These appointments will be justly obnoxious to the other colonies, and tend to beget and keep up a perpetual discontent among them; for they will deem it unjust as well as unnecessary to be oblig'd to bear a part of the support of government in this province, and even in the courts of law; especially if designs are also meditating to make ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... people nourishes the spirit of rebellion, enabling it to come to birth and to survive. There are some religious sects based exclusively upon popular discontent. The biegouny, or Fugitives, did nothing but flee from one district to another. They wandered throughout Russia with no thought of home or shelter. Those who joined the sect destroyed their passports, which were considered a work of Satan, ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot |
