"Humble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if we cast our bread on the waters, we shall find it after many days. But simple souls are too humble to recognize it. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... agitators decided to resist; a mutiny occurred in one regiment and the attempt at disbandment failed. Then followed the seizure of the king by Cornet Joyce, Cromwell's definite adherence to the policy of the army, the signing of the manifestoes, a Humble Representation and a Solemn Engagement, and the establishment of the army council composed of officers and agitators. Having, at an assembly on Thriplow Heath, near Royston, virtually refused the offers made by parliament, the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... meekness, of patience, and of love is henceforth the one God of my heart. It is now the one bent and desire of my soul to seek for all my salvation in and through the merits and mediation of the meek, humble, patient, resigned, suffering Lamb of God, who alone has power to bring forth the blessed birth of those heavenly virtues in my soul. What a comfort it is to think that this Lamb of God, Son of the Father, Light of the World; this Glory of heaven ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... Claire has toward Mr. Ronald! You'd think he had give himself dead away to her, an' was down on his knee-pans humble as a 'Piscerpalian sayin' the Literny in Lent, grubbin' about among the dust she treads on, to touch the hem o' her garment. Whereas, in some way unbeknownst to me, an' prob'ly unbeknownst to him, he's touched her pride, which is why she's so ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... situation," said Milburgh ponderously. "Miss Rider had been dismissed, and I was on the point of ruin. Her mother would be involved in the crash—those were the thoughts which ran through my mind as I sat in my humble dining-room in Camden Town. Then the idea flashed upon me. I wondered whether Odette Rider loved her mother sufficiently well to make the great sacrifice, to take full responsibility for the irregularities which had occurred ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... great words. Mathilde, accustomed all her life to receive information from her mother, received this; and for the first time felt the egotism of her beauty awake, a sense of her own importance the more vivid because she had always been humble-minded. She did not look at her mother; she sat up very straight and stared as if at new fields before her, while a faint smile flickered at the corners of her mouth—a smile of an awakening sense ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... forest trees along the river until they fell upon the ear of the roaming savage, and arrested his careless footsteps. The voice of prayer was heard, breathing to heaven in fervid accents a recognition of the Divine goodness, and an humble consecration of devout worshippers, and the fair land they had adopted as their home, to God. The Gospel Message heralded the dispensation of grace, mercy and peace alike to all, bearing in its wings the gift of healing, and a glorious prophecy of the coming ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... words with my familiar friend as if I had been but that moment presented to him?" I answer, It were small labor well spent to see that your coarse-grained evil self, doomed to perdition, shall not come between your friend and your true, noble, humble self, fore-ordained to eternal life. The Father cannot bear rudeness in his children any more than wrong:—my comparison is unfit, for rudeness is a great and profound wrong, and that to the noblest part of the human being, while a mere show of ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... boys knelt at the foot of the tree, while the old sailor in simple, uncouth speech, offered up a little prayer of humble thanks for the deliverance of the two ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... girl. "Come now, you know you are good, and I'll make you say so.... Your Highness, I beg your humble pardon. But there's no disrespect intended. And anyhow, you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passed unnoticed. A plain marble stone denoted that there lay one, who had once been the brightest amid the bright, the brilliant star of a lordly circle. The name, her age, and two simple verses were there inscribed; but around that humble grave there were sweet flowers flourishing more luxuriantly than in any other part of the churchyard; the climbing honeysuckle twined its odoriferous clusters up the dark trunk of the storm-resisting yew. Roses of various kinds intermingled with the lowly ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... nay, in the withered mockery of a French sceptic, his mockery of the false, a love and worship of the true ... how much more in the sphere harmony of a Shakespeare, the cathedral music of a Milton; something of it too in those humble, genuine, lark-notes of a Burns, skylark starting from the humble furrow far overhead into the blue depths, and singing to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was sleeping. Calmly she gazes around in the turmoil of men; in the desert Angels descend and minister unto her; she herself knoweth Naught of her glorious attendance; but follows faithful and humble, Follows so long as she may her friend; O do not reject her, For she cometh from God and she holdeth the keys of the heavens.— Prayer is Innocence' friend; and willingly flieth incessant 'Twixt the earth and the sky, the carrier-pigeon of heaven. Son of Eternity, fettered in Time, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... vain little girl," said Miss Winstead. "I won't tell you whether you look pretty or not, you ought not to think of your looks. God does not like people who think whether they are pretty or not. He likes humble-minded little girls. Now ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... of men's destruction, I suppose you will judge it the fittest matter for our inquiry, and deserving our greatest care for the cure. To which end I shall, (1) endeavor the conviction of the guilty; (2) shall give them such considerations as may tend to humble and reform them; (3) I shall conclude with such direction as may help them that are willing to escape the destroying ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... secrecy, with the shutters shut, and the light screened, the true pastor of Forest Lea gathered the faithful ones of his flock for a service in the old hall. There knelt many a humble, loyal, trustful peasant; there was the widowed Dame Ewins, trying to be comforted, as they told her she ought; there was the lady herself, at once sorrowful and yet earnestly thankful; there was Sylvester ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... humble, for humility is only self-judgment, and while we are thinking of self, we must be neglecting some action we could be planning or shaping in ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... little dog. By the way the sounds echoed from the interior he knew that the rooms were encumbered with articles which left no space for reverberation,—a characteristic feature of the homes of workmen and humble households, where space and ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... some analogy between the tale of this humble man and the history of your great University. It seems to me I see the huge frame of a large fabric which has stood for centuries glorious and proud. The stones are changed, the bricks, the mortar, or the roof are renewed; and ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... thereof at first, but afterwards he will smack his lips and say, 'there is nothing like whiskey,' and as their food becomes part of their bodily substance, so are these 'lying wonders' converted into their spiritual substance. So I think; I am, however, but a very humble philosopher, and therefore I will use the diction of the Holy Spirit on the matter: 'For this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie,' EVEN OF THEIR OWN MAKING, OR WHAT MAY EASILY BE SEEN TO BE LIES OF OTHER'S GETTING, "that they all might be damned ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... a very humble hand upon her arm. "Let me take you downstairs," he urged gently. "There's a friend there waiting for your ladyship—a ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... too tedious to relate all the particulars of his courtship; so I shall only say, that humble and timid as the first emotions of a sincere passion are, he was emboldened, by the extraordinary complaisance of Harriot, to declare it to her in a few days.—The art with which she managed on this occasion, might have deceived ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... house gone to decay is a sight infinitely more depressing than that of an humble one. This once had been an imposing structure; it looked now like a ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... in effect an unconscious pilgrimage to the one health-resort that his soul needed. For Domremy and the region round about are saturated with the most beautiful story of France. The life of Jeanne d'Arc, simple and mysterious, humble and glorious, most human and most heavenly, flows under that place like a hidden stream, rising at every turn in springs and fountains. The poor little village lives in and for her memory. Her presence haunts ...
— The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France • Henry Van Dyke
... London; more often I wrote love-letters to their sweethearts for young women who had lived as servants at Shrewsbury or other towns on the English border. On all such occasions I gave great satisfaction to my humble friends, and was generally treated with hospitality; and once in particular, near the village of Llan-y-styndw (or some such name), in a sequestered part of Merionethshire, I was entertained for upwards of three days by a family of young people with an affectionate and fraternal kindness that ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... we should have referred to it earlier in our book; yet coming as it does, after our work was mostly in type, we confess to some feeling of satisfaction, at the substantial coincidence of views entertained at the Albert Model Farm, with our own humble teachings. With many thanks to Mr. Boyle for his valuable letter, which we commend to our readers as a reliable exposition of the most approved principles of land-draining for Ireland, we ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... Council of Constance (1414) and the Hussite wars, which were soon to follow. The poetry of those two centuries, which was written by and for the people, is interesting historically, but, with few exceptions, without any further worth. The poets wish to amuse or to instruct their humble patrons, and they do this, either by giving them the dry bones of the romantic poetry of former ages, or by telling them fables and the quaint stories of the "Seven Wise Masters." What beauty there was in a Meistergesang may be fairly seen from the poem of Michael Beheim; and the Easter ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... administered by men, is imperfect. Unworthy men find their way into it, making it, as the great Master foretold, a field in which wheat and tares grow together. Nevertheless, wherever the gospel is preached in its purity, bright examples are found of its power to reclaim the vicious, to make the proud humble, and the earthly-minded heavenly. It draws all who truly receive it, by a gradual but certain process, into a likeness to Christ, which is the sum of all goodness. In proportion also as the principles of the gospel gain ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... a character of a very different description, Dominie Sampson,—the reader may easily suppose that a poor modest humble scholar who has won his way through the classics, yet has fallen to leeward in the voyage of life, is no uncommon personage in a country where a certain portion of learning is easily attained by those ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... (colored), aged nineteen years, living in West Fifty-third Street, near Sixth Avenue, was in the industrious pursuit of his humble occupation of gathering provender for a herd of cattle, and when near the foot of Thirty-fourth Street, East River, July 15, was set upon by the mob, killed, and his body ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... the antelope together, Roosevelt taking the position of humble pupil. The next day he returned alone ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... before it occurred to the Admiralty that steamers could be of any use to the Navy, and it was not till 1823 that they purchased the Monkey tug, which, not withstanding its undignified name and humble employment, had the honour of being the first steam-vessel belonging to the Royal Navy. She was a vessel of about 212 tons, and 80 horse-power, and did good service in her day. Both Admiralty and naval officers held steamers,—"smoke-jacks," ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... great Times-reflected world I find the corner where I play my humble but necessary part. For I am one of the unpraised, unrewarded millions without whom Statistics would be a bankrupt science. It is we who are born, who marry, who die, in constant ratios; who regularly lose so many umbrellas, post just so many unaddressed letters every year. And there are enthusiasts ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... he might have a right to reproach her for coming there, and she was grateful to him for not doing so, having really very little idea of the nature of the over-submissive and humble love which sapped his manliness instead of rousing ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... inhabitants; if it were all cleared and cultivated, it would no doubt furnish many of the necessaries of life for such a number; but in its present state, I should think a fourth part of that number too many, and, in my humble opinion, they should be such as have forfeited every hope of seeing their native country again; such a description of people would find it their particular interest to be industrious, as their ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... at a place called Tref y Beirdd, in Anglesey, in the year 1700. Anglesey, or Mona, has given birth to many illustrious men, but few, upon the whole, entitled to more honourable mention than himself. From a humble situation in life, for he served an apprenticeship to a cooper at Holyhead, he raised himself by his industry and talents to affluence and distinction, became a landed proprietor in the county of Cardigan, and inspector of the royal ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... However, Boucicault sweetened our stage by the production of The Colleen Bawn, Arrah-na-Pogue, and The Shaughraun, and showed by his rollicking impersonations of Myles, Shan, and Conn, how good-humored, hearty, and self-sacrificing Irish boys in humble life can be. He had great technical knowledge of stagecraft, and that has helped to make his Irish plays live in the popular ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... the niche above the door; and though many a man has got a niche in the Tolbooth by building, I believe I am the first that ever got a niche out of it on such an occasion. For which I have to thank your kindness, and to remain very much your obliged humble servant, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... author, famous for his mimes, who had the misfortune to irritate a greater Julius, the author of the 'Commentaries,' when the latter was at the height of his power. Caesar, casting about how best he might humble his adversary, could think of nothing better than to condemn him to take a leading part in one of his own plays. Laberius entreated in vain. Caesar was obdurate, and had his way. Laberius played his part—how, ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... hour of her triumph Mary was eager to give the credit to someone else, and Agony began to feel rather humble and small before such a generous spirit, even though her vanity strove to accept the measure of ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... master of many languages, keen to detect all uttered lies, and quick to recognize real truth, honourable, Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer, your humble servant, Albrecht Drer, wishes you all health, great and worthy honour, with the devil as much of such nonsense as ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... with the latter initial on the neighbouring gravestone, might authorize any connection between them, not supported by that similitude of style usually found in the cenotaphs of the same family: the one, indeed, might have covered the grave of a humble villager—the other, the resting-place of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... humiliation to come, three years later, to beg a hundred thousand francs from the generosity she had formerly spurned, to humble herself, to face the endless sermons, the sneering raillery, the whole seasoned with Berrichon jests, with phrases smacking of the soil, with the taunts, often well-deserved, which narrow, but logical, minds can ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... commissary, and had the effect of expediting the marriage ceremony while protecting the clergy from the consequences of any possible breach of canonical law. But they were not common, and it was rare for persons in the comparatively humble position in life of Anne Hathaway and young Shakespeare to adopt such cumbrous formalities when there was always available the simpler, less expensive, and more leisurely method of marriage by 'thrice asking of the banns.' Moreover, the wording ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... a sort of police office. It is built on the same plan of three enclosures as all the yashgis, though on a very different scale from the one at Tokio. There, the Tycoon reigns in undisturbed sovereignty. Here, he appears as a humble servant of his rightful master—really his prisoner. The late Tycoon, after the last battle, fought at this place, fled to his castle at Osaka, where, though he might have held out for an indefinite period, he preferred to surrender. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... the letters of my aggrieved Brethren. In one form or another one thought seemed to breathe in all;—the thought of my rights, my position, my gifts and opportunities, and what was due from others in regard of them; the complaint that others were not humble, when the Christian's first concern with humility is to derive it for himself from his Lord. Such a spirit is not easily compatible with a true secret hourly walk with God and abiding in Christ, the sine qua non of fruit-bearing. And fruit-bearing is the supreme inner aim of the true pastoral ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... Captains, calls you forth, Servant in arms to Harry King of England; And thus he would: Open your city-gates, Be humble to us; call my sovereign yours, And do him homage as obedient subjects; And I 'll withdraw me and my bloody power: But, if you frown upon this proffer'd peace, You tempt the fury of my three attendants, Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire; Who in a moment even with ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... cornstalks, with, for door, a bundle of the same, in the dry, warm, nest-like interior of which the husking of the corn crop seemed to have taken place. A few rods farther on, we passed through another humble dooryard, musical with dogs and dusky with children. We crossed here the outlying fields of a large, thrifty, well-kept-looking farm with a showy, highly ornamental frame house in the centre. There ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... with a sigh, "save the will of the Almighty to visit us for our sins with a son who has thus far shown himself one of the marred vessels doomed to be broken by the potter. It may be in order to humble me and prove me that this hath ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gratuitously superstitious, but he had the blood of the peasant in him as well as of the artisan, and a peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when he sees a camel. Besides, he had that mental combination which is at once humble in the region of mystery and keen in the region of knowledge: it was the depth of his reverence quite as much as his hard common sense which gave him his disinclination to doctrinal religion, and he often ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, 'I won't throw ill words at her; there's them out o' th' family 'ull be ready enough to do that. But I'll give her good advice; an' she must be humble.' It's wonderful o' Jane; for I'm sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me,—if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... what these people sang that night. It might have been the Twenty-third Psalm. Or they might have sung, "I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad." Or the Thirty-seventh Psalm would have sounded well in the darkness of that hideous dungeon,—"Fret not thyself because of evil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... rolling down his convulsed face. The man bowed to the floor, and slowly moved away backwards. With every gradual step Felix saw his natural shape return. The rays of the autumn sun ceased to light up that mysterious apparition, and only his attorney's humble clerk stood before Felix. With a rush overpowering his will, Felix dashed after the old man, already across the threshold, and overtook ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... room beyond, however, in which the author takes his seat in the humble capacity of student, there is the curiously strained atmosphere that is to be found in all companies of disparate personalities intent upon a common end. Seated in rows at a number of pine desks are a score of men whose ages range from twenty-three to forty-five. Some are smoking. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... shield had been pierced and torn away.[737] The activity of the pursuers had been stimulated by greed, for Opimius had put a price upon the heads of both the leaders of the faction on the Aventine. The bearers of these trophies of victory were to receive their weight in gold. The humble citizens who produced the head of Flaccus are said to have been defrauded of their reward; but the action of the man who wrested the head of Gracchus from the first possessor of the prize and bore it on a javelin's point to Opimius, long furnished a text to the moralist who discoursed on the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... you seemed to like the first basket of pears, I have brought you some more,' said he, 'with my master, the Count Piro's humble respects.' ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... had some embroidery, which I seem to remember that she began when I was a boy, and kept religiously to do in hotels. (But what is there that my good sister does, which she does not do religiously?) Mrs. Senter had nothing to amuse or occupy her—except your humble servant—consequently she suggested a stroll ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... palace, he called to mind the words I had spoken in our previous interview, some of which were so excessively humble, and others so proud and haughty, that they caused him no small irritation. He repeated a few of them in the presence of Madame d'Etampes and Monsignor di San Polo, a great baron of France. [1] This man had always ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... his sonne, either wine, cloth of golde, scarlet, or plate, as to your good discretion shall be thought meet, and when you haue deliuercd vnto him the Queenes Maiesties letters and our sayd present in the name of the Company, we thinke it good that you make your humble sute vnto his Highnesse in our name, to get his licence or safe conduct for you and all other our seruants or Agents at all times hereafter with such wares and merchandise as you at this time, or they hereafter ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... the meaning of the verb to which it is added humble. It is placed after the root of affirmative verbs; e.g., Deus vo gotaixet ni zonji tate maturu coto va ichi sugureta jen gia 'to love God is the supreme virtue.' This particle permits some degree of honor if re is added to it after the final e [i] has been changed to a. Thus, ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... place; most of the rich burgesses, however, were much grieved at what had taken place. A great council was held, and twelve of their number went to the earl to beg for pardon for the town. The earl received them sternly, but at their humble prayer promised to spare the city and to punish only the chief offenders. While they were away, however, Lyon called an assembly of the citizens in a field outside the town. Ten thousand armed men gathered there, and they at once sacked ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... forehead, manly aspect; low of stature, but very strong. He was for his life so exact and temperate, that I have heard he had never been surprised by excesse, being ascetic and sparing. His wisdom was greate, and judgment most acute; of solid discourse, affable, humble and in nothing affected; of a thriving, neat, silent and methodical genius; discretely severe, yet liberal on all just occasions to his children, strangers, and servants; a lover of hospitality; of a singular and Christian ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... the ordinary people. Black faces were to mediaeval mummeries what carved masks were to Greek plays: it was called being "vizarded." My Rat-catcher is not sufficiently arrogant to suppose for a moment that he looks like St. George. But he is sufficiently humble to be convinced that if he looks as little like himself as he can, he will be ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... a few letters which he laid, thankfully, in a pile by themselves. These were mostly from certain humble members of his parish who had not followed their impulses to go to him after the service, or from strangers who had chanced to drop into the church. Some were autobiographical, such as those of a trained nurse, a stenographer, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... fifty-seventh year of his age. Mr. Davies was a very distinguished mathematician, and the author of several works on mathematics. He possessed, also, extensive and varied acquirements in different branches of science and literature. Nor was he unmindful of the claims of the more humble aspirant to mathematical honors; his encouragement and advice were liberally bestowed, as many deserving ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... they arrived at her house in the Serguiefskaia. It had not appeared to Tamara that they were approaching any particularly fashionable quarter. A fine habitation seemed the neighbor of quite a humble one, and here there was even a shop a few doors down, and except for the very tall windows there was nothing exceptionally imposing on the outside. But when they entered the first hall and the gaily- liveried suisse and two footmen had removed their furs, and ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... in with my father's high opinion of him was the number of stories about him which appealed to my childish imagination. Many of these related to his adventures when he would disguise himself as a person of humble status and prowl about the city by night, especially in the squalid quarters, where he would make the acquaintance of the very poor in their hovels. Most of these stories were probably inventions and need not be told here; but there was one which I must ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... spent? In such devotion to the public that those who know him not as I do, have said that he had not one feeling left to spare to the obscurer duties and more limited affections, by which men of ordinary talents and humble minds rivet the links of that social order which it is the august destiny of statesmen—like him who now sits beside me—to cherish and defend. But, for my part, I think that there is no being so dangerous as the solemn hypocrite, who, because he drills his cold ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... appeared like a queen, fallen from her palace to a hovel, and who, reduced to strict necessity, could neither become reconciled to the earthen vessels she was herself forced to place upon the table, nor to the humble pallet which had become her bed. The beautiful Catalane and noble countess had lost both her proud glance and charming smile, because she saw nothing but misery around her; the walls were hung with one of the gray papers which economical landlords choose as not likely to show the dirt; the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... soldier cursed the German as the direct cause of all his trouble, but looked back on his side of the lines and saw an evil there which was also his enemy—the evil of a secret diplomacy which juggled with the lives of humble men so that war might be sprung upon them without their knowledge or consent, and the evil of rulers who hated German militarism not because of its wickedness, but because of its strength in rivalry and the evil of a folly in the minds of men which had taught them to regard war as a glorious adventure, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... St. John's Wood, even in opposition to his own most strenuous will. He could not quite analyse the circumstances of his own position, but he felt as though he were a cock with his spurs cut off,—as a dog with his teeth drawn. He found himself becoming humble and meek. He had to acknowledge to himself that he was afraid of Lady Amelia, and almost even afraid of Mortimer Gazebee. He was aware that they watched him, and knew all his goings out and comings in. They called him Adolphus, and made ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... engine had done much to reduce them to the level of the men in the cab, so far as personal appearance was concerned. They were still wearing their raincoats, much crumpled and discoloured; their faces were covered with coal dust; they were wet, bedraggled, and humble to the last degree. The American, naturally, was the one who clung to his suitcase; he had foreseen the need for a change of linen. They came toward the train with hesitating, uncertain steps. If their souls were gladdened by the sight of the two young women, ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... in the car seated by the side of their betrayer, the man whom she hated, and whose love-overtures she had scorned and repulsed. Her wrists and her ankles were bound with cords, and she had been lifted into the car, bodily, by the man of her hate. To humble her and to shame her, the cur had kissed her again and again before her captive lover, then with a carefully judged malice, he had seated her, by his side, on the seat that faced the rear of the car, so that her ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... impossible to resist the temptation to toy with him for a while, to humble and humiliate this man who had destroyed hundreds in his juggernaut ride to riches. Skilfully he drew the old man out. He saw the beads of perspiration on hit, brow and heard the whine come from his voice. Then, in the end, he ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... appear And I am held in scorn; Yet juice of subtle virtue lies Within my cup of curious dyes. 10 The lilies say: Behold how we Preach without words of purity. The violets whisper from the shade Which their own leaves have made: Men scent our fragrance on the air, Yet take no heed Of humble lessons we would read. But not alone the fairest flowers: The merest grass Along the roadside where we pass, 20 Lichen and moss and sturdy weed, Tell of His love who sends the dew, The rain and sunshine too, ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... "The humble boon was soon obtain'd; The aged minstrel audience gain'd. But, when he reach'd the room of state, Where she with all her ladies sate, Perchance he wish'd his boon denied; For, when to tune the harp he tried, His trembling hand had lost the ease Which ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... little world within itself. None of the gross vices always to be found in large communities were practised there. On the Sabbath-day, when its only bell sent its voice distinctly over the valley, the humble dwellers met in the single church, not only bound together by the tie of human brotherhood, but by the sweeter ties of Christian charity, to hear the word of God and perform the work of ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... blew the bitter biting north Upon thy early, humble birth; Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth Amid the storm, Scarce reared above the ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... question. He is, we will suppose, temporarily unemployed through the production of a glut of coal, and he goes about the world trying to see the fine and noble collective achievements that justify the devotion of his whole life to humble toil. I ask the reader: What have we got to show that man? What are we doing up in the light and air that justifies our demand that he should go on hewing in narrow seams and cramped corners until he can hew no more? Where is he to be taken to see these crowning fruits of our release ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... stood in the closest relation to Hawthorne of all his uncles, having undertaken to provide for his education. He had built a large, square, hip-roofed house at Raymond, after the model common in his native county of Essex, as a comfortable dwelling, but so seemingly grand amid the humble surroundings of the Maine clearing as to earn the name of "Manning's folly;" and, about 1814, he built a similar house for his sister, near his own, but she had not occupied it until now, when she came to live ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... to the desert shore that never saw navigate its waters one who afterwards had experience of return. Here he girt me, even as pleased the other. O marvel! that such as he plucked the humble plant, it instantly sprang up again there whence ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... wheel of fortune Girardin lost his place with the secretary, and went upon the exchange and solicited an humble office for the purpose of studying the chances there. As soon as he considered himself fit to decide, he ventured in buying very heavily certain stocks, and lost nearly all his little property. He was in despair and wrote to his father, who sent back an unfeeling letter. ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... to-night the prospect had ceased to thrill her. Was it because in this her first idleness she realized she was giving away something she wanted to keep? Or because she saw that, after all, being grand and important at another person's wedding is not as good a thing even as being humble at your own? ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... elsewhere, are supplices preces, 'humble prayers,' or 'petitions.' Compare chap. 66. [263] 'He applies to the ambassadors one by one;' that is, he tries them one by one, temptat singulos. [264] Maxime, the same as potissimum. Compare chap. 35. [265] 'What would be in accordance with ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... the sixteenth century and the Florentines of the seventeenth century and the French of the eighteenth century had produced splendid stuffs; and although there were no museums in those days that condescended to anything so humble, such stuffs were still to be bought of the bric-a-brac dealers, and very cheap, too, and still existed, rolled up in some old garrets. By studying them, surely the art of making others like them could be learned. And so around the ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... Rumours were now rife that one of the princes murdered by Richard III. had really escaped and was still living; and on the other hand that the boy Warwick was dead in the Tower. Some one devised the idea of producing a fictitious Richard of York, or Warwick. A boy of humble birth named Lambert Simnel was taught to play the part, carried over to Ireland, and produced after some hesitation as the Earl of Warwick. Presumably the leaders of the Yorkists intended to use the supposititious earl only until the real one could be got into their hands; but Lincoln, ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... quarrels with friends, into which the prudent, good-tempered and modest Addison is said to have ever been betrayed. His adversary on this occasion was Pope, who, a few years before, had received, with an appearance of humble thankfulness, Addison's friendly remarks on his Essay on Criticism (Spectator, No. 253); but who, though still very young, was already very famous, and beginning to show incessantly his literary jealousies and his personal and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... feel that I have done my duty as humble historian of the March family, without devoting at least one chapter to the two most precious and important members of it. Daisy and Demi had now arrived at years of discretion, for in this fast age babies ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... neighbouring peoples or independently developed—Roman literature itself in fact began with the discussion of the theory of agriculture. Welcome rest followed diligent and judicious labour; and here too religion asserted her right to soothe the toils of life even to the humble by pauses for recreation and for freer human movement and intercourse. Every eighth day (-nonae-), and therefore on an average four times a month, the farmer went to town to buy and sell and transact his other business. But rest from labour, in the strict sense, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... gates unto my love, Open them wide that she may enter in, And all the posts adorn as doth behove, And all the pillars deck with garlands trim, For to receive this saint with honour due That cometh in to you. With trembling steps and humble reverence, She cometh in before the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the Eastern world; and palace and chancellery were ablaze. But they spoke of the West—of humble places and lowly homes; of still woodlands where mosses edged the brooks; of peaceful villages they both had known, where long, tree-shaded streets slept in the dappled shadow ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... "Only my humble trust that a priest may be blessed in his appeal to duty even where a father's appeal to natural affection ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... domestic tale of humble life, which will well repay perusal. There is an excellent tone, moral and ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... elder generations, with few exceptions, were poor. Nearly all Americans, down to the Civil War, were poor. And being poor, they subscribed to a Sklavenmoral. That is to say, they were spiritually humble. Their eyes were fixed, not upon the abyss below them, but upon the long and rocky road ahead of them. Their moral passion spent most of its force in self-accusing, self-denial and self-scourging. ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... triumphant, indeed, though yet subdued and humble, since this paradox may be at times in human hearts, was Richard Kendrick, as he stood waiting in the vestibule of St. Luke's, on Christmas morning, for a tryst he had made. Not with Roberta, for it was not possible for her to ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... Dr. Heisenberg stated, there is a principle of confusion or uncertainty as to the exact whereabouts of things on the atomic level, which cannot be rendered more exact due to disturbance caused by the investigation of its whereabouts. My humble attempt is to secure a sufficiently statistical sample of aligned protons to obtain data on the distortion of the electron orbits caused by an external electrostatic field, thus rendering my own uncertainties more susceptible of analysis in ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... it,' I returned. 'I would not lose you for twenty boxes. If you need clothes, why there stands my own chest; flowers grow in profusion and the oil-bottle rests never empty beside my humble bed; and in the hot hours of the afternoon there is the beautifulest pool where one can bathe and wash one's lovely hair. Moreover, so generous are the regulations of Tusitala's (Stevenson's) government that his children receive weekly large sums of money, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... and which was now all they went to combat; how happy they were when they thought it vanquished! They were divinely recompensed when they saw the cold sweats disappear, the moaning lips become stilled, the deathlike faces recover animation. It was assuredly the love which they brought to this humble, suffering humanity that ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... dinner in a humble Moffat public-house, and walked the two miles to the junction on the main line. The night express for the south was not due till near midnight, and to fill up the time I went up on the hillside and fell asleep, for the walk had tired me. I all but slept too long, and had to run to the station ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... ago, when Harriet called on the writer, she was introduced to the husband of one of her daughters lately married. He told her how glad he was to see her, as he had heard so much about her. She made one of her humble courtesies, and said: "I'm pleased to see you, sir; it's de first time I've hed de pleasure makin' yo' 'quaintance since you was 'dopted ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... initiative to make him a call! It is easy to compliment a friend upon his children, but how many of us will allow themselves to be caught and utilized by them in this fashion? But Emerson's mind was so catholic, so humble, and so deep that I doubt not he derived benefit even from child-prattle. His wife rivalled him in hospitality, though her frail health disabled her from entering into the physical part of social functions with the same fortitude; in these first months we were invited to a party where we ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... said, "Bury me there." That river, to this day, bears the name of the lamented Marquette. On landing they erected a bark cabin, and stretched the dying missionary as comfortably as they could beneath its humble roof. Having blessed some water with the usual ceremonies of the Catholic Church, he gave his companions directions how to proceed in his last moments. He instructed them also in regard to the manner in which they were to arrange his body when dead, and the ceremonies ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... fagots were prepared, he was taken to St. Mary's Church to hear his own funeral sermon and make his last public confession; but that confession, to the sore amazement and dismay of the authorities, proved to be the cry of the humble and self-abasing sinner repenting not his heresies but his recantations. And in accordance with his last utterance, when he came to the fire he was seen to thrust forth his right hand into the flame, crying aloud "this hand hath offended"; and so held it steadfastly till it was consumed. ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... know. In the midst of a discussion on the Afrikander Bond and the South African League, the night sister came in and imperiously bade us be silent and go to sleep. So the grey-headed schoolmaster and my humble self, like guilty children, became silent, and serenaded by the ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... the Gaul; In this manner wend they all, And the seeds of nations lay. I beseech ye'll credence pay, For our father, high and sage, Wrote the tale in sacred page, As a record to the world, Record sad of vengeance hurl'd. I, a low and humble wight, Beg permission now to write Unto all that in our land Tongue Egyptian understand. May our Virgin Mother mild Grant to me, her erring child, Plenteous grace in every way, And success. Amen ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... deliberately spent in corruption, vast sums were wasted on abuses in the royal household, on sinecures, and on other useless places of profit. One of the king's turnspits was a member of the house of commons, and paid L5 a year to a humble deputy, and no fewer than twenty-three separate tables were kept up, eleven for the nurses. For such abuses George was only partially responsible. Though he lived with a frugality which was almost ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... the Christian world from the earliest ages; and his craft has been to mislead the thoughtless, by fixing upon the humble followers of the Lamb his own opprobrious proper name. The mass of professed Christians, whose creed and mode of worship have been provided by human laws, has ever been opposed to the sincere disciples ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sensation, and but for strict orders which were issued that the electrical ships should be immediately prepared for departure, our entire company might have remained for an indefinite period enjoying this new kind of athletic exercise in a world where gravitation had become so humble that ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... only have to stoop over my dead body and search my pockets, and, having found the incriminating document, destroy it. You seem to have formed no very high opinion of my intelligence and common sense. You of the upper classes don't need these qualities, the law is on, your side. But when a humble individual like myself, a mere nobody, undertakes to investigate a piece of business about which those in authority are not anxious to be enlightened, precautions are necessary. It's not enough for him to have right on ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... are tense, passionate, exalted, they are communicated in verse; where they are ordinary, commonplace, they are expressed in prose. This rule will hold both for characters of high station and for the most humble. In Act I, for example, Portia speaks in prose to her maid "obviously because Shakespeare would lower the pitch and reduce the suspense. In the following scene, the conversation between Shylock and Bassanio begins in prose. But as soon as Antonio appears, Shylock's emotions are roused to their highest ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... youth, why wouldst thou, thus betray, My easy faith, and lead my heart away. I might some humble shepherd's choice have been, Had I not heard that tongue, those eyes not seen; And in some homely cot, in low repose, Liv'd undisturb'd, with broken vows and oaths; All day by shaded springs my flocks have kept, And in some honest arms, at night have slept. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... a year old, quite a patriarch in gowns; and, besides, I am getting so tired of blue. Mamma likes me best in white, and I agree with her; but you look very nice, Bessie, more like a crimson-tipped Daisy than ever. You remind me so of a daisy—a humble little modest, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... come over his mother, he refused to be comforted with his religious profession. Jake Benton was a tenant on Gray's farm, and from daily contact with Benton, Mr. Gray was convinced beyond a doubt that Benton's religion was real. One night at a prayer meeting held at Jake Benton's humble home, Mr. Gray became so convicted that resistance was impossible. He fully surrendered himself to Jesus and obtained an experience that was marvelous even in ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... that. I heard you were about to marry the beautiful Miss Van de Werve. The news rejoiced me; but may your humble servant make free to ask you if ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... forced their way along its sides, we had to hire a boat for the transport of at least cart and baggage; and when the boatmen were getting ready for the voyage, which was, with the characteristic dilatoriness of the district, a work of hours, we baited at the clachan of Kinlochewe—a humble Highland inn, like that in which we had passed the night. The name—that of an old farm which stretches out along the head or upper end of Loch Maree—has a remarkable etymology: it means simply the head of Loch Ewe—the salt-water loch into which the waters ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... reflection from the Divine Presence, in the consciousness of which he lived. Never, in temple or cathedral, on mountain or in glen, can I hope to feel that the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and talking with men, than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oaken wattles. Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, or blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... built a large Alms-house near to his own Palace at Croydon in Surrey, and endowed it with maintenance for a Master and twenty-eight poor men and women; which he visited so often that he knew their names and dispositions; and was so truly humble, that he called them Brothers and Sisters; and whensoever the Queen descended to that lowliness to dine with him at his Palace in Lambeth,—which was very often,—he would usually the next day show the like lowliness to his poor Brothers and Sisters at ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... the arrogant native style. Every other minute she felt sure that they would run over a child or dog, or knock down a foot passenger. It seemed to be the privilege of anyone who could afford to pay for a cab to drive over pedestrians if they got in the way; the humble poor were of less account than the dust beneath the horses' feet. The coachman's absurd cries to "clear the way" pierced Margaret's ears without amusing her, while the cracking of the whip almost drove her to despair. The noise and crowd of idle human beings was bewildering ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... the old servant. "That's not a bit like her, with her happy, humble ways with all ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... bootblacks had grand outfits and stands. The captain of a ship offered ten dollars to a negro to act as his cook. The negro replied, "If you will walk up to my restaurant, I'll set you to work at twenty-five dollars immediately." From men in such humble stations up to the very highest and most respected citizens the spirit of gambling, of taking chances, was also ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... assist them with his counsel and to aid them with his military force whenever they should desire it. Thus internal peace was established throughout the empire. By gradual advances, and with great sagacity, Andre, from his humble palace in Moscow, extended his influence over the remote provinces, and established ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... possible across this pretended Bolivia. You have not told me what you have been doing these two years! Two years, comrade, in our chance existence, is a long time. One fine day, after having taken charge of a caravan of slaves on old Alvez's account—whose very humble agents we are—you left Cassange, and have not been heard of since! I have thought that you had some disagreement with the English cruiser, ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... was one of exceeding darkness; and in this humble quarter of London, whatever the night happened to be, light or dark, quiet or stormy, all shops were kept open on Saturday nights until twelve o'clock, at the least, and many for half an hour longer. There was no rigorous and pedantic Jewish superstition ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... terms, retreat, beat a retreat; draw in one's horns &c. (humility) 879; give way, give round, give in, give up; cave in; suffer judgment by default; bend, bend to one's yoke, bend before the storm; reel back; bend down, knuckle down, knuckle to, knuckle under; knock under. eat dirt, eat the leek, eat humble pie; bite 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. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... about two years later when Kit was a young man eighteen years old a man who chanced to pass his father's humble home related his adventures. He told how much was to be earned by selling buffalo robes, buckskins, etc., at Santa Fe, New Mexico. He drew beautiful word pictures of wealth that could be attained in the great Spanish ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... Fig Tree Church could hardly hold the planters and their wives, the guests from Bath House, as well as those from St. Kitts, and the Byams and Warners that had sailed over from half a dozen islands. Outside, the churchyard, the road, the fields were crowded with the coloured folk, humble and ambitious. Bonnets and parasols gave this dense throng the effect of a moving tropical garden, and if the women were too mindful of their new manners to shout as the Ogilvy coach rolled past containing the bride hardly visible under clouds ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... of being of wood, consisted of a buffalo hide suspended in front of the doorway, and thrown back during the day upon the low roof. The principal charm of the village, however, lay not in its style of building, but in the manner in which the humble dwellings seemed to nestle under the numerous clusters of trees. The universal cleanliness and absence of all offal formed another remarkable feature, and went far to increase the favourable impression made by the delightful situation of the hamlet. It was truly a lovely spot, as its ruins ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... another favorite figure, the winged Eros, represented as a chubby boy of four or five—a conception of the god of Love which makes its first appearance in the Hellenistic period. The men who modeled these statuettes were doubtless regarded in their own day as very humble craftsmen, but the best of them had caught the secret of graceful poses and draperies, and the execution of their work is as delicate as its conception ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell |
