"Indolence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being ill, and he would even say that I could get well if I wished to. I did not take this seriously, but one morning, when calling to see me at the office, he attacked me in a way that made me downright angry with him. He told me that indolence and the use of stimulants was the cause of my bad health. He spoke in a mocking way, with a presence of not quite meaning it, but the feeling could not be wholly disguised. Stung by his reproaches, I blurted out that he had no right to talk to me, even in fun, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... heaven with the eyes of reason. He is urged to give up the use of his head that he may develop his heart. He even is told that faith is incompatible with reason, and love with logic. So strong is the emphasis on this that he is led to suspect that indolence is seeking to deify ignorance, and that men whose intellectual faculties have atrophied by their subjection to the emotional now are envious of those who retain the power to think clearly, and would have them also deprived ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... various and even self-contradictory feelings, some of which belong to the highest and some to the lowest parts of human nature; humanity and a sense of justice are in this instance curiously combined with indolence and impatience. The arguments again for Home Rule rest upon one dubious assumption and one undoubted fact. The dubious assumption is that the root of Irish discontent is the outraged feeling of nationality. The undoubted fact is that in Ireland, on all matters either directly or even remotely ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... thing thus to learn to depend upon God to work through our feeble resources, and yet, while so depending, to be absolutely faithful and diligent, and not allow our trust to deteriorate into supineness and indolence. We find no sloth or negligence in Gideon, or his three hundred; though they were weak and few, they were wholly true, and everything in them ready for God to use to the very last. "Faint yet pursuing" was their ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... need me, and Sydney don't care whether I come or not, so I 'll keep out of the way," she would say, as if to excuse her seeming indolence. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... ceremony of introduction with the greatest ease and self-possession; and though he infused rather more courtesy into his manner towards Mrs. Mildman than he had taken the trouble to bestow on us, his behaviour was still characterised by the same indolence and listlessness I had previously noticed, and which indeed seemed part and parcel of himself. Having bowed slightly to Cumberland and Lawless he seated himself very leisurely on the sofa by Mrs. Mildman's side, altering one of the pillows so as to make himself thoroughly comfortable as he ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... merely from one bad quality, but from several,—from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... less blessed with that freedom which is power than ourselves are advancing with gigantic strides in the career of public improvement, were we to slumber in indolence or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority? In the course of the year now drawing to its close we have beheld, under the auspices ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... with each other, he managed somehow to permit, in his own proper person, that both should have equal sway; and the older he grew, the larger and firmer-rooted did these two passions become. He was getting also so unwieldy, that indolence was, to a certain extent, forced upon him; and this was another powerful consideration which induced him to look on the accession of Bruin as a ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... this as a reflection upon the Swedish race. They are industrious and energetic when occasion requires, but, like all people who live at the extreme North, acquire tropical habits of indolence from the climate. During the tedious winters, when the days are but six hours long, all who can afford it become torpid, like frogs, and lie up in their houses till the summer sun thaws them out. Balls, parties, and ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... lively correspondence with him; Swift was always welcome at his table. He had many tastes, of which book-collecting was not the least expensive, and of the fortune of 500,000 pounds which his wife brought him, the greater part is said to have been sacrificed to "indolence, good-nature, and ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... he can trace to what he believes to be a Divine and authoritative origin. I hold the great preacher to be a spiritual medium. In his next evolution he will simply tell the people whatever may have been given him in the same hour to say. This does not mean that indolence will supersede industry. Through the indolent man God sends no messages. The true prophet will always be preparing himself. By learning, by meditation, by self-discipline, the true prophet will prepare his heart for the incoming of the Eternal Spirit, and the glory of Heaven will be as a ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... speak, with geometrical figures, now entailed by agriculture: it will become a garden in which, at will, grass or flowers, bush or woods, can be allowed to grow, and in which the human race will live in plenty, in a Golden Age. Nor will man thereby sink into indolence and corruption. Work is requisite to happiness, and man will work as much as ever, because he will be working for himself aiming at the highest development of his mental, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... might say that her motto was "Work! stick to it; keep on working!" for in war she never knew what indolence was. And whoever will take that motto and live by it will likely to succeed. There's many a way to win in this world, but none of them is worth much without good hard work back ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... care to plod alone through the woods for a long afternoon on the chance of bringing home a brace of woodcock; nor can he mention fishing without a sneer. Being thus deprived of the chief resource by which Anglo-Saxons combine activity and indolence, the French nobility cultivated to their highest pitch those human pleasures which are at once the most vivid and the most delicate. They devoted themselves to society and to love-making. Too quick-witted to fall into sloth, too proud to become drunkards or gluttons, they dissipated ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... at her immovable face, with its fallen eyes, and then went out of the room. He never quarrelled with his mother, because his anger, like her own, was dumb, and silenced him as it mounted. Her misgivings had stung him deeply, and at the bottom of his indolence and indifference was a fiery pride, not easily kindled, but unquenchable. He flung the harness upon his old unkempt horse, and tackled him to the mud-encrusted buggy, for whose shabbiness he had never cared before. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... any longer avail themselves of the confusion to carelessly mislay things. In fact, visitors came and guests left, but everything after all went off quietly, unlike the disorderly way which prevailed hitherto, when there was no clue to the ravel; and all such abuses as indolence, and losses, and the like ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... being from boyhood a book-worm and a day-dreamer. He remained through life an omnivorous, though unsystematic, reader. He was helpless in practical affairs, and his native indolence and procrastination were increased by his indulgence in the opium habit. On his return to England, in 1800, he went to reside at Keswick, in the Lake Country, with his brother-in-law, Southey, whose industry ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... rather than free labor, as they found it more profitable; and so the poorer Romans, left without employment, crowded into the cities, especially congregating at Rome, where they lived in vicious indolence. The proprietors also found it to their interest to raise stock rather than to cultivate the soil. All ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... traces of the mixture of the humorous and the terrible which form that genius for the grotesque so especially German—you find this in their legends and ghost-stories. But in Holland activity destroys, in Germany indolence ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the mere plague, or as the French would express it, the "Black-beast," of the kitchen at Denmark Hill for the rest of his life. There was almost always a diary kept, usually, I think, in rhyme, of those summer hours of indolence; and when at last it was recognized, in due and reverent way, at the Crown Life Office, that indeed the time had drawn near when its constant and faithful servant should be allowed to rest, it was perhaps ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... silent partner, and was approvingly paragraphed in a paper partly owned by her first cousin. To gifts capable of producing results like these, she added a great aptitude for music; although an incurable indolence, she gracefully said, had always prevented her from learning the piano. While yet sustaining the name of Jigbee, she had achieved a high reputation in private circles as a merciless judge of music. But her conversation had been, from earliest girlhood, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... suggesting to Palmerston's idle vision a sail becalmed upon a sage-green sea. "Dysart's ship, which will probably never come in," he said to himself, looking at it with visible indignation, one morning, as he sat at his tent door in that state of fuming indolence which the male American ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... instructions of his former governor, or from his own native good sense, or from both combined, he resisted the temptations that were laid before him, and, instead of giving up his studies, and spending his time in indolence and vice, he improved such privileges as he enjoyed to the best of his ability. He even contrived to turn the hours of play, and the companions who had been given to him as mere instruments of pleasure, into means of improvement. He caused the boys to be organized into a sort of ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... was with the public more than with the authors. Those who ventured on the quest would find noble eloquence in Clarendon, lively narrative in Burnet, critical analysis in Hume; but the indolence of the Universities and the ignorance of the general public unfitted them for the effort required to value a knowledge of history or to take steps to acquire it. It is true that the majestic style of ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Richard Scott, was an accurate classical scholar, which perhaps accounts for his being, unlike some others of his profession, free from pedantry. He was kind-hearted and somewhat disposed to indolence, loving more to converse with one of my years than to instruct him in languages. He had seen a good deal of the world and its ways, and I learned much from him besides Greek and Latin. We were great friends and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... vigorous stock was transplanted to French soil. The theological school in which Calvin and Beza taught, moulded the destinies of France. The youths who came from the shores of Lake Leman were no neophytes, nor had they to unlearn the casuistry of the schools or to throw off a monastic indolence which habit had made a second nature. They embraced a vocation to which nothing but a stern sense of duty, or the more powerful attraction of Divine love, could prompt. They entered an arena where poverty, fatigue, and almost inevitable death stared them in the face. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... whole tenor of Scripture. But such a wish is included in it, and corresponds to one tone of mind, and to what ought always to be our feeling. We rightly shrink from temptation because we know our own weakness. That is the only allowable ground; if we do it from indolence, or dread of trouble, we are wrong. If flesh shrinks from pain, we are 'carnal and walk as men.' If we desire simply to have a smooth path, then we have yet to learn what our Master meant when He said, 'In the world ye shall have tribulation.' His servants should 'count it all joy when they ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... this, Hilderic, before the death of his predecessor, signed an order for the liberty of the orthodox churches, but never had the courage to declare himself of the same belief; his lenity having quite degenerated into softness and indolence. However, the professors of the true faith called home their pastors. The ship which brought them back, was received at Carthage with the greatest demonstrations of joy: the shore echoed far and near with repeated acclamations, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... great dramatic power she did not possess; yet I ascribe this more to her intellectual indolence than ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... articles that composed his dress: his faded turban was retrimmed; his couch arranged with the greatest care, and odoriferous shrubs burnt in the apartment which he honoured with his presence. The duties of the day having been happily completed, the chief resigned himself to his habitual indolence with all the complacency of one who considers himself by situation entitled to the contribution of every one towards his ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... floor it found me prepared; I plied her with questions from start to finish. She yielded with a perfect courtesy; told of the poor lot of the few free negroes of whom she knew, and of the time-serving and shifty indolence, the thievishness, faithlessness, and unaspiring torpidity of "some niggehs"; and when I opened the way for her to speak of uncle and aunt she poured forth their praises with an ardor that brought her own tears. I asked her if she believed she could ever ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... Smith-Oldwick was fair-hatred, blue-eyed, and slender, with a rosy, boyish face that might have been molded more by an environment of luxury, indolence, and ease than the more strenuous exigencies of life's ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Should range the host, soliciting the Chiefs Of every band, as utmost need requires. Him answer'd Agamemnon, King of men. 140 Old warrior, times there are, when I could wish Myself thy censure of him, for in act He is not seldom tardy and remiss. Yet is not sluggish indolence the cause, No, nor stupidity, but he observes 145 Me much, expecting till I lead the way. But he was foremost now, far more alert This night than I, and I have sent him forth Already, those to call whom thou hast named. But let ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... discover the fate of the princesses or to banish and silence Jamet de Tillay, though it was all over the Court that the Dauphiness was dying for love of Alain Chartier. Was it that his son prevented him from acting, or was it the strange indifference and indolence that always made Charles the Well-Served bestir himself ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is all I have to live for, I should see my influence destroyed by one whose selfish affection is more injurious than the coldest indifference or the harshest tyranny could be. If I, for his good, deny him some trifling indulgence, he goes to his father, and the latter, in spite of his selfish indolence, will even give himself some trouble to meet the child's desires: if I attempt to curb his will, or look gravely on him for some act of childish disobedience, he knows his other parent will smile and take his part against me. Thus, not ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... handkerchief, etc., was a veritable Nessus shirt to Jem. So passionately fond of work was he, and so high an idea had he conceived on the sacredness and nobleness of work, that integuments savoring of Sabbath indolence were particularly intolerable to him. He moved about stiffly in them, was glad to shake them off, and resume his white, lime-stained, patched, and torn, but oh! such luxuriously easy garments of every-day life. Then I regret to have to record an act of supreme vanity, that might be pardonable ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... chemist being on that account entitled to any particular commendation; circumstances have been decidedly favorable, and these seldom occur. Too lively an imagination, an over eager curiosity, are as powerful obstacles to the discovery of truth, as too much phlegm, a slow conception, indolence of mind, or the want of a thinking habit: all men have more or less imagination, curiosity, phlegm, bile, indolence, activity: it is from the happy equilibrium which nature has observed in their organization, that depends that invaluable blessing, correctness of mind. Nevertheless, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... captivated by female blandishments, or to set a proper value upon the refined enjoyments of life. They are obliged to work hard, at times, for the means of subsistence; but their leisure hours are spent in indolence, without those little recreations which contribute so much to the happiness of mankind, and diffuse a spirit of chearfulness and vivacity throughout the Society and Friendly Islands. Besides a sort of whistle, made of wood, about two inches long, and shaped like a bell, having ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... manifestation of bad temper at the outset, had he been so disposed. But no, Bombay was more averse to marching than the cowardliest of his fellows, not because he was cowardly, but because he loved indolence. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... crowd from the garret had come with all the pails of the farm. They flung themselves upon the well. It was a leisurely old machine, long dwelling in indolence. It was in the habit of giving out water with a sort of reluctance. The men stormed at it, cursed it; but it continued to allow the buckets to be filled only after the wheezy windlass had howled many protests at ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... and where coercive laws are yet in a degree destitute of vigor, where the climate and manners can add but little to their energy, where the spirit of party, private interest, slowness and national indolence, slacken, suspend, and overthrow the best concerted measures; although so situated he has found out a method of keeping his troops in the most absolute subordination; making them rivals in praising him; fearing him when he is silent, and retaining their full confidence ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... growing more sure, not of himself but of his duty toward men, he took part in the political and social affairs of his province with the confidence of an upright and pure heart, never able to understand how stupidity, perverseness, pride, and indolence, by leaguing themselves together, may check the finest and most righteous impulses. He had the faith which removes mountains, and was wholly free from that touch of scepticism, so common in our day, which points ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... Reverie, or, as some term it, the brown study, a sort of middle state between waking and sleeping; in which, though our eyes are open, our senses seem to be entirely shut up, and we are quite insensible of every thing about us, yet we are all the while engaged in a musing indolence of thought, or a supine and lolling kind of roving from one fairy scene to another, without any self-command; from which, if any noise or accident rouse us, we wake as from a real dream, and are often as much at ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... elementary schools. If we must believe the Abbe de Latour and other writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the children of the early colonists, skilful in manual labour, showed, nevertheless, great indolence of mind. "In general," writes Latour, "Canadian children have intelligence, memory and facility, and they make rapid progress, but the fickleness of their character, a dominant taste for liberty, and their hereditary and natural inclination for physical exercise ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... of the pavements, the dull gray of the sidewalks, all looked inhospitable and forbidding. Few vehicles were yet in motion—distributors of necessities, of ice, of milk, of vegetables—and they partook of the general indolence. The horses' ears swayed listlessly, or were set back in dogged endurance. The drivers lounged stolidly in their seats. Even the few passengers on the monotonously droning cars but added to the impression of tacit conformity to the inevitable. Poorly dressed as a rule, tired looking, they ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... acknowledged, no ordinary trial to even the most fertile genius; and Mr. Fox, it is said, hopeless of any second flight ever rising to the grand elevation of the first, advised that the former Speech should be, with very little change, repeated. But such a plan, however welcome it might be to the indolence of his friend, would have looked too like an acknowledgment of exhaustion on the subject to be submitted to by one so justly confident in the resources both of his reason and fancy. Accordingly, he had the glory of again opening, in the very same field, a new and abundant spring of eloquence, which, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... Marcia," he told her softly as he comfortably exhaled a cloud of blue smoke, and his delicate lips fell into a smile of contentment. His troubles were for the moment being assuaged in the effortless indolence of the lotus-eaters. He looked at her through half-closed lids, studying the face that smiled at him. Yes, she was giving him her strength. He would go back tomorrow ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... were deeply-rooted. He could not get on with people; at twenty-three years old, with an unquenchable thirst for love in his shy heart, he had never yet dared to look one woman in the face. With his intellect, clear and sound, but somewhat heavy, with his tendencies to obstinacy, contemplation, and indolence he ought from his earliest years to have been thrown into the stream of life, and he had been kept instead in artificial seclusion. And now the magic circle was broken, but he continued to remain within it, prisoned and pent up within himself. It was ridiculous ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... Governor, Velasquez, determined to despatch a force to explore this new land. After much intriguing and in consideration of the payment of a considerable sum of money toward the expenses, Cortes whose ambitious spirit had already wearied of a life of peace and indolence, contrived to persuade Velasquez to appoint him Captain General of the expedition. Before the ships sailed, however, Velasquez repented him of the appointment, for in Cortes he recognized a servant who might well become his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... over, and discoursed and answered him in my head as I went in the morning to the College. I am by nature a doer and only by the way a critic; his philosophical assertion of the incalculable vagueness of life which fitted his natural indolence roused my more irritable and energetic nature to active protests. "It's all so pointless," I said, "because people are slack and because it's in the ebb of an age. But you're a socialist. Well, let's bring that about! And there's ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... few flagrant Instances, in which I have observed most Learned Men have suffer'd themselves to be deceived, and consequently led their Readers into Error: and This for want of the Help of Literal Criticism: in some, thro' Indolence and Inadvertence: in others, perhaps, thro' an absolute Contempt of It. If the Subject may seem to invite this Digression, I hope, the Use and Application will serve ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... they were, they could not understand how the work which would have seemed like play to them could be such a burden to their little sister; and they sometimes sadly added to her discontent by making light of her troubles, and ascribing to indolence and peevishness the complaints which, too often, ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the triumphs of Miss Edgeworth which worked in me emulation, and disturbed my indolence. I chanced actually to engage in a work which formed a sort of essay piece, and gave me hope that I might in time become free of the craft of romance-writing, and ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... were taught to consider such deeds as justifiable and praiseworthy. She saw in them, for the moment, only the descendants of the ancient Greeks; and in form and feature, and even in dress, how slight the change. Alas! that their own indolence and effeminacy should have reduced them so low that they should become the slaves of despots, and thus have all the vices inherent in a state of slavery. Nina and Ada did not venture down into the bay among the crowd, but stood apart on a ledge, raised some thirty or forty feet above the ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... immediate emancipation, whether by an individual or a community, has in no instance been attended with violence and disorder on the part of the emancipated; but that on the contrary it has promoted cheerfulness, industry, and laudable ambition in the place of sullen discontent, indolence, and despair. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... impression on all who see him. Clumsy one-sided postures, fidgeting on a chair, slouching while sitting or standing, moving along at a shambling gait and speaking with the chin down on the chest produce quite the opposite effect. Right or wrong, they are taken as a sign of indolence, fatigue, or inattention. There is always an hour for complete physical relaxation, for stretching and letting the muscles melt; Winston Churchill attributed a large part of his vigor and recuperative powers to the habit ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... sinlessly stand still. 'Conversion' is turning round. What do we turn round for? Surely, in order that we may travel on in the new direction, not that we may stay where we are. There is also the hindrance of mere indolence, and there is the hindrance arising from absorption in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... but though in turns they all tried to satisfy his curiosity, they could not succeed in conveying very distinct notions to his mind; partly because there was nothing in the tower to which they could compare the external world, partly because, having chiefly lived lives of seclusion and indolence in Eastern palaces, they knew it only by ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... Herein lies one of the great obstacles to mental efficiency. Tell a man that he should join a memory class, and he will hum and haw, and say, as I have already remarked, that memory isn't everything; and, in short, he won't join the memory class, partly from indolence, I grant, but more from false shame. (Is not this true?) He will even hesitate about learning things by heart. Yet there are few mental exercises better than learning great poetry or prose by heart. Twenty lines a week for six months: what a "cure" for debility! The chief, but not the only, merit ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... from the rail and went to her stateroom and dressed for dinner. She did not give her toilet any particular care. There was no thought of conquest, no thought of dazzling the man in khaki. It was the indolence and carelessness of the East, where clothes become only necessities and are no ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... which the book proves to contain—its constant stress on the stupidity of "good" people; its scorn for the respectable and normal, which it often reduces to little more than sanctimonious routine and indolence and pious resentment at being disturbed in one's complacent assurances. Indeed, much of its teaching appears downright immoral according ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... minds, and so thoroughly did the sight of the houses in the distance, and the adjacent hills, divert their thoughts, (from such an attempt,) that, a murmur having arisen in every direction throughout the entire camp, "why they should waste time in indolence without booty in a wild and desert land, amid the putrid decay of cattle and of human beings, when they might repair to places uninjured by infection, the Tusculan territory abounding in wealth?" they suddenly ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... and Peru. Wealth and indolence and degeneration. And the East is nearer the commerce of the world. Oh, the old Pilgrim fathers didn't go so far out of the ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... through his nose and teeth, it was difficult to say whether by nature or habit, but that gave to his speech a character of contemptuousness and indolence. ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... the death of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson made some remarks about Henry's indolence, and his indisposition to write out things. A little more insight, or less prejudice, would have shown that Patrick Henry's plan was only Nature's scheme for the conservation of forces, and at the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... in her teens knows that there lie hidden in the recesses of her armoire, the robes and coronet and full insignia of a first-rate novelist. She may not choose to take them out and air them, the crown may tarnish by disuse, the moth of indolence may corrupt, but there lies the panoply in which she may on any day appear fully dight, for the astonishment of an awakening world. Jane Austen and Maria Edgworth are heroines, whose aureoles shine in the painted windows ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... is true, without much or any cultivation raise several useful trees and plants; but they are in very small quantities, and immediately about their villages, where the ground is fertilised in spite of their indolence by the common sweepings of their houses and streets and the mere vicinity of their buildings. I have often had occasion to observe in young plantations that those few trees which surrounded the house of the owner or the hut of the keeper considerably over-topped ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... to toy with the little green stone attached to his watch-chain. His deep, oval-shaped eyes were fixed upon the flames, but behind the superficial glaze seemed to brood an observant and whimsical spirit, which kept the brown of the eye still unusually vivid. But a look of indolence, the result of skepticism or of a taste too fastidious to be satisfied by the prizes and conclusions so easily within his grasp, lent him an expression almost of melancholy. After sitting thus for a time, he seemed to reach some point in his thinking which demonstrated ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... they call Nyctiporus, {136d} and round the gates two fountains: the name of one is Negretos, {137a} and of the other Pannychia. {137b} The city has a high wall, of all the colours of the rainbow. It has not two gates, as Homer {137c} tells us, but four; two of which look upon the plain of Indolence, one made of iron, the other of brick; through these are said to pass all the dreams that are frightful, bloody, and melancholy; the other two, fronting the sea and harbour, one of horn, the other, which we came through, of ivory; on the right ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... to discover that of a group of several lions, two or three besides the wounded animal are quite likely to take up the quarrel and charge too. In other words, in my opinion, the lion avoids trouble when he can, not from cowardice but from essential indolence or good nature; but does not need to be cornered* to fight to the death when in his mind his dignity ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... traveller. Formerly, when he reconsidered at night the behaviour of the family, he used to be able to account for all their actions, and could testify that their time was virtuously and wisely employed, without the least alloy from caprice, indolence, or inconsiderateness. Dr. Beaumont and Constantia went at their appointed hour to visit the villagers; Mrs. Mellicent sorted her simples, compounded her medicines, and examined her patients; Isabel superintended the domestic management.—Williams was caterer, gardener and ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... fifteen leagues in circumference and six leagues wide. It may have about four hundred inhabitants, and its villages are built around rough and dangerous estuaries. There is only one encomendero. The people are poor because of their indolence; for although there are numerous small islets near this island, which contain many gold-placers, they do not work them. They give as a reason that, if the corsairs should discover that they were working these mines, they would ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... living in the village, where the young men, finding plenty of small game to support life, and yielding to the languor and indolence produced by a summer's sun, played at checker's, or drank, or slept, from morn till night, and seemed to forget that they were the greatest warriors and hunters in the world. This did very well for a time; but, as I said, Chaske got tired ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... up like a lioness; the indolence, the dreamy quietude of the creole, had suddenly vanished, and Josephine was now a resolute, energetic woman, anxious to risk every thing, to try every thing, so as to save her husband, the father of her children. She now knew no timidity, no trembling, no fear, no horror; every thing ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... that to his inner conscience he also was not clear of blame. Had he, then, in any degree sanctioned the injustice which sometimes he must have witnessed? Far from it; he had been roused from his habitual indolence into energetic expressions of anger; he had put an end to the wrong, when it came openly before him. I had myself heard him say on many occasions, with patriarchal fervor, "Woman, they are your children, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... and mother gave him many gentle reminders of his failing, and many were the struggles which he had with his dreamy indolence. Sometimes, when in accordance with a plan laid down by his mother's advice, he sat down to study for a stated time, he would open the book, and, after leaning over it for half an hour, find that he had built himself a nice little parsonage and school, and established ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... is the same in the thought realm as in lifeless nature, vis inertiae—the law of indolence, according to which nature remains in its condition to all eternity, until she is forced into some new condition from a new cause. This vis inertiae is harder to conquer in the thought realm than in lifeless nature, for Mesmer appeared a hundred years ago, and yet to-day they ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... said the delegation in conclusion, "is himself the principal author of his own distresses and misfortunes. The contempt into which he has fallen and the disgrace which, through him, is reflected upon the empire, is derived from his own indolence and his obstinacy in following perverse counsels. He might have escaped all these calamities if, instead of resigning himself to corrupt and interested ministers, he had followed the salutary ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Porthos, in a state of the highest delight, embraced Truchen, who gathered him a pailful of the strawberries, and made him eat them out of her hands. D'Artagnan, who arrived in the midst of these little innocent flirtations, scolded Porthos for his indolence, and silently pitied Planchet. Porthos breakfasted with a very good appetite, and when he had finished, he said, looking at Truchen, "I could make myself very happy here." Truchen smiled at his remark, and so did Planchet, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... robbery nor clever murders, nor lewdness, incest, adultery, or other crimes of which we accuse one another, can be found. They accuse themselves of ingratitude and malignity when any one denies a lawful satisfaction to another, of indolence, of sadness, of anger, of scurrility, of slander, and of lying, which curseful thing they thoroughly hate. Accused persons undergoing punishment are deprived of the common table, and other honours, until the judge thinks that they ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... and that a man often pays dear for a small frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained any thing who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? Has he gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbor's wares, or horses, or money? There arises on the deed the instant acknowledgment of benefit on the one part and of debt on the other; that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in the memory of himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... life becomes sometimes intolerable to me. I can see nothing in it that is not tarnished and flecked with black stains of egotism, pride, hardness, moral indolence. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of such a character. He was a clever man, who might have risen in his profession but for his easy-going indolence. I spent many an hour in his cabin. He was a sportsman and a skilled raconteur. His anecdotes helped to while the weary time away. He exaggerated persistently, but this did not disturb me. Besides, if in his narratives he lengthened out the ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... plump and still pretty, reclined upon a large gilded bed. Its splendid silk coverlet and pillows cased in embroidery and lace made an effective background for her. She leaned with a luxurious indolence among them, sipping chocolate and smoking a cigarrito. Isabel was on a couch of the same description. She wore a satin petticoat, and a loose linen waist richly trimmed with lace. It showed her beautiful shoulders and arms to perfection. ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... princes have great playthings. Some have played At hewing mountains into men, and some At building human wonders mountain high. Some have amused the dull sad years of life (Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad) With schemes of monumental fame, and sought By pyramids and mausoleum pomp, Short-lived themselves, to immortalise their bones. Some seek diversion in the tented field, And make the sorrows of mankind their sport. But ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... should realise that these foreign machines are not a temporary and incidental advantage that we can make good by fussing and demanding eight, and saying we won't wait, and so on, and then subsiding into indolence again. They are just the first-fruits of a steady, enduring lead that the foreigner has won. The foreigner is ahead of us in education, and this is especially true of the middle and upper classes, from which invention and enterprise come—or, in our own case, ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... not the key to his virtues, nor the spell for his vices. Neither was the state to which poverty compelled them one well calculated for that tender meditation, heightened by absence and cherished in indolence, which so often supplies one who loves with the secret to the nature of the one beloved. Though not equal to her husband in birth or early prospects, Mrs. Welford had been accustomed to certain comforts, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was not a horse in our remuda unfit for the saddle. In fact, after reaching the Indian Territory, they took on flesh and played like lambs. With the exception of long hours and night-herding, the days passed in seeming indolence as we swept northward, crossing rivers without a halt which in previous years had defied the moving herds. On arriving at the Cimarron River, in reply to a letter written to my employer on leaving Texas behind us, an answer was found awaiting me at Red ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... could trust Waterman. In spite of his slackness—in spite of his indolence—he could be relied on to keep his word. In fact, he had one or two good qualities in reserve. If he made no close friendships, he had no enemies. "It was too great a trouble," he would have told you. "Too great a fag." That was only half the ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... plain-rangers, with all the savage instincts of the wild beast and few of the brutal impulses of the beastly man. The descendants of French fathers and Indian mothers, they inherited all the quick, fiery daring of the Frenchman, all the endurance, craft and courage of the Indian, and all the indolence of both white man and red. One might cut his enemy's throat and wash his hands in the life blood, or spend years in accomplishing revenge; but it is a question if there is a single instance on record of a Bois-Brule molesting an enemy's ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... and presently they heard her exclaiming, gaily, 'Captain Morville, I really must scold you. You are setting a shocking example of laziness! Aunt Edmonstone, how can you encourage such proceedings! Indolence is the ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the old immortal Indolence of life once more; Not recalling nor foreseeing, Let the great slow joys of being Well my heart through as of yore! Let me taste the old immortal ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... mean." Miss Howe leaned back in her chair with her head among its cushions, and sent her words fluently across the room, straight and level with the glance from between her half-closed eyelids. A fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence it was possible to enjoy in the East clung about her. "To live on a plane that lifts you up like that—so that you can defy all criticism and all convention, and go about the streets like a mark of exclamation at the selfishness ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... laid by for years. One gets rusty in this part of the country, you know. Not you, Casaubon; you stick to your studies; but my best ideas get undermost—out of use, you know. You clever young men must guard against indolence. I was too indolent, you know: else I might have been ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... CARMICHAEL, of determining their distinct pathological characteristics, and applying the remedies accordingly, is the only one likely to subvert the empirical routine of prescribing mercury on all occasions, a practice which derives such strong support both from the indolence and prejudices of ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... that the functions of life are restrained; late hours, filled with excitement and feasting; free draughts of wine, that make one not beastly intoxicated, but only fashionably drunk; and luxurious indolence—are the instruments by which this unreal life pushes its disciples into valetudinarianism and the grave. Along the walks of high life Death goes a mowing—and such harvests as are reaped! Materia medica has been exhausted to find curatives for these physiological ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... flows. Idlers always choose a bridge for their place of meditation when they can get it; and, failing that, you will find them sitting on the edge of a quay or embankment, with their feet hanging over the water. What a piquant mingling of indolence and vivacity you can enjoy by the river-side! The best point of view in Rome, to my taste, is the Ponte San Angelo; and in Florence or Pisa I never tire of loafing along the Lung' Arno. You do not know London until you have seen it from the Thames. ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... had much power of expression or of strenuous thought. I was extremely susceptible and impressible, moved by beauty of any kind, but never at all ambitious or in any way creative. I was easily stimulated to work, and then loved to work; but, unless the stimulus were maintained the natural indolence of my disposition asserted itself, and I wasted my powers in dreams and trifles. My memory was very quick and retentive, in the main, but curiously capricious. I always lacked initiative and decision. At college my successes were continued. I gained medals and prizes, passed my examinations ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... this, but I do regret the indolence, the idleness of mind succeeding such trivial exertions. For then there were no resolutions to make, no characters to study, and, above all, no responsibility to bear, nothing to choose, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... always more or less at the mercy of the vicious and indolent, and the only protection against this lies in the right of individual ownership. In a general community of goods, there might be some means of preventing or punishing flagrant misdemeanors, but what protection could there be against indolence? Those who were ready and willing to work would have to bear ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... of the climate requires nothing more than shade from the sun, and occasionally shelter from a violent storm: the outer arcade affords them both; it becomes the nightly lounge and daily dormitory of its inhabitant, and the interior is abandoned to filth and decay. Indolence watches the tooth of Time with careless eye and nerveless hand. Religion, or its abuse, reduces every individual of the population to utter inactivity three days out of the seven; and the habits formed in the three regulate the four. Abject poverty takes away the power, while brutish ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... December 1751. He studied at Harvard from 1766 to 1768, when he went to sea as a cabin boy. He gradually became a ship-owner and a successful merchant, retiring from business in 1794. Throughout his life he was much interested in politics, and though his temperamental indolence and his aversion for public life often prevented his accepting office, he exercised, as a contributor to the press and through his friendships, a powerful political influence, especially in New England. He was a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... younger than Isabella; she was handsome, but her countenance, at first view, gave the idea of hopeless indolence; she did not learn the French and Italian irregular verbs by rote as expeditiously as her sister, and her impatient preceptress pronounced, with an irrevocable nod, that Miss Matilda was no genius. The phrase was ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... marked his conduct. They spoke in laughing scorn of the second Edward's efforts to lay his father's yoke anew upon their necks; they said a just heaven had interfered and urged him to waste the decisive moment of action in indolence and folly, in the flatteries of his favorite, to the utter exclusion of those wiser lords, whose counsels, if followed on the instant, might have shaken even the wise and patriot Bruce. Yet they were so devoted to their sovereign, they idolized him alike as a warrior and a man too deeply, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... interpret and execute them without any exertion of her own. Bessy combined great zeal in the pursuit of sport—a tireless passion for the saddle, the golf-course, the tennis-court—with an almost oriental inertia within doors, an indolence of body and brain that made her shrink from the active obligations of hospitality, though she had grown to depend more and more on the ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... idiosyncrasy. This little car, for instance, isn't pulling as she ought to pull—she never does. She's low in her class. So with myself; there is a natural and necessary high rate of energy waste. Moods of apathy and indolence are natural to me. (Damn that omnibus! ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... assigned to Summer the placid lake, &c. not because that image is never seen, or enjoyed, at any other season; but on account of its affecting us more in Summer, than either in the Spring, or in Autumn; the indolence and languor generally then experienced disposing us to dwell with particular delight on such an object of repose, not to mention the grateful idea of coolness derived from a knowledge of its temperature. Thus also the evening cloud, exhibiting a fleeting representation of ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... voluntary labour, as well as to make the sudden change to freedom unsafe for the peace of the community. The fact soon dispersed these opinions. Antigua in a minute emancipated all her slaves to the number of thirty thousand and upwards. Not a complaint was ever heard of idleness or indolence; and, far from any breach of the peace being induced by the sudden change in the condition of the people, the Christmas of 1833 was the first, for the last twenty years, that martial law was not proclaimed, in order ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... until these are withdrawn, and placed by themselves. It includes, besides, a number of original drawings which are indeed of value to any laborious student of Michael Angelo's life and temper; but which owe the greater part of this interest to their being executed in times of sickness or indolence, when the master, however strong, was failing in his purpose, and, however diligent, tired of his work. It will be enough to name, as an example of this class, the sheet of studies for the Medici tombs, No. 45, in which the lowest figure ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... across the Narrows, where the overlooker of a salt estate he had bought awaited him with a horse. Once he would have thought nothing of walking the eight miles to Basseterre, but the Tropics, while they sharpen the nerves, caress unceasingly the indolence of man. During the hurricane season he crossed as often as he thought necessary, for with expert oarsmen there was little danger, even from squalls, and ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... that produces tramps. A few days' growth of beard, the tolerance of certain personal habits of indolence, and your tramp begins, vaguely, but none the less surely, to appear. This is accompanied by a falling off in clear-cut thought, a blurring of the moralities, and a cessation of definite and effective ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... the Reign of James the First have fully entitled her to the privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of those privileges we hold to be this, that such writers, when, either from the unlucky choice of a subject, or from the indolence too often produced by success, they happen to fail, shall not be subjected to the severe discipline which it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon dunces and impostors, but shall merely be reminded by a gentle touch, like that which the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that, having visited another and newer sphere of England's influence, Egypt to wit, in 1889, I should then determine that, when I could study the country at leisure, I should try to write of the life there, so full of splendour and of primitive simplicity; of mystery and guilt; of cruel indolence and beautiful industry; of tyranny and devoted slavery; of the high elements of a true democracy and the shameful practices of a false autocracy; all touched off by the majesty of an ancient charm, the nobility of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... spear which one of the savages threw at him, under the influence of a momentary apprehension. Another evil to which the colony was subjected, arose from the pressure of occasional scarcity, which relaxed the sinews of industry, where it did exist, or strengthened the pretexts of indolence: when men were reduced from a plentiful allowance, to a weekly ration, which scarcely sufficed to preserve existence; when the storehouses were almost empty of provisions, and the boundless ocean presented no object of relief to the aching and strained eyes ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... compromise obviously turns upon the placing of the boundary that divides wise suspense in forming opinions, wise reserve in expressing them, and wise tardiness in trying to realise them, from unavowed disingenuousness and self-illusion, from voluntary dissimulation, and from indolence and pusillanimity. These are the three departments or provinces of compromise. Our subject is a question of boundaries.[1] And this question, being mainly one of time and circumstance, may be most satisfactorily discussed in relation to the time and the circumstances which ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... a new element into the friendship between the lodge and the second floor, and Schmucke concluded a bargain which satisfied his indolence and desire for a life without cares. For thirty sous per day, or forty-five francs per month, Mme. Cibot undertook to provide Schmucke with breakfast and dinner; and Pons, finding his friend's breakfast very much to his mind, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... failure can result from the mental attitude which we designate variously as laziness, indifference, indolence, apathy, shiftlessness, and lack of interest. All business successes are due in part to the attitudes which we call industry, perseverance, interest, application, enthusiasm, ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... was carried to the greatest extreme, and a noble would blush to enter into any friendly relations whatever with a plebeian. The nobles considered all business degrading excepting war, and spent the weary months, when not under arms, in indolence in their castles. The young women of the higher families were in a deplorable state of captivity. Etiquette did not allow them to mingle with society, or even to be seen except by their parents, and they had no employment except ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... is a pride that apes humility, so there is an egotism that apes selfishness, a cowardice that apes stoicism and an indolence that apes effort. This is especially apparent in matters pertaining ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... but slowly, for the proving of a theory often requires work on a huge scale carried out for several decades. The husbandry of the earth goes on from century to century with little change, and the methods followed are the winnowings of experience, tempered with indolence. And even with the bewildering progress of science in other directions, sound improvements in this field are rare discoveries. There is great scope for the application of physical and chemical knowledge to the production of the raw materials of the tropics. In one or two instances ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... the administration of government, even when in many smaller matters grievous to them, and until the essentials of the great compact are destroyed or invaded. These peculiar causes might operate upon them; but without these, we all know, that human nature itself, from indolence, modesty, humanity or fear, has always too much reluctance to a manly assertion of its rights. Hence perhaps it has happened, that nine-tenths of the species, are groaning and gasping ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... called, were accused of aiming at reaction and the restoration of the absolute monarchy. As a matter of fact, this is what many of them desired; they were, however, only doing their duty as members of society; it would have been mere cowardice and indolence had they remained inactive and seen all the institutions they valued overthrown without attempting to defend them. It required considerable courage in the middle of so violent a crisis to come forward and attempt to stop the revolution; it was a good example that they began to do so by constitutional ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... Terrier, with its well-groomed coat that falls in smooth cascades down its sides, and its veil of thick hair that obscures the tender softness of its dark and thoughtful eyes, is meant only to look beautiful upon the bench or to recline in comfortable indolence on silken cushions. This is a mistake. See a team of Skyes racing up a hillside after a fugitive rabbit, tirelessly burrowing after a rat, or displaying their terrier strategy around a fox's earth or an otter's holt, and you will admit that they are meant for sport, and are demons at it. Even ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... many respects the fac-simile of our Charles the Second. Like Charles, he was a good-natured man, uttl destitute of sensibility. Like Charles, he had good natural talents, which a deplorable indolence rendered useless to the state. Like Charles, he thought all men corrupted and interested, and yet did not dislike them for being so. His opinion of human nature was Gulliver's; but he did not regard human nature ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sun-screen, Vedrine calmly uttered these strong remarks, without the slightest play of feature in his broad face, pale and puffy like that of an Indian idol. Only the tiny laughing eyes broke the general expression of dreamy indolence. ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... glorious work of slavery, by securing to the king, for the present, and after him to the duke, absolute and uncontrollable power. They who, either because Charles had been called a forgiving prince by his flatterers (upon what ground I could never discover), or from some supposed connection between indolence and good nature, had deceived themselves into a hope that his tyranny would be of the milder sort, found themselves ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... really overtasked with necessary work; but usually our hurry comes from our ambition or our indolence. If love were really first with us, we should find time ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... to attempt keeping notes or memorandums, by way of a diary of his life. I find, in a parcel of loose leaves, the following spirited resolution to contend against his natural indolence: ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... by comprehensiveness. And this, I repeat, is also a characteristic of human life. When the consideration of the brevity of our mortal existence excites us to diligence it is well; but when we make it an argument for indolence, disgust, and despair, we should be reminded of the fact I am now endeavoring to illustrate,—the fact that even the briefest life contains a great deal, and means a great deal; and that, if we estimate things by a spiritual standard, a man's earthly being may contain ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... Law of the Athenians. What Parents should consider in their selection of an Occupation for their Children. Injudicious Course of some Parents. Fruits of Disobedience to the Law of Adaptation. Social Position. Exigencies. But one Pursuit. Jack of All Trades. Loaferism. Fruits of Indolence. ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... (Ep. xlviii ad Eudox.): "If Mother Church requires your service, neither accept with greedy conceit, nor refuse with fawning indolence"; and afterwards he adds: "Nor prefer your ease to the needs of the Church: for if no good men were willing to assist her in her labor, you would seek in vain how we could be born ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Bellingham happened to be one of a line of boats owned by Joe Powers, perhaps because both of them were very attractive young women. They were types entirely outside Farnum's very limited experience. The indolence, the sheathed perfection, the soft sensuous allure of the young widow seemed to Jeff a product largely of her father's wealth. But the charm of her cousin, with its sweet and mocking smile, its note ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... friends. In one of them she writes: "Some of these poor Burmans, who are daily carried to the grave, may at last reproach me and say, you came, it is true, to the city where we dwelt, to tell of heaven and hell, but wasted much, much of your precious time in indolence while learning our language. And when you were able to speak, why were you not incessantly telling us of this day of doom, when we visited you? Why, oh why did you ever speak of any other thing, while we were ignorant of this most momentous of all truths? How could you think on anything ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... very ungracious for me to criticise your friend; that is a thing which most of us fail to bear patiently. But I cannot let you hold her up as an ideal to be worshipped, or ask the girls to admire as a piece of self-denial what I fear was nothing but indolence and self- gratification. You are too young to talk of these things very much; but you are not too young to make up your mind that when you agree to live all your life long with a person, you must have some other ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in his own fate gave him an appearance of indolence, almost of languor: he made no exuberant movement. When he sat down, he ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... this is not all. As art seems thus, in its delicate form, to be one of the chief promoters of indolence and sensuality,—so, I need hardly remind you, it hitherto has appeared only in energetic manifestation when it was in the service of superstition. The four greatest manifestations of human intellect which founded the four principal ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... this was one of the immediate causes of the Monterist Revolution. This will appear less incredible by the reflection that the fundamental causes were the same as ever, rooted in the political immaturity of the people, in the indolence of the upper classes and the mental darkness of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Promiscuous association of the sexes is prohibited in order that man may be different from the lower animals, and shall know his father and other relatives that he may show them honor and kindness. Universal stealing would lead to indolence, and in the end would destroy itself when there is nothing more to steal. In a similar way we can explain all laws relating to ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... exercise of the affections which really belongs to a scene of moral discipline. Such an exercise is adapted to every situation in life, and tends to guard a man, in his various relations, against the hindrances which indolence, self-love, and pure inattention are apt to bring in the way of his peculiar duties,—and of his discharging them with due regard to the feelings ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... of his having been so long a housekeeper, he was entitled to that provision. In short, his talents were not naturally active, and there was a sort of inconsistency in his character; for, with all the desire of amassing which any citizen could possibly entertain, he was encumbered by a certain indolence and sluggishness that prevailed over every interested consideration, and even hindered him from profiting by that singleness of apprehension, and moderation of appetites, which have so frequently conduced to the acquisition of immense fortunes; qualities which he possessed in a very ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of omission, childish depravities, made real only by the decalogue. Of indolence, selfishness, unkindness, she accused herself; strove to count the times when she had ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... natives and the Americans. The vessels employed to perform the voyage are always double manned, and once on the shores of California, usually half if the crew deserts. Accustomed to a warm climate and to a life of indolence, they find themselves perfectly comfortable and happy in the new country. They engage themselves now and then as journeymen, to fold the hides, and, with their earnings, they pass a life of inebriety singularly contrasting ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... wise! A spirited courage is required to triumph over the impediments that the indolence of nature as well as the cowardice of the heart oppose to our instruction. It was not without reason that the ancient Mythos made Minerva issue fully armed from the head of Jupiter, for it is with warfare that this instruction commences. From its very outset it has to sustain a hard fight ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... supplied the indolence of Constantius with specious reasons for deferring the prosecution of the war till the ensuing spring. Magnentius had fixed his residence in the city of Aquileia, and showed a seeming resolution to dispute the passage of the mountains and morasses which fortified the confines ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... to this trouble others were added. At first Kali was stung at the river below by wild bees to which he was led by a small gray-greenish bird, well-known in Africa and called bee-guide. The black boy, through indolence, did not smoke out the bees sufficiently and returned with honey, but so badly stung and swollen that an hour later he lost all consciousness. The "Good Mzimu," with Mea's aid, extracted stings from him until night ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a project for some gain far off in the future, and concoct, for its realization, schemes subtly woven, astutely guarded. But he could not secure their success by any long-sustained sacrifices of the caprice of one hour or the indolence of the next. If it had been a great object to him for life to win Sophy's filial affection, he would not have bored himself for five minutes each day to gain that object. Besides, he had just enough of shame to render him uneasy ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by the long lace on the sleeves, and his chief pastime was card-playing. It was but reasonable therefore, when the troubles with the mother country began, that he chose the King's side alike from indolence and contempt ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill |
