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Insecurity   /ˌɪnsɪkjˈʊrɪti/   Listen
Insecurity

noun
(pl. insecurities)
1.
The state of being subject to danger or injury.
2.
The anxiety you experience when you feel vulnerable and insecure.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Insecurity" Quotes from Famous Books



... Harrison, and maintained a fire which riddled his premises. These men attempted to fortify themselves by erecting stone fences on the peak of a hill at the Macquarie: there they were surprised and taken. The insecurity of the prisons, and the mode of disposing of respited offenders, made it not unlikely that an officious witness would be called to a future account: thus an old man, who prosecuted a burglar, was visited by the culprit when he returned from Macquarie Harbour; ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... crouched and peered over the crest, was what she might have expected—yet one can never become quite used to such pictures as that! Below was the first-line trench, deserted since the third division had been sent forward, and its emptiness gave her a feeling of insecurity. She would have preferred a visual line of stalwart fellows between her and the maddened enemy, instead of one that had gone into the smoke. She looked back to see if another division were coming up, but the intervening world seemed ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... disbelieve his authorship as much as I do myself. I say this not as imputing any blame to the true author, such hoaxes being fair election jokes in all time, but merely to put the saddle off the wrong horse, and to give one more instance of the insecurity of imputed authorship. Had Mr. Sheepshanks ever told me that he had perpetrated the hoax, I should have had no hesitation in giving it to him. I consider all clever election squibs, free from bitterness and personal ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... be met with a flat denial of facts, loyal-heartedly and confidently given; then would come a suspicion that there might be something in it, the inquiry which would show that this was really the case; then a certain right indignation, "Why was I not told the truth?" and a sense of insecurity vaguely disturbing the foundations which ought to be on immovable bed-rock. At the best, such an experience produces what builders call a "settlement," not dangerous to the fabric but unsightly in its consequences; it may, ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... the man who never tolerated an enemy in his presence. Burleson and Travis were talking under the shade of a China tree, and there were little groups of American soldiers on every street; this was what he saw, and yet a terrible sense of insecurity oppressed him. ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... on!—on!—the traffic pounded, for the most part in the opposite direction; a vast, never-ending source of sound, it seemed to soothe momentarily his sense of insecurity. Time passed; he had, apparently, evaded his pursuers; he told himself he might, after all, meet the problem confronting him; meet and conquer. It would be a hard battle; but once in that part of the city he was striving to reach, he might find those willing to offer ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... air of slatty insecurity and the sight of a basket of ancient cobs in one corner, Kenny wished passionately that he hadn't always hated spiders, killed one with a shudder and pensively watched the sunset through the corncrib bars. It made him think of flamingoes in flight. One saw that best in India, flocks and flocks of ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... once. The rolling of a stone, or the parting of stirrup, girth, or crupper, would have involved the safety of one's neck. Nor did the very common sight of wooden crosses along the path, indicating sudden death by accident or crime, tend to lessen the sense of insecurity. The frequent casualties among these precipitous paths, together with the healthfulness of the climate, have made it a proverb, that it is a natural death, at St. Antonio, to be dashed to pieces on the rocks. But such ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... get far in the arts without healthy doses of both ego and insecurity, and the downside of being able to google up all the things that people are saying about your book is that it can play right into your insecurities — "all these people will have it in their minds not to bother ...
— Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books • Cory Doctorow

... begged for an interview. She had money in the Post Office Savings Bank, and thereanent required advice, asking if it would be safe till to-morrow! Following up this hint, pregnant with meaning, though delivered in jest, I found that the feeling of insecurity is spreading like wild fire, to the intense indignation of those patriots who have no savings, and who are alive to the fact that under the provisions of the proposed Act the four millions supposed to be lying in the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... century would Prosper Merimee have been a theologian or metaphysician. But that sense of negation, of theoretic insecurity, was in the air, and conspiring with what was of like tendency in himself made of him a central type of disillusion. In him the passive ennui of Obermann became a satiric, aggressive, almost angry conviction of the littleness ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... summer, and making other improvements around it, indicating his design of having a permanent and inviting home, it so happened that a company of settlers in passing by, paused to view with astonishment what was going on. From a feeling of insecurity they had just abandoned their new locations in this region, and had come thus far on their way, having resolved to return to the more safe and quiet homes they had left at the east. But beholding the enterprise of Mr. Morris, ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... of insecurity concerning one's possessions in the Neversink, which the things just narrated begat in the minds of honest men, was curiously exemplified in the case of my poor friend Lemsford, a gentlemanly young member of the After-Guard. I had very early made the acquaintance of Lemsford. It is curious, how ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... of her composure but at these words she felt that staggering sense of utter insecurity which is given one by the first tremor of an earthquake. It was followed by an expectant stillness of sensations. She remained silent. He thought she did not ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... necessary in the beginning of 1811 to confer the Regency on the Prince of Wales; and the Whig sympathies of the Prince threatened for a while the Cabinet with dismissal. Though this difficulty was surmounted their hold of power remained insecure, and the insecurity of the ministry told on the conduct of the war; for the apparent inactivity of Wellington during 1811 was really due to the hesitation and timidity of the Cabinet at home. But in May 1812 the assassination of Perceval by a madman named Bellingham brought about the dissolution ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... strong contrast to his hair, were quite black, with thin, delicately-drawn eyebrows above them. They scintillated with a peculiar light which, though not offensive, yet gave anyone looking at him an uncomfortable feeling of insecurity. The young man's hands, though hardened and discoloured, were yet finely formed, while even the coarse, heavy boots he wore could not disguise the delicacy of his feet. He was dressed in a rough blue suit of clothes, all torn and much stained by sea water, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... once as fair to the eye as that which he had raised with such labor and forethought, and as he contemplated these, Doubt, Distrust, and their companions, filled his mind with alarming thoughts, and so oppressed him with a sense of insecurity that, at times, he saw the advancing shadows ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... just telling your uncle, it is a mere matter of form to ask if I have slept. I seldom sleep, especially if I am up-stairs. The servants over my head, it may be,—or if not that, I have the feeling of insecurity,—stairs, you understand, in case of fire. Dear William had my rooms fitted up on the ground floor. 'Sophronia,' he said, 'you must sleep!' I suppose it is necessary, but I am so used to lying awake. Such frightful ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards

... among all ranks, and which have a direct tendency to depreciate property of every kind. Is private credit the friend and patron of industry? That most useful kind which relates to borrowing and lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and this still more from an opinion of insecurity than from the scarcity of money. To shorten an enumeration of particulars which can afford neither pleasure nor instruction, it may in general be demanded, what indication is there of national disorder, poverty, and insignificance that could befall a ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... certainly mean me. I mean the rich and the poor, the successful and the unsuccessful, the idle and the diligent, the luxurious and the austere. For, what with the limits of digestion, the practical impossibility of wearing two neckties at once, the insecurity of investments, the responsibilities of wealth and of success, the exhaustingness of the search for pleasure, and the cheapness of travel—the real differences between one sort of plain man and another are slight in these times. (And indeed they ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett

... murdering the criminal and terribly beating and terrorizing many others not implicated in the crime, proceeded across the county and killed the mother and another relative of the accused. These bloody deeds had the effect of developing in the Negroes a feeling of insecurity of life and thus caused them to seek the North ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... terrible domestic conflict. The North would not consent that four millions of free negroes should live in their midst.... With what justice do we demand that the South should be subjected to the evils, the insecurity, and the loss of constitutional rights, involved in immediate abolition?" Then, dropping into prophecy, the broad, optimistic statesmanship of the forties passed into eclipse as he declared that "we are either to be restored to our former position, with the Constitution ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... actual experience in human consciousness. They hold that in absence of proof in experience—actual "facts"—these premises are not established, and that all structures of reasoning based upon them must partake of their insecurity. These people are like the slangy "man from Missouri" who "wants to be shown"—nay, more, they are like the companion of the above man—the Man from Texas, who not only says: "You've got to show me," but who also demands that the thing be "placed in my hand." And, after ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... doubt calculated to relieve, a feeling of insecurity which his talk had inspired. He blew out his breath and shifted his quid as he sat with his elbows resting on his knees and took another look at the ledges as if considering how much of his strength would be ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... goods exceedingly cheap, in keeping out of the market the goods of his competitors. The predominant character of such a society is vast and boundless wealth, but, on the other hand, a great instability of all relations, an almost continual, anxious insecurity in the position of each individual, together with a very unequal sharing of the returns of production among those ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... done in a day—that same day. Every hour, after the sailing of the Crusader, had he become more anxious; for every hour brought intelligence of some new act of outlawry in the neighbourhood, impressing him with the insecurity, not only of his Penates, but the lives of himself and his ladies. So long as the British ship lay in port, it seemed a protection to him; and although this may have been but fancy, it served somewhat to tranquillise his fears. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... events of every day you will find the flavor of past ages lingering in petty annoyances. The insecurity of the middle ages has left as a legacy to our times a complicated system of obstacles to a man getting into his own house at night. I lived in a pleasant house on the Prado, with a minute garden ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... indisposition. The Cavaliers diverted themselves by prophesying that, as his first fall had been from a coach, the next would be from a cart: to the public, the explosion of the pistol revealed the secret terrors which haunted his mind, that sense of insecurity, those fears of assassination, which are the usual meed ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... Corps Commander (General Sir H. Smith-Dorrien) not only to throw off the pursuit but to effect a junction with the other wing of the British Army. The retreat took place after the First Battle of Le Cateau (August 26, 1914), and during the period of the retreat the insecurity of the British Army through the breakdown of a co-operating force rendered it liable to disaster. But the moral of Marshal French and his commanders, the stubborn fighting instincts of the British race, and the excellence of the musketry training of the Regular Army in times of peace, prevented ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... which had so triumphantly rode the canons of the upper Great Platte,) our present boat was only pasted together in a very insecure manner, the maker having been allowed so little time in the construction, that he was obliged to crowd the labor of two months into several days. The insecurity of the boat was sensibly felt by us; and, mingled with the enthusiasm and excitement that we all felt at the prospect of an undertaking which had never before been accomplished, was a certain impression of danger, sufficient to give a serious character to our conversation. The momentary ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... confess the stress and danger of the time have left an abiding sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind. I sit in my study writing by lamplight, and suddenly I see again the healing valley below set with writhing flames, and feel the house behind and about me empty and desolate. I go out into the Byfleet Road, and vehicles pass me, a butcher boy in a cart, a cabful of visitors, a ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... across the river, satiate themselves with plunder and murder in the British town, and return with their spoils to their own territory, where they were secure from British retaliation. The English general, knowing the insecurity of the mission-house, had urged Mr. B. to remove with his family to the protection of the fort; but his object was to benefit the Burmans, and to do that, ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... to the east of the lake, and endeavored to give support to the army at Fort Erie; but the violence of the weather and the insecurity of the anchorage on both shores, as the autumn drew on, not only prevented effectual co-operation, but seriously threatened the very existence of the fleet, upon which control of the water depended. In an attempt to go to Detroit for re-enforcements for Brown, a gale of wind was encountered which ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... possible. Very possible. Decidedly likely. Some, through lack of experience or understanding, or both, grow hard and bitter on the instant. They feel themselves astonishingly abased in the face of notable tenderness and sacrifice. Others collapse before the grave manifestation of the insecurity and uncertainty of life—the mystic chemistry of our being. Still others, taught roughly by life, or endowed with understanding or intuition, or both, see in this the latest manifestation of that incomprehensible chemistry which we call life and personality, and, knowing that it is quite ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... which he had been fascinated, had they not fallen to pieces like a flower whose petals are scattered in the tempest? Even the burning hope of his heart, the dream of a life of earthly bliss with his love, was showing its insecurity and dropping asunder. His ship was sinking in the ocean of Eternity. How futile his intrigue, how mean his deceptions, how insufficient his excuses. The Everlasting Presence gazed through them, and in its all-illumining blaze they fell and sank away. He saw that that which underlies ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... what he had forgotten, and he realized the insecurity of his position. "Oh, yes," he ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... powerful factions be gradually induced by a like motive to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be little doubted that, if the State of Rhode Island was separated from the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of right under the popular form of government within such narrow limits would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of the factious majorities, that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... decreed that the 'Bound Hedge,' as it was called, should be extended so as to encircle the whole city. The work, however, was never completed, for as late as 1785 an influential European inhabitant of Madras, addressing the Government on the subject of the insecurity of the ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... injury of the cerebellum usually produces blindness, giddiness, a tendency to move backwards, a staggering, irregular gait, and a feeling of insecurity in maintaining various positions. There is no loss of consciousness, or other ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... of the troops was the sign for the commencement of a state of insecurity and anxiety which quickly merged into one of danger and fear, soon to be replaced by a state ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... twelfth century onward, the improvement in the comforts of living was not confined to the nobles and to rich burghers in cities. It was shared by the rural classes, notwithstanding the miseries—such as insecurity, and dangers of famine—that ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... Ireland." He further expressed his opinion, that he did not think that small holdings were the great evil of Ireland, he rather thought that the particular way in which land was held has often been the source of insecurity and want of cultivation. From the state of the County Armagh he came to the conclusion, he said, that small holdings were not the great evil of Ireland. In that county the greatest subdivisions had taken place, and yet it was one of the ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... episode. And I admired the manner in which she bore her inspection. Already rumors of the cause of Mr. Allen's departure were in active circulation, and I was astonished to learn that he had been seen that day seated upon Indian rock with Miss Thorn herself. This piece of news gave me a feeling of insecurity about people, and about women in particular, that I had never before experienced. After holding the Celebrity up to such unmeasured ridicule as she had done, ridicule not without a seasoning of contempt, it was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... land came to be broken up, the produce per acre of wheat had gone up largely.[195] Marling and liming the land, too, which had been the salvation of much of it for centuries, had gone out partly because of insecurity of tenure, partly because in the unsettled state of England men knew not if they could reap any benefit therefrom; and partly because, says Fitzherbert, men were lazier than their fathers. There can be no doubt that enclosures were often accompanied with ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... the Melanesian and Polynesian classes. They are split up into numerous dialects, so widely different that natives of different districts can hardly, if at all, understand each other. It is evident that owing to the seclusion of the villages caused by the general insecurity of former days, and the lack of any literature, the language developed differently ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... prove efficacious in the long run very few believe. One clear-visioned Frenchman writes: "The inefficacy of the organization aimed at by the Conference constrains France to live in continual and increasing insecurity, owing to the falling off of her population."[354] He adds: "It follows from this abortive expedient—if it is to remain definitive—that each member-state must protect itself, or come to terms with ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... as one of the essential factors of a durable adjustment the securement of adequate guarantees for liberty of faith, since insecurity of those natives who may embrace alien creeds is a scarcely less effectual assault upon the rights of foreign worship and teaching than would be the direct ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... destroys our oldest associations: the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid;—one second of time has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced. In the forest, as a breeze moved the trees, I felt only the earth tremble, but saw no other effect. Captain Fitz Roy and some officers were at the town during the shock, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... structures were not found there by Coronado in 1541, neither have any been found there since. There is not the slightest ground for supposing that any such tenements ever existed around those in Yucatan and Central America. Every structure was in the nature of a fortress, showing the insecurity in which ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... She noticed that I was often sad, and kindly inquired the cause. I spoke of being separated from my children, and from relatives who were dear to me; but I did not mention the constant feeling of insecurity which oppressed my spirits. I longed for some one to confide it; but I had been so deceived by white people, that I had lost all confidence in them. If they spoke kind words to me, I thought it was for some selfish purpose. I had entered this family with the distrustful feelings I had ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... method."[6] In formulating a more scientific method of his own, which he calls the "constructive method," Jung reveals a change of views so extensive as to suggest, on several points, almost a conversion to the ideas that Dr. Morton Prince expressed in 1910, as to the insecurity of the psycho-analytic ideas of symbolism.[7] At that time, Jung valiantly defended the Freudian preference for stereotyped meanings as against the Principian idea of highly variable meanings.[8] Now, in going to the other extreme from Freud's cipher-like ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... to a very heavy sigh. She had got no satisfaction out of Ermengarde, and yet her manner gave her a sense of insecurity. She recalled again Ermie's strange excitement of the evening before, and wondered in vain what it ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... artist might feel if suddenly, in the middle of the performance, the manager of the Music Hall were to rush out of the proper managerial seclusion and begin to shake the rope. Indignation, the sense of moral insecurity engendered by such a treacherous proceeding joined to the immediate apprehension of a broken neck, would, in the colloquial phrase, put him in a state. And there would be also some scandalised concern for his art too, since a man must identify himself ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... the rocks, and if these are not sufficient, immense Bamboos fifty or sixty feet long are fixed on the banks or on the branch of a tree below. These bridges are traversed daily by men and women carrying heavy loads, so that any insecurity is soon discovered, and, as the materials are close at hand, immediately repaired. When a path goes over very steep ground, and becomes slippery in very wet or very dry weather, the Bamboo is used in another way. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... a low room whose cloth ceiling was stained and ragged, and from whose boarded walls the torn paper hung in strips; a lumber-room partitioned from the front office, which was occupied by a justice of the peace. If this temporary dungeon had an appearance of insecurity, there was some compensation in the spectacle of an armed sentinel who sat upon a straw mattress in the doorway, and another who patrolled the narrow hall which led to the street. That the prisoner was not placed in one of the cells in the floor ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... The sense of insecurity which obtains during the Sessions of the Raad is due scarcely less to the threats which are not fulfilled and attempts which do not succeed, than to what is actually compassed. A direct tax on gold has more than once been threatened; concessions for cyanide, jam, bread, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... 1415 the king prepared to sail from Southampton, when a plot reminded him of the insecurity of his throne. The Earl of March was faithful: but he was childless, and his claim would pass at his death through a sister who had wedded the Earl of Cambridge, a son of the Duke of York, to her child Richard, the Duke who ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... melancholy intelligence of your sister's death has grieved me more than I can express, and I beg to render you my heartfelt sympathy. Truly we live in a world where solemn shadows are continually falling upon our path—shadows that teach us the insecurity of all temporal blessings, and warn us that here "there is no abiding place." We have, however the blessed satisfaction of knowing that death cannot enter that sphere to which the departed are removed. Let hope and faith, my dear friend, mingle with your ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... mistaken has thrown a good many people into a state of very genuine bewilderment, but it is an uncertainty, not as to what is firm ground, but as to how to get out of a bog, once having gotten in. For the most part, however, the general feeling of insecurity is due not so much to having knowingly overstepped the law, as to a change in economic conditions. The spirit of the time is one of cooeperation and combination. It is manifested in the churches and colleges ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson

... "You will have to go through with this. You are in charge of this." He thought of HIS wife and child, innocently asleep in the cleanly pureness of HIS home. And he felt the roughness of his coat-collar round his neck and the insecurity of his trousers. He passed out of the room, shutting the door. And across the yard he had a momentary glimpse of those nude nocturnal forms, unconsciously attitudinizing in the bakehouse. And down the stairs came the protests of Dick, driven by pain into a monotonous ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... memory of the world war was still maintaining in many countries a feeling of insecurity, which was represented in the candid statements in which, at the request of the Assembly, several of them had put forward the requirements of their national security, and the geographical and political considerations which contributed to shape their policy ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller

... life to flourish into an "eternal" social organization,—Christianity found its mission in putting an end to such an organization, because life flourished under it. There the benefits that reason had produced during long ages of experiment and insecurity were applied to the most remote uses, and an effort was made to bring in a harvest that should be as large, as rich and as complete as possible; here, on the contrary, the harvest is blighted overnight.... That which stood there aere perennis, the imperium Romanum, the most magnificent ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche

... That it was inevitable seemed to be equally obvious. For there existed in Korea nearly all the worst abuses of medieval systems. The administration of justice depended solely on favour or interest. The police contributed by corruption and incompetence to the insecurity of life and property. The troops were a body of useless mercenaries. Offices being allotted by sale, thousands of incapables thronged the ranks of the executive. The Emperor's Court was crowded by diviners and plotters of all kinds, male and female. The finances of the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... the storm coming, and feeling the insecurity of his position, wished to save himself. He had too much sense and too much knowledge of the world not to feel that if he obstinately clung to the finances he should not only lose them but the seals also. He yielded therefore to Law, who was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... coarse wool. Still their flocks and herds constitute the chief wealth of the people, who have nearly forsaken the agriculture which anciently gave Chaldaea its pre-eminence, and have relapsed very generally into a nomadic or semi-nomadic condition. The insecurity of property consequent upon bad government has in a great measure caused this change, which render; the bounty of Nature useless, and allows immense capabilities to run to waste. The present condition of Babylonia gives a most imperfect ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... political atmosphere the Imperial Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, endeavored to bring about a turn for the better by effecting an understanding with England, in whose attitude he correctly recognized the real cause of the political insecurity. At this point attention must be called to the fundamental difficulty with which all negotiations at that time, and subsequently, were confronted, and necessarily confronted. In Germany it was seen very clearly from the start that the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the only secure principle upon which the controversies of men can be decided. It is better on the whole that a few particular cases of hardship and injustice, arising from defect of evidence or the unbending character of some strict rule of law, should be endured, than that general insecurity should pervade the community from the arbitrary discretion of the judge. It is this which has blighted the countries of the East as much as cruel laws or despotic executives. Thus the legislature has seen fit in certain ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... the moment was one of considerable insecurity. By holding on to his mane and wriggling backward I hoped to stay on, provided he did not put down his head. If he did that, I was lost. Fortunately for me, however, Dr. Bell did not realize with what ease he could have dropped me at that moment, and by dint of cautious but eager gymnastics, I ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... put his own suggestion in practice in respect to his nephew Lord Hamilton—who was one of Douglas's chief supporters—sending secret messengers to him to urge him to submission. Hamilton no doubt had already perceived signs of wavering purpose and insecurity in the heterogeneous host, in which were many whose hearts failed them at sight of the King's banners—men who were apt to rebellion without being wound up to the extreme point of civil war: but he had "ane kyndlie love to Earl Douglas" as well ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... about ten miles distant. The village itself was enshrouded in a dense thicket, which was entered by the narrowest of passages, cut through branches for security's sake, and was further protected by piles and stakes against the attacks of enemies. Everybody here feels an insecurity to life and property, which makes people wonder how they ever can be happy. Prosperous they are not, and never will be, until such time as enlightened men may happen to come amongst them to teach their chiefs the art of governing. Of all villages the most secure from attack seem those that ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... diminishing and the suffering from disease increasing. The question inevitably arises, Is this a consequence of our political system? and if so, is political liberty worth having, are democratic principles worth establishing, if the price to be paid for them is increased insecurity of life and greater wretchedness among the poor? If the origin of these evils is to be found in the incompetency of the government or the inefficiency of individuals in a democracy, a remedy must be applied, or the whole system must ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... his window and tempted him to the verandah outside. Here he found one of those chairs, delightful to invalids and lazy men, which are constructed of a few crossed pieces of wood and a couple of yards of sacking, giving nearly all the luxury of a hammock without its disturbing element of insecurity. And by its side, wonderful, to relate, there was a box of cigarettes and some matches. Since they were there, he might as well smoke one. His last smoke was seven or eight months ago—quite long enough to give a special relish to this ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... in the meantime were not wholly oblivious of the danger threatening them. There was a general feeling of insecurity in the colony, and a regular watch had been instituted at Fort Douglas to guard against a surprise attack. Governor Semple, however, did not seem to take a very serious view of the situation. He was about to depart to York Factory on business. But ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood

... of insecurity had come over him. The air seemed full of mysterious forces, whispering together and joining in alliance ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... a peaceful community and an apparently prosperous mission. Butler had during the year put into the ground the first plough ever used in New Zealand. The Maoris were quiet, and the missionaries went to their beds at night without any sense of insecurity. Four of the newly visited chiefs from the Thames district followed Marsden at a short interval to Australia, and stayed with him in his parsonage at Parramatta. Among these was Hinaki of Mokoia, who wished to continue his journey to ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... and the senses and the emotions must not be cheated of their triumph after all. That strange and beautiful psychology which he employs, with its evanescent delicacies, has not sufficient corporeity. Again, one feels that the discussion about Hartley, meeting us in the way, throws a tone of insecurity over the critical theory which it introduces. Its only effect is to win for the terms in which that criticism is expressed, the associations of one side in ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... as easily as perhaps should be expected of a longshoreman. There was no more sleep, though no more was wanted. By putting out my hand to the table I managed to keep where I was, even when, in those moments of greatest insecurity, the screw was roaring in mid-air. Our fascinating hanging lamp would perform the impossible, hanging acutely out of plumb; and then, when I was watching this miracle, rattle its chain and hang the other way. A regiment of boots on the floor—I suppose it was boots—would ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... born in the United States is to be seen in a most interesting way by aid of the colored map, Chart No. VIII, giving the different densities of foreign-born population in different parts of the Union. It seems almost certain that the general belief hitherto in the insecurity of life and property in the old slave States has worked against the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... great mass of working-people, the state of misery and insecurity in which they live now is as low as ever, if not lower. The East End of London is an everspreading pool of stagnant misery and desolation, of starvation when out of work, and degradation, physical and moral, when in work. ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... of the colleges; his academical sinecures, and the relics of his private fortune, afforded him a decent support; he was surrounded by people of his own principles; and as all the strength of the King's cause was concentrated about the seat of the court, every apprehension of personal insecurity was at an end. He was now, therefore, in a state of comparative comfort; man is seldom placed in a better; and in times like those I describe, a good subject ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... increased, from 1831 to 1841, thirty-six and a tenth per cent in Monmouthshire; the greatest increase during the same period of any county in the British empire.[3] Here then, if anywhere, it might have been expected that a general feeling of insecurity, the sense of an overbearing necessity, would have overcome the general repugnance of men towards local assessment, and led to the establishment of a police force in all the counties of South Wales, on a scale adequate to the magnitude of the danger with which they were threatened. Was it so? Had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... nevertheless, that 'the commerce and industry of a country cannot be so secure when suspended on the Daedalian wings of paper-money, as on the solid ground of gold and silver; and that in time of war the insecurity is greatly increased, and great confusion possible where the circulation is for the greater part in paper.'(B. 2. c. 2. 484.) But in a country where loans are uncertain, and a specie circulation the only sure resource for them, the preference of that circulation ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... touch of adventure in the expedition. This was not our own village, but a foreign one, distant at least a mile. One felt that sense of mingled distinction and insecurity which is familiar to the traveller: distinction, in that folk turned the head to note you curiously; insecurity, by reason of the ever-present possibility of missiles on the part of the more juvenile ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... on whittling my stick, not without some feeling of insecurity, for the coach was approaching at a furious speed, and it seemed impossible that the postilion could draw up in time to prevent the horses from dashing themselves against the barrier. He accomplished that feat, however, and the leading horse came to a ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... he began to think of Glory. By the broken links of memory he remembered for the first time, since coming into the monastery, the condition of insecurity in which he had left her. How uncertain her position at the hospital, how perilous her relations ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... of the "obituary method of appreciation," says that we feel a slight sense of impropriety and insecurity in contemporary plaudits. "Wait till he is well dead, and four or five decades of daisies have bloomed over him, says the world; then, if there is any virtue in his works, we will tag and label them and confer immortality upon him." But Mr. ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... collection of the things that poor Daisy had tried to put away from her mind flashed into it again, giving her a feeling of sickness and insecurity. What did ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... having been drawn to the great insecurity of letter envelopes, as they are now constructed, has submitted to the Post-master-General a specimen of a new safety envelope. He states that the invention is entirely his own, and that he has applied the principle with extraordinary success in the case of his own breeches-pocket, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various

... in architecture. If the model of the leaning tower of Pisa were generally adopted in our public buildings, all men's common sense would cry out against it as a deformity, because a leaning wall would convey to every mind the notion of insecurity, and every body would feel that it was unpleasant to see a building look exactly as if it were going to fall down. Now, what I have called common sense is, in a manner, the instinct of our reason: it is that uniform level of reason which all sane persons reach to, and the wisest in ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... San Domingo, and set out on his return by land. Roldan accompanied him a little distance on horseback, evidently disturbed in mind. He feared to return to Spain, yet was shrewd enough to know the insecurity of his present situation at the head of a band of dissolute men, acting in defiance of authority. What tie had he upon their fidelity stronger than the sacred obligations which they had violated? After riding ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... women let lodgings. And in reality even that magic garden-close resolves itself into a villa at Morningside Park and my father being more and more cross and overbearing at meals—and a general feeling of insecurity and futility." ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... jump. Kitty screamed, or shrieked, or whatever name best expresses her discordant and piercing yells. I more than suspect I shrieked too, partly at the difficulty of keeping both Kitty and Helen in any sort of order, and partly at my own insecurity. No sooner had Helen landed on the other side, than she fled homewards as if a tin kettle were tied to her tail. The speed at which we dashed through the fragrant summer air completely took away Kitty's breath, and ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... Fight in the autumn of 1642, to the defeat of the king's last force under Sir Jacob Astley at Stow-in-the-walds in the spring of 1846. Any other fighting in that century belonged to mere insulated and discontinuous war. But the insecurity of every government between 1638 and 1702, kept the popular mind in a state of fermentation. Accordingly, Queen Anne's reign might be said to open upon an irreligious people. The condition of things was further strengthened by the unavoidable interweaving at that time of politics ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... Alarmed at the insecurity of Rome, Honorius about this time fixed the imperial residence within the naturally fortified city of Ravenna—an example which was afterwards imitated by his feeble successors, the Gothic kings and the Exarchs; and till the middle of the eighth century Ravenna was considered as the seat of government ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... "I should do away with all interest on money. Interest on money is the root and ground of the world's troubles. It puts one man in a position of safety, while another is in a condition of insecurity, and thereby it at once creates a radical ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... deal with their crime as treason. The result of this moody and capricious tyranny was to inspire the most vague and gloomy apprehensions into the minds of the prisoners, and to keep their friends, with the whole city of Klosterheim, in a feverish state of insecurity. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... am contemplating a long series of exhaustive arguments designed to prove it your duty to leave your jewels where they are, in all their noble insecurity. This in the firm belief that to plead with you long enough to adopt this course will result in your going and ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... agitation works. Labor organizations multiply and become aggressive, and so capital organizes in self-defense. One day our professor told the class that he much preferred citizenship in a government controlled by intelligent capital, to the insecurity and uncertainty of ignorant labor in power. The professor inclined to think that the British form of government rested on a more lasting basis ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... Most historians and philosophers agree that the change was inevitable, and proved, on the whole, benignant. It was simply the question whether the Romans should have civil wars and anarchies and factions, which decimated the people, and kept society in a state of fear and insecurity, and prevented the triumph of law, or whether they should submit to an absolute ruler, who had unbounded means of doing good, and whom interest and duty alike prompted to secure the public welfare. The people wanted, above all things, safety, and ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... experience in their new occupation. The absence of Forrest was sorely felt, and only the innate kindness of the guests allayed all feeling of insecurity. As the evening wore on, the old sense of dependence brought the lads in closer touch with the strangers, the conversation running over the mutual field of range and ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... opened abode of sorrow. But rumours flew in whispers, filling the hearts with consternation and horrible doubts. The robbers were coming back, bringing many others with them, in a great ship, and there would be no refuge in the land for any one. A sense of utter insecurity as during an earthquake pervaded the minds of men, who whispered their suspicions, looking at each other as if in the presence of ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... prevent sleep. In the old part of the house, some of the partitions did not run up to the roof, but were left open (for ventilation, I suppose), thus making a fine play-ground for cats and rats, which darted along, squeaking, meowing and clattering all the night through. An uncanny feeling of insecurity was ever with me. What with the accumulated effect of the day's heat, what with the thieving Indians, the sand-storms and the cats, our nights by no means gave us the refreshment needed by our worn-out systems. By the latter part of the summer, I was so exhausted by the heat and the various difficulties ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... Democracy, by a prostitution of the elective franchise—have already corrupted our nationality, degraded our councils, both State and National, weakened the bonds of union, disturbed our country's peace, and awakened apprehensions of insecurity and progressive deterioration, threatening ultimate ruin! To rescue and restore American institutions—to maintain American nationality, and to secure American birthrights, is the mission and the sole purpose of the AMERICAN PARTY—composed ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... that overeating for some is an emotional problem, stemming from feelings of rejection and insecurity. Individuals who feel unloved, whether this is truly the case or not, make up for this lack to themselves by stuffing in large quantities of food. It would even appear that these people are masochistic, making themselves ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers

... say it again, put in the first line of their requirements security against renewed attacks, protection against the continuation of the insecurity of peace. Both admit that the proposed League of the Nations has become a necessity; both admit that it might indeed protect mankind against new wars and a state of incessantly endangered peace. Why then wait and let the disaster ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... schemes for the future; but the girl was sick of her dependence on George's father, and, in the revolt of her pride, she would have accepted any honest work which would have enabled her to escape from the insecurity of her position. Of her competence to earn a living, of her ability to excel in any work that she undertook, of the sufficiency and soundness of her resources, she was as absolutely assured as she had been when she entered the millinery department of Brandywine & Plummer. If Madame, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... is the insecurity of human organisms and institutions, in less than two minutes he grew aware of a strange sensation within him, which sensation he ultimately diagnosed as hunger. To clap his hands was the work of an instant. The oncoming attendant recited a catalogue of the foods at his disposal; ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... like moving mountains of light; and the shadowy outline of black mysterious-looking rocks, dimly seen through clouds of driving mist, adds a wild sublimity to the scene. While the boat struggles over the curling billows, at times lifted up by the ground-swells from below, the feeling of danger and insecurity is lost in the whirl of waters that surround you. The mind expands with the scene, and you rejoice in the terrific power that threatens to annihilate you and your fairy bark. A visible presence of the majesty of God is before you, and, sheltered by His protecting hand, you ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... for the load supported, it gives you the unsatisfactory impression of doing something absurdly small for your powers. If on the contrary the pillar is too slender for the load that seems to rest upon it, you get the feeling of strain and insecurity; but if it is rightly proportioned, you get the feeling of a worthy task successfully accomplished. The pillar, according to empathy, pleases you by arousing and gratifying your mastery impulse; and many other architectural effects can be ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... that which he believed, with a decision, vigour, and invariability, seldom found even among philosophers. Of late years he had, in real life, seen striking instances of the treachery of courtiers, and had felt some symptoms of insecurity in the smile of princes. Fortune had been favourable to him—she was fickle—he determined to quit her before she should change. Ambition, it is true, had tempted him—he had risen to her highest pinnacle: he would not be hurled from high—he would descend ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... Wherever labor has not been socialized,—that is, wherever value is not synthetically determined,—there is irregularity and dishonesty in exchange; a war of stratagems and ambuscades; an impediment to production, circulation, and consumption; unproductive labor; insecurity; spoliation; insolidarity; want; luxury: but at the same time an effort of the genius of society to obtain justice, and a constant tendency toward association and order. Political economy is simply the history of this grand struggle. On the one hand, indeed, political ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... uncompromising men, who devoted to the support of those systems their fortunes and lives, drenched the land in the blood of a civil war, executed a king, presently restored his dynasty, and finally exiled it again, thus maintaining during half a century a general insecurity of life and property which checked the finer growths of civilization. Their successors trusted that the compromise of 1688 had reduced political and sectarian affairs to a state of calm equilibrium; and they desired to cultivate the fruits of serenity by fostering ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... one important grievance in the affairs of Ireland, Mr. Gladstone soon proceeded to another, and in February, 1870, brought forward, in a crowded House, his Irish Land Bill. The evil which he had in view to cure was the insecurity of tenure, which resulted in discouraging and paralyzing the industry of tenants, especially in the matter of evictions for non-payment of rent, and the raising of rents on land which had been improved by them. As they were liable at any time to be ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... party to remain seated while he went to attend to the women. The performance was mostly over, and the audience began to disperse, from a sense of insecurity. ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... moving along the waste like a train of camels in the desert; or, a single herdsman, armed with blunderbuss and stiletto, and prowling over the plain. Thus the country, the habits, the very looks of the people, have something of the Arabian character. The general insecurity of the country is evinced in the universal use of weapons. The herdsman in the field, the shepherd in the plain, has his musket and his knife. The wealthy villager rarely ventures to the market-town without his trabuco, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various

... unexpected departure caused some comment, no one except his trusted lieutenants dreamed of the grave importance of his mission. They knew the necessities that hounded him, they were well aware of the trembling insecurity in which affairs now stood, but they maintained their cheerful industry, they pressed the work with unabated energy, and the road crept forward foot by foot, as steadily and as smoothly as if he himself were on ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... running west from White Top Mountain in latitude 36 degrees 30'.[30] Immediately afterwards the agent[31] of the British Government among the Cherokees ordered the Watauga settlers to instantly leave their lands. They defied him, and refused to move: but feeling the insecurity of their tenure they deputed two commissioners, of whom Robertson was one, to make a treaty with the Cherokees. This was successfully accomplished, the Indians leasing to the associated settlers all the lands on the Watauga waters ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... mysterious vision. I had by this time experienced much which, in the depths of my soul, drove me almost unconsciously to a process of summing-up, to an almost despairing inquiry concerning my fate. What I dared not acknowledge to myself was the fact of the absolute insecurity of my existence both from the artistic and financial point of view; for I saw that I was a stranger to my own mode of life as well as to my profession, and I had no prospects whatsoever. This despair, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... of Homo sapiens actually does the primping and parading that she describes? Which runs to "beautiful coloring," sartorial, hirsute, facial? Which encases itself in vestments which "serve no other useful purpose than to aid in securing the favours" of the other? The insecurity of the gifted savante's position is at once apparent. The more convincingly she argues that the primeval mud-hens and she mackerel had to be anesthetized with spectacular decorations in order to "endure the caresses" of their beaux, the more she supports the thesis that men ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... ... ticklish. Heaven only knows sometimes which way the cat is going to jump! It certainly seems to me, though, that the peculiar conditions of this case supply an element of insecurity, of possible disintegration, that does not exist in ordinary everyday life. You must admit that the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... a sudden, her governess was more agitated. "Oh why, little unfortunate, should we discuss their dreadful names?"—and she threw herself for the millionth time on Maisie's neck. It took her pupil but a moment to feel that she quivered with insecurity, and, the contact of her terror aiding, the pair in another instant were sobbing in each other's arms. Then it was that, completely relaxed, demoralised as she had never been, Mrs. Wix suffered her wound to bleed and her resentment to gush. Her great bitterness was that Ida had called her ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... with planks, without any parapet—with sometimes a plank out, and sometimes a hole in the middle. Over large streams they were wooden erections of a most peculiar kind, with high parapets; their insecurity being evidenced by the notice, "Walk your horses, according to law,"—a notice generally disregarded by our coachman, as he trotted his horses over ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... the system of slavery avenged itself on the state. The advantages to the intellect of the free citizens resulting from the existence of a class maintained to relieve them from the drudgeries of life, were dearly purchased by the constant insecurity of their political repose. The capital of the rich could never be directed to the most productive of all channels—the labour of free competition. The noble did not employ citizens—he purchased slaves. Thus the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... factions be gradually induced by a like motive to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be little doubted, that if the state of Rhode Island was separated from the confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the popular form of government within such narrow limits, would be displayed by such reiterated oppression of the factious majorities, that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... camerated ceiling. "The general proportions of the church," says Mr. Godwin, "are pleasing; but the columns are too slight, the space between them too wide, and the result is a disagreeable feeling of insecurity." The altar-piece, adorned with the figure of a pelican feeding her young, is richly carved and gilded. The large organ, built by Jordan in 1712, was presented by Sir Charles Duncomb, who gave the clock in remembrance ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... when the latter accumulated, as we were on the spot, my father dismissed his anxiety, and we were gradually becoming lulled into a feeling of repose, save when Bigley talked about his father, and then once more a little feeling of doubt and insecurity would slip in, as might have been the case in the olden times when the people near shore learned that some Saxon or Danish ship was hovering ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... given, and from that day Sandy paid his blood money, hoping that greed would hold the child to her bargain, but with always a feeling of insecurity. He changed his box to another rock, but a certain uncanniness about Molly gained a power over him and he never ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... suggest stores of reserved nervous force to fall back upon, if any occasion should arise that requires it. The inexcitability, this presence at all times of power not used, I regard as the great safeguard of our British people. The other thing in you gives me a sense of insecurity, and you ought somehow to tone yourselves down. You do really carry too much expression, you take too intensely the trivial moments ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... Englishmen of the next century! To Englishmen of the present one, a Roman Catholic and a lover of priestcraft and tyranny are two words for the same thing; as if we could not murmur at tithes and taxes, insecurity of property or arbitrary legislation, just as sourly as any other Christian community. No! I never loved the cause of the Stuarts,—unfortunate, and therefore interesting, as the Stuarts were; by a very stupid and ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... so bad as the sense of insecurity that we had that afternoon. The very ground seemed to have been cut away from under our feet. We had gathered enough from the officers of our Division to know that something very disastrous "somewhere" had occurred. It was the very vagueness of the thing that terrified ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... duties of manhood are surely increasing, and making our earth a place of hope and making life worth living, instead of a burden to be borne. "The Hindus," says Sir Alfred Lyall, "have been rescued by the English out of a chronic state of anarchy, insecurity, lawlessness, and precarious exposure to the caprice ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... intent. On each speaker he turned his eyes, and waited until at last Karl's proposal, with its promises, was laid before them in full. Then, and only then, the Chancellor rose. His speech was short. He told them of what they all knew, their own insecurity. He spoke but a word of the Crown Prince, but that softly. And he drew for them a pictures of the future that set their hearts to glowing—a throne secure, a greater kingdom, freedom from the cost of war, ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... about me, arose a new invader of my mental states. Something was happening to the great schemes of my uncle's affairs; people were beginning to doubt, to question. It was the first quiver of his tremendous insecurity, the first wobble of that gigantic credit top he had ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... islands, in secluded mountains, in deserts. We understand their backward condition in parts of the earth which offer so few facilities for agriculture and cattle-breeding as Australia, the Arctic regions, or the extreme north and south of America. In the insecurity of incompletely developed resources we can see the chain which hangs heavily on their feet and confines their movements within a narrow space. As a consequence their numbers are small, and from this again results ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... responsibility, had been scornfully rejected by the States. It was already carrying them far enough away, they said, to take them away from a peace to a truce, which was something far less secure than a peace, but the continuance of this floating, uncertain armistice would be the most dangerous insecurity of all. This would be going from firm land to slippery ice, and from slippery ice into the water. By such a process, they would have neither war nor peace—neither liberty of government nor freedom of commerce—and they unanimously refused to listen ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... just gone on, judging by the freshness of the trail, and we can study his character and purposes. The large boots betoken a wood-man or ice-man: yet such a one would hardly have stepped so irresolutely where a little film of water has spread between the ice and snow and given a look of insecurity; and here again he has stopped to observe the wreaths on this pendent bough, and this snow-filled bird's-nest. And there the footsteps of the lover of beauty turn abruptly to the road again, and he vanishes from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... scheming colleagues had upon California. Of course these remarks reached the ears of his constituents anyhow, and though prefaced by a studied evasiveness on his part, they contributed much to the feeling of unrest and insecurity that then prevailed along ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley

... the preservation of harmony with all nations will continue to be used, the experience of the world and our own experience admonish us of the insecurity of trusting too confidently to their success. We can not, without committing a dangerous imprudence, abandon those measures of self protection which are adapted to our situation and to which, notwithstanding our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Adams • John Adams

... favourable or unfavourable to art; but it is reasonable to suppose that it may be the one or the other to a particular artist. Different temperaments thrive in different atmospheres. How many mute, inglorious Miltons, Raphaels, and Mozarts may not have lost heart and gone under in the savage insecurity of the dark ages? And may not the eighteenth century, which clipped the wings of Blake, have crushed the fluttering aspirations of a dozen Gothically-minded geniuses and laughed some budding Wagner out of all idea of expressing his ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... time seditious movements showed the insecurity of the situation. At the beginning of 1556 traces were detected of a plan for plundering the treasury in order to levy troops with the money.[176] The Western counties were discontented because Courtenay was removed from among them: he died subsequently in Italy. Sir Henry ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... Bible, and a solitary walk upon the battlements of the castle, or upon the causeway, or occasionally, but more seldom, upon the banks of the little lake, consumed the rest of the day. But so great was the insecurity of the period, that when she ventured to extend her walk beyond the hamlet, the warder on the watch-tower was directed to keep a sharp look-out in every direction, and four or five men held themselves in ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... sweet, sad ghost of Maisie haunting her, coming between her and the memory of her dark ecstasy. Maisie, utterly innocent, utterly good, trusting her, sending Jerrold back to her because she trusted her. Only to think of Maisie gave her a fearful sense of insecurity. She thought: If I'd loved her I could never have done it. If I were to love her even now that would end it. We couldn't go on. She prayed God that she might ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... their insecurity, or else they had such an appetite for treachery and murder, that they were driven on to commit further crimes. A report was set about that Edward of Caernarvon was still living in Corfe Castle, and one of his actual murderers, Maltravers, offered the unfortunate ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Crown Point, they discovered a train of provision sledges, three of which they captured, together with six horses and seven men. The others fled within the walls of Ticonderoga and alarmed the garrison. Feeling the insecurity of his situation he commenced at once his return. By two o'clock in the afternoon, his party was attacked by two hundred and fifty French and Indians, who endeavored to surround it. A vigorous fight was kept up until dark. Rogers was wounded twice and lost some ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... joined the others, taking with them the wounded. Two hours of quiet reigned. The night, which was now approaching, was the most dangerous period, and they appreciated the insecurity of the position to withstand ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay

... speculative stranger on the wharf. As the stranger's search was rewarded afterwards only by the discovery of the body of a casual Chinaman, who had evidently endeavored wickedly to anticipate him, a feeling of commercial insecurity was added to the other ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... when she knew he would be home for dinner, was perfectly ridiculous; but that she should leave it like this—in evidence for chance discovery—struck him as so outrageous that, thinking of it, he experienced suddenly a staggering sense of insecurity, an absurd and bizarre flash of a notion that the house had moved a little under his feet. He tore the envelope open, glanced at the letter, and sat down in ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... or "praise-house," now used for commissary purposes. The chair is a composite structure: I found a cane seat on a dust-heap, which a black sergeant combined with two legs from a broken bedstead and two more from an oak-bough. I sit on it with a pride of conscious invention, mitigated by profound insecurity. Bedroom-furniture, a couch made of gun-boxes covered with condemned blankets, another settee, two pails, a tin cup, tin basin, (we prize any tin or wooden ware as savages prize iron,) and a valise, regulation-size. Seriously considered, nothing more appears needful, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... Italians in the arts of smiling poisoning—but they did it so badly; they were as fussily ineffectual as a group of school-boys who hate their teacher. Not "big deals" and vast grim power did they achieve, but merely a constant current of worried insecurity, and they all tended to prove Mrs. Lawrence's assertion that the office-world is a method of giving the largest possible number of people the largest possible amount of nervous discomfort, to the end of producing the largest possible quantity of totally useless ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis



Words linked to "Insecurity" :   danger, insecure, anxiety, security, insecureness



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