"Laudable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the community failed of his sympathy,—the self-righteous hypocrites, who thought that godliness consisted in scrupulous regard for pious ceremonies, and that zeal was most laudable when directed to the removal of motes from their brothers' eyes. For these Jesus had words of rebuke and burning scorn. It has been common with some to emphasize his friendship for the poor as if he chose them for their poverty, and the unlettered for their ignorance. ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... be a woman, and that's worse, isn't it? Oh! there's Kathie, and she's got some cookies that are too dry to sell; I'm going to help her eat them," with which laudable purpose away she ran, to forget the limitations of her sex in an operation ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... experienced that phase of sentiment and opinion on civic rights and immunities that is now occupied by their institutionally maturer neighbours, the subjects of the Imperial Fatherland, e.g., in spite of the most laudable intentions and the best endeavour, are, by failure of this experience, unable to comprehend either the ground of opposition to their well-meaning projects of dominion or the futility of trying to convert these their elder brothers ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... just as bad the other way; who always ran out of the back door when visitors called, and was for ever moping and reading: and this, in spite of Melchior's hiding his books, and continually telling him that he was a disgrace to the family, a perfect bear, not fit to be seen, etc.—all with the laudable desire of his improvement. There was that little Hop-o'-my-Thumb, as lively as any of them, a young monkey, the worst of all; who was always in mischief, and consorting with the low boys in the village; though Melchior ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... as being too cumbersome to move with celerity, were abandoned, and, among the number, this cannon was left on the heights above Christiania. The Norwegians, when Charles and his army had disappeared, scaled the summit of the hill; and, with much laudable perseverance, succeeded in removing the huge piece of ordnance to the fortress; and two sentinels ever keep guard over it, placed in a conspicuous position over which the Norwegian ensign waves, and point it out to the stranger as a trophy of the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... scientific operations; making little sun-dials of paper; or weaving those ingenious parentheses, called cat-cradles; or making dry peas to dance upon the end of a tin pipe; or studying the art military over that laudable game "French and English," and a hundred other such devices to pass away the time—mixing the useful with the agreeable—as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John Locke chuckle to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... disease if you will—an incurable disease—which, if it is driven inwards, will break out in an unexpected quarter in a new form and with redoubled virulence. This is exactly what has happened. Actuated by the most laudable motives, Mudie cut off our rations of dirty stories, and for forty years we were apparently the most moral people on the face of the earth. It was confidently asserted that an English woman of sixty would not read what would bring the blush of shame to the cheeks ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... thoughtfully. It was the fashion of that day to carry a fan and wield it with grace and effect. To fan oneself did not mean that the heat was oppressive, any more than the use of incorrect English signifies to-day ill-breeding or a lack of education. Both are an indication of a laudable desire to be unmistakably in ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... abilities in insignificant knowledge, and a great felicity in finding out trifles. He is no less industrious to search out the merit of an author, than sagacious in discerning his errors and defects, and takes more pleasure in commending the beauties than exposing the blemishes of a laudable writing. Like Horace, in a long work he can bear some deformities, and justly lay them on the imperfection of human nature, which is incapable of faultless productions. When an excellent drama appears in public, and by its intrinsic worth attracts a general applause, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... doesn't; I assure you it doesn't. Having supposed that there was sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there is not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm is done. Young women have committed similar follies often before, and have repented them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfish aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... aspirations towards good citizenship without the harnessing of all available knowledge to its cause would be futile. After exception has been made for the body of young men and women who are determined to acquire technical education for the laudable purpose of advancing both their position in life and their utility to society, it is clear that no educational appeal to working men and women will have the least effect if it is not directed towards the purpose of enriching their life, and through ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... fixed the first representation of "Albion and Albanius" to the 3d of June, 1685; and the laudable accuracy of Mr Malone has traced its sixth night to Saturday the 13th of the same month, when an express brought the news of Monmouth's landing. The opera was shortly after published. In 1687 Grabut published the music, with a ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... that the year 1852 was destined to witness a very important reaction which was naturally dreaded by the other party, who looked forward with great apprehension to the approaching catastrophe. The condition of the other European states, who suppressed every laudable impulse with brutal stupidity, convinced me that elsewhere too this state of affairs would not continue long, and every one seemed to look forward with great expectations to the decision of ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... courteous to address me as if he admitted the possibility of my wishing to accost him from any feeling of mere sociability or civilian-like love of vain talk. On the contrary, he at once attributed my advances to a laudable wish of acquiring statistical information, and accordingly, when we got within speaking distance, he said, “I dare say you wish to know how the plague is going on at Cairo?” And then he went on to say, he regretted that his information did not enable him to give me in numbers a perfectly accurate ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... indeed if these fascinating and romantic tales fail to stir the imagination of any young person who reads them and to arouse in him the laudable ambition of some day seeing for himself the three palaces, the mosque, the chapel, and the halls, ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... would learn as fast as I could, but if treated ill, that I would die a martyr, rather than yield to oppression; at all events, I would, if possible, play Mr O'Gallagher a trick for every flogging or punishment I received; and with this laudable resolution I was soon fast asleep, too fast ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... ostentation of the Italians in general takes a more laudable turn than that of other nations. A Frenchman lays out his whole revenue upon tawdry suits of cloaths, or in furnishing a magnificent repas of fifty or a hundred dishes, one half of which are not eatable nor intended to be eaten. His wardrobe goes ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Archbishop Sharp, Bishop Smalridge (who thought 'the honour of our own Church and the edification of others much interested in the scheme'), Bishop Robinson and Lord Raby, ambassador at Berlin. Secretary St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, wrote to Raby in behalf of this 'laudable design,' informing him that the Queen was 'ready to give all possible encouragement to that excellent work,' and that if previous overtures had received a cold reception, yet that the clergy generally were zealous in the cause. Bonel, the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... preceding,) and shall abolish and gainstand all false religion contrary to the same; and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will and command of God revealed in His foresaid Word, and according to the laudable laws and constitutions received in this realm, nowise repugnant to the said will of the eternal God; and shall procure, to the uttermost of their power, to the Kirk of God, and whole Christian people, true and perfect peace in all time coming: and that they shall be careful ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... after an engagement, when they could not agree about the victory, were wont to set up trophies on both sides, the beaten party being content to be at the same expense, to keep itself in countenance (a laudable and ancient custom, happily revived of late in the art of war), so the learned, after a sharp and bloody dispute, do, on both sides, hang out their trophies too, whichever comes by the worst. These trophies have largely inscribed on them the merits of the cause; a full impartial account ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... this, I am to understand, will be as it will be, and is not for me to alter. What is it then that I am doing? I am desiring to become charitable myself; and why may I not plainly say so? Is there shame in it, or impiety? The wish is laudable: why should I form designs to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... again, unlike the miller of the old conundrum, men generally wear white hats to keep their heads cool; with which laudable endeavor why should the Stock Exchange wish to interfere? One never hears of a "corner" in hats. And then, too, was it the bulls or the bears who objected to them? Bulls, we all know, have an aversion to scarlet drapery, but Darwin, in his studies of the feeling for color ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... of the Roman name could not pass, can the glory of a Roman man penetrate? Moreover, the customs and laws of diverse nations do so much differ the one from the other, that the same thing which some commend as laudable, others condemn as deserving punishment. So that if a man be delighted with the praise of fame, it is no way convenient for him to be named in many countries. Wherefore, every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home, and that noble immortality of fame must be comprehended ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... monument that will, he thinks, carry down his name to all time; and doubtless the discovery of a secret that has baffled research for hundreds of years, is at least as worthy an ambition as these—far more laudable, indeed, since it can be carried out without inflicting woes upon others. And now farewell, Mr. Ormskirk. I trust that your son will always remember that in me he has a friend ready to do aught in his power for him. I am but a simple citizen of London, but ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... wherefore you have paid me this visit, Captain Borroughcliffe," said Manual, with a laudable discretion, which prompted him to reconnoitre the other's views a little, before he laid himself more open; "if captain be your rank, and Borroughcliffe be your name. But this I do know, that if it be only to mock me in my present ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hearer of his plays, the knowledge that his words had gripped their hearts and intellects, cannot have been ungrateful to him. To desire recognition for his work is for the artist an inevitable and a laudable ambition. A working dramatist by the circumstance of his calling appeals as soon as the play is written to the playgoer for a sympathetic appreciation. Nature impelled Shakespeare to note on the pages of his journal his impression ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... Veddahs are somewhat less savage than the first, and employ themselves in fishing and in cutting timber. They have much gentleness of disposition, and though, as might be expected, their morals are in the lowest state, grave crimes are seldom committed. Our government have made most laudable attempts to reclaim them, and in many instances, seconded by the devoted efforts of the missionaries, have met with great success. When I said they have no religious ceremony, I ought to have mentioned that ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... rest, the idea, otherwise very laudable, of associating workmen with employers tends to this communistic conclusion, evidently false in its premises: The last word of machinery is to make man rich and happy without the necessity of labor on his part. Since, then, natural agencies must do everything for us, machinery ought ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... "A laudable, a most exhilarating and delightful pursuit! 'human vermin,' too, is excellent. It opens up a new and fascinating vista for ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it be alive, "that which comes from the head goes to the heart;" [5] and Milton truly said that "he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... in the portmanteau there was nothing that could be construed into a friendly word for the Crusade; and were not the anxious minds of the Henstead Wesleyans meant to read a disclaimer of that great movement in a reference to "the laudable and growing activity of all religious denominations, each within the sphere of its own action"? Quisante had put in "legitimate" before "sphere," but crossed it out again; the hint was plain enough ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... not doubt," resumed the penetrating judge of human nature, "that you would have been withheld by the laudable and generous scruples which characterize your happy age, from voluntarily disclosing to me the state of your heart. You might suppose that, proud of the position I once held, or sanguine in the hope of regaining ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... glare of light shot into the face of him who held it. Recovering from the shock, and rubbing his eyes, our startled adventurer gazed upwards, with that consciousness of wrong which assails us when detected in any covert act, however laudable may be its motive;—a sort of homage that nature, under every circumstance, pays ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the fact that to "read double" with a tutor was almost a thing unprecedented at Camford, and that to do so, both in classics and mathematics, was a thing wholly unknown, and indeed practically impossible, Mr Kennedy was only delighted at Edward's letter, as conveying a proof of his extreme and laudable eagerness to recover lost ground, and do his best. He very readily wrote the cheque for the sum required, and praised his son liberally for these indications of effort. How those praises cut Kennedy to ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... both officers & soldiers who turned out voluntarily to work upon the Little Cobble hill; such public spirit is laudable & shall not go unrewarded, if the genl. ever has it in his power to ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... neighbours exposed. The fact is indubitable, be the cause what it may. The great moral philosopher quoted above, in another part of his works, shrewdly observes, "In the disasters of their friends, people are seldom wanting in a laudable patience. When they are such as do not threaten to end fatally, they become even matter of pleasantry." The falling of a person in the street, or his plunging into the gutter, excites the laughter of those who witness the accident: but let the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... laudable than forming Libraries, when the founders have no other view than to improve themselves and men of letters: but it will be necessary, in the first place, to give some directions, which will be of ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest solution. And if in the pursuit of this laudable intention he happened to wing lesser game it ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... information; but, in aid of his laudable enterprise, received some pecuniary assistance from the African Civilization Society and the Royal Geographical Society. Being a member of the former society, and while engaged in constructing the maps for the journals ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... enemy, which feat he could not achieve on account of the horseman's boots he wore; and on another day that he was very nearly taken prisoner because of these jackboots, which prevented him from running away. The present narrator shall imitate this laudable reserve, and doth not intend to dwell upon his military exploits, which were in truth not very different from those of a thousand other gentlemen. This first campaign of Mr. Esmond's lasted but a few days; and as a score ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... like. I have my idea of Aspasia—but there are lots of grander women in London to-day. One ought to live among the rich. What a wretched mistake, when one can help it, to herd with narrow foreheads, however laudable your motive! Since I got back among the better people my life has been ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Prayse, and in Invectives, the Fancy is praedominant; because the designe is not truth, but to Honour or Dishonour; which is done by noble, or by vile comparisons. The Judgement does but suggest what circumstances make an action laudable, or culpable. ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... reform a burglar! Maitland regained something of his lost self-esteem, applauding himself for entertaining a motive so laudable. And he chose his course, for better or worse, in these few seconds. Thereby proving his incontestable title to the name and ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... In the name of God, said I, leave off all your fine discourses, and despatch me presently; I am called to attend an affair of the last importance, as I have told you already. Then he fell a laughing: It would be a laudable thing, said he, if our minds were always in the same strain; if we were wise and prudent: however, I am willing to believe, that if you are angry with me, it is your distemper which has caused that ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... of Holland for any traces of him which they can recover; and the smallest fragments of his writings are acquiring that factitious importance which attaches to the most insignificant relics of acknowledged greatness. Such industry cannot be otherwise than laudable, but we do not think it at present altogether wisely directed. Nothing is likely to be brought to light which will further illustrate Spinoza's philosophy. He himself spent the better part of his life ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... my chamber I was obliged to use the utmost caution to avoid rousing my brother, whose temper disposed him to thwart me in the least of my gratifications. My purpose was surely laudable, and yet on leaving the house and returning to it, I was obliged to use the vigilance and ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... consists in the united praise of good men, the free voice of those who form a true judgment of pre-eminent virtue; it is, as it were, the very echo of virtue; and being generally the attendant on laudable actions, should not be slighted by good men. But popular fame, which would pretend to imitate it, is hasty and inconsiderate, and generally commends wicked and immoral actions, and throws discredit upon the appearance and beauty ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... established in the most remote parts of the habitable globe; and it is seldom that men are found existing perfectly in a state of nature. When such circumstances do occur, curiosity, and still more laudable sentiments, must be excited. The gratification even of curiosity alone might have formed a sufficient apology for the author; but he has seen too much of virtue even among the vicious to be indifferent to the sufferings, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... sitten for the perfect participle, are, in my opinion, obsolete, or no longer in good use. Yet several recent grammarians prefer sitten to sat; among whom are Crombie, Lennie, Bullions, and M'Culloch. Dr. Crombie says, "Sitten, though formerly in use, is now obsolescent. Laudable attempts, however, have been made to restore it."—On Etymol. and Syntax, p. 199. Lennie says, "Many authors, both here and in America, use sate as the Past time of sit; but this is improper, for it is apt to be confounded with sate to glut. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... characteristic It was a profound conviction Greatly conceived and expressed Blinded by its brightness I have cudgelled my memory Exposed to imminent peril Screening a breach of etiquette By a natural transition Splendid anticipations of success A very laudable attempt Lapsed into complete oblivion With most distinguished success Like embarking on a shoreless sea A really pretty imitation Unless I greatly err Undaunted by repeated failure Became a term of ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... grew strong. The "White Briar" especially exerted and arrayed itself in its most festive garments. The great dining-room was filled to overflowing, the waiters were driven to desperation by the demands made upon them as they flew from table to table and endeavoured with laudable zeal to commit to memory fifty orders at once and at the same time to answer "Comin', sah" to the same number of snapped fingers. There were belles from Louisiana, beauties from Mississippi, and enslavers ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... silently and simultaneously they withdrew from her circle, without even letting her know they had found her out, but quite determined to revenge, themselves on her should a chance ever offer. However, other affairs of a similar nature had intervened to prevent their carrying out this laudable intention; Jeannin had laid siege to a more inaccessible beauty, who had refused to listen to his sighs for less than 30 crowns, paid in advance, and de Jars had become quite absorbed by his adventure with the convent boarder at La Raquette, and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... been submitted to by their ancestors, and that no change had been made by Philip, who desired only to maintain church and crown in the authority which they had enjoyed in the days of his father of very laudable memory. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... These laudable intentions show Carteret to have been a true explorer, rather stimulated than intimidated by danger, but it proved impossible to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Rionga, whom he declared must be either captured or killed, before any improvement could take place in the country. The young king assumed that it was already arranged that I should assist him in this laudable object. I now changed the conversation by ordering a large metal box to be brought in. This had already been filled with an assortment of presents, including a watch. I explained to him that the latter had been intended for his father, Kamrasi; in the recollection ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Heaven shall laugh them (that is, certain Kings, who were David's Enemies) to scorn; the Lord shall have them in Derision: and must judge, that laughing to scorn, and deriding the greatest Men upon Earth, even Kings and Princes, to be a laudable and divine Method of dealing with them, who are only to be taught or rebuk'd in some artful way. I also approve of the following Sarcasm or Irony, which has a better Authority for it than Elijah or the Psalmist. Moses introduces God speaking ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... Even-Rupert was struck with this important circumstance. As for Neb, he was actually in ecstasies, rolling his large black eyes, and showing his white teeth, until he suddenly closed his truly coral and plump lips, to demand what New Jersey meant? Of course I gratified this laudable desire to obtain knowledge, and Neb seemed still more pleased than ever, now he had ascertained that New Jersey was a State. Travelling was not as much of an every-day occupation, at that time, as it is now; and it was, in truth, something for three American lads, all under ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... afforded the company matter for laughter, made them laugh this time also, and whenas the ladies had left devising of his fashions, the queen bade Pamfilo tell, whereupon quoth he, "Laudable ladies, the name of Niccolosa, Calandrino's mistress, hath brought me back to mind a story of another Niccolosa, which it pleaseth me to tell you, for that therein you shall see how a goodwife's ready wit ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... periostitis the pus formed is yellow in colour, creamy thick, and free from pronounced odour—the so-called 'laudable' pus of the older writers. It so happens in many cases of foot trouble, however, that putrefactive organisms gain entrance side by side with those of pus. In this case the characters of the discharge are very ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... the reader of Amelia, especially in those parts where, like Dickens at a later period, Fielding delays the progress of his narrative for the discussion of social problems and popular grievances. However laudable the desire (expressed in the dedication) "to expose some of the most glaring Evils, as well public as private, which at present infest this Country," the result in Amelia, from an art point of view, is as unsatisfactory as that of certain well-known pages of Bleak House and Little Dorrit. Again, ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... they? 'They wish to take their part in the work of the world.' That was nearer the proper tone, though it had a ring of claptrap rhetoric hateful to her: she had read it and shrunk from it in reports of otherwise laudable meetings. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bar—you have lost your brightest ornament. Cherish and imitate his example. While, like him, with justifiable and laudable zeal, you pursue the interests of your clients, remember, like him, the eternal principle ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... Brazenface; and you've come just at the right time, for here is the gentleman who will assist Mr. Pluckem in examining you;" and Mr. Bouncer pointed to Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, who was coming up the street on his way from the Schools, where he was making a very laudable (but as it proved, futile) endeavour "to get through his smalls," or, in other words, to pass his Little-go examination. The hoax which had been suggested to the ingenious mind of Mr. Bouncer, was based upon the fact of Mr. ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... almost trivial if compared with what the old ones (antiqui) did, so that now hardly one or two (unus aut alter) can be found who know what harmony is, though the word is always on their tongue." (De Fructu, p. 54-5.) Ascham, while lamenting in 1545 (Toxophilus, p. 29) 'that the laudable custom of England to teach children their plain song and prick-song' is 'so decayed throughout all the realm as it is,' denounces the great practise of instrumental music by older students: "the minstrelsy of lutes, pipes, harps, and all other that standeth by such nice, fine, minikin ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... seem to think that in so doing they have given a proof of virtue and public spirit. It were worthy only of an iconoclast to deprecate or disparage the legislative attempts to foster clean living. All such efforts are worthy of commendation; but in sadness it must be confessed that, laudable as these efforts are, they have not produced results that are wholly satisfactory. Defectives are still granted licenses to perpetuate their kind; children still enervate their bodies and minds by the ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... passionately liked Henchard as Henchard had liked him, he had, on the other hand, never so passionately hated in the same direction as his former friend had done, and he was therefore not the least indisposed to assist Elizabeth-Jane in her laudable plan. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... in Paul's Churchyard, bookseller, erstwhile Dick's indulgent master, and now his partner, Master Taverner having very prudently invested the contents of the silver coffer in the purchase of a share in his employers business, with the laudable determination of bestirring himself zealously in it ever after; and, as another opportunity may not occur for mentioning the circumstance, we will add that he kept to his resolution, and ultimately rose to high offices in the city. Dick's appearance ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... nation. It was, indeed, remarked by De Tocqueville, that, "in the eyes of the English, the cause which is most useful to England is always the cause of justice." But the rare insight of the philosopher assigns the phenomenon, not to a political Machiavelism, but to a "laudable desire to connect the actions of one's country with something more stable than interest." The English have a peculiar gift of fixing their whole attention upon certain traits or single circumstances which they desire to see. We doubt not that a portion of their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... casuist nor subtle disputant; and yet I would undertake to justify and qualify the profession of a highwayman, step by step, and so plausibly, as to make many ignorant people embrace the profession, as an innocent, if not even a laudable one; and puzzle people of some degree of knowledge, to answer me point by point. I have seen a book, entitled 'Quidlibet ex Quolibet', or the art of making anything out of anything; which is not so difficult as it would seem, if once one quits ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the town. Ducarel had not the glorious ambition to mount to the top of the tower; nor did he even possess that most commendable of all species of architectural curiosity, a wish to visit the crypt. Thus, in either extremity, I evinced a more laudable spirit of enterprise than did my old-fashioned predecessor. Accordingly, from the summit, you must accompany me to the lowest depth of the building. I descended by the same somewhat intricate route, and I took especial care to avoid all "temporary wooden staircase." The crypt, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... Behold! how he protects your friends oppress'd, Receives the banish'd, succours the distress'd: Behold, for you may read an honest open breast. He stands in day-light, and disdains to hide An act, to which by honour he is tied, 880 A generous, laudable, and kingly pride. Your Test he would repeal, his peers restore; This when he says he means, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... account of the former. I would give very little to be able to bring the world of mankind back to nature's true simplicity, if it were only to make them better and more perfect animals; though I know not but an attempt of this sort would be as truly laudable as the attempt so often made to improve the breed of our domestic animals. I suppose man, considered as a mere animal, is superior, in point of importance to all the others. But, after all, I would reform his dietetic habits principally to make him better, morally; to make him better, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... certain monk Alsso of Brevnov, an account of Christmas practices in Bohemia written about the year 1400. It supplies a link between modern customs and the Kalends prohibitions of the Dark Ages. Alsso tells of a number of laudable Christmas Eve practices, gives elaborate Christian interpretations of them, and contrasts them with things done by bad Catholics with ungodly intention. Here are some ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... by Knox of avarice, applied at least his wealth to laudable purposes; and in the words of Keith, was "a man of great learning, and a most accomplished politician." He entered St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews, in 1511, and took his Master's degree in 1515; and then proceeded to Paris. On his return to Scotland, he became successively Sub-Dean ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... laudable resolution, but it came hard, for beneath all Albert's good resolves was lurking desire for a little excitement to break the dull monotony of his life. He had been to the theatre only twice since he came to Boston, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... cases in which the object is natural, or even laudable. A fair share of this world's goods, our daily food, the love between man and woman, all these are objects to which the desires may lawfully be directed, so long as they are duly restrained. When, however, they become ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... prevention of scandal," an immediate marriage being apparently out of the question because of Gerard's inferiority in rank to his mistress, it is decided by the intervention of friends that Gerard shall take his leave of the Brabantine "family." There is a parting of the most laudable kind, in which Katherine bestows on her lover a ring, and a pledge that she will never marry any one else, and he responds suitably. Then he sets out, and on arriving at Bar has no difficulty in ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... or at any rate one of the least comfortable; but yet I have some fifteen thousand francs' worth of plate, dinner and dessert, white and red [silver and gold], which I hereby offer to place in the hands of whomsoever you shall appoint, in order to contribute to the expenses of so laudable an enterprise as this. Putting off, moreover, for the present the communication to you of a certain secret matter which one of the chiefs of this embassy hath told me; and I am certain that when you have discovered it, you will employ all your might and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... father, and in the sin wherewith he made Israel to sin. And further, obtruded upon the church a service book, a book of popish and prelatical canons, which was followed with a violent prosecution of the faithful contenders for the former laudable constitutions of the church, carried on by that monstrous Erastian high-commission court, patched up of statesmen and clergymen: and hereby was the church again brought under the yoke of anti-christian prelacy, and tyrannical supremacy; which lese-majesty ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... of his life, and, with the accumulated experience of years to aid him, has applied himself to the task of preparing for their mental delectation a diet that shall be at once wholesome and attractive; and that his efforts in this laudable direction have been successful is conclusively proven by ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... between his excellency Charles Knowles, esq., and some of the principal inhabitants of the island of Jamaica. This governor was accused of many illegal, cruel, and arbitrary acts, during the course of his administration; but these imputations he incurred by an exertion of power, which was in itself laudable, and well intended for the commercial interest of the island. This was his changing the seat of government, and procuring an act of assembly for removing the several laws, records, books, papers, and writings belonging to several offices in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Church on the one hand and the better sort of physicians on the other; namely, in the fact that the Church supposed herself in possession of something far better than scientific methods in medicine. Under the sway of this belief a natural and laudable veneration for the relics of Christian martyrs was developed more and ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... boy, in the name of all the gods at once, cheer up! To satisfy your very natural curiosity, I'll say that I fancied you were in trouble and needed a strong arm to sustain you in your hour of trial. Laudable purpose—ah, I see you begin to feel more comfortable. I have every intention of playing the big brother to you for a few hours, weeks, or months, or till you come out of your green funk. You wonder, of course, what motive ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... requested him in friendly accents to lie still. He turned his eyes toward the speaker: it was Dirk Waldron. He had dogged the party, at the earnest request of Dame Webber and her daughter, who, with the laudable curiosity of their sex, had pried into the secret consultations of Wolfert and the doctor. Dirk had been completely distanced in following the light skiff of the fisherman, and had just come in time to rescue the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... carried into daily life, will be found at the root of all the virtues—cleanliness, sobriety, chastity, morality, and religion. "The pious and just honoring of ourselves," said Milton, "may be thought the radical moisture and fountain-head from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth." To think meanly of one's self, is to sink in one's own estimation as well as in the estimation of others. And as the thoughts are, so will the acts be. Man cannot aspire ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... Decidiana, a lady of illustrious descent, from which connection he derived credit and support in his pursuit of greater things. They lived together in admirable harmony and mutual affection; each giving the preference to the other; a conduct equally laudable in both, except that a greater degree of praise is due to a good wife, in proportion as a bad one deserves the greater censure. The lot of quaestorship [20] gave him Asia for his province, and the proconsul Salvius Titianus [21] for his superior; by neither of which circumstances was he corrupted, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... legislation to correct abuses, and to bring the business under equally careful and official supervision as that given other forms of insurance, with a view to making it permanently subserve public interests, have been more than once defeated in their laudable endeavors, because they insisted that no legislation could meet the necessities of the case that did not contemplate it as a permanent institution. Great advances have been made however in the last three or four years, and much that ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... was a man of the best intentions that probably ever reigned. He was by no means deficient in talents. He had a most laudable desire to supply by general reading, and even by the acquisition of elemental knowledge, an education in all points originally defective; but nobody told him, (and it was no wonder he should not himself divine it,) that the world of which he read, and the world in which ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... who did not recognize Gregoire's hand in the affair. When met with the accusation, he denied it, or acknowledged it, or evaded the charge with a jest, as he felt for the moment inclined. It was a deed characteristic of any one of the Santien boys, and if not altogether laudable—Jocint having been at the time of the shooting unarmed—yet was it thought in a measure justified by the heinousness of his offense, and beyond dispute, a benefit to ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... crumpled-velvet blue substance of which two urchins of five and three were, breechless, and naked from the waist upwards, kneading yellow feet amid a silence as absorbed as though their one desire in life had been to impregnate the mud with the red radiance of the sun. And so much did this laudable task interest me, and engage my sympathy and attention, that I stopped to watch the strapping youngsters, seeing that even in mire the sun has a rightful place, for the reason that the deeper the sunlight's penetration of the soil, the better does that soil become, and the greater the benefit ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... anything except civil law; and since this treatise is dedicated to you, though not so exclusively but that it will also come into the hands of other people, we must take pains to be as serviceable as possible to those men who are addicted to laudable pursuits. ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... and the stage. In outward show, I humbly conceive, we looked rather like a gang of beggars, or banditti, than either a company of honest laboring-men, or a conclave of philosophers. Whatever might be our points of difference, we all of us seemed to have come to Blithedale with the one thrifty and laudable idea of wearing out our old clothes. Such garments as had an airing whenever we strode afield! Coats with high collars and with no collars, broad-skirted or swallow-tailed, and with the waist at every point between the hip and the armpit; pantaloons of a dozen successive epochs, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... profligate the emblems and the ceremonies which the Egyptians employed for the purpose of giving effect to this conception of the divine power. The ends which they proposed to themselves in these rites were natural and laudable; only the means they adopted to compass them were mistaken. A similar fallacy induced the Greeks to adopt a like symbolism in their Dionysiac festivals, and the superficial but striking resemblance thus produced between the two religions has perhaps more than anything ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... person had a character for piety and charity, he would with the greatest importunity apply to his or her surviving relations: and, if they refused an alms, he would, in the most moving terms imaginable, implore their charity for the sake of their deceased relation, praying they would follow the laudable and virtuous example of their dead husband, wife, father, mother, or the like; hoping there was the same God, the same spirit of piety, religion, and charity, still dwelling in the house as before the death of the person deceased. These and the like expressions, uttered ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... that bears the image of liberty; but we have a sign which recalls to us constantly our oath to live and die free, and here is this sign. (He showed his cockade.) The citizens, who have adopted the bonnet rouge through a laudable patriotism, will lose nothing by laying it aside. The friends of the Revolution will continue to recognise each other by the sign of virtue and of reason. These emblems are ours alone; all those may be imitated by traitors and aristocrats. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by which she rose to empire." But it is to the future he bids her look, rather than to the past. "The remembrance of what is past, if it operates rightly, must inspire her with the most laudable of all ambition, that of adding to the fair fame she began with." "She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domestic life,—not beneath the cypress shade of disappointment, but to enjoy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... quite a ruin. He had to wear clapboards on himself for months, and there were other doctors, and laudable pus and threatened gangrene and doctors' bills, with the cemetery looming up in the near future. Day after day he took his own anti-febrile drinks, and rammed his busted system full of iron and strychnine ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... case is one of those few in which a woman can shew a bravery of spirit, I think an endeavour after it is laudable; and the rather, as in my conduct I aim at giving a tacit example to ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... appeared to be to satisfy his own personal peace of mind? Yet we doubt if the senior was conscious of the futility of his direction. He had one object in view. He was possessed with the single desire to avoid disaster. In its limited sense his action was laudable enough; but what would the owner of a racehorse say to the jockey who, after having ridden a sound horse in a race, volunteered the information that he had never extended his mount out of consideration for its sinews? The care of the jockey ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... poor souls who were in a dying condition would be carried out to the neighboring hillsides just before dissolution, and there abandoned to their sufferings, with little or no attention, unless the placing under their heads of a small stick of wood—with possibly some laudable object, but doubtless great discomfort to their victim—might be ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... formed some of the latter establishments, joined to the chimerical project of finding gold and silver mines, other motives more reasonable and more laudable; but even these motives do very little honour to the ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... rudeness, a crime against humanity rather than an insult to honor! How many debase their bodies to hasten the perfection of their minds, and degrade their character to adorn their understanding! How many do not scruple to commit a crime when they have a laudable end in view, pursue an ideal of political happiness through all the terrors of anarchy, tread under foot existing laws to make way for better ones, and do not scruple to devote the present generation to misery to secure at this cost the happiness of future generations! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and as little hop as may well be—ale at least two years old—with the aforesaid friend when the diversion is over." He says he is "not ashamed to speak to a beggar in rags, and will associate with anybody, provided he can gratify a laudable curiosity." More emphatically still, he asks: "Can the rolls of the English aristocracy exhibit names belonging to more heroic men than those who were called respectively Pearce, Cribb, and Spring?" Both "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye," be it noted, were written long after Borrow's association ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... sufficient to him that he had the book.' 'The garniture of a book,' he would observe,'was apt to recommend it to a great part of our modern collectors'; he himself was not a mere nomenclator, and versed only in title-pages, 'but had made that just and laudable use of his books which would become all those that set up for collectors.' He was the possessor of thirteen fine Caxtons, which fetched altogether less than two guineas at his sale; the biddings seem to have been by the penny; and Mr. Clarke in his Repertorium ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning that if you ever resolved upon quitting Netherfield you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourself—and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... disgust, he found himself surrounded by the things he loathed. Books ancient—very ancient, judging by their bindings—and modern—histories, biographies, novels and magazines—anything from ten dollars to five cents, and all arrayed with most laudable tact according to their bulk and condition. But Hamar was neither to be tempted nor mollified. He frowned at one and all alike, and the colossal edition of Miss Somebody or Other's poems—that by reason ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... four brothers, I am happy to state, that though not formidable as soldiers, they were very amiable as citizens. They bought farms — proved their oxen — married wives — multiplied good children, and thus, very unlike our niggardly bachelors, contributed a liberal and laudable part to the population, strength, and glory of their country. God, I pray heartily, take kind notice of all such; and grant, that having thus done his will in this world, they may partake of his ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... enclosed despatches and the proposed Minutes of a draft to Lord Normanby with Lord John Russell's remarks. She approves generally of the Minutes, but would like that amongst the laudable intentions of the new French Government, that of keeping inviolate the European Treaties should be brought in in some way. In the paper No. 2, the expression "most cordial friendship" strikes the Queen as rather too strong. We have just ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... The colonel's laudable habit of associating freely, whenever opportunity occurred, with the natives, gave him considerable insight into the state of the country, where the caprices of the native princes were not then much interfered with, and which consequently, as he says, "was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... only brother, Levi L., a lawyer residing at M., Illinois, she removed (1870) to that city. Here she engaged in arduous and unremitting study, laboring to deserve the esteem of the gifted and cultured people with whom she had cast her lot. With the same laudable ambition that moves the man of business to be identified as successful in his life career, the writer, whose only wealth is the acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of an inherited gift, comes before the public in a pursuit that has ever proved the animating ally of education ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... the eastern coast of New Holland was the result of that laudable and beneficial spirit of enterprize and investigation, which conferred on the name of Captain Cook so just a claim to posthumous gratitude and immortal renown. Four months of his first voyage round the world, this celebrated circumnavigator dedicated ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... horse held firmly by the head, pretty well convinces her that he is a first-flight man to hounds, and probably has appeared in silk on a racecourse. The match terminates as might be anticipated: Sylla, under the laudable impression that she is making her advantage in the weights tell, gallops her luckless mare pretty nearly to a standstill, and Lionel, though winning as he likes, good-naturedly reduces it to a half length, whereby his defeated antagonist ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... Desargues is to be found in his style of writing. He failed to heed the very good advice given him in a letter from his warm admirer Descartes.(8) "You may have two designs, both very good and very laudable, but which do not require the same method of procedure: The one is to write for the learned, and show them some new properties of the conic sections which they do not already know; and the other is to write for the curious unlearned, and to do it so that this ...
— An Elementary Course in Synthetic Projective Geometry • Lehmer, Derrick Norman
... right to interpose in a case of this kind. It was argued that if any rebel leader chose to come over to Fort Sumter and poison himself, the Medical Department had no business to interfere with such a laudable intention. The doctor, however, claimed, with some show of reason, that he himself was held responsible to the United States for the medicine in the hospital, and therefore he could not permit Pryor to carry any ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... they were insensibly vanished, the honest shopkeeper being left to deplore the misfortune of having such light-fingered customers find the way to his shop. Another practice of theirs, to the same laudable purpose, was carried on after this manner: three or four of them walked up and down several streets, which by observation they had found fitted for their purpose, and on perceiving things of any value lying in a parlour, they, with an engine ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... the commandant's story may appear, it would have had great weight against us with the fiscal, and considerably protracted the period of our release, were it not for the fact that the fiscal is on intimate terms with my companion's family. This fortunate circumstance, aided by the laudable efforts of my consul, who works wonders with his excellency the governor, enables us to be set at liberty without further delay. There is, however, some difficulty in the case of our black attendant, whom the authorities would still keep in bondage, out of compliment to stern ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... present Age is more laudable than those which have gone before it in any single Particular, it is in that generous Care which several well-disposed Persons have taken in the Education of poor Children; and as in these Charity-Schools ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... are right and wrong ways of conducting the physical training of girls, according as whether we are aiming at muscularity or motherhood. We have seen also that there is a thing called the higher education of women, apparently laudable and desirable in itself, which may yet have disastrous consequences for the ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... anywhere than breathe through the following passages, taken from the "bibles of all nations" so ably collected for us by Mr. Corway in the "Sacred Anthology" quoted from above? "Let a man continually take pleasure in truth, in justice, in laudable practices and in purity; let him keep in subjection his speech, his arm, and his appetites. Wealth and pleasures repugnant to law, let him shun; and even lawful acts which may cause pain, or be offensive to mankind. Let him not have nimble hands, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... I had bought this book. Happening into a modest second-hand bookshop on lower Third Avenue, maintained chiefly for the laudable purpose of redistributing paper novels of the Seaside and kindred libraries, of which, alas, we hear very little nowadays, I asked the proprietor if by chance he possessed any literature relating to the art of music. By way of answer, he retired ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... this. It seemed to me that the organizers, forgetting that this was a mimic battle, had made it into a real battle, and that there was an imperfect appreciation of what strictly amateur sport is. The desire to win, laudable and essential in itself, may by excessive indulgence become a morbid obsession. Surely, I thought, and still think, the means ought to suit the end! An enthusiast for American organization, I was nevertheless forced to conclude that here organization is being carried too far, outraging the ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... read the whole of his writings ten times, and the treatises against the Pelagians not less than thirty times. The fruit of all this studious devotion was his work known briefly as the ‘Augustinus,’ {107} published two years after his death (in 1640). Nothing could have seemed more innocent or laudable than the attempt by a bishop of the Church to set forth the doctrine of St Augustine. The book professed to have been undertaken in ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... of the Emperor Alexius," (says Gibbon,) "has been delineated by the pen of a favourite daughter, who was inspired by tender regard for his person, and a laudable zeal to perpetuate his virtues. Conscious of the just suspicion of her readers, the Princess repeatedly protests, that, besides her personal knowledge, she had searched the discourses and writings of the most respectable veterans; and that after an interval of thirty years, forgotten by, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... it is all very proper and laudable," he returned, hesitating; "but surely—surely there must be some other way more suitable to ladies in your position! Let me call again when your mother comes, and see if there is nothing that I can do or recommend better than this. Yes, I am sure if I can only talk to your mother, we could find ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... same admirable writer has bequeathed to us a full and luminous code of the rules and principles of immutable morality, by which this awful issue must be tried, and no one who is familiar with these principles can hesitate in pronouncing that the war on the part of the French Huguenots was lawful and laudable ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... but you will not, therefore, get rid of this paradox. On any other theory of value whatsoever, it will still continue to be an irresistible truth, though it is the Ricardian theory only which can consistently explain it. Here, by the way, is a specimen of paradox in the true and laudable sense—in that sense according to which Boyle entitled a book "Hydrostatical Paradoxes;" for, though it wears a prima facie appearance of falsehood, yet in the end you will be sensible that it is not only true, but ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... pounds for any play that might suit him—to say nothing of Mr. Colburn saying confidentially that he wanted more than his dinner 'a novel on the subject of Napoleon'! So may one make money, if one does not live in a house in a row, and feel impelled to take the Princess's Theatre for a laudable development ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... that, in using scandalous means for the purpose of obtaining a laudable end, he had committed, not only a crime, but a folly. The Queen was now his enemy. She affected, indeed, to listen with civility while the Hydes excused their recent conduct as well as they could; and she occasionally pretended ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... letters of SPURINNAM, in the first two lines. If B had {Pi} before him, there is nothing to explain his most unusual procedure. His original, therefore, is not {Pi} but an intervening copy, which he is transcribing with an utter indifference to aesthetic effect and with a laudable, if painful, desire for accuracy. This trait, obvious in B's work throughout, is perhaps nowhere more strikingly exhibited ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand
... all attributed the failure of the piece to Coralie; she had overestimated her strength; she might be the delight of a boulevard audience, but she was out of her element at the Gymnase; she had been inspired by a laudable ambition, but she had not taken her powers into account; she had chosen a part to which she was quite unequal. Lucien read on through a pile of penny-a-lining, put together on the same system as his attack upon Nathan. Milo of Crotona, when he found ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... work the author has endeavoured to add something to the increasing stock of innocent amusement and early instruction, which the laudable exertions of some excellent modern writers provide for the rising generation; and, in the present, an attempt is made to provide for young people, of a more advanced age, a few Tales, that shall neither dissipate the attention, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind, or of his fortune, to mere corporal sensations, and ruining his health in their pursuit, Mistaken man, said I, you are providing pain for yourself, instead of pleasure; you give too much ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... in private life. She was pretty and quick and brave, and had a fineness that Miriam professed herself already in a position to estimate as rare. She had no control of her inclinations, yet sometimes they were wholly laudable, like the devotion she had formed for her beautiful colleague, whom she admired not only as an ornament of the profession but as a being altogether of a more fortunate essence. She had had an idea that real ladies were ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Derry who answered that. "If in times of peace I heard you scream and saw you set upon by thieves and murderers, and stood with my hands in my pockets while you were tortured and killed, would you call my non-interference laudable?" ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... demanded by theory. The priests at Jerusalem MUST very specially at an early date have arrived at the conception that their temple with the sacred ark and the great altar was the one true place of worship, and an author has clothed this very laudable effort on behalf of the purity of religion in the form of a law, which certainly in its strictness was quite impracticable (ILeviticus xvii.4 seq.), and which, therefore, was modified later by the Deuteronomist with ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... in thy mind," resumed the latter, with a smile; "but be under no apprehension. I have not undergone the censure of any judicial tribunal. My crucifixion was merely a painful but necessary incident in my laudable enterprise of obtaining the marvellous purple dye, to which end I was despatched unto these regions by ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... is Prince Regent,' answered Mac-Ivor, with laudable composure of countenance; 'and in the court of France all the honours are rendered to the person of the Regent which are due to that of the King. Besides, were I to pull off either of their boots, I would render that service ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... was on the committee on public buildings, also on the committee on the assessors department, on committees on Stony Brook, public parks, claims, police, and several others of more or less special importance, in all of which he showed a fine business efficiency and discriminating capacity highly laudable. He has also served as a Director of Public Institutions. Last year he had to contend against the forces of a big corporation, and other organized oppositions, in favor of the Republican nominee for alderman, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... crimes if the inconstant multitude should prefer their inclinations to their duty; or if the general of a victorious army should be tempted from his allegiance by the hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The personal fears of Constantius were interpreted by his council as a laudable anxiety for the public safety; while in private, and perhaps in his own breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear, the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly conceived for the inimitable ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... district appeared to require some particular preventive. The custom is getting a little into disuse, it is true; but still it retains much of that sacred character which it would seem is the concomitant of antiquity. It is not a little extraordinary that this venerable and laudable practice, of washing away the unwholesome impurities engendered in the human system, at a time, when as it is entirely without any moral protector, it is left exposed to the attacks of all the evils ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... by boats bringing off vegetables, fruit, and fish, some of them containing those persevering personages ever present in foreign ports, washerwomen and washermen, their laudable object being to solicit the honour of cleansing the dirty linen of the ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... In this sense it is not to be mistaken. Although the action is of itself so very simple, and the actors confined to two persons, it is astonishing to note the infinite variations of which this favourite theme has been found susceptible. Whether all these be equally appropriate and laudable, is quite another question; and in how far the painters have truly interpreted the Scriptural narration, ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... pulled down as a rotten building ready to fall on the heads of the inhabitants, that all classes of people run to hear the crash, and to see the engines and levers at work which are to effect this laudable purpose. What else can be the meaning of our preacher's taking upon himself to denounce the sentiments of the most serious professors in great cities, as vitiated and stark-naught, of relegating religion to his native glens, and pretending that the hymn of praise ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... but money itself, when properly used, is not only a "handy thing to have in the house," but affords the gratification of blessing our race by enabling its possessor to enlarge the scope of human happiness and human influence. The desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can say it is not laudable, provided the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum
... dissolved by subsequent sponsalia in praesenti, or matrimony. But such spousals could be converted into valid matrimony by the cohabitation of the parties; and this, instead of being looked upon as reprehensible, seems to have been treated as a laudable action, and to be by all means encouraged.[1] In addition to this, completion of a contract for marriage de futuro confirmed by oath, if such a contract were not indeed indissoluble, as was thought by some, could at any rate be enforced against an unwilling ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... be to maintain that it is essential that every naval officer to-day should be skilled to handle a ship under sail, because the habit of the sailing-ship educated, brought out, faculties and habits of the first value to the military man. Still, there is something not only excusable, but laudable, in a man magnifying his office; and it was well that my friend the professor should have a slightly exaggerated idea of the bearing of the calculus on the daily routine or occasional emergencies of a ship. What is needed is a counterpoise, to correct undue deflection of the like kind, to which ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... and members of the religious society of the Quakers. I was highly gratified in finding that these, in conjunction with Mr. Russell, had been attempting to awaken the attention of the inhabitants to this great subject, and that in consequence of their laudable efforts, a spirit was beginning to show itself there, as at Manchester, in favour of the abolition of the Slave Trade. The kind manner in which these received me, and the deep interest which they appeared to take in our cause, led me to an esteem for them, which, by ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... imprint of the hand of the first Sultan who visited the mosque after the occupation of Constantinople by the Osmanlis. Perhaps, however, the Mussulman, in thus discriminating between the traditions of the Greek residents and the alleged hand-mark of the first Sultan, is actuated by a laudable desire to be truthful so far as possible; for there is nothing improbable about the story of the hand-mark, inasmuch as a hole chipped in the masonry, an application of cement, and a pressure of the Sultan's ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... years; and afterwards not expect (however good an opinion I may have of myself) to bring myself into notice under three or four years more; if ever! It is really a prospect somewhat discouraging for a youth of my ambition (for I have ambition, though I hope its object is laudable). ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... garden abounded. The prolific qualities of this plant alarmed us greatly, for although, in the first transport of enthusiasm, my wife planted several different kinds of flower-seeds, nothing ever came up but hollyhocks; and although, impelled by the same laudable impulse, I procured a copy of "Downing's Landscape Gardening," and a few gardening tools, and worked for several hours in the garden, ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... part with one who had proved so valuable an assistant in his school, but all his arguments had failed and he was obliged to give him up, saying, "I hope, Raymond, that all your laudable enterprises may be successful." ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... laudable enough function to perform, it is by no means the function of the Kindergarten. This method of instruction aims at much more. It aims to lay foundations for a complete later education, and especially to make firm in the child those virtues and aptitudes which, when they are ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... in the most courteous manner from their involuntary host. "Yet I fail to understand why so many are needed for a purpose so laudable." ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green |
