"More often than not" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Achiet. Officers and men took full advantage of the period of rest, and the weather fortunately was exactly suited to enjoyable life under canvas. The thing of the moment only concerned us, and this was more often than not an important football match with another battalion, a game of cricket, a sports day, a visit to the divisional concert troupe—"Th' Lads"—who gave some very good shows about this time. Boxing was a great thing, and Pte. Finch, who was, poor chap, killed and ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... such as they are, have come to me from time to time, I hardly know how or whence; certainly not of deliberate intention or of malice aforethought. More often than not they have come to the interruption of other, as it seemed to me, more ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... rarely put to sea, and when he did it was more often than not after nightfall, a time when the good folk of the village were preparing ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... beginning Ah Cum would run his glance speculatively over the assortment and select that individual who promised to be the most companionable. He was a philosopher. Usually his charges bored him with their interrogative chatter, for he knew that his information more often than not went into one ear and out of the other. To-day he selected the girl, and gave her the lead-chair. He motioned the young man to the rear chair, because at that hour the youth appeared to be a quantity close to zero. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... a very powerful autocrat, seconded by a man of genius, to succeed, even partially, in such a task. More often than not the reformer finds that the whole people rises up against him. Then, to the contrary of what befalls in an ordinary revolution, the autocrat is revolutionary and the people is conservative. But an attentive study will soon show you that the peoples ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... four hunters—sometimes more—which nobody but himself ever used, and the price of a horse that would carry a man of his weight comfortably ran into treble figures more often than not. Dick kept a couple always at Kencote, even Walter had one, and Humphrey and Frank could always be mounted whenever they wanted a day with the South Meadshire. There were nine or ten horses, standing in stalls ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... was in constant danger. The Taipings, steadily growing in power, were spreading destruction far and wide. The Ever Victorious Army was the only force capable of opposing them, and the Ever Victorious Army was defeated more often than not. Its first European leader had been killed; his successor quarrelled with ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... and a real love for Brian, made you stubborn and unreasonable about his work. Of the big gap in temperament and the host of petty things that maddened Brian to the point of distraction, it's unnecessary for me to speak. You must know that your happy-go-lucky self-indulgence more often than not has spelled discomfort of a definite sort for Brian. You're generous, I'll admit. Generous to a fault. But your generosity is always congenial. It's never the sort that hurts. The only kind of generosity that will help ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... shut up, looking through the long fringe of rope or rattan which conceals the sliding door, you see the father, who wears nothing but a maro in "the bosom of his family," bending his ugly, kindly face over a gentle-looking baby, and the mother, who more often than not has dropped the kimono from her shoulders, enfolding two children destitute of clothing in her arms. For some reasons they prefer boys, but certainly girls are equally petted and loved. The children, though for our ideas too gentle and formal, are very prepossessing ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... ditch. How many times I used to have bets with my cousins that I would jump that ditch! The bet was sometimes three sheets of paper, or five pins, or perhaps my two pancakes, for we used to have pancakes every Tuesday. And after the bet I jumped, more often than not falling into the ditch and splashing about in the green water, screaming because I was afraid of the frogs, and yelling with terror when my cousins pretended ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... on the Boulevard. The Palais Royal, now so dishonoured and disavowed, was then the very Paris of Paris; the shutters of the shops seemed taken down, at that hour, for our especial benefit, and I remember well how, the "dressing" of so large a number of the compact and richly condensed fronts being more often than not a matter of diamonds and pearls, rubies and sapphires, that represented, in their ingenuities of combination and contortion, the highest taste of the time, I found open to me any amount of superior study of the fact that the spell ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... giving us not a minute's peace; and many a narrow escape we had from them. Thus we were compelled to get what sleep we could during the day-time, keeping watch and watch, while at night we did such travelling as was possible. But that was not much, for more often than not we were driven to take refuge in trees, or to retreat into the water, sitting in it up to our necks, with sharks cruising round within a few fathoms of us and occasionally making dashes into the shallow water and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... force, may well be glad to follow the mental history of a man who knew how to move and grow without any of these reactions and leaps on the one hand, or any of that overdone realism on the other, which may all make a more striking picture, but which do assuredly more often than not mark the ruin of a mind and the ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... desolation was still there, just as the immortal flush of the westward sky kept hanging its indestructible curtain. He had never got away—everything had left him, but he himself had been able to turn his back on nothing—and now, his day's labour before a dirty desk at the Gas Works ended, he more often than not, almost any season at temperate Properley serving his turn, took his slow straight way to the Land's End and, collapsing there to rest, sat often for an hour at a time staring before him. He might in these sessions, with his eyes on the grey-green sea, have been ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... is, but your very clever man never seems to care so much as your less gifted mortals for cleverness in his helpmate. Your scholars and poets and ministers of state are more often than not found assorted with exceedingly humdrum, good sort of women, and apparently like them all the better for their deficiencies. Just see how happily Racine lived with his wife, and what an angel he thought her, and yet she had never read his plays. Certainly ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... little cobbed-shwaller-tail jacket." He regarded with fine scorn the cheerful carelessness of the boys where clothes were concerned. To Jim and Wally who were generally immensely occupied until dinner-time, and more often than not had further plans for the time following, putting on regulation evening dress seemed a proceeding little short of lunatic; but since Cecil "liked that sort of thing," they let him alone. To-night, however, was different, ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... room, in front of a blackboard. After a few evenings, prolonged into the peaceful watches of the night, I become aware, to my great surprise, that my teacher, the past master in those hieroglyphics, is really, more often than not, my pupil. He does not see the combinations of the abscissas and ordinates very clearly. I make bold to take the chalk in hand myself, to seize the rudder of our algebraical boat. I comment on the book, interpret it in my own fashion, expound the text, sound ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... basest motives to all mankind. According to her moods, she had encouraged Sabina to look forward to a life of perpetual pleasure, or had assured her with energy that all men were liars, and that the world was a wretched place after all. It was true that the Princess entertained the cheerful view more often than not, which was perhaps fortunate for her daughter; but in her heart the young girl felt that she would have to rely on her own common sense to form any opinion of life, and as her position became more difficult, while the future did not grow more ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... bind people together more often than not. There are cases when it's not so, but I don't think yours is likely to be ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... intellectual best, addressing her as a person whose opinion is understood by both to be worth as much as his own. Similarly an American lady does not expect to have conversation made to her: it is just as much her duty or pleasure to lead it as the man's is; and more often than not she takes the burden from him, darting along with a gay vivacity which puts to shame ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... of the essentials in my profession is the ability to put the finger on the small mistakes a criminal makes when he endeavors to cover up his tracks. I suppose nine cases out of ten are solved in this way, and more often than not the thing left undone, unthought of, is the very one, you would imagine, which the criminal would have thought of first. I fancy the reason lies in the fact that the criminal does not believe he will be suspected. I said ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... been to me one of the rewards of fishing. It quite outweighs that doubtful moment for me when the fish lies in the boat or helpless on the moss. Then I am always sorry, and more often than not let ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... Islands may not keep; they are forced to give, live by giving. Here lies their historical significance. They dispense their gifts of culture in levying upon the resources of other lands. But finally more often than not, the limitation of too small a home area steps in to arrest the national development, which then fades and decays. To this rule Great Britain and Japan are notable exceptions, owing partly to the unusual size of their insular territory, partly to a highly advantageous ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... ears. And often they die in poverty. But at last posterity comes around to their way of thinking, abandons the old ruts and follows the trails they have blazed. Therefore many great thinkers who were unknown while alive became famous after death. More often than not, "Fame is the ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... to the bed, examining it curiously; and again he understood her look of doubt—in China beds were called kang, or stoves, from the fact that they were more often than not a platform of brick with an opening beneath for hot coals. She fingered the ball fringe of the coverlet, and then turned with amazement to the soft pillow. A hand with the stone bracelet falling back from her smooth wrist rose to the ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... in the day, a tall, handsome, distinguished, middle-aged man, wearing for the occasion the uniform of a colonel in the Imperial Guard, a blood-stained, tarnished, battered, battle-worn uniform, be it observed, comes into the room. He is more often than not attended by a lovely lady of beauty and grace, in spite of her years, who leads with either hand a handsome youth and a beautiful maiden. The four soldiers are always present in full uniform under the command of their sergeant at this hour. As the officer ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... advantage of better radar. In this crazy "war," so like the dogfights of the first world war, the better than two hundred mile edge of American radar was more often than not the margin of victory. The American crews were a little sharper, a little better trained, but with their stripped down ships, and midget crewmen, with no personal safety equipment, the Reds could accelerate longer and faster, ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... because I could always go and smoke a narghileh with the women at the water-side in a neighbour's garden. But in the winter it was not possible to do this. So I used to occupy myself with music or literature, or with writing these rough notes, which I or some one else will put together some day. But more often than not I sat and listened to the stillness, broken ever and anon ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... community will be vast, something geographically more extensive than most, and geographically different from almost all existing communities, that the outline its creative forces will draw not only does not coincide with existing political centres and boundaries, but will be more often than not in direct conflict with them, uniting areas that are separated and separating areas that are united, grouping here half a dozen tongues and peoples together and there tearing apart homogeneous bodies and distributing the fragments among separate ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... which Nature is seen unforced by the hands of colour-loving men and women, and seen, more often than not, by early morning or evening light—have ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... on account of its qualities of yielding tannin, rich dyes and compounds of medicinal worth, grew in dense clumps, the straight trunks packed close together and the spreading, leafy branches almost completely shutting out the daylight. More often than not reeking pools of black water formed the floor of these desolate places. Mosquitoes in clouds rose from the stagnant mire; their buzzing wings made an ever-present music for, the insects being of various kinds and sizes, ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... technical skill, but according to the spiritual excellence which goes into it. Technical skill depends largely on the right man finding the right job; but as our world is organised at present the right man, more often than not, is put into the wrong job and has to do his best with it. God sees and estimates that best; and as surely as He makes His sun to rise and His rain to fall will give it ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... in the main right about the priests, but there are many exceptions, as they themselves gladly admit. For my own part I have found the curato in the small subalpine villages of North Italy to be more often than not a kindly excellent man to whom I am attracted by sympathies deeper than any mere superficial differences of opinion can counteract. With monks, however, as a general rule I am less able to get on: nevertheless, I have received much ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... allowed to introduce a limited number of friends, a privilege highly valued, and much sought after by the most remote acquaintance of each and every tenant on the estate. A most wonderful display of colours distinguishes these Norfolkites, bright of hue, too, and more often than not dames of fifty got up in the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... ever been more of a problem suited to statesmen than to soldiers; indeed, the soldier has more often than not come in to spoil the work of the statesman, and Mr. Asquith's hurried visit to Dublin, Cork, and Belfast after John Dillon's speech was chiefly undertaken in order to prevent any repetition of ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... Spanish way of loving, not the English," she said, with a long breath like a sigh, as she looked at him. "No; I am not surprised. Love is a strange thing, Derrick—pardon!—Mr. Dene; and it comes sometimes, more often than not with the people of my nation, at first sight. Will you think me curious, if I ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... who ever came near enough to his inner life to appreciate its sweetness as well as its lightness. As for his airy method of disposing of insistent creditors I have no doubt that the rhymes on the backs of their bills more often than not were more to them than the dollars and cents ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... dark closet which they called the dungeon. The dungeon door was big and solid, and was equipped with a heavy catch-lock. In this dungeon, Prudence kept the family silverware, and all the money she had on hand, as it could there be safely locked away. But more often than not, Prudence forgot ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston |
