"Naught" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... felt rather than made obvious—it was not barbarism, but decadence. And I realized then how close are the two extremes. A reversion to type, merely. And I knew, then, that from the pinnacle of civilization which we of Earth had reached, naught lay ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... forty yard line and Mack Carver's brilliant runback of the initial kick-off reduced to naught! ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... blood ran cold, then burn'd like fire; Venus I felt in all my fever'd frame, Whose fury had so many of my race Pursued. With fervent vows I sought to shun Her torments, built and deck'd for her a shrine, And there, 'mid countless victims did I seek The reason I had lost; but all for naught, No remedy could cure the wounds of love! In vain I offer'd incense on her altars; When I invoked her name my heart adored Hippolytus, before me constantly; And when I made her altars smoke with victims, 'Twas for a god whose name I dared not utter. I ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... lined; her eyes were gray, Mirrors of her heart's continuous play; Her head, crowned with a wintry sheet, Had learned naught of this world's deceit. She oft forgot her own in others' trials, And met the day's rebuffs with ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... croaker, Zachariah. You see naught but the buzzards, when all about you are the newly come birds of spring, the bluebird, the robin, and the thrush. Soon the meadow lark will be in the fields, and the young ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... who are born to do that work. The well bred are those who are bred to be proud of that work. The well educated are those who see deepest into the meaning and the necessity of that work. Nor shall their labor be for naught, nor the reward of their sacrifice fail them. For high in the firmament of human destiny are set the stars of faith in mankind, and unselfish courage, and loyalty to the ideal; and while they shine, ...
— The Americanism of Washington • Henry Van Dyke
... "Dorian Gray" and the "Mystic and Somber Dolores" and the "Belle Dame sans Merci"; for a month was keen on naught else. The world became pale and interesting, and he tried hard to look at Princeton through the satiated eyes of Oscar Wilde and Swinburne—or "Fingal O'Flaherty" and "Algernon Charles," as he called them in precieuse jest. He read enormously ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Bathing blistered brow and hands; While near by, in pain a-tremble, Faithful Zeb impatient stands. Through the bend he searched and wandered, But except the furrowed bark, Of a gnarled and aged elm tree Which revealed one bullet-mark, Naught was left save blackened embers; And the words he "knew in part"— "Dust to dust and then to ashes"— Told ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... vicinity, and newly felled trees. The ditch skirting the road has been deepened for this temporary purpose. Abattis, to a fair extent, has been laid in front. But the whole position faces to the south, and is good for naught else. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... then, think of every penny coming to him, and what might be rescued and wrung from runaways and bankrupts whose bills he held, and whom he used to curse in his bed, with his fists and his teeth clenched, when poor little Mrs. Sturk, knowing naught of this danger, and having said her prayers, lay sound asleep by his side. Then he used to think, if he could only get the agency in time it would set him up—he could borrow L200 the day after his appointment; and he must make a ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... gentle them and persuade them to guide him upon his way. After a time he met a Shaykh well stricken in years; so he salamed to him and the other, after returning his greeting, asked him saying, "What was it brought thee to this land and region wherein are naught but wild beasts and Ghuls?" whereto he answered, "O Shaykh, I came hither for the sake of the Lady Fatimah, daughter of 'Amir ibn al-Nu'uman." Hereat exclaimed the greybeard, "Deceive not thyself, for assuredly thou shalt be lost together with what ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... said, "by these opinions, which have been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... partially awakened consciences; do not rest satisfied till they are quieted in the legitimate way. There was a man who trembled when he heard Paul remonstrating with him about 'righteousness and temperance'—both of which the unjust judge had set at naught—'and judgment to come' And he 'sent for him often and communed with him gladly,' but we never hear that Felix trembled any more. It is possible for you so to lull yourselves into indifference, and, as it were, so to waterproof your consciences that appeals, threatenings, pleadings, mercies, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... of men are forced to look upon a loathsome spectacle. It is that of certain individuals in America; to whom a great nation has temporarily intrusted its weal and woe, supporting a few multi-millionaires and their dependents, setting at naught—unpunished—the revered document of the Fourth of July, 1776, and daring to barter away the birthright of the white race. . . . We want to see whether the united voices of Germans and foreigners have not more weight than the hired writers of editorials in the newspapers; ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... downfall is the old story of envy, man trying to climb by ruining his superiors, hating those whose magnificence approaches their own. Foucquet's unequalled entertainment of the king was made to count as naught. Louis, even before leaving for Paris, had begun to ask whence came the money that purchased this wide fertile estate stretching to the vision's limit, the money that built the chateau of regal splendour, the money that paid ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... the commencement, reading and reflecting on it so devoutly, and finding in it such deep treasures of delight, that, if I had been able, I should have done naught else but study it. However, light was wanting; and the thought of all my troubles kept recurring and gnawing at me in the darkness, until I often made my mind up to put an end somehow to my own life. They did not allow me a knife, however, and so it was no easy matter to commit suicide. Once, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... overtures on the part of one of Europe's richest monarchs toward the purchase of the Paternoster ruby came to naught; the price set upon it by the Paternostros was prohibitive; and gradually it came to be forgotten by the public, until the year '84, when interest concerning it was again revived, this ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... said Cai after a pause, pulling a wry face, "to do your master justice, he warned me 'twas a risk. There's naught to do but pay up un' look pleasant, I reckon. ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... ones, the which, as they are for the most part unworthy themselves, sing the praises of other unworthy ones, so that, asini asinos fricant. But Providence wills that these, instead of rising to the sky, should go together to the shades of Orcus, so that naught is the glory of him who extols and of him who is extolled; for the one has woven a statue of straw, or carved the trunk of a tree, or cast a piece of chalk, and the other, the idol of shame and infamy, knows not that there is no need to wait for the keen tooth of the age and the scythe of ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... Which most leave undone, or despise: For naught that sets one heart at ease, And giveth happiness or peace, Is low-esteemed in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... grande caballo," she said, "there is naught but grief at Last's Holding. Tharone querida" she called into the house, ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... hold, Let Hela keep; For naught care I, Though the world weep, O'er Baldur's bale. Live he or die With tearless eye, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... ten days, marched four hundred miles, fought four pitched battles and a whole rosary of skirmishes, made of naught the operations of four armies, threatened its enemy's capital and relieved its own, the Army of the Valley wound upward toward the Blue Ridge from the field of Port Republic. It had attended Shields some distance down the Luray road. "Drive them!—drive them!" had said Jackson. It had driven them ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... writ athwart his round, ill-favoured face, But my motley was hidden from his sight. My cloak, my hat and boots allowed naught of my true condition to appear, and might as well have covered a lordling as a jester. Yet his inveterate surliness the rascal could ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... formula, the first words that Satan spoke when he saw heaven closing against him. Alas! for how many evils are those words responsible? How many disasters and deaths, how many strokes of fateful scythes in the ripening harvest of humanity! How many hearts, how many families where there is naught but ruin, since that word was first heard! "Who knows! Who knows!" Loathsome words! Rather than pronounce them one should be as sheep who graze about the slaughter-house and know it not. That is better than to be called a strong spirit, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... too carelessly,—much writing hath made me mad of late. Forgive if the "style be not neat, terse, and sparkling," if there be naught of the "thrilling," if the sentences seem not "written with a diamond pen," like all else that is published in America. Some time I must try to ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Rhadamanthean justice, as hard of heart as he was subtle and suspicious, was long baffled, and to his unutterable rage, set at naught by the indefatigable poisoners who kept all France awake on ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... them more, that could do more to make their hearts throb with pride. We sent all the best that we had—armies and armies of them—and they toiled and suffered, they rotted upon a thousand fields of horror. And their souls cry out to me, that it must not be for naught, that the fearful consecration must not be ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... figure, like, and yet unlike, a man, but of a much larger and grander form, appeared to me, as I thought, and spoke. 'Zara is mine,' it said—'mine by choice; mine by freewill; mine till death; mine after death; mine through eternity. With her thou hast naught in common; thy way lies elsewhere. Follow the path allotted to thee, and presume no more upon an angel's patience.' Then this Strange majestic-looking creature, whose face, as I remember it, was extraordinarily beautiful, and whose eyes were like self-luminous stars, vanished. But, after all, what ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... ye, oh sons of Israel," he said; "as long as ye perform the will of God naught can conquer ye; but if ye fail to fulfill His wishes, even the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... that, Samuel Rutherford would have been but a blind and unprofitable spy for the best people of God in Scotland, for Marion M'Naught, and Lady Kenmure, and Lady Culross, for the Cardonesses, father, and mother, and son, and for Hugh Mackail, and such like, if he had tasted nothing more bitter than borrowed bread in Aberdeen, and climbed nothing steeper than ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... naught to say, O Great One!" answered Moroosi, "save that, as it was with Ingona so ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... opera. Tarzan's mind was still occupied by his gloomy thoughts. He paid little or no attention to what was transpiring upon the stage. Instead he saw only the lovely vision of a beautiful American girl, and heard naught but a sad, sweet voice acknowledging that his love was returned. And ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... confitures. Whyles that she is yett younge and reckeless, and gif shee bee faste, and hathe naughte to beare homewards, lo! shee stiketh bothe tinie fistes intoe hir small syde-pockets, and propelleth onward mightilie independente, caring naught for nobodie. I haue herd from dyvers graue and reuerend menn, who oughte to know, [sith that ther wyves hadd tolde them,] that manie of these demoiselles do wear verie longe bootes, but howe long they may ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... night has come and it brings to naught Thy projects cherished, And thine epitaph shall in brass be wrought — 'He lived ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... were the trees, towering aloft, nodding slumberously in the gentle wind; fair were the flowers lifting glad faces to their sun-father and filling the air with their languorous perfume; yet naught was there so comely to look upon as Beltane the Smith, standing bare-armed in his might, his golden hair crisp-curled and his lifted eyes a-dream. Merrily the brook laughed and sang among the willows, leaping in rainbow-hues ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... others, of his cousin. I gave him two or three openings, but he didn't rush in. What he did have to say of him he said at one gulp. It was: "Where I was raised 'twas common talk that after you'd been getting naught but fair winds for a long course, it was then a good time to keep a watch out. The headwinds have to come some time, and the longer they be in coming the longer they'll stay with you when they does come. Oliver Sickles's been runnin' with a free sheet so ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... Strangers vowed, with strangers bedded. For land to land, even blood to blood— Since leagued of yore our fathers were— Our manors and our birthright stood; And not unequal had I wooed, If to have wooed thee I could dare. But this I never dared—even yet When naught is left but to forget. I feel that I could only love: To sue was never meant for me, And least of all to sue to thee; For many a bar, and many a feud, Though never told, well understood Rolled like a river wide between— And then there was the Curse of blood, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... experience being thus set at naught by both parents and teachers in the education of their children, young people naturally grow up with the notion that no such influences as the laws of organization exist, and that they may follow any course of life which inclination leads them to prefer without injury to health, provided ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... one: not so much the case itself, As what might spring from it. In such a mood, Men sometimes have done mad and foolish things With consequences sad to view. Some minds, Reaching your state, and finding life a bane, Decide within themselves that naught can be Worse than the present world, and then set out To revolutionize, rend, whirl, uproot The world's foundations. And the mess they make Is pitiful to contemplate! Such sweet And beautiful souls as I have seen ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... against her by several circumstances, she said, 'then it must be by inspiration, because knowing her own innocence, she could account for it no other way.' The secretary replied, 'that inspiration used to be upon a good account, and her writings were stark naught.' She, with an air of penitence, 'acknowledged, that his lordship's observation might be true, but that there were evil angels, as well as good, so that nevertheless what she had wrote, might still be ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... their seed. I love thee ere thou tellest me "I love." We both are raised above The ball-room puppets with their varnished faces, Whispering dead commonplaces, Doing their best to dress their lifeless thought In tinselled phrase worth naught; Or at the best, throwing a passing spark Like fire-flies in the dark;— Not the continuous lamp-light of the soul, Which, though the seasons roll Without on tides of ever-varying winds, The watcher ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Naught could have been more attuned to my purpose, and straightway I drew on my boots, girt on my sword, and taking my hat and cloak, I sallied out into the rain, and wended my way at a sharp pace ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... some holy woman cross and bitter, stop a moment before you sum her up vixen and her religion naught: inquire the history of her heart: perhaps beneath the smooth cold surface of duties well discharged, her life has been, or even is, a battle against some self-indulgence the insignificant saint's very blood cries out for: and so the poor thing is cross, not because she ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught; now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the Mustard was good, yet was the knight not forsworn. . . . . You are not forsworn; no more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... Naught was said until hunger and thirst were appeased—until basins were brought round with scented water, in which our lords washed their fingers, and after waving them gracefully in the air, dried them with the delicate napkins with which ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... then, Evelyn Hope? What, your soul was pure and true, The good stars met in your horoscope, Made you of spirit, fire and dew— 20 And just because I was thrice as old And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was naught to each, must I be told? We were fellow mortals, ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... changed. But for these fleeting frames which it informs With spirit deathless, endless, infinite, They perish. Let them perish, Prince! and fight! He who shall say, "Lo! I have slain a man!" He who shall think, "Lo! I am slain!" those both Know naught! Life cannot slay. Life is not slain! Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never; Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams! Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever; Death hath not touched it at all, ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... sad little frown: but sweet, as well, for, downcast or gay, my sister could be naught else, did ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... naught shall be spoken except good," is a rule so universally observed that post mortem compliments have little weight, but when beautiful things are said of those who still live and toil, they are full of meaning. Not only is it a delight to her contemporaries, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... often occurred between us and strangers, would have struck a person very powerfully, if he had known how truth was set at naught. The Superior, with a serious and dignified air, and a pleasant voice and aspect, would commence a recital of things most favorable to the character of the absent novice, and representing her as equally fond of her situation, and beloved by the other inmates. The tale told ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... and, Judah, arise! Shake off the dust, open wide thine eyes! Justice sprouteth, righteousness is here, Thy sin is forgot, thou hast naught ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... made use of as the Life, by one that is so dead and senseless, as he cannot know what to judge of himself, or his own case, except what is naught. ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... joints and looked in his face; then he laughed and, turning to his father, said, "Thy son's sole ailment is one of the heart."[FN12] He replied, Thou sayest sooth, O sage, but apply thy skill to his state and case, and acquaint me with the whole thereof and hide naught from me of his condition." Quoth the Persian, "Of a truth he is enamoured of a slave-girl and this slave-girl is either in Bassorah or Damascus; and there is no remedy for him but reunion with her." Said Al-Rabi'a, "An thou bring them together, thou ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... the beautiful sunshiny days, And breathing the purest of mountain air; For the time caring for naught And saying with the poet, ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... has Tiresias advised you; dwell with us, not away from the laws. For now you flit about, and though wise are wise in naught; for although this may not be a God, as you say, let it be said by you that he is; and tell a glorious falsehood, that Semele may seem to have borne a God, and that honor may redound to all our race. You see the hapless fate of Actaeon,[24] whom his blood-thirsty ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... They now pulled with all their might to escape from the muskets of the Portuguese, who followed them along the banks of the river, annoying them in their retreat to the vessel. And those on board, who expected to hoist in treasure had to receive naught but their wounded comrades and ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... is too long: another, too short: the third, of due length; and for fine phrase and style, the like [of] that booke was not made a great while. It is all lies, said another; the booke is starke naught." ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... I am an old block of hard timber. Think of yourself, dear Oldendorf. You are young, you have fame as a scholar; your learning assures you every success. Why, in another sphere of activity, do you seek to exchange honor and recognition for naught but hatred, mockery, and humiliation? For with such views as yours you cannot fail to harvest them. Think it over. Be sensible, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... of Bower, and an effort Tom made to ascertain if the man was a spy in the employ of Gale and Ware came to naught. The machinist had come well recommended, and the firm where he was last employed had nothing but good to say ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... and got a glimpse of the spires of Portsmouth as we passed; then came the Isle of Wight and the quaint town of Cowes. I made a bright joke on the latter place as it was pointed out to me by my Jersey friend, but it went for naught. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... cheeks, complexion fair, And ruby lips and auburn hair, And eyes of blue, and Grecian nose; And many beauties to disclose, It seemed made. The fox, with sighs, Gazed on. "Ah, ah!" he cries, "Look at this head it naught contains, It has rare ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... Piper had a Cow, And he had naught to give her, He pull'd out his pipes and play'd her a tune, And bade the ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... you have to. It is rare that a building pays five per cent net on the value of the land and the cost of the house. "Who buys a house already wrought, gets many a brick and nail for naught." If, however, you can get a piece of ground in a growing neighborhood and live on it till you can sell at an advance, that is the safest, and surest of investments. It delivers you from the power ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... use of my confidence, or there will come a day of vengeance for both you and me. What shall we gain by being tools in the hands of a wicked man like Robert Moncton. Why should we sell our souls for naught, ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... be combined,—compose any part of a superficies. And granted, as you imagined, a whole composed of a thousand points, if we divide any part of this quantity of a thousand, we can very well say that this part shall equal its whole; and this we can prove by zero, or naught, that is, the tenth figure of arithmetic, which is represented by a cipher as being nothing, and placed after unity it will signify 10, and if two ciphers are placed after unity it will signify 100, and thus the number will go on increasing by ten to infinity whenever a cipher is added, ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... doubt, I should find out more presently. Meanwhile, as I have said, I cared for naught, lying still without a word. Then the men from out of the hall were brought and set with us; for, blinded as they were with the smoke, it had been easy to take them. That one who was set down next me was black from head to foot and scorched with the burning, but he tried to laugh as ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... terms him in the language of the day, the soldan of Babylon. The league which had been made between that potentate and his arch-foe the Grand Turk, Bajazet II., to unite in arms for the salvation of Granada, as has been mentioned in a previous chapter of this chronicle, had come to naught. The infidel princes had again taken up arms against each other, and had relapsed into their ancient hostility. Still, the grand soldan, as head of the whole Moslem religion, considered himself bound to preserve the kingdom of Granada ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... told Dienecus, his foes Couer'd the Sun with darts and armed speares, Hee made reply, Thy newes is ioy in woes, Wee'le in the shadow fight, and conquer feares. And from the Polands words my humor floes, I care for naught but falling of the Spheares. Thunder affrights the Infants in the schooles, And threatnings are ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... peace of the Lotus-Lily! It floats in a waking dream on the waters chilly, With its leaves unfurled To the wondering world, Knowing naught of the sorrow and restless pain That burns and tortures the human brain; Oh, for the passionless ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... swelling, broad Atlantic Comes scornful menace? it is naught to thee— 'Tis but the jealous raving, wild and frantic, Of those who would, but never can, be free;— Who, slaves to selfish passions bold ambition, Hold up their shackled arms in heaven's broad light, And prate of freedom, boast their high position, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... brings back to me a tale So sad the hearer well may quail, And question if such things can be; Yet in the chronicles of Spain Down the dark pages runs this stain, And naught can wash them white again, So fearful is ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... such a yell was there, Of sudden and portentous birth, As if men fought upon the earth And fiends in upper air: O, life and death were in the shout, Recoil and rally, charge and rout, And triumph and despair. Long looked the anxious squires; their eye Could in the darkness naught descry. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... there are some happy specimens of English hexameters, in an imitation of Ossian, in the 5th No. For your Dactyls I am sorry you are so sore about 'em—a very Sir Fretful! In good troth, the Dactyls are good Dactyls, but their measure is naught. Be not yourself "half anger, half agony" if I pronounce your darling lines not to be the best you ever wrote—you have ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... worse. Owen Wynne 2d was in no haste, and thus married as late as somewhere about 1740, and had issue, William, and later, in 1744, a second son, Arthur, and perhaps others; but of all this I heard naught until many years after, as I have ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... to make a movement, the masked man had pierced his chest with a single stroke!... The sugar refiner was naught but a ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... scourged, and imprisoned, and banished, the more did the sect increase, both by the influx of strangers and by converts from among the Puritans, But Grandfather told them that God had put something into the soul of man, which always turned the cruelties of the persecutor to naught. ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hands have naught to say: Heart unto heart some other way Must utter forth its pain, Must ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... with Mistress Shore! I tell thee, fellow, He that doth naught with her, excepting one, Were best to do it ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... like that broken remembrance Of the anterior, bodiless life of the spirit,—the trouble Of a bewildered brain, or the touch of the Hand that created,— And when the ocean ceased at last like a faded illusion, Europe itself seemed only a vision of eld and of sadness. Naught but the dark in my soul remained to me constant and real, Growing and taking the thoughts bereft of happier uses, Blotting all sense of lapse from the days that with swift iteration Were and were not. They fable the bright days the fleetest: These that had nothing to ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... a web with care, Where at thy touch fresh roses grew, And marvelled they were formed so fair, And that thy heart such nature knew. Alas! how idle my surprise, Since naught so plain can be: Thy cheek their richest hue supplies, And in thy breath their perfume lies; Their grace and beauty all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... authority he had sacrificed everything to maintain, and in his old age he suffered the humiliation of being accused of heresy in the court of Rome. He died the same day as Mary died, with the knowledge that all his life's labours and sacrifices were come to naught, and that the dominion of the Roman Church in England was gone for ever. Froude saw none of the pathos or tragedy of Pole's life. To him the cardinal was a renegade, a traitor to his country, a mercenary of the Pope, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... the almost utter impossibility, unless by His sanction, of procuring sustenance, and of counteracting those innumerable incidents by fell and flood, which, in a single moment, defeat the cares of the hunter and the husbandman—setting at naught his industry, destroying his fields and cattle, blighting his crops, and tearing up with the wing of the hurricane even the cottage which gives shelter to his little ones. He dwelt largely and long upon those numberless and sudden events in the progress of life ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... not the stroke! Do with us as thou wilt! Let there be naught unfinished, broken, marred; Complete Thy purpose, that we may become Thy perfect image, ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... of fate, he was forced to have dealings with them again, dealings which he resented for more reasons than his antagonism to the institution, and dealings, moreover, which he was prepared to leave no stone unturned to bring to naught. ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... Zarathustra answered, "what thou speakest of doth not exist: there is no devil nor hell. Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body: henceforth fear naught." ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... glass, for the Royal face protector had likewise been broken, when the good old English oak had met its defeat at the hands of this Hun of the world of science, and with it, very gingerly, he tapped the iron ball—this rusty old barbarian which had set at naught the force of gravity, had violated all the established laws of nature, and had like the Germans in Belgium ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... my God if I have thought Or done this, if wickedness Be in my hands, if I have wrought Ill to him that meant me peace, 10 Or to him have render'd less, And fre'd my foe for naught; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... the steamer below me, with a portmanteau in one hand and a brand-new hat-box and a rug in the other, a figure staggered towards the companion ladder and disappeared below. That figure, even to my unwilling eyes, was naught else but a tragic answer ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... Father Massias burst into sobs. And thereupon the great anxious silence was broken, contagion seized upon the throng, it was transported and gave vent to shouts, tears, and confused stammered entreaties. It was as though a breath of delirium were sweeping by, reducing men's wills to naught, and turning all these beings into one being, exasperated with love and seized with a mad desire ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the cause, nor knew it, nor believed. Alas! I shall have passed close by her unperceived, Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely, I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received. For her, though God has made her gentle and endearing, She will go on her way distraught and without hearing These murmurings of love that round her steps ascend, Piously faithful still unto her austere duty, Will say, when she shall read these lines full of her ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... years of the war was that trust disturbed by even the roughest man of them all, although I was often placed in very trying circumstances, many times being entirely dependent upon their protection and care, which never failed me. So I used to set at naught the well-meant counsels of my kindly old friend, to laugh at his lugubrious countenance and the portentous shaking of his silvery head. We remained firm friends, however, and, though my dear old mentor has long since passed away, I still revere his memory. Dr. Yates was an ideal Texan, brave, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... there is no parade of outer holiness, no outer separation from the world; Janaka the King, K[r.][s.]h[n.]a the Warrior-Statesman, are of these; clothed in cotton cloth or cloth of gold, it matters not; poor or rich, it boots not; failing or succeeding, it is naught, for each apparent failure is the road to fuller success, and both are their servants, not their masters; victory ever attends them, to-day or a century hence is equal, for they live in Eternity, and with them it is ever To-day. ...
— The Basis of Morality • Annie Besant
... there ruled over Britain a King called Uther Pendragon. A mighty prince was he, and feared by all men; yet, when he sought the love of the fair Igraine of Cornwall, she would have naught to do with him, so that, from grief and disappointment, Uther fell sick, and at last seemed ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... which broad, dry, sterile slopes descended; while lower ground stretched away on their left. Then, behind them, spread the woods with deep thickets parted by clearings, full of herbage which no scythe had ever touched. And not a soul was to be seen around them; there was naught save wild Nature, grandly quiescent under the bright sun of that splendid April day. The earth seemed to be dilating with all the sap amassed within it, and a flood of life could be felt rising and quivering in the vigorous ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... ye have died for naught, The torch ye threw to us we caught! Ten million hands will hold it high, And Freedom's light shall never die! We've learned the lesson that ye taught ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... declivities and hollows, its sunny places, its deepest shades, the sources of its streams, the meagre beginning of its gullies cannot suffice. Superficial intimacy with features betrayable to the senses of any undiscriminating beholder is naught. Casual knowledge of its botany and birds counts for little. All—even the least significant, the least obvious of its charms are there to, give conservative delight, and surly the soul that ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... noblest of all sciences, since it treats of the highest of God's creations; but studied as a mere congeries of facts, all sciences are alike worthless; and from the mousings of the mere antiquarian to the dredgings of the student of the shelly coverings of the Mollusca, all end in naught. ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... saw the skirt of a flying cloak disappear in the gloom, he was not sure; and I, having no mind to be mixed up with the ambassador, called him back. I asked Vilain to whom he had called, but the young man, turning sullen, would answer nothing except that he knew naught of the paper. I thought it best, therefore, to conduct him at once to my lodgings, whither it will be believed that I returned with a lighter heart than I had gone out. It was, indeed, a ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... Now naught was heard beneath the skies, The sounds of busy life were still, Save an unhappy lady's sighs, That ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... a tree. For a few seconds only was there a following silence, in which the conspirators stood rooted in astonishment; then from the very hedge that fringed the river-path came another cry, "The Dragon and the Lion!" The veriest fool that hung round Father Jerome knew that these cries could be naught but answering signals. They were trapped. The rushing river lay before them, a line of enemies stood behind, and the darkness was such that no man could tell friend from foe at the distance of a ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... things likewise had a birth; for things which are of mortal body could not for an infinite time back... have been able to set at naught the puissant strength of ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... "There is naught," said the Jinnee, smiling indulgently, "that I would not do to promote thy welfare, for thou hast rendered me inestimable service. Acquaint me therefore with the abode of this sage, and I will present myself before him, and if haply he should find no inscription ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... virtues you'll abhor all, and be down upon the Moral in uncompromising style. Your critical analysis will reduce to prompt paralysis every motor that's not vile. You will show there's naught save virtue that can seriously hurt you, or your liberty enmesh; And you'll find excitement, plenty, in Art's dolce far niente, with a flavour of the flesh. And every one will say, As you lounge your upward way, "If he's content with a do-nothing life, which would certainly not suit ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... here. Thy gorgeous skies have floated hither, and hover like a halo round the town. The sun had set; the glowing tints faded fast, till of the brilliant spectacle naught remained save the soft roseate hue which melted insensibly into the deep azure of the zenith. Quiet seemed settling o'er mountain and river, when, with a solemn sweetness, the vesper bells chimed ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... hearts, no title of respect was there to leaven it and justify his high office before Him that consigned the trust; and ever deeper and deeper we sank in the slough of corruption, until was brought about this pass—that naught but some scourging despotism of the Church should acquit us of the fate of Sodom. That such, at the eleventh hour, was vouchsafed us of God's mercy, it is my purpose to show; and, doubtless, this offering of a loop-hole was to account by reason of the devil's having debarked his reserves, as ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... bows which came out of the stores at Ludlow Castle were naught; many of them would not hold the bending."—State Papers, Vol. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... trees, I found none similar to the foliage of our planet, except in one or two fruit-bearing trees. The sky, instead of appearing blue, wears a greenish tinge, and the birds are robed in a variety of colors that would put to naught our arching rainbows. ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... unprepared, by a formal approval of this bill, to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration; and while I am also unprepared to declare that the free state constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort, or to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in states, I am at the same time sincerely ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Accus'd Rich'd. my Bro. of robbing us of our Jewells. He protests he knows Naught & my Mthr. believes him as doth Emily. Has a true Heart, Emily. Horrid ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... had extended it gradually until neutral shipping also was largely involved. All the established principles of international law, or principles that had been supposed to be established, were set at naught. In bygone days enemy merchant ships were subject to destruction only after their crews had been given an opportunity to take to the boats. Neutral ships bearing neutral goods, even if bound to an enemy port, were liable to destruction ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... influence of riches, accordingly, luxury, avarice, and pride prevailed among the youth; they grew at once rapacious and prodigal; they undervalued what was their own, and coveted what was another's; they set at naught modesty and continence; they lost all distinction between sacred and profane, and threw off ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... brave, merry boys! God accept you, our offering of first fruits! See that mother—that wife—take them away; it is too much. Comfort them, father, brother; tell them their tears may be for naught. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... have I coined my soul in words for naught? And must I, with the dim, forgotten throng Of silent ghosts that left no earthly trace To show they once had breathed this vital air, Die out, of ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... stars Down-spread About him as a hush of vespering birds. They, and the sun, the moon: Naught now denies him the moon's coming, Nor the morning trail of gold, The luminous print of evening, red At the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... herself, and on Saturday evening, as the twilight gathered, she yielded to a complication of pip and softening of the brain and expired in my arms. She certainly led a most exemplary life and the forked tongue of slander could find naught to utter ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye |
