"Obstinacy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... am therefore much delighted with reading the accounts of savage nations, and with contemplating those virtues which are wild and uncultivated; to see courage exerting itself in fierceness, resolution in obstinacy, wisdom in cunning, patience in sullenness ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... he, with impatience, I that such objections could escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and labored against truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself of madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret but to a man like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible and the incredible from ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the little piece of obstinacy would stay, she would; and Mrs. Harlow politely declared they should all be delighted. But how would she behave at the table? Her manners were as yet unformed; she needed line upon line and precept upon precept. It was dreadful to think of her taking supper at one of the nicest ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... her friend, 'came another display of firmness or obstinacy, whichever you like to call it. He soon found out that he had made a complete mistake. The studies didn't suit him at all, as others had foreseen. But he would have worked himself to death rather than confess his error; none of us knew ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... men, but men of discipline and obstinacy. We have no idea of the Roman military mind, so entirely different from ours. A Roman general who had as little coolness as we have would have been lost. We have incentives in decorations and medals that would have made a Roman soldier ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... Arbitration, No Concession!" Men might starve, Trade collapse, the Country come to ruin, the Company disappear in Bankruptcy, but he cared not. The Directors had put their foot down, and, whether right or wrong, whatever happened, there they meant, with a good down-right national and pig-headed obstinacy, to keep it. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... has been a fruitful source of misinterpretation. I will take as an instance the very first assertions made by Iago. In the opening scene he tells his dupe Roderigo that three great men of Venice went to Othello and begged him to make Iago his lieutenant; that Othello, out of pride and obstinacy, refused; that in refusing he talked a deal of military rigmarole, and ended by declaring (falsely, we are to understand) that he had already filled up the vacancy; that Cassio, whom he chose, had ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... me that night. I had first of all besought Nick to go up into the drawing-room and give the money back. But some strange obstinacy ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... up to him, and he caught hold of her dress and held her fast. He persisted with the dull obstinacy that was peculiar to him: "Now. I will know it—I must ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... collections are always done upon a wrong principle, and generally by low and illiterate people whose daily bread depends upon the shortness of time in which they can get through their work, and whose opposition to the true way of preparing specimens can only be surpassed by their obstinacy in adhering to the old method, can we any longer wonder at their want of success or hope to see a single specimen produced that will be worth looking at? With this I conclude, hoping that thou hast ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... degrees, to induce a Mid[-e] of the first degree to endeavor to attain higher distinction and further advancement in the mysteries of the order. As much knowledge is believed to have been lost through the reticence and obstinacy of former chief priests, the so-called higher secrets are now imparted at the first and second degree preparatory instructions. The third and fourth degrees are very rarely conferred, chiefly because the necessary presents ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... irrational taboo, you must find out for yourself who I am, and where I come from. But I wouldn't advise you to do anything so foolish. Three of us here saw you in the ridiculous position into which by your obstinacy you compelled me to put you; and you wouldn't like to hear us recount it in public, with picturesque details, to your brother magistrates. Let me say one thing more to you," he added, after a pause, in that peculiarly soft and melodious voice of his. "Don't you think, on reflection—even ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... address them, And humane Germany Almost falls on my neck in her anxiety to comply with my request; But the stiff-necked Entente, With an old-fashioned obstinacy reminiscent of the LINCOLN person at his worst, Merely utter joint and several sentiments The substance and effect of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... And there was something so comical about the little mite of a child, something so masterful in the tiny figure, something so commanding in the loud, deep-toned baby voice, that every one laughed, and somehow or other Adam forgot his obstinacy and made his obeisance ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... gorgeously uniformed. Only, it is required that this privilege shall not be abused; no favor to mediocrities, no nepotism. Victor Hugo was more proud of his title of vicomte Hugo than of his greatest work, and Balzac's obstinacy in clinging to his particle of de has lately been shown to have been completely unfounded. To Sainte-Beuve, who infuriated him by constantly speaking of him as M. Honore Balzac, he wrote: "My name is on my register of birth, as M. Fitz-James's is on his." So it is, but without any ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... as he was always hearing from his associates, "Do you submit to this?" or "Do you fear these people?", "Don't you know that you are Caesar?", "Have not you the authority over them rather than they over you?" He was also animated by obstinacy, not wishing to acknowledge his mother as superior and himself as inferior, nor to admit the greater good sense of ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... rap for the devil," said Mr. Villars, who could not but be amused, notwithstanding the strange interruption of his purpose, and Toby's vexatious obstinacy in holding the door. "It's some ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... ever and anon turning his eyes towards the point where the soldiers must have been last seen by him; for from the gap in which he was these were no longer visible. Both Hamersley and Wilder had noticed an uneasy air about him at the time, attributing it to his vexation at being delayed by the obstinacy of the animal and the fear of being left behind. Now that he had mounted and taken the back-track, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... continued to press his point with infinite patience and gentle obstinacy, until her powers of resistance were almost worn out. Again and again the tears came into her eyes, and she would have told him gladly to take her and do what he liked with her, if she had not steeled herself with the fixed thought that in this case the whole ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... astute, and masterful Cecil, whose name has become almost a household word. The young man, who took his degree at Oxford in the interval of his work, brought to every task he attempted an educated mind and a certain dogged obstinacy, which caused him to surmount all difficulties. He prospered amazingly. But money, instead of numbing his activities, only sharpened them, and he soon began to formulate his ideal—the Utopian dream of an entirely British Africa from ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... assistant; that is her business. I must do what my conscience demands of me. And my conscience expects me to sacrifice my freedom. My resolution to marry her, if only in form, and to follow wherever she may be sent, remains unalterable." Nekhludoff said all this to himself with vicious obstinacy as he left the hospital and walked with resolute steps towards the big gates of the prison. He asked the warder on duty at the gate to inform the inspector that he wished to see Maslova. The warder knew Nekhludoff, and told him of an important change that had taken place ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... expence of, what they deemed, their property, yet none of them carried their resentment so high as Mr. Dogget, who absolutely refused to accept of any consideration for his share in the scenes and clothes; this obstinacy had however no other effect, than depriving him of his share, which brought him in 1000 l. a year; though Mr. Cibber informs us, that this was only a pretence, and that the true reason of quitting the stage, was, his dislike to another of the managers, whose humour ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... degenerated into passion or rashness, his constancy into obstinacy, his benevolence into weakness, nor his tenderness into sentimentality. His unworldliness was free from indifference and unsociability, his dignity from pride and presumption, his affability from ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... I can digest my rindfleisch without the aid of the commis voyageur's criticisms on Gothic architecture. This may be my misfortune. In spite of the Italian blood which I inherit, I am a shy man—shy as the purest Briton. But, like other shy men, I make up in obstinacy what may be deficient in expansiveness. I can be frightened into silence, but I won't be dictated to. You might as well attempt the persuasive effect of your eloquence upon a snail who has withdrawn into his shell at your approach, and will not ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... The mechanical obstacles of half-illegible manuscript, of antiquated forms of speech, to say nothing of the intentional obscurities of diplomatic correspondence, stand, however, in the way of all but the resolute and unwearied scholar. These difficulties, in all their complex obstinacy, had been met and overcome by the heroic efforts, the concentrated devotion, of the new laborer in the unbroken ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... my father in myself, except an inborn faculty for drawing, which, unfortunately in my case, has never been cultivated; a hot temper, and that amount of tenacity of purpose which unfriendly observers sometimes call obstinacy. ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... brief season of prosperity, followed in turn by another crisis and the ensuing years of exhaustion. As commerce developed, making the nations mutually dependent, these arises became world-wide, while the obstinacy of the ensuing state of collapse increased with the area affected by the convulsions, and the consequent lack of rallying centres. In proportion as the industries of the world multiplied and became complex, and the volume of capital involved was increased, these business cataclysms ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... Lin.), the smallest and most industrious of our pill-makers. It has no equal in lively agility, grotesque somersaults, and sudden tumbles down the impossible paths or over the impracticable obstacles to which its obstinacy is perpetually leading it. In allusion to these frantic gymnastics Latreille has given the insect the name of Sisyphus, after the celebrated inmate of the classic Hades. This unhappy spirit underwent terrible exertions in his efforts to heave to the top of a ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... time. Had he turned round and spoken, all might still have been well. But now obstinacy held him. He was not going to give the Jampot an opportunity for triumphing over him. After all, he would clean them so soon as she went to brush Helen's hair. In a moment what he had ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... brother always used! And also, the marshal had said, "You agitators!" For years it had been one of the taunts Hal had heard from his brother, "You will turn into one of these agitators!" Hal had answered, with boyish obstinacy, "I don't care if I do!" And now, here the marshal was calling him an agitator, seriously, without an apology, without the license of blood relationship. He repeated the words, "That's what gets me about you agitators—you ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... a hard little man, such a pursuing little man, so unreasonable and difficult a master, and now—he was such a poor shrunken little man for all his obstinacy! She had never realized before that he was pitiful.... Had she perhaps feared him too much, disliked him too much to deal fairly with him? Could she have helped him? Was there anything she could have done that she had not done? Might she not at least have saved him his suspicion? Behind his ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... allegorical meaning in its doctrines that was true, it would be deprived of all efficacy, and such rigorous treatment would put an end to its invaluable and beneficial influence on the morals and feelings of mankind. Instead of insisting on that with pedantic obstinacy, look at its great achievements in a practical way both as regards morality and feelings, as a guide to conduct, as a support and consolation to suffering humanity in life and death. How greatly you should ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... convenient opportunity; nor was there any one on whom they could wreak their vengeance, for the whole of the families of the Europeans had, by the prudence and determined conduct of their commanding officer, been removed to a place of safety within the walls of the Fort, where, but for the obstinacy and infatuation of General D——, the whole of the Europeans, unable to bear arms, might have found a refuge ere it was too late. Foiled in their attempt to capture the guns, without which they knew they could not hold possession of the town, they turned in the direction of the Bazaar, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... our iron-shod prow struck them, and sometimes even a thin sheet would resist all our attempts to break it; sometimes we would push big floes with comparative ease and sometimes a small floe would bar our passage with such obstinacy that one would almost believe it possessed of an evil spirit; sometimes we passed through acres of sludgy sodden ice which hissed as it swept along the side, and sometimes the hissing ceased seemingly without ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... that in the event of Don Silvio's refusal to entertain my proposals, I would sack and destroy the city of Nombre de Dios. But since then I have had time for reflection; I have come to recognise that it would be unfair of me to visit Don Silvio's obstinacy too severely upon you and your town; moreover, I am in hopes that by further correspondence with him he may be brought to see the desirability of saving you and Nombre by a merely nominal sacrifice on his part; ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... is none of the best. Wherein, though we grieve to find your peace at an end and so lasting a Confederacy ruptured, yet, as it appears that this has happened by no fault on your part, we trust that hence, from the very iniquity and obstinacy of your adversaries, there is again being furnished you only so much new occasion for displaying your courage and your long-known constancy in the Evangelical Faith. For what the Schwytz Cantoners are driving at in their resolution to make it a capital offence in any one to embrace our ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... reached her own room, bolted the door, and throwing herself on her bed, burst into a long and bitter paroxysm of tears. So unusual were such visitors to her happy and buoyant temper, that there was something almost alarming in the earnestness and obstinacy with which ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were but twelve persons on the island, and that the goats had multiplied in such a manner as even to become a nuisance: they added, that far from giving any trouble to capture them, they followed the few inhabitants that were left with a sort of obstinacy, and became even troublesome by their tameness. The celebrated traveller Dr. Clarke gives a very curious account of a goat, which was trained to exhibit various amusing ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... happenings have been more strictly local, although, of course, there have been a certain number of incidents, such as that of President Castro in Venezuela, whose irresponsible conduct roused half the European Powers to take action against his country, and whose childish obstinacy was responsible for temporarily strained relations between Great Britain and the United States. This may serve as an example of what weighty influences may be brought to bear ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... further remonstrance on his part would only aggravate his partner's obstinacy; and, besides, it was but a suspicion—an uncomfortable suspicion. It was possible that some of the clerks at the Insurance Office might have made a mistake. Watson was not sure, after all, that the certificates had been deposited in box A, 24; and when he and Mr Farquhar could ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... But the tell-tale blushes on Bella's face showed him plainly enough that he had been right in his conjecture, and had to thank his wife's relatives for her rebellion and newly developed obstinacy ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... ability, the danger of serious injustice was very considerable in the enforcement of a new law under the spur of great public indignation. The public officials charged with executing the law might do injustice in heated controversy through unconscious pride of opinion and obstinacy of conclusion. For this reason President Roosevelt felt justified in creating a board of experts, known as the Remsen Board, to whom in cases of much importance an appeal might be taken and a review had of a decision of the Bureau of Chemistry in the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... about in his part o' the country, he'd lay by an' h'ist her, an' you'd say, 'Well done!' an' I don't say you'd be wrong. But jest you stop an' ax hes motives, an' you'll find 'taint religion. Lor' bless 'ee, sir, a bull's got no more use for religion than a toad for side-pockets. 'Tes obstinacy—that's what 'tes. You tells me a jackass es obstinate. Well, an' that's true in a way; and so's a hog. Ef you wants quiet contrariness, a jackass or a hog'll both sit out a bull; an' tho' you may cuss the pair till you sweats like a fuz'-bush on a ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... It is enough to make one weep, and long for the silent grave. If it were Hartman, you would do the weeping, no doubt. Yet that man, whom you thus unnaturally set above your brother—you have no idea of his harshness, his violence, his embittered prejudice and obstinacy; nor of the patience and gentleness and persuasive force with which I expelled the demons that possessed him, and brought him to his right mind. O, he has had an overhauling; he will take care how he does it again. But he ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... line to animate the troops, and superintended every part of the charge; hazarding his life in the most dangerous scenes of the battle to such a degree, that his horse was killed under him, and his clothes were shot through in several places. The Austrians maintained the conflict with great obstinacy, until six in the morning, when they gave ground, and were pursued to the Katzbach; beyond which the king would not allow his troops to prosecute the advantage they had gained, that they might be ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... more remarkable than for the extraordinary mixture of inventive mechanical genius and of resolute daring shown by the combatants. After the first year, when the contestants had settled down to real fighting, and the preliminary mob work was over, the battles were marked by their extraordinary obstinacy and heavy loss. In no European conflict since the close of the Napoleonic wars has the fighting been anything like as obstinate and as bloody as was the fighting in our own Civil War. In addition to this fierce and dogged courage, this splendid fighting capacity, the contest also brought out the ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... not acknowledge that this is a violation of the constitution, claiming that the duty of the king to provide in cases of exigency for the maintenance of the public weal, authorizes him, in the exigency which the obstinacy of the delegates has brought about, to act on his own responsibility. The Government must exist, they say, and to this end money must be had; if the House will not grant it, we must take it. That this is a mere quibble, especially as the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... have often heard us speak of Robert Browning: and it is a great deal to have accomplished a successful tragedy, although he seems a good deal annoyed at the go of things behind the scenes, and declares he will never write a play again, as long as he lives. You have no idea of the ignorance and obstinacy of the whole set, with here and there an exception; think of his having to write out the meaning of the word 'impeachment', as some of them thought ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... may be angry for another reason—that in the midst of my true thankfulness for the emendations you sent me, I ventured to reject one or two of them. You are right, probably, and I wrong; but still, I thought within myself with a womanly obstinacy not altogether peculiar to me,—'If he and I were to talk together about them, he would kindly give up the point to me—so that, now we cannot talk together, I might as well take it.' Well, you will see what I have done. Try not to be ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Ned, whose illness seemed to have developed a kind of argumentative obstinacy. "Nobody nor nothing does fish for kings, sir, so that's nonsense. But what I say is, how can that bird be a kingfisher if it ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... top, and the coachman hanging by his hands to a lamp-post, with his toes occasionally touching the box. In this perilous state they remained till another boat came and relieved them, when the guard and the mails were landed in safety. Great indignation was displayed against the obstinacy which had produced this accident. But much is to be said in defence of the servants of the Royal Mail, who are expected to persevere in their endeavours to forward the public post in defiance of risk, though in this case their zeal was ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... Where is the high-soul'd Stratford?—The same weakness That yielded there is obstinacy now, To the last drop of the pride-tainted blood That through the melancholy Stuart's veins ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... would not burden your memory to such an extent, but he still remembers you. In some conversation with him yesterday he did me the honour to say that I brought you back to his recollection by what he was pleased to call the mingled levity and obstinacy of my character. The levity seems to have already impressed you. I am now reduced to showing you the obstinacy." He sat down in a chair near the door and folded his arms, still ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... perhaps the purest of his women; but then Eugenie Grandet is simply stupid, and interesting from her sufferings rather than her character. She reminds us of some patient animal of the agricultural kind, with bovine softness of eyes and bovine obstinacy under suffering. His other women, though they are not simply courtesans, after the fashion of some French writers, seem, as it were, to have a certain perceptible taint; they breathe an unwholesome atmosphere. In ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... prevent him. But if, as seemed probable, he were yet free, and if he could be got to come again among them, it might be that he still had left some feelings on which they might work. No doubt there was the Neville obstinacy about him; but he had seemed to both of them to acknowledge the sanctity of his family, and to appreciate in some degree the duty which ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... anticipating events that, had it not been for Tulia Mihailovna's obstinacy and self-conceit, probably nothing of all the mischief these wretched people succeeded in bringing about amongst us would have happened. She was responsible ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... would go through the whole Encampment. But the remedy that Champlain found so effective at Quebec—the juice of the Spruce tree, which grew in abundance around the Encampment—checked the disease, wherever the obstinacy of the settlers did not prevent its use, for says Macdonell, "It is not an easy matter to get the Orkneymen to drink it, particularly the old hands." A smouldering fire of discontent that had been detected on board the ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... of the obstinacy evinced by their employers, it was marvelous, the pertinacity of the sorcerers themselves. To the very last tooth in their employer's pouches, they would stick to their spells; never giving over till he was ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... was deposed and degraded from the pontificate, and Amadeus substituted in his place. They cannot deny that the council, as far as relates to external forms, was a lawful one, and summoned not only by one pope, but by two. There Eugenius was pronounced guilty of schism, rebellion, and obstinacy, together with all the host of cardinals and bishops who had joined him in attempting a dissolution of the council. Yet afterwards, assisted by the favour of princes, he regained the quiet possession of his former dignity. That election ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... feel that by a liberal understanding among the proprietors, and by judicious measures adopted by those who know the localities, they might emerge from a state of danger and uneasiness which indolence and obstinacy serve only to increase. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... A darkness, an obstinacy settled on him too, in a kind of inertia. He sat inert beside her. She threw off her cloak and walked towards the moon, silver-white ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... exclamations of indignation and terror, they see plots on all sides, imagine invisible cords pulling in an opposite direction, and they call upon the people to cut them. With the full weight of their inexperience, incapacity, and improvidence, of their fears, credulity, and dogmatic obstinacy, they urge on popular attacks, and their newspaper articles or discourses are all summed up ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... servant of the master's, and I'm sticking to him now when everybody's calling me a doting fool because I don't look after Tubby Wadlow first, and if that don't give me the right to say what I please, I don't know. It's temper's ruining this shop, Mr. Heeler. Temper and obstinacy. ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... general negotiation subside, owing it is said to the obstinacy of Great Britain, and the demands of this Court. The Imperial Minister has just received a courier from his Court, charged with its excuses for the detention of a Spanish courier, who after delivering his despatches to the Spanish Ambassador ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... over it, and demand from me assistance, when in former times your pride always consisted in being wholly independent of us, through your free-city constitutions! Now, then, see what is the result, when a city will be wholly independent of its liege lord and persists in its obstinacy." ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... repairs were made, but she could do nothing and was too listless to make the attempt. She only wanted to be left alone with Ughtred, and she exhibited willpower only in defence of her child and in her obstinacy with regard to asking money of ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... natural seat of evil propensities, that little troublesome empire of the passions, is led to what is right by slow motions and imperceptible degrees. It must be admonished by reproof, and allured by kindness. Its liveliest advances are frequently impeded by the obstinacy of prejudice, and its brightest promises often obscured by the tempests of passion. It is slow in its acquisition of virtue, and reluctant ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... toes, I say," or, "O Marjory, do not swing that bag"—all very necessary, no doubt, but they had the effect of making the girl self-conscious. Thinking about her head, she would forget about her toes, and vice versa, and her uncle would be apt to think that it was obstinacy on her part and to tell her so, and then there would be sullen silence till the church door was reached. But to-day it was not so. Half-way to church they joined the Foresters, and Marjory and Blanche walked together behind their elders, so that their ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... house, it was their house, and if anybody had to move it wouldn't be they. I explained the situation over and over and begged them to go away while the weather was still warm and the going good, but they just whizzed and raged around the rooms and sickened me with their noise and obstinacy. ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... nothing much but obstinacy and grit? They sometimes go far in the bush; but I don't know if they'll go far enough to carry you through. Perhaps you had ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... hour. The engineer was George Stephenson, the father of the railway system, a man of genius, who, although he clearly foresaw the ultimate results of his project, had neither temper nor tact enough to conciliate the ignorant obstinacy of his opponents; in fact, he was a very bad witness and a very great man. It is curious, in reading the evidence, to observe the little confidence the counsel for the bill had in their engineer, and the contempt with which the counsel for the opposition treated him. The promoters ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... have occasion to allude to them, you must, before you can do so with impunity, take pure water and scented tea and rinse your mouths. In the event of any slip of the tongue, I shall at once have your teeth extracted, and your eyes gouged out.' His obstinacy and waywardness are, in every respect, out of the common. After he was allowed to leave school, and to return home, he became, at the sight of the young ladies, so tractable, gentle, sharp, and polite, transformed, in fact, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Helen's point of view, fatally narrow, it is true; but the latter might have reflected that the limitations of her friend's vision were the faiths of the Christian world, and that her tenacity arose not from obstinacy but sincerity. It is an age when belief and doubt are brought face to face so sharply that the shock disturbs by its jar the ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... iron legs and arms.—And of this group of old men and of boys at the threshold of a church, of this mingling, so peacefully harmonious, of death and of life, comes the benevolent lesson, the teaching that one must enjoy in time strength and love; then, without obstinacy in enduring, submit to the universal law of passing and dying, repeating with confidence, like these simple-minded and wise men, the same prayers by which the agonies ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... head of his young rival "was like unto a beautiful alabaster vase lightened up by an interior lamp." To see him, was to understand thoroughly how really false were the calumnies spread about as to his character. The mass, by their obstinacy in identifying him with the imaginary types of his poems, and in judging him by a few eccentricities of early youth, as well as by various bold thoughts and expressions, had represented to themselves a factitious Byron, totally at variance with the real man. Calumnies, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... to. Poor, miserable girl! to be an outcast, and now to leave her only refuge," he sighed and shook his head. Giles all the time had been watching Portia, whose face bore an expression of obstinacy worthy of a mule. "Did this scheme for Anne's departure include the masquerade you have ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... him and his brother Eugene Rougon, whom he had so often compromised, and whom, by an ironical turn of events, he was perhaps going to protect, now that the former minister of the Empire was only a simple deputy, resigned to the single role of standing by his fallen master with the obstinacy with which his mother stood by her family. She still obeyed docilely the orders of her eldest son, the genius, fallen though he was; but Saccard, whatever he might do, had also a part in her heart, from his indomitable determination to succeed, and she was also proud of ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... but not obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism—firmness, heroism. He influenced others without effort, unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to nature, unconsciously. He was severe with himself, and for that reason lenient with others. He appeared to apologize for being kinder ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... against him the sentence of excommunication? They went thither; St. Augustin commanded him to rise; he came to life, and avowed that he had excommunicated the man for his crimes, and particularly for his obstinacy in refusing to pay tithes; then, by order of St. Augustin, he gave him absolution, and the dead man returned to his tomb. The priest entreated the saint to permit him also to return to his sepulchre, which was granted him. This story appears to me still more suspicious ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... it his first sensation was that of a man sinking in a bog; then his obstinacy stiffened. 'I won't be done,' he thought. Taking out a sovereign he tried to make the woman comprehend that she could earn it, by telling him where they had gone. He got her finally to write the words out in his pocket-book, gave her the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... conceived at the moment when a policy of seeking European friendship was dominant at Washington, but with the hope of securing at least negative European support. Seward's persistence after European recognition of Southern belligerency is regarded as a characteristic obstinacy without a clear view of ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... namely, of canonical institution. Pius VII had lost much of his obstinacy since his removal to Fontainebleau, for the Austrian alliance was now the sheet-anchor of France; the French ecclesiastics had threatened to depose the Pope; but the Roman Catholics of Bavaria, Italy, and Austria were loyal, and they were important factors in Napoleon's problem. After an exchange ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will." It is not improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a view to the supervision and guardianship ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... "I think the obstinacy has been principally on your side, Millicent; though certainly I should not think of saying that you have been disagreeable. It has been an excess of kindheartedness on your part, and you have resolutely closed your eyes to the fact that, had I been willing to take ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... docile, but is subject to fits of anger and obstinacy. She finally determined to leave her home, threatening to take up with a man unless allowed to work elsewhere. Since then she has been tried out in several families, but after a little while in a place she flies into a rage ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... only try all that the kindest and best of fathers could do to persuade her to remain at home. Even after the years that have passed, I cannot trust myself to speak of it composedly. She persisted; she was as hard as stone. My aunt, when she was entreated to interfere, called her heartless obstinacy 'a vocation.' My poor father's loving resistance was worn out; he slowly drew nearer and nearer to death, from the day when she left us. Let me do her justice, if I can. She has not only never regretted entering ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... cannot believe——" and then she stopped. She had remembered Anna's curious unwillingness to leave the Trellis House this morning, even to attend her beloved mistress's wedding. She, and Rose too, had been hurt, and had shown that they were hurt, at old Anna's obstinacy. ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... all, Ermyntrude, I cannot afford to maintain you in your present extravagance. [He goes to a flight of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on the top step. A fashionably dressed lady comes through the curtains and contemplates him with patient obstinacy. He continues, grumbling.] An English clergyman's daughter should be able to live quite respectably and comfortably on an allowance of L150 a year, wrung with great difficulty ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... bay-window a man with a cigar in his mouth was reading a newspaper. Jonathan Byrne Gulmore, as he always signed himself, was about fifty years of age; his heavy frame was muscular, and the coarse dark hair and swarthy skin showed vigorous health. There was both obstinacy and combativeness in his face with its cocked nose, low irregular forehead, thick eyebrows, and square jaw, but the deep-set grey eyes gleamed at times with humorous comprehension, and the usual expression of the countenance was far ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... might be in the house. She dipped snuff openly before friends of the girls and new acquaintances alike. She refused point-blank to wear a cap and apron when serving meals. She was forever quarrelling with the neighbours' servants, with delivery boys, with marketmen and storekeepers. By sheer obstinacy she defeated all their plans for hiring a second servant, declaring that if they dared bring another darky on the place she would take pleasure in scalding the interloper with a kettle of boiling water. She sat in self-imposed judgment upon their admirers, ruthlessly rejecting those courtiers ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... Governor Abbott. "But calling out the militia is a serious matter, Mr. Barclay, to say nothing of the expense entailed. Considering that the difficulty would be due entirely to the obstinacy of one man—er—one might not ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... in Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, and in all the world, wherever the Church of Christ is spread abroad, through several nations and tongues, at one and the same time {HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} except only those and their accomplices in obstinacy, I mean the Picts and the Britons, who foolishly, in these two remote islands of the world, and only in part of them, oppose all the rest of the universe.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} John, pursuant to the custom of the law, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... advanced to the charge, and from the nature of Hannibal's formation their centre first came in contact with the head of the salient angle formed by the Gauls and Spaniards. These resisted with great obstinacy. The principes, who formed the second line of the Roman infantry, came forward and joined the spearmen, and even the triarii pressed forward and joined in the fight. Fighting with extreme obstinacy the Carthaginian centre was forced gradually back until they ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... decent nor in order; it was against all ancient rule of family life; she must speak about it! But she never did speak about it, for she was now in her turn afraid of the son who, without a particle of obstinacy in his composition, yet took what she called his own way. Grizzie kept grumbling to herself that the laddie was sure to come to "mischief;" but the main forms of "mischief" that ruled in her imagination were tramps, precipices, and spates. The laird, for his part, spent most of the time his son's ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... time, had answered in a sort of contradictory spirit that his money-letters had always gone safely hitherto, and he made no doubt they always would go safely. The present loss, therefore, coming as it were, to check his obstinacy, vexed him more than it would otherwise have done. He did not care for the loss of the money half so much as he did for the tacit reproof ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... will]. If I now were to ... give a hint to the Jesuits and Rosicrucians as to who is persecuting them ... if I were to make known (to a few people) the Jesuitical character of the man who leads perhaps all of us by the nose, uses us for his ambitious schemes, sacrifices us as often as his obstinacy requires, [if I were to make known to them] what they have to fear from such a man, from such a machine behind which perhaps Jesuits may be concealed or might conceal themselves; if I were to assure those who seek for secrets that ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... was still raised to it as he entered. From the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin, suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... in its hands. It inverted the terms of the proposition which called it into existence. And instead of flinging away the insignia which offended the people, and quietly grasping the power, it allowed the bourgeoisie to seize the authority, clung with fatal obstinacy to its shadow, and over and over again forgot the laws which a minority must observe if it would live. When an aristocracy is scarce a thousandth part of the body social, it is bound today, as of old, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... one, hast thou conceived from thy union with that best of Rishis? My heart's desire is that my bestowal of thee on that wise one may not be fruitless. Truly, it is not proper for me to ask thee about this. But from the gravity of the interests I ask thee this. Knowing also the obstinacy of thy lord, ever engaged in severe penances, I shall not follow him, for he may curse me. Tell me in detail all that thy lord, O amiable one, hath done, and extract that terribly afflicting dart that lies implanted for a long ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... like faint and pallid satellites in its wake. This was what befell the chevalier in respect of his brother: submitted to an influence of which he himself was not aware, and against which, had he but suspected it, he would have rebelled with the obstinacy of a child, he was a machine obedient to the will of another mind and to the passions of another heart, a machine which was all the more terrible in that no movement of instinct or of reason could, in his case, arrest ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... With a young man's vanity, I saw myself the saviour of Virginia, and hailed as such by the proud folk who now scorned me. My only merits, as I was to learn in time, are a certain grasp of simple truths that elude cleverer men, and a desperate obstinacy which is reluctant to admit defeat. But it is the fashion of youth to glory in what it lacks, and I flattered myself that I had a natural gift for finesse and subtlety, and was a born deviser of wars. Again and again I told myself ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... when they have a 'strike,' which may be every day, or not once a week. The fishermen keep their eye on the line of buoys, and when two or more of them are hauled under, he knows his game has run foul of the net, and he hastens to the point. The sturgeon is a pig, without the pig's obstinacy. He spends much of the time rooting and feeding in the mud at the bottom, and encounters the net, coarse and strong, when he goes abroad. He strikes, and is presently hopelessly entangled, when he comes to the top and is pulled into the boat, like a great ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... 'Wife, this is a very bad business; whipping does not make Johnny any better; we must try if we can't STARVE the obstinacy ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... laughed—'don't be afraid. I have plenty of courage, and quite enough obstinacy. It rather does me good when people show they have no ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... precipitous part of the bank, at the junction of the creek with the river. One man was leading four, when one horse kicked another, which, falling perpendicularly, from a height of about forty feet, was so much hurt as to be unable to rise. The folly, or rather obstinacy of the man, leading so many together, on the verge of a precipice, was contrary to particular orders previously given, and which ought to have been enforced by Graham, who was in charge. Thermometer, at sunrise, 32 deg.; at noon, 78 deg.; ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... be likened, that are not affected with these things? What strange stupidity and senselessness is it, that men are not affected with things of so great and so near concernment? It would require the art of men to express the obstinacy of some Christian professors, or rather a pen steeped in hell. He would be thought unnatural that would not grieve at his friend's death or loss. And what shall they be called that will not sympathize with themselves, that is, their souls? If we speak to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... given directions that as few persons as possible should approach him. Mr. Falkland sent up his name. He was told that he was included in the general orders. He was not, however, of a temper to be easily repulsed; he persisted with obstinacy, and at length carried his point, being only reminded in the first instance to employ those precautions which experience has proved most ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... used the phrase in answer to the chairman's tentative suggestion that the tracing of the line could, perhaps, be altered in deference to the prejudices of the Sulaco landowners. The chief engineer believed that the obstinacy of men was the lesser obstacle. Moreover, to combat that they had the great influence of Charles Gould, whereas tunnelling under Higuerota would ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Styles bound also to York and Saild in Comp'y with him, that there was a Ship also to Load,[76a] which we Saw with a Schooner, the former bound to London and the Schooner to Rhode Island. Styles Received Some damage by his Obstinacy for not bringing too, having hulled him and tore his Sails. Att 5 AM. Saw a top sail Vessell, the Master Going to Mast-head to See what Course she Steer'd had the misfortune to break his Arm Just above his ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... that as I know that she never will, he is to look upon all that he has said as forgotten. With me it shall be the same as though it were forgotten." Such was her verdict, and so confident were they both of her firmness—of her obstinacy Mark would have called it on any other occasion,—that they neither of them sought to ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... tries a five-barred gate; A dog by instinct turns aside, Who sees the ditch too deep and wide;— But man we find the only creature, Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries, Forbear, With obstinacy fixes there; And, where his genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... reader it is very strange, that Austrian scene of things in which poor Robinson is puffing and laboring. The ineffable pride, the obstinacy, impotency, ponderous pedantry and helplessness of that dull old Court and its Hofraths, is nearly inconceivable to modern readers. Stupid dilapidation is in all departments, and has long been; all things lazily crumbling downwards, sometimes ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... fences run within three feet of each other along the entire boundary line between the two places. With these double fences, there could hardly be peace between the two families; for neither owner ever saw the two lines running side by side without at once being reminded of his neighbor's obstinacy and—of ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... it was our intention to touch at the islands of Mamale[16] in 12 deg. of N. lat. at one of which we were informed we might procure provisions. But it was not our luck to find it, partly by the obstinacy of our master; for the day before we should have fallen in with part of these islands, the wind shifted to the south-west, and we missed finding it. As the wind now became more southerly, we feared not ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... simplicity, joined with such pious obstinacy, at last conquered Innocent. In the humble mendicant he perceived an apostle and prophet whose mouth no power could close. Successor of St. Peter and vicar of Jesus Christ that he felt himself, he saw in the mean and ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... value even for such a task. He had a single-track mind. He was determined even to obstinacy. He thought straight, and so directly that he could walk through subtleties ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... that he was carrying his obstinacy a great deal too far. I could no longer act with prudence or composure. I stooped on a sudden and picked up an almost perfect shell, which had undoubtedly belonged to some animal very much resembling some of the present day. Having secured ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... the sake of such matters. The lightest word which can be used for such conduct is, pedantry; but I fear at times lest the Lord in heaven should be using a far more awful word, and when He sees weak brethren driven from the fold of the Church by the self- will and obstinacy of the very men who profess to desire to bring all into the Church, as the only place where salvation is to be found,—I fear, I say, when I see such deeds, lest the Lord should repeat against them His own awful words: 'If any man scandalize one of these little ones who believeth ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... their Master. For which reason in all their faces are seen love, fear, and wrath, or rather, sorrow, at not being able to understand the meaning of Christ; which thing excites no less marvel than the sight, in contrast to it, of obstinacy, hatred, and treachery in Judas; not to mention that every least part of the work displays an incredible diligence, seeing that even in the tablecloth the texture of the stuff is counterfeited in such a manner that linen itself could not ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... slaves were several whom, by their complexion and appearance, they judged to be Rebu. As at first all those brought to Egypt had been distributed among the priests and great officers, they supposed that either from obstinacy, misconduct, or from attempts to escape they had incurred the displeasure of their masters, and had been handed over by them for ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... of mothers, and still condemns Frederica as a worthless girl! He is convinced that her attempt to run away proceeded from no, justifiable cause, and had no provocation. I am sure I cannot say that it HAD, but while Miss Summers declares that Miss Vernon showed no signs of obstinacy or perverseness during her whole stay in Wigmore Street, till she was detected in this scheme, I cannot so readily credit what Lady Susan has made him, and wants to make me believe, that it was merely an impatience of restraint and a desire of escaping from ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Doctor had not calculated upon hunger and bovine obstinacy. The poor brutes after much fasting were where they could eat their fill, and though Joses and his men drove them from one place, they blundered back to another, lowing, bellowing, and getting more and more excited, but never a step nearer ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... for us to strive against the king. The world pertains to him:—shall we alone, In mad presumptuous obstinacy, strive To break that mighty chain of lands, which he Hath drawn around us with his giant grasp? His are the markets, his the courts,—his, too, The highways; nay, the very carrier's horse, That traffics on the Gotthardt, pays him toll. By his dominions, ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... ointment for singed wings, I shall have no sympathy with which to anoint them; for, like most of your sex, I see you mistake blind obstinacy for rational, heroic firmness. The next number of the magazine will contain the contribution you sent me two days since, and, while I do not accept all your views, I think it by far the best thing I have yet seen from your pen. It will, of course, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... of faith, when errors arise, lest the faith of simple-minded persons be corrupted by heretics. It was this that gave rise to the necessity of formulating several symbols, which nowise differ from one another, save that on account of the obstinacy of heretics, one contains more explicitly what ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... for assuredly he would give them a letter to his illustrious brother, and strengthen the prayer of their petition. The Prince readily promised to do this, particularly as his own life and that of his bride had just been in such sore peril, all owing to the obstinacy of his Grace of Stettin ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... communions, and affirmed, that a considerable part of the controversy turned upon the fundamental principles, of all religion, and virtue. It is not at all surprising, that this steadiness and constancy of the Lutherans, was branded by the opposite party, with the epithets, of morose obstinacy, supercilious arrogance, and such like odious denominations. The Lutherans, were not behind hand with their adversaries, in acrimony, of style; they recriminated with vehemence, and charged their accusers ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... Anglo-Saxon, small additions from Latin, French, and other sources have been made, but the bulk of our language is Saxon. Three-fourths of us are Anglo-Saxon by descent. Whatever there is in the English character of persistence, obstinacy, patience, industry, sobriety, love of freedom, we are accustomed to attribute to our Anglo-Saxon descent. In religion, arts, learning, literature, culture, we owe little or nothing to the Anglo-Saxon. In all these things we are indebted ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... she herself, but even Tetchen also, would become the prey of Satan if Linda did not relent. Linda had almost acknowledged to herself that she was in the act of bringing eternal destruction on all those around her by her obstinacy. Oh, if she could only herself be dead, let the eternal consequences as they regarded herself ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... year 1775 there stood upon the borders of Epping Forest, in the village of Chigwell, about twelve miles from London, a house of public entertainment called the Maypole, kept by John Willet, a large-headed man with a fat face, of profound obstinacy and slowness of apprehension, combined with a very strong reliance ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... platform.] What brought him down then, but 'is own black obstinacy? Are ye goin' to follow a man that can't see better than ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not so easily led. "Waunangee have him first dis nice squaw," he said, with all that show of dogged obstinacy which so usually distinguishes his race, when under the influence of liquor, and bent upon the attainment of a ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... Tanta Sal came in, smiling, to tell him that breakfast was ready, and he began to question her about when his brother was taken ill. But either from obtuseness or obstinacy, he could get nothing from the woman, and he was about to let her go while he ate his breakfast of mealie cake and hot milk; but a sudden thought occurred to him. Had those Kaffirs been about ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... that his father had the same inward sense of honor which he himself possessed; and the father saw in his son's refusal and in his argument of having to maintain the position of the family, nothing but the old obstinacy contending that his presence was indispensable and not even taking the trouble to conceal itself—he thought that in his son's eyes he was nothing but a blind, helpless old man. And what caused and furthered their misunderstanding ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... for future use in its four supplementary stomachs. The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in HAVING HIS SPOUTINGS OUT, as the fishermen phrase it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... have been necessary," said the princess, with the obstinacy of a woman who feels herself not easily overcome, "for M. de Bragelonne to have had proofs before he ventured to speak to you ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... every minute more sensible of the smallness of our numbers, far from surrendering, thought of nothing but protracting the fight till the arrival of some succors, which they said were very near; they sent forth great cries, and animated each other by our obstinacy. Though their defence was weak, yet they did enough to oblige us to keep upon our guard, which completed our misfortunes. In this extremity the principal officers went to the king, and advised him to assemble as many men as he could about his person ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... East,' and as Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows that Mr. Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of the matter be needed, here we have it—Mr. B. was an editor. Irascibility was his sole foible, for in fact the obstinacy of which men accused him was anything but his foible, since he justly considered it his forte. It was his strong point—his virtue; and it would have required all the logic of a Brownson to convince him that it was ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... attesting in mute silence their fidelity to their principles, warm red coat and tattered blue coat side by side, peace between them at last; indifferent each to the severities of nature or the passions of men; unheeding alike the ambitions of kings, the obstinacy of parliaments, or the desire of liberty on the part of peoples. Some were lying calmly, as if their last moments had been as peaceful as when little children they laid themselves down to sleep; others twisted and contorted with looks of horror and anguish fixed upon their mournful faces, which ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... intervened in my affairs with a rascally suggestion of retaliation. She had long and cruelly ignored me; now I would ignore her. Incredible fatuity—may God forgive it! All the rest of the night I lay awake, fortifying my obstinacy ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce |
