"Sensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went on with even growing force. Country life, or that mixture of town and country life afforded by the small provincial towns, came to be more and more of a fashion, and the depopulation of the capital had made sensible progress long before the period of renewed anarchy that followed the assassination of Commodus. Whether the rapid decay of Latin literature which took place after the death of Pliny and Tacitus was connected with this weakening of the central life of Rome, ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... Patty's life, though she looked upon the event with mixed feelings. Sometimes it seemed terrible to her to have to leave her dear ones at home, and she shrank from the parting with an almost morbid fear lest she should never see them all again; then a more sensible mood would prevail, and she would be so glad to think she was going, and so excited about it, that she could scarcely wait until the summer holidays were over, and the autumn term should begin. The ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... frequently spent the evenings in front of his own fire, and here he sometimes had a visitor, to wit, Tole Grampierre, youngest son of Simon, the French half-breed farmer up the river. Tole came of good, self-respecting native stock, and was in his own person a comely, sensible youngster a few years younger than the trooper. Tole was the nearest thing to a young friend that Stonor possessed in the post. They were both young enough to have some illusions left. They talked of things they would ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... refrain of this song he is about the most self-satisfied fellow one ever saw. He hasn't the slightest doubt about himself and neither has any sensible person a doubt about him; but Carmen is not a ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... been her ambition to sing in grand opera. 'It is my career, mon cher,' she writes. Behold, sentiment is sacrificed, and we shall hear her in Wagner! She thinks that she performs a duty, and she is almost sure that it need not be very onerous. She is a sensible woman, our dear Coralie. For the rest I have no news save that Wetter is said to have broken the bank at baccarat, and may be expected shortly to return home and resume his task of improving the condition ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant; our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way." And the returning remnant of Israel being sensible of this connexion, resolve to bind themselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that may not be forgotten. (2.) By seeking shifts and arguments to elude and evade the obligation of the covenant and to defend ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... that," laughed Thad; "but one of the duties of a scout is never to just take things for granted. He must be wise enough to make provision against any ordinary happening that might come about. In other words he insures his stock of provisions like a sensible merchant does his goods. He doesn't expect to have a fire, you know; but he wants to be sure he won't be ruined ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... Old Gatto, being a sensible old cat, understood the little servant's feelings. 'You shall go home,' he said, 'and you shall not come back here unless you please. But first you must be rewarded for all your kind services to my children. Follow me down into the inner cellar, where you have never yet been, for ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... Moon was going down, and I was sensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gunga Dass had disappeared and my mouth was full of blood. I lay down again and prayed that I might die without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury which I had before mentioned, laid hold ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... especially during the war—have surrounded themselves with a tangle of red tape which has to be unwound every time an employee (or any one else) wants to get near enough to ask a question. This is absurd. Sensible men destroy elaborate plans of management and find they get along better without them. The Baldwin Locomotive Works, which has a hundred years of solid reputation behind it, has no management plans. "There is about the place an atmosphere of work, and work without frills or feathers," ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... man handsomely, called for brandy and soda. It need scarcely be said that at that hour the brandy and soda was by no means the first of its kind that either of the men had imbibed that day. Over it they became extremely confidential and chatty. Mr Bones was a lively and sensible fellow. It was noticeable, too, that his language improved and his demeanour became more respectful as the acquaintance progressed. After a time they rose. Aspel paid for the brandy and soda, and they left the place ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... is out of the question," he said decisively. "It's splendid of you even to think of coming down. But it would be unpardonable in me to allow it, so be a sensible woman and put the notion out of your head, once for all. You know you could never bear to leave little Paul when ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... herself eagerly to the ship and the crew, and the fierce, lawless fellows cheerfully submitted to the sensible arrangements of their captain's beautiful, energetic wife. At this period Bias had often met Ledscha engaged in secret conversation with the Gaul, yet if any tender emotion really attracted her toward any one other than her husband, Myrtilus would have been suspected ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... The story of a sensible woman who keeps within her means, refuses to be swamped by social engagements, lives a normal human life of varied interests, ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... Magdalen, without taking the smallest notice of the protest, "is Falkland—a jealous lover, with a fine flow of language. Miss Marrable and I discussed Falkland privately on the window-seat while the rest were talking. She is a delightful girl—so impulsive, so sensible, so entirely unaffected. She confided in me. She said: 'One of our miseries is that we can't find a gentleman who will grapple with the hideous difficulties of Falkland.' Of course I soothed her. Of course I said: 'I've got the gentleman, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... him, "My son, I wish you would turn from your foolish trifling, and govern your people as you ought to do; for your advisers are planning to dethrone you." The prince, who was not bad at heart, followed his mother's sensible advice: he now began to devote himself to the welfare of his subjects. His ministers, too, gave up their plan, and aided the young king in ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... be simple, sensible, and reticent; be in no hurry to act unless to prevent the actions of others. Again and again I say, reject, if it may be, a good lesson for fear of giving a bad one. Beware of playing the tempter in this world, which nature intended as an earthly paradise for men, and do not attempt to give ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... not very sensible-looking countenance. He was strongly built, was in good health, and had the making of a sailor in him, though this was the first time that he had even been ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... the vacant place beside her he felt a fire in his cheeks. The Voice and Presence were disquieting. As the groom touched the horses, Maurice was sensible of her sleeve against his, and he drew ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... the most sensible thing to my mind," the innkeeper said; "but what brings you here, Anderson, since you have no herd ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... difficult duty is to show courage in danger and in the council-chamber to give sounder advice than anybody else." His belief was that war was not a certainty, but it would be better to revise the whole naval system. A detailed scheme to assure the requisite number of ships in fighting-trim follows, so sensible that it commands immediate respect. The speaker estimates the wealth of Attica, maps it out into divisions, each able to bear the expense of the warships assigned to it. To a possible objection that it would be better to raise the ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... doctrine I could not, in honour, generosity, or delicacy accede. Of the wisdom of avoiding the danger of a refusal I was perfectly sensible; but, in declaring my attachment to Miss Montenero, I meant only to ask permission to address her. To win her heart I was well aware must be a work of time; but the first step was to deserve her esteem, and to begin by conducting myself towards ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... Man," he would quote (for he read other things besides the Kreuzzeitung), looking round with satisfaction on reaching this fragrant haven after a hot day in the fields. Well, the cousins did not think so. Less fanciful, and more sensible as they probably would have said, their position plainly was that you cannot eat flowers. Their spirits required no refreshment, but their bodies needed much, and therefore radishes were more precious than wallflowers. Nor was my youth wholly destitute of radishes, but they were grown ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... arise from the circumstance of the stars being then projected on a luminous background. Such is, indeed, the explanation adopted by Herschel. A gaseous medium, capable of reflecting sufficient solar light to efface that of some stars, would appear to him to possess in each stratum a sensible quantity of matter, and to be, for that reason, a cause of real diminution of the light transmitted, though nothing reveals the existence of ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... such an absurdly fine morning, isn't it? There's a sort of sparkle in the air. I'm really trying to be quite sensible. ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... play, if he cannot beat you by fair, he will by foul means. Rather than lose, he will elude your attention, and raise your passion sufficiently to put you off your guard, while he plays his underhand game, and cheats you before your face; and though you are sensible of being cheated, yet you shall not be able to discover by what means it is effected. The various methods sharpers have to cheat and deceive are so many and unaccountable, that it would exceed the limits of our publication to detail even the tenth-part of them; their study is to supply their ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... observe what a mysterious efficacy still asserted itself in character. A woman, evidently poor as the poorest of her neighbors, would be knitting or sewing on the door-step, just as fifty other women were; but round about her skirts (though wofully patched) you would be sensible of a certain sphere of decency, which, it seemed to me, could not have been kept more impregnable in the coziest little sitting-room, where the tea-kettle on the hob was humming its good old song of domestic peace. Maidenhood had a similar power. The evil habit that grows upon us in this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... letters from Gerverbiller (dated 26th and 27th July) to Count Horn, filled with expressions of friendship and confidence. The Admiral, who had sent one of his gentlemen to greet the Duke, now responded from Weert that he was very sensible of the kindness manifested towards him, but that for reasons which his secretary Alonzo de la Loo would more fully communicate, he must for the present beg to be excused from a personal visit to Brussels. The secretary was received by Alva with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a vast good nature, which made him tolerant and accessible to all; fair minded, leaning to the claim of the petitioner; affable, and not sensible to the affliction which the innumerable visits paid to him when President would have brought to any one else. And how this good nature became a noble humanity, in many a tragic case which the events of the war brought to him, every one will remember; ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... the other hand, if he refuses to go he will die by the sword. You are a sensible man, Philippe, and will see the force of my remarks. Now, which is it to be? Will you earn a few crowns by taking the risk, or will you lose your life ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... hear nothing but what is pleasant and sensible and right," said Jack, with less veracity than it was his wont ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... never said to herself, as she read it, that she might safely trust herself to this man, though he were a Jew, though greasy and like a butcher, though over fifty and with a family, because he was an honest man. She did not see that the letter was particularly sensible;—but she did allow herself to be pained by the total absence of romance. She was annoyed at the first allusion to her age, and angry at the second; and yet she had never supposed that Brehgert had taken her to be younger than she was. She was well aware that the world in ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... as straight and sensible a speech as ever I heard, and I was grateful for the opening it gave me; so I came out ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... school-teaching should be to prepare the pupils for actual life, they should be made familiar with the idea that all their means of subsistence and enjoyment can only be obtained by labor; not only should their attention be called to the fact, but they should be made sensible how much skill, knowledge and labor and economy were needed for the creation of existing stores, and are needed for their maintenance in undiminished quantity; nor can this be done in any way more fitly or completely than by ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... Mrs. Edson, under the tuition of her strong-minded, sensible aunt, regained a share of her former vivacity, and declared she would be quite herself again were it not for that great black jail in the adjoining yard, which frowned on her every morning and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... he said. 'My son is quiet, and has not moved. He has spoken to his mother, and seems quite sensible. Is there anything more for ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... more for the present. The truth was that one of her minute high-heeled slippers pinched, but this she had no intention of acknowledging; if men wished to think her an angel, so they should. She was a sensible person, far too practical to reduce the sum of her happiness by physical discomfort; but the slippers, which she had never tried on, matched her gown, and she had no others with her that did. But the one rift in ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... having expressed, soon after, some intention of volunteering publicly in his defence, he lost no time in repressing him by the following sensible letter:— ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... tempted to withdraw or modify some of them, fearful lest in presenting, though but dramatically and by way of a poetic record, the passions and epithets of civil war, I might be contributing to a bitterness which every sensible American must wish at an end. So, too, with the emotion of victory as reproduced on some pages, and particularly toward the close. It should not be construed into an exultation misapplied—an exultation as ungenerous ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... here,' I said, 'you're pretty sick. Would you like to see Galoshes?' He sat right up on his elbow. 'Get the priest,' says he, 'get the priest; don't let me die here like a dog!' He spoke kind of fierce and eager, but sensible enough. There was nothing to say against that, so we sent and asked Galuchet if he would come. You bet he would. He jumped in his dirty linen at the thought of it. But we had reckoned without Papa. He's a hard-shell Baptist, is Papa; no Papists ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... article of food, and we were then living on a very reduced scale of rations. On my return from such excursions The Widow and her child frequently gave notice of our approach long before we reached the camp: their quick ears seemed sensible of the sound of horses' feet at an astonishing distance, for in no other way could the men account for the notice which Turandurey and her child, seated at their own fire, were always the first to give of my return, ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... declare that this or that is too costly for you, every one will respect you the more, for they will see that you are not spending beyond your proper income. Do not live carelessly, and shun those amusements which you cannot afford. After all, it is both sensible and high-minded to live ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... you understand; have I made you afraid? I love you; I have always loved you. I was going to have waited to ask you to marry me until next week when I came to you in town. But to-night, because I love you, because you are going away to-morrow, I couldn't keep sensible any longer. And anyway, Joan, what does it matter?—to-day or to-morrow, the question will always be the same. I love you, will you marry me, dear? No, wait." He saw her movement to answer. "I don't ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... the cottage he was sensible of a certain agitation in the air, which was intensified to him by the sight of St. John, in his bare, bald head and the neglige of a flannel housecoat, inspecting, with the gardener and one of the grooms, the fallen ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... "don't ever let me hear you even whisper such nonsense to yourself. Miss Jinny is too nice and sensible to be made fun of in that way, and I won't have it. Remember, once for all I ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... another correspondent of my father's whom Owen had had no great belief in, largely because of his great opinion of himself. He now showed himself kindly and sensible, and asked Owen to let him see some papers he mentioned. While examining them, he observed my mysterious guide make a slight movement, and said, "I say, look to the door, Stanchells; shut it, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... niti, 'to strive in vain (namely, to effect improvements), if, after all, nothing but hatred is incurred by it, is extreme folly.' [22] Nisi forte, 'unless perhaps'—which surely cannot be the case with any sensible man. Respecting this use of nisi forte, expressing an improbable supposition, see Zumpt, S 526. [23] Libido—gratificari, 'the inclination to gratify;' for libido tenet is only a paraphrase for libet. This statement is striking, and but too true, for ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... were concluded, and the future of Poictesme had been arranged in every detail, then Miramon Lluagor's wife told him that long words and ink-bottles and red seals were well enough for men to play with, but that it was high time something sensible was done in this matter, unless they expected Niafer to bring up the baby ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... she had a basis of sensible practical education, surmounted and adorned by ladylike accomplishments which she had neither time nor inclination to indulge in her married life. Not only was she skilled in the languages and in such higher studies as astronomy, but in mathematics also; and this last qualification made her for ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... enter in your mind of love: Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts To courtship, and such fair ostents of love As shall conveniently become you there.' And even there, his eye being big with tears, Turning his face, he put his hand behind him, And with affection wondrous sensible He wrung Bassanio's hand; ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... politely. She is considered the queen of this little village, which is the sum and substance of everything that is poor and miserable. Mme. LaCount's daughter being ill, I was deprived of a great deal of valuable information. She speaks good English, and is a very sensible, intelligent young lady for such a village. The houses here have the most antique and mean appearance, built of the barks of trees and puncheons, slabs, etc., often without doors. Their windows are without sashes, but small pieces of broken glasses of all shapes pasted ingeniously together ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its strong combination of stable with soup-stock, might have led one to infer that the coaching department was not doing well, and that the enterprising proprietor was boiling down the horses for ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... patiently, because he knew that until they were out of ear-shot of the crowd there was no way of getting a sensible ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... and her mother's apartments, and didn't always take her curlers off till the evening, and said "Boo" to Thomas, merely because he was young—a detestable habit, Peter and Thomas considered. Peter had to make a great deal of sensible conversation ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... and we must keep her story to ourselves as far as may be. It will all blow over, if we do. The gossips will only know that she was upset in the river and cared for by some good people,—good people and sensible people too, Mrs. Lindsay. And now I want to see the young man that rescued my friend here,—Clement Lindsay, I have ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... drawn, there was a scent of violets in the air, and a fire glowed warmly in the grate. He noted these things carefully, telling himself that a man should always be alertly sensible of his surroundings; then all at once the nice balancing of detail suddenly gave way. He forgot everything but the one circumstance that Eve was standing in the window—her back to the light, her face towards him. With his pulses beating faster and an unsteady sensation in his ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... must say farewell to Fanny Dorville. Nothing should disturb a sensible mind; the man who, with so much resolution, deprives himself of his patrimonial estates should not meet less bravely the separation ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... they made, these four young people, sensible to the full of the enjoyments of life. Joke and anecdote were interchanged with good-humoured camaraderie and, if Mrs. Grundy was not present, she ought to have been, only in the capacity of spectator, that she might but learn how possible it is ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... the first part of submission to God, but the chief of possible kindnesses to those about us. I am lecturing myself, but you also. To do our best is one part, but to wash our hands smilingly of the consequence is the next part, of any sensible virtue. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "If by the term 'God,'" he says,[2] "was meant simply the reason and nature of things, it might perhaps be freely used; but the word means something else to most persons"—and therefore the honest ethicist will not employ it. For this sensible and candid course we cannot but feel thankful; Mr. Salter at any rate knows well enough that there is all the difference between "the reason and nature of things"—between a mere "totality ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... inexperienced, as hers, no power could have held him from going with her and marrying her. But experience had taught him the abysmal difference between before and after; and he found strength to be sensible, even in the height of his ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... The first sensible effect of the arrival of the royal family in Brazil was the opening of its numerous ports[27]; and in the very first year (1808) ninety foreign ships entered the single harbour of Rio, and a proportional number, those of Maranham, Pernambuco, and Bahia. The effect of the residence of the ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... inquire into the nature of those powers, or investigate the laws of light and heat, of cold and condemnation, by which the various purposes of this world are accomplished; we are only to mention those effects which are made sensible to the common understanding of mankind, and which necessarily imply a power that is employed. Thus, it is by the operation of those powers that the varieties of season in spring and autumn are obtained, that we are blessed with ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... grieved, when she reflected upon the unmanly manner in which he had conducted towards her. She had conversed freely with Alfred, and laying all the circumstances of the case before him, told him she should respect him while she lived, but was fully sensible her blighted heart never ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... dear to her husband and to the empire in general. She was continually praising him to the king. She talked of him to her women, who were always sure to improve on her praises. And thus everything contributed to pierce her heart with a dart, of which she did not seem to be sensible. She made several presents to Zadig, which discovered a greater spirit of gallantry than she imagined. She intended to speak to him only as a queen satisfied with his services and her expressions were sometimes those of ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... they were more than usually tall she lifted the baby to the top of her head, that it might be out of the reach of their drenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind was brisk and sustained, the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent, so that it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness of the point at which it left the bosoms of the clouds. Here self-defence was impossible, and individual drops stuck into her like the arrows into Saint Sebastian. She was enabled to avoid ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... pleased with it. It was sound and sensible and conclusive; that is, you said in it what you set out to say, and that doesna ay happen in sermons. You'll put more heart in your ministrations when you have been a while among ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... the same ill opinion of your sex, my dear madam, that Miss Jemima had of, ours. The captain was a man of a slim and elegant figure; the less said about the face the better, a truth of which the captain himself was sensible, for it was a favourite maxim of his, "that in a man, everything is a slight, gentlemanlike figure." Captain Barnabas did not absolutely deny that the world was coming to an end, only he thought it ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her character. She inherited the rich fancy, the nervous sensibility, and stern will of her father, and what may seem like a contradiction, the gentleness and modesty of her mother. She was the youngest child, and, naturally enough, the pet of the others; but, the parents were too sensible to spoil her by flattery or foolish indulgence. She was of that age when the female mind is most susceptible to the great passion of our nature in its most romantic phase, when Lieutenant Canfield visited their house. His frank bearing, his gentlemanly deportment, ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... uncommon,—whereas to the scientific eye, there is nothing left in the world that ought to excite so vulgar and barbarous an emotion as wonder, . . nothing so apparently rare that cannot be reduced at once from the ignorant exaggerations of enthusiasm to the sensible level of the commonplace? The so-called 'marvels' of nature have, thanks to the advancement of practical education, entirely ceased to affect by either surprise or admiration the carefully matured, mathematically adjusted, and technically balanced brain of the finished student or professor ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... sensible that the Continental regulations have expressly ordered, that a Court Martial shall consist of at least three Captains, which is impossible, as Captain Hinman declines to sit, he expecting a Court of Inquiry upon his own conduct on his arrival in America, and having ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... I to have thanked you for your last affectionate letter; but I knew how indulgent you were, and therefore fell, I won't say more easily, but surely with far less pain to myself, into my old trick of procrastination. I was deeply sensible of your kindness in inviting me to Grosvenor Square, and then felt and still feel a strong inclination to avail myself of the opportunity of cultivating your friendship and that of Lady Beaumont, and of seeing a little of the world at the same time. But as the wish is ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... beautiful cake and distributed large slices all round. No grown-up person was present to make sensible remarks about not eating too much, which was a good or a bad thing "according to ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... can follow out the effect, and distinguish and weigh and compare. A book which has been very influential upon me fell early into my hands, and so may stand first, though I think its influence was only sensible later on, and perhaps still keeps growing, for it is a book not easily outlived: the Essais of Montaigne.[8] That temperate and genial picture of life is a great gift to place in the hands of persons of to-day; they will find in these smiling pages ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bloom of her cheeks, and the struggling smiles that played about her ripe lips, the tears had been sweet, rather than painful. Though still betraying enough of physical frailty to keep alive the concern of all who loved her, there was a change for the better in her appearance, which was so sensible as to strike the least observant of those who lived in daily ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... I don't keep myself keyed up every minute I'll fall—' Don't you think it would be better if you forgot all about it, and just said, 'I'm Louis Farne, the biggest thing that ever was in the annals of humanity.' I don't know, but that seems more sensible to me. You see, you're rather a self-willed sort of person, really. You like to have you own way. Then why on earth not have ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... a sensible man (to say nothing of the astute philosopher and the erudite theologian), you certainly do indulge in the most remarkable spasms of wilful, obstinate, premeditated blindness. You need not stare so desperately at that page, for I intend to talk to ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the more respectable and wealthy class of Oxford citizens it should be told, they are now too sensible of their own interest, and, besides, too well-informed to mix with these civil disturbances; the lower orders, therefore, finding themselves unequal to the contest without their support, submit to the togati; and thus ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Pimlico, Chelsea again is bracing, and as for South Kensington it stands to reason that it is bracing because it is very high, almost as high as Mayfair. If you pass from your Pimlico borderland of Belgravia to either of those regions you are certainly not sensible of any sharp accent, but there is no telling what a gradual rise of eight or ten feet may make in the quality of the air. To the stranger all London seems a vast level, with perhaps here and there the sort of ground-swell you may note from your car-window in the passage of a Western ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Sullen. Take Congreve; and compare Bellmour with Fondlewife, Careless with Sir Paul Plyant, or Scandal with Foresight. In all these cases, and in many more which might be named, the dramatist evidently does his best to make the person who commits the injury graceful, sensible, and spirited, and the person who suffers it a fool, or ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... are very sure to be cared for.—I hope your good grand-mama and aunt are well. They are some of my very old friends. I wish my health allowed me to be a better neighbour. You do us a great deal of honour to-day, I am sure. My daughter and I are both highly sensible of your goodness, and have the greatest satisfaction in seeing ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... 'That is a sensible little pig,' replied his mother, looking fondly at him. 'I will see that the three houses are got ready at once. And now one last piece of advice. You have heard me talk of our old enemy the fox. When he hears that I am dead, he is sure to try ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... unpolished parts, who do not love to hear themselves talk, but sometimes break out with an agreeable bluntness, unexpected wit, and surly pleasantries, to the no small diversion of their friends and companions. In short, I look upon every sensible, true-born Briton to be naturally ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... the idea of our ethereality as intellectual beings; no sensible man can harbor a doubt, but that there is a vast deal of satisfaction in dining. More: there is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... feelings and prejudices, and inconsistent with their own opinion of the corporators themselves. Wharncliffe, on the other hand, told me some time ago that he did not care about the qualification, but he defended, though feebly, the trusts. This shows how dissatisfied the moderate and sensible of the party ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... longer the same. The application of science to the means of locomotion and to the instantaneous transmission of thought and speech have gradually contracted space and annihilated distance. The whole world is drawn into immediate neighborhood and near relationship, and we have now become sensible to inconveniences and to many disturbing influences in our reckoning of time utterly unknown and even unthought of a few generations back. It is also quite manifest that, as civilization advances, such evils must greatly increase ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... and tired, and they may have thought me a beggar, to whom, like good sensible Christians who had no nonsense about them, they would rather have given a handsome kick than a cup of cold water. However, I think it was not only my poverty but a native churlishness which bound their bovine souls ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... when 'the Gods' themselves arrive—it yet lingered on; openly, in Folk practice, in Fast and Feast, whereby the well-being of the land might be assured; secretly, in cave or mountain-fastness, or island isolation, where those who craved for a more sensible (not necessarily sensuous) contact with the unseen Spiritual forces of Life than the orthodox development of Christianity afforded, might, ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... approve your proceedings with the Levellers in those parts, and doubt not you are sensible of the mischief those designs tend to, and of the necessity to proceed effectually against them. If the laws in force against those who intrude upon other men's properties, and that forbid and direct the punishing of all riotous assemblies and seditious ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... the rich, or blankets to the poor. To be the most absurd institution among so many institutions is no small distinction; it seems, however, to belong indisputably to the Royal Society of Literature. At the first establishment of that ridiculous academy, every sensible man predicted that, in spite of regal patronage and episcopal management, it would do nothing, or do harm. And it will scarcely be denied that those expectations ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with sensible ones too," said my wife. "Your Monsieur presents a specimen of the French way of doing a bad thing; but I know a poor woman whose husband did the same thing in English fashion, without kisses or compliments. Instead of flattering, he swore at her, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... discovery of profound differences, at the very time when they have never resembled one another more closely in merits and defects; at a time when their thought and their literature are least notable for distinctive characteristics; when everywhere there becomes sensible a monotonous levelling of intelligence; when on all hands we discern individualities that are dishevelled, threadbare, limp. I will venture to say that all of them, with their united efforts, are incompetent to give us the hope of that mental renovation to which the world is entitled ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... not hailed by the old squire from under his lilac-bush, and fed by Hetty. Plenty of sarcastic and wholesome advice the old gentleman gave them, while they sat on the ground eating; and every word of it sank into Hetty's wide-open ears and sensible soul, developing in her a very rare sort of thing which, for want of a better name, we might call common-sense sympathy. To this sturdy common-sense barrier against the sentimental side of sympathy with other people's sufferings, Hetty added an equally sturdy, and ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... of your opinion," was the laughing answer, "unless I can induce you to let Mrs. Lloyd remain in ignorance of your benevolent intentions, and mind your own concerns, like a sensible man." ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... woods, and folks say he spends most all his time trying to pick march tunes out on the organ. A few years ago he got some back pension money, and up and spent it for a cabinet organ! Dear land! it seemed a pity, when he might have got him some nice clothes or something sensible. But there he sets and sets over that organ, trying to pick out tunes! Well,"—the gentle old voice took on charity—"well, if that's his way of being happy, I s'pose he's got as good a right to it as I have to—Amelia," a whimsical little smile lighting up the ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... loss to comprehend what all this could mean, and almost believed myself under the influence of an ugly dream—but now the boys, who were seated in advance in the row, arose with one accord, and barred my farther progress; and one, doubtless more sensible than the rest, seizing the rope, thrust it into my hand. I now began to perceive that the dismissal of the school, and my own release from torment, depended upon this selfsame rope. I therefore, in a fit of desperation, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... "You are very sensible that Skyresh Bolgolam" (galbet, or high-admiral) "has been your mortal enemy, almost ever since your arrival. His original reasons I know not; but his hatred is increased since your great success against Blefuscu, by which his glory ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... great things. A poor-looking little scollop of a thing, they tell me she is; and like as if she'd have about as much iday of taking butter off a churn, or spinning a hank of yarn, as a pig would have of a holiday! What opinion could any sensible body have of that kind of a wedding, without even a match-maker to inquire into the thing, to see was it anyways suitable or not! Och, Art! Art! it's little I thought, this day five-and-twenty years, the way the thing ...
— Candle and Crib • K. F. Purdon
... presently it made its voice heard. She began to say to herself that in giving way to such fantastic fears she was being unworthy of herself, almost contemptible. In former times she had never been a foolish woman or weak. She had, on the contrary, been strong and sensible, although unconventional and enthusiastic. Many people had leaned upon her, even strong people. Artois was one. And she had never ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... friendly and cordial terms, while Miss Lucy with equal celerity revealed herself as a sprightly, high-spirited maiden without a particle of artificiality about her, bright and vivacious of manner, with plenty to say for herself, but at the same time thoroughly sensible. As for Mr Todd, he was, as I have said, a typical Scotsman, but I ought to have added "of the very best sort", for from beneath his superficial businesslike keenness and shrewdness the natural kindliness and ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... up on a stout horse, in front of the most powerful man of the party, who gripped Andy hard round the middle and pushed his horse to a hand gallop, followed by the rest of the party. The proximity of Andy to his cavaliero made the latter sensible to the bad odour of the pig's bed, which formed Andy's luxurious bust and bustle; but he attributed the unsavoury scent to a bad breath on the lady's part, and would sometimes address his ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... about disease are far less hurtful than disease itself, and because the period for richest returns from sensible living is childhood—and the ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... and their hearing; a dimness covereth their sight, and they shall suffer a grievous punishment. There are some who say, We believe in God and the last day, but are not really believers; they seek to deceive God, and those who do believe, but they deceive themselves only, and are not sensible thereof. There is an infirmity in their hearts, and God hath increased that infirmity; and they shall suffer a most painful punishment because they have disbelieved. When one saith unto them, Act not corruptly in the earth, they reply, Verily, we are men of integrity. Are not they themselves ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... older Satnami sect of northern India. This was inaugurated by a Rajput, Jagjiwan Das of the Bara Banki District, who died in 1761. He preached the worship of the True Name of the one God, the cause and creator of all things, void of sensible qualities and without beginning or end. He prohibited the use of meat, lentils (on account of their red colour suggesting blood) of the brinjal or eggplant, which was considered, probably on account of its shape, to resemble flesh, and of intoxicating liquors. The creed of Ghasi Das enunciated ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... nicer than Dick when he talks sensibly, she though, but I'm sure he'll be silly and worry me, and I'm sure I can't tell him anything he'd like to hear. If he'd only be sensible, I should ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... take into custody. To suppose that the Constitution grants the one, but denies the other, is to suppose it self-stultified by contradictory provisions—and that in a case where the public safety in time of imminent peril is concerned. The only consistent and sensible view of the Constitution is, that as the validity of the writ of habeas corpus is the ordinary rule, and its suspension the extraordinary exception—so the power to make arrests by civil process only is the ordinary rule, and the power to make arrests ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... mooning man," he resumed, "I don't want to say anything to make you feel sore. I regularly pity you. But you must allow that you've acted more like a confirmed crank than a member of our best society—in which every one's so sensible." ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... susceptibleness, susceptibility, susceptivity^; mobility; vivacity, vivaciousness; tenderness, softness; sentimental, sentimentality; sentimentalism. excitability &c 825; fastidiousness &c 868; physical sensibility &c 375. sore point, sore place; where the shoe pinches. V. be sensible &c adj.; have a tender heart, have a warm heart, have a sensitive heart. take to heart, treasure up in the heart; shrink. die of a rose in aromatic pain [Pope]; touch to the quick; touch on the raw, touch a raw nerve. Adj. sensible, sensitive; impressible, impressionable; susceptive, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... her grimly. "If I saw that you were going to do anything so foolish as to scream, I should just kiss you, and—kiss you till you were glad to be sensible about it." ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... that mature period of human life at which a sensible man learns to decline (as often as his temper will let him) all useless conflict with the tyranny of his own troubles. Abandoning any further effort to reach a decision in the emergency that now beset him, Mr. Brock sat down placidly in his shirt sleeves on the side of his bed, and applied ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... confess I do not regret the change. They are certainly of supreme importance. There is something to be learned about them from Latin and Greek authors, but this can be obtained more easily from modern writers or translations than by the laborious study of the originals. Do not suppose I am no longer sensible to the charm of classical art. It is wonderful, but I have come to the conclusion that the time spent on the classics, both here and in Germany, is mostly thrown away. Take even Homer. I admit ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... was the daughter of honest parents. Her mother was mild-mannered and sensible, her father loyal, but harsh and sometimes violent. Frieda was the fifth of eleven brothers and sisters. She was a model scholar. At the age of four years she had meningitis which left her with frequent headaches. In 1896-97 she learnt dressmaking ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... a few words of coherent and sensible advice to both parties, urging John Willet to remember that Joe was nearly arrived at man's estate, and should not be ruled with too tight a hand, and exhorting Joe himself to bear with his father's caprices, and rather endeavour to ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... accepted an experimental result, until he had applied to it the utmost power at his command. He raised his battery from ten cells to one hundred and twenty cells, but without avail. The current flowed calmly through the battery wire without producing, during its flow, any sensible result upon ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... and even mystics, both mother and daughter took sensible views on money matters. They did not undervalue the fortune that had gone; they were both honestly sorry it had gone, and would have taken any reasonable means to get it back again. Only Rose allowed ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... begins to think he owns his fair share of the earth, or even a bit more, I daresay that it does him good to be humbled a little, but it's a hard thing to become used to. Hitherto when Helen wanted anything I always let her have it, for on the whole she has always been sensible in her desires and requests, or maybe I have been an old fool. Didn't some Frenchman say once that an old man is a fellow who thinks himself wise because he's been a fool longer than other people? ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... little appreciative of her condescension, her romantic beneficence, her unselfish interest, Sibyl suddenly rebounded to her former level, which she was sensible was far above that of this unworthy object of her kindness. She rose from ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... such a blow of misfortune often produces in a child. We know not the mysterious workings of a child's mind, or by what process such a rapid change is accomplished; but we know from experience that the journey of a very few years in the path of life can make even the very young sensible that this world is not one of unmixed happiness, and that there is often but a step from careless childhood to a ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... "A very sensible reply, Watson. You must look at it this way: what I know is unofficial; what he knows is official. I have the right to private judgment, but he has none. He must disclose all, or he is a traitor to his service. In a doubtful case I would not put him in ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... were spoken in the calmest manner; and it really seemed as if those who heard them regarded them merely as the sensible conclusion of a very ordinary state of affairs. They went away without hurry or disorder, not as fugitives, but as men deliberately obeying the dictates ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... for it, and the most fastidious are those who can least afford it." The costliest kind of meat, the finest flour, and very highest priced butter were demanded, and many scorned the less expensive meats and groceries such as well-to-do and sensible people were ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... that sensible little person talked nonsense. In her eyes, by his engagement, her big brother ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... picture business. It just makes you use words that mean something, and not those that are merely sign-posts. I'm glad to see that you are getting—sensible. But never mind about that. Are you ready to go to the studio? I'm sure ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... white house standing just off the high road, no doubt, with a neighbor who kept a pig and a dozen squalling children; for these plans were shorn of all romance in his mind, and the pleasure he derived from thinking of them was checked directly it passed a very sober limit. So a sensible man who has lost his chance of some beautiful inheritance might tread out the narrow bounds of his actual dwelling-place, and assure himself that life is supportable within its demesne, only one must grow turnips and cabbages, not melons and pomegranates. Certainly Ralph took some ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... sensible man, Sievers; and I am very glad at last that he is likely to succeed in the world. All men have their little imprudences, and he was a little too hot once. What of that? He has come to his senses, so have I; and I hope you ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield |
