"Singleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the crafty plan which the priest had laid with a singleness of aim and a detachment from minor considerations that never hesitated to sacrifice the princess, together with the chief instrument of the intrigue. Was the liberation of a kingdom, the deliverance of a nation ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... daughter of a distinguished officer, whose merits were universally recognized, but not rewarded in proportion. Wardlaw's suit was favorably received by the father, and the daughter gradually yielded to an attachment the warmth, sincerity and singleness of which were manifest. And the pair would have been married but for the circumstance that her father (partly through Wardlaw's influence, by the by) had obtained a lucrative post abroad which it suited ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... hitherto observed in detached colonnades. The column expanded into the shaft, or into the huge pilaster rising unbanded from tier to tier; shaft and pilaster were associated in ordered groups, and the ideas of singleness and limited elevation once attached to them, swept away for ever; the stilted and variously centered arch existed already: the pure ogive followed—where first exhibited we stay not to inquire;—finally, and chief of all, the great mechanical ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... school-teacher, and then an insurance agent, will, in the end, be nothing. Men who are always changing, never learn enough about anything to make it of any value. Men who are eminent in their professions have stuck to them with a singleness of purpose. Men talk much about genius, when, generally, the genius of which they speak is but the result of unremitting application. The genius that blesses this world is simply a talent for hard work. They are men who have the resolution to try, and the courage to ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... education in the Infant School is a thing of curious patches, of strength and weakness, of light and shade; perhaps the greatest weakness is its lack of cohesion, of unification: on the one hand we find much provision for the children's real needs, much singleness of purpose in the teacher's work, such a genuine spirit of whole-hearted desire for their education: on the other hand, an unreasoning sense of haste, of pushing on, of introducing prematurely work for which the children admittedly are unready; an acceptance of new ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... spirit; soul yearns for soul. It is the genius of woman to be electrical in movement, intuitive in penetration, and spiritual in tendency. She excels not so easily in classification or recreation as in an instinctive seizure of causes, and a simple breathing out of what she receives, that has the singleness of life, rather than the selecting and energizing of art. More native is it to her to be the living model of the artist, than to set apart from herself any one form in objective reality. More native to inspire and receive ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... upon the general question of the interdependence of the parts of the world, a question which has already appeared as pertinent in ontology. Monism and pluralism now obtain a new meaning. Where the world process is informed with some singleness of plan, as teleology proposes, the parts are reciprocally necessary, and inseparable from the unity. Where, on the other hand, the processes are random and reciprocally fortuitous, as Leucippus proposes, the world ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... as the partners and servants of the North-West Company were called, were bold competitors. Their enthusiasm for the conflict was all the more eager because their trade was regarded as illicit by their rivals. There was singleness of purpose in their ranks; almost every man in the service had been tried and proved. All the Montreal partners of the company had taken the long trip to the Grand Portage, a transit station at ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... Barnaby that day, otherwise than as an actor in a show which was to take place to-morrow. But if the whole population had had him in their minds, and had wished his life to be spared, not one among them could have done so with a purer zeal or greater singleness of heart than ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... evolution is an aberration, a divorce, a parenthesis. With its culmination and dismissal the mind passes back into the simple state of union with the Whole. (The state of Ekagrata in the Hindu philosophy: one-pointedness, singleness of mind.) And the consciousness of the Whole, and of things past and things to come and things far around—which consciousness had been shut out by the concentration on the local self—begins to return again. This is not to say, of course, that ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... the mate's speech that he thought little of his big junior officer. A good, or even fair opinion would have been simply expressed as yes, or good enough. Having in view the possibility of conflict when their destination was reached and the necessity for singleness of purpose among the ship's company, he went quietly to work on a mental register of every man on board from chief mate down to cook, to the end that he might have to depend on nobody's ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... unborn offspring they devote To misery through ill-assorted unions, Or habits reckless of maternal dues; How marriage, sacredest of mortal steps, Is entered on from motives all unworthy; Social ambition, mercenary aims, The dread of poverty, of singleness,— The object of uniting families,— And momentary passion fatuous. So I resolved, God helping, to be true To my own self, and that way true ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... of decency"; that "satire never, in his hands, descended into scurrility"; that "a moral purpose ever underlaid his humour"; that "he sought to instruct and improve whenever he amused." The absurdity of this statement we have already exposed. In reference to a supposed singleness of heart and honesty of purpose, some writers have termed him "honest George." All this was very well. We all know, of course, that he "never pandered to sensuality" or "glorified vice"; but in spite of these facts, "honest George" himself, so far at least as we personally know, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... word—of the shaft delivered promptly and once for all. I should have indeed to cure myself of hesitation first. I see too many ways of saying things; a more decided mind hits on the right way at once. Singleness of phrase implies courage, self-confidence, clear-sightedness. To attain it there must he no doubting, and I ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... shortened now, and he was more strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was willing to do anything that would assure him of the singleness of my designs. Nobody was hard with him or with me. There was duty to be done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the assurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... was born in 1835, in one of the mission cabins on the shores of Lac-qui-Parle, who has spent his whole life among the Sioux Indians, and who with a singleness of purpose, worthy of the apostle Paul, has devoted his whole life to their temporal and spiritual uplift, thus vividly sketches missionary life among the Sioux in his boyhood days: "My first serious impression of life was that I was living under ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... degenerating into sulky resentment when he went away, after several failures to get back to the old ground he had held in relation to Alma. He retrieved something of it with Mrs. Leighton; but Alma glittered upon him to the last with a keen impenetrable candor, a child- like singleness of glance, covering ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... on which the picture rests for its singleness of purpose. No picture but begins in this way, whether it is afterwards built up on the same canvas or not. The sketch points the way. But all the preliminary sketches of a painting are not problems of composition or color; ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... scarcely taken her first step in the path of duty before the next was made plain. In her case this was so marked as to fill her with surprise. She had undertaken to save a human soul wellnigh lost, and was entering upon her work with that singleness of purpose which gives success where success is possible. Such being the case, she was an instrument through which a divine love of saving could operate. She became, as it were, the human hand by which God could reach down ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... regarding him amusedly. In those first three days of their life together, in her woman's way, she had been studying him. And that which she had learned filled her with a tender, almost motherly amusement. He was transparent in his simplicity. His singleness of purpose was almost amazing. But under it all she had become aware of a strength and latent force that could only be guessed at. Their talks had been less intimate during the time of their preparations, and she understood that it was the result ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... to get that miserable, stripped, undecked, smouldering shell of a ship back again with her head pointing at her port of destination. Bankok! That's what he was after. I tell you this quiet, bowed, bandy-legged, almost deformed little man was immense in the singleness of his idea and in his placid ignorance of our agitation. He motioned us forward with a commanding gesture, and went ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... where a woman may, a native instinct teaches and qualifies her to make a home for herself. If single, taste and housewifery are combined within even the narrow limits of one or two rooms. Her singleness need not chill the heart,—for there are other things to love than men. The power to make tender friendships was born with her, and is part of her nature; nor does it leave her now. She has, moreover, the proud satisfaction of knowing that she has never lived to tempt others to an act of sin and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... indeed, these considerations seemed vague, far-fetched, little better than affectations. The clear thing to be done was to get that bird. This done, I could consider the rest. To admit any other thought militated in some way against the singleness and compactness of my being. Wise or unwise, what had I to do with far-off matters of that sort? My business was to succeed in a certain task, not to be sage and so forth. I actually felt a kind of shame to be debating any other than the all-important ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... malcontents than with the deliberate intention of betraying their country. Kosciuszko was ill-versed, either by nature, training, or inclination in the art of politics; but through this tangled web of perplexity and uncertainty, when present and future were equally enveloped in obscurity, his singleness of aim supplied him with the unerring instinct with which through the whole of his life he met and unmasked the pitfalls that were spread before the unhappiest and the most cruelly betrayed of nations. Under the dictates of this pure patriotism he directed himself ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... the special limitations of his time, will "age fail to wither him." That he cannot entirely shake off the fetters which fasten him to his epoch is manifest. But in proportion as his vision is clear, in proportion as he has with singleness of eye striven to draw the past with reverent loyalty, will his bondage to his own time be loosened, and his work will remain faithful work for which due gratitude will ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... National faith is only another name for the tremendous earnestness that set the whole land ablaze with singleness of purpose, consecrated to a ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... God has given, or who neglect to seek it when it is within their reach, are left in darkness. But the Saviour declares, "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."(509) Whoever is with singleness of purpose seeking to do God's will, earnestly heeding the light already given, will receive greater light; to that soul some star of heavenly radiance will be sent, to guide him ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... who pass their lives in singleness, devotion, or meditation, for those in holy matrimony, those engaged in life's battle in mountains, and caves, and pits of the earth, our holy fathers and ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... enlarge the party. It became a quasi-religious movement, ministers and churches, without any very far-reaching hopes and plans, labouring to bring about a spirit which should induce men to renounce Masonry; and in their zeal they worked with the singleness of thought and the accepted methods that dominate the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... He had the power of inspiring confidence in defeat and danger. His judgment and good sense seemed to fit him for any emergency. He had the same control over himself that he had over others. His patriotism and singleness of purpose inspired devotion. He felt his burdens, but did not seek to throw them off. "Hardship and sorrow," said he, "not a king but would wish to be without these if he could; but I know he cannot." "So long as I have lived I have striven to live worthily." "I ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... such overwhelming sacrifice was my darling capable were her life's purpose wrecked. Something there was in the portrait of the sweet singleness, the noble scorn of self, the devotion unthinking, uncalculating, which I knew lay ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... daughters, after a long evening, in which the two had sat discoursing of men and books and the topics of the day—"if he live, John Clarke will make a mark in the university, if not in the world. I have seldom met a finer intellect, seldom a man of such singleness of mind and purity of spirit. Small wonder that students flock to his lectures and desire to be taught of him. Heaven protect him from the perils which too often threaten those who think too much for themselves, and who overleap ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... people became an holy zeal, and their warfare noble; so that they did accept both victory and defeat with equal humbleness. Because there was no war in their hearts, but peace, and they did fight to defend and not to acquire, they buried their foe with tears and their own with singleness of heart and quiet joy, for that they did rest from their labours. In this manner was the great tragedy and glory of the world made to the people a present thing, transforming them to the body of the Life that hath neither spot nor ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... perfect deference to the feelings of others with absolute certainty of himself and his own opinions. He is a remarkable example of the educating influence of tactful perception, combined with entire singleness of aim, considered quite apart from its moral character. His early life was passed among the uncouth and illiterate; his daily associations, since he embraced Mormonism, have been with the least cultivated grades of human society,—a heterogeneous peasant-horde, looking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... editions of the same book. You see what a literary tendency I have developed! We both have the habit, or the gift, of looking at every subject broadly, of taking in all its points of view, and the proof we are constantly giving ourselves of the singleness of our inward vision is an ever-new pleasure. We have actually come to look on this community of mind as a pledge of love; and if it ever failed us, it would mean as much to us as would a breach of fidelity in an ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... rivermen, but strong in their experience and their discipline. To be sure, they might not last quite as long as their antagonists could—a whisky training is not conducive to long wind—but they always lasted plenty long enough. Sand-bags and brass knuckles helped some, ruthless singleness of purpose counted, and team work finished the job. At times the storm rose high, but up to now ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... afternoon tea, when she is sitting on someone's lap, facing an empty, uninteresting plate, she sees another plate three chairs distant, and upon that plate there is a biscuit or some other sweet attraction. Upon such occasions Lulla all but plunges into space between the chairs, in her singleness of purpose. Having reached the lap nearest that plate, she turns and smiles at her late entertainer just to make sure she is not offended. But even if she knew she would be, Lulla would not hesitate. Curly head foremost, eyes on the goal: that ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... aware not only of the abundance of this quality in his own nature, but of the danger in which it placed consistency and singleness of character, did not require the note on this passage, where he calls it "an unhappy attribute," to assure us. The consciousness, indeed, of his own natural tendency to yield thus to every chance impression, and change with every passing impulse, was not only for ever present in his mind, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... opportunity, has, up to this moment, risen to the full measure of the duty assumed. The management of the exposition has never despaired, but with a realizing sense of the mighty task it has undertaken, and mindful of the limitations of human capabilities, with singleness of purpose and with personal sacrifice for which it neither asks nor deserves credit, has striven to meet the expectations of those whose ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... forgetfulness and decay, in the sight of his own shortcomings and limitations, or on the edge of the tomb, he alone who has found his soul in losing it, who in singleness of mind has lived in order to love and understand, will find that the God who is near to him as his own conscience has a face ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... no part in his mental process as he swung down the steep, familiar streets. A singleness of purpose, high as it was foolish, possessed and inspired him. He loved Blake with a wonderful, unsexual love, and he yearned to lay himself at his feet, to offer him of his best—gifts of the gods, given with free hands ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... on his lips, the master walked slowly forward, continuing his orders to repair the damages with a singleness of purpose that rendered him, however uncouth as a friend, an invaluable man in ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... had not passed his days in singleness. He had a Wife, a comely Matron, old Though younger than himself full twenty years. She was a woman of a stirring life Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had Of antique form, this large for spinning wool, That small for flax, and if one wheel had rest, It was because the other was ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... strongly impressed Leigh Hunt and Keats. Holman Hunt—though apparently not his associates—had also read with eager approval the first volume of Ruskin's "Modern Painters," in which the young artists of England are advised to "go to nature in all singleness of heart . . . rejecting nothing, selecting nothing." Pre-Raphaelitism was a practical, as "Modern Painters" was a theoretical, protest against the academic traditions which kept young artists making school copies of Raphael, instructed them ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... were needed as to the sincerity and singleness of purpose of the Committee, the action taken by the deputation in Pretoria and the rest of the Committee in Johannesburg, whilst acting independently of each other and without any opportunity of discussing ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... whole kingdom did not contain a man more attached to the king and queen. But he combined statesman-like prudence with his loyalty; and his conduct before he took office elicited a very remarkable proof of the singleness of mind and purpose with which the king and queen had accepted the Constitution. M. Bertrand had previously refused office, and was very unwilling to take it now; and he frankly told Louis that he could not hope to be of any real service to him unless ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... mansion; thus anticipating, through the prompting of his individual taste, that general reaction from the insipid imitation of the Palladian style, towards a restoration of the Gothic, which marked the close of the eighteenth century. This was the object he had set his heart on, with a singleness of determination which was regarded with not a little contempt by his fox-hunting neighbours, who wondered greatly that a man with some of the best blood in England in his veins, should be mean enough to economize ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... old ladies of my acquaintance," replied Mr. Ingram. "Beatrice owes a great deal of her nobleness of heart and singleness of purpose to her mother. Mrs. Bertram, I have never heard that woman say an unkind word. I have heard calumny of her, but never from her. Then, of course, Meadowsweet was quite ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... jealousy for good, A loving-kindness for the great man's fame, Dwells here and there with people of no name, In noisome alley, and in pathless wood: And where we think the truth least understood, Oft may be found a "singleness of aim," That ought to frighten into hooded shame A money mong'ring, pitiable brood. How glorious this affection for the cause Of stedfast genius, toiling gallantly! What when a stout unbending champion ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... occupations of many of the Staff precluded an earlier attendance, it was quickly seen that the chief practical use and effect of the Dinner was to broaden the men's view of things, to produce harmony of tone and singleness of aim, to keep the Editor constantly in touch with his whole Staff, and through them with the public; and thus to secure the fullest advantage which their combined wit and counsel could afford. When the transfer of the paper was completed from Ebenezer Landells to ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... in combination with his subtlety of understanding, the excellence of his advocacy may be attributed, is one more rarely possessed— and scarcely ever in such association— the entire singleness of a mind equally present in every part of a cause. If the promotion of the interest of the client were an advocate's highest duty, it would be another name for the exactest virtue; and inasmuch as that interest is not, like the objects of zeal, fixed in character, but liable ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... wilderness, and the candle of the Lord shone brightly upon it; now, the blending of many inferior lights distracted my mind from its one object of contemplation, and broke the harmony that was so sweet in its singleness. ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... was a great and crowning mercy; yet might we seem to be but small in our thankfulness for the same, did we not do what in us lies towards the ultimate improvement and final conclusion of the great work which has been thus prosperous in our hands, professing, in pure humility and singleness of heart, that we do not, in any way, deserve our instrumentality to be remembered, nay, would rather pray and entreat, that our name and fortunes were forgotten, than that the great work were in itself incomplete. Nevertheless, truly, placed as we now are, it concerns us more nearly ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... distinguishable from hundreds of his countrymen, who were not sharers of his military abilities. Does not his broad forehead indicate thoughtfulness? While his keen and penetrating eyes and firmly set lips are marks of determination and singleness of purpose. And his broad chin, does it not reveal the man of tenacity and endurance? As an individual he was sympathetic, generous, and magnanimous; he was endowed with discretion and tact, simplicity and honesty. As a soldier, vigilant, persevering, never ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... this letter comes from by opening slap-dash upon the text, as in the good old times. I never could come into the custom of envelopes,—'tis a modern foppery; the Plinian correspondence gives no hint of such. In singleness of sheet and meaning, then, I thank you for your little book. I am ashamed to add a codicil of thanks for your "Book of the Church." I scarce feel competent to give an opinion of the latter; I have not reading ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... their children after them." Zech. xiv. 9. "And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day there shall be one Lord, and his name one." Acts ii. 46. "And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread, from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart." Acts iv. 32. "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart, and one soul." I Cor. vii. 17. "But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk; and so ordain ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... Singleness of purpose is one of the prime requisites of success. Fortune is jealous, and refuses to be approached from all ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... last chapter of the tract on the Creation (De Opifico, lxi.), Philo enumerates what he terms the five most beautiful lessons, superior to all others. These are—(i) God is; (ii) God is One; (iii) the World was created (and is not eternal); (iv) the World is one, like unto God in singleness; and (v) God exercises a continual providence for the benefit of the world, caring for His creatures like a parent ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... are deeply enlisted for the students of students; having already seen in many instances their [25] talents, culture, and singleness of purpose to uplift the race. Such students should not pay the penalty for other people's faults; and divine Love will open the way for them. My soul abhors injustice, and loves mercy. St. John writes: "Whom God hath sent speaketh [30] the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the love sentiment does not usually display the singleness of energy shown among the lower animals. It is affected and often checked in its development by an intricate series of influences, which act on savage and civilized man alike. The family formed ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... account an extraordinary tenacity of belief and will. There is no complication and systematic combination of political, moral, and social views, but a few axioms of life adhered to with a most admirable energy; and we therefore find a singleness of purpose, a unity of national and religious feeling, among all ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... southern headland of the Kwantung coast, hurling nearly or quite all the vessels on the shore or sinking them beneath the waves. The bold leader had been counselled to seek shelter from the storm under the lee of the shore, but he refused, and kept on despite the storm, daring death in his singleness of purpose. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... between a promised toy and an old one which had been taken away from him; and he was astonished at himself. Only last Sunday desire had seemed simple—just his freedom and Annette. 'I'll go and dine there,' he thought. To see her might bring back his singleness of intention, calm his exasperation, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... it were not her real name, she was an admirer of the principles of the German play from which she had taken it, and took an opportunity of leading the conversation to that subject; but to his great surprise, the lady spoke very ardently of the singleness and exclusiveness of love, and declared that the reign of affection was one and indivisible; that it might be transferred, but could not be participated. 'If I ever love,' said she, 'I shall do so ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... just received by our Church, and by the hands of Tychicus and Onesinius himself, from the Apostle, we find these words: "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... very deliberate; there was an absence of superfluous energy that told of intensity of thought and singleness of purpose. He shouldered the saddle with a single movement, walked with it to the lean-to, threw it upon its accustomed peg, hung the bridle from the pommel, and then turned and for a brief time listened to the talk and laughter that issued from the open door and windows ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... be granted by even his most extravagant opponents, he addressed himself with the loftiest resolution and singleness of purpose, excluding all puerile questions of ways and means. He was, by the moral law, no more bound to take into account the process whereby the accused was brought to book and the weight of retribution brought to bear than a detective is bound to remember how any ordinary prisoner is snared ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... remain ed for him to strengthen the many defences of his subject, and, now and then, to scatter by a fierce sortie the doctrinal skirmishers who might occasionally approach his parish. There was a remarkable singleness of mind in this religionist, which, while it in some measure rendered even his bigotry respectable, greatly aided in clearing the knotty subject, with which he dealt, of much embarrassing matter. In his eyes, the strait and narrow ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... has to be made to forget anything about the President. In his case injurious gossip has long since died away and been buried. Whatever may be said of him in other respects, at least the purity and the singleness of his patriotism shine brilliant and luminous through all this cloud-dust of derogation. By his position he had more at stake, both in his lifetime and before the tribunal of the future, than any other person in the country. But there was only one idea ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... if you will keep a secret, I will tell it you; and yet, when I began, I did not intend it: the poor youth must not know it. It is done in the singleness of our hearts; and if you think we mean to gain your love for us by it, I do assure you, that you wrong us.—My nephew declares, that he never will marry, if it be not somebody: and he has made his will, and so have I his uncle; and, let me tell you, that if as how ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... in addition, one good quality without any defect to balance it. He was always ready to help people. And when he set himself to do this, he was never put off by discomfort or risk. He went at the thing with a singleness of ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... would have cost any {179} man but one with absolute singleness of purpose a poignant effort. At the age of twenty-seven, he decided to enter the Royal Navy. Now, in a democratic age, we don't talk about such things; but there are unwritten laws and invisible lines just ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... Committee, in which I entirely concurred, on the points at issue. I observed, in substance, that in the struggle for the liberation of the slaves in the British Colonies, one great source of our moral strength was, the singleness of our object, and our not allowing any other subject, however important or unexceptionable, to be mixed up with it; that though the aid of our female coadjutors had been of vital importance to the success of the anti-slavery enterprize, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... not deal in moral subtleties, that was clear. Regret, penitence, sufferings, tears, or dreamy aspiration: he did not stay to split such hairs as these. His eye was for the large, the stark effect. And by the intense singleness of his vision, he had freighted his opinions with an extraordinary conviction. He had shouted down, as from a high bench, the world's judgment on the life of ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... manner American "Faith Missions," not a few, have planted the banner of the cross in that land of the trident and are prosecuting their mission and proclaiming their message with singleness of purpose and exemplary zeal. The "Christian Alliance" is the most pretentious organization of this class which does work in that land. Its efforts are chiefly confined to the Bombay Presidency where it has a goodly ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... for this? And sick in mind and sick in body, but one wish remains to him, that death will come quickly and end all. It is a cry from the very depths of a single and simple heart. But for such simplicity and singleness his friends could not give him credit; possessed beforehand with their idea, they see in his misery only a fatal witness against him; such calamities could not have befallen a man, the justice of God would not have permitted it, unless they had been deserved. Job had sinned and he had ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... grasped. A navy, ships, a railroad to the sea—those he could understand. Treaties were beyond his comprehension. And, with a child's singleness of idea, he returned to ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... whom, deemed a fool or a drunkard, the guards pricked off with their spears, while the king passed on into the mosque: and how the man came on the morrow with yesterday's blood-spots on him, and cried out for right. What follows is told with great singleness and truth: ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... way it was an unequal struggle, for youth, ablaze with a holy fire, was matched against age, stiffened only by stubborn determination. Neither man longer had any compunctions; each fought with a ferocious singleness of purpose. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... of family connexions and national habits on her conduct, both public and private, and given a concise outline of the domestic, as well as the general history of her times, and its effects on her character, and we have done so with singleness of heart, unbiassed by selfish interests or narrow views. Such as they were in life we have endeavoured to portray them, both in good and ill, without regard to any other considerations than the development ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... have been induced to all these omissions by a conviction, that the existing system of government, if not the most eligible that could have been devised, was at least unproductive of those glaring ill consequences, with which it has subsequently been attended. A singleness of design and a unity of action, could not be deviated from during the period of its infancy by the most ignorant and inexpert bungler in political science. There was a broad path open to its government, which it could ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... the Beauty here referred to is of the human being, we do not gainsay it; but this is beauty in its mixed mode,—not in its high, passionless form, its singleness and purity. It is not Beauty as it descended from heaven, in the cloud, the rainbow, the flower, the bird, or in the concord of sweet sounds, that seem to carry back the ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... presented itself—the Impeachment of Warren Hastings— which, by embodying the cause of a whole country in one individual, and thus combining the extent and grandeur of a national question, with the direct aim and singleness of a personal attack, opened as wide a field for display as the most versatile talents could require, and to Mr. Sheridan, in particular, afforded one of those precious opportunities, of which, if Fortune ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... Columbus, nor Washington, nor Lincoln was what we call a genius—a genius, that is, in the sense in which Shakespeare or Napoleon or Galileo was a genius. But they combined in singular degree those three characteristics without which no man may be truly great: sincerity and courage and singleness of purpose. ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... and, more especially, to those choosing the profession of the physician, and the reader can discern therein something of the man himself, can get some glimpse of his life and its meaning, can gain some sense of the sincerity, the simplicity, the self-sacrifice and singleness of purpose which guided him and finally lifted him so far out of and above the ordinary, then will the pleasant task of recalling fully justify ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... resolute flow, and its hue, though dark as ink, exquisitely polish'd and sheeny under the August sun. Different, indeed, this Saguenay from all other rivers—different effects—a bolder, more vehement play of lights and shades. Of a rare charm of singleness and simplicity. (Like the organ-chant at midnight from the old Spanish convent, in "Favorita"—one strain only, simple and monotonous and unornamented—but indescribably penetrating and grand and masterful.) Great place for echoes: while ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... have aroused images in the heads of civilians that might well have turned a reverse into a disaster. The High Command could be disappointed, and yet pull itself together; the people at home and abroad, full of uncertainties, and with none of the professional man's singleness of purpose, might on the basis of a complete story have lost sight of the war in a melee of faction and counter-faction about the competence of the officers. Instead, therefore, of letting the public act on all the facts which the generals knew, the authorities presented only certain facts, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... singleness of purpose he made very few and no entangling acquaintances, nor did he impart to any one the secret of his fortune, loyally reserving it for his partner's first knowledge. To a man of his natural frankness and simplicity ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... and our hostess too distracted at the moment for any explanations. We were swept away, and both of us spent the remainder of the evening feebly protesting our singleness. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... most righteously done, should be perverted by the slanders of malicious men, and that one should bear the reproach of sin where he has rather deserved the hope of honour. Many things are done with singleness of eye, the right hand knoweth not what the left hand doth, the lump is uncorrupted by leaven, nor is the garment woven of wool and linen; and yet by the trickery of perverse men a pious work is mendaciously transformed into some monstrous act. Certes, ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... his nature, or rather seem necessary to arouse his faculties and to give an interest to his existence. Surrounded by hostile tribes whose mode of warfare is by ambush and surprisal, he is always prepared for fight, and lives with his weapons in his hands. As the ship careers in fearful singleness through the solitudes of ocean, as the bird mingles among clouds and storms, and wings its way, a mere speck, across the pathless fields of air, so the Indian holds his course, silent, solitary, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... saw mountains, which drew him strangely. In particular, one uplifted peak, silver and sapphire as the clear day, and soaring supreme over the jumble of lesser summits, attracted him. He knew now that that was where he was going, and thither he pressed on with singleness of purpose, delaying only when absolutely necessary, to hunt or to sleep. The cage, the stage, the whip, Hansen, the bear, even the proud excitement of the flaming hoops, were swiftly fading to dimness in his mind, overwhelmed ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... taunted, and thwarted, Angelina faithfully persevered in her efforts at reform, at the same time as faithfully striving after more meekness and singleness of purpose herself. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... and groundless confidence that you have reached me. You have employed without scruple all those advantages it put into your hands. You have undermined me at your ease. I left you to protect my life's blood, my heart of heart, from every attack, to preserve the singleness of her affections, and the constancy of her attachment. It was yours to have breathed into her ear the sighs of St. Julian. It was yours ambitiously to expatiate upon his amiable qualities. You were every day to have added fuel to the flame. You ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... of heart, a singleness of idea in herself, that prevented her from ever attaching suspicion to others. But a sort of vague, undefined apprehension floated through her brain as she revolved the extraordinary behaviour of her cousin. Yet, it was ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... a surpassing singleness of mankind. The blazing tiger will spring upon the deer, un- dimmed, the hen will nestle over her chickens, we shall love, we shall hate, but it will be like music, sheer utterance, issuing straight out of the unknown, the lightning and the rainbow ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... blackened fireplace, and the flat doorstones before what was once the threshold. Grass and brambles covered the foundations; lilacs, with spikes of brown dead blossoms, grew tall and thick around it, and roses, gone back to wild singleness, blossomed near the steps and along a path, which was only a memory, the grass had tangled ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... this; and, with joy and satisfaction, abide thou under his tutory and at his school. And withal, be not discouraged, be thy case of ignorance and corruption what it will, lay it before him with sincerity and singleness of heart, and then "thou mayest glory in thine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest on thee," 2 Cor. xii. 9; for thou shalt see, in due time, what advantage infinite love and wisdom can bring to thy ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... the heroic commander of the army, the President said appealingly, "He and his brave soldiers are now in the midst of their great trial, and I trust that at your meeting you will so shape your good words that they may turn to men and guns, moving to his and their support." This patriotic singleness of thought for the country's safety defeated and scattered all more political plans, and the hearts of the people turned more and more to Mr. Lincoln. He had been steadily growing in the esteem of his countrymen. The patience, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Griggs "being a butterfly," with utter intensity of joy and singleness of purpose, was a sight to be remembered. For Carlotty was a pickaninny four years old, and blacker than the Ace of Spades! Her purple calico dress, pink apron, and twenty little woolly braids tied with bits of yellow ribbon ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... recognised stir of his better nature, this clearing of his mental eyesight under the light of a bright example, that made him call the little torch-bearer his good angel. If this were truth, this purity, uprightness, and singleness of mind, as conscience said it was, where was he? how far wandering ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Edwards on pastoral work reveal the singleness of purpose of the man as a student and thinker. He never made pastoral calls. He had no criticism to make of those pastors who had talent for entertaining people by occasional calls, but as he had no gifts in that direction he regarded ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... rest, M. PAUL ANDREEV, as Prince Igor, gave his plaint of captivity with a noble pathos. As for the chorus, it sang with the singleness and intensity of spirit which are only possible to a national chorus in national opera, and which (I hope) are the envy of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... thing of curious patches, of strength and weakness, of light and shade; perhaps the greatest weakness is its lack of cohesion, of unification: on the one hand we find much provision for the children's real needs, much singleness of purpose in the teacher's work, such a genuine spirit of whole-hearted desire for their education: on the other hand, an unreasoning sense of haste, of pushing on, of introducing prematurely work for which the children admittedly are unready; an acceptance of new things on popular report, without ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... to be as sound as those of Euclid himself, that the moment the taint of money enters into the business of reading the Future the accuracy and credit of the Fortune told disappears. The Fortune-teller no longer possesses the singleness of mind or purpose necessary to a clear reading of the symbols he or she consults. The amount of the fee is the first consideration, and this alone is sufficient to obscure the mental vision and to bias the judgment. This applies to the very highest ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... disputed on two grounds: both are contrary to truth and contrary to human nature. An officer is not only an administrator but a magistrate, and it is this dual role which makes his function so radically different than anything encountered in civil life—to say nothing of the singleness of purpose by which the service moves forward. Moreover, the armed service officer deals with the most plastic human material within the society—men who, in the majority, the moment they step ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Love righteousness, O rulers of the earth, Think of the Lord with sincerity, And seek him in singleness of heart. For he is found by those who do not tempt him, And manifests himself to those who do not distrust him. For perverse thoughts separate from God, And his power, when it is tried, convicts the foolish; For wisdom will ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... can hardly believe my eyes—and you talk just like him too—no one would say that people of such different ages could speak so much alike. He and I never had any kind of difference from first to last neither in camp nor council, but in singleness of heart and purpose we advised the Argives how all might ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... will, he made no doubt; and there were times when he was strongly tempted to carry the war boldly into the wider field of graft and bossism. That he postponed the bigger battle was due quite as much to the singleness of purpose which was his best gift as to the desire to spare his father. Telling himself resolutely that the reformation of the railroad company's political methods was his chief object, and the only ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... room—the drawings, the furs and skins, the harpoons and other instruments, all remaining in their respective places, as when I last had an interview with Mr Turnbull. I remembered his kindness, his singleness of heart, his honesty, his good sense, and his real worth; and I shed many tears for his loss. My thoughts then passed to Sarah Drummond, and I felt much uneasiness on that score. Would she receive me, or would she still remember what I had been? I ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... girl's face looking over her bunch of sweet-peas. There was in it something indescribably youthful and innocent, almost angelic. The light from the window made her hair toss into gold; her blue eyes sought Cynthia with the singleness of blue stars. It was evident whom she had come to see. She held out her flowers towards her with a gesture at once humble and worshipful, like that of ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... women whose natural singleness of heart and sincerity are such that they could not have two lovers at the same time. You believed your mistress such an one; that is best, I admit. You have discovered that she has deceived you; does that oblige you to depose and to abuse her, to believe her ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... don't deserve it; it scorches me," he protested with eyes suddenly grave and glowing. "The 'one' is of course one's self, one's conscience, one's idea, the singleness of one's aim. I think of that pure spirit as a man thinks of a woman he has in some detested hour of his youth loved and forsaken. She haunts him with reproachful eyes, she lives for ever before him. As an artist, you know, I've married for ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... incline to share the long up-hill struggle of a rising barrister? Those dull Temple-chambers are lucky enough if the sun condescends to visit them at rare intervals in his journey westward. But Waring's own singleness of purpose beguiled him more effectually than the most inordinate vanity could have done. Putting character out of the question, he thought a woman could only derogate by allying herself to one of inferior birth; and he ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... while the English tongue exists and English history is read. The national enthusiasm for her was at once intense, and it grew deeper and more intense as week by week revealed her powers. "Less talent and energy of character, less singleness of purpose and devotion, could never have combined the heterogeneous elements which she gathered together in one common work and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... the supreme authority had been confided to Leicester. He had not perhaps proved himself extraordinarily qualified for his post, but he was the governor-in-chief, and his departure, without resigning his powers, left the commonwealth headless, at a moment when singleness ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... which thou receiv'st not gladly, Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechless song being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: 'Thou single ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... get the praise of men by it; but remember that you cannot deceive Almighty God, who sees your wickedness and deceit, and will punish you accordingly. For the rule is, that you must obey your masters in all things, and do the work they set you about with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good-will doing service as to the Lord, and ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... discontent, a savage self-pillorying. He was genuinely sorry that this young woman was so pretty; still, had she the graces of Calypso, he must have come. She would distract him, and he desired at that time distraction least of all diversions. Concentration and singleness of purpose—upon these two attributes practically hung his life. How strangely fate had stepped with him. What if there had not been that advertisement for a private secretary? How then should he have gained a footing in this ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... noble envy. To be able to devise such things and straightway say 'It shall be done!' How blest beyond all utterance was the man to whom fortune had given such power! He reverenced Egremont profoundly. It was the man's nature to worship, to bend with singleness of heart before whatsoever seemed to him ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... find yourself. In the effort to do so, I'm afraid your playing would become warped, eccentric." He threw back his head and looked at his pupil intently with that one eye which sometimes seemed to see deeper than any two eyes, as if its singleness gave it privileges. "Oh, I have watched you very carefully, Miss Kronborg. Because you had had so little and had yet done so much for yourself, I had a great wish to help you. I believe that the strongest need of your nature is to find yourself, to ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... temporary compromise, not a final solution. It depended on presumptions of the imagination, not on convictions of the intellect; and as we have seen, it destroyed itself by the process of its own development. The beauty, the singleness, and the freedom which attracts us in the consciousness of the Greek was the result of a poetical view of the world, which did but anticipate in imagination an ideal that was not realised in fact or in thought. It depended on the assumption ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... in which he has drawn the portrait of his elder brother. "Bridget Elia," so he commences the former, "has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable comfort upon the whole, that I, for one, find in myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy."—("Works", vol. ii, p. 171.) He describes her intellectual tastes in this ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... his singleness of purpose, had been, as Alcibiades suggested, by natural constitution a twofold power, an embodied paradox. The infinitely significant Socrates of Plato, and the quite simple Socrates of Xenophon, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... His singleness of purpose, his unselfishness, his determination to succeed, have been cited for four centuries, and will be cited for centuries more, among the noblest illustrations which history has given, of success wrought out by the courage of ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... pageants and bands and thundering salvos and romantic tales; the king must cut himself off from humanity and become an idol. There is no escape whilst such classes exist. Mahomet, the boldest prophet that ever threw down the gage of the singleness and supremacy of God to a fierce tribe of warriors who worshipped stones as devotedly as we worship dukes and millionaires, could not govern them by religious truth, and was forced to fall back on revolting descriptions ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... but cannot either grasp or see. It was not thus when I read Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck; it is not thus when I read such articles as Mr. Vines's just referred to. Love of self-display, and the want of singleness of mind that it inevitably engenders—these, I suppose, are the sins that glaze the casements of most men's minds; and from these, no matter how hard he tries to free himself, nor how much he despises them, who is ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... has been kindled in the heart of Manuel. It was not devotion to Don Valerian Miranda that moved him to follow the fortunes of his master into exile; his love for Conchita accounts for his presence there. And he loves her with an ardour and singleness of passion such as often burns in ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Institution is to provide and maintain boats that shall save the lives of shipwrecked persons, and to reward those who save lives, whether by means of its own or other boats. The grandeur of its aim and singleness of its purpose ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... Singleness of purpose and simplicity of intention soon clear discontent and unhappiness out of a man's heart. When the soul has cut loose from all self-considerations, and has put an end to such wretched questions as, 'Will it pay to follow the Master?' or such thoughts as, ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... happy in his cause, and more fortunate in the issues of his career. They are taught to see in him a soldier whose sword wrought only mercy and justice for mankind; a statesman who steadied a remarkable generation of public men by his mental poise and exalted them by his singleness of heart; and a ruler whose exercise of power established for the time on earth a righteous government by ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... eager eyes, large dark-brown eyes that could light with sudden, almost volcanic heat, or smile their soft, lazy smile of amusement at the quaintnesses of life about him. The Padre understood the largeness of heart, the courage which urged him, the singleness of purpose which was always his. Then, when their decision had been taken, he remembered the abrupt falling back of the man into the quiet, almost monosyllabic manner which usually belonged ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... which made Amy Kaye make use of the first opportunity which offered, even though it was an humble one and she was handicapped by ignorance. But having once decided what course was right for her, she followed it with a singleness of purpose and a thoroughness of effort which brought a prompt success. The help she was to others was no small part of this success. For in an age of shams and low ideals the influence of even one sincere girl is far-reaching; and when to that sincerity she adds the sympathy which makes another's ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... a Christian socialist; he spoke on the inequalities of taxation; the strikers were pretty sure of his sympathy; he argued the injustice of the present ownership of land. Some said that he had joined a lodge of the Knights of Labor. Perhaps it was these things, quite as much as his singleness of purpose and his spiritual fervor, that drew Dr. Leigh to him with a feeling that verged on devotion. The ladies up-town, at whose tables Father Damon was an infrequent guest, were as fully in sympathy with this handsome and aristocratic young priest, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... let go the anchor (to wit, a rope tied to a large stone on the shore), ate our dinner "with gladness and singleness of heart" like the early Christians, and slept the sleep of the just, lulled by the murmuring of the waters, and defended from the insidious attacks of the mosquito by the breeze blowing down the river and the impregnable ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... summary of his early and late activities brings out the singleness of the central purpose moving through his life. His first fight, in 1888, for Ballot Reform was made that the will of the people of the State might be honestly interpreted; later, in Tacoma, Washington, he sided with his printers, against his ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... to the iron-house to fifteen of my dear companions in tribulation; and there we were a sweet company, being all of one judgment. There serving the Lord, day and night, in singleness of heart, his blessing was seen amongst us; for his love was better than life. We were all with one accord trysted sweetly together: and O it was sweet to be in this company, and pleasant to those who came in to see us, until the ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... shamefully abandoned? Surely it was time to dwell soberly and seriously upon the affairs of life. I had numbered years and undergone trial sufficient to be acquainted with true policy and the line of duty. Both bade me instantly reject the new solicitation, and pursue, with singleness of purpose, the occupation which fortune had mercifully vouchsafed to me. All this was specious and most just, and sounded well to the understanding that was not less able to look temperately and calmly upon the argument in consequence of the previous overflow of feeling. Reason is never so plausible ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... as on the best of friends. Who if he rise to station of command Rises by open means, and there will stand On honorable terms, or else retire, And in himself possess his own desire: Who comprehends his trust, and to the same Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; And therefore does not stoop nor lie in wait For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state; Whom they must follow, on whose head must fall Like showers of manna, if they come at all. 'Tis finally the man, who, lifted high, Conspicuous object in a nation's eye, Or ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... his dominions, but from the moment Great Britain assumed responsibility and the advance of European civilization became inevitable, all the influence acquired by Coillard's exceptional personal magnetism and singleness of purpose was used to prepare the way for the extension of British rule. Only those few pioneers who knew the Barotse under the old conditions can fully realise what civilization and England owe to the co-operation of this ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various |
