"Thoughtlessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... amateur; you add to the crowd of futilities that choke the market; and, if you have it in you to write a novel which shall be a good piece, you are handicapping yourself by placing a bad novel on your record. People sin out of thoughtlessness, as well as depravity, and we would not say that every amateur novelist is, ex officio, infamous, nefarious, and felonious. He or she may be only rather vain, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... I am lying! For in order to please women, one must exhibit the thoughtlessness of a buffoon or all the wild passion of tragedy! They only laugh at us when we simply tell them that we love them! For my part, I consider those hyperbolical phrases which tickle their fancy a profanation of true love, so that it is no longer possible to give expression to it, especially ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... means of preventing the female dress from catching fire, is that of wire fenders of sufficient height to hinder the coals and sparks from flying into the room; and nurseries in particular should never be without them. Destructive fires often happen from the thoughtlessness of persons leaving a poker in the grate, which afterward falls out and rolls on the floor or carpet. This evil may in a great measure be prevented by having a small cross of iron welded on the poker, immediately above the square part, about an inch and a half ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... can possibly write so much and yet keep the freshness and brightness which runs through all her books. Gertrude is a girl of fifteen, wide awake, full of life, generally good tempered, and yet with as many faults as most girls of her age have; faults which arise more from thoughtlessness than from intent. She is one of four who agree to keep diaries, in accordance with a suggestion made by their Sunday-school teacher, and she records with impartiality all her good and bad times, her trials and her triumphs. Aside from its interest, it contains suggestions ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... plant at Minton Pit. He earned very little, but had a good chance of getting on. But he was wild and restless. He did not drink nor gamble. Yet he somehow contrived to get into endless scrapes, always through some hot-headed thoughtlessness. Either he went rabbiting in the woods, like a poacher, or he stayed in Nottingham all night instead of coming home, or he miscalculated his dive into the canal at Bestwood, and scored his chest into one mass of wounds on the raw stones and tins at ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... afraid to confess Christ lest I should not honor Him in my life, for I am naturally impulsive and easily fall into religious thoughtlessness. Should I wait for an inward assurance of strength, or begin a Christian life trusting ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... flirtation and romance connected with them. The religious element is not taken up and considered. They do not involve the true idea of preparation, but have an air of mere sentimentalism about them. The object in view is not fully seen. The most reprehensible motives and the most shocking thoughtlessness pervade them throughout. These addresses carry with them an air of trifling, a want of seriousness and frankness, which betrays the absence of all sense of responsibility, and of all proper views of the sacredness of marriage and of its momentous consequences both for ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... candle; another child looks on. Both are completely absorbed by the objects, both are ignorant or oblivious of the relation between the combustible object and the flame: a relation which becomes apparent only when the paper is alight. What is called the thoughtlessness of childhood prevents their seeing this unapparent fact; it is a fact which has not been sufficiently impressed upon their experience so as to form an indissoluble element in their conception of the two in juxtaposition. Whereas in the mind of the nurse this ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... father however thought no farther of this, till soon after the scrivener came to wait on him:—he was a perfect honest man, and had lent Natura the money meerly to prevent his applying to some other person, who possibly might have taken advantage of his thoughtlessness, so far as even to have brought on his utter ruin, too many such examples daily happening in the world: to deter him also from going on in this course, he demanded that exorbitant interest for his money abovementioned, which, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... relieved to get shut of them. The best way over into the Kabinakagam is by way of a little creek the Injuns call the Mattawishguia, and that ought to be a few hours ahead of us now." He might have added that all these annoyances, which he was so carefully discounting, had sprung from Dick's thoughtlessness; but he was silent, sure of the young man's value when the field of his usefulness ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... that I dared not call myself a disciple. I say the same thing in saying now that I dare not call myself a Christian, lest I should offend him with my 'Lord, Lord!' Still it is, and I cannot now help it, in the name of Christianity that I here stand. I have, alas, with blameful and appalling thoughtlessness I subscribed my name, as a believer, to the Articles of the Church of England, with no better reason than that I was unaware of any dissent therefrom, and have been ordained one of her ministers. The relations into which this has brought me I do not feel justified ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... object to make the misery of individual workingmen more endurable; to counteract the effects of thoughtlessness, sickness, old age, accidents of all kinds, through which by chance or necessity individual workingmen are forced even below the normal condition of the working class? For such objects all these institutions are entirely appropriate means. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... of blackened stumps and charred logs where once the evergreens rose heavenward with all their wealth of whispering leaves. Blackened stubs rose all around as if they were huge exclamation points or pointing fingers of accusation at the carelessness and thoughtlessness of ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... seeking for forgiveness for one of the greatest crimes a man can commit—murder—self-murder being of equal magnitude with it. Tommy listened very attentively; a new light seemed to beam upon him—he had evidently not considered the subject in that way, and in very thoughtlessness might have thrown himself overboard. I had early in the voyage observed the poor lad, and taken an interest in him from his seeming youth and helplessness; and I resolved, as far as I had the power, to stand his friend, and to protect him from the cruelty of his messmates—with ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... certainly; but you know she sent Mysie too. It was all my own thoughtlessness for detaining them,' said the good elder sister. ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a most devout and merciful woman, was deeply touched by the youth's repentance, and saw clearly that it was thoughtlessness and not malicious intent that had been the moving spring of the deed. She then assured him that, provided he would ask pardon of God and change his way of life, she would keep her promise and help him to escape. ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... expect to be allowed to get out at the stations; still less to ask the engineer to put back, because we have left our youth behind us. Yet there are some things in which I hope always to be a boy; I hope ever to prefer thoughtlessness to heartlessness, imprudence to selfishness, impulse to calculation. It is hard enough to part with all the fiery spirits, the glowing imaginations, the elasticity of mind and body which we lose as age creeps on; but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... old-fashioned church, though in my thoughtlessness I had mistaken it for a beech and a tall poplar growing apparently side by side; but the moment she spoke ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... the families, said she, which we both know, where the man and the woman have been said to marry for love; which (at the time it is so called) is perhaps no more than a passion begun in folly or thoughtlessness, and carried on from a spirit of perverseness and opposition [here we had a parenthetical debate, which I omit]; and see, if they appear to be happier than those whose principal inducement to marry has been convenience, or to oblige their ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... have bitten my tongue out, though, for my thoughtlessness in alluding to the poor dog; for at the bare mention of him Elsie's face, which had a sort of absent, wandering look about it still, at once lighted up, and she glanced ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... put on his hat, and go out with his article in an envelope and put it in a pillar-box. It is vain to correct by cold logic the power of such primitive appetites; nature herself was behind the seemingly random thoughtlessness of the deed. And now that it is irrevocably done, he can look back on it and trace the large lines of an awful law of averages; wherein it is ruled by a ruthless necessity that a certain number of such Americans should write a certain number of such articles, as the leaves ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... consequences of her own thoughtlessness, was powerless to save the Marquis: his own coterie, the leaders of the revolutionary movement, all proclaimed her as a heroine: and when she married Sir Percy Blakeney, she did not perhaps altogether realise ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... if they were only sufficiently lectured and whipped, they could be brought to a state of moral perfection such as no fanatic has ever ascribed to his deity. Though they were not intentionally malicious, they practised the most appalling cruelties from mere thoughtlessness, thinking nothing of imprisoning men and women for periods up to twenty years for breaking into their houses; of treating their children as wild beasts to be tamed by a system of blows and imprisonment which they called education; and of keeping pianos in their houses, not ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... entertainment were not only fulfilled but surpassed; the variety of dresses, the medley of characters, the quick succession of figures, and the ludicrous mixture of groups, kept her attention unwearied: while the conceited efforts at wit, the total thoughtlessness of consistency, and the ridiculous incongruity of the language with the appearance, were incitements to surprise and diversion without end. Even the local cant of, Do you know me? Who are you? and I ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... servants are about at this hour," Angelica answered. "It is their dinner time. But I apologize for my thoughtlessness if I have disturbed you." She smiled up at him as she spoke, and poor Mr. Kilroy retired to the library quite disarmed by her gentleness, and blaming himself for a selfish brute to have interfered with her innocent amusement. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... were serious enough, I, with a youngster's thoughtlessness, enjoyed a fit of laughter while we were in the middle and hottest hurry of our preparations. It happened that two stout blackies rushed into the hall from different quarters, one bearing on his back a sack of earth, the other a bundle of canes or ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... discontent and diffidence are augmenting. Nothing is more significant than the lack of conscience with which programmes of violence and of ruin are lightly accepted; nothing is more deplorable than the thoughtlessness with which the germs of new wars are cultivated. Germany has disarmed with a swiftness which has even astonished the military circles of the Entente; but the bitter results of the struggle are not only not finished ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... pain of remorse that we did not enough appreciate the treasure we possessed. In thoughtlessness we accepted the gift; we had so little idea of the true value of his friendship; we loved so little, and were so impatient:—if only we had him back again; if only we had one more opportunity to show him how ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... nearer to uniformity, both in type and character. And by what traits do we recognise the citizen of New York? Of course there is no question here of the cultivated gentleman, who is familiar in Paris and London, and whose hospitality in his own land is an amiable reproach to our own too frequent thoughtlessness, but of the simpler class which confronts the traveller in street and train, in hotel and restaurant. The railway guard, the waiter, the cab-driver—these are the men upon whose care the comfort of the stranger depends in every land, and whose tact and temper are no bad index of the ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... like one who loved doing wrong. If you have ever done wrong, I am sure it was done in a moment of rashness; maybe thoughtlessness." She clasped her hands in front of her. "You would ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... any two-bottle and six-tumbler man who was not ashamed to confess in print the weaknesses which they confessed only by word of mouth. Just, and yet not just. True, Burns does make a parade of his thoughtlessness, and worse; but why? because he gloried in it? He must be a very skin- deep critic who cannot see, even in the most insolent of those blameworthy utterances, an inward shame and self-reproach, which ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... altogether, you will do well to give your nephew a lecture on the subject, and I hope that he will benefit by it. I intend to bestow some good advice on Tom on the subject. Many a promising lad injures his future prospects by thoughtlessness. Though we were not always as wise as Solomon, we were invariably sober fellows, or we should probably have come to grief like so many ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... the brother, and I have warned and taunted the count this week past, but it is impossible to awake him from his stupidity and thoughtlessness." ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... evidences of human weakness and folly. The crimes of heroes seem lost in the vastness of the field they occupy. A lively idea of the mischief they do, of the misery they create, seldom penetrates the mind through the delusions with which thoughtlessness and falsehood have surrounded their names and deeds. Is it that the magnitude of the evil is too gigantic for entrance? We read of twenty thousand men killed in a battle, with no other feeling than that 'it was a glorious victory.' Twenty ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... and many nobles, enlightened in mind and spirit, demonstrate that such severity of punishment could but fan the flame of vengeance in the Cossack nation. But the power of the king, and the opinion of the wise, was as nothing before the savage will of the magnates of the kingdom, who, by their thoughtlessness and unconquerable lack of all far-sighted policy, their childish self-love and miserable pride, converted the Diet into the mockery of a government. Ostap endured the torture like a giant. Not a cry, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... especially in well-timbered regions, cutting is apt to be with but two considerations—the quickest clearing of land or the easiest immediate fulfillment of some need for tree products—and the passage of a few years brings realization that this early thoughtlessness must be paid ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... miserable "medium" like me, not quite a post and leagues and leagues from even envying a Prometheus, she's better for the powder without the jam. But that's all nothing. What I can't help thinking—and it's not a bit giving my brother away, because we both think it—that it was partly our thoughtlessness that added at least something to—to the rest. It was perfectly absurd. He saw you were ill; he saw—he must have seen even in that first Sunday talk—that your nerves were all askew. And who doesn't know what "nerves" ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... railroad wrecks, of disasters on land and sea, which cause so much misery and cost so many lives, are the result of carelessness, thoughtlessness, or half-done, botched, blundering work. They are the evil fruit of the low ideals of slovenly, careless, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... nature occurs again," said Mrs Fotheringham severely, "I shall send you home at once. Other failings I can excuse, but selfish thoughtlessness is a thing I abhor. There, go away. No, Miss Munnion, you needn't read any more, I shall not be able to sleep now. My nerves ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... thoughtlessness—no, what unspeakable barbarity to abandon such a mite in that place. If they had come only a few hours—only an hour later. It might already have been bitten by a snake then, might even have been torn to ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... their State as soon as an enemy attacked it. Nor was this fortress, which in peace had occasioned them much hurt, any defence or of any service them in war. For had they being without it, through thoughtlessness, treated their subjects inhumanely, they must soon have discovered and withdrawn from their danger; and might, thereafter, with no other help than that of attached subjects, have withstood the attacks of the French far more successfully than they could with ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... cold climate puts a steadying hand on the human heart and brain. It gives an autumn tinge to life. Among the folk of warmer lands eternal spring holds sway. National life and temperament have the buoyancy and thoughtlessness of childhood, its charm and its weakness. These distinctions and contrasts meet us everywhere. The southern Chinese, and especially the Cantonese, is more irresponsible and hot-blooded than the Celestial of the north, though ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... was extraordinarily careless. "How often have I lamented that Nature, which so rarely bestows upon the world a creature endowed with such marvellous talents, ungraciously rendered the gift less precious by implanting a fatal taste for perilous recreations, and a thoughtlessness in the pursuit of them, that often caused his existence from one day to another to seem in itself miraculous." On their return from these excursions the two friends, neither of whom cared for dining in the College Hall, drank tea and supped together, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... Inquisition rejoice, but thousands and thousands more who had flocked from all parts to witness the dreadful ceremony, and to hold a jubilee—many indeed actuated by fanaticism, superstition, but more attended from thoughtlessness and the love of pageantry. The streets and squares through which the procession was to pass were filled at an early hour. Silks, tapestries, and cloth of gold and silver were hung over the balconies, and out of the windows, in honour of the procession. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... point Big Jack, more diplomatic, considering that a quarrel might result in awkward disclosures, intervened. "Shut up!" he growled to Husky. To Sam he said conciliatingly: "You're right. Husky hadn't ought to have waked you. It was a bit of thoughtlessness. But now you're awake you might as well get ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... my noblest friends. You believe I have ceased to be kind-hearted, but, thank heaven, 'tis not so! It was not intentional, thought-out malice on my part, which caused me to act thus; but my unpardonable thoughtlessness, which prevented me from seeing the matter in the right light. I am thoroughly ashamed for your sake, also for mine. I scarcely venture to beg you to restore your friendship. Ah, Wegeler! My only consolation is that you knew ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... but in what manner or where I know not; but many are the lessons I have heard fall from his lips which still live in my heart—have had their impress upon the life, and will continue to exist through the boundless ages of eternity. And now that the thoughtlessness of youth has passed away, here, upon this spot, would I offer a grateful tribute to his memory. Many others, too, occupied this place, of whose destiny I am entirely ignorant, but yet remember them with ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... them an opportunity of securing their arrears of rest. Besides this there were sketches to complete, and a thousand little odd matters to attend to—to such an extent, indeed, that when they once began work they wondered at their own thoughtlessness in not having attended to them before. Thus employed, with occasional interludes of meditative gazing out upon the ceaseless whirling rush of the snow, the day passed rapidly and pleasantly away, wound up by an hour or two of ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Lynde beyond himself from the love of mischief, such as had prompted him to tease little children in his boyhood, or was trying to ingratiate himself with the young fellow through his weakness, or doing him harm out of mere thoughtlessness, Westover came away very unhappy at what he had seen. His unhappiness connected itself so distinctly with Lynde's family that he went and sat down beside Miss Lynde from an obscure impulse of compassion, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... had been frivolous and selfish; but her evil resulted from thoughtlessness, rather than from the deliberate purpose to do wrong. She was the type of multitudes of her fair sisters, who, with sparkling eyes, look out upon life in its morning to see only what it offers to them, and not the tasks it furnishes them for others. Only by experience—only by God's logic ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... beware of any surprise or imposition. It is not the same with religion; each one accepts it at hazard, and believes it upon verbal testimony, without taking the trouble to examine it. Two causes seem to concur in sustaining men in the negligence and the thoughtlessness which they exhibit when the question comes up of examining their religious opinions. The first one is, the hopelessness of penetrating the obscurity by which every religion is surrounded; even in its first principles, it has only a tendency to repel indolent ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... "Yes, and by your thoughtlessness you have made a lot of trouble," Mr. Martin remarked. "I am sorry for this, Teddy. If many more things happen I shall have to get ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... given the name, The Berkshire County Eagle, which it bears to-day. Both of these papers are weeklies. The Journal is of later date, and is issued daily. Joseph E. See is editor. In mentioning the educational facilities of a community it would be an act of thoughtlessness to omit its bookstores. There is but one in Pittsfield. It contains a large supply of books, selected with judgment, and is well managed by Mr. ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... so evident that it will not admit of questioning; but many who are punctilious in these particulars are remiss in sending promptly their acceptances or regrets for parties and balls. Most of those who neglect this duty do so from thoughtlessness or carelessness, but there are some who have the idea that it increases their importance to delay their reply, or that promptness gives evidence of eagerness to accept or to refuse. Others, again, are prevented from paying that direct attention ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... the contrary, the very reverse. I was of high birth, had several not undistinguished family connexions, and was brought up in a brilliant circle, in all the superficial accomplishments of the day, amid superfluity and thoughtlessness. He was a man who had shaped out his own course in life, who, by his own honest endeavours, and through many self-denials, had raised his father's house from its depressed condition, and had made the future prospects of his mother and sister comfortable ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the thoughtlessness of a boy a misdemeanor had been committed, the leader explained at the camp fire how mean the action was and said that he did not believe there was a boy in camp who, if he had realized its contemptible ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... prevented him from closing his eyes. A pair of gloves, forgotten in the next room, had reminded him of M. de Guersaint, who had left for Gavarnie before daybreak, and would only return in the evening. What a delightful gift was thoughtlessness, thought Pierre. For his own part, with his limbs worn out by weariness and his mind distracted, he was sad unto death. Everything seemed to conspire against his willing desire to regain the faith of his childhood. The tale of Abbe ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... that, without knowing it, was sapping its heroism in picnics at the Canal or in grotesque amusements. The lash of invasion aroused them from their century-long infancy. The same great artist that for many years had portrayed the simple thoughtlessness of this gay people, showy and light-hearted as a comic-opera chorus, afterwards painted them, knife in hand, attacking the Mamelukes with the agility of monkeys, felling those Egyptian centaurs under their slashes, blackened with the ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... priests! Stopping that concourse, an audacious woman Has changed those glorious days to days of gloom. Scarce a small number of true worshippers Dare give faint semblance of the ancient times; The rest have shewn a fatal thoughtlessness Towards their God, or worse, have even rushed To Baal's altars to initiate Themselves into his shameful mysteries; And curse the name their fathers have invoked. To speak right openly, I am in dread That Athaliah from the altar will Tear you, yourself; and casting off, at ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... points on which his reserve was the strictest, and she only could be anxious in ignorance. The holidays, anticipated with delight, ended in pain, though still she cherished a hope that what alarmed her might be boyish thoughtlessness of no importance in itself, and only magnified by ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to my heart, and made me horribly ashamed, while Nannie flew to his side and threw her arms around his neck. "Don't take it to heart, dear papa," she pleaded, pressing her cheek against his face. "It was only thoughtlessness on their part; they didn't mean to grieve you, I know they didn't. Oh, boys, Betty, speak up and assure ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... his coat may be, yet will he never stoop to renew its pristine youth and gloss by the price of any book. No man — no human, masculine, natural man — ever sells a book. Men have been known in moments of thoughtlessness, or compelled by temporary necessity, to rob, to equivocate, to do murder, to commit what they should not, to "wince and relent and refrain'' from what they should: these things, howbeit regrettable, are common to humanity, and may happen to any of us. ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... say, or think, "This is an unjust accusation; I have not had a selfish thought!" But unconscious selfishness is by far the commoner sort; millions of essentially good- hearted people are guilty of selfish acts through thoughtlessness and stagnant sympathy. Conscious cruelty is rare compared with moral insensibility. It cannot be too often repeated that selfishness is not a way of feeling about people, it is a way of acting toward them. To be wholly free from ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... and perhaps the spirit of the time caused him to give very little attention to his education. Angelo became wild and ill-tempered. He passed his days in idleness, and children's sports. An old steward of the prince, realizing his good heart and excellent qualities, in spite of his thoughtlessness, procured for him a teacher, under whom Angelo learned in seventeen days to write German. The tender affection of the child, and his rapid progress in all the branches of instruction, repaid the good ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... You could see she was a daughter of the South. Her companion, on the contrary, preserved on the fair, smooth face, to which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle, something that might have passed, at first glance, for the levity and thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature; but the smile, though exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a sneer. In his manners he was as composed and as free from gesture as an Englishman. His hair was of that red brown with which the Italian painters produce such marvellous effects of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pocket knife Phil had nothing on his person that could be called a weapon. For once he had even left his hunting knife at the cabin, and bitterly he repented of his unusual thoughtlessness. It would never happen again he told himself, when he realized how helpless ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... all nibbled a little of the grass that grew round the invalid till at last there was not a blade within his reach. In a few days he began to mend, but was still too feeble to get up and go in search of fodder; and thus he perished miserably of hunger owing to the thoughtlessness of his friends. ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... said. "My eternal thoughtlessness is responsible for the whole thing. No, do not say a word; I know myself well. My thoughtlessness has done me many an ill turn. Thanks to it, I have won the ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... pretext for calumnies against you. The moment is serious, the demonstrations of patriotism should be serious as the times. It is the enemies of the Revolution who urge it to these frivolities in order that they may have the right to accuse it of frivolity and thoughtlessness. They thus give patriotism the appearance of faction, and these emblems divide those they should rally. However great the vogue that counsels them to-day, they will never be universally adopted, for every man really devoted to the public welfare will be quite indifferent ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... I thought to myself, as I followed her. "It could only have been in a moment of inexcusable thoughtlessness that Nature gave a child to ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... that leads to escape from death, thoughtlessness is the path that leads to death. Those who are in earnest ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... sole study. How could you fancy I spoke hastily, or without due consideration on such a subject? Would you have me like the blind girls who go unknowing to the altar, as sheep go to the shambles? Could you suspect me of such carelessness?—such culpable thoughtlessness?—you, to whom I have spoken of ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... "Human thoughtlessness," said Clement; "but as long as it is not by our own fault we can take it as providential, and above all, guard against impatience, the ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... after strange gods and allowed others to come in and take her place, and to give him the sympathy and help which she should have been the first to offer, and which would have counted more when coming from her than from any one else. She determined to make amends at once for her thoughtlessness and selfishness, and her brain was pleasantly occupied with plans and acts of kindness. It was a new entertainment, and she found she delighted in it. She directed the cabman to go to Solomons's, and from there ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... in this very honest and conscientious communication. Strongly artificial, social and political distinctions render expedients of this nature more frequent, perhaps, in Great Britain, than in any other country. Youth is the season of the passions, and many a man in the thoughtlessness of that period lays the foundation of bitter regret ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... weary thoughtlessness. "Do you know, child, I can't help feeling a strange satisfaction that this Retief's victim is Lablache. But there, one never knows, when such a man is about, who will be the next to suffer. I suppose we must take our chance and trust to the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... prevent such an act, Thurston, as such a one never can take place. You speak so only to try your Marian's faith or temper—both are proof against jests, I think. Hitherto you have trifled with the young lady's affections for mere ennui and thoughtlessness, I do believe! but, now that some of the evil consequences have been suggested to your mind, you will abandon such perilous pastime. You are going to France soon—that will be a favorable opportunity of ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... continued Ratcliffe, "that you, who, notwithstanding pour thoughtlessness and heat of temper (I beg pardon, Mr. Mareschal, I am a plain man)—that you, who, notwithstanding these constitutional defects, possess natural good sense and acquired information, should be infatuated enough ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... likeness. The widow felt as if her old wound was reopened; she could not reply, and retired, bathed in tears, and it was several days before she reappeared at court. Apart from the fact that this unexpected question renewed her grief, the inconceivable thoughtlessness the Emperor had shown wounded her so deeply that, her friends had much difficulty in persuading her to resume ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... have not heard the last of Diaz, Teddy," confided Phil to his companion. "You see what your moment of thoughtlessness has brought upon ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... employ them, my plans were encouraged and assisted. Fond appellations, tones of mildness, solicitous attendance when I was sick, deference to my opinions, and veneration for my talents, compose the image which I still retain of my mother. I had the thoughtlessness and presumption of youth, and, now that she is gone, my compunction is awakened by a thousand recollections of my treatment of her. I was indeed guilty of no flagrant acts of contempt or rebellion. Perhaps her deportment was inevitably calculated to instil into ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... living, immoral practices, etc., the blood and liver are liable, even though the skin be clear and the cheeks rosy, to harbor some poisonous humors that might be transmitted to the wife or offspring—poor innocents, too often made to suffer pitiably for the vices or thoughtlessness of the father. ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... of Milton, of Newton, of Locke, and of others, happen to be directly opposed to the popular inference that eccentricity and thoughtlessness of conduct are the necessary accompaniments of talent, and the sure indications of genius. I am indebted to Lacon for that reflection. You may point to Byron, or Savage, or Rousseau, and say, 'Were not these eccentric people talented?' ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... growing alarming. I have told Elsie, and she feels she is directly responsible for her condition, and bemoans her thoughtlessness in ever telling Tim what she saw in her hand. She is doing all she can now to cheer Tim up and ridicule her out of her morbidness. She is always running in with some funny speech to make us laugh. Of course, all the other girls follow her example, ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Enchiridion is already what was to remain the note of Erasmus's life-work: how revolting it is that in this world the substance and the shadow differ so and that the world reverences those whom it should not reverence; that a hedge of infatuation, routine and thoughtlessness prevents mankind from seeing things in their true proportions. He expresses it later in the Praise of Folly and in the Colloquies. It is not merely religious feeling, it is equally social feeling that inspired him. Under the heading: Opinions worthy of ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... see a place that has been made barren and ugly by the thoughtlessness of man, I like to think of Kinnikinick, for I know it will beautify these places if given a chance to do so. There are on earth millions of acres now almost desert that may some time be changed and beautified by this cheerful, modest plant. Some time many bald and barren places in the Rockies ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... 'Sir Thomas may be a better man than I suppose; but, from all I have heard and seen, it seems a pity that one so young and gay, and—and interesting, to express many things by one word—whose greatest, if not her only fault, appears to be thoughtlessness—no trifling fault to be sure, since it renders the possessor liable to almost every other, and exposes him to so many temptations—but it seems a pity that she should be thrown away on such a man. It was her ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... at Rome. Caesar had also been guilty of an act of thoughtlessness, or perhaps merely of distraction, as might happen very easily to a man in his circumstances. When the senate had made its last decrees, conferring upon Caesar unlimited powers, the senators, consuls, and praetors, or the whole senate, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... been dupes and slaves for centuries were incapable of conducting themselves with the wisdom and tranquillity of freemen so soon as some of their fetters were partially loosened. That their conduct could not have been marked by any other characters than ferocity and thoughtlessness is the historical fact from which liberty derives all its recommendations, and falsehood the worst features of its deformity. There is a reflux in the tide of human things which bears the shipwrecked hopes of men into a secure haven after the storms are past. Methinks, those who now live ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Mrs. Falconer would say. You see, my love, I told you truly, it was no blushing matter. I am sorry I startled you by my abruptness. Surprises are generally ill-judged—and always ill-bred. Acquit me, I beseech you, of all but thoughtlessness," said Lady Jane, sitting down by Caroline, and kindly taking her hand: "I hope you know I am ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... them being Princess Alice, to whom he told as much of the story of "Sylvie and Bruno" as he had then composed. While the tale was in progress Lady Salisbury entered the room, bringing in some new toy or game to amuse her little guests, who, with the usual thoughtlessness of children, all rushed off and left Mr. Dodgson. But the little Princess, suddenly appearing to remember that to do so might perhaps hurt his feelings, sat down again by his side. He read the kind thought which prompted ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... Isaac, trembling with fear of detection, lay down again and pretended to be asleep. After waiting a while he again rose, satisfied, from the heavy breathing of the Indians, that they were all sleeping; and fearing to awaken Joseph a second time, lest he should again hazard all by his thoughtlessness, he crept softly out of the wigwam. He had proceeded but a few rods when he heard footsteps behind him; and, supposing himself pursued, he hurried into the woods, casting a glance backward. What was his joy to see his young companion running after him! ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the wall beside the window, letting her hand drop in a hopeless gesture. The sample answer had hurt her, who could never see, by its mere thoughtlessness and by the joy that made her sister's voice quaver. The music grew louder and louder, and now there came with it the sound of a great multitude, cheering, singing the march with the trumpets, shouting for Don John; and all at once as the ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... to which one must above all submit, and when in addition, as often happens, it is supplemented by the assertion that the resurrection of Christ is the most certain fact in the history of the world, one does not know whether he should marvel more at its thoughtlessness or its unbelief. We do not need to have faith in a fact, and that which requires religious belief, that is, trust in God, can never be a fact which would hold good apart from that belief. The historical question and the question ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... eyes are onyx of thoughtlessness, Hardened they are like gems in ancient modesty; Yea, and her mouth's prudent and crude caress Means even less than her many words ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... so frank—fell; and, for some seconds, he stood seemingly lost in abstraction over the revelations made by the Duchess. He was, however, playing a deeper game than he appeared to play. Apparently in thoughtlessness, he began to toy with a ring which hung upon a ribbon about his neck and which till ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... unfolding itself. There was something in this life which he had never thought about, never dreamed of; and the light which shone out of his dark eyes was deeper than that of wonder. She would have given the world to take back her thoughtlessness, for she felt she had given an angel to eat ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the importance she should assume when she informed her friends of all her journeys by sea and land, showing the pieces of money she had collected, and stammering out a few foreign phrases, which she repeated in a true Parisian accent. Happy thoughtlessness! ay, and enviable harmless vanity, which thus produced a gaite du coeur worth all ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... maxims, treasured up in his mind rather for show than use, and operated very little upon his conduct, however elegantly he might sometimes explain, or however forcibly he might inculcate them. His degradation, therefore, from the condition which he had enjoyed with such wanton thoughtlessness, was considered by many as an occasion of triumph. Those who had before paid their court to him without success soon returned the contempt which they had suffered; and they who had received favours from him, for of such favours as he could bestow he was very liberal, did not always remember them. ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... to have a wife and a lot of children, Mr. Droom," said Eddie with characteristic thoughtlessness. Droom stirred the fire and ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... it was not boyish thoughtlessness which caused Ham to laugh at his father, as boys will do when surrounding a drunken rustic in the street and making sport of him. He was truly offended by his father's sin and thought himself to be more righteous, holy and religious than his father. Noah's deed was ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... did not know that I should ever see them again. I clung to them as one clings to a wreck, though he knows he must eventually cast himself loose and swim for his life. I sat down on a hill within sight of my paternal home, but I did not venture to approach it, for I felt compunction at the thoughtlessness with which I had dissipated my patrimony. But was I to blame, when I had the rich possessions of my curmudgeon of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... youth are more owing, to my mind, to the want of change in the other points of the childish character, than to the too great change in this. The besetting faults of youth appear to me to arise mainly from its retaining too often the ignorance, selfishness, and thoughtlessness of a child, and having arrived at the same time at a degree of bodily vigour and power, equal, or only a very little inferior, to those ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... that by the selfishness and thoughtlessness of man large portions of the earth's surface have been despoiled; mountains have been denuded of their forests; fertile lands have been worn out, and fruitful fields have become wildernesses. But we are beginning to reverse this tendency, ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... dear Philip, you are too Quixotic! Nobody accuses either of the girls of anything but a little thoughtlessness and ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... happens that Fortune rather assists those who throw away without reserve than those who are orderly and careful in all things. When the favour of Fortune is wanting, Death frequently repairs the defect and remedies the consequences of men's thoughtlessness, for it comes at the very moment when they would begin to realise, with sorrow, how wretched a thing it is to have squandered everything when young to pass one's age on shortened means in poverty and toil. This would have been the ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... urged Earwaker, in pursuance of his subtler intention, 'that you should bear the worst of the suffering, for the trouble has come out of your own thoughtlessness. You are fond of saying that you have behaved with the utmost discretion; so far from that you have been outrageously indiscreet. I foresaw that something of this kind might come ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... immeasurable schemes of mischief. It was she that upset the clothes basket, and pulled over the molasses pitcher on to her own astonished head, and with incredible labor upset every pail of water that by momentary thoughtlessness was put within reach. It was she that was found stuffing poor, solemn old pussy head first into the water jar, that wiped up the floor with her mother's freshly-ironed clothes, and jabbered meanwhile, in most ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the inclosed richly filled letter you will recognize Bunsen's power and splendor of mind, and you will also not fail to perceive his thoughtlessness in making projects. He and Brandis are a pair of most amiable speculators, full of affection; but one must meet them with ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... telling you how rotten I feel for striking that match. I beg of you, Miss Crown,—you ARE Miss Crown?—I can only ask you to believe that it was not a conscious act of desecration. It was sheer thoughtlessness. I would not have done it for ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... maid's dress of black, with muslin cap and apron, and she was certainly a joy to the eye; but one day I sent her out on an errand, and she came back almost hysterical under the torrent of ribald admiration which my thoughtlessness had brought upon her. A seamstress will not remain alone in your house while you run into a neighbor's on an errand without bolting herself in the room; and, if you are to be gone any length of time, she will not stay there ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... an odious light have you exhibited me to myself! Oh! I acknowledge it, I do not deserve your friendship. It was no intentional or deliberate malice that induced me to act towards you as I did—but inexcusable thoughtlessness alone. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... suddenly changed into terror and distress; another sailor fell overboard. He had been keeping watch on the fore-mast, to provide for our safety against land and shallows, in this untried region, and having neglected to secure his own, fell a sacrifice to his thoughtlessness. Being injured by the fall, he immediately sunk, and all our efforts to save him proved fruitless. Separated as we had long been from our native country, the loss of a member of our little society, thus bound together through good or ill fortune, was ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... not. I mumbled a few words of lame apology, pleading the thoughtlessness of youth. The excuses were apparently taken in the proper spirit, for again ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... says, and seeks by conjecture what is in the minds of his neighbors, without perceiving that it is sufficient to attend to the daemon within him, and to reverence it sincerely. And reverence of the daemon consists in keeping it pure from passion and thoughtlessness, and dissatisfaction with what comes from gods and men. For the things from the gods merit veneration for their excellence; and the things from men should be dear to us by reason of kinship; and sometimes even, in a manner, they move our pity ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... were beginning to forgive the Three Points for shooting the redoubtable Paul Horgan down at Coney Island, a Three Pointer injudiciously wiped out a Table Hillite near Canal Street. He pleaded self-defense, and in any case it was probably mere thoughtlessness, but nevertheless the Table ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... prospects, after diverting him from a career in which he might have found happiness. The circumstances of the time, and Louis Lambert's character, may to a great extent absolve Madame de Stael for her thoughtlessness and her generosity. The gentleman who was to have kept up communications between her and the boy left Blois just at the time when Louis passed out of the college. The political events that ensued were ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... blush to say that Archie himself was not frank and brave enough to acknowledge his fault. The fact is, he was afraid of his father, who was a stern and godly man, and had small mercy for the sins of little folks. Both the Rector and his wife reproved Meggie for her thoughtlessness, and the gentle little girl shed some silent tears; but, after all, I think Archie, who sat trying to gulp down his breakfast with a bold face, suffered the most. All day long he was unusually kind to his cousin, ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... his boomerangs and nullah-nullahs, the wild duck can pass him scatheless, and the cockatoo can scream defiance from the lofty trees. I know that this practice of returning laden with native spoil is more frequently the result of thoughtlessness or curiosity than anything else. The implements appear so trumpery, that the European thinks they can be of little use to anybody, but the bad blood thus engendered between the aborigines and the settlers is greater than would be easily credited. Another reason, I would venture to submit, ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... dependence upon the kindness of others in such a degree as I had never done before. Occasionally I had had gloomy and earnest thoughts in looking forward to my future, because I was in want of the very necessaries of life; at other times I had the perfect thoughtlessness ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... note. It merely repeated that his brother wanted him. What an extraordinary piece of thoughtlessness this seemed! Brandon might have perceived that Valentine would be much needed by ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... rearrange, and to rewrite whole passages of an essay. Gibbon wrote his 'Memoirs' six times, and the first chapter of his 'History' three times. Beginners are always slow to prune or cast away any thought or expression which may have cost labor. They forget that brevity is no sign of thoughtlessness. Much consideration is needed to compress the details of any subject into small compass. Essences are more difficult to prepare, and therefore more valuable, than weak solutions. Pliny wrote to one of his friends, 'I have not time to write you ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... I answered, "if my thoughtlessness had rendered him unsafe for you; but if he could be led up and down past the place where he saw the bear until he becomes convinced that there is now nothing dreadful in that spot, he may soon be all ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... thoughtlessness (to use no harsher term), it is not wonderful that Lord Byron should at last be driven into a feeling of distaste towards his medical companion, of whom he one day remarked, that "he was exactly the kind of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... and I declare I was proud of my superior at that moment, "no man who is a true citizen and a Christian should object to have his steps followed, when by his own thoughtlessness, perhaps, he has incurred a ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... credit, never resented any word or action on the part of the Professor. They had only love and veneration for him; and the Professor, by his constant attitude toward them, showed that even these careless actions or any other examples of thoughtlessness on the part of the boys, were part of the training that would teach lessons ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... names, at least not the true ones. For I have no inclination to involve myself in a newspaper controversy, and none to injure the prospects of a young man who possesses qualities which fit him for abundant usefulness if vanity and thoughtlessness do not make shipwreck ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... rude and unkind their conduct appeared from another point of view, they were very much ashamed of their thoughtlessness, and most of them had the manliness to apologize to their teacher for what ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... amour-propre of its unskilful fellow-citizen, it demolishes its work, raises the wall that is too low, and re-makes the construction correctly in the presence of the observer. If this incident reveals inconceivable thoughtlessness in one of the members of this serious republic, it also brings to light the judgment, reflection, and decision of which they are capable, as well as a freedom which cannot be found in the works ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... evidence that he who remembers is thinking. Great thoughts are often repeated thoughtlessly. A man's Occupation betrays him or establishes his claim to Knowledge. That which a man does proclaims that which he thinks or in his thoughtlessness finds him out. ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... is usually (though not always) with the husband! But he doesn't mean to be bad. Not once in a thousand times does he deliberately purpose to do wrong. He is simply the victim of undirected and ungoverned passion, and of an ignorance which results in stupid blundering, or carelessness, or thoughtlessness. What such a husband practically does is to rush blindly and furiously along a way he knows nothing of, but which he has been led to think he has a right to travel when and how he will! The ordinary figure of a "bull in a china shop" can but faintly describe the ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... you went away? You asked me to believe in you. I have believed in you, Johan. All the horrible things that were rumoured about you after you had gone must have been done through being led astray—from thoughtlessness, ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... understood that a thoughtless person is not one without Thought. A human being without Thought is an impossibility. Most, if not all, idiots think. It is the lack of coherency, purpose, and effort in Thought that induces the habit of mind commonly known as thoughtlessness. Without Thought, Imagination, and Affection, one could not be a human being. Mankind differ from each other, not in kind, but in degree. It is the low degree of activity in either of these great divisions ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... It would seem that if this interpretation of the term be correct there could be no difficulty in adjusting even unconscious misinterpretation of Christ to the true facts of the case: but here we are met by that perversity of vision which springs not from ignorance, but from thoughtlessness, and is in its nature much more obdurate than the worst perversity of ignorance. Ignorance can be enlightened; thoughtlessness, being usually associated with vanity, ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson |
