"Willful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... supports thy cause; No longer Glory prompts thee to applause; No longer Virtue breathing in thy breast, With all her conscious majesty confest, Still bright and brighter wakes the almighty flame, To rouse the feeble, and the willful tame, And where she sees the catching glimpses roll, Spreads the strong blaze, and all involves the soul; But cold restraints thy conscious fancy chill, And formal passions mock thy struggling will; Or, if thy Genius e'er forget his chain, And reach impatient ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... almost invincible prejudice against the foreigner is a serious hindrance to the regeneration of China. "This fact emphasizes the need for using every means possible for the breaking down of such a prejudice. Every careless or willful wound to Chinese susceptibilities, or unnecessary crossing of Chinese superstitions, retards our own work and increases the dead wall of opposition on the part of ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... there! with them! not here! He had yielded too easily to the spell of the woods and the call of the old primeval nature. He might have escaped long ago, there had been many opportunities, but he could not see them. His blindness had been willful, the child of his own desires. He knew it too well now. He saw himself guilty and ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his policies. It would have required a man of the calmest discrimination and coolest judgment to find the line between any just claim for mercy presented by the Mormon advocates of "religious liberty" and the willful offenses which they were committing ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... delusion still. Husband! There is none in the case.' Then waving his hand as Eustacie's face grew crimson, and her eyes flashed indignation, while her lips parted, 'It was her own folly that rendered it needful to put an end to the boy's presumption. Had she been less willful and more obedient, instead of turning the poor lad's head by playing at madame, we could have let him return to his island fogs; but when SHE encouraged him in contemplating the carrying her away, and alienating her and her lands from the true ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her breast; but selfish thoughts would come to tempt her, she would yield, and unkind words fell from her lips; and then the flower drooped pale and scentless, the fairy bell rang mournfully, Annie would forget her better resolutions, and be again a selfish, willful little child. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Barcine party, but there is no occasion to draw enmity and hate upon yourself before you are in a position to do real service to the cause. And now ride off with you; I know all our words are falling on deaf ears, and that willful lads will go ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... image, as truly a part of the great firmament of the human mind as the light of reason which it seems to interrupt. But the fair deceit and innocent error of it cannot be interpreted nor restrained by a willful purpose, and all additions to it by act do but defile, as the shepherd disturbs the flakes of morning mist with smoke from his ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... information which had so far been elicited was hardly more than the bare circumstance which the body presented,—a man had ridden here, a stranger, and he was dead. If the girl knew more than this, it would necessitate some care in the examination to secure the facts. She was young, singularly willful and irresponsible, and evidently overcome by grief, or fear, or simply horror. When she was asked to look at the face of the stranger, she only caught a glimpse of it, as if by accident, and turned away, pulling her white bonnet down over her face, and declaring ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... sell at a high price, yet none of us looked upon money, gained in that way, quite as we do upon treasure taken in fair fight. In the one case we traffic with the Spaniards, who are our natural enemies; and it is repugnant, to a Christian man, to hand over even these poor negroes to such willful masters as these; in the other we are fighting for our queen and country. The Spaniards are the natural enemies of all good Protestants, and every ship we see, and every treasure bag we capture, does something to pare the nails of that fierce ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... half million graves, wherein they had buried their slain, their bravest and best beloved, they forgot all bitterness for joy that peace had come. No people in the world had greater reason for severity than the victors in this strife. War, willful, unprovoked, without the shadow of justification, had been thrust upon them. This had been preceded by a series of usurpations the most unblushing ever endured by a free people. These were a part of the plan of a band of traitors, who had plotted for years to overthrow the existing order ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... was stern and significant. 'It was a grave and most painful task which devolved upon him to instruct the jurors that one of the parties before them must be guilty of deliberate and willful perjury. Their statements were wholly irreconcilable with each other; nay more, were diametrically opposite; and that either were innocently mistaken in ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... mean you could not," Mrs. Mason returned, smiling. "I do not see that the case need be very different with men. Subserviency never won anybody's respect or love either. Neither does willful opposition, any more. Proper self-respect and a fair share of self-love is more sure of winning admiration, from men or women, than too ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... transfers, debit and other stored value cards, online value storage and value transfer systems, the informal hawala system, and cash couriers. Terrorist organizations may be able to take advantage of such financial systems either as the result of willful complicity by financial institutions or as the result of poor oversight and monitoring practices. Domestically, we have hardened our financial systems against terrorist abuse by promulgating effective regulations, requiring financial institutions to report suspicious transactions, and ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - September 2006 • United States
... seen slowly to skim the silver lake; While the huge flower seemed of itself propelled, Save that, by chance, a flushed and saucy face, Peeped from the waves, showing a little imp Who tugged at its stout stem with willful toil. KOLONA's limbs and bosom roseate glowed As the slant moonlight through the crimson flower Bathed her with blushes; but, when on the strand She lightly sprang, flinging her tresses back, A southern maiden would ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... been unusually disagreeable—gazing wistfully in the direction where, against the sky-line, rose the clump of plane-trees, under which hot-headed, warm-hearted Turnus was resting after his brief life of storms. Then she would think of that unhappy mother who, with every impulse of a willful nature, loved her child so dearly, till she would begin to doubt—it was very wrong of her—if Amata or the match-making gods were most ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... "Willful, wayward one!" he said many, many times. "You, of all, will suffer most. No woman can take a step like this without drinking of pain to the bitterest dregs. If you can hide the anguish, well. But I fear the trial will be too hard for ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... hills of Habersham, All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried, "Abide, abide," The willful waterweeds held me thrall, The loving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and the fondling grass said, "Stay," The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the little reeds sighed, "Abide, abide," Here in the hills of Habersham, Here in the valleys ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... night. Lilian had never been an effusive girl. She had almost broken her mother's heart in her little more than babyhood, when after a rapturous caress she had half pulled from the enclosing arms and said in a willful fashion—"Don't kiss me so hard, I don't liked to be kissed!" And later on when her mother had always called her Lily, she had said emphatically—"Why don't you call me Lilian! I'm too big a girl to be called by such a baby name as Lily and I ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... anything at all. We cannot explain. The explanation is incredible. The Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... concerning the establishment of Negro schools was abused here and there throughout the entire period. As late as 1876 the State Superintendent complained[21] that in many cases through ignorance of the law and in other cases through willful disobedience of the law, schools for the Negroes had not been established. In the first case, he reported that merely explaining the law had the desired effect and in the other case it was necessary to call the assistance of county clerks ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... the old story of the two who fought over the shield with a gold side and a silver side; because, as neither could see both sides at once, each considered the statement of the other a willful falsehood. Let us try, at least, to bear in mind that our relationship to this universe has been of long enough duration to permit of the evolution, and establishment of many series of laws which do not, as would seem at the first ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... very willful mood and she was only a child. One or two years would make a difference. If his father made a great fortune, and after all no one knew where she came from—he could marry in very good families, girls in plenty had smiled on him ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... persons who have not received a regular medical education, sooner or later prove themselves to be worthless, the presumption—though not the certainty—is, whenever a new agent, or a new method or principle is proposed by an "outsider," that this, too, if not willful charlatanism, is a mistake; and therefore, the sooner it comes to an end the better it will be for the public health, and that neglect is the surest way to ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... Providence and let it go with the consoling assurance that, as to a solution, "the Lord will provide." But the echoes of recriminations shouted by each side against the other; the cries of foul play; the accusations of willful injustice; the threats of complete annihilation of capital by organized labor, of organized labor by capital—must reach to heaven itself, and Providence might well pause in dismay. Constructive good will? ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... Justice Marshall issued a decree against Georgia which did not suit him, Jackson, according to tradition, blurted out that Marshall could go ahead and enforce his own orders. To the end he pursued his willful way, finally even ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... the vervain, or verbena, employed by brides for centuries as the emblem of chastity, should be one of the notorious botanical examples of a willful hybrid. Generally, the individuals of distinct species do not interbreed; but verbenas are often difficult to name correctly in every case because of their susceptibility to each other's pollen - ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Brother, by happy experience, and find great freedom and peace in my soul thereby. This makes me love the Moravian Brethren tho' I cannot agree with them in many of their principles. I cannot look upon them as willful deceivers, but as persons who hazard their lives for the sake of the Gospel. Mr. Wesley is as certainly wrong in some things as they, and Mr. Law as wrong also. Yet I believe both Mr. Law and Mr. Wesley and Count Zinzendorf will ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... pension from the Government, because of his services there. If a prisoner conducts himself properly, Captain Bradbury will treat him as humanely as he can under the circumstances. If he becomes willful and unruly, the Captain no doubt will take great pleasure in giving the offender "a good paddling," to use his own forcible expression. This official is a strong advocate of corporal punishment. He claims that a "little loosening ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... a mistress; knew it long Ere you did, Myrrhina; but I could never Think that offense so grievous in a youth, Seeing 'tis natural to them all: and soon The time shall come when he'll stand self-reprov'd. But you, perverse and willful as at first, Could take no rest till you had brought away Your daughter, and annull'd the match I made: There's not a circumstance but loudly speaks Your evil disposition ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... of restrained inward contempt played over her face. She raised her eyebrows in scorn and pity when she looked at or spoke to Mariana, and she would fix her wonderful eyes, full of tender remonstrance and painful disgust, on the willful girl, who, after all her "fancies and eccentricities," had ended by kissing an insignificant ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... willful wandering that day Each is so tired it does not wake at all, Whilst over them the boughs that sigh and sway Conspire to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... deplorably and inexcusably they will perish, who perish by their own willful unbelief under the gospel! It will be dreadful indeed to be driven, as it were, from the very gate of heaven to the lowermost and hottest hell. Lord, send forth thy light, truth, and power, that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... were the waves that the five men disappeared again and again in the hollows between, then the next moment they danced on the foamy crest, tossed hither and thither by the willful torrent, seething under them like ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... public—the eyes of a man-prostitute. And everything together—this abundance of tiresome electric lights, the exaggeratedly bright toilettes of the ladies, the odours of modish, spicy perfumes, this ringing music, with willful slowings up of the tempo, with voluptuous swoonings in the transitions, with the tempestuous passages screwed up—everything fitted the one to the other, forming a general picture of insane and stupid luxury, a setting for an imitation of a gay, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... I returned home. I had always been obstinate and willful, not to say pigheaded, and being steeped in tales of wrongs done to my house and country, and with the crass assurance of a young sprig fresh from untrammeled university life, I began to give vent to utterances that were not at all to ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... and situations, or all together, preserved me, thro' this dangerous time of youth, and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, without any willful gross immorality or injustice, that might have been expected from my want of religion. I say willful, because the instances I have mentioned had something of necessity in them, from my youth, inexperience, and ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... for the crown, arose and read the indictment, charging the prisoner at the bar with the willful murder of Sir Lemuel Levison, at Castle Lone, on the twenty-first day of June, Anno Domini, so and so. Without making any comment, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Aside from the willful violation of those unwritten laws that have come to govern social intercourse, there are many who err because of excessive self-consciousness, which makes it difficult or impossible to put themselves at ease among ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... one age painfully sow the seed that is to come up good in another. The historian, and still more the critical commentator on his own times, needs to be patient, calm, judicial, hopeful. Mr. Carlyle is impatient, fervid, willful, nay, despotic, and he is not hopeful, not hopeful enough. One healthily hopeful, and genuinely faithful, would not be ever betaking him to the past as a refuge from the present; would not tauntingly throw into the face of contemporaries ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... provisions of the sixth section of the Act, subject to be controlled, modified, superseded, or abolished. I also announced that no removals from office would be made unless the incumbents failed to carry out the provisions of the law or impeded reorganization, or unless willful delays should necessitate a change, and added: "Pending the reorganization, it is, desirable and intended to create as little disturbance in the machinery of the various branches of the provisional governments as possible, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Sally; I don't know! She was high-spirited as a girl, a little willful and impulsive, but with the best heart in the world. She lost her mother too soon; and in her girlhood we had no home—not even the half-homes possible to naval officers. She had a good natural voice and wanted to study music, so ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... her maidenly body was in active rebellion while she ministered to the rough and coarse men who formed the bulk of the patients, and whose afflictions she could not help knowing were too frequently the direct result of their own sins and willful ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... in of the beech leaves in the upper right-hand corner of Titian's Peter Martyr. I cannot in any of his works trace the slightest influence of Salvator; and I am not surprised at it, for though Salvator was a man of far higher powers than either Vandevelde or Claude, he was a willful and gross caricaturist. Turner would condescend to be helped by feeble men, but could not be corrupted by false men. Besides, he had never himself seen classical life, and Claude was represented ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... there was nothing perhaps but the long black hair and bright black eyes to remind him of his former apparition. "Are you busy?" she asked. "Can you come with me?"—and on his signifying his readiness, in her old willful way ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... turning the mistrust, the dread of competition, the hopes of revenge, and the ever-increasing armaments to their use with incomparable skill. The task was facilitated by Germany's industrial up-growth, which—in willful misconstruction of the truths of the laws of international communities—has been represented as ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... bringing them,—that its overweening loyalty placed a great country like Canada in s very silly attitude, the attitude of an overgrown, unmanly boy, clinging to the maternal skirts, and though spoilt and willful, without any character of his own. The constant reference of local hopes to that remote centre beyond seas, the test of success by the criterions of a necessarily different civilization, the social and intellectual dependence implied by traits that meet the most hurried glance in the Dominion, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... said, "that they will indeed pay no regard to the ancient friendship between their people and our own or to the solemn obligations which have been exchanged between them and destroy American ships and take the lives of American citizens in the willful prosecution of the ruthless naval program they have announced their intention to adopt. Only actual overt acts on their part can make me believe it ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... over the word "lover," and changed it, for to her Octavia still seemed a child, and though anxious for the alliance, she forbore to speak openly, lest the girl should turn willful, as she inherited her mother's ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... this stalk it is difficult to say. A bright-eyed, sunshiny, willful baby, she had grown into an unaffected, attractive, breezy young woman, outwardly obedient, inwardly mutinous. She was generally calm in her mother's presence, never criticizing her openly, and her merry heart kept her from being really unhappy in a relationship ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... should assist in making a correct diagnosis. Tetanus may readily be differentiated from rabies by the persistence of muscular cramps, especially of the face and abdomen, which cause these muscles to become set and as hard as wood. In tetanus there is also an absence of a depraved appetite or of a willful propensity to hurt other animals or to damage the surroundings. The cow remains quiet and the general muscular contraction gives her a rigid appearance. There is an absence of paralysis which marks the advanced stage of rabies. The form of dumb ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... an old lady, whose whole time and attention were taken up by her dog, who was most willful; but the dame never lost her temper, or forgot her politeness. After running about all day to supply ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... spoiled and fractious infant. One thinks at once of the negativism which is so like that of a perverse child and of the unconventional, personal habits to which these patients cling so stubbornly. Masturbation, for instance, is quite frequent, while willful wetting and soiling is still more common. We sometimes meet with childishness, both in vocabulary and mode of expression. In one case there was evidently a delusion of a return to actual childhood, for she kept insisting that she ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... The most willful and damnable lies were brought up against me. Many things which had been said and done in moments of amusement and jocularity were remembered, as though I had said and done those things for wicked purposes. Everything that ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... Ignorant or willful disregard of the nature and welfare of an animal is cruelty.—Overloading beasts of burden; driving them when lame; keeping them on insufficient food, or in dark, cold, and unhealthy quarters; whipping, goading, and beating them constantly and excessively are the most ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... you how poor De Guiche became irritated, furious, exasperated beyond all control, at the different rumors which are circulating about this person? Must I, if you persist in this willful blindness, and if respect should continue to prevent me naming her—must I, I repeat, recall to your recollection the various scenes which Monsieur had with the Duke of Buckingham, and the insinuations which were reported respecting the duke's ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... having represented the Chicago District continuously from March 4, 1843 to March 4, 1851; and again from March 4, 1853 to March 4, 1855. He was endowed by nature with a mind as strong as his body, and that was of Titanic proportions. He was an ardent partisan in behalf of any cause he espoused; was willful, aggressive, and dominating. He was, at the same time, genial and kindly in many relations of life, not without gifts of both wit and humor, and courageous to the point of absolute fearlessness. He had been well educated ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... many headstrong daughters as there are, if this maxim were kept in mind.—Punishments are of service to offenders; rewards should be only to the meriting: and I think the former are to be dealt out rigourously, in willful cases. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... continued: "I tried to explain the mistake before, but your kindness cut me off. I can only say that, though you have given me a mother's care and a Christian's consideration under a misunderstanding, I trust you will not blame me for willful deception nor regret the goodness you have shown the stranger in ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... me. I had good advice from my little sister, but I was willful. Never mind, Eve, I needn't to blush for loving her; she is worthy ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... 'em what not to do," broke out Semi-Colon, for the benefit of the girls; "and that a willful foul with carry a penalty. There goes Coach Shays in that little launch; he's going to get in that car belonging to Judge Colon, and be whirled along the road, which keeps pretty near the river all the way. So ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... after listening to a report of the Minister of the Interior concerning the willful opening of the Moscow Synagogue by Rabbi Minor and Warden Schneider, was graciously pleased to command ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... Possibly ennui prompted this willful bit of womanhood to make a plaything of that picturesque child of nature, just as loneliness caused him to open his eyes to the existence of that, which in the logical and ordinary course of events, he would have entirely ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... revocation and setting aside of the order admitting such person to citizenship and the cancellation of the certificate of naturalization as having been obtained by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation. * * ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... me. I advise a warmer climate for the coming winter. Mr. Rockharrt will be able to travel by the first of November, and he should then take her to Florida. But, you see, he pooh-poohs the whole suggestion. Well—'A willful man must have his way,'" said the doctor, as he took up his hat and bade ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth |
