"Worldling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... influence of piety on the intellectual powers.—13. Instances of extraordinary beneficence or covetousness.—14. Death-bed scenes, of the Christian, the backslider, the infidel, the universalist, the profane man, or the worldling. ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... have munched up the acorn does not know what to make of the pearl. That sudden ice which then freezes over us, that supreme disgust and despair almost of the whole world, which for the moment we confound with the one worldling—they who have felt, may reasonably ascribe to Philip. He listened to Mr. Beaufort in utter and contemptuous silence, and ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... read her Carlyle and Ruskin, and in her calling she was an enthusiast. But, in the words of the Elizabethan poet, she was perhaps 'unacquainted still with her own soul.' She imagined herself a Radical; she was in truth a tyrant. She preached Ruskin and the simple life; no worldling ever believed more fiercely in the gospel of success. But, let it be said promptly, it was success for others, rarely or never for herself; she despised the friend who could not breast and conquer circumstance; as for her own case, ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... channel, was the chief port between Barranquilla and the distant Honda. There had been neither family custom nor parental hopes to consider among the motives which had directed him into the Church. He was a born worldling, but with unmistakable talents for and keen appreciation of the art of politics. His love of money was subordinate only to his love of power. To both, his talents made access easy. In the contemplation of a career in his early years he had hesitated ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... stream as it bursts from the hill,— I pluck the fresh flowers that spring by the rill,— I watch the gray clouds as they curl round the peak That rises high over them, barren and bleak; And I think how the worldling who courts fortune's smile, In his heart, like that peak, may be lonely the while; And then my own heart sings aloud in its joy, That Heaven has made me a free ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... Earl, and Hamilton Torrens was three-doors off his father's Baronetcy and Pensham Steynes. This may have had its weight with Juliet. Miss Dickenson candidly admitted that she herself would have been influenced; but then, no doubt she was a worldling. Mr. Pellew admired the candour, discerning in it exaggeration to avoid any suspicion of false pretence. He did not suspect himself of any undue leniency to this lady. She was altogether too passee to admit of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... It was a cent contribution, and we found it very difficult, under the contagious influence of the hum from the Amen corner, not to rise and go forward and deposit a cent. If anything could extract the pennies from a reluctant worldling, it would be the buzzing of this tune. It went on and on, until the house appeared to be drained dry of its cash; and we inferred by the stopping of the melody that the preacher's salary was secure for the time being. On inquiring, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... presented mere success in amusing as the refuge of conscious ugliness. Already, at hungry twenty-six, Gravener looked as blank and parliamentary as if he were fifty and popular. In my scrap of a residence—he had a worldling's eye for its futile conveniences, but never a comrade's joke—I sounded Frank Saltram in his ears; a circumstance I mention in order to note that even then I was surprised at his impatience of my enlivenment. As he had never before heard of the personage it took ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... humanity is tormented and spoilt when, as more often happens, a man disbelieving in reason and out of humour with his world, abandons his soul to loose whimseys and passions that play a quarrelsome game there, like so many ill-bred children. Nevertheless, compared with the worldling's mental mechanism and rhetoric, the sensualist's soul is a well of wisdom. He lives naturally on an animal level and attains a kind of good. He has free and concrete pursuits, though they be momentary, and he has sincere ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... noble thoughts of that glorious One whom he serves, and of that perfect law he obeys. Little as they may love the ways of religion in their own secret hearts, they cannot help confessing that there is a God, and that they ought to serve him. But a worldling, and still more, an unfaithful Christian, just helps people to forget there is such a Being, and makes them think either that religion is a sham, or that they may safely go on despising it. I have heard it said, Ellen, that Christians are the only Bible ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and lingering seeks thy shrine On him but seldom, power divine, Thy spirit rests! Satiety And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, Mock the tired worldling. Idle hope And dire remembrance interlope To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: The bubble floats before, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... between them was unfortunate. Thomas Moore had some sterling qualities. His best satirical pieces are inspired by a real indignation, and lit up by a genuine humour. He was also an exquisite musician in words, and must have been occasionally a fascinating companion. But he was essentially a worldling, and, as such, a superficial critic. He encouraged the shallow affectations of his great friend's weaker work, and recoiled in alarm before the daring defiance of his stronger. His criticisms on all Byron wrote ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... to be "guest with a man that is a sinner," and He changed the sinner into a saint. The worldling found wings. The stone became flesh. Gentle emotions began to stir in a heart hardened by heedlessness and sin. Restitution took the place of greed. The home of the sinner became the temple of the Lord. "To-day is salvation ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... the gorgeous worldling, counselling all men to "Smoke Kentucky Leaf!" was set up in the high place of honour on the mantel-shelf, beside a print of the Madonna and the Holy Child. Nicholas cheered up at this, and Ol' Chief stopped wiping his eyes. While the Boy stood at the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... at once in the summer-house of the garden. In days past I had coquetted many an hour away with her. Indeed, years before we had been lovers in half-earnest boy and girl fashion, and after that the best of friends. Grimly I resolved to keep the appointment and to tell this little worldling some things she needed ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... some lull of life, Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, Dreaming in throngful city ways Of winter joys his boyhood knew; And dear and early friends—the few Who yet remain—shall pause to view These Flemish pictures of old days; Sit with me by the homestead hearth, And stretch the hands of memory forth To warm them at the wood-fire's ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... lake a bridge ascends thereto, Whereon in female shape a serpent stands. Who eyes her eye, or views her blue-vein'd brow, With sense-bereaving glozes she enchants, And when she sees a worldling blind that haunts The pleasure that doth seem there to be found, She soothes ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... adj.; self-love, self-indulgence, self-worship, self-interest; egotism, egoism; amour propre [Fr.], &c (vanity) 880; nepotism. worldliness &c adj.; world wisdom. illiberality; meanness &c adj.. time-pleaser, time-server; tuft- hunter, fortune-hunter; jobber, worldling; egotist, egoist, monopolist, nepotist; dog in the manger, charity that begins at home; canis in praesepi [Lat.], foes to nobleness, temporizer, trimmer. V. be selfish &c adj.; please oneself, indulge oneself, coddle oneself; consult one's own wishes, consult ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and afterwards William. For this Drake calls him "a meer worldling and an odious time-server." He is said, however, to have exacted an oath from William that he would rule Normans and Saxons alike. Afterwards he excommunicated William for disregarding his oath, but William is said ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... acquaintances. All that is definitely known is that he now and then emerged from the struggle to dine at the Ritz or Carlton, correctly garbed and with a correctly critical appetite. On these occasions he was usually the guest of Lucas Croyden, an amiable worldling, who had three thousand a year and a taste for introducing impossible people to irreproachable cookery. Like most men who combine three thousand a year with an uncertain digestion, Lucas was a Socialist, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... with a little half—foreign gesture of thanks, and left him—left him, moreover, with the desire to see more of her. It seemed that she knew the secret of that other worldling, Tony Cornish, that the way to rule men is to make them want something and keep them wanting. As Roden passed through the hall he paused, and entered into conversation with the hall porter. During the course ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... his privacy was invaded by some patronizing, loud-voiced nouvelle-riche with a low-bred physiognomy that no millions on earth could gild or refine, and manners to match; some foolish, fashionable, would-be worldling, who combined the arch little coquetries and impertinent affectations of a spoilt beauty with the ugliness of an Aztec or an Esquimau; some silly, titled old frump who frankly ignored his tea-making wife and daughters and talked to him only—and only about her grotesque ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... shoulders, and doing his duty; but I don't see that you good people are at all moved in his behalf. You leave him to fight his way by himself, and confer your benefits elsewhere, which is an odd sort of lesson for a worldling like me. As for Gerald, you know he's a virtuous fool, as I have heard you all declare. There is nothing in the world that I can see to prevent him keeping his living and doing as he pleases, as most parsons do. However, that's his own business. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... worldling craves, And greatness need ambitious knaves, The lover of his maiden raves; O Lord! I ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... give a distinct and aristocratic character to their name. The "de Fontanges l'Hommadieu" were, however, only known to their neighbors, after the Western fashion, by their stepfather's name,—when they were known at all—which was seldom. For the boy was unpleasantly conceited as a precocious worldling, and the girl as unpleasantly complacent in her role of ingenue. The household was completely dominated by Mrs. Randolph. A punctilious Catholic, she attended all the functions of the adjacent mission, and the shadow of a black soutane at twilight gliding through the wild oat-fields ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... egotism softens at once towards a playful child; or as you see in middle life, some misanthrope, whose nature has been soured by wrong and sorrow, shrink from his own species, yet make friends with inferior races, and respond to the caress of a dog,—so, for the worldling or the cynic, there was an attraction in the freshness of this joyous favourite of Nature,—an attraction like that of a beautiful child, spoilt and wayward, or of a graceful animal, half ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he was doing, and the influence of the present tragedy upon his future as a painter. It would either destroy him or it would be the fire out of which he would rise a master; he would degenerate into a heartless worldling, which he might very well do, for he was fond of society, or he might become a gloomy recluse, and produce pictures which the multitude would never know were painted with tears and blood. "Of course, I don't mean literally; the idea is rather disgusting; but you know what I mean, Cornelia. ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... wonder if some woman's face, Seen at some rout in his old worldling days, Haunts him e'en now, e'en here, and urges him To ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... Etherington. "Since we are condemned to shock each other's eyes, it is fit the good company should know what they are to think of us. You are a philosopher, and do not value the opinion of the public—a poor worldling like me is desirous to stand fair with it.—Gentlemen," he continued, raising his voice, "Mr. Winterblossom, Captain MacTurk, Mr.—what is his name, Jekyl?—Ay, Micklehen—You have, I believe, all some notion, that this gentleman, my near relation, and I, have some undecided claims on each ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... not asked for churches and services; they really do not care for anything of the kind—whether they ought is another matter. If the clergy choose to supply them, that is well and worthy. But they should understand their relation to the impenitent worldling, which is precisely that of a physician without a mandate from the patient, who may not be convinced that there is very much the matter with him. The physician may have a diploma and a State certificate authorizing him to practise, but if the patient do not deem himself bound to be practised ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... eyes," she said, "it has a pathetic air of loneliness—pathetic and yet not exactly sorrowful. It knows nothing but its own pure, brave, silent life. It is only pathetic to a worldling—worldlings like us. How fallen we must be to find a life desolate because it has only ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of a poet is not in accordance with his song, it may be suspected that the song itself is not genuine. Who can be a poet, and yet be a worldling in his passions and habits? An artificial poet is a disgusting dealer in trifles: nothing but the predominance of strong and unstimulated feeling will give that inspiration without which it is worse than an empty sound. When the passion is factitious, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... they found, who had for years been tried: Who by Paul's test was willing to abide; Well knowing the advice which he had given To Ephesian Elders; and how he had striven To labor with his hands for the support Of self and friends, oft made the worldling's sport. ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... say it so badly; and I know it, because, as I tell you, Peter and I are just the same sort at heart. I've been teasing him, pretending to be a worldling, but foreign travel and entertaining in London are just about as unsuited to me as to Peter. I—I'm glad"—she uttered a quick, little sob—"that I—I played my part well while it all lasted; but you know it wasn't so much me as my looks that ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... such a set of limitations that there are but a few jokes which they may tolerate, and a small number of delights into which they may enter. Doubtless many a cheerful soul likes to meet such of the clergy, in order that the worldling may feel the contrast of liberty with bondage, and demonstrate by bombardment of wit and humor, how intellectually thin are the walls against which certain forms of skepticism and fun offend. Eugene Field did ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... Corinthian offender is much in point, as showing how the strict discipline of the Church must have availed to make Christianity unpopular with the mere worldling. ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... an Indian attack upon the emigrant train, and here "Rosalie" displayed the archest heroism and the pinkest and most distracting self-possession, in marked contrast to the giddy worldling who, having accompanied her apparently for comic purposes best known to himself, cowered abjectly under wagons, and was pulled ignominiously out of straw, until Red Dick swept out of the wings with a chosen band and a burst ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... things that are a transport to the soul if we take them as they are, but that become a torment and an abomination if we water them down. And it is just because Christianity itself is so distinctive, so outstanding, so boldly pronounced a thing, that we insist on its being unadulterated. Even a worldling feels that a Christian, to be tolerable, must be out and out. The man who waters down his religion is like the shivering bather who, feeling the cold, cold waters tickling his toes, cannot muster up the courage to plunge; ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... it from the ground it occupies. But from the mouth of the grave the world retires; it shrinks from the contest there; it leaves a clear and open space in which the Gospel can assert its claims and unveil its glories without opposition or fear. There the infidel and worldling look anxiously around—but the world has left them helpless, and fled. There the Christian looks around, and lo! the angel of mercy is standing close by his side. The Gospel kindles a torch which not only irradiates the valley ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... general society, had done nothing, apparently, to lower the tone of his happiness. The expression of this happiness was noiseless and unobtrusive; no marks were there of vulgar uxoriousness—nothing that could provoke the sneer of the worldling; but not the less so entirely had the society of his young wife created a new principle of life within him, and evoked some nature hitherto slumbering, and which, no doubt, would else have continued to slumber till his death, that, at moments when he believed himself unobserved, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of thought is not incompatible with sincere religion. Those who knew Bunsen well, know how that deep, religious undercurrent of his soul was constantly bubbling up and breaking forth in his conversations, startling even the mere worldling by an earnestness that frightened away every smile. It was said of him that he could drive out devils, and he certainly could, with his solemn, yet loving voice, soften hearts that would yield to no other ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... defied all Lumley's diplomacy, been consoled for worldly disadvantages, and been a good and even uxorious husband. But she evidently did not love him, though an admirable, patient, provident wife; and her daughter did love him—love him as well even as she loved her mother; and the hard worldling would not have accepted a kingdom as the price of that little fountain of pure and ever-refreshing tenderness. Wise and penetrating as Lumley was, he never could thoroughly understand this weakness, as he called it; ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man of the world—who, unlike the needy knife-grinder, had a story—told it. After getting on the boat, Spring Chicken had been taking mint with sugar and something; and he took it once too often. Seeing this, the worldling tried to get him forward to his state-room; but, as we passed the fort, a jolly passenger, who had also taken mint, waved his hat at the fortification and ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... of gaining a glimpse of the hidden personality—not the half-sceptical, pleasant, friendly Blake of the boy's acquaintance, but Blake the dreamer, the idealist who sought some grail of infinite holiness figured in his own imagination, zealously guarded from the scoffer and the worldling. A swift desire pulsed in her to share the knowledge of this quest—to see the face of the knight illumined for his adventure—to touch the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... tragedy, and that subtlety of handling which makes the main interest to depend upon motive and thought rather than upon the external action itself. "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,"—that might be the motto. The young quasi-hero is Julian, an ambitious worldling of no family, and his use of the Church as a means of promotion, his amours with several women and his death because of his love for one of them, are traced with a kind of tortuous revelation of the inner workings of the human heart which in its way declares genius in the ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... experience an urgent desire of promotion sprang up in his breast. This fighter by vocation resolved in his mind to seize showy occasions and to court the favourable opinion of his chiefs like a mere worldling. He knew he was as brave as any one and never doubted his personal charm. It would be easy, he thought. Nevertheless, neither the bravery nor the charm seemed to work very swiftly. Lieutenant Feraud's engaging, careless truculence of a "beau sabreur" underwent ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... more than any other man in France, was accountable for the enormous luxury of the court, and the squalid misery of the people. He knew better. He was professedly a disciple of Jesus Christ, and yet a more thorough worldling could hardly have been in Christian or in pagan lands. He was one of the most gigantic robbers of the poor of which history ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... reserve was her self-armour against the bolts of the Philistines. What worldling would not have read mania in much that was spoken by this sane woman? Yet, indeed, if we were all to find the power to give expression to our inmost thoughts, madness and sanity would have to change places in ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... an entertaining companion, polished in manners, refined, intelligent, highly educated and witty; but a mere worldling, caring for the pleasures and rewards of this ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... undervalue the sterling worth of the genuine Christian, because it is blended with some obvious, or even some glaring incongruities. Let us equally beware of attributing undue value to the good qualities of the worldling, and thus annihilate the distinction between the natural and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... be ill and none else but ill; * For suspicion is best of the worldling's skill: Naught casteth a man into parlous place * But good opinion ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... wise Subtle One trust worldly things * Rest thee from all whereto the worldling clings: Learn wisely well naught cometh by thy will * But e'en as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... hated Cardinal Medici, and drove him away from Rome. It is probable that this antipathy contributed something to Giovanni Angelo's elevation. Of humble Lombard blood, a jurist and a worldling, pacific in his policy, devoted to Spanish interests, cautious and conciliatory in the conduct of affairs, ignorant of theology and indifferent to niceties of discipline, Pius IV. was at all points the exact opposite of the fiery Neapolitan noble, the Inquisitor and fanatic, the haughty trampler ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... good-nature, was simply a man of his time, troubled with no scruples that stood in the way of his success. Margaret, with a finer nature than either of them, stifling her scruples in an atmosphere of worldly-mindedness, was likely to go further than either of them. Even such a worldling as Carmen understood this. "I do things," she said to Mrs. Laflamme—she made anybody her confidant when the fit was on her—"I do things because I don't care. Mrs. Henderson does the same, but ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... youth's glorious fable flies, View not the world with worldling's eyes; Nor turn with weather of the time. Foreclose the coming of surprise: Stand where Posterity shall stand; Stand where the Ancients stood before, And, dipping in lone founts thy hand, Drink of the never-varying lore: Wise once, and wise ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... Fouquet, laughing, "my secrets are of too profane a character to confide them to a bishop, however great a worldling he may be." ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and lingering seeks thy shrine, On him but seldom, Power divine, Thy spirit rests. Satiety, And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, Mock the tired worldling. Idle Hope, And dire Remembrance, interlope, And vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: The bubble floats before: the spectre stalks behind. ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... a mere sense of the beautiful will often confer the clearest perceptions of the real nature of moral excellence. You may hear the devoted worldling, or the selfish sensualist, giving the highest and most inspiring lessons of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, and devotedness to God. Their lessons, truthful and impressive, because dictated by a keen and exquisite perception of the beautiful, which ever harmonizes with the precepts and doctrines ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... which was answered by an old servant, to whom Goethe announced himself. The servant disappeared, and the poet stood in the little, narrow corridor, smilingly looking to the study-door, and waiting for the "gates of wisdom" to open and let the worldling ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... if you were to oblige me to attend your sermons, as you have compelled me to read your pamphlet, the congregation would never believe that a man powdered and adorned like any worldling, could be in the right against a man dressed out in a large hat, with straight hair,* and a mortified countenance, although the gospel, speaking of the pharisees of other times, who were unpowdered, says that when one fasts he must anoint his head ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... starry wing, that canst not soar, Confused power, still seeking, still unblest; For ever clutching to a braggart breast The hope portentous and the worldling's lore. Furiously futile, with a raucous roar Thy dizzy moments mock th' eternal quest; To feverish ends, by factions fierce distrest, Toiling, a sanguine ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... the illegitimate risks of 'jumpin'.' He came to dine with them the day before the first Newmarket meeting. He had a soft spot for Sylvia, always saying to Lennan as he went away: "Charmin' woman—your wife!" She, too, had a soft spot for him, having fathomed the utter helplessness of this worldling's wisdom, and thinking ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... entrapping baits To hasten too too hasty fates Unles it be The fond credulitie Of silly fish, which, worldling like, still look Upon the bait, but never on the hook; Nor envy, 'nless among The birds, for price of their ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton |
