"Paltry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that, apparently in terror lest suicide should prove infectious, they treat in a brutal manner the remains of the man who has only had the courage to free himself from a burden too hard for him to bear. It is all selfishness—nothing else. They love their paltry selves so much that they count it a greater sin to kill oneself than to kill another man—which seems to me absolutely devilish. Therefore, the vox populi, whether it be the vox Dei or not, is not nonsense merely, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... know that men of the Dwining stamp, when they have had the control of nations, often do good simply from the dictates of superior wisdom—the wisdom of the serpent—which, no Ramorney ever did. The skill with which the crawling, paltry leech controls his fierce lord; the contempt for his power and pride shown in Dwining's adroit sneers, and above all, the ease with which the latter casts into the shade Ramorney's fancied superiority in wickedness, is well set forth—and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... too, O often from the soul men say, Along their couches holding of the cups, With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry: "Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man, Soon, soon departed, and thereafter, no, It may not be recalled."—As if, forsooth, It were their prime of evils in great death To parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought, ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... corner of the world. I would return to Paris, where so many of my friends swarmed; where my services would be eagerly accepted; where I would carve out fortune with my sword, and might, through success, make my paltry birthplace, and the false Torella, rue the day when they drove me, a new Coriolanus, from her walls. I would return to Paris—thus, on foot—a beggar—and present myself in my poverty to those I had ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... world. They were engaged, and the lady answered the character given of her. The husband having had the part of a mere walking gentleman sent him for his first appearance, asked the manager, indignantly, how he could put him into so paltry a part. "Sir," answered the other, "here is your own letter, stating that you are the worst actor in the world." "True," replied the other, "but then I ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
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