"Displease" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... security, because he had offered peace and security, and had then broken his word. The captain, as he came with an evil intention, would not come on board. Seeing that he did not come alongside, the Admiral asked that he might be told the reason for the detention of his men, an act which would displease the King of Portugal, because the Portuguese received much honor in the territories of the King of Castile, and were as safe as if they were in Lisbon. He further said that the Sovereigns had given him letters of recommendation to all the Lords and Princes of the world, which he would ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... Publican; whereas the Pharisee was not accepted by Him. Now what did the Pharisee do? He did not even go so far as to behave in an unseemly, extravagant way: he was grave and solemn, and yet what he did was enough to displease God, because he took too much upon himself, and made too much of himself. Though grave and solemn, he was not reverent; he spoke in a haughty, proud way, and made a long sentence, thanking God that he was ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... with anxious breast The leader of the saints addressed: "Can aught that I have done displease, O reverend Sage, the devotees? Why are their loving looks, O say, Thus sadly changed or turned away? Has Lakshman through his want of heed Offended with unseemly deed? Or is the gentle Sita, she Who ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... to my last letter, I persuade myself there was nothing in it to displease you; otherwise your general politeness and your kind partiality to me would have led you to give me such instructions as might prevent me from falling into errors in the delicate business in which, under your countenance and with your ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Chester. "That's enough of this. I am sure Lieutenant Dennig meant no harm. I'm sure he'll apologize if he has said or done anything to displease you." ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... rashness, or through ignorance, thou hast, O Bhima, committed a sinful act. O hero, as thou art leading the life of an anchorite, this slaughter without cause is unlike thee. Acts, it is asserted by those versed in duties, as are calculated to displease a monarch, ought not to be committed. But thou hast, O Bhimasena, committed a deed which will offend even the gods. He that disregarding profit and duty, turneth his thoughts to sin must, O Partha, reap the fruit of his sinful actions. However, if thou seekest my good, never again commit such ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was delivered, Brutus gained great advantages in Macedonia over Caius Antonius, and took him prisoner. He treated him with great lenity, so much so as to displease Cicero, who remonstrated with him strongly on his design of setting him at liberty. He was also under some apprehension as to the steadiness of Plancus's loyalty to the senate; but on his writing to that body to assure them of his obedience, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... thought that greater measure of individual recognition on their own merits would have been conceded to birds that range in size from the dimensions of a sparrow to those of a duck. But no; an owl is just an owl. Why the soft and haunting cry of these birds should not merely displease, but actually alarm, so many people unaccustomed to such sounds of the gloaming and darkness it would be difficult to say; but the voice of owls may possibly owe some of its disturbing effect to contrast with their silent flight, which, thanks to their fluffy plumage, with its broad quills ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... disinclined to grant her request, lest it should displease the old Ma'amselle, of whom all her servants stood greatly in awe; but when Patty appealed to her hostess, and received a not very willing permission, the chauffeur allowed her to change seats with him, and really ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... do something to displease him, he turns all his guns on us, though probably his foreman has to borrow paper from our office to get the Statesman out. The General regards us as his natural prey and his foreman regards ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... I did more than that; I could not do a worse thing than I did to displease the old man. I was fond of scribbling my name everywhere. 'Gethin Owens' was on all the gateposts, and on the saddles and bridles, and once I painted 'G. O.' with green paint on the white mare's haunch. There was a squall when that was found ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... the man answered, speaking, to my astonishment, in good native-sounding English, "I'm sorry to displease, and I try to ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... an open orchyard, indifferent to all) doth soften wax, and harden clay; (my frutes will please the gentler, but offend the clayish or clownish sort, whom good things scarcely please, and I care not to displease). I know I have them not all, and you with readie (if I should say so) with Bate me an ace quoth Bolton, or Wide quoth Bolton when his bolt flew backward. Indeed here are not all, for tell me who can tell them; but here are the ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... feebleness and hearing an inward call to greater heights, it will always be cheering to hear those about me say, "Well done!" Of course in saying this they will inevitably hint that I have not yet reached an end, and their praises will displease unless I too am ready to acknowledge my incompleteness. But when this is acknowledged, praise is welcome and invigorating. I suspect we deal in it too little. If imagination were more active, and ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... try? If any trying were necessary, I would try rather not to love you. Why should I try to do that which would displease everybody belonging to me? For yourself, I admit your right to address me,—and tell you frankly that it would not be in vain, if I loved you. But I tell you as frankly that such a marriage would not please those whom I am bound ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... not be such slaves to the placing of words as to study transpositions longer than necessary, lest what we do in order to please, may displease by being affected. Neither let a fondness for making the composition flow with smoothness, prevail on us to set aside a word otherwise proper and becoming; as no word, in reality, can prove disagreeable enough to be wholly excluded, unless it be that in the ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... to cowardice. A duel puts one in an awkward light, and our King is not the mere shadow of a monarch. He knows how to make the highest in the state obey him, and I think that he acts like a wise Prince. When he needs my service, I have courage enough to perform it; but I have none to displease him. His commands are a supreme law to me; seek some one else to disobey him. I speak to you, Viscount, with entire frankness; in every other matter I am at your ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... diet was perhaps too nice, But gluttony was ne'er his vice: In every turn of life content, And meekly took what fortune sent; Inquire through all the parish round, A better neighbour ne'er was found; His vigilance might some displease; 'Tis true, he hated sloth ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... the warmest affection and admiration for Sara, but her manner even of evidencing her affection was commonly so entirely without tact, as rather to displease than please the object of it. The consciousness of this fact embittered much of Petrea's life; but it conducted her by degrees to a love in which tact and address are of no consequence, and which ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... gravely, "I would not like to hurt or displease Major Harrowby; and I do not like or dislike the connection;" adding, after a pause, and putting on her little ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... "but that isn't what you were going to say. You need not worry about me; I shall not do anything that would displease you." ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... imagine, be otherwise than most grateful for it. Weak people are seldom much given to gratitude: and even if they were, it is dearly that you purchase their allegiance; for there are few things which, on the long run, displease the public more than bad appointments. But, putting aside the political expediency either way, it is really a sacred duty in a statesman to choose fit agents. Observe the whirlpool of folly that a weak man contrives to create round ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... time that a Hungarian statesman has initiated European movement. If in Europe they are forced to displease Russia, so much the more will they wish to keep Russia in better humour by not thwarting her projects in Armenia, which projects I believe to be just, philanthropic, and necessary under the circumstances; since the inability of the Sultan to ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... bardes, which are to them instead of poets; whose profession is to set forth the praises or dispraises of men, in their poems or rhymes; the which are had in such high regard or esteem amongst them, that none dare displease them, for fear of running into reproach through their offence, and to be made infamous in the mouths of all men; for their verses are taken up with a general applause, and usually sung at all feasts and meetings, by certain other persons, whose proper function that is, who also receive, for the ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... control of all the forces affecting public opinion. The only way in which newspaper editors, reporters, lecturers, professors, teachers, theatre managers, and pulpit preachers could hope to accomplish, anything in the world was to do something to please the Government. To displease the Government meant to be silenced ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... time to time he made a remark, to which Maria Consuelo paid very little attention if she took any notice of it at all. Orsino could not make up his mind whether to stay or to go. The latter course would evidently displease Maria Consuelo, whereas by remaining he was clearly annoying Spicca and was perhaps causing him pain. It was a nice question, and while trying to make conversation he weighed the arguments in his mind. Strange to say ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... the Noblemen pressed agen and agen to try my Fortune with an other, I (seeing my Life was in the Lyon's paw, to struggle with whome for safety there was no way but one, and being afrayd to displease them) sayd: That if their Graces and Greatnesses would giue me leave to play at mine owne Countrey Weapon called the Quarter Staffe, I was then ready there an Oposite, against any Commer.' When a 'hansome and well Spirited Spaniard steps ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... tell me how it was that Paris did harm to Moore? Mentally, was it, and morally, or in the matter of the body? I have not seen the biography yet. Italy keeps us behind in new books. But the extracts given in newspapers displease me through the ignoble tone of 'doing honour to the lord,' which is anything but religious. Also, the letters seem somewhat less brilliant than I expected from Moore; but it must be, after all, a most entertaining book. Tell me if you have read Mrs. Gaskell's 'Ruth.' That's a novel which I much ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... enough yet, however, to make my favours an honest loss to my friends; but, before you depart, the book shall be examined, and every one of you shall receive from my privy purse, the same sum that you made by your business this day of the last week. Let not this honest act of generosity displease my heirs; it is the last waste I shall make of their stores: the rest of what I die possessed of is theirs by right, but my counsel, though directed to them only, shall be of public good to all. The good success, my dear children, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... the warp and woof of every book an author weaves much that even the subtlest readers cannot suspect, far less discern. To them it is but a cross and pile of threads interlaced to form a pattern which may please or displease their taste. But to the writer every filament has its own association: How each bit of silk or wool, flax or tow, was laboriously gathered, or was blown to him; when each was spun by the wheel of his fancy into yarns; the colour and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... what dissatisfies you, monsieur? Well I shall make inquiries. I love justice; and your claim, though made in military fashion, does not displease me." ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Does she not generally keep an accurate debit-and-credit account of what is due to her? Then the moment she feels her rights infringed upon, what is her usual course? She holds it her prerogative to set out upon a course of conduct eminently qualified to displease the very man whom it is her interest and her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... popular stage, and publike showes Ne're moves him, nor the ayre that blowes With swift applause; Hee's blest whose sprite Fall Fortune sad, or fall she light, Hath ne're exprest, to th'standers by, A low complaint, or haughty cry; But, lest the curious Fates displease— Hee should, ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... Province, 1624.—The Virginians thought this was a very good way to be governed. But King James thought that the new rulers of the Virginia Company were much too liberal, and he determined to destroy the company. The judges in those days dared not displease the king for he could turn them out of office at any time. So when he told them to destroy the Virginia charter they took the very first opportunity to declare it to be of no force. In this way the Virginia Company came to an end, ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... little volume, despite its local character, was kindly received by the Reviews. Here, it was plain, we had a poet who was to St. Andrews what the regretted J. K. S. was to Eton and Cambridge. This measure of success was not calculated to displease our ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... head to stand still, and neither blows nor entreaties could prevail with him to proceed. They were just recovering from this dismal situation when I found them; but perceiving everything safe, I own their present mortification did not much displease me, as it would give me many opportunities of future triumph, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... tears, "don't! I'm sure I didn't mean to be rude. Mrs. Geoff never did anything to displease me, and certainly I haven't a grudge against her. But I'm very tired, so please don't s-c-o-ld me; I've got no one ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... always been irritable, egoistic, and sensitive. As a girl if anything happened to "shock her nerves", i.e. to displease her, she fainted, vomited, or went into "hysterics." As a result her family treated her with great caution and probably were well pleased when she married off their hands and left ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... fiddler's melody. All except Elisinde who, when her betrothed came forward to lead her to the dance, pleaded fatigue, and remained seated in her chair, pale and distraught, and staring at the fiddler. This did not, to tell the truth, displease her betrothed, who was a clumsy dancer and had no ear for music. Breathless at last with exhaustion the guests begged the untiring fiddler to pause while they rested for a moment to get ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... hold court, and acted as if everybody owed duty to him. The conversation was always about my affair with his Royal Highness (her father), whose conduct towards me was always praised, while mine was blamed. Frontenac spoke ill of Prefontaine, and, in fine, said every thing he could to displease me and stir up my own people against me. He praised every thing that belonged to himself, and never came to sup or dine with me without speaking of some ragout or some new sweetmeat which had been served up on his table, ascribing it all to the excellence of the officers ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... sawe time with her husband, she prayed him verie earnestlie to haue her home to his own house, to auoyde slaunder and defamacion of neighbours. But sir Didaco knewe so well howe to vse his wife by delaies and promises, as she agreed vnto him in all thinges, and had rather displease the whole world together then offende him alone. Being now so attached with the loue of the knight as she cared for nothing els, but to please and content him in al things wherunto she sawe him disposed, and like as in the beginning she was harde and very slacke ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... LOYAL I'm not by way of being unwelcome here. My coming can, I think, nowise displease him; My errand will be found ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... as respects things unseen. No matter how well a bachelor may appear dressed, there is no telling what he conceals upon his person. I feel sure that the retrospective discovery of a ravelling would somehow displease Georgiana as a feature of our courtship. Nature is very stringent here, very guarded, truly universal. Invariably the young men of my day grow lavish in the use of unguents when they are preparing for natural selection; and I flatter ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... greatly touched, and made Mr. Swain many awkward acknowledgments, which he mercifully cut short. I asked him for a while to think over his offer. This seemed to please rather than displease him. And my first impulse on reaching the inn was to ask the captain's advice. I thought better of it however, and at length resolved to thrash ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... further letters to Appius and Caelius, written from various parts of the province, which cannot fail to displease us because we feel that Cicero is endeavoring to curry favor. He wishes to stand well with those who might otherwise turn against him on his reappearance in Rome. He is afraid lest Appius should be his enemy and lest Pompey should not be his friend. The practice ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... finding a wife for him, hoping that domestic responsibility would make him more steady. Aristide let himself be married. He had no very clear idea of his own ambitions at this time; provincial life did not displease him; he was battening in his little town—eating, sleeping, and sauntering about. Felicite pleaded his cause so earnestly that Pierre consented to board and lodge the newly-married couple, on condition ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... famous, not as a professional historian but as a literary critic and journalist. His fame allowed him to sell his books and articles and make a comfortable living without cow-towing to any government or university. He wrote as he saw fit, truthfully, even though it might displease ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and disposition, makes itself felt between one man and another as soon as they begin to talk: every little trifle shows it. When two people of totally different natures are conversing, almost everything said by the one will, in a greater or less degree, displease the other, and in many cases produce positive annoyance; even though the conversation turn upon the most out-of-the-way subject, or one in which neither of the parties has any real interest. People of similar nature, on the other hand, immediately come to feel a kind of general ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... deemed it prudent to detain two persons of consequence as hostages. His proposals were accepted. Near us lay twelve merchant ships, laden with two hundred thousand pounds' worth of goods; but, though we might easily have mastered them, the Admiral, knowing that it would displease your Majesty, refrained ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... lose her life rather than displease him, departed; but first she threw to the monster a cake of wax she had prepared, and spread around him a rope knotted with nooses. The beast took the bait, and, finding his teeth glued together by the wax, vented his fury in bounds and leaps, and, soon getting entangled in the nooses, drew them ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... is so sarcastic. I do not like him, and yet I would not displease him, although he is ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... having anything of my own to send you in return—though, to tell truth, I am at work upon something, which if I were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two that might not displease you; but I will not do that; and whether it will come to anything, I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter when I compose anything. I will crave leave to put down a few lines of old Christopher Marlow's; I take them from ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Pyrrhus marched to Tarentum; Kineas, as soon as he heard of his arrival, bringing out the Tarentine army to meet him. When he reached the city he did nothing to displease the Tarentines until his fleet returned to the coast and he had assembled the greater part of his army. But then, as he saw that the populace, unless ruled by a strong hand, could neither help him nor help themselves, but intended to stay idling about their baths and entertainments at home, while ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... done to displease you, dear Ernest?" again I asked. "Will you not speak to me and tell me, at least, in ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Desdemona was in a sad mood. She told Emilia that she must leave her; her husband wished it. "Dismiss me!" exclaimed Emilia. "It was his bidding, said Desdemona; we must not displease ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... his regulations and orders as often as someone is pleased to murmur against him. And shall God, whose laws concern a good so universal that all of the world that is visible to us perchance enters into it as no more than a trifling accessary, be bound to depart from his laws, because they to-day displease the one and to-morrow the other? Or again because a superstitious person, deeming wrongly that a monstrosity presages something deadly, proceeds from his error to a criminal sacrifice? Or because a good soul, who yet ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... She could not settle it in her mind what was right; between her mother's anger and her father's love, Daisy could not see what was just the plumb-line of duty. Singing would gain a hundred dollars' worth of good; and not singing would disobey her mother and displease her father; but then came the words of one that Daisy honoured more than father and mother "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day;" and she could not tell ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the less to deprive Lord John of a betrayed relish for being able to displease Lady Grace's odd guest by large assent. "As fast as ever he can—and you can land things there now, can't you? in three or ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... was not very fond of shopping, but this pious errand did not displease him in Nancy's company. A few minutes later, when they went out into the cold street, he felt warm and cheerful, and carried under his arm the flat parcel which held a large-print copy of the Scriptures and the little boys' books. Seeing Nancy again seemed to carry his thoughts back to ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... be so," cries Booth, "for I will never deny you anything. But make me easy too. I must know if you have seen anything in Colonel James to displease you." ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Peek, Fly,[104] and all Your jests so nominal, Are things so far beneath an able brain, As they do throw a stain Thro' all th' unlikely plot, and do displease As deep as PERICLES. Where yet there is not laid Before a chamber-maid Discourse so weigh'd,[105] as might have serv'd of old For schools, when they of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... which, in fact, he maintained throughout. "The emperor," wrote Lord Wiltshire to Henry, "is stiffly bent against your Grace's matter, and is most earnest in it; while the pope is led by the emperor, and neither will nor dare displease him."[259] From that quarter, so long as parties remained in their existing attitude, there was no hope. It seems to have been hinted, indeed, that if war broke out again between Charles and Francis, something might be done as the price of Henry's surrendering the French alliance;[260] ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... worries you, we could arrange something. There's no reason we should be near people who displease us or whom we displease, thanks to our money. We might even go away ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... or "deference" (Humanitas seu modestia), is the desire of acting in a way that should please men, and refraining from that which should displease them. ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... find little satisfaction—our household gods I mean—here, where the rigid demands of Hymen are mute before the ardent pleadings of Eros. Marriage is scarcely reckoned among the sacred things of life. But this opinion seems to displease you." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his companion. Ivanoff glanced at Sanine; he thought those words must surely remind him of Sarudine and the recent tragedy. Yet seemingly it was far from Sanine's thoughts, which surprised Ivanoff somewhat, yet did not displease him. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... He has said the great word, and son Gian' Battista is not tame." He seemed to be instructing the motionless and scared Giselle. . . . "A man should not be tame," he added, dogmatically out of the doorway. Her stillness and silence seemed to displease him. "Do not give way to the enviousness of your sister's lot," he admonished her, very grave, in his ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... absolute refusal. Being but a prince elector, he said, he might not aspire to so high an honour as to be favoured with the presence of an English ambassador. It was not the custom in Germany, and he feared that if he consented he should displease the emperor.[171] The meaning of such a reply delivered in a few hours was not to be mistaken, however disguised in courteous language. The English emissary saw that he was an unwelcome visitor, and that he must depart with the utmost celerity. "The elector," ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... mothers to retain these feelings throughout their future life, and to be assured that they will not please us by sorrowing and lamenting over us. But, if the dead have any knowledge of the living, they will displease us most by making themselves miserable and by taking their misfortunes too much to heart, and they will please us best if they bear their loss lightly and temperately. For our life will have the noblest end ...
— Menexenus • Plato
... you abandon me? Can that dear tongue be perjured? And can you this night disappoint your Sylvia? What have I done, oh obstinately cruel, irreconcileable——what, for my first offence? A little poor resentment and no more? A little faint care of my gasping honour, could that displease so much? Besides I had a cause, which you shall see; a letter that would cool love's hottest fires, and turn it to devotion; by heaven it was such a check——such a surprise——but you yourself shall judge, if after that I could say less, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... father's brother, or such one of the family as appears most qualified, assumes the post; not as a regent but in his own right; and the minor comes in perhaps at the next vacancy. If this settlement happens to displease any portion of the inhabitants they determine amongst themselves what chief they will follow, and remove to his village, or a few families, separating themselves from the rest, elect a chief, but without contesting the right of him whom they leave. The chiefs, when ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... But he said, "I will write a brief abstract for Mrs. Grandcourt to read." He did not suggest that he should make the whole communication in writing, which was a proof that the interview did not wholly displease him. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Jean Valjean had let fall, the gardener thought he could draw the inference that M. Madeleine had probably become bankrupt through the hard times, and that he was pursued by his creditors; or that he had compromised himself in some political affair, and was in hiding; which last did not displease Fauchelevent, who, like many of our peasants of the North, had an old fund of Bonapartism about him. While in hiding, M. Madeleine had selected the convent as a refuge, and it was quite simple that he should wish to remain there. But ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Hell, I should always have had the same fear of displeasing you. You know that even after my faults your caresses were a thousand times more insupportable than your rigors, and I would have a thousand times chosen Hell rather than displease you. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... us first receive him and after let tend and medicine him with such solicitude, should now see him suddenly put out of our house, sick unto death as he is, without it being possible for him to have done aught that should displease us. On the other hand, he hath been so wicked a man that he will never consent to confess or take any sacrament of the church; and he dying without confession, no church will receive his body; nay, he will be cast into a ditch, like a dog. Again, even if he do confess, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... so much in their own things, and therein cozen themselves, that very hardly can they escape this pestilence; and desiring to escape it, there is danger of falling into contempt; for there is no other way to be secure from flattery, but to let men know, that they displease thee not in telling thee truth: but when every one hath this leave, thou losest thy reverence. Therefore ought a wise Prince take a third course, making choyce of some understanding men in his State, and ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Be judge, all eyes, her face deserves it not; Then on what root grows this high branch of hate? Is she not loyal, constant, loving, chaste: Obedient, apt to please, loath to displease: Careful to live, chary of her good name, And jealous of your reputation? Is she not virtuous, wise, religious? How should you wrong her to deny all this? Good Master Arthur, let ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... some times that a person unknown shineth by his bright fame, whose presence offendeth and maketh dark the eyes of the beholders. We often hope to please others by our being and living with them, but often we displease them through the bad manners ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... theories of translation which the period afforded. In the preface to the first collection of Homilies he anticipates the disapproval of those who demand greater closeness in following originals. He recognizes the fact that his translation may displease some critics "quod non semper verbum ex verbo, aut quod breviorem explicationem quam tractatus auctorum habent, sive non quod per ordinem ecclesiastici ritus omnia Evangelia percurrimus." The Preface to Genesis suggests that the writer was familiar with ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... naturally hates its contrary as such. Now our enemies are contrary to us, as enemies, wherefore this itself should be hateful to us, for their enmity should displease us. They are not, however, contrary to us, as men and capable of happiness: and it is as such that we are bound to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... weather, however, could displease no one else in Hayslope besides Mr. Craig. All hands were to be out in the meadows this morning as soon as the dew had risen; the wives and daughters did double work in every farmhouse, that the maids might give their ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... an infallible consequence, that their sentiments of human actions, as well as of everything else, must be totally opposite, and that every instance of justice and humanity, from its necessary tendency, must please the one deity and displease the other. All mankind so far resemble the good principle, that, where interest or revenge or envy perverts not our disposition, we are always inclined, from our natural philanthropy, to give the preference ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... tender respect with which she always treated him. Even in their most intimate moments, he was still the great man, the superior order of being. She could not possibly have called him "Percival." Though he chided her for this attitude of respect, it did not displease him. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... John Davis, in the morning, to possess himself of their weapons, putting the company before the mast, and to leave a guard over their weapons, while they searched among the rice; doubting that by searching, and perhaps finding something that might displease them, they might suddenly set upon my men and put them to the sword, as actually happened in the sequel. But, beguiled by their pretended humility, Captain Davis would not take possession of their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... Kings will not listen to me as they listened to my predecessors. There is no religion now, nothing but wicked, worldly policy. The Prince of Orange is master. He governs us all. He has got such a hold on the Emperor and on the King of Spain that neither of them dares to displease him. God help us! He alone can help us." And, as the old man spoke, he beat the table with his hand in an agony of impotent ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... controversy. She went back first to a merry Hallowmas Eve long ago, among the Archfield party and other Winchester friends, and how the nuts had bounced in a manner which made the young ones shout in ecstasy of glee, but seemed to displease some of the elders, and had afterwards been the occasion of her being told that it was all folly, and therewith informed of Charles Archfield's contract to poor little Alice Fitzhubert. Then came other scenes. All the various ghostly tales she had heard, ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she would break off in the middle of a sentence, spring up from her seat, and march off so rapidly and so strangely, that it would, sometimes, put me to my wits' end to try and discover whether I had done or said anything to displease ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... natural repugnance: "Francis, if thou desirest to know My will, thou must despise and hate all that thou hast loved and wished for till now. Let not this new path alarm thee, for, if the things which now please thee must become bitter and distasteful, those which now displease thee, will become sweet and agreeable." Shortly before his death he declared that what had seemed to him most bitter in serving the lepers, had been changed into what was pleasing both for soul and body; and all those who strive to overcome themselves for the love of God feel, as he did, that the ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... there in an exploratory, auspicious manner—then placed each of his great thumbs on my temples, and pushed me a little way from him, and stared at me with glittering spectacles. The contemplation appeared to displease him, for he frowned sternly, and said to my father, drawing his ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... command of a vessel, for the idea of being captain was too flattering to my vanity to permit me to refuse; but reflection has again decided me not to engage in it further. I hope this communication will not displease you, Mr. Trevannion. If I am wrong in my opinion, at all events I am sincere, for I am giving up my only source of livelihood ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... silent. He did not want to displease his father; on the other hand, it was impossible to let things drift as they had been doing. There must be an understanding sooner ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... ill-usage. "Our Captain oblidges us to Wash our Linnen twice a week in Salt Water and to put 2 Shirts on every Week, and if they do not look as Clean as if they were washed in Fresh Water, he stops the person's Grog which has the misfortune to displease him; and if our Hair is not Tyd to please him, he orders it to be Cutt Off." On the Amphitrite "flogging is their portion." The men of the Winchelsea "wold sooner be Shot at like a Targaite than to Remain." The treatment systematically meted ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... behave well, the King will accord what you want: but it is absolutely necessary to begin by that.—PRINCE: I do nothing that can displease the King.—SCHULENBURG: It would be a little soon yet! But I speak of the future. Your Highness, the grand thing I recommend is to fear God! Everybody says, you have the sentiments of an honest man; excellent, that, for a beginning; but without the fear of God, your Highness, the passions stifle ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... party, but not a word was exchanged between us. Our hut was first completed, when our champion clambered aloft, and crowed defiance; three times he crowed (aloud), but no responding voice was heard from the opposite camp. This act was altogether voluntary on the part of our man, but it did not displease us, as the result convinced us that we stood on safe ground, should any violence be attempted. Our opponents were enraged at the want of spirit evinced by their men, and determined on being revenged upon us in a manner that showed the virulence of their animosity. A number of ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... paintings," says Cunningham, on which he reposed his hopes of fame, not one can be called commonplace—they are all poetical in their nature, and as poetically treated. "Some twenty of these alarm, startle, and displease; twenty more may come within the limits of common comprehension; the third twenty are such as few men could produce, and deserve a place in the noblest collections; while the remaining ten are equal in conception to anything that genius ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... innocent candor with which the deaf and dumb girl always showed her approval or dislike of strangers at a first interview—as also to her apparent perversity in often displaying a decided liking for the very people whose looks and manners had been previously considered certain to displease her—he was now almost as much surprised as Zack, when he witnessed her reception of Mat. It was an infallible sign of Madonna's approval, if she followed up an introduction by handing her slate of her own accord to a stranger. When ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... almost fiercely, but the words did not displease the girl. The forceful ring in his voice set something thrilling within her, and she knew by this time that his assertions seldom ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... several times in the Avenue d'Iena, and his host always proposed an early adjournment to this institution. Mrs. Tristram protested, and declared that her husband exhausted his ingenuity in trying to displease her. ...
— The American • Henry James
... but I must be short with you.] You are talking in the air, as lawyers will. I prefer to drop the subject [and it will displease me if you return to it ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... allowed to receive the presentments of juries. When, in the spring of 1170, the king returned to England after an absence of four years, he held a strict inquiry into the conduct of them all, and deposed twenty of them. In many cases, no doubt, the sheriffs had done things to displease Henry, but there can be no doubt that the blow thus struck at the sheriffs was, in the main, aimed at the great nobility. The successors of those turned out were of lower rank, and therefore more submissive. From this time it was ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... your sweet little sister Mary were still with us. But it has pleased God to remove them to another and a better world, and we must submit to the will of Providence. I must, however, request of you to think sometimes upon them, and to be very careful not to do anything that will displease or vex your mother. It is therefore proper that you do not roamp [Scottish indeed] too much about, and that ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I am, sir; and if it's wrong I'm sorry to displease you, but I mean no disrespect. I laugh in my sleep—I laugh when I awake—I laugh when the sun shines—I always feel so happy; but though you do mast-head me, Mr. Markitall, I should not laugh, but be very sorry, if any ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... cannot endure afflictions in ourselves, yet in thee we can; so, though thou canst not endure sin in us, yet in thy Son thou canst, and he hath taken upon himself, and presented to thee, all those sins which might displease thee in us. There is an eye in nature that kills as soon as it sees, the eye of a serpent; no eye in nature that nourishes us by looking upon us; but thine eye, O Lord, does so. Look therefore upon me, O Lord, in this distress and that will recall me from the borders of this bodily death; ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... checque for some tyme to his immoderate praetences and appetite of power. He did indeede appeare on the suddayne wounderfully elated, and so farr threw off his olde affectation to please some very much, and to displease none, in which arte he had excelled, that in few moneths after the Dukes death, he founde himselfe to succeede him in the publique displeasure, and in the malice of his enimyes, without succeedinge him in his creditt ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... was angry too, but not with so much single-heartedness as was Sir Donald. It could not quite displease him if the Holmes drifted apart. Yet he was fond enough of Lady Holme, and he was subtle enough, to be sorry for any sorrow of hers, and to understand it—at any rate, partially—without much explanation. Perhaps he would have been more sorry if Leo Ulford had ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... strong note of disapproval in his voice. "For what is a woman who does not marry and bear children? Nothing! She is a rose bush that never flowers, a grape vine that never fruits. She is useless, a weed that cumbers the earth. No, my daughter, you must marry, or displease your father ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... entreating that his communications with his interesting young friend (as the Major politely called Miss Fotheringay) should be carried on with the knowledge, if not approbation, of Mrs. Pendennis. "After all, Pen," the Major said, with a convenient frankness that did not displease the boy, whilst it advanced the interests of the negotiator, "you must bear in mind that you are throwing yourself away. Your mother may submit to your marriage as she would to anything else you desired, if you did but cry ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that large section of the public which likes or dislikes a picture according to whether its subject happens to please or displease them. Probably there was not one of the million or so child-and-cat eyesores at present in existence which she would not have liked. Besides, he had been very nice about ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse |
