"Irresponsible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... aimless laughter, childish pranks, mincing ways and numberless little tricks. She had, in short, called all her forces into play, being by turns straightforward and malicious, kind and rude, reserved and teasing, grave and frolicsome, like a wild thing, like a silly irresponsible child, but ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... governments have held sway since 1959. Current concerns include: a polarized political environment, a politicized military, drug-related violence along the Colombian border, increasing internal drug consumption, overdependence on the petroleum industry with its price fluctuations, and irresponsible mining operations that are endangering the rain forest ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... might be cited to show how the force of the law is invoked to minimize the effects of unhealthy living and to prevent that perfect individual liberty which a few irresponsible persons would assume to themselves. But it will always remain for the good sense of the individuals to direct their actions in such a way as to inflict no evil on the community. Unfortunately, laws are generally the result of some calamity. A law prohibiting child labor is passed ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... king: he is, as such, wholly irresponsible. He cannot be called to account for any act which he does in his capacity as monarch. But his ministers may be impeached. They have to assume and bear the responsibility of all royal acts. None of these acts are valid unless signed by one or more of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pleasing Zell's sparkle might be, it would hardly secure success and safety for life. But in his creed a girl's first duty was to be pretty and fascinating, and he was extremely proud of the beauty of his daughters. It was his plan to marry them to rich men who would maintain them in the irresponsible luxury that their mother ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... entrepreneurs. Small business is the path of advancement, especially for women and minorities, so we must free small businesses from needless regulation and protect honest job-creators from junk lawsuits. (Applause.) Justice is distorted, and our economy is held back by irresponsible class-actions and frivolous asbestos claims — and I urge Congress to pass legal reforms this ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... only summer people or irresponsible persons like myself waste time in freshwater fishing on the Cape—knew where Seabury's Pond was. It lay far from macadam roads and automobile thoroughfares and its sandy shores were bordered with verdure-clad hills shutting it in like the sides of a ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of suffrage can be exercised only periodically; and between the periods the legislators are wholly irresponsible. No despot was ever more entirely irresponsible than are republican legislators during the period for which they are chosen. They can neither, be removed from their office, nor called to account while ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... some bother to get a captain," he said. "The job has not much attraction for a sober man, but Brown is not sober; he's frankly reckless and irresponsible. The strange thing is, I've known him make good where cautious men have failed. Then much depends on the engineer. I brought you across to ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... soft, irresponsible days of April. The heavens clouded up and wept like a naughty child upon the least pretext; yet between the showers the sun warmed the glad earth, and coaxed the catkins into bloom, and even expanded the first buds of the huge lilac bush ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... retrospect of the part she had played in her prosperity, still there were moments of poignant grief when her very soul groaned within her. She was ambitious, and her ambition had been foiled; she loved irresponsible command, but the time had come when those over whom she ruled defied her; she was dictatorial and exacting, but she had lost the influence which alone makes people tolerate control. She incurred debts, and was doomed to feel the degradation consequent upon them. She thought to defy her ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Once when we had won some money from a man, he began to raise a fuss and carry on like one bereft of reason. Sherman humored him. He locked him up in the car, and told everybody that he was a lunatic that he was removing to the asylum—to keep away from him, as he was dangerous and entirely irresponsible. Then when the fellow got too noisy, Sherman went and said, "See here, old fellow, you had better keep still, for gambling is a penitentiary offense in this State, and you are just as much implicated as the man who ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... himself that his bitterness against his unhappy victim had been caused not so much by the wrong he had suffered at his hands as by the contempt which he (Richard) had entertained for him. Without materials such as his father had possessed to back his pretensions he had imagined himself a sort of irresponsible and sovereign being. (Such infatuation is by no means rare, nor confined to despots and brigands, and when it exists in a poor man it is always fatal to himself.) His education, if it could be called such, had doubtless fostered this delusion; but ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... a charter. He gave certain liberties and received in return passive obedience. He gained a sanction for the Oriental theory of government; in return he accepted the law of the Church. He became irresponsible to his subjects on condition of ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... Happy, irresponsible days, in which I learned to know and love the Chinese. I saw them now to best advantage, simple, patriarchal, industrious and thrifty, extraordinarily resourceful, and independent of all that their own fields and farm do not supply. I saw the women's activities, ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... made no answer. He was wise enough to understand he was no match in conversation for this irresponsible outcast who knew the great world as perfectly as the agent knew his junction. He turned away and stared hard at the silent sleeper, the appearance of which was ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... before. Not only locally, but throughout the country, the trial of the People vs. the Atlantic and Pacific et al. was recognized as the first serious effort of the reform administration to enforce the laws against capital, by convicting not merely the irresponsible agents but also some of the men "higher up." It was John Lane's position in the railroad that gave these ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... clever enough for two. Ursula understood, so why should she, Gudrun, bother herself? The younger girl lived her religious, responsible life in her sister, by proxy. For herself, she was indifferent and intent as a wild animal, and as irresponsible. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... busy with their honest work, are not aware what power is left in the hands of judges—wholly irresponsible to the people; few men know how they often violate the laws they are nominally set to administer. Let me take but a single form of this judicial iniquity—the Use of Torture, borrowing my examples from the history of our ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... slaves ill. It's damned nonsense that you hear in England.'—I told him quietly that it was not a man's interest to get drunk, or to steal, or to game, or to indulge in any other vice, but he did indulge in it for all that; that cruelty, and the abuse of irresponsible power, were two of the bad passions of human nature, with the gratification of which, considerations of interest or of ruin, had nothing whatever to do; and that, while every candid man must admit that ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... there is a sudden spring; and two little arms are round your neck, and you are being told, if you know how to listen, what a very tiresome thing it is to feel obliged to sin. Then, with the comforting sense of irresponsible kittenhood fully restored, Evu discovers some new diversion, and you find yourself weakly wishing kittens need ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... Lamb? We all know that old tale. But the Wolf, though a tyrant, was scarcely a cur. He bullied and lied, but he didn't turn pale, Or need poltroon terror as cruelty's spur. But a big, irresponsible, "fatherly" Prince Afeared—of a Jew? 'Tis too funny by far! The coldest of King-scorning cynics might wince At that comic conception, a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... Fellow, and was now one of His Majesty's judges; there another, who walked with sober mien in the leggings and tunic of a Bishop, and who, in his time, had dodged the Proctor and his bull-dogs as nimbly as the most irresponsible undergraduate of the moment—and so on through the whole ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... summer-house, expectant of him, it seemed, her lips parted, her eyes glowing. Rudolph Musgrave, looking down into twin vivid depths, for a breathing-space, found time to rejoice that he had refused to liken them to stars. Stars, forsooth!—and, pray, what paltry sun, what irresponsible comet, what pallid, clinkered satellite, might boast a purple splendor such as this? For all asterial scintillations, at best, had but a clap-trap glitter; whereas the glow of Patricia's eyes was a matter worthy of ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... pronounced the height of madness, if not wickedness. In short, they were introduced before their time into the arena of political perplexities. For all this the teacher was perhaps not very much to blame. He was swept on by a current which he could not resist even if he would. A "higher law," irresponsible at the time, and backed up by the persuasive bayonet, was an authority which brooked no resistance. He merely obeyed orders and earned his daily bread. Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the public schools lost a portion of their previous ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... conclusions were by their scientific investigations obliged to draw them, or whether they did not rather reach their religious and ethical view of the world by quite other ways, and whether they did not in a wholly arbitrary and irresponsible manner make extensive use of Darwinism in this anti-religious and ethically objectional direction—a fact which we shall try to prove in the last part of ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... hands, man-fashion, with her. "Glad to have you on the cops with us, Dalla," he said. Then he turned to Vall. "There was almost twenty-four hours between the time I heard about this and when this blasted Yandar Yadd got hold of the story. Of all the infernal, irresponsible—" He almost choked with indignation. "And it was another fourteen hours between the time Skordran sent in his report and I ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... that Mr. Butler was drunk at the time. This rests upon the evidence of Sergeant Flanagan and the troopers who accompanied him, and it rests upon Mr. Butler's own word, as we shall see. And let me add here and now that however wild and irresponsible a rascal he may have been, yet by his own lights he was a man of honour, incapable of falsehood, even though it were calculated to save his skin. I do not deny that Sir Thomas Picton has described him as a "thieving blackguard." But I am sure that this was merely the ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... fawned on. Their lovers were not Marseilles tradesmen or obscure soldiers and journalists (like Junot and Freron), but brilliant Generals and men of the great world; and among them Napoleon now sought a husband for his prettiest and most irresponsible sister. ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... influence of Nepenthe can make Northern people irresponsible for their actions? Keith does. Or how about the sirocco? Can it upset their nerves ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... frontier provinces of the republic this irresponsible power of the soldiery was peculiarly despotic and harassing. There, two causes contributed to establish and keep it in the ascendency. One of these was the revolutionary condition of the country, which, as elsewhere, had become chronic. The contest ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... judge for the guidance of the jury, who were fully instructed as to what the law required to establish the insanity of its prisoner, and to prove that "lesion of the will" which would render a human being irresponsible for his acts. These verdicts, undoubtedly, gave rise to a grave discussion, whether the law, as it now stands, was sufficiently stringent to have reached these cases; and though this question was decided in the affirmative, the mere entertaining of the doubt afforded ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... people of Israel, seeing many of them were incapable of entering into an agreement? The truth is this, the Lord made a covenant in the sense of a "Testament" or institution. This sense alone admits of the irresponsible in its provisions. In the argument from analogy, drawn from the introduction of the New Testament, our position is confirmed. The Savior's death gave force to this testament or will, without any concurring action upon the part of any man or number of men. And it is a covenant in the ...
— The Christian Foundation, May, 1880
... thing; for the praise we give to a {167} well-poised spring-cart is one thing, and the praise we give to a well-poised character is another. And again, given a man who really believed, or whom it suited to believe, that he was quite irresponsible for his actions, and that no morally valid censure could attach to him for gratifying some appetite or passion, one cannot help suspecting that the result would be something much worse than mere laxity. That most ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... the Mississippi. Chicago's drainage canal pollutes him. The flat, lazy Platte, three miles wide and three inches deep; the peevish, destructive Kaw, and all those streams that unite to form the treacherous, sinful, irresponsible lower Missouri; the big, muddy Ohio, the Arkansas, the Red, the black and the blue floods—all these pour ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... him to submit to Geary's dictatorship and he thus early began to contract easy, irresponsible habits, becoming indolent, shirking his duty whenever he could, sure that Geary would think for the two and pull him out of any difficulty into which he ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... brother of the slain man, seemed to accept the tragedy with a sorrowful resignation in which no shadow of revenge appeared. He let it be known that Matt had been irresponsible at times, given to night-prowlings and outbreaks of violence of strange and fantastic forms. How much truth there was in this excuse for the dead man, Hector alone knew. But no matter for his passivity, Mackenzie did not trust him. He made a requisition on Tim Sullivan at once for revolvers for ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... and have them served to them in their cells; they can hold communication with one another and with the outer world; I suppose they might wear evening dress after six o'clock if they wanted to. They are not victims of despotic and irresponsible power, and this is not only good for them, but also for the keepers, who are not led into the degradation and monstrous inhumanities which the possession of such power ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... admonition had any effect upon Edward. At the age of thirty he was as irresponsible as he was when he was thirteen years old. He promised his mother at Avignon most solemnly to reform, and at once got into mischief. "I am persuaded," Lady Mary said, "whoever protects him will be very soon convinced of the impossibility ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... suffering was lost; and also this—this moment of elation in the clear morning, as if the universe had shed its glory upon my feelings as the sunshine glorifies the sea. I laughed in very lightness of heart, in a profound sense of success; I laughed, irresponsible and oblivious, as one laughs in the thrilling delight ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... like a vengeful fiend's. And then a day when she got word to meet her mother in the park of the castle. How she clung to her and cried and sobbed to be taken, too! And they—Mimo and the mother—always so kind and loving and irresponsible, consented. And then the flight; and weeks of happiness in luxurious hotels, until the mother's face grew pinched and white, and no letters but her own—returned—came from Uncle Francis. And ever the fear grew that if Mimo were absent from her for a moment ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... risks, the triumphs, and look beyond to fame and rewerd, but they know nothing of the miserable envies and jealousies, the sespicions, the checks and counterchecks, and the demnable policy of the depertment, encouraging these irresponsible informers, dem 'em, to break up all legitimate business and merder honest men. O Nesh, my pore dead friend, yo're avenged in a wey, bet who's going to avenge yore pore sister, and even this devil of a Flower or Herding, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... to the loyalty of the Portuguese, and declaring the policy desired by the mother country; which policy was—to divide Brazil into a number of petty states, easy to be intimidated and controlled. As this scheme held out large promise of irresponsible power to influential persons in such anticipated states—it could scarcely fail to be agreeable to many expectants of office, whose interest it therefore was to prevent the consolidation of the empire, by promoting ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... aloud, "I could love him if it were not for his deadly practicability—even if I should have to live in Cincinnati." And straightway fell to comparing the two men. "Tex is absurdly unconventional in speech and actions, and he has an adorable disregard for laws and things. He's just a big, irresponsible boy—and yet, he makes you feel as if he always knew exactly what to do and how to do it. And he is brave, too, with a reckless, devil-may-care sort of bravery that takes no thought of cost or consequences. He knew, when he let go his bridle reins, that he couldn't ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... allowed you to hire ignorant, wilful, and incompetent servants to go upon the road and injure the lives and property of innocent people without redress save against the servants, who perchance might be financially irresponsible. It should however be stated in this connection that if your team should get away from you or your servant, without any fault on your or his part, and should run away and do great damage, by colliding with other teams, or by running over people on foot, you would not be held responsible, as in ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... before the election there was a Liberal meeting in the Town Hall, and a certain section of the Tory party, a youthful and irresponsible section it must be confessed, had arranged to attend the meeting, and if possible bring it to nought. The ringleader in this scheme was a young man named Rabbich, whose people some years before had bought a large property in a village ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... Daniel Van den Berg enjoyed a fortune and a reputation so well established that many people refused to believe in the abominable instincts which dominated him. The matter was discussed from every conceivable point of view. Some held that he was a somnambulist and irresponsible for his acts; others that he was a murderer through love of blood, having no other possible motive for committing these crimes. Perhaps both were right, for it is an undeniable fact that moral being, will, soul, whatever name you choose to call it ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... desire to retain my official position. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, no man who has not served for long and sometimes very weary years as a public official, and has not been a target for numerous more or less irresponsible individuals whose hands were filled with mud and who were actuated by a fixed desire to throw it at something, can appreciate as keenly as I do the manifold blessings which attend the life ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... psychiatrist be appointed to advise the Prisons Department as to the classification and treatment, and that he be available to the Courts for the examination, before sentence, of sexual offenders, or of offenders who are thought to be irresponsible ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... Miss Morgan," interrupted Harley, with dignity. "In my profession, as in all others, there are irresponsible persons, but the great majority of its followers are conscientious and industrious. If you ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... playing truant. There they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of May or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping marbles with their thumbs, quarrelling over half-farthings, irresponsible, volatile, free and happy; and, no sooner do they catch sight of you than they recollect that they have an industry, and that they must earn their living, and they offer to sell you an old woollen stocking filled with cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs. These encounters with strange children ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... of lynch law, tuck the miner's breeches into his boots a little further, and amputate the tail of the badger. We do not care for the other changes, as they were only intended to give the engraver a job, but when an irresponsible legislature amputates the tail of the badger, the emblem of the democratic party that crawls into a hole and pulls the hole in after him, it touches us in ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... much additional expense, and most likely a whisky-drinking, irresponsible, and incapable man to boot. Besides, I'd have the business more at heart than any man we could hire. As for capability, I tell you I can sail all around the average broken captain or promoted able seaman you find in the South Seas. And you know I am ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... rendered irresponsible by the force of the hurricane, which made the very thought of action utterly vain. Besides, being very young, he had found the occupation of keeping his heart completely steeled against the worst so engrossing that he had come to feel an overpowering ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... friends, or of the law; while another may be in possession of intellectual faculties capable of lucid exertion for the highest purposes, and yet be so mad that bodily restraint upon him is indispensable. We know that the sane man is responsible for what he does, and that the insane man is irresponsible; but we do not know,—we only guess wildly, at the state of mind of those, who now and again act like madmen, though no court or council of experts has declared them to be mad. The bias of the public mind is to press heavily on such men till the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... their public affairs; and, second, they require LEADERSHIP. It takes close attention to public affairs to enable a citizen to make wise decisions for himself; and the average citizen looks around for guidance. The absence of RESPONSIBLE leadership gives the irresponsible "boss" his chance. ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... rather. The game where chance hasn't a show—the game of the intelligent future. That very irregular and disconcerting move of his.... And he got taken, you might say. She's an irresponsible beast, your queen." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... French garrisons in the Prussian fortresses of Glogau, Kuestrin, and Stettin were to be maintained at the expense of Prussia. The suppression of the monasteries in Silesia was far from lucrative, the commissioners, who were irresponsible, carrying on a system of pillage, and landed property having greatly fallen in value. The most extraordinary imposts of every description were resorted to for the purpose of raising a revenue, among other means, a third of all the gold and silver in the country was called in. A coinage, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... was done. He, however, insisted that the business should be conducted by the constituted tribunals and under the regular forms of law. "The responsibility of this measure," said Napoleon, "must rest with the legislative body. The consuls are irresponsible. But the ministers are not. Any one of them who should sign an arbitrary decree, might hereafter be called to account. Not a single individual must be compromised. The consuls themselves know not what may happen. As for me, while ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... agreed; but this extraordinary function must not be vested in the Executive; on the contrary, it must be, it is, vested in the Legislature. Stevens did not hesitate to push his theory to its limit. He was not afraid of making the Legislature in time of war the irresponsible judge of its own acts. Congress, said he, has all possible powers of government, even the dictator's power; it could declare itself a dictator; under certain circumstances he was willing ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... that, boy!" Then, in glad relief, he fell upon his knees beside the couch, praying, in discreetly veiled language, that the pure heart of a babbler might not be held guilty for the utterances of an irresponsible head. ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... States. In spite of the plain fact that a separate Ireland would weaken civilisation and menace the world's peace by introducing a hostile and undependable wedge betwixt the two major parts of Saxondom, these irresponsible elements continue to encourage rebellion in the Green Isle; and in so doing tend to place this nation in a distressingly anomalous position as an abettor of crime and sedition against the Mother ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... geographical at all. The internal management of railways ought not to be in the hands of the geographical state, for reasons which we have already considered. Still less ought it to be in the hands of a set of irresponsible capitalists. The only truly democratic system would be one which left the internal management of railways in the hands of the men who work on them. These men should elect the general manager, and a parliament ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... passing muster at a club, since he had done so at home. He carried the names of two of Rochester's clubs in his mind, the Pelican and the Senior Conservative. The latter seemed the more stodgy, the least likely to offer surprises in the way of shoulder clapping, irresponsible parties who might want to enter into ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... world has had a darker or a sadder history than this land of the Incas. The Spaniards arrived when the "Children of the Sun" were at the height of their prosperity. "The affair of reducing the country was committed to the hands of irresponsible individuals, soldiers of fortune, desperate adventurers who entered on conquest as a game which they had to play in the most unscrupulous manner, with little care but to win it. The lands, and the persons as well, of the conquered races ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... loved to come into sympathy and spiritual communion with his brothers of the animal kingdom, whose inarticulate souls had for him something of the sinless purity that we attribute to the innocent and irresponsible child. He had faith in their instincts, as in a mysterious wisdom given from above; and while he humbly accepted the supposedly voluntary sacrifice of their bodies to preserve his own, he paid homage to their spirits in ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... all so like her old, childlike, charming, irresponsible self, that Clarence, troubled and bewildered as he was, took her hands and drew her like a ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... of her obligations. Hurled from the office bestowed by his fellow-citizens, so far as he could he protected their interests, at the hazard of the horrors of Fort Pulaski and the sweat-box—the favorite instruments of torture of this infamous defendant of an irresponsible Congress, and now for personal safety, exiled from home and country, finds protection under a foreign flag. This one act alone will be sufficient to immortalize the name of Charles J. Jenkins, and to swell with pride the heart of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... his actions, Douglas must ultimately be judged by the significance which this position in which he placed himself assumed in his own mind. Friendly critics excuse him: an interpretation of the Dred Scott decision which explained it away as an irresponsible utterance on a subject outside the scope of the case, a mere obiter dictum, is the justification which is called in to save him from the charge of insincerity. His friends, today, admit that this interpretation was bad law, but maintain that it may have been ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... near her, his roving eyes full of bold curiosity bent on her from time to time, his idle fingers plaiting a little wreath out of long-stemmed clover and boutons d'or, he appeared merely an intrusive, irresponsible young fellow willing to amuse himself with a few moments' rustic courtship here before ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... thousand years of training in the teaching of the gospel! And besides, whom are we to hate? The individual doing his duty in the service of his country, just as we are? Or the responsible governors of the destinies of that country, and the irresponsible leaders of its public opinion?" Hatred of the individual serving his country and governed by others Prof. Gomperz does not stop to discuss. It can obviously be the product only of what with etymological correctness we may term insanity. The governors ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... Doctrine or to extend its application so as to cover the constantly increasing number of disputes arising from the reckless creation of public debts and loose financial administration. It was absurd for us to stand quietly by and witness the utterly irresponsible creation of financial obligations that would inevitably lead to European intervention and then undertake to fix the bounds and limits of that intervention. It is interesting to note that President Wilson did not hesitate to carry the new policy to its logical ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... the connection of the two worlds, the physical and the spiritual, and communication between them in the subjective or irresponsible way, the question naturally arises, "Is there not another way of communication? May not the Individual Intelligence on the physical plane communicate with the denizens of the spiritual plane at his own volition, independently? May he not learn to see and hear them without attempting, or desiring ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... opportunities for ambuscade were many and good. No one can blame Montezuma for taking these precautions, although he afterwards disowned any participation in them and said that the arrangements had been made by some irresponsible subjects, and Cortes ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... sore point with Nora—and, if the truth were told, with John, who had an orderly mind. Although he adored his flyaway, irresponsible mother, it was in spite of her ways ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... himself was for the moment the object of enthusiasm of this irresponsible crowd, he could not doubt for an instant. That this same irresponsible enthusiasm was leading the crowd to treachery and rebellion ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... laughter, of strong and beautiful though erring souls; it was at once poignant and tender; it vibrated with drama; it was instinct with calm and kindly wisdom. In my humility, I found I had not known my Adrian one little bit. As the shepherd of old who had a sort of patronizing affection for the irresponsible, dancing, flute-playing, goat-footed creature of the woodland was stricken with panic when he recognised the god, so was I convulsed when I recognised the genius of my friend Adrian. And the fellow still went on dancing and flute-playing ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... phraseology of the minor prophets. Possibly it was in order to emphasise his well-known claims to verbal inspiration, or perhaps he thought with Voltaire that Habakkuk etait capable de tout, and wished to shelter himself under the shield of a definitely irresponsible writer none of whose prophecies, according to the French philosopher, has ever been fulfilled. The idea was clever enough at the beginning, but ultimately the manner became monotonous. The spirit of the Hebrews is excellent but ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... beau, the half-insane tippler, could she not have seen her doom in being affianced to one of these poor pageants of humanity? Ah, but "she loved; she could not help loving;" she gave herself a victim at the profane shrine, because she always thought she must love where and whom, her unbidden, irresponsible, feelings should direct her ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... It was an utterly irresponsible gathering that leaned over the red tablecloth that night—an oddly assorted group which, from the very first, Joe realized was not at all to Wickersham's liking. Dexter Allison himself, fairly radiating good-will, sat at the foot ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... closer to her. He was so young—and yet so old—so happy, and yet so lonely. She wanted to give him back a careless, happy, irresponsible childhood, full of frolicking fun and mischief, without care or serious thought. She longed to see him grubby-fisted bare-footed, tousle-haired, shouting and wrestling with her young tykes of brothers. It was not natural or happy to see a child so elfin, ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... against these principles argues against the practicability of all free governments. And whoever admits these, must admit, or cannot deny, that power is as safe in the hands of Congress as in those of other representative bodies. Congress is not irresponsible. Its members are agents of the people, elected by them, answerable to them, and liable to be displaced or superseded, at their pleasure; and they possess as fair a claim to the confidence of the people, while they continue to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... dentistry has been abused by the owners of stock allowing the services of irresponsible men in the veterinary profession, who do not look to the betterment of the animal's condition. The owner of the animal, not being able to see the condition of the animal's teeth for himself, is persuaded into having the animal's ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... Delightful, irresponsible "Mary Jane's Pa" awakes one morning to find himself famous, and, genius being ill adapted to domestic joys, he wanders from home to work out his own unique destiny. One of the most ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... mere child," he cried, in a wail to Heaven; "a mere"—he paused, groping for an adequate definition—"a mere irresponsible female orphan! And nobody with ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... statesmen told me that there was everything to be feared for the future of Europe where some three hundred millions, the inhabitants of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, about two-thirds of the whole continent, were governed in an almost irresponsible manner by a man without will or intelligence, the Tsar of Russia; a madman without a spark of genius, the German Kaiser, and an obstinate old man hedged in by his ambition, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Not more than thirty persons, he added, act as a controlling force on ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... then the child stirred faintly in his bed, and first extending her arms to put them all away from her, Lucy bent over him and lifted him to her bosom. The nurse made a step forward to interfere, but then stepped back again wringing her hands. The mother had risen into a sort of sublimity, irresponsible in her great woe—if she had killed him to forestall her agony a little, as is the instinct of desperation, they could not have interfered. She sat down, and gathered the child close, close in her embrace, his head upon her breast, holding him as if to communicate life to him with the contact ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... almost insuperable obstacle in the way of education. Persons deprived of both these senses have heretofore been considered by high legal authorities,[23] as well as by public opinion, as occupying, of necessity, a state of irresponsible and irrecoverable idiocy. By the education of the remaining senses, however, this formidable and heretofore insuperable barrier has been overleaped, or, rather, the obstacle has been met and overcome. The experiment has been successfully tried, once and again, in our own country. ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... the upper ranks are not worthy of their lofty position, and there are many who hope to see such a general levelling as took place during the French Revolution. They are fortified in their opinion by the lavish and irresponsible way in which the wealthy use their money, and they are tantalized by the display of luxury which, if times are hard, are in aggravating contrast to the hardship and suffering of the poor. The scale of living of the millionaire cannot justify itself in the ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... year rent, you will sometimes feel tempted to say to the vaccination officer, the school attendance officer, and the sanitary inspector: "Is this child mine or yours?" The answer is that as the child is a vital part of the nation, the nation cannot afford to leave it at the irresponsible disposal of any individual or couple of individuals as a mere small parcel of private property. The only solid ground that the parent can take is that as the State, in spite of its imposing name, can, when all is said, do nothing with ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... circumstances, the powerless leader and his devoted staff resolved to withdraw, formally and openly, from further attendance on the House of Commons. The deplorable state of the country, delivered over to an irresponsible magistracy and all the horrors of martial law; the spread among the patriotic rising generation of French principles; the scarcely concealed design of the Castle to goad the people into insurrection, in order to deprive them of their liberties; all admonished the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... which there were temporary stoppages of the trains, in response to calls from the crowds assembled at such points. Some of these addresses were grossly misrepresented in sensational reports made by irresponsible persons, which were published in Northern newspapers, and were not considered worthy of correction under the pressure of the momentous duties then devolving upon me. These false reports, which represented me as invoking war and threatening devastation ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... heaven and hell, and all the strange gods that have no resting place, and all the spirits of the air and earth and sea, defile your spirit!" Commodus exploded. "Careless, irresponsible, ungrateful fool! You have deprived me of my liberty! You let yourself be killed like any sow under the butcher's knife, and dare to leave me shadowless? Then die like carrion and ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... wave of something, a directness and frankness born in some way in this new world apart from civilization, like a wind-blown flame, irresponsible and irresistible, swept over Molly Wingate's soul as swiftly, as unpremeditatedly as it had over his. She was a young woman fit for love, disposed for love, at the age for love. Now, to her horror, the clasp of this man's ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... sentiment of invincible power which allows him to yield to instincts which, had he been alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint. He will be the less disposed to check himself from the consideration that, a crowd being anonymous, and in consequence irresponsible, the sentiment of responsibility which always ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... she busied herself in putting the room to rights, in order to quiet her nerves. The air was heavily languorous, and soon in the quiet country afternoon her self-consciousness fell asleep, and she went dreaming over the irresponsible past, the quiet summers, and the strange, stern old man. Suddenly she knew that he was awake and watching her closely. She started, but, as he said nothing, she went on with her ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... dear father should never have married. Though his nature was one of the sweetest I have ever known, and though he would at any call give his time to or risk his life for others, in practical matters he remained to the end of his days as irresponsible as a child. If his mind turned to practical details at all, it was solely in their bearing toward great developments of the future. To him an acorn was not an acorn, but ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... of the present, it may well seem to some, that woman, in her desire to seek for new paths of labour and employment, is guided only by an irresponsible impulse; or that she seeks selfishly only her own good, at the cost of that of the race, which she has so long and faithfully borne onward. But, when a clearer future shall have arisen and the obscuring mists of the present have been dissipated, ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... of all this political chicanery and impudent pretence of popular representation, there sits an autocratic, irresponsible, hereditary legislative body, consisting exclusively of idlers and parasites who reserve to themselves the right of rejecting all laws which do not clearly further their own exactions and monopolies! Then ask yourselves: ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... responsibility. There is no authority over you; no appeal from your judgments. Hasn't that something to do with people's dislike and distrust of the newspapers; the sense that so much irresponsible power is wrong?" ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... suicide was based on reason and right, in the sacred right of every human being to be happy. There was a morbid humanitarianism which broke down the distinction between Good and Evil, and developed a sentimental pity for the "sacred and irresponsible human" in the criminal, the doting sentimentality of an old man:—it was a capitulation to crime, the surrender of society to ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... and he displayed the same under better auspices later on. His action with a certain gravely suspected Commissioner of Crown Lands was a good illustration. This high functionary, who, in those pre-constitutional times, was practically an irresponsible Caesar over a vast estate of dependent Crown tenants, whose interests might in any case be seriously jeopardized by any unfairness, and who, therefore, like the wife of his prototype, should be even above suspicion, was accused by rumours, of no slight noise or breadth, of unfaithfulness ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... answering wag of the tail, and at last, after the utmost patience that courtesy could require, would slowly get up, yawn, and stroll off to his kennel or to some pretended business behind the barn. His big heart harboured no resentment against the child, whom he knew to be a child and irresponsible. His resentment was all against fate, or life, or whatever it was, the vague, implacable force which was causing Joe Barnes to hurt him. For Joe Barnes he had ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... teach his faith to King Artus and his circle, who embody the frivolous, irresponsible, though refined, conduct of the nobility, essentially the same nobility whom von Stein accused of injuring the nation and Immermann satirized and exposed in Muenchhausen. They decide to seek salvation in the primitive idealism of India, appointing Merlin their guide. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... keeps "one flower for beauty and one for use"; "one playful flower for the world, another for serious use and posterity"; but surely the showy flowers, the "giddy sisters," borne by all cleistogamous species to save them from degenerating through close inbreeding, are no idle, irresponsible beauties. Let us watch a bumblebee as she alights on the convenient fringe which edges the lower petal of this milkwort. Now the weight of her body so depresses the keel, or tubular petals, wherein the stamens and pistil lie protected from the rain ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan |
