"Naught" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have tea with some friends, and as she paused to pin her hat before the glass, she remembered that if Owen were right, and that there was no future life, the only life that she was sure of would be wasted. Then she would endure the burden of life for naught; she would not have attained its recompense; the calamity would be irreparable; it would be just as if she had not lived at all. Thought succeeded thought in instantaneous succession, contradicting and refuting each other. No, her life ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... that the clouds came up and the air turned cool. And it was then that, accidentally, and in one unhappy moment, the little girl brought all her faithful work to naught, imperiled her birthday hopes, and cast herself adrift upon the prairie like a voyager in a rudderless boat. For, in stooping to pull the sheepskin saddle-blanket over her bare legs, she unthinkingly let go of the bridle, and, the pinto putting her head ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... It suffused the whole Island from end to end, and reminded the happy inhabitants of the Cigars of Nirvana, grown in some Plantation of the Blessed. When the smoke had passed and our heads were cleared of the narcotic fumes, we hastened to the spot where our good master had loved to sit; but there naught remained but a great heap of white ashes, sitting among the pipes and cigars that had inspired his song. Thus he died as he lived, ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... malice of this question of Baron Swartz? They think the Barbarina is so completely broken, crushed by the displeasure of the king, that she can no longer dance. They have deceived themselves—I will dance tonight. Perhaps I shall go mad; but I will first refute the slander, and bring to naught the report of my disgrace ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... his friend, "but you might have added one or two other things that the great Hebrew King's son said. What do you think of these few words of wisdom and rebuke: 'But ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity: I will mock when your fear cometh?' It is no use, Hobkirk; I told you all along that Macgregor would have to be watched, but you were carried away with his money-making, ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... transmutation, but he would be unable to interpret the meaning of these processes of change. He would not be in a position to find his way about in this newly attained world. For the imaginative world is a realm of unrest—there is naught in it but movement and change; nowhere are there stationary points. Such points of rest are reached only by the person who, having transcended the stage of imaginative knowledge, has attained to that grade of ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... have done so! That he could have joined those thousands of faithful, loyal adherents to Holy Church, who find in its doctrines naught that stimulates a doubt, nor urges against the divine institution of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... prepares for me a table In presence of mine enemies! He anoints My head with oil, my cup is overflowing. Praise we His name! Hast thou, my daughter, served The needs o' the poor, suddenly-orphaned child? Naught must she lack beneath ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... crying, "Buy, buy, buy! What d'ye lack, what d'ye lack? Buy, buy, buy!" At first I mistook the meaning of this—for so we pronounce the word "boy" upon Exmoor—and I answered with some indignation, "Sirrah, I am no boy now, but a man of one-and-twenty years; and as for lacking, I lack naught from thee, except what ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... know exactly why her mother was angry. She supposed she resented the idea of losing her slave. There seemed no other possible reason, for love for her she had none. Dinah knew but too cruelly well that she had been naught but an unwelcome burden from the very earliest days of her existence. Till she met Isabel, she had never known what real mother-love ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... certain knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught; now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the Mustard was good, yet was the knight not forsworn. . . . . You are not forsworn; no more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before he ever ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... But naught prevailed, for sore disease had scourged the low and high, And the hail of God had fallen and crushed the growing grain, And a fire no hand had kindled in searing wrath swept by— Such fire as none had seen ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard
... whist and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, And naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katydid, And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and woe, Till morning ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... mid deep silence to a strain To listen, which the soul alone can know, Saying: "Fear naught, for Jesus came on earth, Jesus of endless joys the wide, deep sea, To ease each heavy load of mortal birth. His waters ever clearest, sweetest be To him who in a lonely bark drifts forth On His great deeps of goodness trustfully." ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... were thousands of her citizens, full of health and talent, who adorned excesses of living by the tasteful procurements of wealth, and the highest accomplishments of mind. Into this world Prentiss entered, heralded by naught save his own genius. The heirs of princely fortunes, the descendants of heroes, men of power and place, of family pride, of national associations, were not more proud, more gallant, than was Prentiss, for "he was reckoned among the ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... signor, though the wine flowed free, I could not touch it, though much urged by all— Too great a sadness sat upon my heart— I could do naught but sit and sigh and think Of our Rosalia in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... cleave not to this and that disclaim; Believe in all that man believes; here all and naught ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... the Prayer Book. His permission was required for any one to leave the colony. Extortionate fees and taxes were imposed. Puritans had to swear on the Bible, which they regarded wicked, or be disfranchised. Personal and proprietary rights were summarily set at naught, and all deeds to land were declared void till renewed—for money, of course. The citizens were reduced to a condition hardly short ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Everybody" (Herr Omnes) to determine what should be rejected and what retained. If the authorities refused to act, then there was nothing to do but to be patient and use one's influence for good. "Teach, speak, write, and preach that the ordinances of man are naught. Advise that no one shall any more become a priest, monk, or nun, and that those who occupy such positions shall leave them. Give no more money for papal privileges, candles, bells, votive tablets, and churches, but say that a Christian life consists in faith and ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... star-spots, are so tremendous that a comparatively small one would contain many dozen such globes as the earth. I could tell you also of the mysteries of the great dark companions of some of the stars, and of the stars that are themselves dark and cold, with naught but the faraway constellations to cheer them, on which night reigns eternally, and that far outnumber the stars you can see. Also of the multiplicity of sex and extraordinary forms of life that exist there, though on none of them are ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... that you can do to turn Ephraim back to his duty, my dear, I am sure that, for love of us, you will do it. If Firm was to run away from me now, and go fighting on behalf of slavery, I never should care more for naught upon this side of Jordan; and the new mill might go to Jericho; though it does look uncommon handsome now, I can assure you, and tears through its work like ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... have a better plan that that. They can hardly work any mischief tonight. What information they learn will avail them naught for we can warn the French commander later. We must find out what they are up to. We'll stick close and follow them back to the ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... pull your'n out two or three times over,' replied the Raven. 'Fust ye saved me; then ye let that big rogue ha' one for luck, an' that saved the keeper. Me, I did naught, 'cept get collared ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... seer who comprehendest all, Lore of the wise and hidden mysteries, High things of heaven and low things of the earth, Thou knowest, though thy blinded eyes see naught, What plague infects our city; and we turn To thee, O seer, our one defense and shield. The purport of the answer that the God Returned to us who sought his oracle, The messengers have doubtless told thee—how One course alone could rid us of the pest, To find the murderers of Laius, And slay ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... of toil and suffering she is here, old, infirm, and a beggar. Every wrinkle on her brow could tell a tale of suffering; her youth is gone; her energies are all spent, and her long life of toil has been for naught." ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... identified as not belonging to the Indians, while their owners were well known. Fortunately the wind veered shortly after the fires started, driving the flames back against the plowed guards, and the attempt to burn the range came to naught. A salutary lesson had been administered to the hirelings of the usurpers, and with a new moon approaching its full, it was believed that night marauding had ended for that winter. None of our boys recognized the white man, there being no doubt but he was imported ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... Became a step beside a throne. Breathless he lay and fearfully, While on his brain a vision shone. Said a Great Voice of sweetest tone: "The time has come when I must take The form of man for mankind's sake. This drama is played long enough By creatures who have naught of me, Save what comes up from foam of the sea To crawling moss or swimming weeds, At last to man. From heaven in flame, Pure, whole, and vital, down I fly, And take a mortal's form and name, And labor for the race's needs." Then Friar Yves dreamed the sky ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... Jerusalem! I'm talking like a book— As you would say: and a bad book at that, A maundering, kiss-mammy book—The Hunch-back's End Or The Camel-Keeper's Reward—would be its title. I froth and bubble like a new-broached cask. No wonder you look glum, for all your grin. What makes you mope? You've naught to growse about. You've got no hump. Your body's brave and straight— So shapely even that you can afford To trick it in fantastic shapelessness, Knowing that there's a clean-limbed man beneath Preposterous pantaloons and purple ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... firesides—genial homes? What hour, what gift, will ever make amends For broken health, for bruised flesh and bones, For lives cut short by bullet, blade, disease? Where balm to heal the widow's heart, or what Shall soothe a mother's grief for woes like these? Hold, murmurer, hold! Is country naught to thee? Is freedom nothing? Naught an honored name? What though the days be cold, or the nights dark, The brave heart kindles for itself a flame That warms and lightens up the world! Home! What's home, if in craven shame We seek its hearthstone? ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... mossy gateway, And thought of years gone by; Then tapped on latticed windows, Heard naught only ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton
... pilot moved along in a sort of isolated grandeur, the true monarch of all he surveyed. If, in his judgment the course of wisdom was to tie up to an old sycamore tree on the bank and remain motionless all night, the boat tied up. The grumblings of passengers and the disapproval of the captain availed naught, nor did the captain often venture upon either criticism or suggestion to the lordly pilot, who was prone to resent such invasion of his dignity in ways that made trouble. Indeed, during the flush times on the Mississippi, the pilots were a body of men possessing ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... latter, "I would not have crossed the Rhone by the bridge of Tarascon to have seen him. What is M. Sadi-Carnot? He is naught." ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... in the pursuit, though interested only in catching a glimpse of the widow and the shy eldest daughter. It must have been worth many experiments to gently succeed in putting their skill in hiding to naught. She slaps a dainty ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Victuals was her curse. In the cattle business it ain't riding disrespectful horses that gets you the big money; it's being able to guess weights. And if Dulcie pulled a pound less than one hundred and eighty then all my years of training has gone for naught. She was certainly big-framed stock and going into the winter strong. Between bites of sandwich, with a marshmallow now and then, she was saying that she was simply crazy about the war, having the dandiest young French soldier for a godson and sending him packages of food and cigarettes constantly, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... without which all other perfections go for naught,—fine coloring. It may be light or dark, delicate or rich, solid or a combination of few or many hues, but it must be clear, spirited and attractive, not dull nor muddy, nor faded. The gladiolus comprises such a marvelous range of colors, from white up through all the ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... out in the morning, light of baggage, purse, and heart. I can tell naught of the journey, for I heeded only that at the end of it lay Paris. I reached the city one day at sundown, and entered without a passport at the St. Denis gate, the warders being hardly so strict as Mayenne supposed. I was dusty, foot-sore, and hungry, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... the gloom, he was not sure; and I, having no mind to be mixed up with the ambassador, called him back. I asked Vilain to whom he had called, but the young man, turning sullen, would answer nothing except that he knew naught of the paper. I thought it best, therefore, to conduct him at once to my lodgings, whither it will be believed that I returned with a lighter heart than I had gone out. It was, indeed, ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... have taken this bulwark," added the king, "and did in sooth bear down upon it with a great assault; but indeed we could make naught of it." ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Germans had prosecuted a desultory submarine warfare on the shipping of Great Britain and had extended it gradually until neutral shipping also was largely involved. All the established principles of international law, or principles that had been supposed to be established, were set at naught. In bygone days enemy merchant ships were subject to destruction only after their crews had been given an opportunity to take to the boats. Neutral ships bearing neutral goods, even if bound to an enemy port, ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... replied Cotherstone, off-handedly. "Naught to complain of, of course. I'll give you a receipt, Mr. Kitely," he went on, seating himself at his desk and taking up a book of forms. "Let's see—twenty-five pounds a year is six pound five a quarter—there you are, sir. Will you have a ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... our particular brand of luminary. We wore them buckled to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigour of the game, a buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin; they never burned aright, though they would always burn our fingers; their use was naught; the pleasure of them merely fanciful; and yet a boy with a bull's-eye under his top-coat asked for nothing more. The fishermen used lanterns about their boats, and it was from them, I suppose, that we had got the ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lofty eminence, a hill, From whence erewhile a firebrand did descend, That sorely sheet the region. From one root I and it sprang; my name on earth Cunizza: And here I glitter, for that by its light This star o'ercame me. Yet I naught repine, Nor grudge myself the cause of this my lot, Which haply vulgar ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... leader, no garrison would yield. Logan's Station was filled with courage and hope renewed. It fought on, day after day, night after night, constantly expecting the reinforcements. Finally it seemed that Captain Logan's venture had been for naught; a month had elapsed since his return, and the reinforcements had not arrived. Once more the powder was low, and by this time the scanty provisions had been ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... through Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, with whom I claim the right to communicate. I beg to inform you that I am neither a spy nor a socialist, but the son of an English peer' (heaven help the relevancy!). 'An Englishman has yet to learn that Lord Palmerston's signature is to be set at naught and treated with contumacy.' ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... its salty columns, bitter lakes and wild, dreary sunken desolation. If the waves of the sea could flow in and cover its barren nakedness, as we now know they might if a few sandy barriers were swept away, it would be indeed, a blessing, for in it there is naught of good, comfort or satisfaction, but ever in the minds of those who braved its heat and sands, a thought of a horrid Charnel house, a corner of the earth so dreary that it requires an exercise of strongest faith to believe that the great ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... women looked the designs over with interest, as they did all designs of new clothes, and paid no further attention to them. The very fact that they were of American design prejudiced the women against them. America never had designed good clothes, they argued: she never would. Argument availed naught. The Paris germ was deep-rooted in the feminine mind of America: the women acknowledged that they were, perhaps, being hoodwinked by spurious French dresses and hats; that the case presented by Bok seemed convincing enough, but the temptation to throw a coat over a sofa or a chair to expose a Parisian ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... "My brother has learned naught of the pale face?" remarked the Shawanoe, inquiringly, when his companion had related the experience through which he passed, after their separation during ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the place and the honour," said my father scornfully. "I will not begrudge thee either. Naught will I have to do ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... ages where the sixth has gone, For naught of that stone mountain now is known. Thus perish all things, save the spirit ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... and body leaped into fiery passion—she was his, and his she always would be—those eyes, those lips, the white throat, those perfect arms to cling about his neck—and all of heaven and hell and earth were naught ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... passing moments, none of the miles he had ridden during the past days. These counted for naught, while, with photographic distinctness, the picture before him fixed itself sharply in his mind: the dust-colored troops on the dusty veldt, the brown-painted guns, the distant line of the enemy's fire and, far to the eastward, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... arches and imparting a charm of illusion to the scene, the clear spangled sky, the startling voices of the night, and the influence of the unknown, the mysterious, and the weird, overcame us like a dream. Truly there is naught of the commonplace or vulgar in this land of ruins and legends, and the foretaste of the wonders we were about to behold met our view in ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... that vnder the cloked colour of auoyding of offence / these men do fall into the very offence gyuing. They say morouer: It is nedefull to condiscende vnto the weake: for there are many which are not persuaded that the masse is naught / and therfor are neyther ready to forsake their countrie / nor to dye in the quarell / whiche men yf they shulde perceyue that we did not come to masse / they wold not gyue then any ear or credite vnto vs in the other ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... love thee ere thou tellest me "I love." We both are raised above The ball-room puppets with their varnished faces, Whispering dead commonplaces, Doing their best to dress their lifeless thought In tinselled phrase worth naught; Or at the best, throwing a passing spark Like fire-flies in the dark;— Not the continuous lamp-light of the soul, Which, though the seasons roll Without on tides of ever-varying winds, The watcher never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... this sunny clime strength to the wasted brings, And the zephyr's balmy breezes come with healing on their wings; But to me the sun's rich glow is naught—the perfumed air is vain— For I know that I am dying—Oh! then, take ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... these lovely but imperfect drawings, is to increase the feverish thirst for excitement, and to weaken the power of attention by endless diversion and division. This volume, beautiful as it is, will be forgotten; the strength in it is, in final outcome, spent for naught; and others, and still others, following it, will "come ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... ties, to twine apart If need so call, or closer cling.— Why do I love thee so? O fool, O fool, the heart that bleeds for twain, And builds, men tell us, walls of pain, To walk by love's unswerving rule The same for ever, stern and true! For "Thorough" is no word of peace: 'Tis "Naught-too-much" makes trouble cease. And many a wise man bows thereto. [The LEADER OF THE CHORUS ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... the reply. "There is naught involved in this condition which—— But hesitate not," added the stranger, hastily: "I have no time to waste in bandying words. Consider all I offer you: in another hour ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... slowly moving people there, the Inspector make a way for himself and his companion through the excited, talkative, good-humored Cockney crowd. "There it is! Can't you see it? Up there just like a little yellow worm." "There's naught at all! You've got the cobble-wobbles!" and then a ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... is full of pessimistic utterances: "Naked came I upon the earth, naked I go below the ground—why then do I vainly toil when I see the end naked before me?"—"How did I come to be? Whence am l? Wherefore did I come? To pass away. How can I learn aught when naught I know? Being naught I came to life: once more shall I be what I was. Nothing and nothingness is the whole race of mortals."—"For death we are all cherished and fattened like a herd of ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... ill use of my confidence, or there will come a day of vengeance for both you and me. What shall we gain by being tools in the hands of a wicked man like Robert Moncton. Why should we sell our souls for naught, to do ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... sterile slopes descended; while lower ground stretched away on their left. Then, behind them, spread the woods with deep thickets parted by clearings, full of herbage which no scythe had ever touched. And not a soul was to be seen around them; there was naught save wild Nature, grandly quiescent under the bright sun of that splendid April day. The earth seemed to be dilating with all the sap amassed within it, and a flood of life could be felt rising and quivering in the vigorous trees, the spreading ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... next night in the darklings, out they went all together, every man with a stone in his mouth, and a hazel-twig in his hand, and feeling, thou may'st reckon, main feared and creepy. And they stumbled and stottered along the paths into the midst of the bogs; they saw naught, though they heard sighings and flutterings in their ears, and felt cold wet fingers touching them; but all together, looking around for the coffin, the candle, and the cross, while they came nigh to the pool beside the great snag, where the Moon lay buried. ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... such a yell was there, Of sudden and portentous birth, As if men fought upon the earth, And fiends in upper air; Oh, life and death were in the shout, Recoil and rally, charge and rout, And triumph and despair. Long look'd the anxious squires; their eye Could in the darkness naught descry." ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... who comes into his own late in life has a sense of values and trains on. Mr. Hill does not ask for taffy on a stick. And while he prizes friendship, the hate or praise of those for whose opinions he has little respect are to him as naught. No one need burn the social incense before him in a warm desire to reach his walletosky. He judges quickly, and his decisions are usually right and just. It isn't time yet to write his biography. Too many men are alive who have been moved, pushed and gently jostled out of the way by him, as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... incentive; it made their work a real as well as an ideal pleasure. The possibility of breaking the "Law" (with impunity) was worth a deal of productive, or unproductive, labour. The bread ordinance had not increased our respect for "benevolent" despotism. Any chance of setting at naught the absolute prepensities of our legislators (with a watering-can or by judicious keyhole stuffing, to hide the ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... of Mistress Rebecca's new-found diligence. No syllable was uttered, but it was the awfullest silence that ever a lad heard. I was lifted rather than led upstairs and left a prisoner in locked room with naught to do but gnaw my conscience and gaze at the woods skirting the crests of ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... pocketed their gold and the Emperor still demanded his tax. Then they went to the great Masters of Cabalah, who, by pondering day and night on the name and its transmutations, had won the control of all things, and they said, 'Can ye do naught for us?' Then the Masters of Cabalah took counsel together and at midnight they called up the spirits of Abraham our father, and Isaac and Jacob, and Elijah the prophet, who wept to hear of their children's sorrows. And ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a quiet penetrating voice, and with an air of intense conviction: "Gentlemen, if my conjectures are correct, Bobinette is naught but a girl of low birth—of the lowest—a creature who will stick at nothing, who has been mixed up with a band of criminals, the most cunning, the most artful, the most unscrupulous, the most dangerous band of criminals in all this round world—a band I have, time and again, pursued, decimated, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... patient, and by instinct if not by reason, more far-seeing, or at least the best of them are so, and by their best, like men, they should be judged. Yet this is the hole in their shield. When they love they become the slaves of love, and for love's sake all else is brought to naught, and for this reason they cannot be trusted. With men, as you know, this is otherwise. They, too, love, by Nature's law, but always behind there is something greater than love, although often they do not understand what that may be. To be powerful, therefore, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... did not hear. He heard naught save the voices in his own breast, to whose gloomy words the wails and groans of the wounded formed ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... to naught, but its influence upon the colored people of the country was wide spread, chiefly because of the character of the ...
— The Early Negro Convention Movement - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 9 • John W. Cromwell
... seriousness suppose— To me, I tell you, naught could be absurder— That anywhere at all there can be those Who read the noisome details of a murder, Or take delight in knowing that in such a county Some teeming, triple mother earns the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... for the first time of the dangers of Roussillon. Dead leaves from the Bas Breau, echoes from Lavenue's and the Rue Racine, memories of a common past, let these be your bookmarkers as you read. And if you care for naught else in the story, be a little pleased to breathe once more for a moment the airs of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my gaolers be, My husband is a zany; Naught see I clear save my bold Buccaneer To rescue ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... guard her beneath the ympe tree; but in vain, she was away with the fairy, and they knew not whither. King Orfeo in grief called together his barons and knights and squires, and bade them obey his high steward as regent; he himself went forth barefoot and in poor attire into the wilderness, with naught but his harp. ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... been about her since that crisis of her young life made her feel more ruth at the recital of the deed than she had felt at its doing. "I made a bed of moss and leaves," she said, "and I shut up the ledge he lay in with bits of rock, so that naught could touch him." ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the very droop of his body. Dolly would pity and forgive. She had already done so, and that was what had kindled the spiritual glow in her face. It was said that Mostyn had given away most of his fortune, and would have but a poor home now to offer a wife, but that would count for naught in Dolly Drake's eyes. She had loved Mostyn, and she could ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... the worshipers. The carpet is green grass. Trees grow within the walls. Ivy clambers from side to side of the tall windows, in place of the stained glass once there. Most of the windows have tumbled to decay, walls and all. The roof is the sky—naught else. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... well attended, and I hoped to be able to benefit in some measure the poor and despised colored children, but the parents interested themselves very little in the undertaking, and it shortly came to naught. So strong was the prejudice then existing against the colored people, that very few of the negroes seemed to have any courage or ambition to rise from the abject degradation in which the estimation of the white ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... such only, tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country and be poor. Or good though rich, humane and wise though great, Jove give but these, we've naught to fear ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... our agricultural interest so wantonly neglected, our commercial predominance so supinely surrendered, our army so unprepared for action, and our influence in the affairs of Europe so audaciously set at naught. The right honourable gentleman gave the Ministry another year to complete the ruin of their country. They might do it in six months; yes, he would venture to say, or even in three months; but he gave them at most a year. Favourable accidents, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... comrades? Haven't they helped you to get settled to work and assisted you with your studies? Why, you have been a big boor, cold and aloof, you have upset their hopes of you in football, and yet they have no condemnation for you, naught but warm friendliness. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Prince, 'in my sharp sword, which never fails. If harm were to come to it I should die; nevertheless, by fair means naught can prevail against it, so do not ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... great sin of the Jews was their rejection of Christ; the great sin of the Christian world would be their rejection of the law of God, the foundation of His government in heaven and earth. The precepts of Jehovah would be despised and set at naught. Millions in bondage to sin, slaves of Satan, doomed to suffer the second death, would refuse to listen to the words of truth in their day of visitation. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... with the army at Damascus, and saw how the princes betrayed one another, when the Emperor Conrad had come again, so that the siege of the strong town came to naught, and the armies were scattered among the rich gardens to gather fruit and drink strong wine, while their leaders wrangled. Also at Ascalon he drew sword again, and again he saw failure hanging over all, like an evil shadow, and chilling the courage in men, so that there was murmuring, ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... priestly line to carry on a hierarchy, an ecclesiastical dynasty, was dreamed of. It may be gathered from the gospels that such an idea was so far from the mind of Christ that his mission was to set at naught just such another hierarchy, which then existed in Israel. The Apostles were no more bishops than was John the Baptist, but preachers who travelled from place to place, like Paul. The congregations, at Rome and elsewhere, elected their own 'presbyteri, episcopoi' or overseers. It is, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... no discordaunt thing yfere As thus, to usen termes of phisyk; In loves termes hold of thy matere The forme alwey, and do that it be lyk; For if a peyntour wolde peynte a pyk With asses feet, and hede it as an ape, It cordeth naught; so nere it but ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... and bands, a morrice train, Thou greet'st the Traveller in the lane; If welcome once thou count'st it gain; Thou art not daunted, 20 Nor car'st if thou be set at naught; And oft alone in nooks remote We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... we had to follow every impostor who came with his cowl and cord, as if Christ were represented in him; and we thought that in the observance of these things we would be saved. So the whole world was filled with naught but false service of God—which the Scriptures properly call idolatry—the product of human wisdom, which is so easily deceived by that which pretends to be a good work and to be obedience to God. For human wisdom knows no better; and how could it know better without the revelation? Even when ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... wind shifted to the eastward, and then suddenly to the northeast, and blew a gale, so that we bided in the haven till it was over. For though it was not so heavy that we could not have won through it in open water with little harm, it was of no use risking ship and men on a lee shore for naught. ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... what was rumoured of his intentions—as long as he had a man-at-arms to follow him, had gone to Naples only in the hour of his extreme need. True, he had gone to offer himself to Spain as a condottiero when naught else was left to him; but he took no army with him—he went alone, a servant, not an ally, as that false letter pretends. He had never come to draw his sword against France, and certainly no loss had been suffered by France in consequence ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Divine truth would flash over our actions, and in that pure radiance every unworthy work would wither up to naught—every unblessed deed retreat into outer darkness. Which would be right, ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... expected Phil to prepare a thesis on "What the Poets Have Meant to Me," and for this "The Dogs of Main Street" was no proper substitute. The superintendent of schools, scanning the programme before it went to the printer, shuddered; but it was not for naught that Phil's ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... rejoined, with a heart-rending sigh, "if you mean me, I am only to be pitied. My dear mother and I are naught but slaves to the will of my brother, who uses us as tools for ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... feeling that he had once known for her. And she remembered that she was free, even if he forgot it. Poor soul! she recognised bitterly enough now, that the only safety for a woman is in that bond which a man may so lightly affect to set at naught: in a contract like hers and Philip's, the man has all to gain, ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... of the cabin in the mountains was bright and warm; a pardoned prisoner sat with his baby on his knee, surrounded by his rejoicing children, and in the presence of his happy wife, and although there was naught but poverty around him, his heart sang: "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;" and then he reached up and snatched his fiddle down from the wall, and played "Jordan is a hard road ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... abandon his project of invasion which had aroused the English nation to unprecedented military activity. Pitt's subsidies had again set the continental armaments in motion, but Napoleon's brilliant dash into Germany brought these to naught in the battle of Austerlitz, which destroyed the Third Coalition and brought Austria to terms. It was this news that the great Prime Minister of George III. took so to heart. He survived the disaster ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... the stone house was still as much a mystery to the poor fishers as ever. He rarely walked upon the sand, gave them not a look if ever they chanced to meet, and living, apparently, for no one but himself, took not the slightest interest in their welfare, cared naught for wreck or disaster on the shore, and seemed always ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... with a cold, slow voice that chilled me to the marrow of my bones, 'hear me. Naught but an enemy's scalp-lock, plucked fresh with your own hand, will buy Tusee for your wife,' Then he turned on his heel ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... screaming of the frightened troop of elephants had receded into the distance. Out on the open, through a haze of dust, I saw the blot of coloured raiment that showed where the body of Prince Hasan lay. And for the moment there was naught but pity in my heart for the youth who had played by my side, and gathered knowledge, if ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... of my brother's son Stood by me, knee to knee: The body and I pulled at one rope, But he said naught ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... commence their operations, but must rest them on no better base than a set of wretched tents, and such means as the necessities of the moment will allow them. But, in truth, I do not believe that they would even be able to effect a disembarkation. Let us, therefore, set at naught these reports as altogether of home manufacture; and be sure that if any enemy does come, the state will know how to defend itself in a manner worthy of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... thousand naughts are not a feather, When in a sum they all are brought; A thousand idle lads together Are still but nothings joined to naught. ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... the most immune from the depredations of crows and jays and owls of all our birds, and yet they will join in the cry of "Thief, thief!" when a crow appears. (The alarm cry of birds will even arrest the attention of four-footed beasts, and often bring the sportsman's stalking to naught.) ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... features sweet, Your graces all are fresh and free; And flowerets spring beneath your feet, Where naught, alas! ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... its objectionable character than that it is in direct and undisguised violation of the pledge given by Congress to the States before a single cession was made, that it abrogates the condition upon which some of the States came into the Union, and that it sets at naught the terms of cession spread upon the face of every grant under which the title to that portion of the public land is held ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... the same day as his two chance acquaintances; he returned to his quarters on the Mergellina, much perturbed in mind, beset with many doubts, with divers temptations. "Shall I the spigot wield?" Must the ambitions of his glowing youth come to naught, and he descend to rank among the Philistines? For, to give him credit for a certain amount of good sense, he never gravely contemplated facing the world in the sole strength of his genius. He knew one or two ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... and developed the budding powers of his infant mind by her favourite forcing system—made a model villager of him, in short—she might have grown even to love him. But these privileges being forbidden to her—her wisdom being set at naught, and her counsel rejected—she could not help regarding Lovel Granger as more or less ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... fond and testy as a child, Who wayward once, his mood with naught agrees. Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild, Continuance tames the one, the other wild. Like an unpractis'd swimmer, plunging still With too much labour drowns ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... harrowing spectacle of the battle-field, whose all was depending on the game before him; gambling with one throw his last his only stake, and that the empire of the world. Yet, could I picture to myself one who felt at peace within himself,—naught of reproach, naught of regret to move or stir his spirit, whose tranquil barque had glided over the calm sea of life, unruffled by the breath of passion,—I should ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Soul of London," but I cannot think that any one has ever read the soul of London. London is not one place, but many places; she has not one soul, but many souls. The people of Brondesbury are of markedly different character and clime from those of Hammersmith. They of Balham know naught of those of Walthamstow, and Bayswater is oblivious to Barking. The smell, the sound, and the dress of Finsbury Park are as different from the smell, the sound, and the dress of Wandsworth Common as though one were England and the other Nicaragua. London is all ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... a criminal genius could have devised. As I studied the keen, bronzed face, I realized to the full the stupendous mental power of Dr. Fu-Manchu, measuring it by the criterion of Nayland Smith's. For the cunning Chinaman, in a sense, had foiled this brilliant man before me, whereby if by naught else I might know him a master ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... the life that now is attaches to godliness-the vivid recognition of a Father in heaven, with the union of reverence and love cherished by a dutiful child—and that naught else secures the possession, might ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... what of that? Last year is naught to me— 'Tis swallowed in the ocean of the past. Art thou not glad 'twas Lippo, and not thee, Whose brief bright day in that great gulf was cast. Thy day is all before thee. Let no cloud, Here in the very morn of our delight, Drift up from distant foreign skies, to shroud Our ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... all the time they were making their way through the town, where, as usual, he was hailed every two or three minutes by persons wanting a word with him. When at last there was a free space, she began: "Raymond, I wish to know whether you mean me to be set at naught, and my ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... came out upon my forehead in great drops, caused, not by the heat, but by the mental anguish, and again and again I said to myself that Jacob had labored for naught, since it would be impossible I could crawl undetected ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... hand, as meseemed, and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereon with the eye of my understanding, and thought, "What may this be?" and it was answered generally thus, "It is all that is made." I marvelled how it might last; for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding, "It lasteth, and ever shall: For God loveth it. And so hath all thing being by the Love of God." In this little thing I saw three properties. The first ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... surrender to Maximilian, Count of Hapsburg. Take another name; be for a time a soldier of fortune. Bury the Count of Hapsburg for a year or two; be plain Sir Max Anybody. You will, at least, see the world and learn what life really is. Here is naught but dry rot and mould. Taste for once the zest of living; then come back, if you can, to this tomb. Come, come, Max! Let us to Burgundy to win this fair lady who awaits us and doubtless holds us faint of heart because ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... do for people to settle these questions at hap-hazard or according to their own individual notions. Their decisions might be reversed. Whatever the courts may do, Nature is certain to reverse our decisions and bring to naught our action unless we comply ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... here and there above the gorge hold in their rugged rock sculpture no facial similitudes, no suggestions. The jagged outlines of shelving bluffs delineate no gigantic profile against the sky beyond. One might seek far and near, and scan the vast slope with alert and expectant gaze, and view naught of the semblance that from time immemorial has given the mountain its name. Yet the imagination needs but scant aid when suddenly the elusive simulacrum is revealed to the eye. In a certain slant of the diurnal ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... religious principles of their founders. Where society has acquired a sufficient degree of stability to enable it to hold certain maxims and to retain fixed habits, the lower orders are accustomed to respect intellectual superiority, and to submit to it without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind. The democracy in New England consequently makes a more judicious choice ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... of mist had been carried over the summit of the pass by a southwesterly wind. Long before the carriage crawled round the last great bend in the road the glorious panorama of lake and mountains was blotted out of sight. The horses seemed to be jogging on through a luminous cloud, so dense that naught was visible save a few yards of roadway and the boundary wall or stone posts on the left side, where lay the lake. The brightness soon passed, as the hurrying fog wraiths closed in on each other. It became bitterly cold too, and it was with intense ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... strolled homeward along a stately avenue, wondering what he could do to avert the retribution that moved toward the Downeys, and finding that his assistant city-editor's resourcefulness availed him naught, he heard the scamper of feet behind him and whirled about with cane upraised in time to bring a snarling chow dog ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... as this paragraph is, it serves the purpose of showing us that there are still those who believe the drama of our own time to be a thing of naught. Brief as this quotation is, it is long enough to reveal that the writer of it had the arrogance of ignorance, and that he was expressing what he conceived to be opinions, without taking the trouble to learn anything about the history of the ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... pleased not the heart of Agamemnon son of Atreus, but he roughly sent him away, and laid stern charge upon him, saying: "Let me not find thee, old man, amid the hollow ships, whether tarrying now or returning again hereafter, lest the staff and fillet of the god avail thee naught. And her will I not set free; nay, ere that shall old age come on her in our house, in Argos, far from her native land, where she shall ply the loom and serve my couch. But depart, provoke me not, that thou mayest the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... learn to shoot straight; apparently we need not learn to think straight. And yet if Europe could do the second it could dispense with the first. "Good faith" has a score of connotations, and we believe apparently that good politics can dispense with all of them and that "Patriotism" has naught to ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... heavenly wisdom and joy—but still it holds, in self-imposed and willing thraldom, that creative and versatile and tenacious spirit. It was the dream and hope of too deep and strong a mind to fade and come to naught—to be other than the seed of the achievement and crown of life. But with all faith in the star and the freedom of genius, we may doubt whether the prosperous citizen would have done that which was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... not to go out of this 'ere yard. These stables is your jail. And if you leave 'em I'll have to leave 'em, too, and over the seas, in the County Mayo, an old mother will 'ave to leave her bit of a cottage. For two pounds I must be sending her every month, or she'll have naught to eat, nor no thatch over 'er head; so, I can't lose my place, Kid, an' see you don't lose it for me. You must keep away from the kennels," says he; "they're not for the likes of you. The kennels are for the quality. I wouldn't take a litter of them woolly dogs for one wag of ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... men, that they should bring it from where it lay hid, where it was guarded by the knight Alberich (2) and his nearest kin. When they saw those from the Rhine coming for the hoard, Alberich, the bold, spake to his friends: "Naught of the treasure dare we withhold from her, sith the noble queen averreth it to be her marriage morning gift. Yet should this never be done," quoth Alberich, "but that with Siegfried we have foully lost the good Cloud Cloak, ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... scarcely spoken and Petru had hardly twined his wreath, when a light breeze blew from all quarters of the compass and soon rose to a gale. The gale increased until everywhere there was naught save gloom and darkness, gloom and darkness. The ground under Petru's feet trembled and shook, till he felt as though somebody had taken the world on his back and was dragging it ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... Naught of him is in you! Search! Search again! Come closer to the light! He stole our ancient blood to mix with his, That his might grow more ancient. But he stole Only the racial melancholy, and ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... nervousness, however. Thad in particular frequently walked over to a window and looked out. Doubtless he was thinking what a joke on them it would be if the marauders came much earlier than expected, when all their fine work with that tub of icy water would go for naught. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson |
