"Self-willed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shows the finest insight. To some pilgrims the Valley of Humiliation was the pleasantest part of the journey. Mr. Feeblemind, in the second part of the story, was happier there than anywhere. But Christian is Bunyan himself; and Bunyan had a stiff self-willed nature, and had found his spirit the most stubborn part of him. Down here he encounters Apollyon himself, 'straddling quite over the whole breadth of the way'—a more effective devil than the Diabolus of the 'Holy War.' He fights him ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... the side beyond the finger-nails, like those of antique statues. I should displease you, I know, if you were not yourself an exception to my rule, when I say that flat waists should have the preference over round ones. The round waist is a sign of strength; but women thus formed are imperious, self-willed, and more voluptuous than tender. On the other hand, women with flat waists are devoted in soul, delicately perceptive, inclined to sadness, more truly woman than the other class. The flat waist is supple and yielding; the round waist is inflexible ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... other's arms that cold December night. Alfred had been mild and slow; Captain Price (except when his daughter-in-law raised her finger) was a pleasant old roaring lion. Letty had been a gay, high-spirited little creature, not as retiring, perhaps, as a young female should be, and certainly self-willed; Mrs. North was completely under the thumb of her daughter Mary. Not that "under the thumb" means unhappiness; Mary North desired only her mother's welfare, and lived fiercely for that single purpose. From morning until night (and, indeed, until morning again, ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... even Chatham was capable of reaching. There might be seen in Banks's fine bust of him, the cause why Warren Hastings, though he was endowed with many good qualities which endeared him to his friends, was, nevertheless, covetous, self-willed, domineering, unjust, and, in some instances, pitiless, as Governor-General of India. What a contrast to this did the bust of the Marquis of Wellesley, by Nollekens, present. Not only did it indicate that the disposition of that distinguished statesman was unimbued with the slightest ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... terrible even to hear, others were grotesquely humorous, and the memory of that particularly pleasant passage across a sea as smooth as a mill pond, has impelled me to retell some of the incidents I related to him of my own adventures with obstinate, self-willed, ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... the girl, "but I know that there are times when you should scold me, Papa, for I know I am self-willed and disobedient." ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... income was received regularly, that he could have this, and that it would be intensely disagreeable for her to visit New York. He, who had yielded indifferently to all her little exactions, was inexorable, and the proud, self-willed woman found that he had so much law and reason on his side that she was ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... were to work out the destinies of Dorothy and myself without our assistance. Self-willed, arrogant creatures are those same fates, but they save us a deal of trouble ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... and the parable of the tares] convey, too, the same further lesson, that this fact [the actual intermixture of evil in the visible Church] does not justify self-willed departure from the fellowship of the Church, and impatient leaping over or breaking through the nets, as here it has often been called; but the Lord's separation is patiently to be waited for, which shall surely arrive ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... her long absences in town, one of these evenings sufficed to reassure him. Alma was Alma still, and could he but have reconciled himself to the thought of her playing in public, she would have been yet the wife he chose, frankly self-willed, gallantly independent. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... with it the virtues akin to it, as modesty and meekness and mildness, by which it insinuates itself and becomes part of a man's character, flattering the bashful man that he has a nature courteous and civil and affable, and not hard as flint or self-willed. And so the Stoics from the outset verbally distinguished shame and shyness from modesty, that they might not by identity of name give the vice opportunity to inflict harm. But let it be granted to us to use the words indiscriminately, following indeed the example ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... administered with a light hand, I assure you, and doubtless the severity of the lashing has made me remember the incident so well. This was the first time I was punished in this cruel way, but not the last. The black-eyed baby that I called my pet grew into a self-willed girl, and in after years was the cause of much trouble to me. I grew strong and healthy, and, notwithstanding I knit socks and attended to various kinds of work, I was repeatedly told, when even fourteen ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... be noticed moreover that Hsi Jen had ever since her youth not been blind to the fact that Pao-yue had an extraordinary temperament, that he was self-willed and perverse, far even in excess of all young lads, and that he had, in addition, a good many peculiarities and many unspeakable defects. And as of late he had placed such reliance in the fond love of his grandmother ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Ieshige, Munetake, and Munetada. Of these the most promising was the second, Munetake, whose taste for literature and military art almost equalled his father's. Matsudaira Norimura, prime minister, recognizing that Ieshige, who was weak, passionate, and self-willed, would not be able to fill worthily the high office of shogun, suggested to Yoshimune the advisability of nominating Munetake. But Yoshimune had his own programme. Ieshige's son, Ieharu, was a very gifted youth, and Yoshimune ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... he lives like God, and God knows him, and he knows God. This is too good to be grasped, but not too good to be true. The highest is that which needs the highest, the largest that which needs the most; the finest and strongest that which to live must breath essential life, self-willed life, God Himself. It follows that it is not the largest or the strongest nature that will feel a loss the least. An ant will not gather a grain of corn the less that his mother is dead, while a boy will turn from his books and his play and his dinner ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... the noblest head that had ever worn a crown. Dea Flavia felt the hot blood rush to her cheeks at thought that the choice did rest with her, that the man who was so proud, so self-absorbed, so self-willed but a few days ago in the Forum, would receive supreme gifts through her; that he would be the recipient and she, like the goddess holding riches, power, honour in her hands; that she would shower them on him while he knelt—a suppliant first, then ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... sorry, Aunt Barbara," she said; "I was very self-willed; I ought not to have fancied things, nor said you used me ill, and wanted ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... officials treated some of the Basque shepherds with what seemed to be too great severity there were numerous forest fires on the reserve. These men were generally both self-willed and ignorant, and we passed by at this spot a clump of finely growing firs, which had been destroyed by a fire started by a ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... the priest, with a slight cough, "let the thoughtful man picture a father: a desperate, self-willed man, who scorned the laws of God and society—keeping only faith with a miserable subterfuge he called 'honor,' and relying only on his own courage and his knowledge of human weakness. Imagine him ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... on a train going West, was a very much over-dressed woman, accompanied by a bright-looking Irish nurse girl, who had charge of a self-willed, tyrannical two-year-old boy, of whom the over-dressed woman was plainly the mother. The mother occupied a seat by herself. The nurse and child were in a seat immediately in front of her. The child gave frequent exhibitions of temper, and kept the car filled ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... with a blush of conscious exposure, and human nature should be stripped of the hypocritical fig-leaves that betrayed by attempting to hide its identity with the brutes that perish. His sincerity was not unconscious, but self-willed and aggressive. But it would be unjust to overlook that he began with himself. He despised mankind because he found something despicable in Jonathan Swift, as he makes Gulliver hate the Yahoos in proportion to their likeness with himself. He had more or less consciously sacrificed self-respect ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... place in the Captain's manner. He no longer played the lover to a cold and distant mistress, but carried himself haughtily at times—captiously at times—and always with an air of indifference. All affection seemed transferred to his boy, who was growing self-willed, passionate, and daring. These qualities were never repressed by his father, but rather encouraged and strengthened. On learning that his next heir was a daughter, he expressed impatience, and muttered something about its being strangled at birth. The nurse ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... likely to alter his opinion on the subject of bullies. This one, like others, was a mortal coward. Like other men, who have no fear of God before their eyes, he made up for it by having a very hearty fear of sickness, death, departed souls, and one or two other things, which the most self-willed sinner knows well enough to be in the hands of a Power which he cannot see, and does not wish to believe in. Bully Tom had spoken the truth when he said that if he thought there was a ghost in Yew-lane he wouldn't go near it. If he had believed the stories with which he had alarmed ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... Sullivan's music in favour of Debussy's or of Scarlatini's 17th century tiraliras; or wore spectacles and had to have their front teeth in gold clamps. Just clear-eyed, good-tempered, good-looking, roguish and spontaneously natural and reasonably self-willed children, who adored their parents and did not openly mock at the Elishas that called ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... than a year, to endure a wonderful deal of misery, with an infinite patience; saying my books and maps were much better cheap to teach them than myself: many others have used the like good husbandry that have payed soundly in trying their self-willed conclusions; but those in time doing well, diverse others have in small handfulls undertaken to go there, to be several Lords and Kings of themselves, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to keep, and for a cat religiously brought up it is very little inclined to seclusion. It never sees a window without wishing to jump out, it would have leaped over the wall twenty times if it had not been prevented, and no secular cat could be more lawless or more self-willed." ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... many other weak men who have self-willed wives. He put off the inevitable day as long as he could, but finally achieved his purpose by strategy. Roger was in his seventeenth year when the news arrived that Sir Henry had died. It was right that James Tichborne should be present at his brother's funeral, and ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... reason; and in like manner "concupiscence does not listen to reason," according to Ethic. vii, 6. Secondly, they are alike as to the result. For a child, if left to his own will, becomes more self-willed: hence it is written (Ecclus. 30:8): "A horse not broken becometh stubborn, and a child left to himself will become headstrong." So, too, concupiscence, if indulged, gathers strength: wherefore Augustine says (Confess. viii, 5): "Lust served became a custom, and custom not resisted became ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... address; but still there was a hope that she might induce him to hear reason and again to consent to live with his wife. "Of all men," she said to the lawyer, "he is the most honest and the most affectionate; but of all men the most self-willed and obstinate. An injustice is with him like a running sore; and, alas, it is not always an injustice, but a something that he ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... mills that is practically controlled by one man, a very able man, but exceedingly self-willed and stubborn. He owns a chain of mills from coast to coast, and the rest of the manufacturers in his line follow his lead in everything. He has fought the Safety First idea from the start—calls it 'one of these ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... to find herself, the afternoon of the next day, astride a self-willed and unmanageable little mustang, riding in the rear of her friends, on the way through a cedar forest toward a ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... desirous of punishing me for my victories at Sacile and St. Boniface, and for advocating a declaration of war when he pronounced three times against it. He has already several times told the emperor that I am self-willed, disobedient, and always inclined to oppose his orders by words or even deeds; and the emperor always takes pleasure in informing ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... complete woman, one must have, what you have, what I may say and bless Heaven for, I think I have—a good heart. Without the affections, all the world is vanity, my love! I protest I only live, exist, eat, drink, rest, for my sweet, sweet children!—for my wicked Willy, for my self-willed Fanny, dear naughty loves!" (She rapturously kisses a bracelet on each arm which contains the miniature representations of those two young persons.) "Yes, Mimi! yes, Fanchon! you know I do, you dear, dear little things! and if they ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Kensington Convent.... All the little straw-mats on the slippery floor of the parlour were swept like chaff before the hurricane of her advancing petticoats as she bore down upon the most disappointing, erratic, and self-willed niece that ever brought the grey hairs of a solicitous and devoted aunt in sorrow to the grave, demanding in Heaven's name what Bridget-Mary meant by this maniacal decision? Then she drew back, for at first she ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Family disagreements with his father-in-law and uncle, the Shamkhal, still further separated the young couple, and they were seldom together. Was it strange, under the circumstances, that a young man, ardent by nature, self-willed by nature, should be inspired with a new love? To be with her was his highest happiness—to await her arrival his most delightful occupation. He ever felt a tremor when he heard her voice: each accent, like a ray of the sun, penetrated his soul. This feeling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... you self-willed girl," was the reply, "for I shall forbid you in presence of my household, and, for decorum's sake, you will be forced to obey. Neither shall you inhabit the third story of the main palace, in common with the other maids of honor; you shall occupy the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... casehardened; inflexible &c (hard) 323; balky; immovable, unshakable, not to be moved; inert &c 172; unchangeable &c 150; inexorable &c (determined) 604; mulish, obstinate as a mule, pig-headed. dogged; sullen, sulky; unmoved, uninfluenced unaffected. willful, self-willed, perverse; resty^, restive, restiff^; pervicacious^, wayward, refractory, unruly; heady, headstrong; entete [Fr.]; contumacious; crossgrained^. arbitrary, dogmatic, positive, bigoted; prejudiced &c 481; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... expressive eyes on hers, which, in her ecstasy of doubt, terror, and perplexity, she cast up towards him, "I have ever remarked that when others called thee girlish and wilful, there lay under that external semblance of youthful and self-willed folly deep feeling and strong sense. In this I will confide, trusting your own fate in your own hands for the space of twenty-four hours, without my interference by ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... at first, soon begin to join the cluster on the comb; while if they are dissatisfied, they will abandon the hive, and nearly all the bees that were originally on the comb, will leave with them. They seem capricious in this matter, and are sometimes so very self-willed, that they refuse to have anything to do with the brood comb, when I can see no good reason why ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... the amiable qualities of the donkey. "Little Brownie," as the children had unanimously and immediately named him, was of equable and even nature. True, as the days went by it was discovered that he was somewhat lazy, also self-willed. If he wanted to stop he would not move again until he wished to, in face of all pleading, urging, or inducements. He refused even to be led, and stood very pleasantly viewing the surrounding landscape till with a sudden jerk he would resume his usual ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... organization relied upon throughout the West was that of the volunteer militia. In periods of ordinary Indian warfare the system served its purpose fairly well. Under stern necessity, the self-willed, independence-loving backwoodsmen could be brought to act together for a few weeks or months; but they had little systematic training, and their impatience of restraint prevented the building up of any real discipline. There were periodic ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of heartfelt pity, promised to hide her "dear child" from every one, which promise, however, did not prevent her, for she was very self-willed, from going, without Jacqueline's knowledge, to see Madame de Talbrun and tell her all that had taken place. She was hurt and amazed at her reception by Giselle, and at her saying, without any offer of help or words of sympathy, "She has only reaped what she has sown." Giselle ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... with Bess, her little quarrels and tart replies, her generous, happy, winning, self-willed ways, were as if they had never been, and in their place came resignation, reserve, pride and a little—only a little—regret ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... reflections suddenly took a strange, unbidden turn. If he had only himself to consider! ... well, what then! Was it not just within the bounds of probability that, under the same circumstances, he might be precisely as self-willed and as haughtily opinionated as the friend whose arrogance he ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of English Toryism, that it gives way just in time. Every reform has hitherto been granted as it was on the point of being extorted. Official carriages roll over the very spot where Charles I. dropped his self-willed head; Lady Macbeth might wash her hands as soon as the English people their memories of the civil bloodstain. Toryism knows one thing well: that no water-pipes can be made strong enough to withstand the sudden stoppage of a long column of water. They will burst and overflow. No matter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... sort of a character a boy must necessarily form, brought up under such influences and surrounded by such scenes as those which thus prevailed at the court of Claudius. It proved in the end that Nero experienced the full effect of them. He became proud, vain, self-willed, cruel, and accustomed to yield himself without restraint to all those wicked propensities and passions which, under such circumstances, always gain dominion over ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... aged seventeen; Hubert, aged ten; and Eliza, aged eight. The girls had their father's handsome features, but in their skin there ran a dusky tinge, hinting of other than pure Saxon blood; and they were every whit as haughtily self-willed as he was. The boy, Hubert, was extremely pretty, his face fair, his complexion delicately beautiful, his auburn hair bright, his manner winning; but he liked to exercise his own will, and appeared to have generally ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... his wife, "except that Enna is not well enough to go out, and wants a fairy story to pass away the time, which Elsie alone is acquainted with, but is too lazy or too self-willed ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... men are ambitious, self-willed, self-indulgent, easily corrupted by bad example, of which there is always too much. I cannot say much for those of the present day, though it is not absolutely destitute of ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... little girl to do, but she found it a very much harder matter to govern quick-tempered, impulsive Ruby than it was to guide her own gentle little daughter, and she often sighed as she thought how distressed Ruby's mamma would be if she knew how self-willed and mischievous her little daughter was ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... in forming an excellent example of truly popular art. The story is that of the gradual mellowing and final happy marriage of two young people who, with the best of hearts, are veritable firebrands of self-willed defiance to everything suggesting outside interference. The nickname of the girl, "Heiterethei," given her on account of her bright and sunny disposition, explains the title of the story. And it ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... which hid their selfish political intrigues. There had been a time when Somerset was one of them, and had sought his own advancement as they now did theirs. And the deserted regiment never pardons the deserter. The faction complained that Somerset was proud and self-willed: he worked alone; he acted on his own responsibility; he did not consult his friends. This of course meant in the case of each member of the faction (as such complaints usually do), "He did not consult me." Somerset might truthfully have pleaded in ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... knows which to ask for first, as more salutary for our own slumbersome, yet so self-willed, northern temperaments. Perhaps all genuine fire, even the Heraclitean fire, has a power for ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the house and Pinto had spent the greater part of the night together, drinking aguardente de beiju,—a spirit distilled from the mandioca root. We knew nothing of the antecedents of this man, who was a tall, strong, self-willed fellow, and it began to dawn on us that this was not a very safe travelling companion in a wild country like this. I thought it better now to make the best of our way to the next settlement, Aveyros, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... can easily comprehend the mortification you must have felt in having one so self-willed to deal with," returned the surgeon, glancing his eyes reproachfully at his comrade. "But you should rise superior to such opinions, and pity the ignorance by which they ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... his career through life. He was naturally high-spirited; and, having been indulged by his mother, and seldom controlled by his male guardian, a brother some ten years older than himself, Harry was rather disposed to be self-willed, and cherished some false notions regarding independence of character. His friends hoped, however, that as he grew older, he would become wiser. Something of this feeling had been mixed up with the motives which had lately ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... immoderate use of things allowed, or in burning in things unallowed, to that use which is against nature; or are found guilty, raging with heart and tongue against Thee, kicking against the pricks; or when, bursting the pale of human society, they boldly joy in self-willed combinations or divisions, according as they have any object to gain or subject of offence. And these things are done when Thou art forsaken, O Fountain of Life, who art the only and true Creator and Governor of the Universe, and by a self-willed ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... you are a prodigal, and self-willed fool. Nay, never look at me, it's I that speak, Take't as you will, I'll not flatter you. What? have you not means enow to waste That which your friends have left you, but you must Go cast away your money ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... Frenchman in temperament, speaking with equal fluency the language of all four countries, and an unconsidered trifle of some half-dozen European languages besides? Then there was the English student from Bonn, who had come down to the front accompanied by a terrible brute of a dog, vast, shaggy, self-willed, and dirty; an animal which, so to speak, owned his owner, and was so much the horror and disgust of everybody that on account of him the company of his master—one of the pleasantest fellows alive— was the source of general apprehension. There was young Silberer the many-sided and ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... Henry VII. was neither overbearing nor devoid of tact, and from the doubtful character of his title to the throne he was obliged to be circumspect in his dealings with the nation. It was not so, however, with Henry VIII. He was a young, impulsive, self-willed ruler, freed from nearly all the dangers that had acted as a restraint upon his father, surrounded for the most part by upstarts who had no will except to please their master, and intensely popular with the merchants, farmers, and labourers, whose welfare ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... treachery and hardened in vice, was apparently a stranger to all compunctious visitings. A life of crime had steeled her soul against every merciful impression. But she was very apprehensive lest her son, less obdurate in purpose, might relent. Though impotent in character, he was, at times, petulant and self-willed, and in paroxysms of stubbornness spurned his mother's counsels and ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the lunar forehead, among the coronal masses, darkly fair, she fixed a diamond star, and over it wound the smoky green like a turbaned vapor, wind-ruffled, through which the diamonds gleamed faintly by fits. Not once would she, while at her work, allow Hesper to look, and the self-willed lady had been submissive in her hands as a child of the chosen; but the moment she had succeeded—for her expectations were more than realized—she led her to the cheval-glass. Hesper gazed for an instant, then, turning, threw her arms ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... of us reaches back to our first struggles as we emerged from self-willed childhood into a recognition of family obligations. We have all gradually learned to respond to them, and yet most of us have had at least fleeting glimpses of what it might be to disregard them and the elemental ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... almost the same lordly fashion as the preachers. Of a certain congregation at Norwich Wesley writes, 'I told them in plain terms that they were the most ignorant, self-conceited, self-willed, fickle, untractable, disorderly, disjointed society that I knew in the three kingdoms. And God applied to their hearts, so that many were profited, but I do not find that one was offended.'[727] At one time he had an idea that tea was expensive and unwholesome, and his people are commanded to abstain ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... regular toil until the people were called together at Mizpah and proclaimed him king. Samuel supported him with his influence and the people gave him allegiance. He was for a while subservient to the will of God and greatly prospered. But later he became self-willed and failed to see that the nation was God's and not his. He developed a spirit of disobedience, perverseness and evil conduct that mark ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... extinguished. The young man becomes prematurely old. We have all witnessed that saddest of spectacles, the petulant child developing into the ruffian boy, and hurrying into the ruffian man,—rude, hard-natured, swaggering, and self-willed, a darkness over his conscience, a glare over his appetites, insensible to duty or affection, and only tamed into decencies by the chains of restraint which an outraged community binds on his impulses. Now give this young savage arbitrary power, let him inherit the empire ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... like it, between two jays. I happened not to see the beginning, for I was particularly struck that morning with the behavior of a bouquet of nasturtiums which stood in a vase on my table. I never was fond of these flowers, and I noticed then for the first time how very self-willed and obstinate they were. No matter how nicely they were arranged, it would not be an hour before the whole bunch was in disorder, every blossom turning the way it preferred, and no two looking in the same direction. I thought, when I first observed this, that I must be mistaken, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... liking the boy despite the odd, self-willed solemnity of his face. He is between fourteen and fifteen apparently, squarely built, with his mother's aquiline features and his father's strong forehead. The year he has spent at Rugby has redeemed him from being a lout, but it is ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... as he mounted his horse to return home; but he soon became calm and thoughtful, and his noble charger, as if knowing the mood of his master, slackened its speed to a walk. "General D—— is an obstinate and self-willed man, and his policy anything but what it should be at so critical a time," muttered Arthur half aloud; "but was I wise to cross him, and in the heat of the moment to throw up my appointment on his staff; I who have nothing but my pay to depend ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... mean what you say. You know quite well you would not give up your son and daughter for all the money in the world. You love Edna all the more because she needs so much care, and you are just as proud of Rex as you can be. Of course he is self-willed and determined, but if you could change him into a weak, undecided creature like the vicar's son, you would be ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... black speck settling for an instant upon whiteness, then carried away by a purifying wind. She knew that she would always be subject to such moments so long as she was a human being, that there would always be in her blood something that was self-willed. Otherwise, would she not be already in Paradise? She sat and prayed for strength in the battle of life, that could never be anything else but ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... ensued, that he began to be alarmed, and fully came to the conclusion that Philip Carey was in the right after all. Towards morning, however, a short sleep visited him, and he awoke at length quite sufficiently refreshed to be self-willed as ever; and, contrary to advice, insisted on leaving his bed ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to manage, from being accustomed to obey no commander. They were the men who joined Fimbria in putting to death Flaccus, who was a consul and their general, and who gave up Fimbria himself to Sulla[343]—self-willed and lawless men, but brave and full of endurance, and experienced soldiers. However, in a short time, Lucullus took down the insolence of these soldiers, and changed the character of the rest, who then, for the first ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... the nature of his gallantry was a little self-willed, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of dancing with her; but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest. Had she intended ever to marry him, it might have been worth while to pause and consider, and try to understand the value of his preference, and the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and strong man, with brown hair; of a manly appearance, but not handsome; well grown; of little speech, and often not friendly, but good to his friends, and faithful; not very eloquent, but moral and polite. King Sigurd was self-willed, and severe in his revenge; strict in observing the law; was generous; and withal an able, powerful king. His brother Olaf was a tall, thin man; handsome in countenance; lively, modest, and popular. When all these brothers, ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... excellent caricature might have been made of that good-humoured savant, as he sat on his Rosinante, armed with an enormous double-barrelled gun, loaded but not primed, some time, to no purpose, spurring the self-willed animal, and then spying through an opera-glass at the majestic animals which ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... ignorance, they are disgusting beyond expression. Augustus Brammel was the most sensual and self-engrossed of men—the most idle and dissipated; and, as if these were not enough to render him an object of the deepest aversion, he was as self-willed, thick-headed, overbearing a dunce as ever moved a man to that contempt "which wisdom holds unlawful ever;" and Brammel was not only a fool, but a conceited, upstart, irritating fool. He considered himself the shrewdest of mortals, and presumed to dictate, to be impertinent, to carry ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... he craved. Four men—all with better war records and more experience—stood between him and that coveted star, and two of the four were popular and beloved men. Frost was cold, selfish, intensely self-willed, indomitably persevering, and though "close-fisted," to the scale of a Scotch landlord as a rule, he would loose his purse strings and pay well for services he considered essential. When Frost had a consuming desire he let no money consideration stand in the way, and for ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... girl was now looking, after an obscure and wistful fashion, for an introduction into society, in which, according to the belief of the family, Mrs. Rhodes occupied a secure and brilliant position. Rosamund had been revolving matters in her pretty and self-willed little head, and in her proud and self-willed little heart she had decided ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... see what else she could have done. But, not being Lord Etherington, and an anointed scoundrel into the bargain, I will content myself with cudgelling him to death so soon as I can get out of the guardianship of this old, meddling, obstinate, self-willed, busybody.—Then, what is to be done for Clara?—This mock marriage was a mere bubble, and both parties must draw stakes. She likes this grave Don, who proves to be the stick of the right tree, after all—so do not I, though there be something lordlike about him. I was sure a ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... is setting up our authority above his. The two ideas of service and self-will are opposed the one to the other. Self-will always means rebellion against God's will. Therefore if a person chooses what he will do, and leaves undone what he finds distasteful, he, and not God, is the master. This self-willed disposition is very noticeable among nominal professors of religion. They profess to be God's servants, and yet they set their wills not to do certain things that they ought to do, or else to do certain things that they ought not to do. ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... grief, children again, dizzards, they carl many times as they sit, and talk to themselves, they are angry, waspish, displeased with every thing, "suspicious of all, wayward, covetous, hard" (saith Tully,) "self-willed, superstitious, self-conceited, braggers and admirers of themselves," as [1305]Balthazar Castilio hath truly noted of them. [1306]This natural infirmity is most eminent in old women, and such as ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... with evident intention, which the others were quick to read, changed the subject of conversation. On the whole, vexed though she was with Frances's persistence—'self-willed obstinacy' as she called it to herself—Jacinth felt that the dreaded crisis had passed off better than might have been expected, and in some things it was a relief. Things were on ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... such adventure. The Major told them, in language more expressive than polite, that he didn't believe a word of any such yarn; that the mountains had to be crossed, and that go they must and should. They had evidently never had to deal before with any such determined, self-willed individual as the Major proved to be, and, after some consultation among themselves, they agreed to make the attempt with eight unloaded horses, leaving all our baggage and heavy equipage at Lesnoi. This the Major at first would not listen to; but after thinking the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... how actively we need to use our wills, it is often, necessary to drop all self-willed resistance first, before we begin an action, if we want to succeed with the least possible effort and ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... of vertu." He started on his accumulating career with some old family relics, and these, perhaps, gave the direction to his subsequent acquisitions, for they were all, like his books, brought together after some self-willed and peculiar law of association that pleased himself. A bad, even an inferior, picture he would not have—for his taste was exquisite—unless, indeed, it had some strange history about it, adapting it to ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... had taken clerical orders and was established as assistant to the secretary of one of the cardinals. Up to his twentieth year Petrarch was self-willed, moody, and subject to fits of melancholy. He knew too much and saw things ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... seal rookeries, where millions of cubs wallowed, and where bulls lashed themselves in their rage and fought for mastery of the herd. By November, Waxel alone was holding the vessel up to the wind. No more solemn conferences of self-important, self-willed scientists filled the commander's cabin! No more solemn conclaves and arguments and counter-arguments to induce the commander to sail this way and that! Bedlam reigned above and below decks. No man had any thought but how to reach home alive. Prayers and vows and offerings went up ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... chief factor in determining a marriage, and only those men or women whose fathers were dead, or who had been formally freed from tutelage, were in a position absolutely to please themselves. We need not suppose either that sons were always very amenable, or that parents were invariably self-willed and autocratic, but it is obvious that marriages based on mutual attraction must have been extremely few. We will suppose that Silius is his own master, while Marcia has a father or ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... for mild relapses on festive occasions. A more seemingly incongruous marriage could scarcely be imagined, and yet it was a success from the start. From a slim, silent, self-willed girl Susan had grown up into a tall, rather rawboned and energetic young woman. She was what we called in those days "intellectual," and had gone in for kindergartens, and after her marriage she turned out to be excessively domestic; practising her theories, with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... get on well with Marfa Timofyevna, when she came to live in the Kalitins' house. Such gravity and dignity on the part of one who had once worn the motley skirt of a peasant wench displeased the impatient and self-willed old lady. Agafya asked leave to go on a pilgrimage and she never came back. There were dark rumours that she had gone off to a retreat of sectaries. But the impression she had left in Lisa's soul was never obliterated. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... he sprang inside again and made for the ladder leading downstairs. But quick as he was, his visitor was before him. People talk of the miraculous quickness of a mother's ears; a father's, I think, are sometimes quite as acute, and Bridget's father loved dearly his self-willed, tiresome, queer-tempered little girl. Long before he got to the top of the ladder he knew more than old Tobias, more than any of them—Mr. Mildmay or young Williams, the other lighthouse man—had any idea of. He knew that the voice which had reached him was that of his own Biddy, ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... Savelli, the self-willed, temperamental daughter of an Italian violin virtuoso, furnished much of the interest of the book. The efforts of Grace and her chums to create in this girl a healthy, wholesome enjoyment for High School life, and her repudiation of their friendship, and subsequent attempts to revenge ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... days in Syria—when you used, so successfully, to withstand and subdue my giddy or headstrong mind. Here have I been for weary hours—not weary neither, for their aim has, I am sure, been a worthy one—but, here have I been persuading, with all the reason and eloquence I could bring to bear, this self-willed girl to renounce these fantastic notions she has imbibed from the Christians, and their books, were it only for the sake of domestic peace. Aurelian is growing daily more and more exasperated against this obscure tribe, and drops, oftener than I love to hear them, dark hints of what awaits them, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... no doubt felt that the two young people were self-willed, obstinate, and contradictory. His daughter wouldn't marry the clergyman because she had been deprived of her property. The clergyman now refused to marry his daughter because it was presumed that her property might be restored to her. As, however, he could not induce ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... the best and completest of her books. So far as pure literary charm goes it would be difficult to amend her work, but the suggestion of character conveyed is surely too acidulated. Such a set of stubborn, self-willed, and uncomfortable people as are gathered together in these pages could hardly have lived in any single village in any quarter of the world. They are drawn with an air of truth which is not easy to resist, but if they are really as accurately studied as they ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... misery, and may hope; their sorrows shall be turned into joy. But the ungodly who, without regarding the Lord, and without hearkening to His Servant, would help themselves, will bring destruction upon themselves by their self-willed doings, and shall be visited by the avenging hand of the Servant ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... part of the poor weeping parents, whom she can fancy, against the savage law. No doubt, as Egyptologists tell us, the princesses of the royal house had separate households and abundant liberty of action. Still, it was bold to override the strict commands of such a monarch. But it was not a self-willed sense of power, but the beautiful daring of a compassionate woman, to which God committed the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... time: the veil they rent, And what behind it lay, all earth shall view. But good with ill they also overthrew, Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild Upon the same foundation, and renew Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refilled, As heretofore, because ambition was self-willed. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... envious, retiredness obscure, fasting painful, satiety unwieldy, religion nicely severe, liberty is lawless, wealth burdensome, mediocrity contemptible. Everything faulteth, either in too much or too little. This man is ever headstrong and self-willed, neither is he always tied to esteem or pronounce according to reason; some things he must dislike he knows not wherefore, but he likes them not; and otherwhere, rather than not censure, he will accuse a man of virtue. Everything he meddleth with he either findeth imperfect or maketh so; ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... which almost met, her nose was straight, slightly up-turned, her lips were thin with a beautiful but sharp curve; she had a huge braid of black hair, which was heavy even to the eye, a low, impassive, stony brow, tiny ears ... her whole countenance was thoughtful, almost surly. A passionate, self-willed nature,—not likely to be either kindly or even intelligent,—but gifted, was manifested by everything ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Favorable traits only, 19; one or more unfavorable traits, 8; no answer, 4. The eight with unfavorable moral traits are described as follows: 2 are "very self-willed"; 1 "needs close watching"; 1 is "cruel to animals"; 1 is "untruthful"; 1 is "unreliable"; 1 is "a bluffer"; 1 is "sexually abnormal," ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... cling close to Him. Ye ha' muckle need o' His care. An' dinna trust your life to the dochtering o' a sullen ignoramus like the captain,—an obstinate, self-willed brute, that, right or wrang, will ha' his ain way. Dinna tak' ony ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... is now told. His career was brief. It is however pregnant with unfortunate events, and contains excellent material for moral reflection. It is in itself a lesson for the young and the inexperienced, showing the sad results of a self-willed confidence, the love of vain-glory in adventure, the yielding of moral principles to gratify the desire of either oneself or that of others:—and worse than all, the sacrificing of the nobler attributes of human nature to the insidious wiles of evil society and intoxicating liquor. ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... and elevated pleasures. He thought, even, that the Rector—that name of fear—had at last found in himself the ideal which he had vainly sought in so many examples of lettered youth. He became vain, perhaps, but certainly a little self-willed, as was his nature, feeling himself to be on the top of the wave, and above those precautions for keeping himself there which had once seemed necessary. He did not, indeed, turn to any harm, for that was not in his nature; ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... cataract, or an ELEGANT like Brummel to point to an armful of failures in the attempt to achieve a perfect tie. This son of mine, whom I have not seen for these twenty-five years, generously counted, was a self-willed youth, always too ready to utter his unchastised fancies. He, like too many American young people, got the spur when he should have had the rein. He therefore helped to fill the market with that unripe fruit which his father says in one of these papers abounds in the marts of his native ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... nice little girl indeed, truthful, trustful, generous, and affectionate. But she was by no means without some spicy little faults of her own. She was impulsive to rashness, and decidedly self-willed. She was given to odd little romantic fancies and secret schemes, which sometimes got her into trouble, when she attempted to carry them out. She was an only child, and much petted and indulged in a happy and luxurious home, having everything ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... did not venture at once to strike down one so formidable. A mission was assigned the cardinal at Rome, to remove him from the country. He refused to accept it. The boy-king was growing reckless, passionate, self-willed. He began to feel the power that was in his hand. The cardinal was warned of his danger. He smiled, and said "that, sustained by his ecclesiastical rank, he had ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... in heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Music goes on certain rules and laws. Man did not make these laws of music; he has only found them out; and, if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music instantly: all he brings out is discord and ugly sounds: The greatest musician in the world is as much bound by those laws as the learner in the school; and the greatest musician is one who, instead of fancying that because ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run, and a long revel after it: this is what over-much horse tends to animalize a man into. Such antecedents may have helped to make little Dick Venner a self-willed, capricious boy, and a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... 'why trust to these self-willed methods, and neglect the noble and exquisite forms which the Church has prepared for us as embodiments for ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... is the story of a schoolmaster, his trials, disappointments, and final victory. It will recall to many a man his experience in teaching pupils, and in managing their opinionated and self-willed parents. The story has the charm which is always found in Mr. ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... did indeed trouble Waitstill. Self-reproach, in the true sense of the word, she did not, could not, feel. Never since the day she was born had she been fathered, and daughterly love was absent; but she suffered when she thought of the fierce, self-willed old man, cutting himself off from all possible friendships, while his vigor was being sapped daily and hourly by ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Imperatrice'. Tut! Tut! Give me some ink— 'Bouquet de la Reine', what do you think? Not the same receipt? Now, Martin, put away your conceit. Who will ever know? 'Extract of Nobility'—excellent, since most of them are killed." "But, Monsieur Antoine—" "You are self-willed, Martin. You need a salve For your conscience, do you? Very well, we'll halve The compliments, also the pastes and dentifrices; Send some to the Kings, and some to the Empresses. 'Oil of Bitter Almonds'—the Empress Josephine can have that. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... very points in which his reputation has been most attacked. The vague tradition of subsequent chroniclers, the unbridled fancy of the poet, the bitterness of polemical controversy, unite in representing Henry as a self-willed, obstinate young man, regardless of every object but his own gratification, "as dissolute as desperate," under no control of feelings of modesty, with no reverence for his elders, discarding all parental authority, reckless of consequences; ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... when driven from it to let it go, to let it depart from them. Wherefore there must go a great deal to the making of a man a Christian; for as to that, every man is a fool, yea, the greatest fool, the most unconcerned fool, the most self-willed fool of all fools; yea, one that will not be turned from his folly but by the breaking of his heart. David was one of these fools; Manasseh was one of these fools; Saul, otherwise called Paul, was one of these fools; and so was I—and that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... passed away; every stain of passion had been removed; every particle of hardness had been calcined in the flame of trial. All was gentleness, love, and dependence, in the once bright, impetuous, self-willed boy; it seemed as though the lightning of God's anger had shattered and swept away all that was evil in his heart and life, and left all his true excellence, all the royal prerogatives of his character, pure ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... could not be induced, like an ordinary mortal, to wait a reasonable time in order to give his bride an opportunity of preparing her trousseau. He was a self-willed man, and a man of a strong mind. He insisted upon being married "out of hand, and have done with it." So he was married—whether "out of hand" or not we cannot tell—by the excellent clergyman of Pine Point settlement. On the same day, and the same hour, March Marston was ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... gentlemen who are brought up from their cradles in an atmosphere of flattery not being spoiled; but unless they are angels—which is a very exceptional case—it cannot be otherwise. Richard Luscombe was a good fellow in many ways; liberal with his money (indeed, apt to be lavish), and kind-hearted, but self-willed, effeminate, and impulsive. He had also—which was a source of great alarm and grief to his father—a ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... opinion of which the German onslaughts upon 'relativismus' consists. Refuse to use the word 'opinion' abstractly, keep it in its real environment, and the withers of pragmatism remain unwrung. That men do exist who are 'opinionated,' in the sense that their opinions are self-willed, is unfortunately a fact that must be admitted, no matter what one's notion of truth in general may be. But that this fact should make it impossible for truth to form itself authentically out of the life of opinion is what no critic has yet proved. Truth ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... another fellow, too, Fred Ramer, self-willed, imperious, extravagant in his habits, greedy and unscrupulous; but he was handsome and masterful, with a compelling magnetism that made us admire him and bound us to him. He had never known what it meant to have a single wish denied him. And with his ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... had not made for her a more refined mouth. The upper part of her face was often illuminated; the lower narrowly escaped coarseness; and a head of rusty red hair gave a total impression of strenuous brilliancy, of keen abiding vitality. A self-willed New York girl who had never undergone the chastening influence of discipline or rigorously ordered study—she averred that it would attenuate the individuality of her style; avowedly despising the classics, she was a modern of moderns ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... entered in the journals of the house. His lordship began at this time to display an obstructive disposition towards the government with which he had so long acted. He had proved that his exaltation to the office of lord-chancellor had inflated his vanity, and made him so self-willed and crotchetty as to render co-operation with him either in the government of the country, or in conducting bills through the legislature, next ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... had come to nothing. And it was this little monster, who looked as fair and as white as a seraph, who had just shattered my first hopes. Huddled up in the cab, an expression of fear on her self-willed looking face and her thin lips compressed, she was gazing at me under her long ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... John Lockhart, and one for poor Gillies; but there is something irresistible in contradiction, even when it consists in doing a thing equally laborious, but not the thing you are especially called upon to do. It is a kind of cheating the devil, which a self-willed monster like me is particularly addicted to. Not to make myself worse than I am though, I was full of information about the Russian campaign, which might evaporate unless used, like lime, as soon after it was wrought up as possible. About three, Pitfoddels called. A bauld ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... is, my children; your mother excites her heart, excites her fury. Hasten as quick as possible within the house, and come not near her sight, nor approach her, but guard against the fierce temper and violent nature of her self-willed mind. Go now, go as quick as possible within. But it is evident that the cloud of grief raised up from the beginning will quickly burst forth with greater fury; what I pray will her soul, great in rage, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... Himself, and in essence are, in various fashions, the repetition of this prayer of my text: 'Be ... for Thou art,' that we can expect to have them answered. Much else may call itself prayer, but it is often but petulant and self-willed endeavour to force our wishes upon Him, and no answer will come to that. We are to pray about everything; but we are to pray about nothing, except within the lines which are marked out for us by what God has told us, in His words and acts, that He Himself is. Catch these up ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... (hard) 323; balky; immovable, unshakable, not to be moved; inert &c. 172; unchangeable &c. 150; inexorable &c. (determined) 604; mulish, obstinate as a mule, pig-headed. dogged; sullen, sulky; unmoved, uninfluenced unaffected. willful, self-willed, perverse; resty[obs3], restive, restiff|; pervicacious[obs3], wayward, refractory, unruly; heady, headstrong; entete[Fr]; contumacious; crossgrained[obs3]. arbitrary, dogmatic, positive, bigoted; prejudiced &c. 481; creed- bound; prepossessed, infatuated; stiff-backed, stiff necked, stiff hearted; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the signs of scruples and the remedy against them? A. The signs of scruples are chiefly: (1) To be always dissatisfied with our confessions; (2) To be self-willed in deciding what is sinful and what is not. The chief remedy against them is to follow exactly the advice of the confessor without questioning the reason ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... twenty years, this Carl Walraven, over the world, nobody knew where. A reckless, self-willed, headstrong boy, he had broken wild and run away from home at nineteen, abruptly and without warning. Abruptly and without warning he had returned home, one fine morning, twenty years after, and walking up the palatial steps, shabby, and ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... I notice in the school history of this boy is the unkindness which he showed his school-fellows. If he played with them, he was quite sure to get offended before the play was through. He was surly, self-willed, and disposed always to have his own ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... boy of four years and three months who was 3 feet 10 1/2 inches tall and weighed 54 pounds; his features were large and coarse, and his penis and testes were of the size of those of an adult. He was unusually dull, mentally, quite obstinate, and self-willed. It is said that he masturbated on all opportunities and had vigorous erections, although no spermatozoa were found in the semen issued. He showed no fondness for the opposite sex. The history of this rapid ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... enterprise but confirmed him in his first paradoxical views of human ills and their remedies; and, instead of waiting to take lessons of authority and experience, he, with a courage, admirable had it been but wisely directed, made war upon both. From this sort of self-willed start in the world, an impulse was at once given to his opinions and powers directly contrary, it would seem, to their natural bias, and from which his life was too short to allow him time to recover. With a mind, by nature, fervidly pious, he yet refused to acknowledge a Supreme Providence, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... quiet, easy, gentle, I may be so, but I am also passionate, determined, and you say selfish; be that as it may, I cannot give up without a very hard struggle, not even then usually. I am unyielding. Persevering and firm, Emily would say, self-willed and obstinate, ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... who are good men, there are not those who may have allowed party spirit to take the place of Christian principle; men who have exhibited a mournful destitution of Christian charity; who have indulged in an overbearing, denouncing, and self-willed pertinacity as to measures. Yet with these reservations, I believe that the above is no more than a fair and just exhibition of that class of men who are embraced in the party of Abolitionists. And all this can be admitted, and yet the objection I am to urge against joining their ranks may stand ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... looking down upon companions not gifted with powers like your own. Do not despise Patience, or think that you are too clever to need it. It is not the quickest or sharpest pupil that really spends Time to best purpose. Often has the haughty, self-willed genius been found to ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... difficult matter to get officers than soldiers. Very few of those appointed made their appearance; one of the captains had been promoted; two declined; Washington found himself left, almost alone, to manage a number of self-willed, undisciplined recruits. Happily he had with him, in the rank of lieutenant, that soldier of fortune, Jacob Van Braam, his old "master of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... prefers wheaten bread to the black and sour mass that formerly served him: and when true jewels are placed before him, counterfeit ones in his eyes soon lose their lustre, and become things which he scorns. The multitude are teachable—teachable as a child; but, like a child, they are self-willed and obstinate, and will learn in their own way, or not at all. And, if the artist wishes to raise them unto a fit audience, he must consult their very waywardness, or his work will be a Penelope's web of done and undone: he must be to them not only cords of support staying their every ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... self-willed and blind, Made tatters of her dauntless sail, And all the wildness of the wind Was loosed on her, she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... others were immigrant fortune seekers. The white women were less than half as numerous as the men, and black or yellow concubines were common substitutes for wives. The colony was the French equivalent of Jamaica, but more prosperous and more self-willed and self-indulgent. Its whites were impatient of outside control, and resolute that the slaves be ruled with iron hand and that the colored freemen ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... music and pictures. She died when I was twelve, and poor Father, who worshiped her, wanted to carry out her plans for me, though he had no special sympathy with them. To make things worse for him, nobody but Mother ever had any control over me; I was spoiled and self-willed and precocious, and I thought the world owed me a good time. Dad's business judgment of human nature saved the situation, he thoroughly understood one thing about me, that I'd keep a bargain if I made it. So we fixed up our ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... "General, I do not remember exactly, but as near as I can judge it was about twenty minutes." That remark settled the friendly relations between the two men. I want to say here that Gillem was not the man for the place. He was self-willed, self-opinionated, knew nothing about Indian warfare; in fact, got his shoulder straps through the enterprise of one of his officers and the treachery of a woman, in killing the Confederate Gen. Morgan. He ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson |
