"Sobriety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was his grandson T'ai-kia, who was under the tutelage of a wise minister [Page 81] named I-yin. Observing the indolence and pleasure-loving disposition of the young man, the minister sent him into retirement for three years that he might acquire habits of sobriety and diligence. The circumstance that makes this incident worth recording is that the minister, instead of retaining the power in his own family, restored the throne to ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... their utmost to prepare the prince for being spoiled: the dreadful dullness of papa's Court, its stupid amusements, its dreary occupations, the maddening humdrum, the stifling sobriety of its routine, would have made a scapegrace of a much less lively prince. All the big princes bolted from that castle of ennui where old King George sat, posting up his books and droning over his Handel; and old Queen Charlotte over ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... brow and the difficult, the smothered statement on his lips (his vocabulary was scant and stiff, the vocabulary of pleading explanation, often found too complicated by the witty,) retired once more to his room sometimes indeed for hours, to think it all over again; but had never failed of sobriety or propriety or punctuality or regularity, never failed of one of the virtues his imputed indifference to which had been the ground of his discipline. It was very extraordinary, and of all the stories I know is I think the most beautiful—so far at least ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... this peculiarity attached to it, that a slight state of intoxication very often enhances the remembrance of past times and scenes, whereby all the circumstances connected with them are recalled more distinctly than they could be in a state of sobriety; on the other hand, the recollection of what one said or did while in a state of intoxication is less clear than usual, nay, one does not recollect at all if one has been very drunk. Therefore, intoxication enhances one's recollection ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Peter's injunction for the Christian to keep within the bounds of physical temperance and sobriety; not to overload the body and injure it by excessive eating and drinking: so as to be watchful, intelligent, and in a mood, to pray. He who is not careful to discharge the obligations of his office or station with temperance ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... Which will of course prevent any body from thinking any thing naughty. A very pleasant person, but such an enormous feeder, That our captain began to fear she might prove a famine-breeder; A sort of female Falstaff, fond of jokes and gay society, Cards, claret, eau-de-vie, and a great hater of sobriety. Her favorite game at cards she acknowledged was ecarte, But like Mrs. Battle, she loved whist, and we soon made up a party. We played from morn till night, and then from night till morning, Although the captain, who was pious, continually gave us warning. That time so badly spent would lead ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... eloquence and unselfish enthusiasm inducing thousands upon thousands to forswear the drink-poison that was destroying them. In two years he succeeded in enrolling two million five hundred thousand persons on the side of sobriety. The permanence of the good Father's immediate work was impaired by the superstitions which his poor followers associated with it, much against his desire. Not only were the medals which he gave as badges to his vowed ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... (In Somn. Scip. i, 8) reckons many more parts of temperance: for he says that "temperance results in modesty, shamefacedness, abstinence, chastity, honesty, moderation, lowliness, sobriety, purity." Andronicus also says [*De Affectibus] that "the companions of temperance are gravity, continence, humility, simplicity, refinement, method, contentment." [*Per-se-sufficientiam which could be rendered ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... brigade, himself received his death wounds. Afterward the surviving members of the corps joined Boer commandos where stray train-loads of officers' wines, such as were found the day before the battle of Elandslaagte, were not allowed to interfere with the sobriety of the burghers. The Russian corps, under Commandant Alexis de Ganetzky and Colonel Prince Baratrion-Morgaff, was formed after all the men had been campaigning under Boer officers in Natal for several months. The majority of the men were Johannesburgers without military experience who joined the ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... portion of the citizens might feel at their exclusion from the church, they found a powerful counter-attraction in the amusements going forward in the Place, the occupants of which seemed thoroughly regardless of the bishop's admonitions upon the sobriety of behaviour due to the solemnity of the day. As if in utter defiance of the decency and order recommended by the clergy, popular exhibitions of all sorts were set up on the broad flagstones of the great space before the church. Street ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... person of strict veracity, and of the greatest sobriety and decorum: he ought to be skilled in all the commentaries on the 'Ayur-Veda,' and be otherwise a man of sense and benevolence: his heart must be charitable, his temper calm, and his constant study how to ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... Mohawk tribe were debased by Intemperance, and embroiled in sanguinary wars with their brother Indians, the females called a council, by themselves, and so did they protest against these giant sins, as, for a season, to bring sobriety and peace within the borders ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... large vessels up to the town, in lightering cargoes to the wharves. He hired his time of his master, and carried on business on his own account. Every one knew him, and his character for honesty, sobriety, and punctuality stood so high that his word was considered among merchants as good as that of the first business-men of the place. Well, Jack's wife and children were free, and he finally took ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... all this did not indicate the perfect sobriety and self-control proper to a statesman, in what was a serious crisis both to his party and to Europe. It was about this time that Burke said to Addington, who was then Speaker of the House of Commons, that he was not well. "I eat too ...
— Burke • John Morley
... common lot of those who depend rather on their hereditary possessions than on their own powers; and in the third generation they had descended to a point below which, in this happy country, it is barely possible for honesty, intellect and sobriety to fall. The same pride of family that had, by its self-satisfied indolence, conduced to aid their fail, now became a principle to stimulate them to endeavor to rise again. The feeling, from being morbid, was ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... "extremement sobre en son boire et en son manger." And though some wild stories were afloat about his using the juice of mandragora (p. 140,) and opium, (p. 144,) yet neither of these articles appeared in his druggist's bill. Living, therefore, with such sobriety, how was it possible that he should die a natural death at forty-four? Hear his biographer's account:—"Sunday morning the 21st of February, before it was church time, Spinosa came down stairs and conversed with the master and mistress of the house." ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... societies of students had their origin in political opposition to this separation of the students into communities from the various states. The originators of the Burschenschaften movement, for example, were eleven students at Jena. Sobriety and chastity were conditions of entrance, and "Honor, Liberty, Fatherland" were their watchwords. It was deemed a point of honor that a member breaking his vows should confess and retire from ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... the settlers, who considered themselves gentlemen, and would have been very much affronted to have been called otherwise, was often more reprehensible than that of the poor Irish emigrants, to whom they should have set an example of order and sobriety. The behaviour of these young men drew upon them the severe but just censures of the poorer class, whom they regarded in every way ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... walked up the road in a very solemn I'm-not-at-all-drunk sort of a manner, peering about on every side, evidently in search of me. Having found me, he burst into an expression of unbounded joy; and then, recollecting that this was inconsistent with his assumed character of sobriety, became awfully grave, and told me that we must start soon, as the ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... smoothing her apron, and settling her countenance to a wonderful demureness and sobriety, the little rascal tripped away. She was back in ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... we must certainly mention— 'Tis Mr. McFudgins, who claims our attention. In mould of plebeian he never was cast (His caste was of gentlemen, wealthy and 'fast'). Not noted for morals, nor even sobriety, He always had moved in the 'highest society.' I had seen him so 'high' as to hiccough and stutter, And once I had noticed him low in the gutter; Yet he was a 'very respectable' man; And into whatever excesses he ran, His riches and impudence safely ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... that he was never attached to literature till he was thirty; that poetry had no peculiar charms for him till that age;[A] and, indeed, to his latest hour he was surprising his friends by productions which they had imagined he was incapable of composing. HUME was considered, for his sobriety and assiduity, as competent to become a steady merchant; and it was said of BOILEAU that he had no great understanding, but would speak ill of no one. This circumstance of the character in youth being entirely ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... their most favourable points of view, by supposing the victim to self-indulgence at last willing to retrace her steps. This fearful advantage is granted to our spiritual enemy by wilful indulgence in sin; that it is only when trying to adopt or resume a life of sobriety and self-denial that we become exposed to the severest temporal punishments of self-indulgence. As long as a course of this self-indulgence is continued, if external things should prosper with us, comparative peace and happiness may be enjoyed—(if indeed the loftier pleasures ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... mania—in one instance it feeds the clergy on fat salaries, so that they might proclaim the virtue of self-denial, sobriety and prudence; in another instance it builds Sunday schools for young numbskulls and political aspirants who pretend to listen to the commonplace discourse about our Father in Heaven who gives every true Christian an opportunity to make money; rather would these ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... There is Evreux, with its Norman naves, its tall slender Gothic choir, its strange Italian western tower, and almost more fantastic central spire. All these are noble churches, sharing with those of our own land a certain sobriety and architectural good sense which is often wanting in the churches of France proper. In Normandy as in England, you do not see piles, like Beauvais, begun on too vast a scale for man's labour ever to finish; you do not see piles like ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... from Maria Maxwell, a distant cousin of Bart's. She has also heard of our intended vacation,—indeed the rapidity with which the news travels and the interest it causes are good proofs of our stay-at-home tendencies and the general sobriety of our ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... him doubtfully, uncertain whether he had been listening to wisdom put in a jocose form of audacious egotism or to the effervescings of intoxication. The hint of a smile lurking in the sobriety of the powerful features of his extraordinary friend only increased his doubt. Was Norman mocking him, and himself as well? If so, was it the mockery of sober ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... bitten off the nose of Severin, the French gendarme, when the namu had made him mad. Now whether guided by pride in his discipline or by memory of evil-doing repented, he was strict in his enforcement of the prohibition of cocoanut toddy, and sobriety made the days and ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Gouts, the Scurvie, together with the Spleen and Hypocondriacall windes (all which it doth without any violence or distemper at all), I say, besides all these qualities, 'tis found already, that this Coffee-drink hath caused a greater sobriety among the nations: For whereas formerly Apprentices and Clerks with others, used to take their mornings' draught in Ale, Beer, or Wine, which by the dizziness they cause in the Brain, make many unfit for businesse, they use now to play the Good-fellows in this wakefull and civill ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... From wondering sobriety Jewel's lips broke into a gleeful smile. "I don't have to," she cried triumphantly. "She is one! Anyway, she has demonstrated everything a ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... teachers inculcate cleanness, courage, kindness, sobriety, and truth; they tell of one Great Spirit who is the creator and ruler of all things and to whom they pray. Surely, these things are truth and all light comes from God; and, even though they have not learned the great ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... lad of spirit," said Mr. Babington-Herle, with an extreme sobriety. "He's a lad eshtrornary spirit. Let's ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... explained yet," said Steve Edwards, "is what's happened to Amy's glad socks. Why the sobriety, Amy?" ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... seemingly resistless longing, a boat was rapidly pushed away from the larger craft, and the swift flash and fall of the oars kept time to the pulsing in the old man's breast. Again ensued that inglorious conflict between self-respecting sobriety of demeanour and long suppressed emotion, which ended only when the boat grated on the sand, and a blonde stalwart youth leaped ashore. The old man fell upon his neck with tears and murmured ejaculations of gratitude and welcome; but young impatient ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... Orleans before Mr. Ware could fix upon a voyage. In the mean time Ricker remained on board as master of the brig; and for several days after our arrival in port his habits were correct and his conduct without reproach. Gradually, however, he strayed from the paths of sobriety. He was of a social turn; frank, honest cheerful, and liberal-minded. He possessed other valuable traits of character; was a good sailor and a skilful navigator, but he could not resist the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... of the fact that Ozark Briskow was compelled to sit out every alternate dance in a distressing condition of sobriety, he enjoyed himself, for he was playing host to the one woman and the one man for whom he cared most. He had dreaded meeting Gray, fearing the effect of an open confession, expecting opposition, but Gray was broad minded, he was a regular guy. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... island. The fortresses are all dismantled, the natives are peaceful, and the extremely low price of wine and spirits is terribly adverse to the sanitary condition of the English soldier. The staunch sobriety of the Turk, his extreme hardihood, which enables him to endure great fatigue upon the most simple fare, and his amenity to discipline, together with an instinctive knowledge of arms and a natural capacity for a ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... at him with sparkling eyes; he was now sure that the promised money was within his reach, that his clutch would soon close on it. His enforced sobriety since he had been in the Captain's employ made him anxious for a prolonged, reckless spree, frightfully anxious, and his guarded potations since he entered the caboulot had whetted his devouring appetite ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... be happy, but first be wise and good." Proceeding to recommend the formation of associations, he condemns secret and violent societies; "Be fair, open and you will be terrible to your enemies." "Habits of SOBRIETY, REGULARITY, and THOUGHT must be entered into and firmly resolved upon." Then follow precepts, which Shelley no doubt regarded as practical, for the purification of private morals, and the regulation of public discussion by ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... residence in China, we have never met a drunken man in the streets. Opium-smokers we have seen in all stages of intoxication; but no drunken brawls, no bruised and bleeding wives. Would Christianity raise the Chinese to the standard of European sobriety? Would it bring them to renounce opium, only to replace it with gin? Would it cause them to become more frugal, to live more economically than they do now on their bowl of rice and cabbage, moistened with a drink of tea, and ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... appearance was remarkable for a broad, high forehead and two bushes of white hair which stood out from his head on either side of it. His highly colored complexion and well-developed corpulence might have made persons think, in spite of his actual sobriety, that he cultivated Bacchus as well as Troplong and Toullier. His half-extinct voice was the sign of an oppressive asthma. Perhaps the dry air of Montegnac had contributed to fix him there. He lived in a house arranged ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... indulgent toward her second son; yet in spite of the gratification his dejection afforded her, she was, as she had just confessed, utterly and entirely "beat." His period of common sense—of perfect and complete sobriety—had lasted for half a year, but she was too shrewd a woman to be deceived by the mere external calmness of appearances. She had had moreover, a long experience with males of the Revercomb stock, and she knew that it was when their blood ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... a sloop sail or two pushing lazily up; — the same blue of a summer morning overhead; — the little green lawn immediately at her feet, and the everlasting cedars, with their pointed tops and their hues of patient sobriety — all stood nearly as she had left them, how many years before. And herself — Elizabeth felt as if she could have laid herself down on the doorstep and died, for mere heart-heaviness. In this bright sunny world, what had she to do? The sun had gone out of her heart. What was to become ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... been extended to New Brunswick—the asylum of loyalty—and all the neighbouring States; and expressed his conviction that the people could not show their gratitude in a more becoming manner than by promoting sobriety, industry, and religion; by discouraging all factious and party distinctions, and by inculcating the utmost harmony between the newly-arrived Loyalists and the subjects formerly settled ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... the interior frontage of the chateau of Louis XII., which is composed of a ground-floor of arcades of fairy lightness supported by tiny columns resting at their base on a graceful platform, and of two storeys above it, the windows of which are carved with delightful sobriety. Beneath the arcade is a gallery, the walls of which are painted in fresco, the ceiling also being painted; traces can still be found of this magnificence, derived from Italy, and testifying to the expeditions of our kings, to which the ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... and benign out of charity to the wretched! And what mattered the vileness of the dwelling if one could sleep under the sky, fanned by the warm breeze! What mattered even hunger if the family could await the windfall of chance in sunlit streets or on the scorched grass! The climate induced sobriety; there was no need of alcohol or red meat to enable one to face treacherous fogs. Blissful idleness smiled on the golden evenings, poverty became like the enjoyment of liberty in that delightful atmosphere where the happiness of living seemed to be all sufficient. Narcisse ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... horror they breathed when he spoke of Ralegh, and the Queen was likely to read them. The English Court was pure in the time of Elizabeth for its time. It degenerated greatly under her successor. Harington contrasts manners then with the previous 'good order, discretion, and sobriety.' But no little licence was permitted, and the tales of it commonly excite small surprise. As told of Ralegh, and yet more of Elizabeth Throckmorton, the story startles still. No evidence exists upon which he can justly be pronounced a libertine. How she, refined, faithful, heroic, should have ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they tend to value words in and for themselves, as divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety, and right understanding, is simply a noxious element in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he has influence over them. To admire the gift of oratory without regard to the moral quality behind the gift is to do wrong ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... well-informed Christianity: yet I never attended a meeting of theirs but I came away with the reflection, how different what I heard was from what I read! I do not mean in doctrine, with which at present I have no concern, but in manner how different from the calmness, the sobriety, the good sense, and I may add, the strength and authority of ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... by Chatham, in the House of Lords, were in defence of his conduct on this occasion. He spoke with a calmness, sobriety, and dignity well suited to the audience which he was addressing. A subsequent speech which he made on the same subject was less successful. He bade defiance to aristocratical connections, with a superciliousness to which the Peers were not accustomed, and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... anecdote of the kind, on the authority of Johnson himself. The latter and Goldsmith were one evening in company with the Rev. George Graham, a master of Eton, who, notwithstanding the sobriety of his cloth, had got intoxicated "to about the pitch of looking at one man and talking to another." "Doctor," cried he in an ecstasy of devotion and good-will, but goggling by mistake upon Goldsmith, "I should be glad to see you at Eton." "I shall ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Halil to the Khan with cold sobriety—"I am well aware what sort of respect is due to this place, and therefore I do not draw my sword against yours even in self-defence. For though I am not so well versed in European customs as you are, and ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... until his last year, when he became subject to epileptic fits. He was a great bather, and scrupulously clean in all his habits, abstemious in his food, and careless in what it consisted, rarely or never touching wine, and noting sobriety as the highest of qualities when describing any new people. He was an athlete in early life, admirable in all manly exercises, and especially in riding. In Gaul, as has been said already, he rode a remarkable horse, which he had bred himself, and which would let no one but ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... comes under the general definition of respectability. These primitive statesmen, therefore—Bradstreet, Endicott, Dudley, Bellingham, and their compeers—who were elevated to power by the early choice of the people, seem to have been not often brilliant, but distinguished by a ponderous sobriety, rather than activity of intellect. They had fortitude and self-reliance, and in time of difficulty or peril stood up for the welfare of the state like a line of cliffs against a tempestuous tide. The traits of character here indicated were well represented in the square cast ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... even seen him, but I know that he bears a splendid reputation for manliness, sobriety, and studiousness. He was something of a bookworm at college, I believe, and has developed a taste for literature. You see, I have heard much of him. Oh, I am sure something has happened to him, some misfortune! ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... of need like that Peter realized what it meant to have the backing of a great and powerful organization, with stately offices and money on hand for all emergencies, even when they arose by telegraph. He took a new vow of sobriety and decency, so that he might always have these forces of law and order on ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... could recover from their amazement jumped out again. A few minutes later my father walked in at the door as sedately as though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much for his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But judging from his slight ability in later years, I fancy that he must have taken many lessons to secure his perfection ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... say," rejoined Hollingsworth; "and as for me, I neither have faith in your dream, nor would care the value of this pebble for its realization, were that possible. And what more do you want of it? It has given you a theme for poetry. Let that content you. But now I ask you to be, at last, a man of sobriety and earnestness, and aid me in an enterprise which is worth all our strength, and the strength of a ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... who would'st reform mankind Purging the dross, and leaving all refined; Preaching of sinless love, sobriety, Of goodness, endless peace, and charity, Of thee I ask, What hast thou done of that thou hast to do? Art silent? Then I say, Until thy deeds are many ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... well strike many, at first sight, as a question that has no serious meaning, or none at any rate for the sane and healthy mind. I am about to attempt inquiring, not sentimentally, but with all calmness and sobriety, into the true value of this human life of ours, as tried by those tests of reality which the modern world is accepting, and to ask dispassionately if it be really worth the living. The inquiry certainly has often been ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... number of roots which Chinese shares in common with Sanskrit. Far be it from me to stigmatize even such researches as unscientific, though it requires an effort for one brought up in the very straitest school of Bopp, to approach such inquiries without prejudice. Yet, if conducted with care and sobriety, and particularly with a clear perception of the limits within which such inquiries must be confined, they are perfectly legitimate; far more so than the learned dogmatism with which some of our most eminent scholars have declared a common origin of Sanskrit and Chinese ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... there was not a sober man among them but Appleton. He declined drinking, and was backed in his abstemiousness by Phelim, who knew that sobriety on the part of Sam would leave himself more liquor. Phelim, therefore, drank for them both, and that to such excess, that Larry, by Appleton's advice, left him at his father's in consequence of his inability to proceed homewards. It was not, however, without serious trouble that ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... out uppermost wishes, or in any way outrunning the sentiments and emotions of prepared hearts. Not that the lesson would check the fervid flow of real desire. There is a type of calm worship which keeps itself calm because it is cold. Propriety and sobriety are its watchwords—both admirable things, and both dear to tepid Christians. Other people besides the crowds on Pentecost think that men whose lips are fired by the Spirit of God are 'drunken,' if not with wine, at all events with unwholesome enthusiasm. But the outpourings ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... qualities without which no poet can be great, and his condemnation of Racine because he is without them, is a fallacy in criticism. There is only one way to judge a poet, as Wordsworth, with that paradoxical sobriety so characteristic of him, has pointed out—and that is, by loving him. But Mr. Bailey, with regard to Racine at any rate, has not followed the advice of Wordsworth. Let us look a little more closely into the nature ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... time for laughing," said I, with more sobriety. "In a short time you will be laughing with the back of ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... his senses in sleep, without having pretty effectually steeped them in the liquor of the neighboring hills; a habit that was of far more general use among men of his class in that age than in this of ours, which seems so eminently to be the season of sobriety. ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... like death awaits me as happened to the porter, Matthias. When I die, therefore, dear wife, take thee another spouse and bear children. 'For the woman,' says the Scripture, 'shall be blessed through childbearing, so as she continues in faith, and love, and in holiness with sobriety' (I Tim. ii.). Thus thou wilt soon ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... in those classical studies to which he was himself addicted, and especially the attachment which she manifested to the reformed religion, endeared her exceedingly to the young king her brother, who was wont to call her,—perhaps with reference to the sobriety of dress and manners by which she was then distinguished,—his sweet sister Temperance. On her part his affection was met by every demonstration of sisterly tenderness, joined to those delicate attentions and respectful observances which ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... vices, and, what was still more remarkable in the case of a mind of such strength and pride, he had never yielded to any libertinism of thought, but had always limited his curiosity to natural inquiries.” He attributed, according to her statement, this religious sobriety of mind to the instructions and example of his father, who had a great respect for religion, and who had impressed upon him from his infancy the maxim, “that whatever is the object of faith cannot be the object of reason, and still less the subject of it.” ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... occasion the grimmest countenance in the world; the Baron L., who was no more the wild extravagant youth, but a man, and beyond this, a landed-proprietor, whose grave demeanour was beautified by a certain, agreeable sobriety, particularly visible when he spoke with "our little lady," at whose ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... being less apparent.... His power consisted of three things: his devoted affection for his disciples, his disinterested love of truth, and the perfect harmony of his life and doctrine.... If he recommended temperance and sobriety, he also set the example; poorly clad, satisfied with little, he disdained all the delicacies of life. He possessed every species of courage. On the field of battle he was intrepid, and still more intrepid when he resisted the caprices of the multitude who demanded ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... that comes from the performance of a good deed as much as if he were not a usurper and never had overthrown a nominal republic. But we cannot agree with those who say that the liberation of Italy was the pure and simple purpose of the war. He means that Austria shall not have Italy, and his sobriety of judgment enables him to understand that France cannot have it. That country is to belong to the children of the soil, who, with ordinary wisdom and conduct, will be able to prevent it from again relapsing under foreign rule. The Emperor understands ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... in favour of the weightier motive. If he loves the sense of intoxication more than he loves his self-respect, he will drink. If the reasons in favour of sobriety seem to him to outweigh the reasons in favour of drink, ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... concurrent with, this sobriety of character I was a dreamer in secret, and delighted to give the rein to fancy. I liked to picture myself in some of the romantic situations of which I had read, and to build castles for the future. But all these imaginations were ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... a house in Lower Broughton. He admitted that at the time he was fuddled with whisky; otherwise his capture would have been more difficult and dangerous. Usually a temperate man, Peace realised on this occasion the value of sobriety even in burglary, and never after allowed intemperance to interfere with his success. A sentence of eight years' penal servitude at Manchester Assizes on December 3, 1866, emphasised ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... is there between Frenchman and Frenchman, than between rich and poor in our own country, with all our superior wealth, instruction, and political freedom! There is, amongst the humblest, a gayety, cheerfulness, politeness, and sobriety, to which, in England, no class can show a parallel: and these, be it remembered, are not only qualities for holidays, but for working-days too, and add to the enjoyment of human life as much as good clothes, good beef, or good wages. If, to ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and extended his hand, which the ruffian clasped; and, maudlin tears succeeding his ferocity, he half-sobbed, half-hiccoughed forth his protestations of civism and his promises of sobriety. ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he wrote "Queen Mab"; he never published it. When it was written, he had come to the decision that he was too young to be a 'judge of controversies'; and he was desirous of acquiring 'that sobriety of spirit which is the characteristic of true heroism.' But he never doubted the truth or utility of his opinions; and, in printing and privately distributing "Queen Mab", he believed that he should further their ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... unquestionably excellent. It compelled each succeeding generation to practise the frugality of the forefathers; and that—compulsion was partly justified by the great poverty of the nation. It reduced the cost of living to a figure far below our Western comprehension of the necessary; it cultivated sobriety, simplicity, economy; it enforced [181] cleanliness, courtesy, and hardihood. And—strange as the fact may seem—it did not make the people miserable: they found the world beautiful in spite of all their trouble; and the happiness of the old ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... Gravelines with an equipage at which Sobriety herself could not have forborne to laugh: to our London coach were fastened by long rope traces six Flemish horses of different heights, but each large and clumsy enough to draw an English waggon. The nose of the foremost horse was thirty-five ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... a small, bald-headed, narrow-chinned old man, with an air of preternatural solemnity. From boyhood up, through all the stages of life, he had been noted for the mysterious sobriety of demeanor which now marked him as an angular, slow-moving, ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... I've told you what I came for. They are blaming you, Arthur, for your temperance and sobriety, and I'm come to thank you for it. They say it is all "these cursed women," and that we are the bane of the world; but don't let them laugh or grumble you out of your good resolutions, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... Pittsburg are a mixture of English, French, Scotch, Irish, German and Swiss artisans and mechanics, as well as of native born Americans, who live together in much harmony. Industry, sobriety, morality and good order generally prevail. Extensive revivals of religion prevailed here about a ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... any "temperance captain" who stood fast to his faith, and refused to give up his sobriety, he might go elsewhere for a market, for he stood no chance with the governor. Rarely, however, did any cold-water caitiff of the kind darken the doors of old Baranoff; the coasting captains knew too well his humor and their own interests; they joined in his revels, they drank, and ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... knitted eyebrows he hears him moralizing on the awful destiny of the future. He is a silent listener; the conversation is carried on by the garrulous and interested youths and the happy, virtuous old monk. A forced sobriety, or the atmosphere of virtue which he dreads, has cast a gloom over him. His thoughts are still reeking with the blasphemy of the Masonic lodges, and, though restrained by politeness from intruding his unbelief, he expresses ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... his best sermons oot o' the pulpit," said I, as I bade Andrew good-day and went back into the High Street, from which the folk were beginning to scatter. The farmers were yoking their gigs and mounting into them in varying degrees and angles of sobriety. So I took my way to the King's Arms, and got my beast into the shafts. Half a mile up the Dullarg road, who should I fall in with but "Drucken" Bourtree, the quarryman. He was walking as steady as the Cairn Edward policeman ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Captain Hunter endeavoured to put an end to this practice, for it was not possible that a farmer who should be idle enough to throw away the labour of twelve months, for the purchase of a few gallons of injurious liquors, could expect to thrive, or enjoy those comforts which sobriety and industry ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... public. I am not at all the sort of girl who makes notes, and I have told her so; but she says that I must at least record my passing impressions, if they are ever so trivial and commonplace. She also says that one's language gains unconsciously in dignity and sobriety by being set down in black and white, and that a liberal use of pen and ink will be sure to chasten my extravagances ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the lawyer, and his sobriety grew strengthened at the thought of business; he called to the waiter and whispered in ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Christianity," he adds, "all manner of wicked, profane persons take upon them to personate the experiences and conditions of blessed David; which are not only false as to them, but also to some of more sobriety, who utter them forth." "Such singing doth more please the carnal ears of men, than the pure ears of the Lord, who abhors all lying and hypocrisy." (Prop. ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends
... average shore cabin, and the Green River man's family of half-a-dozen were well-kept, pleasant-faced, and polite. Altogether it was a much more respectable houseboat company than any we have yet seen on the river. But the fish-stories which that Green River man tells, with an honest-like, open-eyed sobriety, would do ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... of servitude as to give rise to the famous axiom, "Negroes abhor marriage," is now replaced by regular unions. In becoming free, the negroes have learned to respect themselves: the unanimous reports of the governors mark the progress of their habits of sobriety. Crimes have greatly diminished among them. They are polite and well brought up, falling even into the excess of exaggerated courtesy. They respect the aged: if an old man passes through the streets, the children ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... the ancient vehicle which had trundled all that generation of Montgomerys, drew her apron before her eyes and wept. But quickly rallying to the need for immediate action she swallowed her pride and sent Arthur in quest of his uncle, who was well fitted by sobriety, industry and thrift, to cope ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... a superstitious prince, and who was but a novice in the Christian religion; a most prudent, wise prince with a weak one; a valiant prince with a cowardly one; finally, a most just prince with a most unjust one? Have you the impudence to commend his chastity and sobriety, who is known to have committed all manner of lewdness in company with his confidant the Duke of Buckingham? It were to no purpose to inquire into the private actions of his life, who publicly at plays would embrace and kiss ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... When sobriety was restored it was moved, seconded, and passed that the secretary be instructed to send Shelby a copy of the boom number of the ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... looked around on the country, I thought myself in the land of Canaan. But it's extraordinary what a power of drink the coachmen drink, stopping and going into every change-house, and yet behaving themselves with the greatest sobriety. And then they are all so well dressed, which is no doubt owing to the poor rates. I am thinking, however, that for all they cry against them, the poor rates are but a small evil, since they keep the poor folk in such food and raiment, and out of the temptations ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... restaurants built out over the sea on piers, where there was perpetual dancing to the braying of a brass-band, the cotillon had no fire imparted to its figures by the fumes of the bar. In fact it was a very rigid sobriety that reigned here, governing the common behavior by means of the placards which hung from the roof over the heads of the dancers, and repeatedly announced that gentlemen were not allowed to dance together, or to carry umbrellas or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to the English throne, 4004 B.C. was still accepted, in all sobriety, as the date of the creation of the world. Perhaps no single statement could more vividly emphasize the change in the point of view from which scholars regard the chronology of ancient history than the citation of this indisputable fact. To-day, though Bibles are still printed with the year 4004 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... a public meeting, and laid the matter before it. The meeting decided that I should go to Barcaldine the following morning. Owing to accidents to the coach, and want of sobriety at several of the coach stages, we were very much behind time in arrival. I found that I could obtain carriers to take the plant to Winton at a reasonable price, and wired the Engineer, but, although I remained a week in Barcaldine, I did not get ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... he suggested with distant affability; but Amherst, with a gesture of refusal, plunged into his exposition of the Dillon case. He tried to put the facts succinctly, presenting them in their bare ugliness, without emotional drapery; setting forth Dillon's good record for sobriety and skill, dwelling on the fact that his wife's ill-health was the result of perfectly remediable conditions in the work-rooms, and giving his reasons for the belief that the accident had been caused, not by Dillon's carelessness, but by the over-crowding of the carding-room. Mr. Tredegar listened ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... it were generally adopted, would soon raise the price of labour by narrowing its supply, and those practising it would save money and acquire habits of sobriety, industry, and economy such as should ensure happy married life. Further, postponement of marriage would give both sexes a better opportunity to choose life-partners wisely and well; and the passion, instead of being extinguished ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... she asked of a heavily built, gray-bearded man in the respectable black of the old-fashioned financial employee, showing the sobriety and stolidity of his character ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... struck Godefroid most forcibly at first was the profound respect which the four lodgers manifested for Madame de la Chanterie. They all seemed, even the priest, in spite of the sacred character his functions gave him, to regard her as a queen. Godefroid also noticed their sobriety. Each seemed to eat only for nourishment. Madame de la Chanterie took, as did the rest, a single peach and half a bunch of grapes; but she told her new lodger, as she offered him the various dishes, not ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... conducting the commerce of the country. But, as we have said, many fairs have contrived to survive, and unless they degenerate into a scandal and a nuisance it is well that they should be continued. Education and the increasing sobriety of the nation may deprive them of their more objectionable features, and it would be a pity to prevent the rustic from having some amusements which do not often fall to his lot, and to forbid him from enjoying once a year "all the ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... Saturday night, that Ballyards was the finest town in the world, but the general opinion of his fellow-townsmen was that this claim, while very human, was excessively expressed. London, for example, was bigger than Ballyards. So was New York!.... The drunken man, when he had recovered his sobriety, admitted that this was true, but he contended, and was well supported in his contention, that while London and New York might be bigger than Ballyards, neither of these cities were inhabited by men of such independent spirit as the men of Ballyards. A Ballyards man, he ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... sufficiently indicated his character, and the polished baldness of whose head was worthy of a famous preacher in the village, half a century before, who had made wigs a subject of pulpit denunciation. The two other figures, both clad in dark gray, showed the sobriety of Deacons; one was ridiculously tall and thin, like a man of ordinary bulk infinitely produced, as the mathematicians say; while the brevity and thickness of his colleague seemed a compression of the same man. These four talked with great earnestness, ...
— An Old Woman's Tale - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it an apocryphal marvel, which has been interpolated in the text of St. Matthew? The other Evangelists, while, along with St. Matthew, narrating the rending of the veil, do not touch on this incident at all. The whole representation, it is argued, lacks the sobriety which is characteristic of the authentic miracles of the Gospels and broadly separates them from the ecclesiastical miracles, about which there is generally an air ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... said to be a sober people; but none of those who saw Lyme that morning would have had much opinion of our sobriety. Charmouth had been disorderly; Lyme was uproarious. Outside the town, in one of the fields above the church, we were stopped by a guard of men who all wore white scarves on their arms, as well as green sprays in their ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... been so under some circumstances. As matters stood, perhaps, he might have felt better pleased if things had been less well done. But they were very well done. They had managed to put themselves in the right in this also. The rich sobriety of colour and form left no opening for supercilious comment—which was a neat weapon it was annoying to ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... well enough a-conscience. In your way, the wit of man shall not prevent this or the like inconvenience; but if this (for I have conferred with artists) be a mathematical demonstration, I could kneel to you, that ere it be too late we might return to some kind of sobriety. If we empty our purses with these pomps, salaries, coaches, lackeys, and pages, what can the people say less than that we have dressed a Senate and a prerogative for nothing but to go to the park with ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... usually dirty, often brutal, a Mrs. Gamp, in bunched-up sordid garments, tippling at the brandy bottle or indulging in worse irregularities. The nurses in the hospitals were especially notorious for immoral conduct; sobriety was almost unknown among them; and they could hardly be trusted to carry out the ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... imprudent conduct, he gets a letter of virtuous advice from his friend Temple. He instantly sees himself reformed for the rest of his days. "My warm imagination," he says, "looks forward with great complacency on the sobriety, the healthfulness, and worth of my future life." "Every instance of our doing those things which we ought not to have done, and leaving undone those things which we ought to have done, is attended," as he elsewhere ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... senses. Of this kind, O ruler of men, is the result of our deeds. Therefore, do not from desire act any longer in this world. Do not, O Pandu's son, betake to action in this world and thereby thus take leave of truth and sobriety and candour and humanity. Thou mayst perform the Rajasuya and the Aswamedha sacrifices, but do not even come near an action which in itself is sin! If after such a length of time, ye sons of Pritha, you now give way to hate, and commit the sinful deed, in vain, for virtue's sake, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... worthy Work to shew what great Charities are to be done without Expence, and how many noble Actions are lost, out of Inadvertency in Persons capable of performing them, if they were put in mind of it. If a Gentleman of Figure in a County would make his Family a Pattern of Sobriety, good Sense, and Breeding, and would kindly endeavour to influence the Education and growing Prospects of the younger Gentry about him, I am apt to believe it would save him a great deal of stale Beer on a publick Occasion, and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... cried Lucile, trying vainly to straighten the corners of her laughing mouth into some semblance of the sobriety that befitted so great an occasion. "Oh, I never get enough of anything!" This last a protest ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Renan, and John Stuart Mill. These lectures, while not rising to the level of greatness, impress one with his mastery of the immense literature of the subject, and are characterised throughout by lucidity of arrangement and by sobriety and fairness of judgment. They were very well received when they were delivered, and were favourably reviewed when they were published ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... build low, either upon the ground or among the shrubbery, are exposed to a greater number and variety of enemies. Hence it becomes necessary that the males as well as the females should have that protection which is afforded by sobriety of color. Not being made conspicuous by their plumage, they are endowed with the gift of song, that they may make known their presence to their mate and their young by their voice. I have often thought that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... and teachers in the College shall take pains to instil into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that, on their entrance into active life, they may, from inclination and habit, evince benevolence toward their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... head, on a small spare body, supported by two almost immaterial legs. He was clothed in sables, of a bygone fashion, but there was something wanting, or something present about him, that certified he was neither a divine, nor a physician, nor a school master: from a certain neatness and sobriety in his dress, coupled with his sedate bearing, he might have been taken, but that such a costume would be anomalous, for a Quaker in black. He looked still more like (what he really was) a literary Modern Antique, a New-Old Author, a living anachronism, contemporary at once ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... aspirations of the drunkard to be delivered from the vice that easily besets him. In his sober moments, they come thick and fast, and during his sobriety, and while under the lashings of conscience, he wishes, nay, even longs, to be freed from drunkenness. It may be, that under the impulse of these aspirations he resolves never to drink again. It may be, that amid the buoyancy ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... late towards Mr. Washington had very deeply vexed and annoyed that gentleman. There was scarce half a dozen years' difference of age between him and the Castlewood twins; but Mr. Washington had always been remarked for a discretion and sobriety much beyond his time of life, whilst the boys of Castlewood seemed younger than theirs. They had always been till now under their mother's anxious tutelage, and had looked up to their neighbour of Mount Vernon as their guide, director, ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser |
