"Vacillate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reinforced under Lord Clinton, and placed with respect to France in what was almost a state of war, while it was already in an informal state of war with Spain. There was fierce confusion in the Privy Council. Elizabeth, who at once began to vacillate under the combined threats of La Mothe, the French ambassador, and the arguments of the friend of Catholics, Lord Arundel, was counter-threatened with ruin by Lord Keeper Bacon unless she would throw in her lot finally with the Protestants ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... hardly say that either," said Mr Apjohn. "There was ground on which to form my opinion, and I do not know that there is any ground for changing it. But in such a matter the mind will vacillate. I did think that he had found the will shut up in a volume of sermons, in a volume which his uncle had been reading during his illness, and that he had left the book in its place upon the shelf. That, you will say, ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... representative, the imperial procurator with power to crucify or to save; officially he was an autocrat. His conviction of Christ's blamelessness and his desire to save Him from the cross are beyond question. Why did Pilate waver, hesitate, vacillate, and at length yield contrary to his conscience and his will? Because, after all, he was more slave than freeman. He was in servitude to his past. He knew that should complaint be made of him at Rome, his corruption and cruelties, his extortions and the unjustifiable slaughter he ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... But by the end of the third twenty-four hours, with his first two worries reasonably eliminated, it was the accident to his plans that smote upon him with the fiercest poignancy. Let a man's clothes and togs vacillate as they will between his trunk and his bureau—once that man's spirit is packed for a journey nothing but journey's end can ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... France. Hence the wavering and equivocal policy, which from the time of Charles V. had been pursued by the Italian States. The double character which pertained to the Popes made them perpetually vacillate between two contradictory systems of policy. If the successors of St. Peter found in the Spanish princes their most obedient disciples, and the most steadfast supporters of the Papal See, yet the princes of the States of the Church had in ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... that you are, tugged on and back by warring factions in your brain,—poor refutation of the silly old theological superstitions that there is such a thing as free will,—vacillate on the sidewalk till the battle is over, till your mythical free will is down in the dust. Thus do ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... more than the sympathy of its left wing with the loose ruffianism of unsettled States." "Such a State," I said, "is Ireland; and if, under the pressure of extraordinary difficulties, Ministers vacillate or waver in their dealings with it, the truest Liberalism, I believe, is that which holds them firmly ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... That's what has been the trouble with you in the sheep business, I imagine. Here when I offer you a farm for a ranch that's slipping through your fingers, you at once get greedy. Most of the time you don't know your own mind; you hesitate and speculate and vacillate and worry. Why, you deserve to lose your ranch and your sheep and everything else. And your wife suffers for your faults! You're a failure, and you've dragged her down with you. If you're not a failure, and a fool, too, go bring her back into this room and tell her you're ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... thus called good one, is vacillating. Best of all, and almost not vacillating, is the New York Evening Post. I do not speak of principles; but the papers vacillate, speaking of the measures and the slowness of ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... passed over the trackless ocean, and saw day by day the great billows rolling between them and the mysterious horizon, the sailors were again filled with dread. They lacked the courage to sail onward into the unknown distance. The compass began to vacillate, and no longer pointed toward the north; this confused both Columbus and his pilots. The men fell into a panic, but the resolute and patient admiral encouraged them once more. So buoyed up by his faith and hope, they continued to sail ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... of perfidy. He supposed himself executing the very innermost purposes of Christ, but with an energy which it was the characteristic infirmity of Christ to want. His hope was, that, when at length actually arrested by the Jewish authorities, Christ would no longer vacillate; he would be forced into giving the signal to the populace of Jerusalem, who would then have risen unanimously, for the double purpose of placing Christ at the head of an insurrectionary movement, and ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... vallon said not a word; and perceiving that, by the defection of Holt, there was almost gun for gun against them, they showed no signs of advancing to the protection of their apostolic leader. The latter appeared for a moment to vacillate. The fear depicted upon his features was blended with an expression of the most vindictive bitterness—as that of a tyrant forced to yield up some despotic privilege which he has long wielded. True, it mattered little to him now. The intended victims of his vile contrivance— whatever ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... coloring a canvas entitled, "The Dance of the Hours," a mere pretext for copying pretty girls and selecting buxom models. These he would sketch at a mad speed, filling in the outlines with blobs of multi-colored paint, and up to this point all went well. Then he would begin to vacillate, remaining idle before the picture only to put it in the corner in hope of later inspiration. It was the same way with his various studies of feminine heads. Finding that he was never able to finish anything, he soon ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... on vaguely, till she paused, and her little voice began anew: "It seems so weak, too, to vacillate like this! And yet how much better than to act rashly a second time... How terrible that scene was to me! The expression in that flabby woman's face, leading her on to give herself to that gaol-bird, not for a few hours, as she would, but for a lifetime, ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... action is inhibited. In one moment they want to act under the stimulus of one impression, but before the impulse is realized, some other perhaps rather indifferent impression forces itself on their minds and suggests the counteraction, and in this way they vacillate and remain inactive until it is too late to give the right order or to press the right button. The other type feels only the necessity for rapid action, and under the pressure of greatest haste, without clear ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... end in view, I march straight to it; I do not vacillate—that is all. But never mind me; here we are near home. Go to town by the first train to-morrow morning and post another letter announcing what has happened here. Then come back ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... nothing but money he is poor indeed. If a man have upright character he is rich. Property may come and go, he is independent of the markets. Nothing can buy him out, nothing can sell him out. He may have more money one year than another, but his better fortunes never vacillate. ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... gradually stealing over his heart, since his admiration, to say the least, had been raised by a rival vision of loveliness. In the newly-awakened feeling of the moment, however, he bitterly upbraided himself for his tergiversations in suffering his thoughts to vacillate between the Star of the Magalloway, who had his plighted faith, and Flower of the Lakes, who had no claims to his special consideration. But still, when his thoughts wandered over the scenes of the past summer, which now, since trial and hardship had brought his mind back within ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... shuffle of clumsy feet, and voices that muttered indistinctly. One seemed to trip over something, and cursed. The other laughed; the voices grew more loud. They were coming his way. He dared no longer vacillate. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... no need to think long, uncle. I know of nothing to make me vacillate. If I changed my mind, it must be because of something important and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... kneeling and in invocation,—the hopes, the consolations, and the delights that I had tasted in my childhood. She had renewed in me all my early feelings of piety. I composed prayers for her,—calm, yet ardent prayers, that ascend like flames to Heaven, but like flames that no wind can cause to vacillate. I begged her to pronounce these prayers at certain hours of the day and night, when I would repeat them also, so that our two minds, united by the same words, might be elevated at the same hour in one ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... a reply to this double question, he resolves to traverse the country in its whole extent. At the very commencement of his journey, the immobility of a bird suffices to give to the doubt, on which his thoughts vacillate, the appearance ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... "that he is somewhat inclined to vacillate. That, after making up his mind to do a thing, and even after initiative steps are taken, he is apt to pause, look back, and reconsider. This, of course, will not suit us. The best way to manage him will be to get his money in our boat, and then we are sure of him. He is very wealthy, ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... of doing that, he told him the exact truth and charged him an ordinary office fee, while the quack told him lies and charged him a large sum of money to cure him. The latter gentleman, knowing the tendency to vacillate which these individuals have, ensured himself the time necessary to a cure by compelling him to pay the entire sum in advance, which is their universal custom. The patient, therefore, could not afford to change his doctor this time, and as time was all that was necessary to his cure, the wily ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... and his sympathies were always with the Entente, not only on account of his bringing up, but also because of that political speculation. During the course of subsequent events there were times when Bratianu to a certain extent seemed to vacillate, especially at the time of our great offensive against Russia. The break through at Goerlitz and the irresistible advance into the interior of Russia had an astounding effect in Roumania. Bratianu, who obviously knew very little ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... man, Jacob Flanders," they would say, "so distinguished looking—and yet so awkward." Then they would apply themselves to Jacob and vacillate eternally between the two extremes. He rode to hounds— after a fashion, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... &c. 315. moon, Proteus, chameleon, quicksilver, shifting sands, weathercock, harlequin, Cynthia of the minute, April showers[obs3]; wheel of Fortune; transientness &c. 111[obs3]. V. fluctuate, vary, waver, flounder, flicker, flitter, flit, flutter, shift, shuffle, shake, totter, tremble, vacillate, wamble[obs3], turn and turn about, ring the changes; sway to and fro, shift to and fro; change and change about; waffle, blow with the wind (irresolute) 605; oscillate &c. 314; vibrate between, two extremes, oscillate between, two extremes; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus |
