"Cower" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some clever woman to teach people how to dress for the occasion and how to sit, what to avoid and how to avoid it. As it is, we go in a state of nervous agitation, obsequiously costumed; our last vestige of self-assertion vanishes before the unwinking Cyclops eye of the instrument, and we cower at the mercy of the thing and its attendant. They make what they will of us, and the retoucher simply edits the review with an eye to the market. So history is falsified before our faces, and we prepare a lie for our grandchildren. We fail ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... which indolent and irresolute men seek to lay their want of success at the door of the public. Modest merit is, however, too apt to be inactive, or negligent, or uninstructed merit. Well matured and well disciplined talent is always sure of a market, provided it exerts itself; but it must not cower at home and expect to be sought for. There is a good deal of cant too about the success of forward and impudent men, while men of retiring worth are passed over with neglect. But it usually happens that those forward ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... father, thank God, I saw nothing—though I doubt not he observed my troop. For doubtless he would be with his master—aged now, soured, and prone to cower about behind his guard, fearing the dagger or the poisoned bowl, seeing an enemy in every shadowy corner, and hearing the whistle of the assassin's bullet ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... the day when Fritz was to make his trial trip with the cajack. Completely equipped in swimming costume—trousers, jacket and cap—it was most ludicrous to see him cower down in the canoe and puff and blow till he began to swell like ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... spoke last night in one of the music halls and gave the Mohammedans a piece of my mind. The poor Christians!—they feared the Government in the old regime; they cower before the boatmen in this. For the boatmen of Beirut have not lost their prestige and power. They are a sort of commune and are yet supreme. Yes, they are always riding the whirlwind and directing the storm. And who dares say a word against them? Every one of them, in ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... important to me that dog flesh is their first choice. And dogs never fight hyenas; never even to defend their own lives. They may bark or howl while the hyena is some distance away, but as soon as it comes near they are silent; and when it approaches them, they simply cower and submit. Not only that, but it is beyond question that hyenas have the power to call dogs to them. . . . For five weeks I have been alone in this tent six nights in every week all night, with two children ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... sins of the fathers upon the children even to the third and fourth generation. I—Baird—" his voice dropping, his face pallid, "I have hated Him. I keep His laws, it is my fate to preach His word—and I cower before Him as a slave before a tyrant, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of about eighteen, who under ordinary circumstances would have found herself able to answer, with a due degree of smartness, any question which might have been addressed to her. But fright will sometimes cower the stoutest heart, and Molly, standing before the coroner at this juncture, presented anything but a reckless appearance, her naturally rosy cheeks blanching at the first word addressed to her, and her head falling forward on her breast in a confusion ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... perfectly in keeping with the individual character, that Cleopatra, alike destitute of moral strength and physical courage, should cower terrified and subdued before the masculine spirit of her lover, when once she has fairly roused it. Thus Tasso's Armida, half siren, half sorceress, in the moment of strong feeling, forgets her incantations, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... man. A fitful storm was brewing, and between the plashes of rain on the windows there was the silence of death. All nature suffers in such moments, the trees writhe in pain and hide their heads; the birds of the fields cower under the bushes; the streets of cities are deserted. I was suffering from my wound. But a short time before I had a mistress and a friend. The mistress had deceived me and the friend had stretched me on a bed of pain. I could not clearly ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... dimly the compelling power of this religion, and that it was one which, if sincerely embraced, would make the smallest details of life momentous with eternal weight, yet she knew that her soul could never respond to it, and whether saved or damned that it could only cower in miserable despair under a Deity that was so ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... stirs Morgan, and he seems to cower half timidly under the words, as if they were blows. Mary has already grasped her father's hand, and holds on to ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... bow before thee. And cower in the straw; The chickens[011] are submissive, And own thy will for law; Bullfinches and canary Thy bidding do obey; And e'en the tortoise in its shell Doth ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... other—" Loring, the Old Blizzard of two years later—had sworn. "Damn you, Maury, whom does he like? Not any one out of the Stonewall Brigade! You've got a limberer wit than most, and he can't make you cower—by the Lord, I've seen him make others do it! You go ahead, and when you're there ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... attenuated presses, grown lank and lantern-jawed in guarding the treasures they enclosed, and tottering, as though from constant fear and dread of thieves, shrunk up in dark corners, whence they cast no shadows on the ground, and seemed to hide and cower from observation. A tall grim clock upon the stairs, with long lean hands and famished face, ticked in cautious whispers; and when it struck the time, in thin and piping sounds, like an old man's voice, rattled, as if ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... not cower in the dust, Maryland! Thy beaming sword shall never rust, Maryland! Remember Carroll's sacred trust, Remember Howard's warlike thrust, And all thy slumberers with the just, Maryland, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... at her work—turning neither to the right nor to the left, doing her duty with the bravery and patience of a soldier on the firing-line, knowing that any moment some stray bullet might end her usefulness. She would not dodge, nor would she cower; the danger was no greater than others she had faced, and no precaution, she knew, could save her. Her lips were still sealed, and would be to the end; some tongue other than her own must betray her sister and her trust. In the meantime she would wait ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... butler, as well born and well bred as a butler, even more intelligent than a butler. Now, simply because he has an unapproachable haughtiness of demeanour, which you can respectfully admire, but can never hope to imitate, do not cower beneath the polar light of his eye; assert yourself; be a woman; be an American citizen!' All in vain. The moment the door opens I ask for Lady DeWolfe in so timid a tone that I know Parker thinks me the ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... round him the pressure of this secret. The air was full of thoughts that he could not apprehend. Behind the benignant evasiveness of the doctors he seemed to discern a fact, like a thunderbolt withheld. He recoiled from his conjectures, to cower amid these shadows which he felt might be less agonizing than that ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... noisy bravado of his fraternity. There was an easy air of independence about him; a calm self-possession, and a sternness of glance, which might well daunt hearts less timid than those of poor slaves, accustomed from childhood and through life to cower before a driver's lash. The home plantation of Col. Lloyd afforded an ample field for the exercise of the qualifications for overseership, which he possessed in ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... and cower! Lo, for an end of breath, Clytie, hardy and frail, Anguisht after her death. For the Sun-flower droops and is pale When her king hideth his power, And ever draggeth the woe of her piteous tale, As a woman that laboureth Yet never reacheth ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... sir?" She turned into a narrow path in the shadow of arches, clothed by a great Austrian brier, on which here and there a yellow flame still glowed. "Mr. Boyce—when I meet you in company you shrink and cower detestably; when I meet you alone, you fence with me impudently enough and shrewdly; and always you avoid me while you can. I suppose there's in all this something more than the freaks of a fool. Then it's fear. Prithee, sir, why in God's name ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... but array all our force in the field, We'd teach these usurpers of power That their bodily safety demands they should yield, And in the presence of manhood should cower; But, alas! for our tethered and impotent state, Chained by notions of knighthood—we can ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... into view To observe the intruder; you see it If quickly you turn And, before they escape you surprise them. They grudge you should learn How the soft plains they look on, lean over And love (they pretend)— Cower beneath them. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... his mother, pretending prettily to cower before him. "What a tone! What a look! What have ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... looked to see her cower and shrink as men had often done under the glare of his angry gaze; but she stood before him tall, straight and calm—so near that he might have felled her to the ground; there was no fear in her deep eyes while she gave him back his look of hatred, unflinching; dimly ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... turned purple at the implication and the insolence. He scolded Jim loftily, but Jim did not cower. He was upheld by his own religion, which was Charity Coe's right to ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... line, but the cold was no better at the present terminus, Henchir Souatir, whither he was bound on some business connected with the big phosphate company. On such occasions the natives barricade their doors and cower within over a warming-pan filled with the glowing embers of desert shrubs; as for Europeans—a dog's life, he said; in winter we are shrivelled to mummies, in ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... Being, and even of Babylon itself. His capacious Soul now soar'd into Infinity, and he contemplated, with the same Freedom, as if she was disencumber'd from her earthly Partner, on the immutable Order of the Universe. But as soon as she cower'd her Wings, and resumed her native Seat, he began to consider that Astarte might possibly have lost her Life for his Sake; upon which, his Thoughts of the Universe vanish'd all at once, and no other Objects appear'd before his distemper'd ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... me but dream of affliction and shame, Of saints that punish and sinners that cower, Of troubles by sickness and sword and flame, And not of ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... with your irons! Shall we, men who followed Red Jabez through a sea of blood, cower to a woman of such soft mettle? Dolores, queen or woman or wench, it is for you, not us, to explain. Lads—" he shrieked, flashing about and haranguing his companions—"back me in this. We will know why the sloop lacked powder; why to-day's ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... ourselves, in that deep place Where good and evil meet, we bode our hour. For not inexorable is our power. And we are hunted of the prey we chase, Soonest gain ground on them that flee apace, And draw temerity from hearts that cower. ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... sees the sullen pass, high-crowned with snow, Where Afghans cower with eyes of gleaming hate. He hurls himself against the hidden foe. They try to rally—ah, too late, too late! Again, defenceless, with fierce eyes that wait For death, he stands, like baited bull at bay, And flouts the Boers, ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... saw an astonishing thing. Suddenly Mr. Ricardo seemed to shrivel—to cower back into himself. His fierce, triumphant energy had gone as at a blasting touch of magic. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... roused to an unexpected burst of wrath. His eyes kindled with rage, and he darted a glance at the intruders which made them cower and shrink from his rebuke. In a moment he grew calm, relapsing into his usual moody and thoughtful attitude. Taking courage, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Tenney would let it, if he were here alone. That was it. He had had enough of threats that made him sick with the reaction of nervous violence. He had had enough of real violence that recoiled on himself and made him cower under the shadow of the law. He was going to turn her out of the house, the baby with her. And he did not seem to be suffering much over it, now he had made up his mind. Perhaps, now that the scene of the morning—three together in May sunshine—had confirmed ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... the toil, and the life seemingly dreary, to those who cower by ingle-nooks or stand over registers. But there is stirring excitement in this bloodless war, and around plenteous camp-fires vigor of merriment and hearty comradry. Men who wield axes and breathe hard have lungs. Blood arated by the air that sings through the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... a new renown Even on Victoria's crown, Mightiest friend of blessed peace By commanding wars to cease, Paralysing faction still, Swift in act and strong of will, Forcing every foe to cower Under Britain's patient power, Like himself, firm, frank, and true, Who can ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... with this great nation, When woman tests her high vocation; Persuasion proves a futile power To quell the joints, but quick they cower At the ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... broad leaves, arrow-shaped, Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words; Has peeled a wand and called it by a name; Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe The eyed skin of a supple oncelot; And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye, And saith she is Miranda and my wife: 160 'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge; Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared, Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame, ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... once deprecating severity and asking kindness. The poor animal had evidently been used to gentle treatment; it would look up in a boy's face, and give a leap, fawning on him, and then bark in a small doubtful voice, and cower a moment on the ground, astonished perhaps at the strangeness, the bustle and animation. The boys were beside themselves with eagerness; there was quite a babble of voices, arguing, discussing, suggesting. Each one had a plan of his own which he brought before ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... array all our force in the field, We'd teach these usurpers of power That their bodily safety demands they should yield, And in presence of womanhood cower; But alas! for our tethered and impotent state, Chained by notions of knighthood—we ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... arrogant? I think most of us have some interest in arguing the contrary. And it is of the nature of vanity and arrogance, if unchecked, to become cruel and self-justifying. There are fierce beasts within: chain them, chain them, and let them learn to cower before the creature with wider reason. This is what one wishes for Mordax—that his heart and brain should restrain the outleap of roar ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... he'd bet 5 dollars he could lick the Crisis in a fair stand-up fight, if he wouldn't draw a knife on him. So it went—sum was for war, and sum was for peace. The skoolmaster, however, sed the Slave Oligarky must cower at the feet of the North ere a year had flowed by, or pass over his dead corpse. "Esto perpetua!" he added! "And sine qua non also!" sed I, sternly, wishing to make a impression onto the villagers. "Requiescat in pace!" ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... his sleeves. Rat-tat-tat, upon the entrance, brought Aunt Hannah to the door; Parched lips humbly plead for water, as she scanned his misery o'er; Wrathful came the dame's quick answer; made him cower, shame, and start Out of sight, despairing, saddened, hurt and angry to the heart. "Drink! You've had enough, you rascal. Faugh! The smell now makes me sick, Move, you thief! Leave now these grounds, sir, or our dogs ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... says 'Stop'; and it stands fixed upon the spot. He arrests the march of Death. Not indeed that He touches the mere physical fact. The physical fact is not what men mean by death. It is not what they cower before. What the world shrinks from is the physical fact plus its associations, its dim forebodings, its recoilings from the unknown regions into which the soul goes from out of 'the warm precincts of the cheerful day,' and plus the possibilities ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... July or August, the fiat goes forth that the drones must die; there is no further use for them. Then the poor creatures, how they are huddled and hustled about, trying to hide in corners and byways! There is no loud, defiant humming now, but abject fear seizes them. They cower like hunted criminals. I have seen a dozen or more of them wedge themselves into a small space between the glass and the comb, where the bees could not get hold of them, or where they seemed to be overlooked ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... become quiet, go to rest. Norse kurr, adj. silent, kurrende still, perfectly quiet, cowered to silence. The fundamental idea in the O.N. word was probably that of "lying quiet." Cp. Shetland to cur, to sit down. Isaiah, LVIII, 5: "His head till cower like a seggan flouir." ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom
... which required great boldness and presence of mind, and Obed himself had said this much in his criticisms upon Black Bill's story; but at the present moment there was something in the tremendous figure of Obed, and also in the fear which he had that all was discovered, which made him cower into nothingness before his antagonist. Yet ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille |
