"Frivolous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this poet of the gay, frivolous, exquisite ladies whom they wished to send into exile? He was the author of that graceful, erotic poetry who, through the themes which he chose for his elegant verses, had encouraged the tendencies toward luxury, diversion, and the pleasures which ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... Sometimes he was reproached with having emigrants in his service; another time protection was refused to one of his secretaries, under pretence that he was a Sardinian subject. Russian travellers were insulted, and detained on the most frivolous pretences. Two Russian noblemen were even arrested on our side of the Rhine, because Talleyrand had forgotten to sign his name to their passes, which were otherwise in order. The fact was that our Minister suspected them of carrying some papers which he wanted to see, and, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Scripture. I told them we did not pray for Charles Stuart, but for all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors. They replied, in doing so we prayed for the King of Spain, too, who was their enemy, and a Papist, with other frivolous and ensnaring questions and much threatening; and, finding no colour to detain me, they dismissed me with much pity of my ignorance. These were men of high flight and above ordinances, and spake spiteful things of our Lord's Nativity. As we went up to receive the Sacrament, ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... great indispensable terms which they meant to hold, and from which no arguments would ever induce them to recede. Thus they would save valuable time and be spared much frivolous discourse. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bard I spake: "Was ever race Light as Sienna's? Sure not France herself Can show a tribe so frivolous and vain." ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... oak-panelled room, with those black ghosts reared up against the walls, and the light shut out by those carved screens. I should go stark, staring mad! Give me something bright and cheerful, and lots of sunshine. What worries me is that there is so little that is feminine and frivolous. I haven't seen a single thing as yet that looks ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... because it hath so great a stroke in producing this malady, and is so powerful of itself, it will not be improper to my discourse, to make a brief digression, and speak of the force of it, and how it causeth this alteration. Which manner of digression, howsoever some dislike, as frivolous and impertinent, yet I am of [1600]Beroaldus's opinion, "Such digressions do mightily delight and refresh a weary reader, they are like sauce to a bad stomach, and I do therefore ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... faithful; one effeminate and cowardly, another bold and brave; one affable, another haughty; one lascivious, another chaste; one sincere, another cunning; one hard, another easy; one grave, another frivolous; one religious, another unbelieving, and the like. And I know that every one will confess that it would be most praiseworthy in a prince to exhibit all the above qualities that are considered good; but because they can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... how happy we are here!" said Sister Ada to Joan. "I often pity the people who live in the world. Their time is filled with such poor, mean things, and their thoughts must be so frivolous. Now our time is all taken up with holy duties, and we have no room for frivolous thoughts. The world is shut out: it cannot creep in here. We are the happiest ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... indeed, be arrived at by an hour's daily industry in anything! "An hour in every day," says a writer, "withdrawn from frivolous pursuits, would, if properly employed, enable a person of ordinary capacity to go far toward mastering a science. It would make an ignorant man a well-informed one ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... jongleurs inutiles, frivoles joueurs de luth!". . . Useless jugglers, frivolous players on the lute! Must we so describe ourselves, we, the producers, season by season, of so many hundreds of "remarkable" works of fiction?—for though, when we take up the remarkable works of our fellows, we "really cannot read them!" the Press and the advertisements of our ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... vessel is agitated without ceasing by the storms of our passions! It is here that true philosophy brings us to a safe port, by a sure and easy passage; not like that of the schools, which, raising us on its airy and deceitful wings, and causing us to hover on the clouds of frivolous dispute, let us fall without any light or instruction in the same place ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... it—uninteresting as you may deem it, do not, as rational creatures, prefer the pleasing to the right and good. The young man of reflection is more respected, more valuable, and unspeakably more happy, than the frivolous and vain. If you forget all else I say, do not forget this—it is the declaration of your loving Father in heaven, who wishes to welcome you there, but can welcome those only who yield to Him a filial love—"I ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... duchesses, the cardinals, bishops, and generals. She draws them to the life, Monsieur, with a touch that makes them all ridiculous. His Majesty does not escape. God forgive him, he is indeed an amiable, weak person for calling a States General. And the Queen, a frivolous lady, but true to those whom she loves, and beginning now to realize the perils of the situation." He paused. "Is it any wonder that Auguste has fallen in love with his cousin, Monsieur? That he loses his head, forgets that he is ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... exciting disquietudes, Endymion pursued a life of enjoyment, but also of observation and much labour. He lived more and more with the Montforts, but the friendship of Berengaria was not frivolous. Though she liked him to be seen where he ought to figure, and required a great deal of attention herself, she ever impressed on him that his present life was only a training for a future career, and that ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... half-an-hour ago I came home from a splendid ball, the most splendid by far of the winter, and before one ray of all its brilliance fades from my frivolous mind, let me sit down and tell you all about it if ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Alterations proposed unto us, we have rejected all such as were either of dangerous consequence (as secretly striking at some established Doctrine, or laudable Practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole Catholic Church of Christ) or else of no consequence at all, but utterly frivolous and vain. But such Alterations as were tendered to us (by what persons, under what pretences, or to what purpose soever so tendered) as seemed to us in any degree requisite or expedient, we have willingly, and of our own ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... bears, I had rather be a bear than a man. Let me warn you against this. Never attempt to accommodate yourself to the world by self-degradation. Be patient; and you will enjoy frivolity all the more because you are not frivolous: much as the world will respect your knowledge all the more because of its ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... on duty. The punishment for these offences is a stoppage of pay for a day or two. First offences are usually forgiven. Many well-meaning but officious citizens enter complaints against the men. They are generally frivolous, but are heard patiently, and are dismissed with a warning to the accused to avoid giving cause for complaint. Thieves and disreputable characters sometimes enter complaints against the men, with the hope of getting them into trouble. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the Ursuline Convent in Montreal. It was my mother's dearest wish that I should take the vows of that order, but I fear I am far too frivolous for so serious a life. I love happy things too well, and the beautiful outside world of men and women. I ran away from the Sisters, and then my father and I voyaged to this country, where we might lead a freer ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... boisterous gayety, which shake off at once the recollection of their privations: the natives of democracies are not fond of being thus violently broken in upon, and they never lose sight of their own selves without regret. They prefer to these frivolous delights those more serious and silent amusements which are like business, and which do not drive business wholly from their minds. An American, instead of going in a leisure hour to dance merrily at some ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... lawn: "Please don't wander away again before luncheon," she said; "Gerald, I suppose you are starved, but you've only an hour to wait—Oh, Phil! what wonderful trout! Children, kindly arise and admire the surpassing skill of your frivolous uncle!" And, as the children and dogs came crowding around the opened fish-basket she said to her brother in a low, contented voice: "Gerald has quite made it up with Austin, dear; I think we have to thank ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... "How frivolous you are, father! We must get them away with as little fuss as possible. I arranged with Mr Jeffreys that he would bring Mr Forrester here in ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... be accomplished. The city was informed of this, as a command of his Majesty, in order that the citizens might aid the enterprise; but they were of a contrary opinion, for reasons which it is said, are frivolous. The truth is, according to report, that they do not like to be exiled [there]. The governor demanded the opinion of the Theatins, which they gave in accordance with that of the military council, very energetically demolishing ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... Southerners were opposed to secession and, if let alone, would force their leaders to reconsider their action. He might have quoted the nursery rhyme, "Let them alone and they'll come home"; it would have been like him and in tune with a frivolous side of his nature. He was quite as irresponsible when he complacently assured the North that the trouble would all blow over within ninety days. He also believed that any display of force would convert these hypothetical ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... brought to us, who advise the trades. When they are frivolous, we are unwilling to disturb the harmony of employers and workmen; we reason with the complainant, and the thing dies away. When the grievance is substantial, we take it out of the individual's hands and lay it before the working committee. A civil note ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... little frivolous tune Which he felt to be pulsing with ecstasy, For he thought that success always followed desire, Such a very superlative fool ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... great intellectual wealth. Hamilton demolished and reduced to stony silence, Burke sat down again and wrote long letters to all his friends, telling them the whole story from beginning to end. I must be allowed a quotation from one of these letters, for this really is not so frivolous a matter as I am afraid I have made it appear—a quotation of which this much may be said, that nothing more delightfully Burkean is to ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... your pardon, Pastor, but I have not observed in your son the slightest inclination toward leading a frivolous life. He is simply attracted to literature, and he isn't the first clergyman's son—remember merely Lessing and Herder—who has taken the road of literary study and creative art. Very likely be has manuscript ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... So she was a mere frivolous, inconsequential butterfly, after all. Why try longer to lend the Helping Hand—why not cut things short and be satisfied with the Social Triumph and let it go at that? "I was meaning to ask you to dine with me some evening next week at a settlement ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... though gravely, for he was not pleased, not happy in the course to which he had committed himself. "You, too," he chided. "Oh, you brazen huzzy! There's nothing like it—nothing in all the world like ready cash to make a female frivolous!" ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... stylish, dashing widow, with a suspicion of rouge on her somewhat faded cheeks, and an affectation of fashionable listlessness which a look of real amiability somewhat belied. She was one of those frivolous, good-natured women, who go through life without ever being moved by an actual pleasure or pain, so engrossed by their petty round of amusement, that if they originally possessed faculties capable of development into something better, no warning ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... of youth, of any youth, not completely empty-headed, frivolous or superficial, or was this the result of a distinct inheritance of two very different and opposing personalities, of so different nationalities and with an addition of even tartar blood? I don't know. The fact remains that she was constantly emotionally ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... without thinking," the girl said, gravely. "It must have been awful—awful, as you say. It is impossible for us really to imagine quite what it was, or to picture up such scenes as you must have witnessed. I can understand that all this must seem frivolous ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... any importance from the front. It is a fete day, but there are few holiday makers. The presence of the Prussians at the gates, and the sound of the cannon, have at last sobered this frivolous people. Frenchmen, indeed, cannot live without exaggeration, and for the last twenty-four hours they have taken to walking about as if they were guests at their own funerals. It is hardly in their line ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... and really alarmed at the indefinite prospect of delay in passing his all-important measures which now began to open, could not conceal his vexation in the remarks which he offered, and speaking of the amendment as one 'of a frivolous character,' indignant cries of 'No, no,' from his usual admirers, obliged him to withdraw the expression. His feelings were not soothed when, later in the evening, even Mr. Cobden rose to deplore the conduct of that minister whom ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... into their arms and kissed me. Here it would have been as every where else; but, unfortunately, my introduction to these young women was in the very worst of characters. I had been taken in arms—in arms against their own brothers, cousins, sweethearts, and on pretexts too frivolous to mention. If asked the question, it would be found that I should not myself deny the fact of being at war with their whole order. What was the meaning of that? What was it to which war pledged a man? It ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... changed since I have learned to understand and appreciate your vigorous intellect and nobility of soul. I thoughtlessly spoke to you in the language which is usually addressed to young ladies of our rank of life—frivolous beauties, who are spoiled by vanity and luxury, and who look upon marriage only as a ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... to do with our affairs. They are men like Nadaud, Clemenceau, Spuller, Lockroy, and others. I believe this was intended to be a complicated reproach of both socialism and communism. You see, it is always the same tune. Then he mentioned the "intrepidity," which I translate for myself to mean the "frivolous levity," of the government in suggesting such matters. The considerate politeness of the speaker induced him to call it "intrepidity." Gentlemen, our intrepidity springs from our good conscience. We are convinced that what we are proposing is the result of dutiful and careful consideration, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... peace, so that process might be entered and writs obtained most partially. The crown lawyer is allowed nearly seven pounds sterling for every criminal prosecution! an inducement to listen to trifling complaints, and prefer frivolous indictments, when, if power was gratified and independence harassed, it was a sufficient excuse for an inflated contingent account." The author of this scathing philippic against petty oppression proceeds to recount a case wherein an ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... was in the flower of her inconsiderate elegance, the note of the day was for art to be small, but perfect; the worth of a work of art was determined by its size—in inverse ratio. It was a time lively and intellectual and frivolous, and its art was the reflection of its desire ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... nay, and of the parish itself, in coming up to the St. Ambrose standard. How much was owing to mere novelty and intoxication, how much to a yet unanalysed disappointment, how much to May's having thrown her upon the more frivolous Blanche, could not be guessed. The effect was unsatisfactory to her mother, but a certain relief, for Nuttie's aid would have been only mischievous in the household difficulties that weighed on the anxious conscience. Good servants would not ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as did rise above the medley of catcalls and gibes of a dark nature which passed in playful badinage between the sister services were of a nature exclusively frivolous; and the conversation of such officers as were not consuming the midday cocktail consisted entirely of a great thankfulness that they had seen the last of an abominable island, and a fervent prayer that they would ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... charming!" and Margaret felt that she was included with the room in this admiration. "I told mamma that I was coming to see you this morning, even if I missed the Nestors' luncheon. I like to please myself sometimes. Mamma says I'm frivolous, but do you know"—the girls were comfortably seated by the fire, and Carmen turned her sweet face and candid eyes to her companion—"I get dreadfully tired of all this going round and round. No, I don't even go to the Indigent Mothers' Home; it's part of the same thing, but I haven't any gift that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ain't in any frivolous mood. I don't believe I thought I was about to push back the invader, or turn the tide for civilization. Neither was I lookin' on this as a sportin' flier or a larky excursion that I was goin' to indulge in at public expense. My idea was that ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... refreshment yield, That comes soft creeping o'er the flowery field, And shadow'd waters; in whose bushy side The Mountain-Bees their fragrant treasure hide Murmuring; and sings the lonely Thrush conceal'd!— Then, Ceremony, in thy gilded halls, Where forc'd and frivolous the themes arise, With bow and smile unmeaning, O! how palls At thee, and thine, my sense!—how oft it sighs For leisure, wood-lanes, dells, and water-falls; And feels th' ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... a long series of men and women, each marked by some strong peculiar feature. There were avarice and prodigality, the pride of blood and the pride of money, morbid restlessness and morbid apathy, frivolous garrulity, supercilious silence, a Democritus to laugh at every thing, and a Heraclitus to lament over every thing. The work proceeded fast, and in twelve months was completed. It wanted something of the simplicity which had been among the most attractive charms of Evelina; but ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... said, with a show of spunk, "give me one single task, that I may not feel as if I had no part in the homemaking. Something as ornamental and frivolous as you choose, but that shall occupy me at least ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... mind to enjoy myself thoroughly. I would see parents and friends and forget all about the army and the war. I would be gay and frivolous and go to theatres, music-halls and cafes. And one day I would spend in the British Museum and lose myself in books—that would be just like old times! Of course, our leave would not last for ever and the return journey would be terrible. ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... safe place he watched the opening of the door, and saw the frivolous thing lose a valuable second in waving the muff to him. "In you go!" he screamed beneath his breath. Then she entered and the door closed. He waited an hour, or two minutes, or thereabout, and she had not ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it: Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss? O Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, Which strike a terror to my ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Frivolous amusement was hardly what one saw, through the equinoctial twilight, peering at the flying tourist, down the deep fiords, from dim patches of snow, where the last Laps and reindeer were watching the mail-steamer thread ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Alexandra appeared to be angry with Evgenie, because he spoke on a serious subject in a frivolous manner, pretending to be in earnest, but with an ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... eagerness you have already attacked the subject. But I confess I like to expound my Hebdomads to myself, and would rather bury my speculations in my own memory than share them with any of those pert and frivolous persons who will not tolerate an argument unless it is made amusing. Wherefore do not you take objection to the obscurity that waits on brevity; for obscurity is the sure treasure-house of secret doctrine and has the further advantage that it speaks a language ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... ponderous tome, much marvelling in his mind how a person, possessed of the lawyer's erudition, could give his mind to these frivolous toys. But the counsellor, indifferent to the high character for learning which he was trifling away, filled himself a large glass of Burgundy, and after preluding a little with a voice somewhat the worse for wear, gave the ladies a courageous invitation to join in "We be three poor Mariners," ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... her pupil distrustfully. The educational progress was flattering, and at the same time a little disturbing. She had never seen Chesney in this gay and frivolous, not to say excited, mood before. The man was positively glib. There were distinct flashes of wit in his discourse, too. And where did he get so close and intimate a knowledge ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... out into a fit of laughter, and said, "This is one of the strangest occurrences I ever heard. Is it possible, my son, that your quarrel should rise so high about an imaginary marriage? I am sorry you fell out with your elder brother upon such a frivolous matter; but he was also wrong in being angry at what you only spoke in jest, and I ought to thank heaven for that difference which has procured me such a son-in-law. But," continued the vizier, "it is late, and time for you to retire; go to your bride, my son, she expects ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... craving for beauty, but far better than this aesthetic gratification was the education it gave them in thoughtfulness and unselfishness. Consideration for their mother, restraint, independence, all emerged out of the yards of foolish gauze and the frivolous spangles. ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... make up in folly what they wanted in charms. All generations of women having been bred under the shadow of intellectual contempt, they have, of course, done much to justify it. They have often used only for frivolous purposes even the poor opportunities allowed them. They have employed the alphabet, as Moliere said, chiefly in spelling the verb Amo. Their use of science has been like that of Mlle. de Launay, who computed the decline in her lover's ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... look to be made a curse and an execration for the punishment of it. The distinction which some make use of to elude this obligation, "That suppose they be materially bound, yet seeing they have not sworn the covenants personally, they are not formally bound," is both false and frivolous; for our father's oath having all the aforesaid qualifications, binds us formally as an oath, though we have but virtually sworn it; and whether the obligation be material or formal, implicit or explicit, it is all one in God's sight, if it be real, seeing even ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... than it really was, and when, in the metal mirror which lay on her dressing table, she beheld herself for the first time in the glorious likeness of a queen, a new expression dawned on her features. It seemed as if a portion of her lord's pride were reflected there. The frivolous waiting-woman sank involuntarily on her knees, as her eyes, full of smiling admiration, met the radiant glance of Nitetis,—of the woman who was beloved by ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the pangs of hunger. On studying the cause of these disagreeable hostilities, he found that, among relatives, they were often caused by disputes upon money matters; that between persons not related they frequently sprung from the most trivial sources—frivolous points of etiquette, petty squabbles at cards, imaginary jealousies—but that in both cases the majority of them could be traced to the all-pervading spirit of scandal. His purely intellectual education, if ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... us, and to deaden the severe pangs of conscience that harass them. They would wish to appear innocent before the world; as doing unto all men as they would they should do unto them. Do they base their objects, in full, upon such frivolous excuses as these? No. The truth is, actions speak louder than words. It is my candid opinion, there would have been no Colonization Society formed for our transportation to the western coast of Africa, had there been no free colored people, and ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... "John, you're a frivolous youth," responded the judge thoughtfully; "but," in a warmer tone, "there are some things you do very well. I"—still more warmly—"I have a little commission ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... your being here. I didn't know you went in for frivolity of this sort—if you call it frivolous dining in solitary state. Come over and join us. We're just having a bite before the show. You ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... view of undergraduate days. Light, graceful, humorous, sparkling,—this it should be for the most part; serious sometimes, it is true,—for young men and women about to take upon themselves the responsibilities of mature life are at heart by no means frivolous, but touching the note of grief, if at all, almost as though by accident. Life is often sad enough in the after-years, and for the period of sorrow, sad verse may be in place. Happy they who have not yet traded cap and bells (never far hidden under ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... ambition; the soldier dreamt only of displacing the officer, the officer of becoming general, the clerk of supplanting the head administrator, the lawyer of yesterday of the supreme court, the cure of becoming bishop, the most frivolous litterateur of seating himself on the legislative bench. Places and positions, vacant due to the promotion of so many parvenus, provided in their turn a vast career to the lower classes. Seeing a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... course a man of great force of character and— and expression," she added. "I remember thinking at the time that his eloquent frankness of phrase might perhaps seem even severe to frivolous creatures like ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... were in terror. There it shines, pure, lovely, serene, radiant with a light like molten silver, wreathing the darkened sun with a halo like that round a saintly head in some noble altar-piece; so that while in some cases the dreadful shadow has awed a laughing and frivolous crowd into silence, in others the radiance of that halo has brought spectators to their knees with an involuntary exclamation, "The Glory!" as if God Himself had made known His presence in the ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... former frivolous, pampered self!" cried the girl. "I'm no longer a silly debutante, papa. I've lived the grim hard realities of life—there on that dreadful coast—with him. I'm ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... in this respect the same as the husband of a frivolous woman: all others know more of what concerns ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... severe, and was bound to end in my complete defeat. Was I not back from the Tyrol, without having made any study of its inhabitants, institutions, scenery, fauna, flora, or other features? Had I not simply wasted my time in my usual frivolous, good-for-nothing way? That was the aspect of the matter which, I was obliged to admit, would present itself to my sister-in-law; and against a verdict based on such evidence, I had really no defence to offer. It may be supposed, then, that I presented myself in Park Lane in a shamefaced, ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... of the place,—unless perchance, from missing you here, I do less justice to the place for keeping you away. Meanwhile you yourself rightly remark that there are too many there whose occupation it is to spoil divine and human things alike by their frivolous quibblings, that they may not seem to be doing absolutely nothing for those many endowments by which they are supported so much to the public detriment. All this you will understand better for yourself. Those ancient ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... although it appears frivolous, is very useful, as without it much of the perpetual war of politics in the States cannot be understood. Yankee in Europe is a sort of byword, denoting repudiation and all sorts of chicanery; but the Yankee States are more English, more intellectual, and more enterprising than all the ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... the books and blushed still more deeply. The Hebrew Bible and Lexicon lay harmlessly enough on the grass, and the Luther was swinging in a frivolous and untheological way on the strong, bent twigs of broom. But where was the note-book? Like a surge of Solway tide the remembrance came over her that, when she had plucked the dandelion for her soothsaying, she had thrust it carelessly ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... it was equally possible that she might yearn for lighter companionship and accustomed amusement; that the passion-fringed garden and shadow-haunted corridor might be profaned by hoydenish romping and laughter, or by that frivolous flirtation which, in others, he had always regarded ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... they learn to tremble at every trifling change of the seasons. With such dispositions, it is no wonder they dislike the country, where they find neither employment nor amusement. They wish to go to London, because there they meet with infinite numbers as idle and frivolous as themselves; and these people mutually assist each other to talk about trifles, and waste ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... upon the stage at Bath, and before a multitude of frivolous and simple, or gross and depraved spectators, incapable of comprehending her, she played to ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... "I do not think I admire your description much, sir. Plenty of go in her; well, who cares for that? and lights up well of an evening, as though she were a ball-room decoration; I think she seems a frivolous ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Toussaint's was brought in dead—shot from a thicket which his master was expected to pass. On another, the road home was believed to be beset; and all the messengers sent by the family to warn him of his danger were detained on some frivolous pretext; and the household were at length relieved by his appearing from the garden, having returned in a boat provided by some of his scouts. Now and then, some one mentioned retiring to the mountains; but Toussaint would not hear of it. He ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... all appearance, in an unexpectedly short time; that she suffered a fatal relapse, and that she died a lingering and a painful death. Mr. Welwyn (who, in after years, had a habit of vaingloriously describing his marriage as "a love-match on both sides") was really fond of his wife in his own frivolous, feeble way, and suffered as acutely as such a man could suffer, during the latter days of her illness, and at the terrible time when the doctors, one and all, confessed that her life was a thing to be despaired of. He burst into irrepressible passions of tears, and was always ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... instant apprehension his quick interest in Angela and the child's almost unconscious response. With the solemn conviction of the maiden who, until past the meridian, had never loved, she looked on Angela as far too young and immature to think of marrying, yet too shallow, vain and frivolous, too corrupted, in fact, by that pernicious society school—not to shrink from flirtations that might mean nothing to the man but would be damnation to the girl. Even the name of this big, blue-eyed, fair-skinned young votary of science had much about it that made her ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... heaven-woven robes of love, open our hearts to the poor and wretched, instruct the ignorant, reclaim the vicious, bear each other's burdens, frown on vice, give up our petty vanities, cease our frivolous excuses that, we have no influence, when every one of us has an immortal in charge, use our strength to forbid oppression, whether of individuals or nationalities. Then might the day seen by the prophets, sung by poets, and believed in by devout hearts, dawn upon ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... case, would be the ultimate and only possible terms in which to explain it. They would constitute the mechanism of reproduction; and if nature were no finer than that in its structure, science could not go deeper than that in its discoveries. And although it is frivolous to suppose that nature ends in this way at the limits of our casual apprehension, and has no hidden roots, yet philosophically that would be as good a stopping place as any other. Ultimately we should have to be satisfied ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... frivolous way of passing the time," he said, "but it would be well for one of serious mind to be present in order that he might impose a proper dignity ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... gave three or four a season, her husband would show himself below for a few moments for civility's sake, and then retire to a remote den on an upper floor, well shut out from the sounds of his wife's frivolous measures, but accessible to a few habitues of age and tastes approximating ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... settled down, renounced all of his undesirable habits and became a new man with such surprising suddenness that his friends marvelled and—derided. A year of happiness followed. He grew accustomed to her frivolous ways, overlooked her merry whimsicalities and gave her the "full length of a free rope," as he called it. He was contented and consequently careless. She chafed under the indifference, and in her resentment believed ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... useless husband so that they all dubbed him with the name of To Hun Ch'ung, the stupid worm To. As the wife given to him in marriage by his father and mother was this year just twenty, and possessed further several traits of beauty, and was also naturally of a flighty and frivolous disposition, she had an extreme penchant for violent flirtations. But To Hun-ch'ung, on the other hand, did not concern himself (with her deportment), and as long as he had wine, meat and money he paid no heed whatever to anything. And for this reason it was that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... but itself irrelevant and tasteless. It remained, in a word, a conscious watchful presence, active on its own side, for ever to be reckoned with, in face of which the effort at detachment was scarcely less futile than frivolous. Kate had come to him; it was only once—and this not from any failure of their need, but from such impossibilities, for bravery alike and for subtlety, as there was at the last no blinking; yet she had ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... knowledge of all the torments she had seen during the day in the very house against which she was leaning her back. The sad little woman breathed a sigh of relief when it grew so dark that she could move away from the frivolous chatterbox unnoticed. ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... Euripides, does the same: [Greek: Pentheus, esomenes sumphoras eponymos]. Eteocles in the Phoenissae of Euripides makes a play of the same kind on the name of Polynices.] with much more in the same fashion; while it is into the mouth of the slight and frivolous king that Shakespeare puts the ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... the moment, who threw themselves so to speak into the arms of the Emperor without giving him time to make his court to them, was Mademoiselle L. B——, a very pretty girl. She was intelligent, and possessed a kind heart, and, had she received a less frivolous education, would doubtless have been an estimable woman; but I have reason to believe that her mother had from the first the design of acquiring a protector for her second husband, by utilizing the youth and attractions of the daughter of her first. I do ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... had gone to Naples under the escort of Prospero Colonna, having left the Castle of Sant' Angelo where for some time she had been confined by order of her father-in-law, the Pope, on account of the disorders of her frivolous life. ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... day she had turned her back on Thornwood would have enveloped her completely had it not been for Connie. Connie was but a year her junior, and was thoroughly disapproved by the family connection. She enjoyed the reputation of being frivolous and vain, and wholly lacking in reverence to ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... open to not a few temptations. Too many young men born to shine in social life, to sparkle, it may be, in conversation, perhaps in the lighter walks of literature, become agreeable idlers, self-indulgent, frivolous, incapable of large designs or sustained effort, lose every aspiration and forget every ideal. Our gilded youth want such examples as this of Motley, not a solitary, but a conspicuous one, to teach them how much better is the ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... amassed wealth their children began and continued to worry. Not occupied with work that demands our unceasing energy, we find ourselves occupied with trifles, worrying over our health, our investments, our luxuries, our lap-dogs and our frivolous occupations. Imagine the old-time pioneers of the forest, plain, prairie and desert worrying about sitting in a draught, or taking cold if they got wet, or wondering whether they could eat what ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... life,' said Henrietta, 'but have some little experience of society. Therefore their works give a perverted impression of human conduct; for they accept as a principal, that which is only an insignificant accessory; and they make existence a succession of frivolities, when even the career of the most frivolous ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... the sweet liberty of Natures first and uncorrupted lawes, I assure thee, I would most willingly have pourtrayed my selfe fully and naked. Thus, gentle Reader, my selfe am the groundworke of my booke: It is then no reason thou shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vaine a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... said the author modestly, "that the epoch of flimsy and frivolous prospectuses had gone by; we are entering upon an era of science; we need an academical tone,—a tone of authority, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... plainly to all men of common sense. The proposed course will therefore open with a very short, and, I hope, a very simple and intelligible account of the powers and operations of the human mind. By this plain statement of facts, it will not be difficult to decide many celebrated, though frivolous, and merely verbal controversies, which have long amused the leisure of the schools, and which owe both their fame and their existence to the ambiguous obscurity of scholastic language. It will, for example, only require ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... mischievous smile on his lips; and then, obeying, I believe, some whim of his frivolous nature rather than the needs of the position itself, he rose abruptly, spun round on his heels and, with ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... a philosophical work like that of Michel Montaigne, was then still a remarkable event. [36] To counteract the pernicious influence which the frivolous, foreign talker threatened to exercise, in large circles, through an English translation—this, in our opinion, was the object which Shakspere had when touching upon ground interdicted, as a rule, to ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... is the only practice in divinity. Also, 'Mystica Theologia Dionysii' is a mere fable, and a lie, like to Plato's fables. 'Omnia sunt non ens, et omnia sunt ens'; all is something, and all is nothing, and so he leaveth all hanging in frivolous and ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... first very young—boys. In his letters to older folk, both men and women, qualities for which there was no room in the others arise—the thoughts of a statesman and a philosopher, the feelings of a being quite different from the callous, frivolous, sometimes "insolent"[15] worldling who has been so often put in the place of the real Chesterfield. And independently of all this there is present in all these letters—though most attractively in those to his son—a power of literary expression which would have ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... thought, care, affection you give to nature, the more she gives you in return, and while, so he admitted, in wooing nature there are no great moments, there are no heart-aches. Jackson, one of the men friends, and of a frivolous disposition, said that he also could admire a landscape, but he would rather look at the beautiful eyes of a girl he knew than at the Lakes of Killarney, with a full moon, a setting sun, and the aurora borealis for a background. Herrick suggested that, ...
— The Nature Faker • Richard Harding Davis |
