"God knows how" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sees Start forth in fourteen languages! Though of seven volumes none before Could ever reach the fame of four, Henceforth I sacrifice all Glory To the Rinaldo of my Story: I've sung his health and appetite (The last word's not translated right— He's turned it, God knows how, to vigour)[98] I'll sing them in a book that's bigger. Oh! Muse prepare for thy Ascension! And generous Rizzo! thou ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... makes my heart ache when I think of you, struggling so fiercely in the grasp of infidelity! Many times have I seen the light shining beneath your door, long after midnight, and wept over the conflict in which I knew you were engaged; and only God knows how often I have mingled your name in my prayers, entreating him to direct you in your search, to guide you safely through the paths of skepticism, and place your weary feet upon the 'rock of ages.' Oh, Beulah, do not make my prayers vain by your continued questioning! ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... he drew back, inspecting his impassive questioner doubtfully, almost unbelievingly. "But come. I'll tell you along the way. You mustn't be here an hour longer. I saw their signal smokes this very morning. They're murdering everyone—men, women, and children. It's Little Crow who started it, and God knows how many settlers they've killed. They chased me for hours, but I had a good horse. It only gave out yesterday; and since then—But come. It's suicide to chatter like this." He turned insistently toward the door. "They may be here ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... down, but someone sprang to my sword arm and pulled me forward. I tripped over something, and came to my knees, and as I did so the mob went over me like a wave, and I heard Diane's voice and its shrill note of agony. God knows how I managed it, but I rose to my feet once more—the very thickness of the press perhaps saved me then—but I could ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... truly," said the other without taking his eyes from the rope, "for it is reparation you make this night for two dead men, and God knows how many besides." ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... ask if she's there. If she's gone, Mark has made it right with his family and taken her home. If she hasn't, why, God knows how that matter will be straightened out. Anyhow, she has a husband now, and he seems to value her; and Waitstill is alone on the ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... her with my own eyes alongside No. 3 jetty, the evenin' before she sailed. A calm night it was too; and she with her Plimsoll well under and a whole line o' trucks waitin' to be shot into her. She went out before daybreak, if you remember, and God knows how low ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "Somebody who was anxious to get Clayton out of the way used some pretty face as a lure! She was thrown across his path, God knows how! The vilest crimes here are concocted often in gilded luxury. He was undoubtedly killed in Brooklyn. This woman helped to get him there! Two people must be let alone, absolutely undisturbed. One is Lilienthal, and ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... man should take advantage of this state of affairs was something never dreamed in Heart's Desire. Yet one day a sensitive young man, fresh from the States, who had blundered, God knows how, down into Heart's Desire, and who was at that time reduced to a blue shirt, a pair of overalls, one law book, one six-shooter, and one dime, slipped into the hotel of Uncle Jim Brothers, since by that time he was very hungry. He sat on the edge of the bench ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... that, madame, a son-in-law whom I am obliged to maintain," replied Crevel. "Of the five hundred thousand francs that formed my daughter's marriage portion, two hundred thousand have vanished—God knows how!—in paying the young gentleman's debts, in furnishing his house splendaciously—a house costing five hundred thousand francs, and bringing in scarcely fifteen thousand, since he occupies the larger part of ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Zavarroni, born in 1705, gives us a list of seven hundred Calabrian writers; and I, for one, would not care to bring his catalogue up to date. The recently acquired Biblioteca Calabra at Naples alone contains God knows how many ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... . . . is sinful, and besides the fact is you are mine, and no one has the right to think that you do not belong to me but to someone else! You are mine! I will not give way to anyone! . . . I am sorry for him—God knows how sorry I am for him, Liza! It hurts me to see him! But . . . it can't be helped after all. You don't love him, do you? What's the good of your going on being miserable with him? We must have it out! We will have it out with him, and you will come to me. You ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... "God knows how I love her!" Langrishe cried out, a glow of passion lighting up his worn, dark face. "But you don't understand, Sir Denis. I feel sure you don't understand. I have nothing in the world but my sword. My uncle, Sir Peter, gave me that. He gave me nothing else. Lady Langrishe, who nursed ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... took a long, deep breath. When he looked up again his forehead was furrowed into an intense frown. "Gentlemen ... as I call you from force of habit ... we've been finding dead cities of the Outsiders for centuries. They were all over God knows how many galaxies before your ancestors or mine had stopped playing with their tails; as far as we can tell they had a civilization as tightly-knit as our own, and probably stronger. And sometime about forty thousand years ago they started pulling out. They left absolutely ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... on my side. ROBINSON CRUSOE—God knows how—had got into my muddled old head. If Sergeant Cuff had found himself, at that moment, transported to a desert island, without a man Friday to keep him company, or a ship to take him off—he would have found himself exactly where I wished him to be! (Nota bene:—I am an average ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... see one's land go waste For want of labour, and the summer days, So rich in blessing, spend their fruitful force On barren furrows. And then to think That over both the Provinces it is the same,— No men to till the land, because the war Needs every one. God knows how we shall feed Next year: small crop, small grist,—a double loss To me. The times are anxious. (To ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... two or three houses where I go quite at my ease, am never asked to touch a card, nor hold dissertations. Nay, I don't pay homage to their authors. Every woman has one or two planted in her house, and God knows how they water them. The old President HainaUlt(886) is the pagod at Madame du Deffand's, an old blind debauch'ee of wit, where I supped last night. The President is very near deaf, and much nearer superannuated. He sits by the table: the mistress of the house, who formerly was his, inquires ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... night, when the brigade still were playing upon the blackened shell of what had been Shen-Yan's opium-shop, and Smith and I were speeding away in a cab from the scene of God knows how many crimes, that ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... when one Saturday evening she sat down by his side and made all that was so dark, clear and plain before him. It was nothing but a startled look in Paul's wan face—a flush—a smile—and then a close embrace—but God knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... our first bite to eat about noon of this second day out. We had then been nearly three months at sea, or, to be exact, it was seventy-eight days since we had left port. It was thirty hours after the coffee and biscuit on the El Dorado, and God knows how much longer since we had had a whole meal, and now we didn't have much. The old man bossed it. He took a half-bucket of fresh water, and into this he put a can of soup. This he served, and gave each man two soda crackers and his share of a pound of corned beef. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... pretence (to please you) that it was a new Tommy at last. We have seen how he gave his life to her during those eighteen months, but he could not make himself anew. They say we can do it, so I suppose he did not try hard enough; but God knows how ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... quite understand me: I have a great deal of money to spend, and it ought to be spent here in England where it was made—God knows how." ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... was thoroughly bad. She'd been carrying on with God knows how many men, both before and after she ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... could boast greater learning. Every man, officer or private, had his purse full of gold; half of them, at least, were married, and we had in the fortress a colony of five or six hundred women, with God knows how many children! I felt greatly interested in them all. Happy idleness! I often regret thee because thou hast often offered me new sights, and for the same reason I hate old age which never offers but what I know already, unless I should take up a gazette, but I cared nothing ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... afraid both ways—afraid it would be discovered, but more afraid I'd be found out if I tried to get rid of it. So I buried it in the cellar of my little shop and did my level best to forget it. I'd almost succeeded when, God knows how, Paddington found me. You know ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... not all wasted, for I would not have thee think that I was entirely without sense, yet I did not make the best use of it: whereof when I bethink me, and that I am now, even as thou seest me, such a hag that never a spark of fire may I hope to get from any, God knows how I rue it. Now with men 'tis otherwise: they are born meet for a thousand uses, not for this alone; and the more part of them are of much greater consequence in old age than in youth: but women are fit for nought but this, and ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... they were now placed, fifty-five miles from Cutmore's Well, the nearest certain water, for the chances that the water found between would be dried up, were great! Only one man unwounded and one suffering the most awful tortures of pain; and nobody with the smallest medical skill, within God knows how many miles! Death seemed certain, but while life remained they were not the men to give in, and they thought of a plan whereby the life of their mate might be saved if only their horses held out. They travelled five miles, then camped, and the available man returned ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... odium on the Government, as who should say that one who has done such great services to his country cannot live quietly in it, by reason of the malice of his enemies. I have helped to patch up these people(6) together once more. God knows how long it may last. I was to-day at a trial between Lord Lansdowne and Lord Carteret, two friends of mine. It was in the Queen's Bench, for about six thousand a year (or nine, I think). I sat under Lord Chief-Justice Parker, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... merchants, and ministers of religion and successful men of all professions and trades who are indebted to an elder sister for good influences, and perhaps for an education or a prosperous start, to rise, they would rise by the hundreds. God knows how many of our Greek lexicons and how much of our schooling was paid for by money that would otherwise have gone for the replenishing of a sister's wardrobe. While the brother sailed off for a resounding sphere, the sister watched him from the banks ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... needed to lose something of our amazement ere we could reasonably speculate upon what we saw; then how this had happened grew plain to our minds. The two craft, God knows how many long years before, had been in action and foundered in conflict. The smaller vessel—I mean the one that lay whole before us—might have been a privateersman; she had something of a piratical sheer forward, there were no ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... down with pneumonia, and after they let him out of the hospital, he looked such a scarehead that nobody would employ him. After he died, my mother struggled on somehow, taking in washing or scrubbing floors—God knows how she managed it!—and by the time I was five, and precious big for my age, I was in the street selling papers. I used to say I was seven when anybody asked me, but I wasn't more than five; and I remember as plain as if ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... for there isn't a girl living who knows how to take care of herself better than she.' 'Bah!' he said, 'if she knew how to take care of herself, she would permit a snake to touch her sooner than that man. Ida might do worse, might she? God knows how: I don't. A pretty family we shall be when he is added to our charming group. The mud will predominate then;' and with that he opened a bottle of brandy and ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... of age, and possessing a sanguine temper and an adventurous disposition that would have carried him into almost anything that possessed a smack of uncertainty or danger, he contrived to say, in a pretty easy tone (though God knows how it was put on ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... room to look for his uncle. He went in search of that honored kinsman with God knows how heavy a weight of anguish at his heart, for he knew he was about to shatter the day-dream of his uncle's life; and he knew that our dreams are none the less terrible to lose, because they have never been ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... window, this tale need never have been written. For he might then have observed (as the porters did not fail to do) the arrival of a second passenger in the uniform of Sir Faraday Bond. But he had other matters on hand, which he judged (God knows how erroneously) to be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been doing. I have not the heart to do it, for I think he is ashamed of himself-he must be so indeed, and such inquiries could not fail to be painful to both. My forbearance pleases him—touches him even, I am inclined to think. He says he is glad to be home again, and God knows how glad I am to get him back, even as he is. He lies on the sofa, nearly all day long; and I play and sing to him for hours together. I write his letters for him, and get him everything he wants; and sometimes I read to him, and sometimes I talk, and sometimes only sit by him and ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... of his apprenticeship.... But as I was to take a part the next year in the oratorios, I had, for a whole twelvemonth, two lessons per week from Miss Fleming, the celebrated dancing-mistress, to drill me for a gentlewoman (God knows how she succeeded). So we lived on without interruption. My brother Alex. was absent from Bath for some months every summer, but when at home he took much pleasure in executing some turning or clockmaker's ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... of him," he replied, "though the good God knows how he has carried me along this far. Yes, he is attached to a post. Well, we are off, and may the paper stay still till we get it. You ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... marry her his laughter galled me so that I lost my temper and told him that I would not stand by and see her life made unhappy. Then he grew angry too, and in his anger said such cruel things of her that then and there I swore he should not live to do her harm. God knows how it came about, for in such moments of passion it is hard to remember the steps from a word to a blow, but I found myself standing over his dead body, with my hands crimson with the blood that welled from his torn throat. We were alone and he was a stranger, with ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... come for the Covenanters. God knows how to shake His sieve to clean the wheat. He seeks not bulk, but value. Numbers are nothing to Him; character is everything. He would rather have Gideon with 300 men up to the standard, than thirty regiments below it. He preferred one-tenth of Israel to the whole number, ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... God knows how I yearn for the mountains And the river that runs between! Ah, well, I can wait—and the pastures ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... to beg you to join me this summer. No, my husband, I know your reasons, and approve them. Your wife feels a consolation in talking of her sorrows to you; but she would think herself unworthy of you could she not find fortitude enough to bear them! God knows how delighted I shall be when once again in your arms; but how much would my happiness be diminished by recollecting that your advancement and interest suffered. When we meet, let there be nothing to alloy a happiness so pure, so unbounded. Our little boy ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... bring them much money, even though they might stay for a buyer. When that little money is at an end (for it will be soon spent), what is left for them to do but either to steal, and so to be hanged (God knows how justly!), or to go about and beg? and if they do this they are put in prison as idle vagabonds, while they would willingly work but can find none that will hire them; for there is no more occasion for country ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... said Bristol, lighting a cigarette, "that even Dexter's cleverness has failed to save him. He's probably a dead man by now, which accounts for our failing to find him; and Hassan of Aleppo has recovered the slipper and returned to the East, taking his gruesome company with him—God knows how! But that accounts for ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... and yet how exquisite are those nuns' voices, which seem non-sexual and mellow! God knows how I hate the voice of a woman in the holy place, for it still remains unclean. I think woman always brings with her the lasting miasma of her indispositions and she turns the psalms sour. Then, all the same, vanity and concupiscence rise from the worldly voice, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... glory where we had left them; and at the breakfast-table the next morning there was an extraordinary assemblage of red eyes and shaking fists. I observed patriotism to burn much lower by daylight. Let no one blame me for insensibility to the reverses of France! God knows how my heart raged. How I longed to fall on that herd of swine and knock their heads together in the moment of their revelry! But you are to consider my own situation and its necessities; also a certain lightheartedness, eminently Gallic, which forms a leading trait in my character, and leads me to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... paint would make me easier in my mind," said Mr. Wardrop, plaintively. "I know half the condenser-tubes are started; and the propeller-shaftin''s God knows how far out of the true, and we'll need a new air-pump, an' the main-steam leaks like a sieve, and there's worse each way I look; but—paint's like clothes to a man, 'an ours is near ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... weary you; but I really and truly think your last objection is not so strong as it looks at first. You never make an objection without doing me much good. Hurrah! a seed has just germinated after 21 1/2 hours in owl's stomach. This, according to ornithologists' calculation, would carry it God knows how many miles; but I think an owl really might go in storm in this time 400 or ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... John; only God knows how deeply, how desperately. My love was the cause—my love was my ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... end and beginning no eye could read. There were places where it did not shine: down in the fetid cellars, in the slimy cells of the prison yonder: what riddles of life lay there he dared not think of. God knows how the man groped for the light,—for any voice to make earth ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... McLean as much as you can, and keep this from him if possible. A courier is just in who got through, God knows how, during the night. Hatton and his party were corralled yesterday beyond Rawhide Butte. Several of them are killed already. The cavalry start at once, and I ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... "God knows how it happened. I don't think there is any use of worrying ourselves about it. I have still four days. Then we go for good and all. But not back, no, no, not back ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... God knows how I still shrunk from it! But there was no alternative now; I was bound to remember my duty to the excellent man, whose critical position at that moment was, in some degree at least, due to my hesitation ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... usual to 'resume his studies,' she sat down by his side, and showed him all that was so rough, made smooth, and all that was so dark, made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a startled look in Paul's wan face—a flush—a smile—and then a close embrace—but God knows how her heart leapt up at this ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... served one woman—God knows how many more—very ill, shall serve hundreds of thousands well. Geoffrey Stonor shall make it harder for his son, harder still for his grandson, to treat any woman as ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... bid him come to me. Make him come to me! Tell him that I will do him no harm. God knows how truly it is my object to ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... balance and hurled him backwards. There was a tremendous crash, I found myself beneath the tonneau, and then, as it seemed, on the top of it again. At last I went rolling over and over on to the grass, and lay there, God knows how long, in very awe and terror of all that had ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... some of you who have listened to my voice ever since you were children—some of you, though not many, have heard it for well on to thirty years. Have you taken the thing that all these years I have been—God knows how poorly, but God knows how honestly—trying to bring to you? That is, have you taken Christ, and have you faith in Him? And, as for those of you who say that you are Christians, many blessings have passed between you and me ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... believ'd That this one daughter might not speak to me; Waited and watched God knows how patiently! How willingly deceived: Vain Love was long the untiring nurse of Faith, And tended Hope until it ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... horror from my hideous disfigurements, there was much that money could bring travel, adventure, sport, a thousand things and, at any rate, the companionship of rational beings, for which I now craved as I had craved for water in the desert. For God knows how long I had seen no human being no living creature indeed but a few birds and I had almost forgotten the sound of a human voice. Sunk in apathy I had become almost as a beast, but the sight of the diamonds had aroused me, and ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... Domenico, called Menichella, who has been to see me on your behalf. God knows how dear it was to me. After so many sorrows, hardships, and dangers, Almighty God has left us alive and well in His mercy and pity. A fact truly miraculous when I think over it; everlasting thanks to His Divine Majesty, and if I could express to you with my pen the ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... judges pronouncing in favor of M. de Thou. The latter turned towards Cinq-Mars, and said, "Ah! well, sir; humanly speaking, I might complain of you; you have placed me in the dock, and you are the cause of my death; but God knows how I love you. Let us die, sir, let us die ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the Wood,'—redoubt, fort, or whatever it be (famous REDOUTE D'EU, as it turned out!),—which guards Fontenoy to north, and will take us in flank, nay in rear, as we storm the cannon of the Village. Ingoldsby, speed imperative on him, pushed into the Wood; found French light-troops ('God knows how many of them!') prowling about there; found the Redoubt a terribly strong thing, with ditch, drawbridge, what not; spent thirty or forty of his Highlanders, in some frantic attempt on it by rule of thumb;—and found 'He would need artillery' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... honest, but never happy, till I came here, for here I saw Gilbert. In the poor companion of your guardian's daughter he seemed to see the heiress I had been, and treated me as such. This flattered my pride and touched my heart. He was kind, I grateful; then he loved me, and God knows how utterly I loved him! A few months of happiness the purest, then he went to make home ready for me, and I believed him; for where I wholly love I wholly trust. While my own peace was undisturbed, I learned ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... it a son? Ma foi! It were difficult—ah, yes! I remember now! A daughter. A little, red, hairless, dirty thing she was. I have a great curiosity— the blood of three kings, you know; surely that would overcome the blood of the good God knows how many peasant swine. She is not red, and hairless, and dirty now, in faith! She is clean-limbed, and straight, and white. A thousand louis to a sou, that she is!" ... His brow was creased in the ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... me speak to you without fear," she continued. "You do not suppose that I am ignorant of what I have done this night. I am not a baby. You are a man. I am a girl. We are shut up alone in this house for two weeks, a month, God knows how long. You know what that means, what people will say. I have risked all that a girl has most precious. I have put my good name in ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... bread; which really I wonder at. I am sure the king owes for all he hath eaten since April: and I am not acquainted with one servant of his who hath a pistole in his pocket. Five or six of us eat together one meal a day for a pistole a week; but all of us owe for God knows how many weeks to the poor woman that feeds us."—Clarendon Papers, iii. 174. June 27, 1653. "I want shoes and shirts, and the marquess of Ormond is in no better condition. What help then can we give our friends?"—Ibid. 229, April 3, 1654. See also ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... I haven't had a drink in God knows how long. I—but never mind! If that's the way you feel about it, I withdraw my request. Keep your darned old brandy. But let me tell you one thing, Murray; I don't like your impertinence. Just remember that, ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... travelling beyond the grave in search of this dead lad, to question him; and not seldom would awake with these lines running in my head, remembered as old perplexing favourites with my father, though God knows how I took a fancy that ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... think I told you?—perched on a crag in the forest beside Zeitoon. My men have cut a passage to it through the trees, for it had stood forgotten for God knows how long. Later you shall understand. There came Arabaiji, riding a mule to death, saying you and this lady are in danger of life at the hands of my nation. I did not believe that, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... give you up. My life without you is intolerable," he groaned. "God knows how I have struggled against this. You know how faithfully I have kept a guard over my words and acts. But now my longing overmasters me. My future is like hell without you. Oh, love! oh, Ella! listen to me! Can you give ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the sight of the Lord is the death of one of his saints." The friend, I remember, thought it "a curious remark about Huxley." It strikes me as a miraculous remark about anybody. It is one of those magic sayings where every word hits a chain of association, God knows how. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... not a good excuse for a failure in character; but God knows how wickedly provocative thereof it can be. The elders of the Aiken Club did not notice that Larkin was slipping from grace, because his slipping was gradual; but they noticed all of a sudden, with pity, chagrin (for they liked him), and kindly ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Well! I declare positively that the alarming news from London spoilt my breakfast. There is something about that friend of my wife—that smug, prosperous, well-behaved Englishman—which seems to plead for him (God knows how!) when my mind is least inclined in his favour. While I was reading about his illness, I found myself hoping that he would recover—and, I give you my sacred word of honour, I ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... thousand deaths, than go through again what they have endured. Such seas of ice! such going in sledges! such barbarians! such beds! and scarcely a looking-glass! And nothing fit to wear but what one carries with one, and God knows how long we may stay. At Petersburg the coachmen's ears are frozen off every night on their boxes waiting for their ladies. And there are bears and wild beasts, I am told, howling with their mouths wide open night and day in the forests which we are to pass through; and even ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... you, and a most extraordinary man, if he be still living. He is the Robert [William] Blake, whose wild designs accompany a splendid folio edition of the "Night Thoughts," which you may have seen, in one of which he pictures the parting of soul and body by a solid mass of human form floating off, God knows how, from a lumpish mass (fac Simile to itself) left behind on the dying bed. He paints in water colours marvellous strange pictures, visions of his brain, which he asserts that he has seen. They have great merit. He has seen the old Welsh bards on Snowdon—he has seen the Beautifullest, the strongest, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... midsummer when I came back again. I travelled up the river road, past our island refuge of that dark night; past the sweeping, low-voiced currents that bore me up; past the scene of our wreck in the whirlwind; past the great gap in the woods, to stand open God knows how long. I was glad to turn my face to the south shore, for in Canada there was now a cold welcome for most Yankees, and my fists were sore with resenting the bitter taunt. I crossed in a boat from Iroquois, and D'ri had been waiting for me half a day at the landing. I was never so glad to see a man—never ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... was almost achieved. When I look back I can see it written all along the path I've trodden, in the ruins I've left behind me. Why, why, I ask, am I chosen for such persecution? What have I done to deserve it? I've played the game. I've worked. God knows how I've worked. And everything I've done has come to nothing, and not because I've always made mistakes, or committed foolishnesses. Every smash has been brought about by influences that could not have been humanly ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... south, and then east again, all along the under-side of Europe. Then south again, God knows how far.' The explanation did not enlighten Bessie in the least, but she held her tongue and looked to Dick's patch till ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... was all different. I began to cry. Like a baby. I kept on with the water-bottle at his teeth long after I was convinced he was dead. I didn't want him to be aut of it! God knows how I didn't. I wanted my dear little Cockney cad back. Oh! most frightfully ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Heidi replied: "One must wait patiently, for God knows how to turn the saddest things to something happy in the end. God will show us what He has meant to do for us. But He will only do so if we ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... No jackal of the jungle, bears such brand As man's black heart, who shrinks not to confess The desperate deed of his deliberate hand. Our kind, our kin, have done this thing. We stand Bowed earthward, red with shame, to see such wrong Prorogue Love's cause and Truth's—God knows how long! ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... after Mrs. Van Buren had gone to the front chamber, where she always slept, Aunt Barbara was on her knees by the rocking chair, praying earnestly for Ethie, and then still kneeling there, with her face on the cushion, sobbing softly, "God knows how much I love her. There's nothing of personal comfort I would not sacrifice to bring her back; but when a man was feeling as bad as he could, what was the use ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... can understand it—or you," he said, his hand tugging at his dyed mustache. "You told me, God knows how long ago, that he was 'on' again; then ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... window and clapped my hands. If ever Grand Duke deserved benediction this Duke does. We hear that he was quite moved, overpowered, and wept like a child. Nevertheless the most of Italy is under the cloud, and God knows how all may end as the thunder ripens. Now I mustn't, I suppose, write politics. Our plans about England are afloat. Impossible to know what we shall do, but if not this summer, the summer after must help us to the sight of some beloved faces. It ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... felt it my duty to find out. I'm dead sure that I was very much in love with you—and I am now; but somehow it isn't that spoony sort of love that makes a man unwholesome and sometimes drives him to drink or to suicide. I suppose I love you too well to want to marry you; but God knows how glad I am that we have met, and I hope that we ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... [alone]. My dear good man—whom God forgive! He has not treated me well, as I live! Right off into the world he's gone And left me on the straw alone. I never did vex him, I say it sincerely, I always loved him, God knows how dearly. [She weeps.] Perhaps he's dead!—O cruel fate!— If I only ...
— Faust • Goethe
... the hearts of our neighbours, our kinsmen, our fellow-protestants, fellow-subjects, and fellow rational creatures, to permit us to starve without running further in debt. I am informed that our national debt (and God knows how we wretches came by that fashionable thing a national debt) is about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds; which is at least one-third of the whole kingdom's rents, after our absentees and other foreign drains are paid, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... yours; and as I dwell upon your affectionate words, while my eyes wander over the beautiful landscape which my window commands, my mind is filled with the consideration of the great treasure of love that has been bestowed upon me out of so many hearts, and I wonder as I ponder. God knows how devoutly I thank Him for this blessing above all others, granted to me in a measure so far above my deserts, that my gratitude is mingled with surprise and a sense of my own unworthiness, which enhances my appreciation of my great good fortune in this respect.... ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... she may!" replied Mr. Granger solemnly; "God knows how dearly I love her, and what a new thing this love ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... lives immediately below me. She has two children and God knows how she lives. She used to wait for me on the stairs in the evening to watch me go up. But I never ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... me when I come home. And thinks I, 'S'pose Susie's goin' to stay up in Heaven away from me? No, sir! She's taggin' me round just the same as ever! I can't see her, but she's right here!' An' she has been! I couldn't 'a' stood it no other way! An' Susie couldn't! The good God knows how much we c'n stand, and he eases ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... for wicked men; God will be even with wicked men. God knows how to reserve the ungodly to the day of judgment to be punished (2 Peter 2). And this is one of his ways by which he doth it. Thus it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... love—love of the sort of which you speak. Nay, the maiden loves you well, like a dear brother; she smiles at your approach, and runs to meet you when she hears your step at the door"; and then seeing a look of pain and terror in the face of Paul, she said, "Nay, dear Paul, I know not. God knows how gladly I would have it so, but hearts are very strangely made; yet you shall speak if you will, and I will give you my prayers." And then she stooped to Paul, and kissed his brow, and said, "There is a mother's kiss, for you are the son ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and I made our long journey south, seeking the treasure of the Montezumas, you already had had it safe under lock and key for God knows how long!" ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... my eyes thawed him, though God knows how hard I was trying not to hurt him with pitying looks. At all events he began to explain himself of his own accord, very impetuously; indeed I rather think the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... take it for certain that the natives will go over to the slavers to-morrow, and then we shall be attacked on all sides. We can't hold out against God knows how many thousands. I've sent Rogers and Deacon to bring in all the Latukas, but heaven knows if ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... a Judgment for wicked men; God will be even with wicked men: God knows how to reserve the ungodly to the day of Judgment to be punished: {174c} And this is one of his wayes by which he doth it. Thus it was with ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parlour, when I set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I think I must have lain in her arms, and heard her singing ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... goodman and goodwife themselves. It was comfortably hung with a sort of warm-coloured worsted, manufactured in Scotland, approaching in trexture to what is now called shalloon. A staring picture of John [Gibbie] Girder himself ornamented this dormiory, painted by a starving Frenchman, who had, God knows how or why, strolled over from Flushing or Dunkirk to Wolf's Hope in a smuggling dogger. The features were, indeed, those of the stubborn, opinionative, yet sensible artisan, but Monsieur had contrived to throw a French grace into the look and manner, so utterly ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... tell you, Honey, I can take no bitter leaving; But softly in the sleep-time from your love I'll steal away. Oh, it's cruel, dearie, cruel, and it's God knows how I'm grieving; But His Loneliness is calling and He knows I ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... fully, she asked me where she was. I told her she was in the ship yet, but God knows how long it might be. "Why, madam," says she, "is not the storm over?" "No, no," says I, "Amy." "Why, madam," says she, "it was calm just now" (meaning when she was in the swooning fit occasioned by her fall). "Calm, ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... find first," said Simpson, "no question of it. It's God knows how far to the next water, and we don't know how long it will take us to get there in that little boat. If we run our water entirely out before we start, we're going to be in trouble. We'll have a good look to-morrow, and if we don't find ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... gone away. You are too good. Your father sits and sighs till my heart aches to hear him. He cannot hold up his head for grief; and yet he only did what he thought was right. Perhaps he has been too severe, and perhaps I have not been kind enough; but God knows how we love you, my dear only boy. Don looks so sorry you are gone. Come back, and make us happy, who love you so much. I ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... "God knows how rejoiced I should be if I were able to answer your question. I must seek him, dead or alive! I must see him yet before I bid adieu to this world, which has now lost ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... living man in ever so bad health is better than two dead ones; but it appears that the latter will vary in value according to circumstances, for we found here, in very high preservation, the body of King John of Portugal, who founded the edifice in commemoration of some victory, God knows how long ago; and though he would have been reckoned a highly valuable antique, within a glass case, in an apothecary's hall in England, yet he was held so cheap in his own house, that the very finger which most probably pointed ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... or cold. I ask what is our duty? Will God perform a miracle to feed this multitude? I can not ask you, "Is it safe to leave them in the hands of the Government or the city?" I have for six years plead, as for the life of them, with both. None but God knows how earnestly I have laid their claims before officials in the highest departments. By the greatest efforts, and with the sympathy of a small number of friends, who in Congress see with us, and have from the beginning, that the repudiation of this claim must call down upon the Nation the just ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... dip in the ground and the eight-foot fence of the corral shut out all within. God knows how we got over that fence. I swear I think we leaped it. I have no memory of climbing, but I do recall landing on the ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... is," whispered Robeckal, "God knows how it is, but neither fire nor water seems to have the slightest effect ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... having children by my marriage with my well-beloved spouse the Empress Josephine, which urges me to sacrifice the dearest affections of my heart, to consider only the well-being of the State, and to will the dissolution of our marriage. God knows how much such a resolution has cost my heart; but there is no sacrifice which is beyond my courage, if proved to be useful to ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... one in the straw (I trust) to-morrow, a third cow, the Jersey—whose milk and temper are alike subjects of admiration—she gives good exercise to the farming saunterer, and refreshes him on his return with cream; two calves, a bull, and a cow; God knows how many ducks and chickens, and for a wager not even God knows how many cats; twelve horses, seven horses, five kine: is not this Babylon the Great which I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... so sorry at what you tell me about prayer. But do go on. When things are at their darkest light comes. After all God knows how much you can bear, and He will not, if you will only persevere, allow you to be utterly confounded. Don't be in the least discouraged at your inability to concentrate your attention. Even a man who had lived in the presence of God for years ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... told you a great deal—she was very fond of you. And God knows how I loved her. If I had not been forbidden to come home, I should have told her all. Does my father know of ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... apologising courteously for its poor quality, and explaining that it was the only drink he had been able to obtain for sale during the War! A glance at the rows of empty bottles in his shop-window confirmed the statement. God knows how he had earned his living during the ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... in ecstasy upon her neck). There spoke my daughter! Look up, my child! Thou hast lost a lover, but thou hast made a father happy. (Embracing her, and alternately laughing and crying.) My child! my child! I was not worthy to live so blest a moment! God knows how I, poor miserable sinner, became possessed of such an angel! My Louisa! My paradise! Oh! I know but little of love; but that to rend its bonds must be a bitter grief I can ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... grumbled the corporal. "But there is a lump on his brow the size of an egg, and God knows how long he has been lying here in this bed ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... should I have tried to keep you from returning to this country? God knows how I hoped and prayed that you'd not see me here. Elias Droom knew it. That's why he brought you here. Don't lie to me, Droom. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... threshold and longed to go in; she was forced to turn aside, to seek admittance at one of those other doors. This it is that matters—matters greatly. Perhaps only God who made the woman heart and who Himself set that door open wide—perhaps only God knows how greatly it matters. ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... French language and grammar; yet we were all very happy and contented together. Even now it thrills me to think of those moments. For my father's sake I tried hard to learn my lessons, for I could see that he was spending his last kopeck upon me, and himself subsisting God knows how. Every day he grew more morose and discontented and irritable; every day his character kept changing for the worse. He had suffered an influx of debts, nor were his business affairs prospering. As for my mother, she was afraid even to say a word, or to weep aloud, for fear of still ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... there is down there, covering two or three townships. It was in the night of that awful storm in April, and she went miles away, and finally overcome, lay down to die, and was covered with the snow, when a young chap found her—God knows how—took her up, carried her across the Chagrin River, or one of its branches, in under some rocks, built a fire, and brought her to, and finally got her to a man's house in the woods, sent word to her father, and went off. Do you know anything about it? The story is, that you ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... "God knows how I did, but the truth is just as I have told you; and although I was blind enough at the time, I can read the whole story now in letters of fire. I hope you will never have such a thing constantly before ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... streets the thing begins to rage; men, women, boys and children, fall upon one another like mad and blind; and the crack-brained spirit is not to be laid until a shower fall of blows—a shower of blows, kicks and cudgel-thwacks, to smother the angry conflagration. God knows how it all came about?" He smiles again, reflectively, over the recollection of the lovely quiet evening it was, the terrific discordant pother that arose,—the lovely and hushed night that presently resumed her reign. The incident looks fantastic now. "An imp must have had a hand in ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... Will of God. We know, in any available clearness, neither what they suffered, nor what they learned. We cannot estimate the solemnizing or reproving power of their examples on the less zealous Christian world; and only God knows how far their prayers for it were heard, or their persons accepted. This only we may observe with reverence, that among all their numbers, none seemed to have repented their chosen manner of existence; none perish by melancholy or suicide; their self-adjudged sufferings are never ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... Wolf in advance, I behind him. God knows how he found the road, but he rarely halted, and then only to listen to the sound of the axe. "You see," he muttered between his teeth. "You hear? do you hear?" "But where?" The Wolf shrugged his shoulders. We decended into a ravine, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... fair number of them, he said. Young fellows from other provinces who find their way hither across country, God knows how. It was a good soil for deserters—brushwood, deep gullies, lonely stretches of land, and, above all, la tradizione. The tradition, he explained, of that ill-famed forest of Velletri, now extirpated. The deserters were nearly all children—the ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... over our sins "weep bitterly." Ah, but these are "pearly tears" in God's sight. Though we may not know it, though we may still feel too bad to repair, on bended knees, to a "throne of grace," yet God knows how to value them. They are precious in his sight; and it is your experience and mine that after seasons of this kind he sends us the brightest tokens of his love, and we are joyfully amazed that it ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... said, however, and it was said at last—God knows how, for my recollection of our parting moments is nothing more than that of a brief period of acute mental suffering—and then, placing my half- swooning sister upon the couch and pressing a last lingering kiss on her icy-cold lips, I rushed from ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... heaviness through manifold temptations." 1 Pet. 1:6. Christian, do you not value your spiritual prosperity above all else? Then never complain nor become discouraged because of the heavy and manifold temptations. God knows how to deal with you. You may sometimes think you know best, but in this you are mistaken. Father knoweth best. He loves you and will not suffer you to be tempted beyond what your needs are, and what he will enable you to bear, if you will ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... God is taking care of now; and how, when I see the little bed she used to lie on, and her little frocks and shoes, I feel something biting in my heart, and as if I must have her in my arms again. And about you, my own precious boy, God knows how I feel, as I never could express to you; but I can tell Him, and ...
— Left at Home - or, The Heart's Resting Place • Mary L. Code
... "Go back and talk to Mademoiselle Julie. Since we're alone and are likely to be so, for God knows how long, it's your duty to see that she keeps up her spirits. I'd have kept you two apart if I could, but it has been willed otherwise, and maybe ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... come back, our little Fairy Child, Back from his wanderings in the dreadful dark, Back o'er the furious surge of fever wild, The lost dove of our ark; Back, slowly back o'er the dire flood's decrease The white wings flutter, only our God knows how, Bearing aloft the blessed olive ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... dear friend, in the hand of God. Let him accomplish in you, and by you, all his good pleasure, whether to cast down, or build up. God knows how much ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... comfort to both of us was out of the question; it was in the Bates blood to marry about the time I did; I had seen only the very best of your father, and he was an attractive lover, not bad looking, not embarrassed with one single scruple—it's the way of the world. I took it. I paid for it. Only God knows how dearly I paid; but Adam, if you love me, stand by me now. Let me have this eleventh hour happiness, with no alloy. Anything I feel for your Uncle Robert has nothing in the world to do with my being your mother; ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... their eyes to show them it isn't there. But it will be snug enough on the outer side of the island, where they won't dream of looking for it, and where we can use it whenever we like—for we'll shift our camp down there to-day.... God knows how long we may have to live here if anything has happened to the Fray Bentos and the Francesca and so we must run ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... your new Minister. He will need it. No one but God knows how much some men suffer in leaving old friends and going among strangers. One of our most popular preachers told us that when he goes into a new circuit, he feels like a tree that has been transplanted, and for a time seems nearer death than life. And it is more than likely the man who has ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... the young generation go on and on, God knows how far and whither ... perhaps to the point whence they will ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... but little time to give you my warning. Ecoute. Bonhomme and his men are gone only to carry back their dead and wounded, and to bring cutlasses, and the two or three sailors who were left on the schooner. I have followed them—God knows how—and heard something of their plans. They will make an attack—now, in a moment—in two different places. But these attacks will be shams,—is not that the word?—they will mean nothing. It is the Oak Parlour that they desire to enter. At the window of that so horrible room ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... have used great freedom in criticism of your acts, and I take leave to think that I have been generally in the right. You know that I am no flatterer. But I tell you, sir, from my inmost heart that you are the only man to lead the people, because you are the only man whose courage never fails. God knows how you manage it. I am of the bull-dog type and hold on because I do not know how to let go. Most of my work I do in utter hopelessness. But you, sir, you never come within a mile of despair. The blacker the clouds get the more confident you are that ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... omit to say that the companies of MM. de Rohan, the Comte de Sancerre, and de Jarnac, which were each of them of fifty horse, went upon the wings of the camp. And God knows how scarce we were of victuals, and I protest before Him that at three diverse times I thought to die of hunger; and it was not for want of money, for I had enough of it; but we could not get victuals save by force, ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... stand back and let him go, Or by God's eyes I'll choke you! [Kneeling to Sir Peter. Fair sir knight I kneel upon my knees and pray to you That you would pardon me for this your death; God knows how much I wish you still alive, Also how heartily I strove to save Your life at this time; yea, he knows quite well, (I swear it, so forgive me!) how I would, If it were possible, give up my life Upon this grass for yours; fair knight, although, He knowing ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... you stood as though you loved her so; your arms were so tender, it was just as though they said 'wife.' You are deceiving yourself, dear, believe me, you are. God knows how I love you; I have nothing in the world but ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... promised to marry her. He does not know who she is; but I do, and I know that there is a great reward for whoever takes her back to her people. It was the only reward I wanted. But she escaped and crossed the river in one of my canoes. I followed her, but The Sheik was there, God knows how, and he captured her and attacked me and drove me back. Then came Baynes, angry because he had lost the girl, and shot me. If you want her, go to The Sheik and ask him for her—she has passed as ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
