"Laziness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... position! Get a position!" And patiently, unwearyingly, Thyrsis would set himself to explain to them what it was like to be inspired. It was not perversity upon his part, it was not conceit; it was no more these than it was laziness. It was something that was in him—something that he had not put there himself, something that he could not take out of himself; a thing that took possession of him, without any intention upon his part, without any ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Percy was not so "finicky" in her tastes, Bessie was more careful of other people's feelings, Grace really seemed almost cured of laziness, Frank was by no means so hoydenish as she once was, and as for Wynifred, she was just as hearty and happy as it seemed a girl could be. Their independent, busy life on Green Knoll was doing them ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... which are highly valued in India. The poorest, i.e., those who have not the means to purchase arms for hunting, hire themselves as coolies. This is also an occupation of women, who are very capable of enduring arduous toil. They are healthier than their husbands, whose laziness goes so far that, careless of cold or heat, they are capable of spending a whole night in the open air on a bed of stones rather than take the trouble to ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... something for the reduction of inordinate wealth. Poverty is being much reduced, and will be farther, the process being limited simply by the degree to which the poor will educate and discipline themselves. We shall never wholly do away with bad luck, bad inheritance, wild blood, laziness, and incapacity: so some poverty we shall always have, but much less than now, and less dire. The fact that the large class of middling rich has been evolved from a world where all began poor, is a promise of a future society where poverty shall be the exception. But such increase of the wealth ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... her husband and warn him of the threatened danger; but at the third knock the unfortunate young man suddenly awoke, and hearing in the next room sounds of laughter and whispering, fancied that they were making a joke of his laziness, and jumped out of bed bareheaded, in nothing but his shirt, his shoes half on and half off. He opened the door; and at this point we translate literally the account of Domenico Gravina, a historian of much esteem. As soon as the prince appeared, the conspirators all at once ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... yonote, [33] and of the buri, from which sago is made, which is used for bread in some places. There are also wax, honey, the fruits of the earth, flesh, abundance of fish, and rice where the people do not neglect through laziness to plant it. That island was formerly called Mainit, but the Spaniards called it Mindoro from a village called Minolo which is located between the port of Galeras and the bay ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... cause. Upon his friends R. H. D. had the same effect. And it was not only in proximity that he could distribute energy, but from afar, by letter and cable. He had some intuitive way of knowing just when you were slipping into a slough of laziness and discouragement. And at such times he either appeared suddenly upon the scene, or there came a boy on a bicycle, with a yellow envelope and a book to sign, or the postman in his buggy, or the telephone rang and from the receiver there poured ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... judged him too harshly, seeing that he set himself against what was best for his welfare. Still, one cannot expect men's heads on boys' shoulders, and he writes dutifully and properly. I believe it is the fault of Andrew Carson, who was forever edging me on by reports of the boy's laziness and carelessness. He certainly has a grudge against him, and he assuredly exceeded his place and authority when he lifted his hand against my wife's cousin. It seems to me truly that I have acted somewhat hastily and wrong headedly in the matter. ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... my back,' said Sophy; 'there always was a stupid pain there; but grandmamma's Betty said I made a fuss, and that it was all laziness, and I would not let any one say so again, and I never told of it, and it went on till the other night I grew faint at church, and Mrs. Dusautoy put mamma in such a fright, that we all came here yesterday; ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... well told; the city beau is carefully and truly represented; and the dogs are admirable. No. 263, portrait of Doctor ANDERSON, the father of wood-engraving in this country, is capital. No. 266, 'Lazy Fisherman,' is Laziness personified. No. 341, 'Sketch from Nature,' in water-colors, is an exemplification of this gentleman's versatility ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... strange, incomprehensible, admirable fellow, Linden is!" said Mr. Motley one day when he and the doctor were sunning themselves in profound laziness on deck. It was rather late Sunday afternoon, and the morning service had left a sort of respectful ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... suits us," etc. Although perhaps not all singers are conscious of this privilege of their genius, they, as a rule, involuntarily adopt this free-and-easy method, which confirms them in a certain natural laziness and flabbiness. A composer writing for German singers has therefore to take every care in opposing an artistic necessity to this lazy thoughtlessness. Nowhere in the score of my "Lohengrin" have I written above a vocal phrase the word "recitative;" ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... had thrown himself on a wicker lounge and was absorbing cigarettes at a killing rate. I bantered him on his laziness. But he ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... grass—ask him if there were ever such a day as that, when even the bees were diving deep down into the cups of flowers and stopping there, as if they had made up their minds to retire from business and be manufacturers of honey no more. The day was made for laziness, and lying on one's back in green places, and staring at the sky till its brightness forced one to shut one's eyes and go to sleep; and was this a time to be poring over musty books in a dark room, slighted by the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... exhibition of selfishness, cowardice, vulgarity, dishonesty, or meanness of any kind, brought down the dislike of every man upon him, and persistence in any one disreputable practice, or habitual laziness and worthlessness, resulted in complete ostracism, loneliness, and misery; while, on the other hand, he might, by good behavior and genuine generosity and courage, secure unbounded love and sincere respect ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... being taken from him. So there he lay, with his paws upon both, growling instead of enjoying himself. He was a larger dog than I, but not nearly so strong, being grown helpless and unwieldly through long habits of greediness and laziness. I saw that I could easily master him and take one of his bones by brute force, and at first I felt inclined to help myself by this means. I thought I had a good right so to do. I actually wanted the necessaries of life, while he was revelling in superfluous ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... carelessly. "Her people are getting their supper, probably, and are too lazy to start tack or sheet until they have finished their meal. Bless you, you have no idea what lazy rascals the Portuguese are; their laziness is absolutely phenomenal; they are positively too lazy to live long, and so most of them die early. More over, I expect her skipper is still below poring over his charts and trying to make up what he is pleased to call his mind what spot ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... twists and turns of the law; not considering how much better it would be for them so to order their lives as to have no need of a nodding justice. And there is a like disgrace in employing a physician, not for the cure of wounds or epidemic disorders, but because a man has by laziness and luxury contracted diseases which were unknown in the days of Asclepius. How simple is the Homeric practice of medicine. Eurypylus after he has been wounded drinks a posset of Pramnian wine, which is of a heating nature; and yet the sons ...
— The Republic • Plato
... fail to exhort proprietors to moderation, labor, and economy; they preach to them the necessity of making themselves useful, of remunerating production for that which they receive from it; they launch the most terrible curses against luxury and laziness. Very beautiful morality, surely; it is a pity that it lacks common sense. The proprietor who labors, or, as the economists say, WHO MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL, is paid for this labor and utility; is he, therefore, any the less idle as concerns the property which ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... right who differs from you. You've sponged on me for a long time; but I suppose I've learned something from you, so we'll call it even. I think, however, that what you call acting according to impulse is simply an excuse to cover your own laziness.' ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... Savage warriors, destitute of the manners of men, flattered themselves that they could expiate all their sins by founding monasteries and giving immense wealth to a set of men who had made vows of poverty. It was believed that they would merit from the All-powerful a great advantage by recompensing laziness, which, in the priests, was regarded as a great good, and that the blessings procured by their prayers would be in proportion to the continual and pressing demands their poverty made on the wealthy. It is ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... overheard Herbert Page say. "You don't want to have him for your milk-man, Miss Montgomery! I don't believe they keep the milk pails any too clean at his house. Laziness and dirt go together ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... church. Others have their affairs so oddly contrived, as to be always unluckily prevented by business. With some it is a great mark of wit, and deep understanding, to stay at home on Sundays. Others again discover strange fits of laziness, that seize them, particularly on that day, and confine them to their beds. Others are absent out of mere contempt of religion. And, lastly, there are not a few who look upon it as a day of rest, and therefore claim the privilege of their castle, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... at Mount Pleasant, without any reference to the young lady; but Maurice could not be induced to break the ice. So he took Mr. Leslie through his mills and over his cane-pieces, talked to him about the laziness of the "niggers," while the "niggers" themselves stood by tittering, and rode with him away to the high grounds where the coffee plantation had been in the good old days; but not a word was said between them about Marian. And yet Marian was ...
— Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica • Anthony Trollope
... mother, and that must be my excuse. Now, however, there is an appearance of security which gives one a breathing-time, and my gratitude receives a sudden impulse. As for you, Maud, I regret to be compelled to say that you stand convicted of laziness; not a single thing do I owe to your labours, or recollection ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... was called an incorrigible dawdle, and made humble confession of the same, offering to do all in her power to make up for the morning's laziness. But what would ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they first went to the south, yet being constantly with their oppressors, seeing them used as articles of property, accustomed to hear them charged with all kinds of misdemeanors, their ears filled with complaints of their laziness, carelessness, insolence, obstinacy, stupidity, thefts, elopements, &c. and at the same time, receiving themselves the most gratifying attentions and caresses from the same persons, who, while they make to them these representations of their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... dropped from college for laziness and for gambling. Bismarck failed to get a University degree, because he lacked power to study and because he preferred midnight beer to midnight oil. George Washington, in student days, could never grasp the simplest rules of spelling. The young Lincoln loved to sprawl in ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... any of his flock be seduced, who also then would be better instructed, better exercised and disciplined. And God send that the fear of this diligence, which must then be used, do not make us affect the laziness of ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... said, peering out into the darkness. 'You've come to look after that great good-for-nothing of a brother of mine, I'll be bound! Come downstairs, and I'll tell him you're here. You may well wonder what's become of him. Ill! Not he, indeed! No more ill than I am. It's only his laziness. He wants a good shaking, that's about the truth ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... hand was still steady. Under the influence of drink a new intentness had come into his face, all his features seemed to be more keen and pointed. Every now and again he would remove his pipe, as if he were about to break into speech; then, either through laziness or from the tyranny of his habitual caution, he would replace it and, as it seemed to Granger, relapse into memories. He watched him closely, and he thought he saw the elation of old successes, and emotions of forgotten defeats, flit across his ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... If we reflect a moment, we shall find that even in the present day, on our own stage, the infallible and inexhaustible source of the ludicrous is the same ungovernable impulses of sensuality in collision with higher duties; or cowardice, childish vanity, loquacity, gulosity, laziness, &c. Hence, in the weakness of old age, amorousness is the more laughable, as it is plain that it is not mere animal instinct, but that reason has only served to extend the dominion of the senses beyond their proper limits. In drunkenness, too, the real man places himself, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... better let thy son know soon of the early visit to the abbot to-morrow, for thou mayst guess that we cannot and dare not delay our departure for the convent a minute after the eastern sky is ruddy; and, with other infirmities, young men often are prone to laziness and a ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... grateful when we reached the level ground again and found that we had survived. Our experiences with Buddhism were instructive. The saffron robes of the omnipresent priests and monks undoubtedly cover much laziness and much willingness to depend for a living upon others. But every Burman boy expects to spend some time, though it may be only a week or a month, in a monastery. There he usually learns to read, though his ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... the timid knocking, and rubbed her eyes. It was long since she had slept in the daytime and she was annoyed at such laziness. She opened the back door and led the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... masters, and work without being driven by the contractor's foreman. They are not encouraged to work more than eight hours a day; but as what they get depends on what they do, they do not dawdle during those hours, and if one man in a group should prove a loafer, his comrades, who have to suffer for his laziness, soon get rid of him. The tendency is for first-class men to join together, and for second-class men to similarly arrange themselves. Sometimes, of course, the officers, in making estimates of the price to be paid for work, make mistakes, and men will earn extravagantly high wages, or get ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... and Englishmen, who are fast filling up the principal towns, and getting the trade into their hands, are indeed more industrious and effective than the Mexicans; yet their children are brought up Mexicans in most respects, and if the "California fever'' (laziness) spares the first generation, it is likely ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... influences continue to torment them, and then fever becomes the only evil spirit that afflicts sentient beings. These evil spirits always avoid those who have subdued their senses, who are self-restrained, of cleanly habits, god-fearing and free from laziness and contamination. I have thus described to thee, O king, the evil spirits that mould the destinies of men. Thou who art devoted to Maheswara ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the natural wages of your laziness; if any one offers you a victim or a garland nowadays, it is only at Olympia as a perfunctory accompaniment of the games; he does it not because he thinks it is any good, but because he may as well keep up an old custom. It will not be ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... often thought that, in respect of sham and real histories, a similar fact may be noticed; the sham story appearing a great deal more agreeable, life-like, and natural than the true one: and all who, from laziness as well as principle, are inclined to follow the easy and comfortable study of novels, may console themselves with the notion that they are studying matters quite as important as history, and that their favorite duodecimos are as instructive as the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... far too well to expect mercy, nor did he wish it. He was too proud for that. He had disobeyed the rules of the school, and he must now bear the punishment, be it what it would. The thought of holding back the facts had never entered his mind. Indolent he sometimes was even to laziness but never within his memory had he been dishonest. So he had fearlessly told the truth, and despite the calamity it threatened he found himself the happier for telling it. Whether it would mean expulsion from Colversham he did not ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... farmers and mechanics and carpenters, among regular laborers, and the entire life of the common people in their homes, give an impression of indifference to the flight of time, if not of absolute laziness. The workers seem ready to sit down for a smoke and a chat at any hour of the day. In the home and in ordinary social life, the loss of time seems to be a matter of no consequence whatever. Polite palaver ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... the spirit of the sea all lay in that luminous haze, that warm light filled with the laziness of June; and, for one delightful moment, it seemed to Phyl that summer days long forgotten, rapturous mornings half remembered ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... If criticism is, generally speaking, praise, it is, more definitely, praise of the right things. Praise for the sake of praise is as great an evil as blame for the sake of blame. Indiscriminate praise, in so far as it is the result of distrust of one's own judgment or of laziness or of insincerity, is one of the deadly sins in criticism. It is also one of the deadly dull sins. Its effect is to make criticism ever more unreadable, and in the end even the publishers, who love silly sentences to quote about their ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... preachers are very negligent in this, and slight both their office and this teaching; some from great and high art [giving their mind, as they imagine, to much higher matters], but others from sheer laziness and care for their paunches, assuming no other relation to this business than if they were pastors and preachers for their bellies' sake, and had nothing to do but to [spend and] consume their emoluments ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... after all, this was the happiest time of her life—the honeymoon, as people called it. To taste the full sweetness of it, it would have been necessary doubtless to fly to those lands with sonorous names where the days after marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post chaises behind blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep road, listening to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the mountains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled sound ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... as their handiworks abound with faults, arising from one of these four causes,—inability of perceiving propriety of expression; which people call "stupidity"; disinclination to the requisite exertion; known as "laziness";—misunderstanding the meaning of the author, or destitution ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... noticed his laziness! Now it will really be your duty to make him a first-rate fighter for our cause. The Radicals will begin to attack our very existence presently, and we must all come ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... it was an idle life; and if I myself were not inclined to sloth and laziness, I would never countenance ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... roars of laughter the scene that would happen at the close of the year, and looked forward to seeing, at least during the interim, their friend in clean clothes, and reading "his copy" in the best journals. But the luxury of having a fixed place to sleep in, stimulated, not industry, but vicious laziness of the most ineradicable kind. Henceforth Sands abandoned all effort to help himself. Uncombed, unwashed, in dirty clothes, he lay in an arm-chair through all the morning, rising from time to time to mess some paint into the appearance of some incoherent ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... exceptionally foolish fool is quite likely to promise enormous benefits to the race as the result of such activities. But when the constructive, benevolent part of the business comes to be done, the same want of imagination, the same stupidity and cruelty, the same laziness and want of perseverance that prevented Nero or the vivisector from devising or pushing through humane methods, prevents him from bringing order out of the chaos and happiness out of the misery he has made. At one time it seemed reasonable enough to declare that it was impossible to find whether ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... on our submission, but that we shall insist on giving it. It is for all of us such a burden to have the management of our own fate, the forming of our own opinions, the fearful responsibility of our own destiny, that we are all only too ready to say to some man or other, from love or from laziness, 'Where thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... many friendly days, too; and the social charm of Maclise was seldom wanting. Nor was there anything that exercised a greater fascination over Dickens than the grand enjoyment of idleness, the ready self-abandonment to the luxury of laziness, which we both so laughed at in Maclise, under whose easy swing of indifference, always the most amusing at the most aggravating events and times, we knew that there was artist-work as eager, energy as unwearying, and observation almost as penetrating as Dickens's own. A greater enjoyment ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... falsehood, right and wrong; which some, wanting skill and leisure, and others the inclination, and some being taught that they ought not to examine, there are few to be found who are not exposed by their ignorance, laziness, education, or precipitancy, to TAKE THEM ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... this "life-ideal" seems to have led, inevitably, to fanaticism and other excesses, so that even at this early date there was much occasion for alarm. Gross immorality was disclosed as well as luminous purity; indolence and laziness as well as the love of sacrifice and toil. So we shall find it down through the centuries. "The East had few great men," says Milman, "many madmen; the West, madmen enough, but still very many, many great men." We have met some madmen and some great men. ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... 24th, our laziness is disturbed by orders to take three days' rations; our knapsacks are to be sent to Harrisburg; we are to pack up everything, to be ready to move, Nobody knows, of course, what it means; but a decided conviction prevails that 'something heavy is up.' Presently a hollow ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... willing enough, and between them the job was soon finished. The little man, who was a confectioner, explained that he had an assistant who came from a distance, and whose laziness was most phenomenal. After this morning, however, his services would be dispensed with. For once he had gone a little too far. Eight o'clock and no sign of him. It was monstrous! The little man produced a few coppers and glanced towards ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... things, and being content to be like his neighbours in outward matters, in order that he may make them like himself in inward ones. Shall such a man dare to hinder his own message, to drive away the very hearers to whom he believes himself to be sent, for the sake of his own nerves, laziness, antipathies, much more of his own vanity and pride? If he does so, he is unfaithful to that very genius on which he prides himself. He denies its divinity, by treating it as his own possession, to be displayed ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... You might as well expect me to know what was happening in the moon. You say you have come to teach me; but why did you not come and teach my father, or why do you consign that good old man to damnation because he knew nothing of all this? Must he be punished everlastingly for your laziness, he who was so kind and helpful, he who sought only for truth? Be honest; put yourself in my place; see if I ought to believe, on your word alone, all these incredible things which you have told me, and reconcile all this injustice with the just God you proclaim to me. At ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... a pupil needs to sit and rest a bit occasionally it is permitted. But do not let our consideration for your comfort become an excuse for mere laziness! There are lazy girls as well as lazy men in the world, I have heard, and it is barely possible that one or two might decide to take my courses sometime. If they do, our required work will give ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... to sing before twelve o'clock at night, when the air is somewhat cooled: and the fireflies flicker more slowly than I ever saw them before. Our whole world here yawns, in a vast and sultry spell of laziness. An 'exposition of sleep' is come over us, as over Sweet Bully Bottom; we won't wake till winter. Himmel, my dear Boy, you are all so alive up there, and we are all so dead down here! I begin to have serious thoughts of emigrating to your country, so that I may live ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... disappeared. Again the commandant glanced at this, that, and the other thing before concentrating upon what happened below. Then Billie saw the man straighten up suddenly in his tracks, and with remarkable speed, considering his former laziness, he whirled about, dodged, and clapped a ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... the means of procuring me many an enlivening talk with that peculiarly good- hearted and really unassuming man, whose talent, alas, declined all too soon. Schlesinger, in fact, was exasperated at his incorrigible laziness. Halevy, who had looked through my piano score, contemplated several changes with a view to making it easier, but he did not proceed with them: Schlesinger could not get the proof-sheets back; the publication was consequently delayed, and he feared that the popularity ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... immediate vicinity of a mission were attached thereto by a sort of gentle enslavement. They were provided special quarters, were carefully looked after by the priests, their religious education fostered, and their innate laziness conquered by specific requirements of labor in agriculture, cattle raising, and simple handicrafts. It was an arrangement which worked well for both parties concerned. The slavery of the Indians was not unlike the obligation of children to their parents; they were comfortable, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... and Labor have taken out all the things that bothered them, their laziness in understanding one another, their moral garbage, their moral clinkers, tin cans and ashes, and dumped them in what seems to them apparently to be a great backyard on this nation—called The Public. And we have carted ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the half-wit, gravely, "goes back for three hundred years. Parients unknown by name, but got by Misery out o' Starvashun. The line began with Poverty out o' Laziness in Queen Elizabeth's time. The breed has been a large 'un wotever you thinks of ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... while through the air above float a thousand more, or the evidences of them. Downstream come the scents of the flowers in bloom above. Just a week or two ago the dominant odor among these was the sticky sweetness of the azalea. It is an odor that breathes of laziness. Only the hot, damp breath of the swamp carries it and lulls to languor and to sensuous dreams. Mid-August is near and though here and there a belated azalea bloom still glows white in the dusk of the swamp its odor seems to have no power to ride the wind. ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... idle man of genius said, "When I go to Cambridge, I affect them all with a murrain of idleness. I should paralyze the work of the place if I were resident." To return—it appears that the best of men, especially of youthful men, feel the subtle charm of an invitation to laziness. The man who says, "It's a sin to be indoors to-day; let us row up to the backwater and try a smoke among the willows;" or the one who says, "Never mind mathematics to-night; come and have a talk with me," is much more pleasing ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... not very great. What chiefly concerns us here is to note Schiller's awakening interest in historical studies. In the spring of 1786, during an absence of the Koerners which deprived him of his wonted inspiration, he found himself unable to work. Letter after letter tells of laziness and mental vacuity. As he could do nothing else he took to desultory reading, and this did not satisfy him. 'Really', he wrote ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... here, very justly, how Josephus's declaration, that it was his great concern not only to write "an agreeable, an accurate," and "a true" history, but also distinctly not to omit any thing [of consequence], either through "ignorance or laziness," implies that he could not, consistently with that resolution, omit the mention of [so famous a person ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... friend, Since I am now at leisure, And in the country taking pleasure, It may be worth your while to hear A silly footman's business there; I'll try to tell in easy rhyme How I in London spent my time. And first, As soon as laziness would let me I rise from bed, and down I sit me To cleaning glasses, knives, and plate, And such like dirty work as that, Which (by the bye) is what I hate! This done, with expeditious care To dress myself I straight prepare, I clean my buckles, black my shoes, Powder my wig and brush my ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... there will be no scenery. This is not laziness on my part; it is self-control. Nothing is easier to write than scenery; nothing more difficult and unnecessary to read. When Gibbon had to trust to travellers' tales for a description of the Hellespont, and ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... was missing below here," muttered Shep. "Ham and his crowd were too lazy to cut firewood, so they used the board. If that isn't the height of laziness and meanness!" ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... from laziness, lack of study, indulgence in mischief, or any such cause, the remedy will be a different one. But a remedy must be devised and applied. No school can run successfully without good standards well maintained for the recitation. The teacher who feels that the ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... allowed to call attention to the fact, that in the accounts of the ancients as to the Celts on the Loire and Seine we find almost every one of the characteristic traits which we are accustomed to recognize as marking the Irish. Every feature reappears: the laziness in the culture of the fields; the delight in tippling and brawling; the ostentation—we may recall that sword of Caesar hung up in the sacred grove of the Arverni after the victory of Gergovia, which its alleged former owner ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and two flat pilasters upheld in the same fashion by winged griffins, may readily be distinguished. That these griffins are not repeated on the left of the relief, is due perhaps to the haste or laziness of the sculptor. He may have thought he had done enough when he had shown once for all how these pedestals were composed. However this may have been, the lions in this relief play exactly the same role as that attributed by us to the little model found by George ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... venison stored up fer winter. But this air yer home,"—he pointed upward at a little clearing beginning, as they approached, to be visible amidst the forest,—"an' ef ye air satisfied with sech ez it be, that comes from laziness ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Mrs. Elliot. "But she's as slim as a panther, and intensely alive nervously, for all her physical laziness." ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... as curious. He argued with himself that he had every right to feel afraid, that he ought to feel "queer." He said to himself, "Here you are, as nervous and temperamental a youth as ever stepped, with a mental laziness that amounts to moral cowardice, in the deuce of a hole that I don't expect you'll ever get out of. You ought to be in an awful state. Your cheeks ought to be white, and there they are looking like two raw beef-steaks. Your ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... boughs overhanging the mountain road the old carryall was slowly pulled along by a horse into whose joints had crept the dreamy laziness of early summer. Lou, bound about with flowering vines, captive May-queen in purple chains, sat on the rear seat with Tom; and she was shy in this close touch with the mysterious world from afar off; and her timidity made him timid, this youth whose earliest recollection was the booming of cannon, ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... this boasting! I am the cause of your virtue, my lad. You are pleased that yesterday at dinner you refrained from the dry champagne? My name is Worldly Prudence, not Self-denial, and I caused you to refrain. You are pleased because you gave a guinea to Diddler? I am Laziness, not Generosity, which inspired you. You hug yourself because you resisted other temptation? Coward! it was because you dared not run the risk of the wrong. Out with your peacock's plumage! walk off in the feathers which Nature gave you, and thank Heaven ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Don Mike enjoyed the quail-shooting in the fall! Should he return now to the Palomar, there will be no quail to shoot." He wagged his gray head sorrowfully. "Don Mike will think that, with the years, laziness and ingratitude have descended upon old Pablo. Truly, Satan afflicts me." And he cursed with great ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... hydrophobia for the space of thirty-two years, shows that two people actually died from it. Dogs are like all other animals. They're liable to sickness, and they've got to be watched. I think my horses would go mad if I starved them, or over-fed them, or over-worked them, or let them stand in laziness, or kept them dirty, or didn't give them water enough. They'd get some disease, anyway. If a person owns an animal, let him take care of it, and it's all right. If it shows signs of sickness, shut it up and watch ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... in Sodom and Gomorrah a few just people were found. It is true that in later life I once had occasion to depend greatly upon the fidelity of two Oneidas, and they did not fail me. But as a whole the race was a bad one—full of laziness and lies and cowardly ferocity. From earliest childhood I saw a good deal of them, and ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... ink for eyes, and its cheeks reddened with a little pokeberry juice; but the dolls they sell here are such beauties!—yellow hair, frizzed around the face like thistle-down; rosy cheeks, and eyes that shut with such sweet laziness if you lay the little things down. I declare, it's enough to make one long to be a child again, to take one of these dainty creatures in ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... cuneiform writing on a dab of clay, like the Babylonish king," Ken said; "all spikey and cut in, instead of sticking out; much worse than Braille. Go to it, and let Mother sit here, laziness." ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... furniture, the ceilings, the woodwork could be seen, already faded and still new. Spots on the crumpled satins, ashes staining the beautiful marbles, dirty footmarks on the carpets. It reminded one of a huge first-class railway carriage incrusted with all the laziness, the impatience, the boredom of a long journey, and all the wasteful, spoiling disdain of the public for a luxury for which it has paid. In the middle of this set scene, still warm from the atrocious comedy played there every ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... windless day, and in the daytime lay about, crushed up, in the hall near the men's hats or on a box in the dining-room, where the old cat did not hesitate to sleep on it. This shawl and the folds of her blouse suggested a feeling of freedom and laziness, of good-nature and sitting at home. Perhaps because Vera attracted Ognev he saw in every frill and button something warm, naive, cosy, something nice and poetical, just what is lacking in cold, insincere women that have ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the better if he would give up some old habits? Yes, yes. You agree with me. You take the allegory? Alas! at our time of life we don't like to give up those old habits, do we? It is ill to change. There is the good old loose, easy, slovenly bedgown, laziness, for example. What man of sense likes to fling it off and put on a tight guinde prim dress-coat that pinches him? There is the cozy wraprascal, self-indulgence—how easy it is! How warm! How it always seems to fit! You can walk out in it; you can go down ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Cynic, was not very discrepant when he defined lechery—The occupation of folk destitute of all other occupation. For this cause the Sicyonian sculptor Canachus,[225] being desirous to give us to understand that slowth drowsiness, negligence, and laziness, were the prime guardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the statue of Venus, not standing, as other stone-cutters had used to do, ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... at sixteen, and of course the idiots at home—I mean the foolish people—let me have my own way. I'm not clever, you know, and I didn't get on well at school. They used to say I could do much better if I liked, and perhaps it was more laziness than stupidity, though I don't care for books—I wish I did. I've had lots of friends, but I never keep them for very long. I don't know whether it's their fault or mine. My oldest friends are Amy Barker and Muriel Featherstone; ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... the conquest secure we read: "When a prince conquers a new State and annexes it as a member to his old, then it is necessary your subjects be disarmed, all but such as appeared for you in the conquest, and they are to be mollified by degrees and brought into such a condition of laziness and effeminacy that in time your whole strength may devolve upon your own natural militia." We think of the Arms Acts and our weakened people. But while one-half is disarmed and the other half bribed, with neither need the conqueror keep faith. We read: "A prince who is wise ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... there and Sir John Purefoy joined the party. Sir John was a hunting man who lived in the county and was an old friend of the family. Lady Purefoy hunted also, and came in later. Arabella was the last,—not from laziness, but aware that in this way the effect might be the best. Lord Rufford was in the room when she entered it and of course she addressed herself to him. "Which is it to be, ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... self-devoting love akin to that shown on Calvary: "The fruit of the Spirit is love;" "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another." And if the Spirit is within us, He is eager to work through us. We may be quenching Him by laziness, by timidity, by preoccupation. We are of the Body of Christ only as we are "members ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... night at Lady Buckingham's, and am ashamed of my laziness in not going. I dine with his Lordship on Saturday, and to-day I am going with Mie Mie and Mrs. W(ebb) to Mr. Gregg's, who has got a little ball for a dozen children of her age, because it is the birthday ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... this nation through the construction of the transcontinental railways, the financing of the western farms, and the building of our cities is largely due to the old New England doctrine that laziness and extravagance are sins. In some western communities it is popular to laugh at these New England traits; but had it not been for them, these western communities would never have existed. The industry and thrift developed by the ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... that one should be careful to distinguish laziness from dignified repose. Alas, that was a mere quibble. Laziness is always dignified, it is always reposeful. Philosophical laziness, we mean. The kind of laziness that is based upon a carefully reasoned ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... me not to sing to him," she said to herself, as she recalled his disappointed look. "I was not so very tired after all; it was just a fit of laziness, and—" but here Elizabeth checked herself abruptly—self-examination ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... most demanding our study today. It is, briefly, the problem of the mediocre book, its enormous and ever-increasing volume. More fully stated it is the problem of the negatively as the enemy of the positively good; of the cultivation of brain laziness by "thoughts-made-easy" reading. It is a republic's, a public school problem, viz.: How is it possible to raise to a higher average the lowest, without reducing to a dead level of mediocrity the citizens of superior possibilities? Our relation to ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... the other hand, be sure of this, that unless you are in a very deep and not at all a technical sense of the word, 'Nonconformists,' you will come to no good. None! It is so easy to do as others do, partly because of laziness, partly because of cowardice, partly because of the instinctive imitation which is in us all. Men are gregarious. One great teacher has drawn an illustration from a flock of sheep, and says that if we hold up a stick, and the first of the flock jumps over it, and then if ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that they have wasted a day just because they have not wasted it. All the more praise and credit, therefore, is due to those who do not allow their love of writing and reciting to be damped either by the laziness or the fastidiousness of their audiences. For my own part, I have hardly ever failed to attend. True, the authors are mostly my friends, for almost all the literary people are also friends of mine, and for this reason I have spent more time in Rome than I had intended. But now I can betake ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... of the last three months it was good to look forward to ten days or so of laziness, for surely river travel may be the most luxurious of any sort of journeying, and even a humble native boat on the Yangtse affords many delights. You make yourself comfortable with your own bed and chair, stop at your pleasure, go as you ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... because it conflicts with the rights of the joint family, and is a serious blow to all the old Hindu family privileges. The Hindu joint family system, while it has been a source of some blessing to the land, has also been a serious curse in that it has fostered laziness, dissension and improvidence, and has put a ban upon individual initiative ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... the many years she had been in England had not made good old Anna think better of English people, and, as was natural, her prejudices had lately become much intensified. She lived in a chronic state of wonder over the laziness, the thriftlessness, and the dirt of Englishwomen. She had described those among whom she dwelt to her niece Minna in the following words: "They wash themselves from head to foot each day, but more never. Their houses are dreadful, and linen ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... keep as close to them for a day at least, as it is possible to do without actually locking them up. Dear me, Jude! Look at the time! And I've got to get in some gym practice. My joints are as stiff as sticks, and I had congested headaches just from laziness. Coming ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... maid—one of those old maids with a harsh voice and angular motions, whose very soul seems to be hard. She never would stand contradiction, argument, hesitation, indifference, laziness nor fatigue. She had never been heard to complain, to regret anything, to envy anyone. She would say: "Everyone has his share," with the conviction of a fatalist. She did not go to church, she had no use for priests, she hardly believed in God, calling all religious ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... a certain extent brought to an end by the greed or laziness of the colliers, who have for a time destroyed the prosperity of the iron trade. Messrs. Greening and Co. started with great enthusiasm; and the results were very successful as regards the workpeople. Nothing could have been better than the spirit of goodwill, and ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... of his sister's laziness in dressing, but internally hoping that the delay was occasioned by nothing of a more ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... she replied. "It is a fit of sheer laziness. I ought to be elsewhere, but I was born without a conscience. If I had one I should try to quiet it by reminding it that I am fulfilling a long-delayed promise—I am making a garden for Mrs. Larrabbee. You know her, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... hill: the road, he thought, must have grown steeper in parts since he was Curdie's age. His back was to the light of the sunset, which closed him all round in a beautiful setting, and Curdie thought what a grand-looking man his father was, even when he was tired. It is greed and laziness and selfishness, not hunger or weariness or cold, that take the dignity out of a man, and ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... of the man to whom Mortimer had sold his daughter—such was the man whom Hesper, entirely aware that none could compel her to marry against her will, had, partly from fear of her father, partly from moral laziness, partly from reverence for the Moloch of society, whose priestess was her mother, vowed to love, honor, and obey! In justice to her, it must be remembered, however, that she did not and could not know of ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... detrimental to completeness of living, it is unfit to supply us with the hints we need concerning the causes, character, and effects of our over-activity. A sermon of leisure, if it is to be of practical use to us, must not be a sermon of laziness. The Oriental state of mind is incompatible with progressive improvement of any sort, physical, intellectual, or moral. It is one of the phenomena attendant upon the arrival of a community at a stationary condition before it has acquired a complex ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... might die', but nothing will be denied the 'Society', for each stands for the other. Each member must work diligently, since he does not labor for himself alone but for his brethren, and this will prevent much laziness. No one must rely on the fact that he understands a handicraft, and so on, for there is a curse on him who relies on human skill and forgets the Divine power. No one will be pressed to give to the 'Society' any property which has hitherto belonged to him.—Each person present was asked ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries |
