"Obsequiousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for that, I also am poor, very poor indeed," the new-comer hastened to reply with the crafty obsequiousness peculiar to the Greek race. "My name is Janaki, and I am a butcher at Jassy. The kavasses have laid their hands upon my apprentice and all my live-stock at the same time, and that is why I have come to Stambul. I shall be utterly beggared if I don't ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... his aspect was nearly that of a man. He held his head erect, the cringe disappeared from his back, the obsequiousness from his manner. Then while an eye might wink, he took on the appearance of a snake ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... at the same time; she had only toyed with some caviare by way of hors d'oeuvre, and it angered him to notice the obsequiousness of the waiters, who passed each thing to the dignified servant to be placed before the lady by his hand. Who was she to be served with ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... evidence. An English vulgarian is often hushed into silence by the presence of his social superior; an American vulgarian either recognises none such or tries to prove himself as good as you by being unnecessarily grob. This has, at any rate, a manlier air than the vulgar obsequiousness of England towards the superior on the one hand or its cynical insolence to the inferior on the other. The feeling which made a French lady of fashion in the seventeenth century dress herself in the presence of a footman with as much unconcern as if he were ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... diary have kept his name fresh to our time. No servant of the late sovereign was publicly disgraced. Sunderland exerted so much art and address, employed so many intercessors, and was in possession of so many secrets, that he was suffered to retain his seals. Godolphin's obsequiousness, industry, experience and taciturnity, could ill be spared. As he was no longer wanted at the Treasury, he was made Chamberlain to the Queen. With these three Lords the King took counsel on all important questions. As to Halifax, Ormond, and Guildford, he determined not yet to dismiss them, but ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... now stands, the fault of overstraining popular qualities, and, irregularly if you please, asserting popular privileges, has led to disqualification; the opposite fault never has produced the slightest punishment. Resistance to power has shut the door of the House of Commons to one man; obsequiousness ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... had made the inquiries of the landlord, whose easily- bought obsequiousness now knew no bounds, and he gave a letter to Havel to hand to his cousin the landlord at the next change, which, he said, would be sure to secure them the best ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... glass are beautifully bright, your bell quickly answered, and Thomas ready, neat, and good-humored, you are not to expect absolute truth from him. The very obsequiousness and perfection of his service prevents truth. He may be ever so unwell in mind or body, and he must go through his service—hand the shining plate, replenish the spotless glass, lay the glittering fork—never ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... never-ending pain," which tempted the foreigner to Italy, her lot has been hardly less wretched; but Germany has differed from Italy in the successful bravery with which she repelled the invader. Tacitus says of her people, that, "surrounded by numerous and very powerful nations, they are safe, not by obsequiousness, but by battles and braving danger"; [Footnote: "Plurimis ac valentissimis nationibus cincti, non per obsequium, sed prutiis et periclitando tuti sunt."—Germania, Cap. XL.] and this same character, thus epigrammatically presented, has continued ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... act of Congress, the open avowal that, in his vocabulary, used in the performance of one of the most solemn and sacred of his duties, the word 'approved' means not approval, but doubt; not the expression of his own opinions, but mere obsequiousness ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... civil obsequiousness that Sir Morton Pippitt had certainly once 'ground bones,' but that he had 'retired' from such active service, while still retaining the largest share in the bone business. That he had bought Badsworth Hall as it stood,— pictures, books, furniture and all, for what was to him ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... own mind, can cause this obsequiousness on the part of Miss Toady; has Briefless got a county court, or has his wife had a fortune left her? Miss Toady explained presently, with that simplicity which distinguishes all her conduct. "You know," she said, "Mrs Briefless is granddaughter of Sir John ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... me," said Harry, with great obsequiousness, and giving to his captor the royal honors which he claimed—"will 'Your Majesty' pardon me if I assure 'Your Majesty' that the amount of my ransom is so enormous that it is utterly impossible for me to ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... forming a coalition beneficial to the State, and honourable to all concerned, was suffered to escape, the fault was not with the Whig ministers. They behaved towards Pitt with an obsequiousness which, had it not been the effect of sincere admiration and of anxiety for the public interests, might have been justly called servile. They repeatedly gave him to understand that, if he chose to join ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... manant, quantamlibet eripit auctoritatem, omne jus et omnem legem dissolvit." It was "as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Nothing could surpass Louis's obsequiousness: "Sicut mandasti ... pellimus dejicimus stirpitusque abrogamus," etc. He pledges his royal word to overcome opposition: "Quod si forte obnitentur aliqui aut reclamabunt, nos in verbo regio pollicemur tuae Beatitudini atque ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... have a party, and Jake told me you'd be able to fix me up with a little gin." In alarm, in obsequiousness, as Hanson's eyes grew more bored, "You telephone to Jake about me, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Suffering perhaps it prefers, and contumely and persecution. Are not opposition, despiteful anger, slander even, rejection of men, stripes even, if such there could be in these days, manna to the devout soul consciously set apart for a mission? But success, obsequiousness, applause, the love of women, the concurrent good opinion of all humanitarians, are these not almost as dangerous as persecution? Father Damon, though exalted in his calling, and filled with a burning zeal, was a sincere man, and even his eccentricities ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... furs by Peter, with the greatest deference and politeness, but with none of the obsequiousness that had sickened her elsewhere; he laid down her sable cloak with the reverence of one who knew its value, and he asked Rose in a whisper if her sister would like a glass of wine before lunch. The smiling matron shook her head, and whispered something else, which sent him out of the room. Then, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... if, instead of always emulating the splendours of Lucullus, people now and then studied the art of Horatian frugality. And I note that in club life, if the plutocrat sets the standard of expenditure, the aristocrat looks to the training of the servants. Their obsequiousness is almost painful. There is not the slightest trace of democratic equality in their dress, their ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... course. Applied at the wicket for my ticket, as the 'bus man was eager to get paid and see me safely off. The ticket man told me curtly I was in no hurry, and shut the wicket in my face. The idea prevails here, except in the cases of the local gentry who are privileged, and to whom the obsequiousness is remarkable, that the general public, besides paying for their accommodation, ought to accept their tickets as a favor done them by the Company. This stately official at last consented to issue tickets; as I had not change enough to pay I gave him a sovereign, ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... presum'd to dedicate them to a Hero adorn'd with such glorious Actions, if Singing was not a Delight of the Soul, or if any one had a Soul more sensible of its Charms. On which account, I think, I have a just Pretence to declare myself, with profound Obsequiousness, ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... extraordinary Man, who, in his Way, never had an Equal in any Age before him, or in that wherein he lived. I speak of him as a Companion, and a Man qualified for Conversation. His Fortune exposed him to an Obsequiousness towards the worst Sort of Company, but his excellent Qualities rendered him capable of making the best Figure in the most refined. I have been present with him among Men of the most delicate Taste a whole Night, and have known him (for he saw it was desired) keep the Discourse to himself ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... The obsequiousness of Coke to his Royal mistress was in perfect keeping with his character. Nothing exceeds his abject servility while in the sunshine, save his fixed malignity when dismissed to the shade. In 1594 the office of Attorney-General became vacant; Coke regarded the prize as his own ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... sensitive and discriminating as that of the chambermaid or butler. The mere pride of an easy mastery over slaves is the taint of every society in which class differences are recognized as fixed. It attaches to all classes; whether it be called snobbery or obsequiousness, it is all one. The virtue of mastery, on the other hand, lies in the power and in ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... and spoon. But, indeed, I need the pencil of Granville or Tenniel to make you see the two gilt valets on the opposite side of the table putting the monster down before our friends, with a smiling, self-satisfied, benevolent obsequiousness for this ghastly monster was the flower of all comestibles—old Peter clasping both hands in pious admiration of it; Margaret wheeling round with horror-stricken eyes and her hand on Gerard's shoulder, squeaking and pinching; his face of unwise delight at being pinched, the grizzly ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... most contemptible persons in the society. It is by powerful protection only, that he can effectually guard himself against the bad usage to which he is at all times exposed; and this protection he is most likely to gain, not by ability or diligence in his profession, but by obsequiousness to the will of his superiors, and by being ready, at all times, to sacrifice to that will the rights, the interest, and the honour of the body corporate, of which he is a member. Whoever has attended for any considerable time ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the dull by his wit. All through his career we find him hard to get on with, proud to his inferiors, still more crabbed to those above him. If policy required that he should use the arts of a diplomatist, he overplayed his part, and stung his rivals to the quick by an obsequiousness in speech to which his eyes and shoulders gave the lie. With all his wealth and influence, he missed the crowning points of his ambition; he never sat in the House of Peers, he never pushed his way to the council ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... and adorned with the grim portraits of Sir Robert Hazlewood's ancestry. The visitor, who had no internal consciousness of worth to balance that of meanness of birth, felt his inferiority, and by the depth of his bow and the obsequiousness of his demeanour, showed that the Laird of Ellangowan was sunk for the time in the old and submissive habits of the quondam retainer of the law. He would have persuaded himself, indeed, that he was only humouring the pride ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the smiling face for a moment, his bushy eyebrows contracting ever so slightly. There was a shameless streak of dust across her cheek, but there was also a dimple there that appealed to the grim old man. His eyes twinkled as he replied, with fine obsequiousness: ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... clad in a shapeless monotony of dingy blue, labeled on the back with their disgrace, stepping lightly or shuffling hastily to and fro, heads bent and eyes downcast, performing various offices, menial, clerical or industrial, with a certain obsequiousness and ostensible zeal that was yet inwardly repulsion and protest—these were men born under the great flag, Americans, my countrymen, and now my companions! What a change, what a degradation from the free American citizen of the streets and boundless expanses! ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... she was a great heiress of Irish extraction and education, and that she had bestowed all her wealth upon this emigrant baron, who might easily merit it, when, besides his title, he gave her his patience and obsequiousness. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... presence the ci-devant nobles are so condescending as to endure, much obsequiousness and servility are required; and it is expected that the distance of rank should never be forgotten. But the learned or scientific French revolutionist, who admits no other distance than that between knowledge and ignorance, not choosing to submit to such conditions, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... expense would, if left to himself, have probably become an excellent billiard-marker or pigeon-shooter. Here is another, who, although a member of Parliament, was elected by no constituency under Heaven or above it; and it is clear he was intended by Nature for a position where obsequiousness and servility meet with their appropriate reward. Another fills the post of some awful Commissioner of something, drawing an immense salary, and doing an immense amount of mischief for it, intended naturally for a secretary to an Autocratic Nobleman, who would trample the rights of the ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... was all obsequiousness. Yes, Mrs. Staines received few visitors; but she was at home to HIM. He even began to falter excuses. "Nonsense," said Falcon, and slipped a sovereign into his hand; "you are a good servant, and ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... opportunity had been improved. Not so the wife of the prosperous butcher or baker or candlestick maker, rejoicing, it may be, in the first appearance in plush and silk, and bent upon making it as impressive as possible. To her, obsequiousness is the first essential of any dealing with the order from which she is emerging; and her custom will go to the shop where its outward tokens are most profuse. A clerk found sitting is simply embodied impertinence, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... and twitted Santerre on his obsequiousness towards women. Valentine, mollified by the compliment, soon recovered her birdlike gayety, and such free and easy conversation ensued between the trio that Mathieu felt both stupefied and embarrassed. In fact, he would have gone off at once ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... after dinner, and went his way. The society of friends or acquaintances was distasteful to him then; the thought even of seeing his own familiar dining-room and his familiar man in black, whose silent obsequiousness he felt would be a reproach, was disagreeable. All his thought, all his attention, all his faculties were drawn tight to this acute point—he must succeed; he must accomplish the task he had set himself: life at that hour was worth living ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... Burnet says of Bishop Mew:—Though he knew very little of divinity, or of any other learning, and was weak to a childish degree, yet obsequiousness and zeal raised him through several steps to this great see [Bath and Wells].—Swift. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... inter my winder, and done skeert me mos' t' def 'fore I found out 'twas my ol' 'quaintance Cudjo, come fur Massa Penn's clo'es! Dat ar wan't you, hey?" And Toby's honest indignation cropped out through the thin crust of deprecating obsequiousness which he still ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... we see him ill and helpless in Zola's Debacle, most of us, if we are candid, will confess that the Second Empire, especially the Paris of Morny and Hausmann, of cynicism and splendour, of frivolity and chicane, of servile obsequiousness and haughty pretension, the France and the Paris that drew to themselves the eyes of all Europe and particularly the eyes of the watchful Bismarck, have for us a fascination almost as great as they had for the gay and audacious men and women who in them courted fortune and chased pleasure ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... and Andrew. Nothing better can be said in praise of either than that they have been worthy of her, and she has been worthy of them. They have given her always brave and honest service, brave and honest counsel. She has never asked of them obsequiousness, or flattery, or even obedience to her will, unless it had the approval of their own judgment and conscience. That relation has been alike most honorable and most advantageous to both sides. They have never been afraid to trust the people and they have never been afraid ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... and running up to the landlord, whispered a few words in his ear, to which the other answered by a deep "ah, vraiment!" and then saluted me with an obsequiousness that made ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... one who hath no sins of the body to atone for!" sneered Fra Antonio, who could not be converted to the prevailing tone of admiration for this abnormal being who walked among them not as other men, and toward whom his own attitude was a singular compound of obsequiousness and cynicism. "Even the slippers of your saint can do no wrong," he ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... much obsequiousness, and was plainly a great authority there. Christina, weary and frightened, descended from her mule, and was put under the protection of a wild, rough- looking peasant woman, who stared at her like something from another world, but at length showed her a nook ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... case very well, without obsequiousness or temper, appealing to Mark as a fellow man-of-the-world against a girl's rash judgment. 'You know,' he said, in the course of his arguments, 'I'm not really an incarnate fiend in private life. Miss Langton is quite convinced I am. I believe ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... and politeness he regarded as sincere. He believed in the studied respect shown him by Jean; and the almost servile obsequiousness of Chanlouineau did not ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... From the obsequiousness of the two footmen in the antechamber who ran to open the door as soon as they recognized the carriage; from the profoundly respectful air with which the rest of the liveried servants spontaneously arose as the viscount passed, one could easily see that he was looked upon as the second, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... light blue eyes, and he had a habit of plucking at his scanty, wedge-shaped beard with his hand. He walked not rapidly, but with long strides, leaning lightly on a long thin staff. He addressed me more than once during the day, and he waited on me without, obsequiousness, but he looked after his master as if he were a child. When the unbearable heat drove us at mid-day to seek shelter, he took us to his beehouse in the very heart of the forest. There Kalinitch opened ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... was dryly told that the great man had ordered five copies to be sent back. Still he toiled on; still he cherished a hope that at last Napoleon would relent, and that at last some share in the honors of the state would reward so much assiduity and so much obsequiousness. He was bitterly undeceived. Under the Imperial constitution the electoral colleges of the departments did not possess the right of choosing senators or deputies, but merely that of presenting candidates. From among these candidates the Emperor named members of the senate, and the senate named members ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... she had a sort of brusqueness, partly due to an exceedingly high voice, and moments of ill humor, transient no doubt, but which nevertheless left a painful impression on those who were subjected to them. Madame the Dauphiness made no mistake as to the state of France; she was not the dupe of the obsequiousness of certain men of the court, and merit was certain to obtain her support whether it had been manifested under the old or the new regime; but she had not the influence she was supposed to have, and I doubt if she ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... to a sudden thought, he seized my hand impulsively and spread my fingers apart. Having done this, he muttered two or three words of surprise. His face became serious, even solemn, and he treated me with strange obsequiousness. Rushing out of the temple, he went to inform the other Lamas of his discovery, whatever it was. They crowded round him, and from their words and gestures it was easy to see they ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... little sparkle of lights we had often seen glinting high aloft among the stars from our balcony away down yonder in Lucerne. The crusty portier and the crusty clerks gave us the surly reception which their kind deal out in prosperous times, but by mollifying them with an extra display of obsequiousness and servility we finally got them to show us to the room which our boy had engaged ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a-gadding after all the Nine Muses, and so very likely had but little favour from any one of them; whereas Tom Tusher, who had no more turn for poetry than a ploughboy, nevertheless, by a dogged perseverance and obsequiousness in courting the divine Calliope, got himself a prize, and some credit in the University, and a fellowship at his college, as a reward for his scholarship. In this time of Mr. Esmond's life, he got the little reading which he ever could boast of, and passed a good part of his days greedily devouring ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by his mother to Mesopotamia, in order to marry Laban her brother's daughter [which marriage was permitted by Isaac, on account of his obsequiousness to the desires of his wife]; and he accordingly journeyed through the land of Canaan; and because he hated the people of that country, he would not lodge with any of them, but took up his lodging in the open air, and laid his head on a heap of stones that he had gathered ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Eight o'clock found Franz up and dressed, while Albert, who had not the same motives for early rising, was still soundly asleep. The first act of Franz was to summon his landlord, who presented himself with his accustomed obsequiousness. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... remoteness in the popular conception of the relation of literature to life, we must not neglect to take into account what may be called the arrogance of culture, an arrogance that has been emphasized, in these days of reaction from the old attitude of literary obsequiousness, by harsh distinctions and hard words, which are paid back by equally emphasized contempt. The apostles of light regard the rest of mankind as barbarians and Philistines, and the world retorts that these self-constituted apostles are idle word-mongers, without any sympathy with humanity, critics ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... footsteps, and to deepen every fatal impression which they had made;—his insulting reservation of the Tea Duty, by which he contrived to embitter the only measure of concession that was wrung from him;—the obsequiousness, with which he made himself the channel of the vindictive feelings of the Court, in that memorable declaration (rendered so truly mock-heroic by the event) that "a total repeal of the Port Duties could not be thought of, till America was prostrate ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... clerk of St Roque's, with deadly meaning; "leastways not me, but them as has taken me by the hand. There's every prospect as it'll all be known afore long," said Elsworthy, pushing his wife aside and following Mr Wentworth, with a ghastly caricature of his old obsequiousness, to the door. "There's inquiries a-being made as was never known to fail. For one thing, I've written to them as knows a deal about the movements of a party as is suspected—not to say as I've got good friends," ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... indifferent; far from it. This new aspect of her exasperated him mightily. "She needs a master," he thought. The idea of taming her was delicious, seductive. "I could do it," he told himself, sneering at the obsequiousness of Big ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... any gentleman's would be, of superciliousness, but at the same time not in any way deprecatory, while the manner of the young man was simply that of a person intent on discharging correctly the task he was engaged in, equally without familiarity or obsequiousness. It was, in fact, the manner of a soldier on duty, but without the military stiffness. As the youth left the room, I said, "I cannot get over my wonder at seeing a young man like that serving so contentedly in a ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... list of "periodventures," depicting Abraham's growing fear and obsequiousness in the most tragic manner until she got to the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene |
