"Procrastination" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other questions which thou wouldst ask?" inquired the Jinnee, with grim indulgence; "or wilt thou encounter thy doom without further procrastination?" ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... reserve the right to herself of marrying if she chose. She also wished to keep Mary dependent upon her as long as she could. Hence, while she would not absolutely refuse to comply with Mary's proposition, she would not really accede to it, but kept the whole matter in suspense by endless procrastination, difficulties, and delays. ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... not exactly intended for myself individually. These kind people greet in me the first hope dawning to them after a long period of darkness; and, therefore, I will joyfully indulge them, and I will thank them by brave deeds. Yes, by deeds! The time of procrastination is over. I must hesitate no longer: I ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... mother, who was a slave. Mr. Duncan fell in love with her, bought her, and remained strongly attached to her until the day of her death. It had always been his intention to manumit her, but, from inveterate habits of procrastination, he deferred it, till the fatal fever attacked them both; and so his child also was left to "follow the condition of her mother." Having neglected to make a will, his property was divided among the sons of sisters ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... that the present situation might never have arisen if Servia had held out a hand after the murder of the Archduke. Servia had, however, shown no sign of sympathy or help, though some weeks had already elapsed since the murder; a time limit, said his Excellency, was essential, owing to the procrastination on ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... shown a great objection to shilly- shallying, as she was accustomed to call it. But M. Lacordaire, were it not for the danger which might thence arise, would have seen no objection to some slight further procrastination. His courage was beginning, perhaps, to ooze out from his ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... way through their complaints, petitions, and grievances with decision and despatch, he all the time in good humour with the people and they delighted with him, though he often rated them roundly when they stood before him perverse in litigation, helpless in procrastination, detected in cunning or convicted of falsehood. They saw into his character almost as ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... simply. "I mean that if it could ever have been right to answer you as you wished, it would have been right all at once; thinking would not alter it. I am sorry, chiefly, that I allowed this—this procrastination; that I did not make you take my decision that night, at Lady Mallory's. Yes, for that I was to blame. Only, some day I think you will see that I was right, that it ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... were at liberty to pay their respects, and take their farewell of him previously to their departure from the city, which they were assured should take place on the following day, without any further procrastination or delay. They were glad to obey the summons, for such they considered it, and on their arrival at his residence, they were introduced into a large, gloomy, uncomfortable apartment; a number of swallows' nests were attached to the ceiling ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Here at least was an event beyond his power to evade. He loved her and had promised to wed her. He was a man who might be weak, but had never explicitly behaved in a manner to make her tremble for such a situation as the present. Procrastination ceased to be possible. What now had happened must demand instant recognition of her rights, and that given, she assured herself the future held no terrors. Now he must marry her, or contradict his own record as a gentleman ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... of the effect the disclosure would have upon him if my suspicions were correct, those very suspicions formed the strongest reason for acquainting him with her duplicity; and, although I was always too ready to put off the evil day so long as doubt supplied excuse for procrastination, I could not have let so much time slip by and nothing said but for my absorption ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... that he had never professed to be a military man, or to know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere with them; but that procrastination on the part of his commanders, and the pressure of people at the North, and of Congress, had forced him into issuing the 'executive orders.' He did not know but that they were all wrong, and did not know ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... nothing, yet I cannot but feel too much for your impatience to delay till Wednesday night the acknowledging your despatches, and the assuring you that there shall be no remissness whatever on my part to follow up this business as much as possible, and to press it forward in this strange scene of procrastination. Nothing can make me happier than your approbation of my conduct, and your kind disposition to trust so much to that most unfeigned affection with ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... I went after the cows, and the people all laughed at me, and when I sat down on the fence to scrape the mud off my Sunday pants, the deacon yelled like he does in the revival, only he said, 'come, come, procrastination is the thief of time. You get up and hump yourself and go and feed the pigs.' He was so darn mean that I could not help throwing a burdock burr against the side of the cow he was milking, and it struck her right in ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... the cost of blood and tears that timely foresight might have spared. Such preventive measures, if taken, are in no true sense offensive but defensive. Decadent conditions, such as we observe in Turkey—and not in Turkey alone—cannot be indefinitely prolonged by opportunist counsels or timid procrastination. A time comes in human affairs, as in physical ailments, when heroic measures must be used to save the life of a patient or the welfare of a community; and if that time is allowed to pass, as many now think that it was at the time of the Crimean war, the ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... human tendency to procrastination is shown in the progressive weakening of the various words in this group. Immediately primarily signifies without the intervention of anything as a medium, hence without the intervention of any, even the briefest, interval or lapse of time. By and by, which was once a synonym, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... headway that could not have been stopped, without a more terrible sacrifice of life and property—perhaps even of half the city. Comprehending intuitively the gravity of the situation, and the danger of procrastination or temporizing, he sprang at once for the enemy's throat, and never ceased his hold until he had strangled him to death. If he had waited to consult authorities about the legality of his action, or listened to the voice of pity, or yielded to the clamors of leading politicians ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... Commission fell to work. The results of that work did not show themselves quickly enough to satisfy the most practical, and, (to its credit be it spoken,) the most exacting of Governments; and Macaulay was under the necessity of explaining and excusing a procrastination, which was celerity itself as compared with any codifying that had been done since the days ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... thing done, or omitted to be done, on the part of the Senate. Their proceedings were all regular; their decision was prompt, their despatch of the public business correct and reasonable. There was nothing of disorganization, nothing of procrastination, nothing evincive of a temper to embarrass or obstruct the public business. If the history which I have now truly given shows that one thing was amended by another, which had no sort of connection with it; that ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... him; but that cautious freebooter, who well understood the value of a separate command, instead of joining, sent various apologies which the pressure of the times compelled Fergus to admit as current, though not without the internal resolution of being revenged on him for his procrastination, time and place convenient. However, as he could not amend the matter, he issued orders to Donald to descend into the Low Country, drive the soldiers from Tully-Veolan, and, paying all respect to the mansion of the Baron, to take his ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... stately ease: "We will speak of that, gentlemen, some other day," and so calmly turning from the subject in dispute—not solving it, but at least imposing delay as the penalty which ministers must pay for a difference of opinion. That policy of quiet procrastination no minister of his time would have dared to withstand without first making for it a certain time-allowance. So much at least would have been secured, not of right, but through the weight of a ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... got it quite right," said Mr. Mafferton with incipient animation. "May I correct you? 'Procrastination,' not 'punctuality.'" ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... had always enabled him to avert any agitation in the land. He would then have seen that the Roumanians are not a warlike people like the Bulgarians, and that Roumania had not the slightest intention of risking anything in the campaign. A policy of procrastination in the wise hands of the King would have ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... upon Wolston and Ernest, who, in the exuberance of their joy, had also come out to meet the hunters. They were, however, a little behind; but that was nothing new. These two members of the colony had become quite remarkable for procrastination and absence of mind. When Wolston the mechanician, and Ernest the philosopher, travelled in company, it was rare that some pebble or plant, or question in physics, did not induce them to deviate from their route or tarry on their ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... morals of common life, they are little rills which at times unite and form great rivers. A life of dishonor and obscurity, if not ignominy, has often taken its rise from the fountain of a little habit of inattention and procrastination. System is everything. It can accomplish wonders. By this alone, as by a magic talisman, may time be so economized that business can be attended to and opportunities saved for study, general reading, exercise, recreation, and society. "A man that is ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... affairs on the West Coast of Africa, and this Committee 'by its delays and hesitations lost us the Cameroons,' where two native Kings had asked to be taken under British protection. [Footnote: See Chapter XXVII., p. 431.] On the East Coast there was a more serious result of procrastination in ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... business like Messrs. Smith and Elder; a different spirit seems to preside at —— Street, to that which guides the helm at 65, Cornhill. . . . My relations have suffered from exhausting delay and procrastination, while I have to acknowledge the benefits of a management at once business-like and gentleman-like, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of Pitlochry had by no means put his wife out of his mind. His incurable laziness and procrastination in small things had led him to let slip post after post; but that very morning, at any rate, he had really written her a decent letter. And he was beginning to be anxious to hear from her about the yachting plan. If Lady Dunstable had asked him a few days later, ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... our first duty to prepare in earnest for our recovery from the ever-increasing evils of an irredeemable currency without a sudden revulsion, and yet without untimely procrastination. For that end we must each, in our respective positions, prepare the way. I hold it the duty of the Executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditures, and a sparing economy is itself a great national resource. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... number I ranged that unknown country 14 weeks: I had but 18 to subdue them all." This is better than Sir John Falstaff. But he goes on: "When I first went to those desperate designes it cost me many a forgotten pound to hire men to go, and procrastination caused more run away than went." "Twise in that time I was President." [It will be remembered that about the close of his first year he gave up the command, for form's sake, to Capt. Martin, for three hours, and then took it again.] "To range this country of New England in like manner, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... obtained the decree? When you speak before the council, if you take my advice, you will fix a date after which you are not to be held responsible—that is to say, after which you will have nothing more to do with it. Unless you do so, you will be certain to encounter trifling and procrastination which will defer your plan to the Greek Kalends. On the other hand, I can assure you that M. du Vernai would be very glad to see us ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... we acquired the habit of living in a little world by ourselves,—a world which, as you have seen, was transformed into a sort of fairy-land by her love of beautiful things. After I lost her, it was my intention to send the children immediately to France to be educated. But procrastination is my besetting sin; and the idea of parting with them was so painful, that I have deferred and deferred it. The suffering I experience on their account is a just punishment for the wrong I did their mother. When I ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... beamed with pleasure. He enjoyed the procrastination as much as she did. "But the month's only just begun! However! Yes, you shall have your way. I won't ask you again ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... consternation that would prevail. A trusted servant, to whom he told this design, revealed it to the senate. It filled them with fear and rage. Yet even in so dire a contingency they could not be prevailed upon to act with vigor, and all might have been lost by their procrastination and timidity but for the two men who ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Finsbury leather trade, had been cut to the quick; even Morris's strong sense of duty to himself was not strong enough to dally within those walls and under the shadow of that bankruptcy; and presently the manager and the clerks would draw a long breath, and compose themselves for another day of procrastination. Raw Haste, on the authority of my Lord Tennyson, is half-sister to Delay; but the Business Habits are certainly her uncles. Meanwhile, the leather merchant would lead his living investment back to John Street like a puppy dog; and, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead. Procrastination is the thief of time. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... being informed of these transactions, recalled his commissioners, and ordered the general court to send agents to England, to answer the complaints made against its proceedings. The court, having more than once experienced the benefits of procrastination, affected at first to disbelieve the authenticity of the letter; and afterwards excused themselves from sending agents by saying that the ablest among them could not support their cause better than had ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... short, the brides-elect were obdurate. They insisted on waiting, even to the end of time, for the realization of their fondest, dearest hopes. Several heartbroken gentlemen, preferring anything to procrastination, threatened to ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... interests of Germany require them to bow to France and to become our allies!" exclaimed Napoleon, proudly. "The electress of Wurtemberg is a daughter of George the Third of England, a daughter of my mortal enemy; hence, she shall bow to me or feel my power and my wrath. The time for hesitation and procrastination is over. I want to have my friends at my side and my enemies opposite me. Let the German princes choose whether they will go with France against Austria, their common despot, or whether, like Austria, they wished to be conquered by France! We shall see which side Wurtemberg will espouse, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... But Quezox, when the father's anxious eye Doth quick discern some symptom which doth like The weather-cock, respond to ev'ry breeze Prudence would whisper, "It were well to wait." Quezox: Ah, Sire, Procrastination is a thief Which steals the treasure hidden in the brain, While if it were supplanted by stern acts Like to the sword 'twould ward off ev'ry foe. Francos: Ah lack-a-day! Uncertainty doth fill My mind. I would ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... about the park, his exhausted forces slowly recuperating. At the end of an hour he returned to the house and took a cold shower-bath and ate his breakfast. Then he felt more like himself. He had a strong desire to return to his study and the lost manuscript, but, with the wilful and pleasing procrastination of one who knows that satisfaction is within his grasp, he put the temptation aside for the present, and spent the day riding over his estates with his steward. He also gave his business affairs a minute attention which delighted his servant. After dinner he smoked a cigar, ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... allowed them to expatiate on the perils of procrastination in the treatment of rare old canvases and pigments, and then, having formulated my plans, blandly inquired what the cost would be. It appears that Herr Schwartzmuller had examined the frescoes no longer than six months before in the interests ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... to be absurd. Our firmness is by the continual contemplation of misery, hourly impaired; every submission to our fear enlarges its dominion; we not only waste that time in which the evil we dread might have been suffered and surmounted, but even where procrastination produces no absolute increase of our difficulties, make them less superable to ourselves by habitual terrours. When evils cannot be avoided, it is wise to contract the interval of expectation; to meet the mischiefs which will overtake us if we fly; and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... 1827 are yet undetermined in 1886. None of the original claimants survive, but they have left heirs and legatees, executors and assignees, who have perennially presented their cases, and who are now indulging in high hopes of success. Government, after more than fourscore years of unjustifiable procrastination, is at last having the claims adjudicated, and in time the heirs of the long-suffering holders will ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the party, who were not at all distressed by Sir Chichester's procrastination. When the others streamed into the hall, Joan lingered behind, sedulously buttoning her gloves which were buttoned before; and Harry Luttrell returned to assist her. The door was three-quarters closed. From the hall no one could ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... believed that the result is such as to encourage Congress to consummate this work without delay. Nothing can more promote the permanent welfare of the nation and nothing would be more grateful to our constituents. Indeed, whatsoever is unfinished of our system of public credit can not be benefited by procrastination; and as far as may be practicable we ought to place that credit on grounds which can not be disturbed, and to prevent that progressive accumulation of debt which must ultimately ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Ruthenians is, we claim, a necessity of the hour; its possibilities are beyond realization. Procrastination in this matter is nothing short of treason and will prove a disaster to the Ruthenians, and to the Church. Turning to the Knights of Columbus in Canada and pointing to the feverish and unceasing activities of other agents among this our people I say: ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... preserving his finer instincts under the load of material cares, linking him indissolubly to that world of high Realities which is every man's true inheritance. Yet he made no attempt to claim her and at times wondered at his own procrastination. The idea implanted by Peter Masters bore strange fruit, for even an unconsciously harboured lie must needs hamper the life behind which it finds shelter. He could make no advance towards Patricia while ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... colonel, and, breathing heavily, he cursed his procrastination heartily to himself, threw discretion to the winds and hurried down to the Boyden box just as Gresham returned. His greeting to the other occupants was but perfunctory, and then he turned to Gresham with: ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... Heavenly Footman appear to favour the idea, that a period in life is, in some cases, fixed, beyond which there is no repentance; thus in a solemn warning against procrastination he says, 'Dost thou know whether the day of grace will last a week longer or no? For the day of grace is past with some before their life is ended'; and 'sometimes sinners have not heaven gates open to them so long as they suppose; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... am sorry to see in you a sad habit of procrastination, and want of punctuality. I assure you, my dear boy, that, to a man of business, such a habit is more ruinous; and if not subdued in youth, will surely grow the more confirmed by age, and blight ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... pleasure. I contented myself with thinking over my complacent feelings, and breathing forth solitary gratulations and thanksgivings, which I did in many a sweet and many a wild place, during my late Tour. In this shape, procrastination became irresistible to me; at last I said, I will write at home from my own fire-side, when I shall be at ease and in comfort. I have now been more than a fortnight at home, but the uneasiness in my chest has made me beat off the time when the pen was ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... became every day more pressing. The voyage of the Sirius to China was at an end; and nothing had yet arrived from England, though hourly expected. It was the natural and general opinion, that our present situation was to be attributed to accident rather than to procrastination. It was more probable, that the vessels which had been dispatched by the British government had met with some distress, that had either compelled them to return or had wholly prevented them from any further prosecution of the voyage, than that any delay should have taken place in ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... will he resists precipitate action, then, losing no pretext to find causes for its exercise, overpowering the dictates of his penetrative genius. It is not rashness in Hamlet on one occasion and procrastination on another, but a power of instantaneous action that could be controlled by the very briefest period of reflection, the great feature in his intellect being a preternaturally rapid reflective power, and men of genius almost invariably ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... participation in framing the laws, the colonists employed their ingenuity in devising means to evade or nullify those which they deemed obnoxious or contrary to their interests, and constant practice soon perfected their perverted activities in this direction, until obstruction and procrastination were erected into a system, against which ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... either he or I care about the money,—there will be plenty for Alwyn, plenty. I was telling them both last night," he went on, "that there must be no delay and nonsense. In my state of health any procrastination would be foolish. I want to see him with a good wife. Crampton is all very well, but a wife will understand him better. The house will hold us all. With the exception of the library and my own bedroom, it will all belong to them. Alwyn can refurnish ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of procrastination and delay, the Rangoon Commissariat Department, under an energetic new official, decided to embark a collection of sixty elephants, which had long been awaiting transport from the neighbourhood of Rangoon, to India. Now a large sailing-ship had been chartered to carry this interesting ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... back—for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as love. Love is success. Love is happiness. Love is life." "Where love is, God is. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. God is love. Therefore love." "Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference between trying to please ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... how he cursed the procrastination that had kept him from applying for his discharge long since, when he might have procured it without any difficulty, and have placed her he loved beyond the power of any villain. Again, he was no longer free to search for her in the Province; for he was under ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... for the average man. If she can cook his meals decently and keep his buttons sewed on and doesn't nag him he will think that life is a pretty comfortable affair. And that reminds me, I saw holes in your black lace stockings yesterday. Better go and darn them at once. 'Procrastination ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... written home. Whether from diffidence or shame, or a touch of anger, or mere procrastination, or because (as we have seen) he had no skill in literary arts, or because (as I am sometimes tempted to suppose) there is a law in human nature that prevents young men - not otherwise beasts - from the performance ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... night; the Year Was passing, and the clock's slow tick Boomed its sad message to my ear And made me pretty sick. "You have been slack," I told myself, "and weak; You have done foolishly, from wilful choice; Sloth and procrastination—" Here my voice Broke in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... will bring it to an end. If not, you may be assured that when the duke no longer requires your services—and it is probable that, after a year's campaigning, he will be heartily tired with the difficulties that he, as I did, will meet with from the procrastination and general stupidity of the Spanish—you will be free to return to me, and I shall be glad to number you again among the members ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... delay, n. deferring, deferment, procrastination, postponement, respite, reprieve; retardation, retention, obstruction; dawdling, lingering, dalliance. Antonyms: dispatch, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... I have pursued: you said that the early lessons for the poor should speak with detestation of the spirit of revenge: I have just finished a little story called "Forgive and Forget," upon this idea. I am now writing one on a subject recommended to me by Dr. Beaufort, on the evils of procrastination; the title of it is "By-and-Bye." [Footnote: The title was afterwards changed to "To-morrow."] I am very much obliged to Bessy and Charlotte for copying the Errata of Practical Education for me, and should be extremely obliged ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... they are, these memories of rare books which we have found and failed to secure! Two prominent instances of our bookman's folly stand out with bitter clearness, ever fresh in his memory as a reminder of the criminal stupidity of procrastination. One was an exceedingly scarce work by Lawrence Humphrey, entitled 'Optimates sive De Nobilitate eiusque Antiqua Origine,' printed in small octavo at Basle in 1560, which he once saw in a catalogue for five shillings. He sent for it three days ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... intellectual power bestowed on me by nature or education was in any way connected with this habit of my feelings; or that it needed any other parents or fosterers than constitutional indolence, aggravated into languor by ill-health; the accumulating embarrassments of procrastination; the mental cowardice, which is the inseparable companion of procrastination, and which makes us anxious to think and converse on any thing rather than on what concerns ourselves; in fine, all those close vexations, whether chargeable on my faults or my fortunes, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... expose youth and inexperience to the amused smile of this attractive young man of the world, she sat fumbling with her bridle, conscious that he stood beside her, hat in hand, looking up at her. She could delay no longer; the bridle had been shifted and reshifted to the last second of procrastination. She must say something ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... time I had not ceased to berate myself for my inexcusable procrastination. As she went away without knowing my feelings toward her, of course there could be no correspondence. Whatever she might have suspected, or whatever she might have expected, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... the meaning of procrastination?" ("Ho! hi! halloo-o-o-o," from Mr Sudberry; but Mrs Brown, supposing the shout is meant for any one but herself; ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... of conduct which reason had long since recommended, could no longer be the subject of procrastination. Mr. Bidmore was destined to foreign travel for a twelvemonth, and Mr. Cargill received from his patron the alternative of accompanying his pupil, or retiring upon a suitable provision, the reward of his past instructions. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... which the opium-eater will find in the end as oppressive and tormenting as any other, from the sense of incapacity and feebleness, from the direct embarrassments incident to the neglect or procrastination of each day's appropriate duties, and from the remorse which must often exasperate the stings of these evils to a reflective and conscientious mind. The opium-eater loses none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations; he wishes and longs as earnestly ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... life, and appears to affect most especially that portion of the population who do not earn their living by manual labour. The higher one goes up the scale, the greater becomes the evidence of the ingrained habits of dilatoriness and procrastination, and so any hard work on the part of the lower class of toilers cannot be properly directed, and the commerce and industry of the country either dwindle away together, or fall into the hands of more energetic and active foreigners, who naturally ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... to have petered out, in that he manifested no immediate intention of climbing to the roof of the cabin. The truth of the matter was, Lub always showed a disposition to put things off; procrastination was one of his greatest faults, even as too much haste had always been X-Ray Tyson's besetting sin. There was the whole day before him; so what need of undue speed. Taking things easy had become second nature ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... indignantly refused to surrender without the consent and commandment of her lord; and after many interviews, to which she assented only to gain time, and to complete the provisioning and fortifying of her little garrison, they began to find her answers too full of policy and procrastination, dangerous to the fidelity of their troops. In the end, seeing she was only amusing them by vain pretences, they sent the following as their final terms, by Colonel Morgan, commander of the engineers, who had been appointed by Sir Thomas Fairfax to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... seem to receive ideas on divine subjects slowly. They listen, but never suppose that the truths must become embodied in actual life. They will wait until the chief becomes a Christian, and if he believes, then they refuse to follow,—as was the case among the Bakwains. Procrastination seems as powerful an instrument of ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Procrastination.—Indulge in procrastination, and in time you will come to this, that because a thing ought to be done, therefore you can't do ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... discovered him to be as soon as he began to get in the way of the machine and obstruct the march of the self-elect. His confidences were not effusive, nor their subjects numerous. His deliberation was unfailing and sometimes it carried the idea of indecision, not to say actual love of procrastination. But in my experience with him I found that he usually ended where he began, and it was nowise difficult for those whom he trusted to divine the bias of his mind where he thought it best to reserve ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... deciding, after characteristic procrastination, that he must really go to bed, he wound up his watch and put it on the dressing-table. His pockets had to be emptied and his clothes hung or folded. His fingers touched the notes in the left-hand outside pocket of his ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... acquaintance was a stroke of art, and that I was somehow fortifying Carthew. I told myself, I say; but I was no such fool as to believe it, even then. In these circumstances I displayed the two chief qualities of my character on the largest scale—my helplessness and my instinctive love of procrastination—and fell upon a course of action so ridiculous that I blush ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... advantage of our generosity, and had not left Toledo till nine. Therefore, according to our contract, we were obliged to wait until eleven, surprising Ropes by our procrastination. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he come, to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... indispensable to his safety. He appeared weak in intellect, when he was only so from circumstances. An overwrought anxiety to be just made him hesitate about the mode of overcoming the abuses, until its procrastination had destroyed the object of his wishes. He had courage sufficient, as well as decision, where others were not menaced and the danger was confined to himself; but, where his family or his people were involved, he was utterly unfit to give direction. The ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... commanded immediate attention which were deemed of immediate necessity; while the others, though often of the highest importance to the national welfare, were first postponed, then neglected, and ultimately forgotten. To this habit of procrastination was perhaps owing the extinction of its authority. It disappointed the hopes of the country, and supplied Cromwell with the most plausible argument in defence ...
— 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
... Anglicans, with Manning at their head, drew up and signed a formal protest against the Gorham judgment. Mr. Gladstone however, proposed another method of procedure: precipitate action, he declared, must be avoided at all costs, and he elaborated a scheme for securing procrastination, by which a covenant was to bind all those who believed that an article of the creed had been abolished by Act of Parliament to take no steps in any direction, nor to announce their intention of doing so, until a given space of time had elapsed. Mr. Gladstone was hopeful that some good might come ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... impatient under this continued procrastination and evasion, and he resolved to take such measures as would accomplish the object desired. He had found, during his connection with Bucholz, that he had not the slightest regard for the truth. He would make the most astounding assertions, unblushingly insisting ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... sorting letters that one never found the letter; one felt so scientific in explaining gas that one never found the leak; and one felt so judicial, so impartial, in weighing evidence that one had to be bribed to come to any conclusion at all. This was the last note of the Victorians: procrastination ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... choice between the two crowns; and it was anticipated that he would abdicate the Portuguese crown in favour of his seven-year-old daughter, Maria da Gloria. The absolutists on the other hand hoped that the king might by procrastination avoid the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... Must deliberate further)—Ver. 457. "Amplius deliberandum." This is probably a satirical allusion to the judicial system of procrastination, which, by the Romans, was called "ampliatio." When the judges could not come to a satisfactory conclusion about a cause, they signified it by the letters N. L. (for "non liquet," "it is not clear"), and put off the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... alone, so I had an opportunity of speaking seriously to John; but I fear procrastination. It is the cry of Friar Bacon's Brazen head, time is—time was; but the time may soon come—time shall be no more. The Whigs are not very bold, not much above a hundred met to support Lord Grey to the last. Their resolutions are moderate, probably because ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... will not be allowed by these men to act as if he were so. In the mean time, time will be wasted. The preparations for war will cool. How is it that the war has been protracted as long as this, if it be not by procrastination and delay? ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... well pass him by. So then it may be seen what, by mere freaks of Chance—the ruling deity at Downing Street—the administrative experience of Trinidad had been from the departure of that true king in Israel,—Sir Arthur Gordon, up to the visit of Mr. Froude. First, a slave to red-tape, procrastination, and the caprices of pretentious colonialists; next, a daring schemer, confident of the support of the then dominant Sugar Interest, and regarding and treating the resources of the Island as free booty ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... in his workshop, as an American citizen, protected by and subject to the laws of the republic. What is needed is that not only these schools should be more liberally supported, but that new ones should be opened without delay. The matter does not admit of procrastination. The work of education and civilization must be done. The money needed must be contributed with no sparing hand. The laudable example set by the Friends and the American Missionary Association should be followed by ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... by an inquiry into the conduct of the Governor (Balmaceda), in progress at the High Court of Charcas, which court, as in the case of Cardenas, acted most cautiously, both on account of its position, so far from Paraguay, and on account of the inordinate procrastination of everything connected with the Spanish law. If Balmaceda were condemned, then Antequera would step into his shoes at once. If, on the other hand, he were acquitted, Antequera would have to wait until the legal time of ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... not enforced with any undue haste; ample time was given for compliance with its provisions. Possibly misled by this procrastination, the Portuguese at Macao continued to strive for the re-establishment of commercial relations until 1640, when a very sad event put an end finally to all intercourse. Four aged men, selected from among the most respected citizens of Macao, were sent ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Chopin is still in Warsaw. Why he is still there he does not know; but he feels unspeakably happy where he is, and his parents make no objections to this procrastination. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... eldest brother" tarry so suspiciously long on the Oxus, or wherever "the youngest" may have placed him in his "nascent state" after the latter "saw his brothers all depart towards the setting sun." We find reasons to believe that the chief motive for alleging such a procrastination is the necessity to bring the race closer to the Christian era. To show the "brother" inactive and unconcerned, "with nothing but himself to ponder on," lest his antiquity and "fables of empty idolatry," and perhaps his traditions of other people's doings, should interfere ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... firmament of importance, from wellnigh the lowest position of insignificance in the camp, attained by his general worthlessness and shiftlessness—of mind and demeanor—which qualities had passed into a proverb of the place. Procrastination, like a cuckoo, had made its nest in his pockets, where the hands of Jim would hatch its progeny. Labor and he abhorred each other mightily. He had never been known to strike a lick of work till larder and stomach were both of them empty and credit had taken to the ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... that she would accuse him of his half-heartedness indirectly, if not openly. It would have made his conscience more comfortable, and his conscience troubled him sorely to-night. It was that fatal habit of procrastination that had brought this thing about. He had hesitated all these weeks about Judith, and while he had threshed out the pro and con of her disadvantageous family connection, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... This fatal procrastination was perhaps not without excuse, in view of the critical situation of the Austrian monarchy during 1848. For months after the fall of Metternich Austria was practically without a central government. Vienna itself, where ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... think of such as these? Of some we perhaps say within ourselves, "Would that there had been but a little amendment of this blemish! A little more of strength and purpose against that fault! If only this besetting hardness had not been the spoiler of his life, that great heedlessness, that fatal procrastination, this too frequent sin! Oh! but for this or that which marred the fair and well rounded character! But for this we should have been full of hope: there was so much on the better side, that we should have been full of trust, and ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... affairs of the Diet were neglected, either through the procrastination of the Emperor, or through the fault of the Protestant Estates, who had determined to make no provision for the common wants of the Empire till their own grievances were removed. These grievances related principally to the misgovernment of the Emperor; the violation of the religious ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... subsequent letter, our friend says: "As to detail, the whole transaction was like a flash to those who saw the miserable ending. I was impelled to write without delay, by the thought that it would be in time for the 'Freeman,' and that any procrastination on my part, might jeopard others of these suffering people, who are living, as was this poor girl, in fancied security. Our consternation was inexpressible; our sorrow and indignation deepen daily, as the thought returns of the awful announcement with which we were awakened: they have ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... will of Lord Thomond's as yet; so his poor nephew will by his procrastination be the loser of a considerable estate; for he certainly intended to have made him his heir, and the attorney had left with him a will to be filled up. But we are never sure of doing anything but what we have but one minute for doing; what we ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... is the last noteworthy object, and reminds us that Mark Tapley noticed the time there, on the occasion of his last meeting with Mary Graham in St. James's Park, before starting for America. It also reminds us of Mr. Micawber's maxim, "Procrastination is the thief of time—collar him;"—a few minutes afterwards we are comfortably seated in the train, and can defy the storm, which overtakes us precisely in the manner described in The ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... the economic foundation of the new slavery in the United States, which rose in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Manifestly the fatal procrastination in dealing with slavery in the eighteenth century received in the nineteenth century its terrible reward. The change in the attitude toward slavery was manifest in various ways. The South no longer excused slavery, but began to defend it as an economic system. ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... thought he honoured me by considering me as his rival. Though affairs remained in this unsatisfactory state so far as he was concerned, for certain very valid reasons he had not yet chosen to vent upon me any access of his spleen. But this procrastination of actual hostilities was terminated in ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... from my brow were chasing each other over my cheeks, and trickling down upon my breast. So prolonged was the suspense, I began to fancy that the Arapaho was designedly dallying with his aim, for the purpose of sporting with my fears. He may have had such motive for procrastination. I could have believed it. Distant though he was, I could mark his fiendish smile, as he repeatedly dropped the piece from his shoulder, and then returned it to the level. That he meant more than mere menace, however, was proved in the end. Having satisfied himself with several idle feints, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... books of our youth, "Procrastination is the thief of time." Now, Brian found the truth of this. He had been in town almost a week, but he had not yet been to see Calton. Each morning—or something very near it—he set out, determined to go direct to Chancery Lane, but he never arrived there. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... with shame; he could not escape from Debendra's banter and taunts. He consented to allow Debendra to make the acquaintance of his wife. Then fear arose lest Surja Mukhi should be displeased. A year passed in evasion and procrastination; when, seeing that this could be carried on no longer, he made an excuse that his house was in need of repair, and sent Kunda Nandini to Nagendra's house. When the repairs of the house were completed, Kunda Nandini returned home. A few days after, Debendra, with some ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... enjoined the strictest secrecy, that no advantage might be given to James Harlowe, and which he had answered for as well on Mr. Harlowe's part as his own) I acknowledged nakedly and fairly the whole truth—to wit, 'That we were not yet married. I gave him hints of the causes of procrastination. Some of them owing to unhappy misunderstandings: but chiefly to the Lady's desire of previous reconciliation with her friends; and to a delicacy that had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... such as to encourage Congress to consummate this work without delay. Nothing can more promote the permanent welfare of the Union, and nothing would be more grateful to our constituents. Indeed, whatever is unfinished of our system of public credit cannot be benefited by procrastination, and, as far as may be practicable, we ought to place that credit on grounds which cannot be disturbed, and to prevent that progressive accumulation of debt which ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... them at the earliest day practicable, there should be no longer delay. The United States ought to do something toward the fulfillment of that pledge and the performance of that duty. There must be something very peculiar in the condition of our country that will justify a longer delay; a longer procrastination in the performance of this solemn pledge, this public policy—our ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... and was saluted by Katharine, with very evident dismay, as "Aunt Celia!" She was dismayed because she guessed why Aunt Celia had come. It was certainly in order to discuss the case of Cyril and the woman who was not his wife, and owing to her procrastination Mrs. Hilbery was quite unprepared. Who could be more unprepared? Here she was, suggesting that all three of them should go on a jaunt to Blackfriars to inspect the site of Shakespeare's theater, for the weather was hardly settled enough for ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... and Italian merchants at Cirta. It is true that the majority of the senate still even now struggled; they appealed to the class-interests of the aristocracy, and set in motion all the contrivances of collegiate procrastination, with a view to preserve still longer the peace which they loved. But when Gaius Memmius, designated as tribune of the people for next year, an active and eloquent man, brought the matter publicly forward and threatened in his capacity ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... a wild outcry of disappointment, that after all these years he should accept as his dole only further procrastination. He wrote her that his family were beginning to say that if she loved him she would ask no further delay. Clara's letter seems to have been only her last tribute to her father, for, at Schumann's first protest, she hastened to write that ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... the twenty-sixth of May, and then to introduce such witnesses, as might throw further light on the propositions in the shortest time: for Mr. Pitt only acquiesced in this new measure on a supposition, "that there would be no unnecessary delay, as he could, by no means submit to the ultimate procrastination of so important a business." He even hoped (and in this hope he was joined by Mr. Fox) that those concerned would endeavour to bring the whole of the evidence they meant to ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... 'No; but, by procrastination, thoughtlessness, or even perhaps the desire which business men may have to make a good bargain, he may do wrong, and so lay himself open to all these remarks. Bad qualities, you know, shew much plainer in a good man than a bad one, and are almost always made ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... especially unfortunate moment for the man to approach her in, and, though he did not know why it should be so, he recognized it; but there were reasons that made any further procrastination ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... originality must suffer; and therefore a man whose aim is to write, ought resolutely to limit his activities. What would be idleness in another is for him a storing of forces; what in an ordinary man would be malingering and procrastination, is for the writer the repose necessary to allow his energies to concentrate themselves ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in 1778 by demanding of the Rajah, in addition to his settled tribute, a large contribution towards the war expenses. The sum was paid, but similar requisitions in the following years were met with procrastination or evasion, and a demand that the Rajah should furnish a contingent of cavalry was not complied with. This conduct on the part of Cheyt Sing appeared to the Governor-General and his Council "to require early punishment, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... the conservative hand shown at present in opposition to every proposition for confiscation or punishing the rebels. After having hurried us by their cowardice and Southern toad-eating into this war; after urging it by their contemptible procrastination to its present tremendous proportions, they cry out 'humanity!' for the men who have murdered our relatives, and shake the Constitution for protection over estates which have been directly used to contribute ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... first interview with Mr. Lincoln alone he stated to me that he had never professed to be a military man or to know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere in them: but that procrastination on the part of commanders, and the pressure from the people at the North and Congress, WHICH WAS ALWAYS WITH HIM, forced him into issuing his series of "Military Orders"—one, two, three, etc. He did not know but they were all wrong, and did know that some of them were. All he ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... councillors deliberate whether they also find it so or whether they know a better means, provided only that it be equally decisive. But the conviction that something must be done and must be done immediately, that this something must be radical and final, and that the time for half-measures and procrastination is past—this conviction these addresses would fain produce, if they could, in you personally, as they still cherish the utmost ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... their character and train their intellect. This good lady, in whose name Mary sermonizes, seizes upon every event of the day to teach her charges a moral lesson. The defects she attacks are those most common to childhood. Cruelty to animals, peevishness, lying, greediness, indolence, procrastination, are in turn censured, and their opposite virtues praised. Some of the definitions of the qualities commended are excellent. For example, Mrs. Mason says to the ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.—DE QUINCEY. ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... evening, sitting beside my cot, he would repeat over and over again the same lamentations and speculations, interjecting at the end of each apostrophe, "It's terrible—terrible!" until at last I felt that I would gladly give up my own "good time" for the sake of seeing him freed without further procrastination. I was convinced, and so told him, that the delay could be due to nothing but neglect, inadvertent or criminal, on the part of LaDow, the President of the Parole Board, or of the Attorney-General himself; the papers had ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... sell us any food. Indeed, this action of the governor made him very unpopular with the Rhett faction. Rhett rushed over to inform him that the people demanded that Fort Sumter should be taken without any further procrastination or delay. The governor made a very shrewd reply. He said, "Certainly, Mr. Rhett; I have no objection! I will furnish you with some men, and you can storm the work yourself." Rhett drew back and replied, "But, sir, I ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... sensible of these great truths.... But allowing that there can be no certainty, but mere chances, in our favor, I do insist upon it that these chances render it our duty to adopt the measure, as, by procrastination, our ruin is inevitable. Should it now be determined to wait the result of a previous formal negotiation with France, a whole year must pass over our heads before we can be acquainted with the result. In the mean time, we are to struggle through a campaign, without arms, ammunition, or any ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... intoxication, pride, malice, and disposition to revile. The eight qualities included in Tamas or Darkness are unconsciousness, stupefaction, excess of stupefaction, muddiness of the understanding, blindness (of results), sleep, heedlessness, and procrastination. The seven incidents of Buddhi or the Understanding are Mahat, consciousness, and the five subtile essences. The six incidents of Mind are Mind and the five senses. The five incidents appertaining to Space are space, water, wind, light, and earth. According to a different school ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... not proved satisfactory to Napoleon. It was whispered that he had not shown sufficient zeal in the task required of him under the new policy; that his sovereign was seriously annoyed at what he conceived to be wilful procrastination in the withdrawal of the army; and that he was now sending his own aide-de-camp to cut the Gordian knot in the tangled skein of ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... existence. Deeming themselves privileged to disregard, if not to ridicule religion, by virtue of their age, rank, or talents; and living as though they held their present being by no precarious tenure, they trifle away their time in criminal indulgences, and "lose their own souls" by a guilty procrastination. To persons of this class, Solomon suggests a most important truth, in the form of a sarcastic appeal—"Rejoice, O young man in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... America into the war? I have often been asked the question; in answering it I always feel that I am giving only a partial answer. On the one hand there is the record of her two and a half years of procrastination, on the other the titanic upspringing of her warrior-spirit, which happened almost in a day. How can one reconcile the multitudinous pacific notes which issued from Washington with the bugle-song to which the American boys march: ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... life. All this my father felt, and, blaming himself for having encouraged me in the indolence of genius, he determined to counteract his former imprudence, and was resolved, he said, to cure me at once of my habit of procrastination. For this purpose he took down from his shelves Young's Night Thoughts; from which he remembered a line, which has become a stock line ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... conceived he might be able to quash all such hazardous and hostile proceedings as he might otherwise have been engaged in, under the patronage of the Marquis; and Lucy, he foresaw, would make, for his immediate purpose of delay and procrastination, a much better mistress of his family than her mother, who would, he was sure, in some shape or other, contrive to disconcert his political schemes by her proud ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... more straight-forward policy would have been as successful as the somewhat devious one she pursued. Her chief rival, Philip II (1556-1598), as much averse as Elizabeth herself to energetic action, even more fond of procrastination, lacked her relative religious and political tolerance, and left Spain weaker than he had found it. And still his tenacity, his devotion to the cause he believed to be that of heaven, his consistency, and even the gloomy seriousness of his life, testify to ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... right and privilege against another monarch, he could laugh and joke with the humblest of his subjects on terms of hearty good fellowship. He was impatient of contradiction, eager to carry out whatever he had determined upon; and nothing enraged him so much as hesitation or procrastination. The delays which were experienced in the course of the Crusade angered him more than all the opposition offered by the Saracens, or than the hardships through which the Christian host had ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... was become of him?—that day passed, and no Beauclerc; another and another came, and on the third day, only a letter from him, which ought to have come on Tuesday.—But "too late," the shameful brand of procrastination was upon it—and it contained only a few lines blotted in the folding, to say that he could not possibly be at Clarendon Park on Tuesday, but would on ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... other individual according to his habits. The nature of our habits fixes our status in the struggle of life. If we get into the habit of thinking evil thoughts, we live in that atmosphere. Health is a habit, so also is success. Honesty, virtue, vice, procrastination, contentment, fault-finding, grumbling, candy eating, gossiping, drinking, sleeping, religion, friends, life itself, are habits. Life is what we make it. "As the man thinketh in his heart, so he is." Some habits are good, others are bad. Certain habits are constructive, others ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... purposes of beneficence, may not be passed over; and the consecration, not to say the disbursement, should be made immediately, while the idea that our possession are from God is fresh in our minds, and before selfishness shall seize them as her own. Procrastination is often but giving heed to her treacherous voice, and ere we are aware, she carries us captive. As we receive our increase from the hand of God, like faithful stewards, we should set apart the portion belonging to others without delay. To indulge ourselves ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... Ruling Race, when sorely tried, Can keep intrusive persons at a distance, And let unseasonable matters slide; Thou at whose blast the powers of irritation Yield to a soft and gentlemanly lull Of solid peace and flat Procrastination, These to thy praise ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... order for bread. Almost all their clothes are in pawn, so how it is they do not positively die of cold I cannot understand. As for fuel even the wealthy find it difficult to procure it. The Government talks of cutting down all the trees and of giving up all the clothes in pawn; but, with its usual procrastination, it puts off both these measures from day to day. This morning all the firewood was requisitioned. At a meeting of the Mayors of Paris two days ago, it was stated that above 400,000 persons are ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... emotions that agitated my bosom. Though delivered from the terror of immediate death, there was nothing in the respite to give me any feeling of joy. It would be only a short procrastination of my doom, for certainly in the morning I must die. The slender chances of our seeing a sail were scarce worth contemplating; and I derived no consolation by ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... intimation that Germany would gladly accept American good offices in negotiations with this country as to the character and conditions of maritime war. The Wilhelmstrasse can discover in this and some other passages material for procrastination if it ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to that—more life to be led. Definite at any rate it was that by the time May was well started the kind of company she kept at Cocker's had begun to strike her as a reason—a reason she might almost put forward for a policy of procrastination. It sounded silly, of course, as yet, to plead such a motive, especially as the fascination of the place was after all a sort of torment. But she liked her torment; it was a torment she should miss at Chalk Farm. She was ingenious ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... moral reflections are sometimes excellent; but he spoils their beauty by overloading them with a religious horror, and at the same time giving them all the smart turns and quaint expression of an enigma or repartee in verse. The well-known lines on Procrastination are ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... to-day that thou hast never waited upon the old. He that cannot control sudden accession of joy or grief, is lost even though he may have obtained prosperity, like an unburnt earthen vessel in water. That king who is entirely destitute of courage, who hath no spark of manliness, who is the slave of procrastination, who always acts with indiscretion, who is addicted to sensual pleasures, is seldom respected by his subjects. Benefited as thou has been, whence is this unreasonable grief of thine? Do not undo this graceful act done by the sons of Pritha, by indulging ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... but a living grace of soul, coming from within, born of straight thinking and resolution, and so strongly confirmed by faith and hope that nothing can discourage it or make it let go. It is a bulwark against the faults which sink below the normal line of life, dullness, depression, timidity, procrastination, sloth and sadness, moodiness, unsociability—all these it tends to dispel, by its quiet and confident gift of encouragement. And though so contrary to the spirit of childhood, these faults are found in children—often ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... yet to the general a few words which I dare not intrust to paper, but only to your memory. You will say to him: 'Every thing is ready, and the period of procrastination and hesitation is drawing to a close. In a few days the king will leave Berlin, where he was in danger of being arrested by the French, and repair to Breslau. At Breslau he will issue a manifesto to his people and call them to arms.' Hush, young ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... My darling, remember what Pilcher said about procrastination. And remember our resolutions last night. If we break them on the first night of the year, where shall we be ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... than Eldon for procrastination, Sir John Leach, Vice-Chancellor, was said to have done more mischief by excessive haste in a single term than Eldon in his whole life wrought through extreme caution. The holders of this opinion delighted to repeat the poor and not ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... cause for procrastination in the examination and adjustment of our claims arises from an obstacle which it is the duty of the Spanish Government to remove. Whilst the Captain-General of Cuba is invested with general despotic ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... prophesied truly; from that moment he had no peace till he withdrew all semblance of dissent, and even of procrastination. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... vich we cannot explain to you. Ven you arrange vit de bearer to carry her off, let me know, and I vill do every ting in my power to assist you, as my lady has a grand vish for de abduction of de vench vithout procrastination. My lady does not know of my having given you intelligence of her being up to de ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... and to "capture vessels or destroy" and the elimination of the sea power of Spain in the Orient. The battle of Manila Bay was a practical demonstration of the value of the "fighting edge," as exemplified in an Assistant Secretary who fought procrastination, timidity, and political expedience at home and in a naval officer who fought the enemy's ships on the other side ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... in his opposition to Jackson, yet once he deserves credit for the contrary course. This was in the matter of our relations with France. The treaty of 1831 secured to this country an indemnity of $5,000,000, which, however, it had never been possible to collect. This procrastination raised Jackson's ever ready ire, and casting to the winds any further dunning, he resolved either to have the money or to fight for it. He sent a message to Congress, recommending that if France should not promptly ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse |
