"Slothful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... most terrible curse in this book, do so in the name of that truth for which they profess to be seeking. Art, profanely veiling its voluptuous nakedness with the attributes of religion, disguises folly so subtly that it seems like virtue in the slothful eyes of those who neglect continually to watch and pray. The vain woman puts on her ornaments to do honor to her Creator's handiwork: the lustful man casts away his soul that society may be kept clean: there is not ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... up in the temple of Seti to self-control, order, exactitude, and decent customs, deeply penetrated with a sense of the dignity of his position, and accustomed to struggle with special zeal against indolence of body and spirit—was disgusted with the slothful life and fraudulent dealings of his subordinates; and the deeper insight which yesterday's experience had given him into the poverty and sorrow of human existence, made him resolve with increased warmth that he would awake them to a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the city then mounted a barrel and made a ringing speech condemning the slothful foreigners, who have proven themselves a menace to the valley and its inhabitants. The feelings of the crowd were aroused to such an alarming extent that it was feared it would culminate in an attack on the worthless Poles ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... enough to despise the vain Deity, and to shut the gates of Argos against his approach; and shall this stranger affright Pentheus with all Thebes? Go quickly, (this order he gives to his servants), go, and bring hither in chains the ringleader. Let there be no slothful delay ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Is full of thousand sweets and rich content; The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him With coolest shades till noon-tide's rage is spent; His life is neither tost on boisterous seas Of troublous worlds, nor lost in slothful ease. Pleased and full blest he lives, when ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... him, "is Monitor discussions with Captain Ericsson." Another recreation was chess. Had he not elected to be the leading engineer of his day, he might have been the chess champion. This game, never one for the slothful and unthinking, he made even more exacting than usual. He would play several games at the same time; or, without seeing the board which his opponent used, he would carry the game in his head. Though it was his nature not to like to be beaten, yet he was as kindly as he was set in his purpose; ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... writers, and above seventy public libraries were opened in the cities of the Andalusian kingdom. The age of Arabian learning continued about five hundred years, till the great eruption of the Moguls, and was coeval with the darkest and most slothful period of European annals; but since the sun of science has arisen in the West, it should seem that the Oriental studies ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... self-assertion. And even persons of good natural disposition, if brought up to expect such deference, are roused to unreasoning fury, and sometimes to the commission of atrocious crimes, by the slightest challenge to their authority. Thus a laborer may be dirty, drunken, untruthful, slothful, untrustworthy in every way without exhausting the indulgence of the country house. But let him dare to be "disrespectful" and he is a lost man, though he be the cleanest, soberest, most diligent, most veracious, most trustworthy man in the county. Dickens's ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... fancies. He thought of his wickedness and his wasted time, and compared himself with the great men in the books who had been in similar evil straits,—with Marc Antony, with King Arthur in Gwendolen's enchanted castle, and with Geraint the strong but slothful,—rather far-fetched this last comparison,—and of all the rest. It was a grotesque variety, but amid it all he really suffered. And he would make good resolves and, for the moment, firm ones, and return ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... as was I, she rode her horse astride with a grace as perfect as it was unstudied and unconscious, neither affecting the slothful carriage of our Southern saddle-masters nor the dragoons' rigid seat, but sat at ease, hollow-backed, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... contributed much to the degeneration of the Rajputs, and their relapse to an idle, sensuous life when their energies were no longer maintained by the need of continuous fighting for the protection of their country. The following account by Forbes of a Rajput's daily life well illustrates the slothful effeminacy caused by the drug: [477] "In times of peace and ease the Rajput leads an indolent and monotonous life. It is usually some time after sunrise before he bestirs himself and begins to call for his hookah; after ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... man is raised, it brings gladness to his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity. Nay, his honours are a great part of the honour of the times; when by this means he is grown to active men an example, to the slothful a spur, to the envious ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... friends of Piso were urging to take some bold and sudden step, which, if it did not succeed in retrieving his fortunes, would at least shed lustre on his death. But his somewhat slothful nature, weakened still further by a luxurious life, was not to be aroused, and he calmly awaited the end. It was customary among the Roman Emperors at this period to avoid the disgrace and danger of public executions by sending a messenger ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... gather a little wood. As yet she has neither the hard work nor the ugly looks of the countrywoman as afterwards fashioned by the prevalent culture of grain crops. Nor is she like the fat townswife, heavy and slothful, about whom our fathers made such a number of fat stories. She has no sense of safety; she is meek and timid, and feels herself, as it were, in God's hand. On yonder hill she can see the dark frowning castle, whence a thousand harms may come upon her. Her husband she holds in equal fear and ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness. 9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. 10 In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one to another; in honor preferring one another; 11 in diligence not slothful; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing stedfastly in prayer; 13 communicating to the necessities of the saints; given to hospitality. 14 Bless them that persecute you; ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... the key of the advance, and then to march, horse and foot in column, into Louisburg, the place of honour at the head being given to those who had made the final charge to the last trench and through the abattis. Gorged with what it had eaten, the dusty serpent was now slothful and full of sleep. There was no longer need for hurry. Before the middle of the morning the lines would start on the march of ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... since the rewards of honour are taken away: that Virtuous Emulation is turned into direct Malice; yet so slothful, that it contents itself to condemn and cry down others, without attempting to do better. 'Tis a reputation too unprofitable, to take the necessary pains for it; yet wishing they had it, is incitement enough to hinder others from it. And this, in short, EUGENIUS, ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... strongest, for his part did the same. Samuel and Nathan thy messages did proclaim. What though fierce Pharaoh wrought mischief in thy sight, He was a pagan, lay not that in our light. I know the Benjamites abused the ways of right, So did Eli's sons, and the sons of Samuel. Saul in his office was slothful day and night, Wicked was Shimei, so was Ahitophel. Measure not by them the faults of Israel, Whom thou hast loved of long time so entirely, But of thy great grace ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... "would you want to make me a pig in a dunghill?" Then demolishing the edifice laboriously constructed by the legislator, "Your Great Elector is a slothful king," said he to Sieyes; "the time for that sort of thing is past. What! appoint people to act, and not act himself! It won't do. If I were this Great Elector I should certainly do everything which ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... aloud her shy and reticent hours; Dragging to light her blinking, slothful moods; Publishing fretful seasons when her powers Worked wild and sullen in her solitudes, Or when her mordant laughter ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... unless he resolutely opposes them and, as here stated, "puts to death the deeds of the body." To do this means a severe struggle, a battle, which never abates nor ceases so long as we live. The Christian dare never become slothful or negligent in this matter. He must arouse himself through the Spirit so as not to give place to the flesh. He must constantly put to death the flesh lest he himself be put to death by it. The apostle declares, "If ye live after the flesh, ye must die," and again comforts us, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... dignity composed and high exploit: But all was false and hollow, though his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low; To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds Tim'rous and slothful: yet he pleased the ear, And with ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... bestowing of his daughter, thought But even of gentlemen of Rome: if so,—— I know not how to hope so great a favour—— But if a husband should be sought for Livia, And I he had in mind, as Caesar's friend, I would but use the glory of the kindred: It should not make me slothful, or less caring For Caesar's state: it were enough to me It did confirm, and strengthen my weak house, Against the now unequal opposition Of Agrippina; and for dear regard Unto my children, this I wish: myself Have no ambition farther ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... and evening. Always living within the forest, he should never return to an inhabited place. Honouring guests when they come, he should give them shelter, and himself subsist upon fruits and leaves and common roots, and Syamaka. He should, without being slothful subsist on such water as he gets, and air, and all forest products. He should live upon these, in due order, according to the regulations of his initiation.[138] He should honour the guest that comes to him with alms of fruits and roots. He ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Till we o'ertook the spoil encumber'd foe. We fought—and conquer'd. Ere a sword was drawn, An arrow, from my bow, had pierc'd their chief, Who wore, that day, the arms which now I wear. Returning home in triumph, I disdain'd The shepherd's slothful life: and having heard That our good king had summon'd his bold peers, To lead their warriors to the Carron side, I left my father's house, and took with me A chosen servant to conduct my steps— Yon trembling coward who ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... from the raid. Upon his heels the others followed, stepping as he stepped, moving as he moved; and the old man, glancing after them as they crossed a patch of moonlight and disappeared into the shadow beyond, hugged his arms together and laughed within himself—the untrained, slothful decadents had gone out upon the war-path, naked, painted, armed, as their forbears used to be; moving as their forbears used; hating as their forbears used; and, in his ignorance of instincts, it was to him a miracle wrought by the spirits of his race illumined once more by the flicker ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... kinsman of hers. He was nurtured by a woman that bore the name of Fair Mane, who had brought up many of the Fianna to manhood. When his time to take arms was come he stood before Finn and made his covenant of fealty, and Finn gave him the captaincy of a band. But mac Luga proved slothful and selfish, for ever vaunting himself and his weapon-skill and never training his men to the chase of deer or boar, and he used to beat his hounds and his serving-men. At last the Fians under him came with their whole company to Finn at ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... Ps. 41, apud Marten. t. 9, p. 71.) Amidst the dangers and evils of this life, our only comfort ought to be in God, in the assured hope of his promises, and in prayer. (Ib.) That prayer is despised by God, which is slothful and lukewarm, accompanied with distrust, distracted with unprofitable thoughts, weakened by worldly anxiety and desires of earthly goods, or fruitless, for want of the support of good works, (in Ps. liv. p. 104.) All our actions and discourses ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... occupied, from the elevation of Othman to the death of Soliman, by a rare series of warlike and active princes, who impressed their subjects with obedience and their enemies with terror. Instead of the slothful luxury of the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the council and the field: from early youth they were intrusted by their fathers with the command of provinces and armies; and this manly institution, which was often productive of civil war, must ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... 'retire'; 'to wed', but not a 'wed'; we say 'to infest', but use no longer the adjective 'infest'. Or with a reversed fortune a word lives on as a noun, but has perished as a verb—thus as a noun substantive, a 'slug', but no longer 'to slug' or render slothful; a 'child', but no longer 'to child', ("childing autumn", Shakespeare); a 'rape', but not 'to rape' (South); a 'rogue', but not 'to rogue'; 'malice', but not 'to malice'; a 'path', but not 'to path'; or as a noun adjective, 'serene', but not 'to serene', a beautiful word, which ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... missionary was evidently getting on, though quite unconscious of her work at home, so absorbed was she in her foreign mission; for, like many another missionary, the savage over the way was more interesting than the selfish, slothful, or ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... attitude the slow intelligence and mental perturbation of a wilful, selfish boy made stupid through idleness and self-indulgence. Even what had been clean-cut, attractive, in his face and figure was being marred and coarsened by his slothful habits to an extent that secretly dismayed her; for she had always thought him very handsome; and, with that natural perversity of selection, finding in him a perfect foil to her own character, had been ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... themselves; it is their rule for him that desireth them. If he bestir him and collect them himself, the God shall make him prosperous; but He shall punish him, if he be slothful. ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... do therefore, brethren? Shall we be slothful in well-doing, and lay aside our charity? God forbid that any such thing should ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... dream that her marriage-day was near and that it was her duty to arise and hasten to the place by the river where they washed their clothing. In her dream the princess seemed to hear Athena say: "Nausicaa, why art thou so slothful? Thy beautiful robes lie neglected and thy wedding-day is at hand, on which thou surely shouldst wear garments of dazzling whiteness, and thou shouldst give such garments to those maidens who lead thee forth to thy bridegroom. Therefore, as soon as day breaks thou must ask thy father ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... warned me in a low voice. I looked at him. His eyes met mine unwaveringly. He was a large man, broad-shouldered and heavy-muscled; and his face was lazy, phlegmatic, slothful, withal kindly, yet without passion, and quite soulless—a dim soul, unmalicious, unmoral, bovine, and stubborn. Just an animal he was, with no more than a faint flickering of intelligence, a good-natured brute with the strength and mental caliber of a gorilla. His hand pressed heavily ...
— The Road • Jack London
... good the Lord will give. 'Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.' In spirituals and in temporals, 'the hand of the diligent maketh rich.' Be 'not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... stately portion of Paris where Dr. Jenkins' patients lived, on those broad tree-lined boulevards, those deserted quays, the mist soared immaculate, in innumerable waves, as light and fleecy as down. It was compact, discreet, almost luxurious, because the sun, slothful in his rising, was beginning to diffuse soft, purplish tints, which gave to the mist that enveloped everything, even the roofs of the rows of mansions, the aspect of a sheet of white muslin spread over scarlet cloth. One would have said that it was a great curtain ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... conversation. She, like Ashe, was contemplating the immediate future, but, unlike him, was not doing so with much pleasure. She was regretting heartily that she had not resisted the temptation to uplift this young man and wishing that she had left him to wallow in the slothful peace in which ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... of laws and customs, breaking privileges, general oppressions, seditions, &c., observed by [477]Aristotle, Bodin, Boterus, Junius, Arniscus, &c. I will only point at some of chiefest. [478]Impotentia gubernandi, ataxia, confusion, ill government, which proceeds from unskilful, slothful, griping, covetous, unjust, rash, or tyrannizing magistrates, when they are fools, idiots, children, proud, wilful, partial, indiscreet, oppressors, giddy heads, tyrants, not able or unfit to manage such offices: [479]many noble cities and flourishing kingdoms by ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... also by no means fit and well. Both his legs were swollen and his gums were very uncomfortable, but in addition to these troubles he was attacked by an overwhelming feeling of both physical and mental weariness. 'Many days passed,' he says, 'before I could rouse myself from this slothful humour, and it was many weeks before I had returned to a normally vigorous condition. It was probably this exceptionally relaxed state of health that made me so slow to realize that the ice conditions were very different from what they ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... the Lord shows the conditions which will prevail during the time of His absence from this earth. This period of time is the present Christian age. The three parables of the prudent and evil servant, the wise and the foolish virgins and the faithful and the slothful servants, give us a picture of the state of the entire Christian profession. This is seen in the very beginning of this parable. The parable of the ten virgins is one, which relates to the kingdom ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... purpose. The city sought for some avenue, some plan, some evasion, even, so that it might take over the water system and give its people crystal water from the lakes instead of the polluted river-water. The city pointed to typhoid cases, to slothful torpor on the part of the water syndicate. But the court could only, in the last analysis, point to the law—and that law in regard to debt limit was rooted in the constitution of the state—and a law fortified by the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... summer. [Footnote: The Illinois were an aggregation of distinct though kindred tribes, the Kaskaskias, the Peorias, the Cahokias, the Tamaroas, the Moingona, and others. Their general character and habits were those of other Indian tribes, but they were reputed somewhat cowardly and slothful. In their manners, they were more licentious than many of their neighbors, and addicted to practices which are sometimes supposed to be the result of a perverted civilization. Young men enacting the part of women were ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... describe another species of seal, which we found on some islands on which we landed. We went on shore, as we had before done, armed with clubs and lances, to capture some of them. It required a knowledge of their inert and slothful character to give us courage to attack them with the weapons which we possessed, for in size and appearance they were most formidable-looking monsters. They were from twenty-five to thirty feet long, and some eighteen feet in circumference. Their heads are armed ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... we shall not disappoint thee!" cried the boy excitedly; adding after a moment's pause, "Methinks in the matter of artifice both Bertram and I can beat thee, albeit thou art the best of us in other matters. What a boon that that fat, slothful, ignorant monk no longer shares this room! That might have been a rare trouble. But since he loves well the soft bed of the guest chamber in lieu of these hard pallets, he is not like to trouble us again. They put their trust in the spies around the ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... emotion of the race is love. All over the world, wherever we find the pipe in its softer, earlier form, we find it connected with love songs. In time it degenerated into a synonym for something contemptibly slothful and worthless, so much so that Plato wished to banish it from his "Republic," saying that the Lydian pipe should not have a place in a ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... is really, thoroughly, and philosophically slothful is the only thoroughly happy man. It is the happy man who benefits the world. The conclusion ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... am going to my house in the country, I shall want my papers, which I beg you therefore to return. You are slothful, and you help me nothing, so that I am half in conceit you affect not the argument; for myself I know well you love and affect. I can say no more, but non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvae. If you be not of the lodgings ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... not scorn the old though thou art young, nor the poor though thou art well clad, nor the lame though thou art swift, nor the blind though thou seest, nor the weak though thou art strong, nor the ignorant though thou art wise. Be not slothful, be not passionate, be not greedy, be not idle, be not jealous; for he who is so is hateful to ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... Father; and with what toil and pain and anguish He departed from the light of day, and what He had to suffer before He reached his Father's Kingdom. He also cried with a loud voice, that He might inflame the lukewarm and slothful to ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... enough to coddle their visitors too. It is unnecessary to describe them, for our readers may rest assured of the accuracy of these general principles:—that all couples who coddle themselves are selfish and slothful,—that they charge upon every wind that blows, every rain that falls, and every vapour that hangs in the air, the evils which arise from their own imprudence or the gloom which is engendered in their own tempers,—and that all men and women, in couples or otherwise, who ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... red ants, brown ants, grey ants, green ants; ants large, ants small; ants slothful, ants brisk; meat-eating ants, grain-eating ants, fruit-eating ants, nectar-imbibing ants; ants that fight, ants that run away; ants that live under coldest stone, ants that dwell among the treetops; silent ants, ants that ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... achievements of Frederick the Great and William I. Moreover, the new German Navy was acclaimed as a necessary means to the triumph of German Kultur throughout the world. Other nations were depicted as slothful, selfish, decadent; and the decline in the prestige of Great Britain, France, and Russia to some extent justified these pretensions. The Tsar, by turning away from the Balkans towards Korea, deadened Slav aspirations. For the time Pan-Slavism ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... that in Spain there was a farm-labourer named Isidore, who went daily to his early prayer, whatever the weather might be. His fellow-workmen were slothful and careless, and they gibed and jeered at his piety, but when they found that their mockery had no effect upon him, they spoke spitefully of him in the hearing of the master, and accused him of wasting in prayer the time which he should have ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... second founder of my poor estate, I am tied by all duties, both of a good patriot and of an unworthy kinsman, and of an obliged servant, to employ whatsoever I am to do you service. Again, the meanness of my estate does somewhat move me; for though I cannot excuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get. Lastly, I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... discourse, whatsoever ye shall say, whether good or evil, swear ye not by God, neither cross ye yourselves; there is no need of it.... Reverence the aged as your father, the young as brethren. In thy house be not slothful, but see to all thyself; put not thy trust in a steward, neither in a servant, that thy guests jeer not at thy house, nor at thy dinner.... Love your wives, but give them no power over you. Forget not the good ye know, and what ye know not, as yet, that ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... famous mart in its prime. It had drawn the agents of princes from all over India. Persia, Beloochistan, Afghanistan, and even southern Russia had been rifled of their beauties to adorn the zenanas of the slothful Hindu princes. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... she answered, gravely. "Of course, I know nothing about Germany. But I do know something about our own people. I know how selfish and individualistic and sordid and money-grabbing we have been; how slothful and incompetent and self-satisfied we have been, and I fear it will take a long war and sacrifices and tragedies altogether beyond our present imagination to make us unselfish and public-spirited and clean and generous; it will take the strain and emergency ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... virgins, and of the talents, which follows it. We see their application to this description of Christ's coming. If the coming of Christ be thus unexpected, he will not be recognized by the sleeping servant, nor by those who beat their fellow-servants. Slothful Christians who make no effort to improve, persecuting Christians who spend their time in denouncing heretics, and saying, "My Lord delayeth his coming," never understand the signs of the times, nor recognize any new influx of ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... individuals. In contact with the white man the Indian tended to deteriorate. He frequented the settlements often to the annoyance of the men and the dread of the women and children; he got into debt, was incurably slothful and idle, and developed an uncontrollable desire to drink and steal. Where the Indians were not a menace, they were a nuisance, and the colonies passed many laws concerning the Indians which were designed to meet the one condition as well ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... acceptable to Donald that they were void of expense. And there was the consciousness of superior skill; for the Highlander, a child amongst flocks, is a prince amongst herds, and his natural habits induce him to disdain the shepherd's slothful life, so that he feels himself nowhere more at home than when following a gallant drove of his country cattle in the ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... you have not sowed, and gathering where you have not scattered, [25:25]and being afraid I went away and hid your talent in the earth; behold, you have what is yours. [25:26]And his Lord answered and said to him, Evil and slothful servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather whence I have not scattered? [25:27]And you ought then to have given my money to the brokers, and at my coming, I should have received my own with interest. [25:28]Take his talent, therefore, from him, and give it to him that has ...
— The New Testament • Various
... called Sir Slothful,' said Sir Geraint, 'and I deserve not your worship. But, hark ye, if other evil lords come upon these marches and seek to oppress thee, tell them that though Sir Geraint sleeps now, he will soon awake and they shall ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... Jews, but of Moslems, too, in a less degree. During the last thirty years there have grown more signs of the deep faiths of peoples and of their veneration of this land of sacred history. If their institutions and missions could develop and shed light over Palestine even while the slothful and corrupt Turk ruled the land, how much faster and more in keeping with the sanctity of the country will the improvement be under British protection? The graves of our soldiers dotted over desert wastes and cornfields, on barren ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... the utmost span, The only end and aim of man, Better the toil of fields like these Than waking dream and slothful ease. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... powers that make for evil and destruction have won; one knows that Parsifal is eternally damned; he has listened and succumbed, even as Wagner himself did, to the eastern sirens' song of the ease and delight of a life of slothful renunciation, self-abnegation, and devotion to "duty." The music of the last scene sings that song in tones of infinite sweetness; but it cannot satisfy you; you turn from the enchanted hall, with its holy cup and spear and dove, its mystic ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... my most precious friend Anthony?" replied Lambourne; "for I swear by the pillow of the Seven Sleepers I will not be slothful in amending it." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... went on. "She believes—Germany believes—that Italy will come in. She also believes, from false information that she has gathered in this country, that under no circumstances will England fight. It isn't about that I came to you. We've become a slothful, slack, pleasure-loving people, but I still believe that when the time comes we shall fight. The only thing is that we shall be taken at a big disadvantage. We shall be open to a raid upon our fleet. Do you know that the entire German ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the last century, its inmates having become slothful and corrupt, it was dismantled, all save a small portion torn down, and the island became the property first of impiety, embodied in a French actress, and finally of heresy, embodied in ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and buried with the dead. They become part of the pestilential atmosphere of cowardice and hypocrisy which saps the intellectual manhood of society, so that bright-eyed inquiry sinks into blear-eyed faith, and the rich vitality of active honest thought falls into the decrepitude of timid and slothful acquiescence. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... nod, yawn; go to bed, turn; get some z's, stack z's [coll.]. languish, expend itself, flag, hang fire; relax. render idle &c. adj.; sluggardize[obs3]; mitigate &c. 174. Adj. inactive; motionless &c. 265; unoccupied &c. (doing nothing) 681 unbusied[obs3]. indolent, lazy, slothful, idle, lusk[obs3], remiss, slack, inert, torpid, sluggish, otiose, languid, supine, heavy, dull, leaden, lumpish[obs3]; exanimate[obs3], soulless; listless; drony[obs3], dronish[obs3]; lazy as Ludlam's dog. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... blame conditions and circumstances for failures that result from our lack of effort. We lack in persistence, we resent disparity in the distribution of talents, we blink at responsibility, and are slothful and trifling. Our life is a failure from lack ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... background. A picture of Spanish society does emerge from the dramas, indeed. It is a society in which there are great extremes of wealth and poverty, in which the old titled families are generally degenerate and slothful, and the middle classes display admirable spiritual qualities, but are too often unthrifty and inefficient. Of the laboring classes, Galds has little to say. Bitter religious and political intolerance creates ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... resources of the country. If it be only in the superior education required of the workmen, and the drawing out of their natural talents, the movement is an immense gain to the people, so long purposely kept in a condition of slothful ignorance. ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... out, as you elegantly express it, because morning after morning, owing to your disgustingly slothful habits, you clash with me, sir. My breakfast is delayed because you clash with me, and the house is delayed because you clash with me, and the whole parish is delayed because ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... natural body nor politic; and certainly to a kingdom or estate, a just and honorable war, is the true exercise. A civil war, indeed, is like the heat of a fever; but a foreign war is like the heat of exercise, and serveth to keep the body in health; for in a slothful peace, both courages will effeminate, and manners corrupt. But howsoever it be for happiness, without all question, for greatness, it maketh to be still for the most part in arms; and the strength of a veteran army (though it be a chargeable business) always on foot, is that which ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... what sort of whim, prank, or perversity it was, that, after all these leave-takings, induced me to go to the pigsty, and take leave of the swine! There they lay, buried as deeply among the straw as they could burrow, four huge black grunters, the very symbols of slothful ease and sensual comfort. They were asleep, drawing short and heavy breaths, which heaved their big sides up and down. Unclosing their eyes, however, at my approach, they looked dimly forth at the outer world, and simultaneously uttered a gentle grunt; not putting ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... kind, rather lend their people to the colors of other princes, than make that noble use of them at home which should assert the liberty of mankind. For where there is not a nobility to hearten the people, they are slothful, regardless of the world, and of the public interest of liberty, as even those of Rome had been without their gentry: wherefore let the people embrace the gentry in peace, as the light of their eyes; and in war, as the trophy of their arms; and if Cornelia ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... indomitable war on the men who, he felt, had robbed, not merely him, but his mother, and the grave of his father, under the forms and cover of commerce and law; yet from whom he had not been able to take their outermost intrenchment—the slothful connivance of a community which had let itself be made a passive sharer of their spoils. Now, in that office his desk was covered with ten days' dust. "If you don't shut this thing up straight off and go, say, to Chalybeate ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Had I Been slothful, and not follow'd you in all The streights of death, you might have justly then Reputed me a Bastard: 'tis a cruelty More than to murther Innocents, to take The life of ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... not to move me by your vain entreaties. It is precisely the liberty of Rogero that I require. You would keep him here in bondage and in slothful pleasure, to save him from a fate which you foresee. Vain old man! how can you foresee his fate when you could not foresee your own? You desire me to take your life. No, my aim and my soul refuse the request." This said, she required the magician to go before, and guide her to the castle. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... approaching to ascertain what was the matter found the piece open. Had it taken fire, it would have caused a very great disaster, and perhaps have burned the ship. Whence one could clearly see that the Virgin, our Lady, was not slothful on that occasion. Neither was the city of Manila slothful, for they carried our Lady of Guidance, which is outside the walls, in solemn procession to the cathedral, whose advocacy is of the immaculate conception; and all the people confessed ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... slur of utter selfishness—the idea that the farmers are auto-intoxicated, a pig-headed lot who cause trouble for nothing. It is very hard to believe that Everybody Else is good and kind and sincere and true, affectionate one to another with brotherly love, not slothful in business; for one knows that the best of us need the prayers of ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the slothful indulgence that stained his later years, he was stirred to essay a kingly role by Madame de Chateauroux, the youngest of four sisters who had successively been his mistresses. She fired his indolent imagination ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... ourangs, as far as I have been able to observe them, I may remark, that they are as dull and as slothful as can well be conceived, and on no occasion when pursuing them did they move so fast as to preclude my keeping pace with them easily through a moderately clear forest; and even when obstructions below (such as wading up to the neck) allowed them to get way ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... l[)i]quens from l[)i]queo. 433. Stipant pack, the notion of pushing and tightness being given in the very sound of the heavy overhanging spondees in this line. —S. 435. Ignavum ... arcent drive the drones, aslothful herd, from the enclosure. Notice the order. —Page. 437. 'The want of a city is the key-note ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... slothful Thersites handles the arms of Achilles and the choice trappings of war-horses are spread upon lazy asses, winking owls lord it in the eagle's nest, and the cowardly kite sits upon the perch of ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... most difficult way, because you want all the pleasant and sweet refreshment and soul delights you might have in God, by a serious and diligent minding of religion. The pleasure and sweetness of God tasted and found, will make diligence and pains more easy than slothfulness can be to the slothful. This oils the wheels, and makes them run swiftly, formality makes them drive heavily. Thus you live always in a complaining humour,—sighing, and going backward,—because you have some stirring principle of conscience within which bears witness against you, and your formal ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... which had been taken from him, and he came upon a stout staff, thrown into one corner, and by the aid of this he held those two monsters at bay for a whole night and day. By this time the dragons, who had been weakened by a slothful life and the flesh of many prisoners, were too weak to resist any longer, and fell an easy prey to the ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... exploit, But all was false and hollow, tho' his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels, for his thoughts were low, To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds Tim'rous and slothful; yet he ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... vanity, and hunger for a blood that is not demanded by the appetite. Moreover, a waning practice, in disfavour with the new generation, will be commended to the conservative barbarian, as partaking of the wisdom of his fathers. Further, too, we may have grown slothful, fallen to moodiness, done excess of service to Omphale, our tyrant lady of the glow and the chill; and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and thy advice!" said the pious hermit; "I tell thee, Sir Slothful Knight, that when I doff my friar's frock, my priesthood, my sanctity, my very Latin, are put off along with it; and when in my green jerkin, I can better kill twenty deer ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... governor, highly praised Langlade for the enterprise, and recommended him to the minister at home for reward. This bold enterprise further shook the alliance of the Indians with the English, for it seemed to them that the French were enterprising and energetic, while the English were slothful and cowardly, and neglected to keep their agreements. The French continued to build forts, and Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, sent George Washington to protest, in his name, against their building forts on land notoriously belonging to the ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... to be disturbed by the maid's beauty; as it usually stirred her to frenzy and she wanted perfect quiet for calm reasoning. It took some time to plan her campaign that was already full started, and she now came forth from her chamber refreshed, the course of her slothful blood hastened; her eyes gleamed with impatience for action; her whole being changed, rejuvenated, filled with a new life. She came also with a full knowledge of all that had taken place in the interim of her absence from Katherine. She came well prepared for a bout, and ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... in young Germany. The average German is not keen on exercise in the tropics, he will be carried by sweating natives in a chair or hammock where Englishmen on similar errands will walk and shoot upon the way. This slothful habit leads us to the conviction that very much of the country is not explored as it should be, and I have been told by prospectors for precious minerals, who were serving in our army, of the wonderful store of mineral deposits in German ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... strictly speaking, his own, but those of worthless friends who abuse his confidence, for we are told that it is the pernicious counsels of Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco, the former depraved and profligate, the other slothful and incapable, which first lose him the popular favour and ultimately prove his ruin: "Invalidum senem Titus Vinnius et Cornelius Laeo, alter deterrimus mortalium, alter ignavissimus, odio flagitorum oneratum, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Whether nastiness and beggary do not, on the contrary, extinguish all such ambition, making men listless, hopeless, and slothful? ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... to show that animals low in the scale of life—animals so low and so minute that it takes a very high-power lens to make them visible, have their pastimes and amusements. Also, that many insects and even the slothful snail are not so busily engaged in the struggle for existence that they cannot spare a few moments for play. In our researches in this field of animal intelligence we must not attribute the peculiar actions of the males in many species of animals when courting the females, ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... a bride, unwisely wedded, shuns the cold caress of eld, So, from coward souls and slothful, Lakshmi's ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... he considered life seriously, that a man might err in dalliance and idleness just as he had erred; and he saw too that a man might, like Sledge Hume, go to the other extreme. A man might grow soft muscled literally and figuratively in slothful carelessness, or he might grow hard until he became a machine. He felt dimly that he ought to be doing something like other men. He wanted his life to live freely as he knew how, largely as he sought to learn how. And ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... But there is no order in the spirit of the place, no respect for order, no respect for a regular occupation. "I cannot work at home"—one hears the cry often enough. It is not always because of this atmosphere of helter-skelter activity. It is often because of something worse,—an atmosphere of slothful, pleasure-loving indifference to activities of all kinds, or one of tacit or expressed discontent with the burdens and the limitations which are an inescapable part of the Business of ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... time to hunt. Some persons thought he did this from motives of policy and to make the King believe he had no ambition; but I am persuaded it was from nothing but indolence and laziness; he loved to live a slothful life, and to ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... an utter disregard of death, themselves showing a good example, being ever foremost in the battle strife, urging on their countrymen to deeds of valour; not doling out their maxims in slothful indolence, and acting the reverse of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... "They are not exactly dirty, but very slothful; and when not compelled to exert themselves in husbandry or war, they pass their time in sleep. They have little thought for the morrow; and, in fact, seem to be a thoroughly contented happy race; and so ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... changeless memory! O fierce desire! O passion strong! heart weak with its own fire; O eyes of mine! not eyes, but living streams; O laurel boughs! whose lovely garland seems The sole reward that glory's deeds require; O haunted life! delusion sweet and dire, That all my days from slothful rest redeems; O beauteous face! where Love has treasured well His whip and spur, the sluggish heart to move At his least will; nor can it find relief. O souls of love and passion! if ye dwell Yet on this earth, and ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... save our oppressors themselves—not a man who has learned one syllable of our ancient tongue—whose heart and sword are not with me. The peaceful cultivators of letters—the proud nobles of the second order—the rising race, wiser than their slothful sires; above all, my Lord, the humbler ministers of religion, priests and monks, whom luxury hath not blinded, pomp hath not deafened, to the monstrous outrage to Christianity daily and nightly perpetrated in the Christian Capital; these,—all these,—are linked with ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and with all of them, whether fat or lean, the soul is more spoiled than the body. A superstitious respect keeps them cowed under their burden, or makes them cringe before their master. Servile, slothful, gluttonous, feeble, incapable of resisting adversity, if they have acquired the miserable skills of slavery, they have also contracted its needs, weaknesses and vices. A crust of absurd habits and perverse inclinations, a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... as was her excellent custom, rose up on the morrow very much earlier than the others, and meditating upon her book of Holy Scripture, awaited the company which, little by little, assembled together again. And the more slothful of them excused themselves in the words of the Bible, saying, "I have a wife, and therefore could not come so quickly." (1) In this wise it came to pass that Hircan and his wife Parlamente found the reading of the lesson already begun. Oisille, however, knew ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... cannot grow old. But a nation may grow old, may decay, and die. And the youth of a nation—its young people—carry with them its destinies. If there is in these more of wilfulness, of selfishness, of slothful and luxurious bias—less of energy, of gentleness, of kindness, of manliness, of purity—than there was in those who were young twenty—thirty years ago, then decrepitude is growing upon the nation. It is sinking. The sap of ...
— Is The Young Man Absalom Safe? • David Wright
... its quality of lake, had no aid to give us with current. Paddling all a hot August mid-day over slothful water would be tame, day-laborer's work. But there was a breeze. Good! Come, kind Zephyr, fill our red blanket-sail! Cancut's blanket in the bow became a substitute for Cancut's paddle in the stern. We swept ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... when the slothful John was aroused by a long vociferous pounding on the door. He started up in bed to find himself alone— the victim of his wrathful irony having evidently risen and fled away while his pitiless tormentor slept—"Doubtless to accomplish at once that nefarious intent as set forth by his unblushing ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... Then came he that had received but one talent and had hid it; and he said, "Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent, and lo, here thou hast that which is thine." His lord said unto him, "Thou wicked and slothful servant. Thou knewest that I reaped where I had not sown; thou oughtest therefore to have put my money in the bank, that I might have received mine own with interest for its use. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him that hath ten; and take the unprofitable servant and cast ...
— Mother Stories from the New Testament • Anonymous
... the inner door was slothful, sleepy and ill disposed to listen when he heard that certain callers would be admitted to ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... again, and stripping her out of those rotten and base rags wherewith the times have adulterated her form, restore her to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty, and render her worthy to be embraced and kist of all the great and master-spirits of our world. As for the vile and slothful, who never affected an act worthy of celebration, or are so inward with their own vicious natures, as they worthily fear her, and think it an high point of policy to keep her in contempt, with their declamatory and windy invectives; she shall out ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... to Henry, with complete adhesion to the King's plans. The States would move in exact harmony with him, neither before him nor after him, which was precisely what he wished. He complained bitterly to Aerssens, when he communicated the Advocate's despatches, of the slothful and timid course of the princes. He ascribed it to the arts of Leopold, who had written and inspired many letters against him insinuating that he was secretly in league and correspondence with the Emperor; that he was going to the duchies simply in the interest ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Stark piled at Bennington his British dead, And Gates at Camden, Lee at Monmouth, fled?— For this that Perry did the foeman fleece, And Hull surrender to preserve the peace? Degenerate countrymen, renounce, I pray, The slothful ease, the luxury, the gay And gallant trappings of this idle life, And be more fit for ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... indolent careless application, which is naturally, or rather necessarily, acquired by every country workman who is obliged to change his work and his tools every half hour, and to apply his hand in twenty different ways almost every day of his life, renders him almost always slothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application, even on the most pressing occasions. Independent, therefore, of his deficiency in point of dexterity, this cause alone must always reduce considerably the quantity of work which ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... invites me to silence; to sleep, and dreams, and stagnant indifference, as if for the time one had got into the country of the Lotos-Eaters, and it made no matter what became of anything and all things. In good truth, it is a wearied man, at least a dreadfully slothful and slumberous man, eager for sleep in any quantity, that now addresses you! Be thankful for a few half-dreaming words, till we ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... bred to war, He knew the battle's din afar, And joyed to hear it swell. His peaceful day was slothful ease; Nor harp, nor pipe, his ear could please Like the loud slogan yell. On active steed, with lance and blade, The light-armed pricker plied his trade - Let nobles fight for fame; Let vassals follow where they lead, Burghers to guard their townships bleed, But war's the Borderer's ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... princess Charlotte, died, after giving birth to a son, the grand-duke Peter, afterwards Peter II. On the day of the funeral Peter addressed to Alexius a stern letter of warning and remonstrance, urging him no longer to resemble the slothful servant in the parable, and threatening to cut him off, as though he were a gangrenous swelling, if he did not acquiesce in his father's plans. But it was now that Alexius showed what a poor creature he really was. He wrote ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... was full of happy dreams: the queen had received him kindly. He would place himself at the head of her party, and make it a popular one; he would protect her, and for her sake would abandon his slothful life, and ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... did not admit that Egyptian priests, even when concluding such a harmful treaty with Assyria, thought of treason. No, they were not traitors, they were slothful dignitaries. Peace agreed with them, for during peace their treasures grew, and they increased their influence. They did not wish for war, since war would raise the pharaoh's power, and impose on ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... his back was turned, the men he had set to watch fell asleep and let the Swedish admiral steal out into the open. There he found and joined the Dutch ships that had slipped around the Skaw during the rumpus. Together they overwhelmed the Danish fleet, being now three to one, and crushed it. The slothful admiral paid for it with his life, but the harm was done. It was the last and heaviest blow. The old King sheathed his sword and set his name to a peace that took from Denmark some of her ancient provinces, with ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... to heaven leave. Be this, above all things, thy care, Thy children still to rear, As those who court not Fortune's smiles, Nor playthings are of idle hope, or fear: And so the future age will call them blessed; For, in this slothful and deceitful world, The living virtue ever we despise, The dead we load ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... comforting. It was not a heroic soul that, stripped of its defenses, shivered beneath the scrutiny. In another mood he would have mended the breach, excusing and extenuating, but not now. He looked at himself without pity, and saw himself weak, slothful, devoid of all that was clean and fine, and a ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... to those who perform eminent uses; moderate, but of an exquisite relish, to those who perform less eminent uses; and ordinary to such as live in the performance of ordinary uses; but none at all to the slothful." ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Father, I have lived Arabian nights. I have sat out a dance with the evening star. But it was all in a past existence, in the days of Babylon, and I am myself again. But he has been chivalrous always. If the slothful, indolent creature I used to be has improved in any way, I owe it all to him. I am slipping back in many ways, but I am determined not to slip back altogether—in memory of him and his island. That is why I insisted on your telling Brocklehurst. He can break our engagement ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... they were the first codes of popular morals. Moreover they have stood the test of time, and the experience of every day still bears witness to their accuracy, force, and soundness. The proverbs of Solomon are full of wisdom as to the force of industry, and the use and abuse of money:- "He that is slothful in work is brother to him that is a great waster." "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." Poverty, says the preacher, shall come upon the idler, "as one that travelleth, and want as an ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... broken stitches of his stockings helped them. But as Time is fleet and no obstacle can stay his course, he came riding on the hours, and morning very soon arrived. Seeing which Don Quixote quitted the soft down, and, nowise slothful, dressed himself in his chamois suit and put on his travelling boots to hide the disaster to his stockings. He threw over him his scarlet mantle, put on his head a montera of green velvet trimmed with silver edging, flung across his shoulder ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that speaks of ministering in sacred things, the apostle comes at once to the common, social and secular affairs into which we are to bring our consecration principles. We read: "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another; not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... that the people of Orham had been slothful in the Lord's vineyard. They had allowed weeds to spring up and wax strong. They had been tried ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... exist. Then, sir, disunion is inevitable. It is not going to stop with the seven States that are out. No, sir; my word for it, unless you do something more than is proposed in this proposition, old Virginia will go out too—slothful as she has been, and tardy as she seems in appreciating her own interests and her rights, and kind and generous as she has been in inviting a Peace Congress to agree upon measures of safety for the Union. The time will come, however, when old ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... am much mistaken the key is to be found in a very curious story related in the Perlesvaus, which is twice referred to in texts of a professedly historical character. The tale runs thus. King Arthur has fallen into slothful and faineant ways, much to the grief of Guenevere, who sees her lord's fame and prestige waning day by day. In this crisis she urges him to visit the Chapel of Saint Austin, a perilous adventure, but ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... mine, indirectness of speech nor a slothful gait when something has to be done were never accredited to me, and I determined to let the duke know exactly what I had heard, as well as my opinion of him in the business which he had stirred up. ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... nor gives the realm of Truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race: Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed The life of man, and given it to grasp The master-key of knowledge, reverence, Infolds some germs of goodness and of right; Else never had the eager soul, which loathes 10 The slothful down of pampered ignorance, Found in it even a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... not forget. But if youth and summer fade for you, you leave youth and summer behind you as you pass along,—behind in hearts which mere realism would make always old, and counting their slothful beats under the gray of a sky without sun or stars; wherefore I pray you to consider how magnificent a mission the singer's is,—to harmonize your life with your song, and toss your flowers, as your ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for the life of ease, but for the life of strenuous endeavor. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... bench, Slothful's Friend by name, which had shrubs and plants round it, to screen those who sat there from the sun. But Christiana and the rest gave such good heed to what their guide told them, that though they were worn out with toil, yet there was not one of them that had so much ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... careless neglect of the means appointed for advancing in holiness; for, though the means do not work the effect, yet it is by the means that God hath chosen to work the work of sanctification. Here that is to be seen, "that the hand of the diligent maketh rich; and the field of the slothful is soon grown over with thorns and nettles; so that poverty cometh as one that travaileth, and want as an armed man," Prov. xxiv. 30. It is a sinful tempting of God, to think to be sanctified another way than God hath in his deep ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... shall lightly say that fame Is nothing but an empty name? Whilst in that sound there is a charm The nerves to brace, the heart to warm, As, thinking of the mighty dead, The young from slothful couch will start, And vow, with lifted hands outspread, Like them ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... whole, in the future as well as in the present, there can be no question that a society in which some men pursue knowledge while others endure great poverty offers more hope of ultimate good than a society in which all are sunk in slothful comfort. It is true that poverty is a great evil, but it is not true that material prosperity is in itself a great good. If it is to have any real value to society, it must be made a means to the advancement of those ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... it, and that all the impulses of our ordinary self which do not conflict with the terms of this settlement, in our narrow view of it, we may follow unrestrainedly, under the sanction of some such text as "Not slothful in business," or, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might," or something else of the same kind. And to any of these impulses we soon come to give that same character of a mechanical, absolute law, which we give to our religion; we regard it, as we ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... all this they are happier than people who, in peace and quietness, lead god-fearing lives. And I know small states which honour the gods, but must obey greater states, which are less pious, because their spearmen are fewer in number. And I believe that you, if a slothful man just prayed to the gods and did not earn his bread by the work of his hands—" Here the sense is interrupted; but there remains one more line: "That which builds the castle of the gods is in part the unfortunate happenings ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... which Heaven has intrusted me is small, very small, yet I feel responsible for the use of it, and am not willing to pervert it to purposes reproachful and unjust; nor to hide it, like the slothful servant, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... the little stream broadcast with a shovel on either side), I did no more than Dawson, but joined him in yawning the day away, for which my sole excuse is the great heat of this region, which doth beget most slothful humours in those ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... betokened complete seclusion from the sun, we clambered up the opposing steep emerging from an entanglement of jungle on a high and open ridge which commanded an unimpeded view to the west—a scene of theatrical clarity with a single theatrical smear. From a hollow far below slothful smoke filtered through the matted, sombre, dew-bespangled foliage, rose a few feet, and drifted abruptly, dissolving from diaphanous blue to nothingness. The resonant whooping of a swamp pheasant, antiphonal to a bell-voiced, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... with fragrant oils. They have large eyes and long eyelashes, which, with their eyebrows, they wear blackened. Their bodies are robust, and they are much given to war, but to all other employment they are slothful. They live long, grow gray early, and are always active, on sea no less than on land. Hospitable and kind to guests, they are importunate and insistent in their demands when they become familiar. They are full of self-interest ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... created and will ever create. It has been reserved to railroad managers to demonstrate to the public that a power has been allowed to grow up which has assumed the right to counteract the dispensations of Providence, to enrich the slothful, to impoverish the industrious, to curtail the profits of remunerative industries and revive by bounties those languishing for want of vitality, to humble proud and self-reliant marts of trade and to build up cities in the desert. It will scarcely be claimed even by railroad managers ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... what countries, or under what circumstances, he considered slavery founded on natural reason, we may find his answer in a preceding portion of the same page. It is in those "countries," says he, "where the excess of heat enervates the body, and renders men so slothful and dispirited, that nothing but the fear of chastisement can oblige them to perform any laborious duty," etc. Such, as we have seen, is precisely the case with the African race in its ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Elspa Ruet, "I will try; it's my duty, and my sisterly love bids me no to be slothful in the task." At which words she burst into sore and sorrowful weeping, saying, "Alas, alas! that she should have so fallen!—I loved her—oh! naebody can tell how dearly—even as I loved myself. When I first ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... house of one of their new friends, and she could hear Angelo talking in the adjoining room. A conveyance was ready to take her on to Bormio. A woman came to her to tell her this, appearing to have a dull desire to get her gone. She was a draggled woman, with a face of slothful anguish, like one of the inner spectres of a guilty man. She said that her husband was willing to drive the lady to Bormio for a sum that was to be paid at once into his wife's hand; and little enough it was which poor persons ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... trusted implicitly in the star that led him. Gradually they yielded to the blandishments of the new life and drifted pleasantly before the breezes of luxury. The man who had been a bearded and Calvinistic countryman for almost a half-century became in less than a decade an ease-loving and slothful old gentleman, dapper of appearance, rosy of ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... that with these animals, AS WITH ALL OTHERS, not enough account is taken of individual variation. They, as well as man, and as well as other animals, have their cowards, their fighters, their slothful and their enterprising. And, too, there seem to be truculent and peaceful districts. North of Mt. Kenia, between that peak and the Northern Guaso Nyero River, we saw many rhinos, none of which showed the slightest disposition to turn ugly. In fact, they were ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... always very numerous; nor hath the country been ever destitute of men of courage, or wanted a numerous set of them; for their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation, by its fruitfulness; accordingly, it is all cultivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it lies idle. Moreover, the cities lie here very thick, and the very many villages there are here are every where so full of people, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... the hand That smote vile Spartacus the robber foe. But if among my triumphs fate has said Thy conquest shall be written, know this heart Still sends the life blood coursing: and this arm (28) Still vigorously flings the dart afield. He deems me slothful. Caesar, thou shalt learn We brook not peace because we lag in war. Old, does he call me? Fear not ye mine age. Let me be elder, if his soldiers are. The highest point a citizen can reach And leave his people free, is mine: a throne Alone were ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Legazpi asks for ships with which to transport the Spaniards home, and wishes to resign his office as governor. With this letter he sends an account of the islands, "and of the character and condition of their inhabitants." The natives are unreliable, and utterly slothful. Cinnamon is the only product of the islands which can be made profitable to the Spaniards, until they can secure control of the gold mines, and have them worked. Legazpi offers practical advice as to the best methods of treating the natives, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... believed, that the prolongation of Humane Life depends, on the Will of the Omnipotent God only. But, omitting these, I would here ask this one Question. Whether by the use of this Universal Medicine, the pristine Nature of Man may be converted into New, so as a Slothful Man may degenerate into a Diligent, or stirring Man, and a Man, who before was by Nature Melancholy and Sad, afterward became Jovial, Chearful, and full of Joy, or like alterations, reformations, permutations, or vicissitudes happen ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... into the bliss of a higher union. This is that supreme affiance and espousal of the soul wherein they may be released into a larger air, undelayed by the earthward longings and gradual initiations of seemingly happier men. Thus its servants do not decline into slothful service, but are strenuous always; raised above the acquiescence of use, they never know the cloying of fruition or suffer the barbarian conquest of indifference. Their soul is unaffected by material circumstance ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... shall be as it was in the beginning, O slothful son of Shiv! The flame shall die upon the altars and the prayer upon the tongue till ye become little Gods again—Gods of the jungle—names that the hunters of rats and noosers of dogs whisper in the thicket and among the caves—rag-Gods, pot Godlings of the tree, and the village-mark, as ye were ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... is served at six in the evening, the time drags endlessly long and with intolerable monotony. And, in general, this daily interval is the heaviest and emptiest in the life of the house. It remotely resembles in its moods those slothful, empty hours which are lived through during the great holidays in scholastic institutes and other private institutions for females, when all the friends have dispersed, when there is much leisure and much indolence, and a radiant, agreeable tedium reigns the whole day. In only their petticoats ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... naturally, that St. Augustine leaves unsaid many things that would have interested most men, perhaps more. 'What, then, have I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions—as if they could heal my infirmities,—a race curious to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own?' Finding, indeed, many significant mentions of things and books and persons, Faustus the Manichee, the 'Hortensius' of Cicero, the theatre, we shall find little pasture here for our antiquarian, our purely curious, researches. We shall not even ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Baakhahela, etc., etc.; the whole of which tribes are favored with abundance of rain, and, being much attached to agriculture, raise very large quantities of grain. It is on their industry that the more distant Boers revel in slothful abundance, and follow their slave-hunting and cattle-stealing propensities quite beyond the range of English influence and law. The Basuto under Moshesh are equally fond of cultivating the soil. The chief labor of hoeing, driving ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... brave archbishop to them. "Now it is certain that we shall die. But it is better to die sword in hand than in slothful ease. Now is the day when ye shall receive great honor. Now is the day that ye shall win your crown of flowers. The gates of paradise are glorious, but therein ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various |
