"Sensibility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Selina; that's too cheap a defence. You have said things to me—if you choose to talk of freedom! What is the talk of your house and what does one hear if one lives with you? I don't care what I hear now (it's all odious and there's little choice and my sweet sensibility has gone God knows where!) and I'm very glad if you understand that I don't care what I say. If one talks about your affairs, my dear, one mustn't be too particular!' the girl continued, with a flash ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... from the hyperlatinism of the time represented so strongly by Dr. Johnson and his followers. His wit, if sometimes artificial, is always acute; his sentiment is entirely artificial; "he is always protruding his sensibility, trying to play upon you as upon an instrument; more concerned that you should acknowledge his power than have any depth of feeling." Thackeray, whose opinion is just quoted, calls him "a great jester, not a great humorist." He had lived a careless, self-indulgent ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... shows of gladiators, the sanguinary combats of wild beasts, the not unfrequent spectacle of savage tortures and capital punishments, the occasional sight of innocent martyrs burning to death in their shirts of pitchy fire, must have hardened and imbruted the public sensibility. The immense prevalence of slavery tended still more inevitably to the general corruption. "Lust," as usual, was "hard by hate." One hears with perfect amazement of the number of slaves in the wealthy houses. A thousand slaves was no extravagant ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... deception, wasted energies, and, above all, wasted national money, excite rather to tears than to laughter. What a spectacle was this which I place before the reader! Here were two trusted members of the English Secret Service pitting against one another those treasures of intelligence, wit, and sensibility which they were employed—and paid—to exercise in the defence of their countries. It may be conceded that one of them was more or less honest. Rust, I am convinced, had persuaded himself—he has no marked ability or attractions of any kind that I can discern—that ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... enemy of their own color, they are perhaps more cruel and severe, than to the whites. In requiting upon him, every refinement of torture is put in requisition, to draw forth a sigh or a groan, or cause him to betray some symptom of human sensibility. This they never effect. An Indian neither shrinks from a knife, nor winces at the stake; on the contrary he seems to exult in his agony, and will mock his tormentors for the leniency and ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
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