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Insensible   Listen
adjective
Insensible  adj.  
1.
Destitute of the power of feeling or perceiving; wanting bodily sensibility; unconscious.
2.
Not susceptible of emotion or passion; void of feeling; apathetic; unconcerned; indifferent; as, insensible to danger, fear, love, etc.; often used with of or to. "Accept an obligation without being a slave to the giver, or insensible to his kindness." "Lost in their loves, insensible of shame."
3.
Incapable of being perceived by the senses; imperceptible. Hence: Progressing by imperceptible degrees; slow; gradual; as, insensible motion. "Two small and almost insensible pricks were found upon Cleopatra's arm." "They fall away, And languish with insensible decay."
4.
Not sensible or reasonable; meaningless. (Obs.) "If it make the indictment be insensible or uncertain, it shall be quashed."
5.
Incapable of feeling a specific sensation or emotion; as, insensible to pity.
Synonyms: Imperceptible; imperceivable; dull; stupid; torpid; numb; unfeeling; apathetic; stoical; impassive; indifferent; unsusceptible; hard; callous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Insensible" Quotes from Famous Books



... Berwick had invited a Scotchman who had gained great fame as a "pricker" to come to Berwick, and had promised him immunity from all violence.[2] He came and proceeded to apply his methods of detection. They rested upon the assumption that a witch had insensible spots on her body, and that these could be found by driving in a pin. By such processes he discovered thirty witches, who were sent to gaol. Some of them made confessions but refused to admit that they had injured any one.[3] On the contrary, they had assisted Cromwell, so some of ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... same good, honest, earthen vessel which it had been before he touched it. He was conscious, also, of a change within himself. A cold, hard, and heavy weight seemed to have gone out of his bosom. No doubt his heart had been gradually losing its human substance, and been changing into insensible metal, but had now been softened back again into flesh. Perceiving a violet, that grew on the bank of the river, Midas touched it with his finger, and was overjoyed to find that the delicate flower retained its purple hue, instead of undergoing a yellow blight. The curse of the Golden ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... her not insensible to his efforts and spent some hours by her side drowned in amorous delight. But soon he grew pensive, and suddenly asked his hostess what month they were in, and what day of the month ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... be, there are certain epochs at which the changes that take place in the social and political constitution of nations are so slow and so insensible that men imagine their present condition to be a final state; and the human mind, believing itself to be firmly based upon certain foundations, does not extend its researches beyond the horizon which it descries. These are the times of small parties ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... Zart felt that, by some means or other, the strap which bound him to the horse had grown loose, and in another moment he had slipped down its side, and fallen upon his head on the ground. No one noticed his fall; and there he lay upon the sand for a while stunned and insensible. When he woke up, the trampling of horses had died away in the distance; the light sand of the desert, which their feet had stirred, had settled down again like the heavy night-dew, so that he could see no trace of their footmarks. The frowning ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce

... them. The Compulsory Haircutting Act is thus in every way a compact and convenient example of all our current laws about education, sport, liquor and liberty in general. Well, the law has passed and the masses, insensible to its scientific value, are still murmuring against it. The ignorant peasant maiden is averse to so extreme a fashion of bobbing her hair; and does not see how she can even be a flapper with nothing ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... find him alive but no longer sane. Dr. Simms and I are both equipped with drug-guns which will then be used to render him insensible. The charge is sufficient to insure he will not wake up again. In this circumstance, caution will be required since he was left on the Base with a ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz

... insensible to these representations: the danger, indeed, appeared to her so formidable, that her inclination the whole time opposed her refusal; yet her repugnance to giving way to the overbearing Baronet, and her fear of his resentment if she listened to Mr Marriot, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... kept her vigil, in appearance the same as on the evening of that tragedy. A new generation of the Foscone grew old in their turn, but Fiammetta's loveliness was still perfect. In her madness there seemed to be a sanity surpassing the sanity of other mortals. For by becoming insensible to time she had attained an earthly immortality, an uncorrupted physical beauty, in which she constantly looked forward to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... said I, with as firm a voice as I could command,—for I was nearly in as great a rage as he, and rendered insensible to all consequences by his inhumanity,—"if you bear away and leave that man yonder to sink with that wreck when he can be saved with very little trouble, you will become as much a murderer as any ruffian who ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... Never, spoken in the fear of falling once more under Lousteau's influence, was interpreted by him as the death-warrant of his power, since Dinah remained insensible to ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... began to circulate that men had had visions; being able to see what was going on in the most distant parts, and that the heavens themselves opened to their eyes. While in this ecstatic state they were insensible to pain when pricked with either pin or blade; and when, on recovering consciousness, they were ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... shout broke from the English portion of the soldiery as Cuthbert leaned over his prostrate foe, and receiving no answer to the question "Do you yield?" rose to his feet, and signified to the squire who had kept near that his opponent was insensible. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... air the massy weapon hung, A cry of horror burst from every tongue: Whilst I, in combat with another foe, Fought on, unconscious of th' impending blow; Your arm, brave Boy, arrested his career— Forward you sprung, insensible to fear; 280 Disarm'd, and baffled by your conquering hand, The grovelling Savage roll'd upon the sand: An act like this, can simple thanks repay? [x] Or all the labours of a grateful lay? Oh no! whene'er my breast ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... was in so many ways announced before the decisive hour that he could not be insensible of its existence, and he was greatly disturbed. He said he would "rather be shot with musketry than nominated" and have Sherman think he had been unfaithful to his obligations as leader of the forces for him. That Senator ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various

... his presence of mind, and had caught the edge of the overturned boat, which he was trying to float toward Ethel, while holding May tightly with the other arm. But the child had struck her head against the oar as she fell, and was stunned so as to be quite insensible. ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Billy shakes hands like it's a ceremony, an' both is grave an' dignified about it. 'Doby puts it up that usual he's beyond flattery, but when a gent of jedgement like Billy looks over a play that a-way, an' indorses it, you can bet he's not insensible. Then they shakes hands ag'in, an' ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... nerve-ends, i.e., the terminal bulbs of KRAUSE, of the sensory nerves, and the tactile corpuscles of MEISSNER, become even without this presupposition sufficiently impregnated with water while in the bath, because here all insensible perspiration must cease, and in a bath of a temperature lower than blood-heat transpiration cannot take place, so that all transudation to the skin being retained during the bath, those termini are surrounded by moisture and ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig

... from the moon to the ocean. So feeble a velocity was inconsistent with the mechanical explanation of attraction of which we have just spoken. The explanation, in effect, necessarily supposes that the proper motions of the celestial bodies are insensible compared with the ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... companionship, they had become very good friends. So then the absence of the Earl and the preoccupation of his mother was not beyond comfort, if Annie was able to receive him. In spite of his grief for Cornelia's removal from New York, he was not insensible to the pleasure of Annie's approval. He liked to show himself to her when he knew he could appear to advantage; and there was nothing more in this desire, than that healthy wish for approbation that is natural to ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... just beginning to congratulate myself on my success, when I saw that the nun appeared insensible, and about to fall from her chair. I caught her in my arms, and leaned her back in the chair, but I did not dare to lay her on the bed, without permission, even if I had strength to do it. I could only draw ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... exportation of corn was subjected to a general prohibition. This gradual fall in the average price of grain, it is probable, therefore, is ultimately owing neither to the one regulation nor to the other, but to that gradual and insensible rise in the real value of silver, which, in the first book of this discourse, I have endeavoured to show, has taken place in the general market of Europe during the course of the present century. It seems to be altogether ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... the medical corps and military surgeons who arrived here early in the week that hundreds, maybe thousands of men, women and children were insensible to all horror on that awful afternoon, just a week ago, before the waters of the valley closed in over them. Their opinion is based on the fact that hundreds and hundreds of the bodies already brought ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... glorious mission, of its superiority to all the world calls great, and of the consequent jealousy and aversion with which it is sure to be regarded by the depositaries of political authority. He was neglected by them; he knew it, and expected it; it never gave him a moment's chagrin. "He was not insensible," says D'Alembert, "to glory; but he had no desire to win but by deserving it. Never did he attempt to enhance his reputation by the underhand devices and secret machinations by which second-rate men so often strive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... curtailment of paper, to the extent annually of two or three thousand pounds for three successive years? When the difficulty was thus reduced; when the means were so limited and humble by which a mighty principle was to be established; when, by an operation so minute, and a process almost insensible, the prodigious advantage could be obtained of placing the pecuniary concerns of the country on the broad and imperishable basis of a metallic currency; it would be as imprudent to let slip the opportunity as it would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... own arms round the foe, even as one bindeth a beast with cord. And the monster thereupon began to roar frightfully, as a trumpet out of order. And the mighty Vrikodara for a long while whirled the Rakshasa till the latter appeared to be insensible, and began to move convulsively. And finding the Rakshasa exhausted, the son of Pandu without loss of time took him up in his arms, and slew him like a beast. And placing his knee on the waist of that wretch of Rakshasa, Vrikodara began to press the neck of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... colony in the New World. This he resolved to do in the face of many obstacles, and notwithstanding the withdrawment of the royal protection and bounty. The generous heart of Henry IV. was by no means insensible to the merits of his faithful subject, and, on his solicitation, he granted to him letters-patent for the exclusive right of trade in America, but for the space only of a single year. With this small boon from the royal hand, De ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... Harding, who was not insensible himself to Sara's delightfulness, "the British public is absurdly fond of a love-match. They adore a sentimental Prime Minister. They want to see him either marrying for love, or jilted in his youth for a richer man. These things ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... which had seemed insensible to grief, was now melted with joy. He opened his arms to Roland, as on the day when he had found him, and two tears, two pearls—the tears of Bonaparte were ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... he recognized the familiar names, that Dr. Armitage's absence would be indefinitely prolonged. He glanced into the room where Ben Phillips lay. He was insensible, and had been from the first. Two more physicians were in attendance there, but seemed to be doing nothing, and shook their heads very gravely in answer to Theodore's inquiring look. Mr. Phillips had been seen down town, near the freight office, and thither Jim had gone in search of him. ...
— Three People • Pansy

... jester or sage, croupier or harridan—lend her what personality you please—Fate hath the reins and so the laugh of the universe. Ever at its rump, her pricks are insensible alike to kicks or kisses. Folly, sceptre or rake in hand, she stands or sprawls upon Eternity, bending the ages to her whim. And we, poor things, at once her instruments and butts, stumble about her business, thinking it ours, setting ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... to castle and confined in one prison after another. On one occasion she was jailed in a high tower and she tried to escape by leaping from a window more than sixty feet above the ground, only to be picked up insensible and bleeding as she lay at the foot of ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... Armine and Constance Grandison Doubtless, like all of her race, she might have chosen amid the wealthiest of the Catholic nobles and gentry one who would have been proud to have mingled his life with hers; but, with a soul not insensible to the splendid accidents of existence, she yielded her heart to one who could repay the rich sacrifice only with devotion. His poverty, his pride, his dangerous and hereditary gift of beauty, his mournful life, his illustrious ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... when these objects fell off, they were refixed; but not in a single instance was any curvature thus caused. These massive radicles, one of which was above 2 inches in length and .3 inch in diameter at its base, seemed insensible to so slight a stimulus as any small attached object. Nevertheless, when the apex encountered an obstacle in its downward course, the growing part became so uniformly and symmetrically curved, that its appearance indicated not mere mechanical bending, but increased ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... in Rome, to all which Fausta too lent a greedy ear, her fine face sparkling with the intelligence which beamed out from every feature. It was easy to see how deep an interest she takes in matters to which her sex are usually so insensible. It is indescribable, the imperial pride and lofty spirit of independence which at times sat upon her brow and curled her lip. She seems to me made to command. She is indeed courteous and kind, but you not with difficulty see that she is bold, aspiring ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... carbuncle which will make us invisible, and with the King's dagger I can protect you from the enemy.' So when the soldiers landed they could see nothing, but the Princess touched them one after another with the dagger, and they fell insensible upon the sand, so that at last the Admiral, seeing that there was some enchantment, hastily gave orders for a retreat to be sounded, and got his men back into their ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... the manner which he has enjoined, they kept bad and profligate company. By this practice, all serious impressions (if they formerly had any) have been driven from their minds. Their hearts have become more and more hardened and insensible; till at length, lost to all prudent reflection, they have regarded neither the tender solicitations and tears of parents, relations, and friends, the faithful warnings of ministers, nor the checks and rebukes of their own consciences. And what has been the event? I need not ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson

... They could no longer invoke the aid of the Inquisition in oppressing and trampling on the people, whom their wantonness, and the wantonness of others like them, had brutalized. The neglect and oppression which had reduced a laboring man to a lepero had not made him insensible to the unequal laws which elevated above him a race of beings destitute of that manly courage which oftentimes gives plausibility to oppression. Now the lepero took delight in visiting upon the present occupants of this ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... from Cicero's villa at Tusculum in which the discussion is supposed to have taken place. The subjects treated are:—in Book i., the nature of death and the reasons for despising it; Book ii., the endurance of pain: Pain is not an evil; Book iii., wisdom makes a man insensible to sorrow; Book iv., wisdom banishes all mental disquietude; Book v., virtue is sufficient to secure happiness. The materials are drawn largely ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... of that glorious luminary; I raised one pious aspiration to the divine source of light and life; I was immediately stunned by the thunder of the fall, and my eyes were closed in darkness. How long I remained insensible I know not. My first recollections after this accident were of a bright light shining above me, of warmth and pressure in different parts of my body, and of the noise of the rushing cataract sounding in my ears. I seemed awakened by the light from a sound sleep, and endeavoured ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... to descend. I could hope nothing above the cassock of an abbe, and yet dreams of ambition and of glory fermented in my head, and quickened the beatings of my heart. Discontented with my obscurity, eager for fame, I thought of nothing but the means of acquiring it, and this idea made me insensible to all the pleasures and all the joys of life. The present was nothing to me; I existed only in the future; and that future lay before me robed in the most sombre colors. I was nearly thirty years old, and had done nothing. Then literary reputations ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... telegraphed that the President was so disappointed and dissatisfied that another week of inaction would result in another change of commanders. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xx. pt. ii. p. 118.] Rosecrans replied detailing his necessities, but taking a high tone and declaring himself insensible to threats of removal. The next day Halleck patiently but decidedly gave the reasons which made the demand for activity a reasonable one, adding the reminder that no one had doubted that Buell would eventually have succeeded, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... Clara kneeling beside her insensible grandfather, while two or three middle-aged ladies sat near the hearth, talking in undertones. Beulah put her arms tenderly around her friend ere she was aware of her presence, and the cry of blended woe and gladness with which Clara ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... the not unfrequent ill-humour of her husband with patience, the heart of Jacobi melted in tenderness towards her, and he did all that lay in his power to amuse and divert her thoughts, and even to anticipate her slightest wishes. She could not be insensible to all this—perhaps also it flattered her vanity to observe the power she had over this young man—perhaps even she might willingly deceive herself as to the nature of his sentiments, because she would not disturb the ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... convinced of the strength of the foundation upon which I stand; and even if I had doubted my own conclusions, I cannot forget the ability with which I was supported within these walls; nor can be insensible to the humane and enlightened philosophy by which, in contemplative life, this advancement of kindness has been recommended. I cannot, therefore, hastily abandon a duty which, from my success in life, I owe to my profession—which, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various

... German, though the almost entire loss of Old German poetry and the comparatively late date of Middle make the process less striking and more obscure, and the greater talent of the individual imitators of French interferes more with the process of insensible shaping and growth. German prosody, despite the charm of its lyric measures, has never acquired the perfect combination of freedom and order which we find in English, as may be seen by comparing the best ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... was not true that Anna was insensible to Nature. She did not like what are conventionally called beautiful landscapes: she could see no difference between them and other landscapes. But she loved the country whatever it might be like—just earth and air. Only she had no more idea of ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... reviewed Banks' army a short distance above Carrollton. The horse I rode was vicious and but little used, and on my return to New Orleans ran away and, shying at a locomotive in the street, fell, probably on me. I was rendered insensible, and when I regained consciousness I found myself in a hotel near by with several doctors attending me. My leg was swollen from the knee to the thigh, and the swelling, almost to the point of bursting, extended along the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... which moves with swiftness. Having ascended to the top of a mountain, one should not cast one's eyes on the surface of the earth.[151] Seeing a man, even though travelling on a car, afflicted and rendered insensible by pain, the man of intelligence journeys on a car as long as there is a car path.[152] The man of learning, when he sees the car path end, abandons his car for going on. Even thus proceeds the man of intelligence who is conversant with the ordinances respecting ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the arm is straight overhead, you should give yourself the suggestion that it is as rigid and unbending as a bar of steel. Following this, a suggestion is given that the hand is beginning to tingle and become numb. As soon as the numbness has spread through the entire hand, it will be insensible to pain. The hand is then placed against the part of the body where pain exists, and you will feel the numbness flowing from the hand to the affected area. This happens as a result of your suggestions ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers

... one morning, met with an accident—my machine skidded violently as I was descending a steep hill, with the result that I was pitched head first against a brick wall. The latter being considerably harder than my skull, concussion followed. Some villagers picked me up insensible, I was taken to the inn, and the nearest doctor—an uncertificated wretch—was summoned. He knew little of trepanning; besides, I was a foreigner, a German, and it did not matter. He bled me, it is true, and performed other of the ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... looked as if they would have been in their proper sphere fighting under a black flag, on the Spanish Main, in the good old days of the bucaneers. But hard and fierce as many of them looked, they were not wholly insensible to kindness. On the schooner Power of God, where there seemed to be more wild, cruel, piratical types than on any other vessel except, perhaps, St. James the Apostle, I noticed a sailor with a stern, hard, almost black ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... carries his portion about his person. Jose, who has amassed a tolerable quantity by working in his spare time, is constantly feeling to see whether his stock is safe. He weighs it two or three times a-day, to ascertain, I suppose, whether it exhausts itself by insensible perspiration, or other means, and invokes, by turns, every saint in the calendar—his patron-saint, Joseph, in particular—and all his old heathenish spirits, to keep his treasure safe. In accordance with a vow he made before he started ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks

... is accompanied by the following symptoms: headache, dizziness, sense of oppression, nausea, colored vision, and often the patient becomes insensible. The muscles are relaxed, face flushed, skin hot, pulse rapid, and the temperature rises. The breathing ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey

... salutation, when he pitched headlong, some six or eight feet, and struck his head against the sharp corner of an iron rail that defended one of the entrance aisles leading to the circle within the bar, inflicting a heavy contusion on his forehead, and rendering him insensible. I instantly leaped from my seat, took the prostrate sufferer in my arms, and found that he was in a state of utter stupor and insensibility. Looking around for aid, I had the good fortune to find that Col. James Munroe, of the New York delegation, had just ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... vigil; and yet there was something very stimulating in the vital responsibility which it involved. Hitherto I had been a mere spectator. Now I was to take part in the game. And the fresh excitement made me more than ever insensible to those considerations of conscience and of safety which were already as dead nerves ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... very disagreeable reflections, I sat by the window, insensible to the charms without, which had before been so fascinating, when I was suddenly aroused by the opening of the door. I looked around, and saw Don Pedro. 'Where's Donna ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... throat, another struck him on the forehead, and others smote him in the chest, belly, and even—I am shocked to say—in the private parts. When they thought the breath had left his body they flung him on to the hot tiled floor to see if he was still alive. Whether he was insensible, or merely pretended to be so, he certainly did not move, and lying there at full length, he made them think that he was actually dead. At length they carried him out as though he had been overcome by the heat and ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... wondered, to what beautiful hidden country. The breezes fanned their cheeks with delicate, fragrant breath; the birds sang overhead, or flew gaily about, adding harmony and color to the atmosphere. And yet, to Suzanna's horror the baby, apparently quite insensible to all the beauty and totally oblivious of the gratitude due the Eagle Man, soon fell fast asleep, engagingly sucking ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... hand shaking so that he could hardly hold the decanter. He was fast approaching the state of complete intoxication. Underwood made an attempt to interfere. Why should he care if the young fool made a sot of himself? The sooner he drank himself insensible the quicker he would get rid ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... tobogganed so furiously all morning; we had a delightful day, crowned by an incredible dinner - more courses than I have fingers on my hands. Your letter arrived duly at night, and I thank you for it as I should. You need not suppose I am at all insensible to my father's extraordinary kindness about this book; he is a brick; I vote for ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... should say that my age was forty-five and a trifle over; and that all my life I have been (as my comrades have often assured me) strangely insensible to the charms of women and indifferent to their good looks; and I tell this not because I am proud of it—for Heaven knows I am not—but that the reader may put no misconstruction, even a passing one, upon the rest of my story. I never for a moment stood in danger of ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... left alone for a moment on the climacteric day, who was found standing at her mirror combing her hair, and to-day she's as well as you or I. I had another who got out of bed, walked down a corridor, fell face downward and lay insensible at the crack of a doorsill with the rain blowing in on him under the door—and he got well. As to Fontenette, all his symptoms so far are good. Well—I'll ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable

... before the murderer succeeded in undoing the fastening, a crowd had collected with a policeman in its centre, and escape was out of the question. Only one shot had been fired, but at such close quarters that the bullet went through the body. John Forder was not dead, but lay on the grass insensible. He was carried into the house and the family physician summoned. The doctor sent for a specialist to assist him, and the two men consulted together. To the distracted woman they were able to give small comfort. The case at best was a doubtful one. There was some hope ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... put off his trousers and fell upon her and abated her maiden head. Then he rose off her and went to one of her women, by name Marjanah, and said, "Go in to thy lady and speak with her." So she went in to her mistress and found her lying on her back insensible, with the blood running down to the calves of her legs, whereupon she took a kerchief and wiped away the blood and lay by her that night. As soon as Almighty Allah brought the dawn, the handmaid Marjanah washed her mistress's hands and feet and brought ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... which alone at certain hours of torment the distracted mind finds God's face reflected. It preaches renunciation of all vain aversions and desires; but it repels sweet impulses that are not vain. By exalting apathy in regard to personal suffering, it becomes insensible to others' pain also. In the conviction that appeals for sympathy are avowals of unworthiness, it will have no part in the love of comrades, and it never discovered the truth that the strength and the compassion of the Divine are ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... spark of humanity, by far the most dreadful; and they behold that last stage of human wretchedness with deeper commiseration than any other. But the poor wretch who is in it laughs and sings, perhaps, and is altogether insensible to his own misery. The anguish which humanity feels, therefore, at the sight of such an object cannot be the reflection of any sentiment of the sufferer. The compassion of the spectator must arise altogether from the consideration of what he himself would feel if he was reduced to the same ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... the boat she tried to realize it and failed, tried to grasp what she knew to be the horror and pity of it, and failed. She was neither hard nor insensible, she ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... javelins on the terrified Bakwains with a dexterity which they alone can employ. Sebituane had given orders to his men to spare the sons of the chief; and one of them, meeting Sechele, put him in ward by giving him such a blow on the head with a club as to render him insensible. The usurper was put to death; and Sechele, reinstated in his chieftainship, felt much attached to Sebituane. The circumstances here noticed ultimately led me, as will be seen by-and-by, into the new, well-watered country to which this same Sebituane had preceded ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... unfortunately drowned. He had in all probability been struck about the head by the ring of the buoy, for although surrounded with the oars and the thwarts of the boat which floated near him, yet he seemed entirely to want the power of availing himself of such assistance, and appeared to be quite insensible, while Pool, the master of the Smeaton. called loudly to him; and before assistance could be got from the tender, he was carried away by the strength of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... The insensible fellow! Her sweet, pale, wondering face was so close to his, the warmth of her drooping frame was against his heart—and he bade her sit ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... that they had saved, not a full-grown man, except in the sense of his height, which was nearly an inch beyond Alister's. He was insensible, and I thought he was dead, so death-like was the pallor of his face in contrast with the dark curls of his head and the lashes of his closed eyes. We were dipping to leeward, his head rolled a little on the rough pillow that had been heaped to raise him, and his ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... me of more than you can tell. Let me see; your name is Adrian van Goorl—no, called Van Goorl; the lady you desire to win is Elsa Brant, the daughter of Hendrik Brant, a heretic and well-known goldsmith, who was recently executed at The Hague. She is a girl of much beauty, but one unnaturally insensible to the influence of love, and who does not at present recognise your worth. There are, also, unless I am mistaken, other important ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again; And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... horse—it was always said no one but Sir Arthur Falloden could ride it—took fright, bolted, dashed in among the trees, threw Sir Arthur, and made off. When Douglas came up he found his father on the ground, covered with blood, and insensible. There was no one anywhere near. The boy shouted—no one came. It was getting dark and pouring with rain—an awful January night—I remember it well! Douglas tried to lift his father on his own horse, ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... from insensible that at this extraordinary time of the devil coming down in great wrath upon us, there are too many tongues and hearts thereby ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... more beautiful for being covered with a verdant mantle from the top to the bottom? Is it either better or more beautiful for having no abrupt sides, difficult of ascent,—for rising and falling by almost insensible degrees? We think the contrary. The variety of scenery presented by mountains in their present state, is most beautiful. The abruptness of the sides of mountains contributes infinitely both to the beauty of ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... events, Mr. Ratcliffe, use our judgments according to our own consciences. I can only repeat now what I said at first. I am sorry to seem insensible to your expressions towards me, but I cannot do what you wish. Let us maintain our old relations if you will, but do not press ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... differentiates it, must be separately cognizable—so also the individual differs from the species by the addition of attributes, which must in like manner be separately cognizable, or the species will never be conceived independently of the individuals. A thought cannot proceed by insensible steps, nor can its material expression vary otherwise than by determinate and distinguishable differences. The distinction of species is thus a logical necessity. The addition of distinct attributes ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter

... so that an insensible gradation shall take place from a coarse cluster like the Pleiades down to a milky nebulosity like that in Orion, every intermediate step being represented. This tends to confirm the hypothesis that all are composed of stars more ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... sudden disappearance of all the forms of life and replacement of them by others, but that changes have gone on slowly and gradually, that one type has died out and another has taken its place, and that thus, by insensible degrees, one fauna has been replaced by another, are conclusions strengthened by constantly increasing evidence. So that within the whole of the immense period indicated by the fossiliferous stratified rocks, there is assuredly not the slightest proof of any break in ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... turned to the fly-leaf, and, having apparently satisfied himself, by the perusal of the name written thereon, that it really belonged to Mullins, handed it to him without a word. I fancied, however, from the stern expression of his mouth and a slight contraction of the brow, that he was not as insensible to their impertinence as he ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... Societies were formed, then field-preaching began, and then Whitefield, Charles Wesley, and others held that historic lovefeast in Fetter Lane when the Holy Spirit came so mightily on them that all were awed into silence, some sank down insensible, and on recovering they sang with one voice their Te Deum of ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... it be solid, liquid or gaseous, or any medium which can be acted upon by motion, and after being so acted upon, can exert motion, that body or medium may legitimately be included in the term Matter, although it may be absolutely invisible to the eyes, or insensible to the sense of touch, or taste, or smell. In the same work,[2] Tait states that in the physical universe there are but two classes of things, "Matter and Energy," and then goes on to give examples of both. He ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... saying that he only wanted to speak to him. Just as the Spaniard was on the point of reaching the boat, Luciano threw the balls: they struck him on the legs with such a jerk, as to throw him down and to render him for some time insensible. The man, after Luciano had had his talk, was allowed to escape. He told us that his legs were marked by great weals, where the thong had wound round, as if he had been flogged with a whip. In the middle ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... water at Hollins was clearer than glass, and if you poured a goblet of it beady bubbles clung to the sides), there was no view except up street and down street, and the noise was perpetual. A Londoner would take these inconveniences as a matter of course and be insensible to them, but to me they were so unpleasant that I suffered from nostalgia of ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... and Janet were here to see. I think the table would look a good deal better if my mother was at the head of it. And the cost?—oh, I am only following out her instructions. She would not have people think that I was insensible to the kindness that has been shown me; and then we cannot ask all those good friends up to Castle Dare; it is an out-of-the-way place, and there are no flowers ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... It would have brought foreign recognition to the Rebels, and thrown Maryland certainly, and probably Kentucky, into the scale against us. So long as we held Washington, we had on our side the two powerful sentiments of permanence and tradition, some insensible portions of which the Rebels were winning from us with every day of repose allowed them by General McClellan. It was a clear sense of this that both excited and justified the impatience of the people, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... what do you think? He did die! He got weaker and weaker. His teeth were clenched, and he refused to take whiskey, although the boys forced some down his throat. In a little while he became insensible, and in less than ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory

... he was not insensible to the merits of another and more peremptory style of rhetoric,—"I pray you," said he to Walsingham, "let us hear some arguments from my Lord Harry out of her Majesty's navy now and then. I think they will do ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... they were such as I suppose, were reasonable enough according to the present code of commercial morality. But, strange to say, the auditory, insensible to the delight with which the public would view the splendid architectural improvements—with taste too grovelling to appreciate the glories of plate-glass shop-fronts and brass scroll work—too selfish to rejoice, for its own sake, in the beauty of arabesques and chandeliers, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... at a table in the headquarters of the political police, a thumbscrew on one hand and pen in the other, while before him was a confession which would implicate Jose Rizal in the Katipunan uprising. The paper remained unsigned, though Paciano was hung up by the elbows till he was insensible, and then cut down that the fall might revive him. Three days of this maltreatment made him so ill that there was no possibility of his signing anything, and ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... be asserted that Jesus was insensible, or altogether indifferent, to the temptations to popularity and power to which He was exposed; if so, His example is of no practical utility to us. He did not feel as we feel, and we can gather no instruction, and no motives from His history or experience. ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King

... Creed, must be as often repeated in our Ears, as our Religious one, before we will take care to understand, or shew we believe it by our Practice? Where we are so notoriously Dull, or so artificially Insensible, that we must be told our true Interest a thousand Times over, before we'll regard it, or where those who know our true Interest best, will Sacrifice it either to their Vanity, Ease, Pleasure or Ambition, or at least to their giddy, ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous

... contributed two fat deer and Clinch cooked them. By ten o'clock that morning many of the men were growing noise; some were already drunk by noon. Shortly after midday dinner the first fight started — extinguished only after Clinch had beaten several of the backwoods aristocracy insensible. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... since grief to her is death to me—Ah!" And nature, resenting the poor girl's struggle for unnatural composure, suddenly gave way, and she sank from her chair and lay insensible, with the letter in her hand and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... his leg. Westover saw that he had on long India-rubber boots, which came up to his knees, and he gave a wayward thought to the misery they would be on an August day to another man; but Whitwell was probably insensible to any discomfort from them. "When a man's mindin' his own business any government's good, I guess. But I should like to prowl round some them places where they had the worst scenes of the Revolution, Ever been in the Place de ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Turkey awakened a lively sympathy for those who were exposed to the desolation of war, we can not but anticipate that the result will prove favorable to the cause of civilization and to the progress of human happiness. The treaty of peace between these powers having been ratified, we can not be insensible to the great benefit to be derived by the commerce of the United States from unlocking the navigation of the Black Sea, a free passage into which is secured to all merchant vessels bound to ports of Russia under a flag at peace with the Porte. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... returning somewhat pensively to Bachelors' Hall, proceeded leisurely to make the necessary arrangements for departure. As the time drew on, however, a perpetual flush on his countenance, and an unusual brilliancy about his eye, showed that he was not quite insensible to the pleasures of a change, and relished the idea more than he got credit for. The Indian who had brought the letter was ordered to hold himself in readiness to retrace his steps, and conduct the young men through the woods to Norway House, where they were to await further ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... conscience, and that the minister was one—here he was painfully overcome—dear to him as a son, and to whose many labours and singular graces he could bear full testimony, the Rev. John Carmichael, of Drumtochty. The Presbytery was slow and pedantic, but was not insensible to a spiritual situation, and there was a murmur of sympathy when the Rabbi sat down—much exhausted, and never having allowed himself to look ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... moans and agonizing expressions of despair, mingled with shouts of wild laughter and mad thanksgiving. "Pardon, pardon!" "O Jesus, save me!" "O Saviour of sinners!" "O God, have mercy upon me!" "O my heart, my heart!" Some threw themselves on the ground, stiff and motionless and insensible as dead men. Others stood over the stricken people and prayed for their relief from the power of Satan. Others fell into convulsions, and yet others, with wild and staring eyes, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... was wet to the skin. The clothes marked 'Mercy Merrick' were the clothes lent to me by Mercy Merrick herself while my own things were drying. I was struck by the shell in those clothes. I was carried away insensible in those clothes after the operation had been performed ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins



Words linked to "Insensible" :   unconscious, numb, incognizant, indiscernible, unaffected, insensitive, undetectable, asleep, benumbed, anaesthetic, sensible, senseless, insensibility, anesthetic, unperceivable, imperceptible



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