"Lazy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dissonance of the beery German roisterers, the squalling of children, and all the sights and noises characteristic of the beer-cellar. One of our composer's companions had a volume of poems, which Schubert looked at in a lazy way, laughing and drinking the while. Singling out some verses, he said: "I have a pretty melody in my head for these lines, if I could only get a piece of ruled paper." Some staves were drawn on the back of a bill-of-fare, and here, amid all the ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... battens, the rollers preventing friction, and the battens keeping the luff fixed to the after centre line of the mast—without this ingenious arrangement the huge mast would, if on a wind, becalm at least three feet of the sail—three lazy-jacks are fitted to support the huge mass of canvas ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the feeling of hatred and dislike, which, during the few recent years he had ordinarily fostered towards Pao-y. And after a long pause, "Her Majesty," he observed, "bade you day after day ramble about outside to disport yourself, with the result that you gradually became remiss and lazy; but now her desire is that we should keep you under strict control, and that in prosecuting your studies in the company of your cousins in the garden, you should carefully exert your brains to learn; so that if you don't again attend to your duties, and mind your regular tasks, you had ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Orrido of Traffiume and Cannobio Willersley had developed his first blister. And partly because of that and partly because there was a bag at the station that gave us the refreshment of clean linen and partly because of the lazy lower air into which we had come, we decided upon three or four days' sojourn in the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... in fact, that he "did it" better than I did); and because I had worked myself up to a pitch of affability and generosity, I asked him to come and see me at such time as he should be free. And because, also, I was indifferent and lazy and didn't want to be seriously bothered with him, instead of asking him to lunch or dine with me, I said I was generally free ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... little girls with great jugs of porter; when charity-boys walk the streets, bearing brown dishes of smoking shoulders of mutton and baked 'taturs; when Sheeny and Moses are seen smoking their pipes before their lazy shutters in Seven Dials; when a crowd of smiling persons in clean outlandish dresses, in monstrous bonnets and flaring printed gowns, or in crumpled glossy coats and silks that bear the creases ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have come in from work, and will note freshly one of the best odours I have had to-day. As I was working in the corn, a lazy breeze blew across the meadows from the west, and after loitering a moment among the blackberry bushes sought me out where I was busiest. Do you know the scent of the blackberry? Almost all the year round it is a treasure-house of odours, even when the leaves first come out; ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... times had I steamed past Melun in the Dijon express, ever eyeing the place wistfully, ever too hurried, perhaps too lazy, to make a halt. Not until September last did I carry out a long cherished intention. It is unpardonable to pass and re-pass any French town without alighting for ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... by the Trade Union leaders. The industrial world was seething with discontent. The Suffragettes in London and the Carsonites in Ireland had shown us how much could be done by appeals to physical force in a lazy-minded community; and hints of industrial revolution, with great organised strikes, which were going to tie up the transport industry of the country were in the air. And then, when the war came, the Labour leaders said, "No strikes until the war is ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... weave the fine flax that grew wild in that island. They tried, but could make no cloth so fine and soft as that made by the Maoris out of very much the same sort of plant. A ship was sent to try and persuade some Maoris to come over and teach the art. The captain of the ship, being lazy or impatient, did not trouble to persuade; he seized two Maoris and carried them off. They were kept for six months at Norfolk Island, but Captain King treated them very well, and sent them back with ten sows, two boars, a supply of maize-seed and other good things to pay ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... go; it is so late that I would rather wait for dinner. I heard the teacups, but I was too lazy to move, and to judge from the voices, the room ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... treatment of niggers," he said, curtly, "I never prevaricate, as some masters do, in that respect. I whip my niggers when they want it! If they are saucy, or careless, or lazy, I have 'em flogged. About twice a year every nigger has to be punished. If they ain't roped over twice a year, they take on airs and want to be gentlemen. A nigger is bound by no sentiment of duty or affection. You must keep him in trim ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... perfect darling, Sabine," she declared, "and will do splendidly to take walks with us and make the fourth. He is so lazy and English and phlegmatic—I'd like to make him crazy with love—but he looked at you, you little witch, not at ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... suddenly broke in the old mere. "Dieu de Dieu! that reminds me. I must go, my children, I must go. Loisette is waiting; la pauvre enfant—perhaps suffering too—how do I know? And here am I, playing, like a lazy clout! Did you know she had had un nini this morning? The little angel came at dawn. That's a good sign! And what news for Auguste! He was out last night—fishing; she was at her washing when he left her. Tiens, there they are, looking for ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... dozing in the sun. He was impudent when I spoke to him, but when I told him my name and threatened him with you, he scuffled to his feet and sauntered off, and I thought that we should see no more of him, but soon we heard the lazy strokes of his axe. And shortly afterward we had a fire. Louise was in one of her silent moods, but Pennington talked as much as his cough would permit him. He said that it was all his fault. 'I told her,' said he, 'that unless she married me I would die blaspheming the name of God, and that ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... it to her. She suddenly craned her neck and listened with a grave face, and her expression struck Yergunov as cold and cunning; he thought of his horse, and now easily pushed her aside and ran out into the yard. In the shed a sleepy pig was grunting with lazy regularity and a cow was knocking her horn. Yergunov lighted a match and saw the pig, and the cow, and the dogs, which rushed at him on all sides at seeing the light, but there was no trace of the horse. Shouting and ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... take the street to right or to left, after leaving the station, etc. But there is a piquancy in this uncertainty as compared with the odious guidance of the laquais de place. I loathe the tribe. Here was to be clearly noted the languid, lazy French town where nothing seemed to be doing, but everyone appeared to be comfortable—'the fat, contented, stubble goose'—another type of town altogether from your thriving Lilles ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... while the heavy reduced canvas still flapped with a lazy swag against the masts; but suddenly it was filled by a violent gust; and the Beagle was hurried swiftly onwards, careering over the waves like the misty spectre in a storm. Two hours after (six P.M.) the barometer had ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... throwing all his energy into one most complicated kick, as he at length permitted Mr. Stiggins to withdraw his head from the trough, 'send any vun o' them lazy shepherds here, and I'll pound him to a jelly first, and drownd him artervards! Sammy, help me in, and fill me a small glass of brandy. I'm out o' ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... of worthless men folks was just killing themselves laughing and making fun of poor Uncle Tony, sitting right in his very own chairs and warming their lazy feet at his comfortable fire. Uncle Tony happened to be out and those loafers just started in and what they said about that kind old man made my blood boil. They were all mean enough, with Seth egging them on every ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... subject. That there are woman's wrongs that the law-makers should right, I believe. For instance, I think married women should hold property independently; that they should be able to save and enjoy the fruits of their own industry; and that they should not be absolutely in the power of lazy, dissipated or worthless husbands. But I cannot see clearly how the possession of the ballot would help women in the reform indicated. If, however, a majority of the women of Ohio should signify ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... unprofitable gain, And gainful loss; such steps it doth contain, As who descend, may boast their fortune best; Who most ascend, most fall: a wearied rest, And resting trouble, glorious disgrace; A duskish and obscure illustriousness; Unfaithful loyalty, and cozening faith, That nimble fury, lazy reason hath: A prison, whose wide ways do all receive, Whose narrow paths a hard retiring leave: A steep descent, by which we slide with ease, But find no hold our crawling steps to raise: Within confusion, turbulence, annoy Are mix'd; undoubted woe, and doubtful joy: Vulcano, where the ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... which we scatter sentences of imprisonment, torture in the solitary cell and on the plank bed, and flogging, on moral invalids and energetic rebels, is as nothing compared to the stupid levity with which we tolerate poverty as if it were either a wholesome tonic for lazy people or else a virtue to be embraced as St Francis embraced it. If a man is indolent, let him be poor. If he is drunken, let him be poor. If he is not a gentleman, let him be poor. If he is addicted to the fine arts or to pure science instead of to trade and finance, let him be ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... long time in telling it ... And then I'm too lazy ... I got in here out of love; I got mixed up with a certain young man and went into a revolution with him. For we always act so, we women: where the dearie is looking, there we also look; what the dearie sees, that we also see ... I didn't believe ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... many; some few, as thus:— To see the sun to bed, and to arise, Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes, Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him, With all his fires and travelling glories round him. Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest, Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast, And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep Admiring silence, while those lovers ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... boy ups and leaves me and comes to you. It isn't fair, and I'm not getting the worth of the money I paid. For though he is a lazy chap I managed to get some ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope
... shut in the biscuit box and found it spread out of mornings. My mistress slept in the room next me with the door open, and am I to think that William Hodges, or Katey, crippled with rheumatism, or that lazy old John came down and set them out? I've taken a hasty run down to that garden (we called it the children's garden, after a while) because she took an idea, and seen the swing just dying down, and not a breath stirring. That's ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... have seen me in the streets of Sturatzberg. I know the city well, and have nothing to hide. I have interests in this country, let us say, in timber; it is the answer I give when I am questioned, for no one respects a lazy man. A voluntary exile from my country, I have no quarrel with France, nor she with me. In these days men are become ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... must be alert, energetic, in your thought. Then doubt: you must have decision of will, must be able to make up your mind. Then carelessness: this is one of the greatest difficulties with beginners; they read a thing carelessly, they are inaccurate. Sloth: a lazy man cannot be a Yogi; one who is inert, who lacks the power and the will to exert himself; how shall he make the desperate exertions wanted along this line? The next, worldly-mindedness, is obviously an obstacle. ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... of its utopic vision. Wealth was the first and absolute necessity: Socialism without money is a nightmare. To live well man must be able to buy some leisure, finery, and elbow-room. Anything is better than a poverty-stricken communism in which no one can afford to be lazy or unpractical. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... tell me she's got a brother to support. He's too young or too lazy to work, or a cripple or something. She tried giving singing lessons, but she couldn't get any pupils, and now she supports herself and ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... the point of the peninsula could be seen sweeping its rays in long, regular flashes across the sea. By this time those ships that had furthest to go were ahead of us to the right and left. Just as the inky darkness was beginning to be dispelled there was a change in these lazy flashes. We were detected. At once they changed their long, comprehensive sweeps into sharp jerks from one ship to another as each hove into the rays. The searchlight soon went out, while hurried messages ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... Joe;" and he cried bitterly, and said, "It has not been always so." "No," said Joe; "but when thou hadn't no work, how hast thou not shifted?" "I'll tell thee, Joe, as well as I can, but it was bad enough; thou knowest when I got married I had work plenty, and thou knows I was not lazy." "No, that thou wert not." "And we had a good furnished house, and Mary need not go to work. I could work for the two of us; but now the world is upside down. Mary has to work and I have to stop at ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... felt for a moment that he was such a king as that cat had no business to look at; and he might, perhaps, have politely intimated something of the kind, had not the enveloped offender made a slight and lazy turn which, burying his chin still deeper in his breast, altogether concealed his eyes, and so closed the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... all the time—but he would not believe me. Do go and see for her, Mr. Morland, said I—but all in vain—he would not stir an inch. Was not it so, Mr. Morland? But you men are all so immoderately lazy! I have been scolding him to such a degree, my dear Catherine, you would be quite amazed. You know I never stand upon ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the store to the office. The door stood open, and the little place was empty except for the cat, which cast a lazy glance at him from under a half-closed lid, stretched, displaying his claws, and began to purr loudly. Eddy went over to the cat and took him up in his arms and carried him out into the main store, where William Price stood behind the counter. He ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... inhabit the land in spirit and not seldom in a spectral way seem to regain their old dominion. Often towards evening, as I rode through the desolate country, I thought I saw an half-naked Moor ploughing his field, urging the lazy oxen with a long goad. Often the Spaniard on his horse vanished, and I saw a Muslim knight riding in pride and glory, his velvet cloak bespattered with the gold initial of his lady, and her favour fluttering from his lance. Once near Granada, standing on a hill, I watched the blood-red ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... in what you say, master;" both Ch'ien Ch'i and Li Kuei chimed in laughingly; "but pretend you're lazy and don't get down. In the event of our coming across Mr. Lai Ta and our number two Mr. Lin, they're sure, rather awkward though it be for them to say anything to their master, to tender you one or two words of advice, but throw the whole of the blame upon us. You can also tell them ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Jack in office whom one can see with his smooth chin and blubber lips, starting up from his lazy snooze in the shade and delivering his orders more peremptorily than any Dogberry. These epicenes are as curious and exceptional in character as in external conformation. Disconnected, after a fashion, with humanity, they are brave, fierce and capable ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... had made their combs in a lofty oak. Some lazy Drones asserted that these belonged to them. The cause was brought into court, the Wasp {sitting as} judge; who, being perfectly acquainted with either race, proposed to the two parties these terms: "Your shape is ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... part of my period of observation Tiny was cage-mate of Scotty, the most calm and apparently lazy of all the monkeys. Tiny delighted in teasing Scotty, and her varied modes of mildly tormenting him and of stirring him to pursuit or to retaliation were as interesting as they were amusing. Her most common trick was to steal up behind him and pull the hair of his back, ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... other light than that which it derived from a dim and dirt-clogged lamp, whose lazy wick, being still further obscured by a dark shade, cast its feeble rays over a very little space, and left all beyond in heavy shadow. This lamp the money-lender had drawn so close to him, that there was only room between it and himself for the book over which he bent; ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... passionate and ungovernable temper. Little put him in a rage, but it was soon over, and then an equally violent reaction set in, and he was always anxious to beg forgiveness and make friends again. Alner was of lazy good temper and had a large sense of humour. His interests were wholly in the playground. He had no sympathy with Yan's Indian tastes—"Indians in nasty, shabby clothes. Bah! ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Black Beard, take your Spanish sombrero and be ready to carry me in your arms, out of reach of stumbling, for I am lazy." ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... should do well, he did not doubt, by and by, but that a Virginia driver generally had to be whipped a few times himself before he could be taught to do justice to the slaves under his charge. They were not equal to those raised in North Carolina, for keeping the lazy hell-hounds, as he called ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... doors, are enough to account for this. She is constantly speaking in terms of praise of those who keep up even when they do feel a little out of sorts, and says she always does. In the evening, after baby gets to sleep, I feel fit for nothing but to lie on the sofa, dozing; but she sees in this only a lazy habit, which ought not to be tolerated, and is constantly devising ways to rouse and set me at work. If I had more leisure for reading, meditation and prayer, I might still be happy. But all the morning, I must have baby till he takes his nap, and as soon as he gets to sleep I must put ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... part of the idea. The other was to name my boys after those two men. It may be only fancy, but I think names have an influence, you know. A father's fancy—let it go at that! I'd like somehow to have one of my boys an artist, and watch him grow. I used to dream about the future on that lazy voyage to Genoa. Every man does ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... poop, to which he naturally directed his steps, he found Williams there, fuming at the protracted absence of the boats, which could clearly be seen, with their noses hauled up on the sandy beach, and the two boat-keepers sitting in lazy attitudes on their gunwales, quietly smoking. That the remainder of the crews were not delayed by assisting the marooned passengers to "shake down" was evidenced by the fact that the latter could be seen grouped together on a little grassy ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... she exclaimed. "Am I to have every lazy jade in London prying and eavesdropping? ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... The Descent of the Principle of Production for Use. The Power Industry as an Economic Factor. Mastering Labor Problems. (Conditions) Autonomous Co-operation. Aims of Labor. Right to be Lazy and the Right to a Job. Qualification of Men. The Working Day. Fatigue. UNIVERSAL LABOR (Corresponding exactly to Time-binding—Author). The Position of an Engineer. Mastering Labor Problems. Compensation. ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... may always be able to reach the tops of mountains, and may I never be clumsy! I ask this from thee, Sunflower-Root. Thou art the greatest of all in mystery." To omit this prayer would make the eater lazy and cause him to sleep long in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... about to be periled; a victory about to be achieved, which might fix the fate of Europe; or perhaps losses to be sustained which might cover the future generation with clouds; and all this is on the point of being done. No lazy interval to chill expectancy; within the day, within the hour, nay, within the next five hundred yards, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... and ginger in, before the fire here just put them in the bar, will ye? for well be having the jooge, and the Major, and Mr. Jones down the night, without reckoning Benjamin Poomp, and the lawyers; so yell be fixing the room tidy; and put both flip irons in the coals; and tell Jude, the lazy black baste, that if shes no be cleaning up the kitchen Ill turn her out of the house, and she may live wid the jontlemen that kape the Coffee house, good luck to em. Och! sargeant, sure its a great privilege to go to a mateing where a body can ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... yawned and gave a lazy stretch—"that's all to the good. I'm glad. I have an impression that the little Canadian girl is a pretty good judge of character, for all she looks so young ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... hours the sea retreated, and great spaces were left uncovered everywhere, as if the Channel was slowly drying up; then with the same lazy slowness, the waters rose again, and continued their everlasting coming and going, without any heed ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... He was a great admirer of Miss Lindy Putnam, because, as he said, she was so pretty and accomplished. But after long debate one evening at the grocery store, it had been decided without a dissenting vote that "the minister's son was a lazy 'good-for-nothing', and that he wanted the money more than he did the gal." The village schoolhouse stood a short distance eastward from the church. The teacher, Miss Seraphina Cotton, a maiden lady of uncertain age, who boasted that the city of Cottonton was named after her grandfather, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... itself in this most lazy country," remarked Daphne. "Dresses make themselves, boots repair themselves, food eats itself. There's just ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... measure nine centimetres (3 1/2 inches.—Translator's Note.) a minute as the average distance covered. But there are more or less lengthy halts; the pace slackens at times, especially when the temperature falls. At ten o'clock in the evening the walk is little more than a lazy swaying of the body. I foresee an early halt, in consequence of the cold, of fatigue ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... such a lazy-bones as you evidently thought me," she says. "But I must hurry now, indeed. All the world is abed, I suppose; and if Kit wakes and finds me not yet come, ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... destroy the Pleasure Cities. But the Pleasure Cities are the excretory organs of the State, attractive places that year after year draw together all that is weak and vicious, all that is lascivious and lazy, all the easy roguery of the world, to a graceful destruction. They go there, they have their time, they die childless, all the pretty silly lascivious women die childless, and mankind is the better. ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... a cane to get one foot before another on the sloping road and he was outdoing a horse, that he drove with his neck and shoulders, while with his hands he guided the little plow straight up toward the sky. I am not envious of such youth. I never had it. I was always lazy. But it is a real joy for me to be near such youth—just to know that such things can be done—by angels from the Azores. You remember Anne's story, "In future it is prohibited to refer to our beloved Allies ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... everything, forgets nothing, and there is never a weakness in a man but he is on to it. He made up his mind that those secret instructions were passing and set about to find how they passed and what they were. He was too lazy to begin at the beginning, so he began at the end. He called in person, as a commercial traveller, at the suspected office of destination, and in the short time available ascertained that the door-keeper who turned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... speak the truth, would scarcely have been received elsewhere, but many also of a higher set, and great store of gamblers. The pleasures of all kinds of games, and the singular beauty of the place, where a thousand caleches were always ready to whirl even the most lazy ladies through the walks, soft music and good cheer, made it a palace ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... he plagued very divertingly, once frightening him clean out of his house by fixing little lighted candles to the backs of beetles and steering them into Tafi's bedroom at night. Tafi was terrified, but on being told by Buffalmacco (who was a lazy rascal) that these devils were merely showing their objection to early rising, he became calm again, and agreed to lie in bed to a reasonable hour. Cupidity, however, conquering, he again ordered his pupil to be up betimes, when the beetles again re-appeared and continued to ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... the women recalled their dislike of the lazy, pink-and-white creature whom they had often seen loitering on the streets or lying day after day in a hammock reading "domestic novels." The young girls drew together and conveyed the news in whispers. It seemed to overturn the whole social world so far as they knew it, and some ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... no complaints, but he said that he had plenty to eat and drink. I inquired of him as to especially needy persons. He flew into a rage, and said plainly that there were no needy people, except drunkards and lazy men; but, on learning my object, he asked me for a five-kopek piece to buy a drink, and ran off to the tavern. I too entered the tavern to see Ivan Fedotitch, and commission him to distribute the money which I had left. The tavern was full; gayly- dressed, intoxicated girls ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... soft, lazy voice, and that disagreeable half smile lurked about the corners of his ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... company above yourself Know their real value, and how much they are generally overrated Knowledge is like power in this respect Knowledge of a scholar with the manners of a courtier Laughing, I must particularly warn you against it Lazy mind, and the trifling, frivolous mind Let me see more of you in your letters Little minds mistake little objects for great ones Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob Low buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter Low company, most falsely and ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... Lieutenant Bray who made inquiries at general headquarters and found, after considerable trouble, that Graydon Bansemer's company was in the north, subject to the requirements of Young, chief of scouts. Irksome were the lazy summer months for Jane. She tired of the attentions of men; she sickened with longing and anxiety. Day after day she prayed that the troops in the north might be relieved; she watched for the order that would call for their return from the wet lands above. Sickness ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Reasoning by generalization rises greatly in certainty, however, whenever you can show the workings of cause and effect. If a college receives every year from a certain school a number of boys who are slack and lazy students, the dean of that college may come to generalize and expect most of the boys from that school to be poor timber. If, however, he finds that the master of the school will take and keep any boy who lives in the town, he is able to argue from this as a cause to the conclusion ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... stood bewildered in the middle of the floor with a dish of potatoes in her hand, waiting to hear her father say that the extra money should be hers; but he merely asked if dinner were ready, and why she moved so slowly; guessed that sitting up so late made her lazy. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... greater number because they are out of work, and do not know how else they are to live. These are the most contented, because they do not expect much, and find themselves, if they are steady, pretty comfortable, well fed, and well clothed. The worst off are lazy fellows, who join, expecting to have an easy, idle life, with little to do. Besides drilling and learning the use of his weapons and the various movements to be performed to get him into a soldier-like shape, with parades and inspections, and field-days, ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... his manner, by showing him in love. No task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of another. Shakespeare knew what the queen, if the story be true, seems not to have known, that by any real passion of tenderness, the selfish craft, the careless jollity, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff must have suffered so much abatement, that little of his former cast would have remained. Falstaff could not love, but by ceasing to be Falstaff. He could only counterfeit love, and his professions could be prompted, not by the hope of pleasure, but of money. Thus the poet ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... he said. He took his former seat, but now laid on the heap of rejected MSS., not the silken cylinder he had so daintily poised there before, but a gray fedora that fell carelessly over in lazy curves and hollows. "I wish to modify by adding the effect of further observation and adjusting it to my first conclusions. Since I saw you I have been back to Boston; in fact, I have ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... call us donkeys stupid and lazy and slow, and they praise the horse for being spirited and lively; and so the horses get corn and hay and everything that is good, and we get nothing but grass. But I intend to be lively and spirited and ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... the nations of Christendom had for ages upon ages been sunk in a lazy doze of ignorance and superstition. But, when tidings of the great discovery reached their drowsy ears, they were roused in a marvellous manner; and many of the richest and most powerful forthwith determined to secure, each to itself, a portion of ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... England. Could the fairest fancies of that congeries of minds be embodied and exhibited, we should see green meadows sparkling with morning dew,—silver-slippered rivulets skipping into musical abysses,—quiet pasture-lands shimmering so sleepily in the sun that the lazy flocks and herds forget to graze, and lie winking and ruminating under the trees,—and yellow fields of grain, along the hill-sides, billowy in the breeze, and bending before the shadows of the clouds that sail above them. And mingling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... and the cricket dwelling on the same theme our forefathers heard and gave no heed to, a thousand years ago. Then old Phoebe woke to wonder, for a blank moment, what had happened that she should be sitting there alone, with the lazy flicker of a charred faggot helping out a dim, industrious rushlight in a shade. But only till she saw that she was not alone. It all came back then. The figure on the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... minute, RPM. [result of rotation] centrifugal force; surge; vertigo, dizzy round; coriolus force. [things that go around] carousel, merry-go-round; Ferris wheel; top, dreidel^, teetotum; gyroscope; turntable, lazy suzan; screw, whirligig, rollingstone^, water wheel, windmill; wheel, pulley wheel, roulette wheel, potter's wheel, pinwheel, gear; roller; flywheel; jack; caster; centrifuge, ultracentrifuge, bench centrifuge, refrigerated centrifuge, gas centrifuge, microfuge; drill, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... another hypocritically weeps at the funeral of one whose death at heart he rejoices for; here a gluttonous cormorant, whatever he can scrape up, thrusts all into his guts to pacify the cryings of a hungry stomach; there a lazy wretch sits yawning and stretching, and thinks nothing so desirable as sleep and idleness; some are extremely industrious in other men's business, and sottishly neglectful of their own; some think themselves rich because their credit is great, though ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... crops, and to the extreme east an undulating range of dim, blue, shadowy hills. Facing a spectator, as he stood with his back to the ruined gateway, was the town of Crossbourne, with its rougher features softened down by the two miles of distance; its tall chimneys giving forth lazy curls of smoke, as though pausing to rest after the ceaseless labours of a vigorous working week. The noble railway viaduct, spanning the wide valley, was rendered doubly picturesque by its nearest neighbours of houses being hidden on one side by a projecting hill; while the greater ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... Chapeau. "I wish you could see all the bullocks and the wine at Durbelliere; they'll have rations like fighting-cocks. I only pray that too much good living make them not lazy." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... different countries; and in this manner procuring its citizens commodious settlements. This provided for the necessities of the poor, who, equally with the rich, are members of the state: and it disburdened Carthage of multitudes of lazy, indolent people, who were its disgrace, and often proved dangerous to it: it prevented commotions and insurrections, by thus removing such persons as commonly occasion them; and who being ever ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... offspring of the ill-sorted match, his brother, an openhearted sailor, who is hindered by the artifices of Kathrin from gaining access to the house, and lastly, the "fair nymph Dissipation," with whom Syr Martyn seeks refuge from his unpleasant recollections, and who conspires with "the lazy fiend, Self-Imposition," to conduct him to the "dreary cave of Discontent," where the poet leaves him, and "the reverend wizard" (for aught we hear to the contrary) in his company. Mean and familiar incidents and characters do not sort well with allegory, which requires beings that are themselves ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... enterprise the hopeful editor found himself left very much in the lurch. 'Lord help me, or I perish' he wrote ruefully to Koerner, on December 29; 'Goethe does not wish to print his 'Elegies' in the first number, Herder also prefers to wait, Fichte is busy with his lectures, Garve is sick, Engel lazy and the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... you know about boys!" laughed the farmer. "I treated him as well as he needed to be treated. Boys are all lazy. They'd rather play than work. And you'll find out that Tom Vine has run away from you. He ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... the afternoon on which they were to set out for the first time after the herring. All Erisaig came out to see; and Rob was a proud lad as he stepped on board (with the lazy indifference of the trained fisherman very well imitated) and took his seat as stroke oar. The afternoon was lovely; there was not a breath of wind; the setting sun shone over the bay; and the Mary of Argyle went away across the shining waters with the long white oars dipping ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... indiscriminate employment by labor agents and the dearth of labor requiring the acceptance of almost all sorts of men, some disorderly and worthless Negroes have been brought into the North. On the whole, however, these migrants are not lazy, shiftless and desperate as some predicted that they would be. They generally attend church, save their money and send a part of their savings regularly to their families. They do not belong to ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... Zouaves love wine; it is true; but they are rarely seen intoxicated; they seek the pleasures of conviviality, not the imbrutement of drunkenness. These regiments count in their ranks officers, who, ennuied by a lazy life, have taken up the musket and the chechia,—under-officers, who, having already served, brave, even rash, seek to win their epaulettes anew in this hard service, and gain either a glorious position or a glorious death,—old officers of the garde mobile,—broad-shouldered marines, who have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... him: "Art thou dainty, alien? Wouldst thou have flesh? Well, give me thy bow and an arrow or two, since thou art lazy- sick, and I will get thee a coney or a hare, or a quail maybe. Ah, I forgot; thou art dainty, and wilt not eat flesh as I do, blood and all together, but must needs half burn it in the fire, or mar it with hot water; as they say my Lady does: or as the Wretch, the Thing does; I know that, for ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... were favoured by exceptional weather; a moderate breeze from the north-east and a long, lazy swell combining to make our ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Brer Fox come 'long all rig out, en ax Brer Rabbit fer ter go huntin' wid 'im, but Brer Rabbit, he sorter feel lazy, en he tell Brer Fox dat he got some udder fish fer ter fry. Brer Fox feel mighty sorry, he did, but he say he bleeve he try his han' enny how, en off he put. He wuz gone all day, en he had a monstus streak er luck, Brer Fox did, ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... be expected that Mrs. Ladybug should have little patience with folk that seemed lazy. She thought that Freddie Firefly wasted too much of his time dancing in the meadow at night. She considered Buster Bumblebee, the Queen's son, to be a useless idler, dressed in his black velvet and gold. Having heard that Daddy Longlegs was a harvestman, she urged him to go to work ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug • Arthur Scott Bailey
... How it rains! I'll not turn out to-night; I'm too sleepy to read and too lazy to write; So I'll watch the blue rings, as they eddy and twirl, And in gossamer wreathings coquettishly curl. In the stillness of night and the sparseness of chimes There's a fleetness in fancy, a frolic in rhymes; There's a world of ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... the continent. Nobody seemed to want to stay in Santa Fe, except the aforesaid less than five thousand inhabitants, who were able to endure the place because they had never seen any other, and who had become a part of its gray, dirty, lazy lifelessness and despondency. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... marvel of all, we have Mr. Pickwick, who would not get down, or could not get down to pick up his whip, getting down to help Mr. Winkle on to his horse! Thus, on the two occasions, the useless or lazy Tupman ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... which make the starting-point of my remarks, seem to suggest that there were two reasons for their acquiescence in the domination of a foreign power on a bit of their soil. They had not realised that Ramoth was theirs, and they were too lazy and cowardly to go and take it. Ignorance of the fulness of the gift, and slothful timidity in daring everything in the effort to make it ours, explain a great deal of the present condition of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... daily entertains me with heroic tales of diving and floating, till I tell them they will become enamoured of some "lady of honour who lives in the sea," grow fishes' tails, and come home no more. And really, as the time wanes, I feel that such a coast is Elysium—above all, the boating. The lazy charm, the fresh purity of air, the sights and sounds, the soft summer wave when one holds one's hand over the tide, the excitement of sea-weed catching, and the nonsense we all talk, are so delicious and such new sensations, (except the nonsense, which loses by your absence, O learned doctor!) ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mammy. My mother died when I was ten and left me to her tender mercies. She let me have my way and encouraged the bad in me. It's a wonder I escaped total ruin. Her cabin became a rendezvous for drinking and carousing. I told my father, but he, in lazy indifference, declared the place no worse than all Negro cabins, and did nothing. I ceased my visits. Still she tried every lure and set false stories going among the Negroes, even when I sought to rescue Zora. I tell you this because I know you have heard ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... quite new, but I explained it to myself, and my view has proved to be correct in all subsequent tests undertaken by me. It is this: Dogs are susceptible to thought-transference—also, that they are more particularly open to this when tired and when lazy. Further—they are open to such thought-transference even when not actually aware of the question—as for instance, in the present case, where it was a matter of the new servant's name, for here Lola had been able to "tap" my thoughts ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... be seen on a dark, dull, murky winter's night, when there is just enough damp gently stealing down to make the pavement greasy, without cleansing it of any of its impurities; and when the heavy lazy mist, which hangs over every object, makes the gas-lamps look brighter, and the brilliantly-lighted shops more splendid, from the contrast they present to the darkness around. All the people who are at home on such a night as this, seem disposed to make themselves as ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Mercy o' me: what a Multitude are heere? They grow still too; from all Parts they are comming, As if we kept a Faire heere? Where are these Porters? These lazy knaues? Y'haue made a fine hand fellowes? Theres a trim rabble let in: are all these Your faithfull friends o'th' Suburbs? We shall haue Great store of roome no doubt, left for the Ladies, When they passe backe from the Christening? ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... had died out,—mostly mere stones to Eaton, whose mind was too preoccupied by his wild enterprise to speculate much on what others had done there before him. Want of water, scarcity of provisions, the lazy dilatoriness of the Arabs, who had never heard of the American axiom, "Time is money," gave him enough to think of. But worse than these were the daily outbreaks of the ill-feeling which always exists between Mussulman and Christian. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... There are a hundred times as many of you as represent capital and labor combined, and all you do is loaf here and growl about things being wrong. Why don't you do something? You ought to be running this country, but you aren't. You're lazy. You don't even vote. You leave running the country to men like ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... is over I sometime wish 'twas still existing for some of our lazy folks, so that so many of them wouldn't or couldn't loaf around so much lowering our race, walking the streets day by day and running from house to house living corruptible lives which is keeping the race down as though there be no ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... little girl and it doesn't signify what I wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy beggar, come and help me lay the ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... only when we do. A glorious sun shone over an oily ocean of cerulean blue, over a hundred towering icebergs of every fantastic shape, and flashing all of the colours of the rainbow from their gleaming pinnacles as they rolled on the long and lazy swell. Birds familiar and strange left the dense shoals of rippling fish, over which great flocks were hovering and quarrelling in noisy enjoyment, to wave us welcome as they swept ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... received the powerful patronage of the pope, gradually obtained the chairs in the universities, and took the lead in the murder of their fellow creatures through the inquisition. What a temptation to brawling mendicants, too lazy to earn a living, authorized to beg, and the supple tools of political leaders; and all this by a mysterious society, under the guise and pretence of the Christian religion! Laic ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield |
