"Conscientious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Legation was even busier than the first had been, so that there was no time for disquieting thoughts or the memory of troubled dreams. Indeed, the young man had very good nerves and such power of concentration and so conscientious a regard for whatever he might have on hand to do as always kept him absorbed in his work. The packet by which he and Mr. Morris had arrived being ready to start on the return voyage, it was necessary to make up ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... should have confidence in those two noble Lords who were the active and restless spirits in the Cabinet which the noble Lord the Member for London overthrew? I regard those noble Lords as responsible for the policy of this war. I am bound to suppose that they acted in accordance with their conscientious convictions; but, still, the fact of their having embarked in that policy is no reason why I should have confidence in them. But, are those two noble Lords men in whom the House and country ought to place implicit confidence? What of late could be more remarkable than the caprices of ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... reason, my spiritual nature was aroused, and I was burning with desire to help in the noble cause, and let foreign nations know that we had women in this country that could be at once brilliant and devout, celebrated and conscientious; in fact, women who could gracefully combine two characters, hitherto supposed to ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... distinctly smartening results. Fortunately the long coat had sheltered the dress from harm, so that on reaching the house she could shed it and look "just so." As for Elma, it was a comfort to see her a little "mussed," for in her conscientious adherence to order she sacrificed much of the ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the room, and she heard him walking about his room in the L, putting together his few belongings. Then she heard him go down and open the furnace door, and she knew he was giving a final conscientious look at the fire. He closed it, and she heard him close the basement door behind him, and knew that he ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... owe it to your Alma Mater, my son! Even if, after conscientious effort, you fail to win your B, to know that you have given your college and teams what help you could, will please your Dad. Remember, the fellow who toils on the scrubs is the true hero. If you become good enough to give the first eleven, the first nine, the ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... of the doctor. Young, I have said she ought to be, but youthful would be a better word. If, as she grows older, the nurse loses the strenuous enthusiasm with which she made her first entrance into her work, scarcely any amount of conscientious devotion or experience will ever replace it; but there are fortunate people who seem never to grow old in this sense. It is always to be borne in mind that most of these patients are over-sensitive, refined, and educated women, ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... purpose been made.[162] Many Englishmen to-day are of the opinion that, as John Bright declared, "a hereditary House of Lords is not and cannot be perpetual in a free country." None the less, it is recognized that the chamber as it is at present constituted contains a large number of conscientious, eminent, and able men, that upon numerous occasions the body has imposed a wholesome check upon the popular branch, and that sometimes it has interpreted the will of the nation more correctly than has the popular branch itself. The most reasonable programme of reform ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... correct. He has hit the mark and rung the bell. No conscientious judge would withhold from Comrade Windsor a cigar or a cocoanut, according as his private preference might dictate. That is the matter in a nutshell. Remove the reason for those very scholarly ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... this tendency, there has been a gradual decay of the manly virtue that charactized our fathers. Men have become less conscientious in the performance of their public duties, and more regardless of private rights. A genuine manly self-respect implies sincere respect for the rights of others, and both inevitably decay as the fear of God dies out. When men continually act on the idea that man is his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... their solemn obligations. They thought that compliance would imperil the Lutheran Church, the welfare of their congregations, and the peace of their own souls. Such was the view taken of the matter by many strict and conscientious men. We cannot help thinking that their view was mistaken and exaggerated, that these things were not endangered, that it was perfectly possible for them to have been loyal to their church, to have instructed their people faithfully in all the peculiar doctrines of their system, and yet have rendered ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... A conscientious student has yet to climb down the many steps, on the outside, and look up at the Merveille from below. Few buildings in France are better worth the trouble. The horizontal line at the roof measures ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... who seems to have been the confidential friend rather than the maid of Lady Eustace, and that other witness whom you have heard testifying against himself, and who is, of all the informers that ever came into my hands, the most flippant, the most hardened, the least conscientious, and the least credible. That they two were engaged in a conspiracy I cannot doubt. That Lady Eustace was engaged with them, I will not say. But I will ask you to consider whether such may not probably have been the case. At any rate, she then perjures ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... much attention to art, lived as much as possible in that more select world where it is a positive duty not to bustle. To make up for his want of talent he espoused the talent of others—that is of several—and was as sensitive and conscientious about them as he might have been about himself. He defended certain of Waterlow's purples and greens as he would have defended his own honour, and there was a genius or two, not yet fully acclaimed by the ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... hundred dollars, with one Cannotbedull blade and an iron-clad agreement to pay the makers an indemnity if he found it unsatisfactory. He buys them secretly, lest his wife justly accuse him of extravagance, and practises cunning in getting rid of them afterward; for to a conscientious gentleman throwing away a razor is a responsible matter. It is hard to think of any place where a razor-blade, indestructible and horribly sharp as it is,—for all purposes except shaving,—can be thrown away without some worry over possible ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... rejoiced too soon, for only Doctor Melchior's letters to his son and to the notary were burned, and the strange old lady could hardly bring herself to forgive the brave and conscientious guardian of her favourite, because at great personal risk he had saved the casket containing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... said the squire, "you gratify me. It has ever been my aim to discharge with conscientious fidelity the important trusts which the town has ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... journey shall be worth while and positively helpful if we take the trip with conscientious applications, and continuity ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... Barry walked straight to the stage where Coleman, having miserably failed to strike fire with "The Tulip and the Rose," was grinding out, with great diligence and conscientious energy, "Irish Eyes." Barry picked up his violin from the floor, mounted the stage, laid his violin on the piano, then he took his place behind the pianist and, bending over him, reached down, caught him under the legs and while still in full tide ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... you really mean it?" It gave her a pang to hear that he was actually going, and her love pulsed higher; but she also felt a sense of relief, somewhat as a conscientious house-breaker might feel upon finding the door securely locked against him. It would take away a temptation which she could not resist, and yet dared ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... your mind in twenty-four hours, neither can you in two hundred and forty. I don't want to hurry you, but you must have some consideration for me; imagine my state of mind. Why, I'll be on the rack till we meet again. I fancy a conscientious woman is about the cruellest creature that walks! However, I'll stick to my promise: I will not intrude on you till the day after to-morrow. Then I will come at eleven o'clock for your answer; and, Katherine, my love, my life, it must ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... Mr. Gillow, his conscientious record of minute particulars, and especially his exhaustive bibliographical information in connection with each name, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... Laborers would have to dig innumerable trenches, and stone them up so as to let no water run to waste, also to direct its flow at will. This part of the enterprise needed the active and faithful arms of conscientious workers. Chance provided them with a tract of land without natural obstacles, a long even stretch of plain, where the waters, having a fall of ten feet, could be distributed at will. Nothing hindered the finest agricultural results, ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... I have told you is as true as the drill book, though you need not believe it if you have conscientious objections. I have been recounting real slices of history. Leastways, when I say history I may be wrong, because they will never appear in history. But they 'appened, Mister—'appened as surely as I am ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... felt by Catholics themselves to the publication of Saints' Lives, abounding in supernatural incidents. Such persons are, indeed, not numerous; and their number is rapidly diminishing. Still it can scarcely be doubted that conscientious Catholics are to be found who take the view I am speaking of, from ideas which, though erroneous (as I believe), are yet so truly founded in sincerity, as to demand respect and explanation from those who ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... small checkers of dark glass, the roof capacious as an armadillo's back or land-turtle's; but half of it was almost as straight as the walls, and the small, foreign bricks in the gables, glazed black and dark-red alternately, were laid by conscientious workmen, and bade fair to stand another hundred years, as they smoked their tidy chimney pipes from hearty stomachs ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... October George II. died. His grandson, a stupid, stubborn fanatically conscientious young man ascended the throne, with the title of George III. It would be difficult to compute the multitudes in Europe, Asia and America, whom his arrogance and ambition caused to perish on the battle field. During these two years there was nothing of very special moment which occurred ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... themselves: Yet we have good hope, that what is here presented, and hath been by the Convocations of both Provinces with great diligence examined and approved, will be also well accepted and approved by all sober, peaceable, and truly conscientious Sons of the ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... act,' and shows us that we safely may. Without promising us absolute success in all our plans, or absolute truth in the investigation of evidence, he says, in either case, 'Do your best; be faithful to the light you have, diligent and conscientious in your investigations of available evidence, great or little,—act fearlessly on what appears the truth, and leave the ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... regularly made his confession was 'a pious, conscientious man,' who treated him with fatherly care. When the boy told him of his puzzles, and asked how it could be necessary to confess to any man, since God alone could forgive sins, he received a kind, helpful answer. 'Yet,' he says, 'my reasoning faculties brought ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... himself after he had finished the writing of his diary up to date. Possibly the fact that he had not completed his account of the wreck of the Waldo had troubled him, as any work left unfinished troubles a progressive or conscientious man. But whether or not he had been disturbed about his diary, he was happier than usual after he had completed the task. His physical condition had been greatly improved under the careful nursing of Mrs. Bennington. In the course of the afternoon not ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... to see the ros-ette," said Johnson, with slow and conscientious deliberation, yet with an evident sense of relief; "but that ain't sayin' it warn't there, ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... it is hard to see any points of resemblance—a lesson to all theologians and politicians who still indulge the dreams that uniformity of opinion on the plainest matters of fact and observation can ever be attained among men, however honest and conscientious they may be in their efforts after unity. The Chinese proverb with more wisdom declares, 'Truth is one, but ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... battle was with Giant Bad Feelings. Beware of him! I had a pensive soul, a sensitive nature, and was conscientious to a scruple [Romans 14:1-6]. Bad Feelings took advantage of this fact and caused me ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... Mirza, and Askari Mirza. Before his death he had introduced Humayun to a specially convened council of ministers as his successor, and had given him his dying injunctions. The points upon which he {48} had specially laid stress were: the conscientious discharge of duties to God and man; the honest and assiduous administration of justice; the seasoning of punishment to the guilty with the extension of tenderness and mercy to the ignorant and penitent, with protection to the poor and defenceless; he besought ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... of paper filled the cellars. The business office occupied one store, which was flanked on either side by stores that would have been more respectable had they been rented as saloons, which they were not, because of the conscientious scruples of Messrs. Lawson & Stone. Parts of two of the buildings were still rented as lodgings. Up one flight of stairs of the centre building, in the front, Mr. Stone had his office, which was approached through what had been a hall bedroom. His ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Daisy to the secret session which Thomas and I were holding in the butler's pantry, I divided the luscious morsel between them, exacting, first, the most solemn promise of secrecy. Allie demurred to this at first, having conscientious scruples about keeping any thing from mother; but she was finally persuaded to look upon it as a preparation for an agreeable surprise, as I assured her that this was only the prelude to a more extensive treat to the whole family, as well ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... the various aspects of the country, and when her eyes and cheeks glowed with mingled pleasure she looked very little like a devotee. Riding was an indulgence which she allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms; she felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... The conscientious manner in which he performed his offices was favourably commented upon by Bishop Wright. This good man believed there had been a decline of late in the ardour ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... relinquished an independent career or led an idle life. In 1872, when he was in his twentieth year, he matriculated at Oxford, where he kept his terms with credit alike to his original abilities and his conscientious diligence. His honourable and pleasant connection with his university remained a strong tie to the end of his short life, and it was doubtless in relation to Oxford that he came sensibly under the influence of ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... themselves as facing a world in arms. The hater subjects his mind to the domination of what he hates; he loses his independence and volition and becomes the prey of the hated idea. At last he cannot free his mind from the obsession; and the deliberate cultivation of hate in the conscientious German manner is a kind ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... exuberance overflows upon others in the form of heartiness, geniality, joviality, and even lavish generosity. Still, they can seldom be got to look far before them; they do not often assume the painfully circumspect attitude required in the more arduous enterprises. They are not conscientious in trifles. They cast off readily the burdensome parts of life. All which is in keeping with our principle. To take on burdens and cares is to draw upon the vital forces—to leave so much the less to cheerfulness and buoyant spirits. The same corporeal framework cannot afford a lavish expenditure ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... unsuspected even by those who first entertained it. But the stone had been dashed into the tranquil ocean when the May-flower was moored on the New England coast, and its circling eddies drew curve after curve among the descendants, brave, conscientious, energetic, of the old Puritans. The stern Calvinism, by which their fathers had lived and died, was, by these early recreants, first mistrusted, then questioned, and finally abjured. The murmurs of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... this which the voice of GRACE DARLING, the heroine whom the hearts of men and women alike agree to love and revere, is saying to us still, and has said ever since her brave deeds thrilled the world. She gave her thoughts and powers, with conscientious diligence and perseverance, to the common-place duties of her lot, but she was none the less ready, when the occasion came, to go forth over the stormy waters to do a most uncommon deed of daring. Usually, she was happy and content in being a blessing to her own family; but she was not afraid ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... counted the time with a conscientious regard for the rests, he debated the wisdom of telling mother, and decided that perhaps he had better keep that matter to ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... One is conscientious as long as it pays. That man is a fool who remains so one hour longer. He or his people are going to shoot ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... Stafford had altered for the worse. His character was too strong and rigid to allow an absolute breakdown. He still carried himself well; to all intents and purposes, as far as his duty was concerned, he was as hard-working and conscientious as he had ever been, but no strength of will had been able to hinder the change in his face and expression. He looked years older. There was grey mixed with the dark brown of his hair; the eyes were hollow and lightless; the cheeks had painfully sunken in. A friend returning after ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... withheld by all manner of personal considerations, and dare not propose what he has nearest his heart, because the other has a larger family or a smaller stipend, or is older, more venerable, and more conscientious than himself; and it is in view of this that I have determined to profit by the freedom of an anonymous writer, and give utterance to what many of you would have uttered already, had they been (as I am) apart ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... promiscuously together—men and officers half-famished, jaded out, buried in the depths of a mountain wilderness—the subsistence trains mired far in the rear and no prospect of their getting up; all this rushing at once upon the mind of a conscientious commander wholly unused to the hardships of real campaigning, and before he had had time to throw off the incubus of the dismal night he must have endured, was enough to crush any ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... name?" asked the Stranger anxiously. "Won't that do? What about Iris ... Hyde?... You see, the truth is, I was never actually christened ... I was born a conscientious objector, ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... mistaken—she has not the slightest suspicion of it." This was scarcely credible to the lady's notion of love-making, but the earnest manner of Gratian was every thing. "No," said he; "he is a most exemplary conscientious young man, and so far avoids the making any show of his feelings, that he affects, I really believe, more indifference towards that lady than to any other. He tells me that he thinks it would not be honourable in his present circumstances and position to engage her affections; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... unjust, and illiberal spirit of persecution, with which actors have been followed up for ages, has not a greater enemy in any bosom upon earth than in ours; and we should not only libel the opinions we have uniformly avowed, but violate our conscientious persuasion, and suppress truth if we neglected to state that a multitude of the ladies and gentlemen of that profession, justly stand as high in moral character, as any of those who, in the other departments ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... towers, and spires. Having but little time, as I say, we scaled the hill amain and wandered briskly through this labyrinth of antiquities. The rain had decidedly stopped and, save that we had our train on our minds, we saw Loches to the best advantage. We enjoyed that sensation with which the conscientious tourist is—or ought to be—well acquainted and for which, at any rate, he has a formula in his rough-and-ready language. We "experienced," as they say (most irregular of verbs), an "agreeable disappointment." We were surprised and delighted; we had for some ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... abase ourselves with furious hosannas before any dark Creator of an untamed Universe, no Deity of freaks and miracles and sinister hocus-pocus; but to pay our duty to a highly respected Anglican First Cause—undemonstrative, gentlemanly and conscientious—whom, without loss of self-respect, we could ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... righteousness, honesty and conscience will be practised to rebind the minds of the people who are now without bonds. People high and low will be uniformly treated with sincerity, and will not depend on obedience of law alone as the means of co-operation. Administration and orders will be based on conscientious realization and no one will be allowed to treat the form of State as material for experiment. At this time of exhaustion when its vitality is being wasted to the last drop and the existence of the country is hanging in the balance, we, as if treading on thin ice over deep waters, dare ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... countrywomen. Few of her sex have been placed in such a conspicuous situation, but fewer, after behaving with unexampled fortitude and dignity, have shrunk from public notice, and in the sight of God only have led unobtrusive, quiet lives in the daily performance of domestic duties as a careful and conscientious mother and guardian of ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... bath-room, moving like a sleepwalker, wrapped in his dream-like horror. He found the ice, he broke it into little pieces, like that. He was very careful and conscientious about the size, and grateful to Anne for giving him something to do. Then he went back again and took up his station at the foot of the bed and waited. His father still lay back on his pillow, propped by Eliot's arm. His hands were folded on his ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... incidence of taxation, or the determination upon whom the tax ultimately falls, has not received sufficient care in the consideration of improved systems of taxation. Until it has, and until statesmen use more care in tax legislation and the regulation of the system, and officers are more conscientious in carrying it out, we need not hope for any rapid movement in tax reform. The tendency here, as in all other reforms, especially where needed, is for some person to suggest a certain political nostrum—like the single tax—for the immediate and complete reform of the system and the ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... sausage-meat, like Phanaeus Milon? Vainly do I consider you and marvel at you: your equipment tells me nothing. No one who has not seen you at work is capable of naming your profession. I leave the matter to the conscientious masters, to the experts who are able to say: I do not know. They are scarce, in our days; but after all there are some, less eager than others in the unscrupulous ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Eminent, conscientious Christian gentlemen, leaders in religious thought, and occasionally country ministers, have accused those who maintain that the church should have a vital active interest in improving economic welfare of trying to make hog-cholera experts out of ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt
... the glory and prosperity of France as its sole aim and object. If I have at times been mistaken in my estimate of the measures calculated to ensure so desirable a result, I have at least never persisted in my error; I have surrounded myself with able and conscientious counsellors; MM. de Villeroy and de Jeannin were chosen by the most ancient and noble families in the kingdom—the Cardinal de la Valette and the Bishop of Lucon-Richelieu are my advisers—the estimable Miron, Provost of Paris, in conjunction ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... church, it might afterwards be a precedent to break them with respect to the other. The archbishop of Canterbury said the acts which by this bill would be repealed, were the main bulwark and supporters of the English church; he expressed all imaginable tenderness for well-meaning conscientious dissenters; but he could not forbear saying, some among that sect made a wrong use of the favour and indulgence shown to them at the revolution, though they had the least share in that happy event; it was therefore thought necessary for the legislature to interpose, and put a stop to the scandalous ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the garden, thinking of Lucretia and her lover, as she gathered flowers in the sunshine. Conscientious Eva took the Life of Mary Somerville to her room, and read diligently for half an hour, that no time might be lost in her new course of study, Carrie sent Wanda and her finery up the chimney in a lively ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... problems which they think their theories will solve, and though I know how mistaken they are, I cannot blame them, when I see how seriously and honestly they believe in, and how unselfishly they work for, their ideas. Don't blame the Socialists, for they are quite as conscientious as were the Abolitionists. Blame it to the lack of scientific education, which leaves these people to believe that theories containing a half truth are so wholly true that they mean the regeneration and salvation ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... his profession. He spoke of Isabel's expensive habits, and the danger of her finding it difficult to adapt herself to a small income; and though, of course, he might as well have talked to the wind as to either of the lovers, his remonstrance was so evidently conscientious as not to be in the least offensive, and Mr. Frost Dynevor was graciously pleased to accept ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... life, and had fallen like a ripe apple from the tree. Lester looked at him where he lay in the great parlor, in his black coffin, and a feeling of the old-time affection swept over him. He smiled at the clean-cut, determined, conscientious face. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... room "Home, sweet Home." Miss Nelson was a well-educated woman; she was between forty and fifty years of age; she had a staid and somewhat cold manner, but she was a good disciplinarian, and thoroughly conscientious. When Mrs. Wilton had died three years ago, Miss Nelson had come to the Chase. Mrs. Wilton on her deathbed had asked her husband to secure Miss Nelson's services, if possible, for the children, and this fact alone would have prevented his ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... these semi-mortuary manifestations there was no cause for alarm. His light imagination had gained a glimpse of Mr. Wentworth's spiritual mechanism, and taught him that, the old man being infinitely conscientious, the special operation of conscience within him announced itself by several of ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... rehabilitation, or as a trusted councilor in framing the nation's laws for over forty years, or as the exponent of its foreign policy, his course was ever marked by devotion to the best interests of his beloved land, and by able and conscientious effort to uphold its dignity and honor. His countrymen will long revere his memory and see in him a type of the patriotism, the uprightness and the zeal that go to molding ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... superior's neck and influence his conduct to a surprising degree. Again, certain guards, in the eyes of their superiors, can do no wrong whatever wrong they do; and others, who are apt to be men who retain some conscientious notions as to their duties, find their path difficult. Some guards, too, though they may be obnoxious to their officers, are not dismissed because they know too much, and might reveal uncomfortable facts were they cashiered. I could ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... independent support afforded them by Mr. Montacute, who represented his county, and who commanded five votes in the House besides his own. He was one of the chief pillars of their cause; but he was not only independent, he was conscientious and had scruples. Saratoga staggered him. The defection of the Montacute votes, at this moment, would have at once terminated the struggle between England and her colonies. A fresh illustration of ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... arrangement actually assumed by nine men out of ten, as history. In truth, each valuation was false. Palmerston never showed favor to the scheme and gave it only "a feeble and half-hearted support." Russell gave way without resolutely fighting out "his battle." The only resolute, vehement, conscientious champion of Russell, Napoleon, and Jefferson ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... is to be poor! She was dependent, frail, sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping, thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor cared for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have his money's worth out of her brains, and as much more than his money's worth as he could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the war with more intelligent interest than the head of the British royal house. Page had had many interviews with King George at Buckingham Palace and at Windsor, and his notes contain many appreciative remarks on the King's high character and conscientious devotion to his duties. That Page in general did not believe in kings and emperors as institutions his letters reveal; yet even so profound a Republican as he recognized sterling character, whether in a crowned head or in a humble citizen, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... are. It is useless to indulge in indiscriminate abuse. We must not confuse the innocent with the guilty; it must be our object to allay suspicion, not to create it. The great body of our tradespeople are honest and conscientious, anxious to serve their customers for a fair return for their service. We want their cooeperation in our pursuit of facts; we want to cooeperate with them in proposing and securing a remedy. We do not deny the existence of economic laws, ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... of plausibility to this plea it was necessary to represent Ephraim Shine in the worst possible light, and that conscientious and hard-working young lawyer spared no pains on his own part or the part of the dead man's daughter to make every point that would tell for his client; but Chris was not more moved than at the preliminary investigation. She told the truth simply, and no effort ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... The proper care of the bore requires conscientious, careful work, but it pays well in the attainment of reduced labor of cleaning, prolonged accuracy life of the barrel, and better results in target practice. Briefly stated, the care of the bore consists in removing the ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... and happiness. Was the country really so very beautiful, or was it the contrast to all the misery that made it evident? There was a curious exhilaration in working for those grateful, patient men, and in helping the Director, so loyal to his country and so conscientious in his work, to bring order out of chaos; and yet the unhappiness in the Serbian houses, and the physical wretchedness of those cold, hungry prisoners, lay always like a dead weight on our spirits. Never ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... nun to have an interview with the Prince. He then told her that he called Buddha to witness that, though his conduct may have seemed bold, it was dictated by pure and conscientious motives. ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... that a historian at once so conscientious and generally so well-informed as M. Rosseeuw Saint-Hilaire should, in his Histoire d'Espagne, ix. 60, 61, have made the grave mistake of holding Calvin responsible for the excesses of the iconoclasts. See the Bulletin, xiv. 127, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... which she conceives so loftily, the author has bestowed the solitary and self-sustained toil of many years. The volume now before the reader, together with the historical demonstration which it pre-supposes, is the product of a most faithful and conscientious labour, and a truly heroic devotion of intellect and heart. No man or woman has ever thought or written more sincerely than the author of this book. She has given nothing less than her life to the work. And, as if for the greater trial of her constancy, her theory was divulged, some time ago, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... girl, who by dint of conscientious struggles keeps up real study, gets out of touch with her surroundings, and sees the stream of family confidences, and affections, and appeals for help and sympathy flowing towards the easy-going sister, who makes no struggles of any kind. Your great ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... bawled from his comparatively obscure corner. "Lord Ernest Borrow will render your last moments the most enjoyable of the meal, by washing down your nuts and raisins with the wine of his eloquence. Take your desserts now. We conscientious conductors hope for ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... the return journey at seven on Monday morning. The Viceroy had a completely fitted-up office in his smart little white-and-gold yacht, and was able to get through a great deal of work on his voyage down the Hooghly before breakfast on Monday mornings. A conscientious Viceroy of India is one of the hardest-worked men in the world, for he frequently has ten hours of office work in the day, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... How firm and conscientious was General Pierce's support of The Compromise may be estimated from his conduct in reference to the Reverend John Atwood. In the foregoing pages it has come oftener in our way to illustrate the bland and prepossessing features of General Pierce's ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... no flippant mood; but it was worth a foolish jest to bring a smile to Sir Anthony's face. Also this grave, conscientious proposition had its humorous side. It was so British. It reminded me of the story of Swift, who, when Gay and Pope visited him and refused to sup, totted up the cost of the meal and insisted on their accepting half-a-crown apiece. It reminded me too of the rugged old Lancashire commercial blood ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... a species of hysteria for which there is no parallel in history. He seems to think that the louder he shouts and the more bad rhetoric he uses, the less will his party feel the stings of defeat. Some of them tone down and become conscientious and admirable legislators, but these are the few of natural largeness of mind. Party spirit, a magnificent thing at its best, warps and withers the little brain in the party out of power. But politics are out of place ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... was but a little while past; sightseers in a small, dark mass of pay ore were gathered in the shadow of General Worth's monument. Now and then, shyly, ostentatiously, carelessly, or with conscientious exactness one would step forward and bestow upon the Preacher small bills or silver. Then a lieutenant of Scandinavian coloring and enthusiasm would march away to a lodging house with a squad of the redeemed. All the while the Preacher ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... direct-action to the American Legion. Then a flying squadron from the Good Citizens' League called on the unfair papers and explained that no ex-soldier could possibly do such a thing, and the editors saw the light, and retained their advertising. When Zenith's lone Conscientious Objector came home from prison and was righteously run out of town, the newspapers referred to the perpetrators ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... continued Hiram, 'just what you paid for it, less my expenses, and charges for my time and trouble in coming to New York, counsel fees, and so forth; and you may think yourself fortunate in falling into conscientious hands!' ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Appointed Missionary to the Choctaws 1820. Removed to this land October, 1832. Organized Wheelock Church December, 1832. Received to its fellowship 570 members. AS A MAN he was intelligent, firm in principle, prudent in counsel, gentle in spirit, kindness and gravity, and conscientious in the discharge of every relative and social duty. AS A CHRISTIAN he was uniform, constant, strong in faith, and in doctrine, constant and fervent in prayer, holy in life, filled with the spirit of Christ and peaceful in death. ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... told him that she intended to begin to sit next day—"and I will bring a bag of corn with me, so that I need never leave my nest until the eggs are hatched. They might catch cold," said the conscientious Jemima. ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... saw go up and down Valladolid, A man of mark, to know next time you saw. His very serviceable suit of black Was courtly once and conscientious still, And many might have worn it, though none did: The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads, Had purpose, and the ruff, significance. He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, Scenting the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... the hall, the look was quite gone from her face. She had been very gentle, all that morning and afternoon. They had talked a little of the incident that had occurred on the previous day, of Gregorio's feeling about not letting Veronica spend money uselessly. He was so conscientious, Matilde had said. Though the guardianship had expired, he still felt it his duty to watch his former ward's expenditure. And he was not charitable—no, it had always been a cause of regret to Matilde that Gregorio, with all his good ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... of clay. At the further end of these is a bowl. Into the bowl they put the herb, and then setting fire to it, they draw the smoke into their mouths, which they puff out again through their nostrils, like funnels," and so on; conscientious explanations which a German tourist of our own times might think it superfluous to offer ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... talk about New York and London in his queer stilted way. He had been a fireman on board ship, a teacher of jiujitsu, a juggler, a quack dentist, Heaven knows what else. Driven by the conscientious inquisitiveness of his race, he had endured hardships, contempt and rough treatment with the smiling patience inculcated in the Japanese people by their education. "We must chew our gall, and bide our time," they say, when the too powerful ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... a somewhat impracticable moral sentiment has been made the unconscious instrument of a practical moral end; that the treason of covert enemies, the jealousy of rivals, the unwise zeal of friends, have been made not only useless for mischief, but even useful for good; that the conscientious sensitiveness of England to the horrors of civil conflict has been prevented from complicating a domestic with a foreign war;—all these results, any one of which might suffice to prove greatness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good sense, the good humor, the sagacity, the large-mindedness, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... but I would add, as this conscientious observer does not, that that does not prove that the intelligence of the insect differs essentially from ours; it is a simple question of degree. Look at a boy who is going to jump over a ditch: he begins by spitting into his hands and rubbing them ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... Lieutenant-Governor, in a tone of the liveliest interest. "That's good news. It must be about the most important assignment they could give you, just now. Well, I wonder if you are destined to be the only conscientious reporter in Kenton City, or whether you will simply be like all the rest. Are you going to have the courage of your convictions—which I think I can surmise, though you haven't as yet confided them to me—or are you going to wear the slave-chains of your fellows, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... quote and discuss a very beautiful passage from a lecture upon Stoicism by Professor Gilbert Murray, which also displays the same characteristic of an involuntary shaping out of God in the forms of denial. It is a passage remarkable for its conscientious and resolute Agnosticism. And it is remarkable too for its blindness to the possibility of separating quite completely the idea of the Infinite Being from the idea of God. It is another striking instance of that obsession of modern minds by merely ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... attention while she talked, it was most encouraging. The boy must surely be a genius. To think that but for her intuition he might have remained wasted in a grocer's shop! To rescue such a gem from oblivion, to polish it, was surely the duty of a conscientious Hypatia. Two visits—three visits a week to the little shop in Rolls Court were quite inadequate, so many passages there were requiring elucidation. London in early morning became their classroom: the great, wide, empty, silent streets; the mist-curtained parks, ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... was like an Assumption to the young peasant girl. The beautiful Adeline was translated at once from the mire of her village to the paradise of the Imperial Court; for the contractor, one of the most conscientious and hard-working of the Commissariat staff, was made a Baron, obtained a place near the Emperor, and was attached to the Imperial Guard. The handsome rustic bravely set to work to educate herself for love of her husband, for she was simply crazy about him; ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... contemporary biographer calls Pepys the greatest and most useful public servant that ever filled the same situations in England, Pepys would not now be honoured if he had not kept the most amusing diary in the world. Samuel was a highly conscientious, truly pious man, constant in all religious exercises, though he did slumber when the Scot wagged his pow in a pulpit. At the same time, Samuel lived in a very fast age, an age when pleasure was a business, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... modify. But if this princess was guilty, more than one attenuating circumstance may be urged in her defence, and we should, in justice, remember that it was not without a struggle, without tears, distress, and many conscientious scruples, that she decided to obey her father's rigid orders and become again what she had been before her ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... default of local authorities carrying out their duties empower the government departments mentioned to execute and enforce the acts at the expense of the local authorities. The importance of a regular and conscientious control of the public food supply by the local authorities was thus for the first time, after forty years of experimental legislation, fully acknowledged. In recognition of the great difficulties experienced for many years by analysts in their endeavour to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... event that had occurred within their knowledge since they last met. He had done this, partly to give them time to recover themselves in that more formal atmosphere, and partly, I fear, because, notwithstanding his conscientious gravity, it greatly amused him. It also diverted them from their usual round-eyed, breathless contemplation of himself—a regular morning inspection which generally embraced every detail of his dress and appearance, and made every change or deviation the subject of whispered comment ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... inward mirror, the embracing and condensing spirit, is required to give us those interminable milepost piles of matter (extending well-nigh to the very Pole) in essence, in chosen samples, digestibly. I conceive him to indicate that the realistic method of a conscientious transcription of all the visible, and a repetition of all the audible, is mainly accountable for our present branfulness, and that prolongation of the vasty and the noisy, out of which, as from an undrained fen, steams the malady of sameness, our modern malady. We have the malady, whatever ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had pleaded not guilty, according to the ancient ritual of his profession. Notwithstanding his evident and expressed desire to return to a haven of peace and luxury, he was far too conscientious a criminal to violate the soundest—it may well be said, the elemental—law of his craft, by ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... that I wanted to find out what a "regular war" was like. It looked as though there was going to be a good scrap on and I didn't want to miss it. I had been a conscientious student of the "war-game" for a good many years and was anxious to get some real first-hand information. I got what I was ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... D'Artagnan he would inflict upon him. He reflected that, in fact, these young persons had loved and sworn fidelity to each other; that one of the two had kept his word, and that the other was too conscientious not to feel her perjury most bitterly. And his remorse was not unaccompanied; for bitter pangs of jealousy began to beset the king's heart. He did not say another word, and instead of going to pay ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I'm a bad Bart. I will tell taradiddles! CHORUS. He'll tell taradiddles when he's a bad Bart. ROB. I'll play a bad part on the falsest of fiddles. CHORUS. On very false fiddles he'll play a bad part! ROB. But until that takes place I must be conscientious— CHORUS. He'll be conscientious until that takes place. ROB. Then adieu with good grace to my morals sententious! CHORUS. To morals sententious adieu with ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... man, fondling the wen which nestled lovingly in his faded Titian hair, "my wife has conscientious scruples against signing that deed. We have been married about a year now, but not actively for the past eleven months. I'm kind of ex-officio husband, as you might say. After we'd been married about a month a little incident occurred which made a riffle, as you might say, in our domestic ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... has been a terrible, earnest fact with me: nothing but haul, conscientious work, privations, sickness, and ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... time. I do not dislike the path which lies before me. I have seen all that society can shew, and enjoyed all that wealth can give me, and I am satisfied much is vanity, if not vexation of spirit." Laidlaw was too conscientious to remain at Abbotsford, to be a burden on his illustrious friend; he removed to his native district, and for three years employed himself in a variety of occupations till 1830, when the promise of brighter days to his benefactor warranted his return. Scott had felt his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... is well-known among the living religious writers of France, as a man of learning, ability, and zeal. His style combines great vivacity of expression with a tone of earnest and profound reflection. The present work is evidently the fruit of conscientious research, and though making no pretensions to impartiality, is written without bitterness. The translation is executed with care, and although by no means a model in its kind, is generally free ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... call at the Vicarage, and expressed his obligations to the vicar and his wife for their consideration, and trusted his daughter, who (though he said so who should not), he was sure was a conscientious girl—would do her work well and ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... changes in color values over the Earth's surface as one approaches more closely the outer fringe of atmosphere. While braking approaches are auto-controlled, the pilot taking over only after his ship is in atmosphere, the conscientious man makes himself familiar with the "feel" of a visually timed approach—just in case—and ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... tendency of the theme displeased him. He assured me that, even if the Leipzig magistrates had consented to its production—a fact concerning which his high esteem for that body led him to have serious doubts—he himself, as a conscientious father, could certainly not permit his daughter to take part ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Charles Kendall Adams brought another loved personality to the University, Richard Hudson, '71, whose gentle peculiarities only endeared him to his students. He succeeded Professor D'Ooge as Dean of the Literary College in 1898. He was a most conscientious teacher who believed in the meticulous presentation of facts in his lectures, though one student at least found that after a long series of lectures about the "low countries," "Flanders," and the "Spanish cities," ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw |
