"Make hay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... floor, and began at once to take out bits of it. When he had managed to get under the floor he took out pieces of the ceiling beneath, and jumped down into the mortuary a floor below. That day only one corpse was lying on the table. There in the corner of the room were stored bags to make hay mattresses for the prisoners. Vassily knew about the bags, and that was why the mortuary served his purposes. The prop in the door had been unscrewed and put in again. He took it out, opened the door, and went out into the passage to the lavatory which was ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... absentees. Let sugar rise in price, and all cold calculations of ultimate loss to the gang are lost in the vehement thirst of great present gain. All, or nearly all, planters are in distressed circumstances. They look to the next few years as their time; and if the sun shines they must make hay. They are in the mine, toiling for a season, with every desire to escape and realize something to spend elsewhere. Therefore they make haste to be rich, and care little, should the speculation answer and much sugar bring in great gain, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... benignant sameness what glorious fruits are produced! Fruit enough metaphorical: for the scientific man or artist who cannot make hay while such a sun shines from April to November must be a slothful laborer indeed. But fruit also literal: for what joy of vegetation is lacking to the man who every month in the year can look through his study-window on a green lawn, and have strawberries and cream for his breakfast,—who can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... leaving for home, it was expected that the affair would be entered into with all the energy that could be summoned from the last of the season. There would not be another big affair until the next summer, so all must "make hay" while the ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... came out here," he said to himself in a tone of congratulation. "I'll make hay while the ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... save a considerable number of cattle were not slow to make hay while the sun shone, and some of them may probably have turned up their noses at the mere mention of the Yukon goldfields. Prospecting for gold is a somewhat risky business, but the Boer looks upon transactions in salted oxen as eminently satisfactory, ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... her and her dead lover, he had never loved to desperation, had always kept his balance, his sense of symmetry. Well! It had left him power, at eighty-four, to admire beauty. And he thought, 'If I were a painter or a sculptor! But I'm an old chap. Make hay while the sun shines.' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... when I fed prairie hay. It graveled me like sixty to pay such a price, but I had to do it because the season was just between hay and grass. Sometimes I thought of waiting over until the summer of 1856 to make hay for sale to the movers; but having made my start for my farm I could not bring myself to give up reaching it that spring. So I only waited occasionally to break in or rest up the foot-sore and lame cattle for which I ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... think young ladies who want to go and work in the fields, should make hay while the sun shines; because I think it is high time that Kew should ranger himself; because I am sure he will make the best husband, and Ethel the prettiest Countess in England." And the old lady, seldom exhibiting any signs of ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in London, they are crammed during the season—i.e., session—and during the rest of the year are comparatively empty, and consequently do not pay very well; but they are not the only establishments that make hay during the session; if report speaks truly, the bars and gambling-houses reap an immense harvest from the representatives of the people in both ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Here take it and stop your talking. I probably won't have it again, so you'd better make hay this time. I warn you it'll be spent by the end of ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... were a holiday for me," admitted Max, as he left the house to catch his car. "I'd rather enjoy seeing the mess Ferry and Jarve get into with a corps of bootblacks to make hay for them. They'll 'make hay,' ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... "We're in luck's way. Let's make hay while the sun shines. Wait for us on the towing-path, Hibbert. We'll soon ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... one thought to mar their otherwise perfect joy, just as Providence always pours a drop of bitterness into every cup. A Governor unfriendly to their purposes might be appointed, and it became them, therefore, to make hay while the sun was shining. They, therefore, addressed the following pathetic appeal to the people of ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... soon. I wish we had more food for the animals: they are put rather hard to it just now; but next year, if we find more food on the island, we must keep the grass near home, to make hay and stack it for the winter time - or the rainy season rather, for there is no winter in these latitudes. I'm pretty sure we shall find some clear land on the south of the island, for the cocoa-nut grove does not extend so close to the ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... funerals every day. It's all country all round about, with trees and flowers and birds. Why, I've helped to make hay in the autumn." ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... widow must not dally He must make hay while the sun doth shine He must not say 'Widow, be ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... parsonage and kept while they stayed; and the pleasure that she and her little friend had together cannot be told. It was unmixed now. Rambling about through the woods and over the fields, no matter where, it was all enchanting; helping Alice garden; helping Thomas make hay, and the mischief they did his haycocks by tumbling upon them, and the patience with which he bore it; the looking for eggs; the helping Margery churn, and the helping each other set tables; the pleasant mornings and pleasant evenings and pleasant mid-days, it cannot ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at home. They not only disbelieve in him, but—generally, however, with one or two exceptions, who are invaluable to him in the way of encouragement—'make hay' of him and his pretensions in the most heartless style. If he produces a poem, it achieves immortality in the sense of his 'never hearing the last of it;' it is the jest of the family till they have all ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... as she always did when he arrested their talk upon something personal. But this time she assented, and said that she knew she was eager for facts. "One must make hay while the sun shines," she added. "I must lay up a store of learning against dark days. Somehow, my imagination refuses to compass the idea that I ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... of Socrates, he was an idiot: he had acquired a few automatic habits of rationality and industry, but he could never be made to work at any continued occupation: he would shut the door of the farm-yard five hundred times a day, but he would not reap or make hay. Drawing water from a neighbouring river was the only domestic business which he regularly pursued. In 1779 we visited him, and tried the following experiment. He was attended to the river by a person who emptied his buckets ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... husbands and fathers of Wyoming were on public duty the wives and daughters cheerfully assumed a large portion of the labor which women could perform. They assisted to plant, to make hay, to husk, and to garner the corn. The settlement was mainly dependent on its own resources for powder. To meet the necessary demand, the women boiled together a lye of wood-ashes, to which they added the earth scraped from beneath the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... her daughter is married to a pilot, and has three cows. They have a little patch of land at about the distance of two English miles, where they make hay for the winter, which they bring home in a boat. They live here very cheap, getting money from the vessels which stress of weather, or other causes, bring into their harbour. I suspect, by their furniture, that they smuggle a little. I can now credit the account of the other houses, ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... the new. For the same pride of office, the same desire of power, are still visible; with this aggravation, that, fearing to return to obscurity after having but just acquired a relish for distinction, each hero or philosopher, for all are dubbed with these new titles, endeavors to make hay while the sun shines; and every petty municipal officer, become the idol, or rather the tyrant of the day, stalks like a cock on ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... yoked his wife against a horse, and went in that manner to work, and finished a journey at plough. The industry of the women is a perfect contrast to the Irish ladies in the cabins, who cannot be persuaded, on any consideration, even to make hay, it not being the custom of the country, yet they bind corn, and do other works more laborious. Mrs. Quin, who is ever attentive to introduce whatever can contribute to their welfare and happiness, offered many premiums to induce ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... farm, where there is ploughing, and hoeing, and digging, and sowing, and reaping going on; where they can jump upon a horse, without any saddle, and ride him to water, with his mane for a bridle; where they can help build fences, and help make hay, and help milk cows, and drive them to pasture; where they can go blackberrying, and strawberrying, and chestnuting, and everything but bird-nesting. I wouldn't like to leave my purse in the way of a boy who went bird-nesting. I should know he ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... To make hay properly we thought we needed two successive days of sun. When rain falls nearly every day haying comes to a standstill, for if the mown grass is left in the field it blackens and rots; if it is drawn to the barn, it turns musty ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... to have met you. So kind of you to make hay in my drawing-room," which reproof brought Pixie quickly to her rightful position. That was another English characteristic of Dick Victor—he hated disorder, and was not appreciative of uproar on his return from a day's work. Therefore there were picture-books in waiting for his return, and after ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... never rejoices. Ill weeds grow apace. Keep a thing for seven years, and you will find a use for it. Kill two birds with one stone. Lazy folk take the most pains. Let sleeping dogs lie. Let them laugh that win. Make hay while the sun shines. Many a true word is spoken in jest. Many hands make light work. Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Necessity is the mother of invention. Old birds are not to be caught with chaff. Old friends and old wine are best. One swallow ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... tenants had the right to turn their hogs out to feed on acorns, and where they might also collect a certain amound of small wood for feul; (7) meadow land on which the tenants might hire the right to cut grass and make hay. On the above plan the fields of tenants—both those of villeins and of "sokemen," or tenants who paid a fixed rent in money or service—are marked by the letters A, B, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... ways of civilization, and had provided shelter and forage against the wintry weather. He informed me that previous to his labors amongst the Blackfeet their ponies wintered without loss on the native grasses, though he had since taught them to make hay, and in anticipation of receiving these cows, such families as were entitled to share in the division had amply ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... Captain Cook took his departure on the 31st, intending, agreeably to his instructions, to touch next at New Zealand; that he might obtain a recruit of water, take in wood, and make hay for the cattle. Their number was now considerably diminished; for two young bulls, one of the heifers, two rams, and several of the goats, had died while our navigators where employed in exploring Kerguelen's Land. ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... these northern coast counties, as well as those of Southern California, have for some years been a valuable laboring force for the farmers. They were employed to clear land, to make hay, and in many other avocations about the farm; they lived usually in little rancherias, or collections of huts, near the farm-houses; the women washed and did chores for the whites about the houses; and there has been, for at least half a dozen years, no pretense ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... have Clinton to dinner: it is plain I must make hay while the sun shines; I shall not long keep a footing in the world of penny writers, or call them obolists. It is a world full of surprises, a romantic world. Weg, I was known there; even I. The obolists, then, sometimes peruse our works. It is only fair; since I so much ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... together, so that, being fat and foggy and tired with the long fighting, he asked Tom would he let him drink a little? "Nay, nay," said Tom, "my mother did not teach me such wit; who'd be a fool then?" And seeing the giant beginning to weary and fail in his blows, Tom thought best to make hay whilst the sun shone, and, laying on as fast as though he had been mad, he brought the giant to the ground. In vain were the giant's roars and prayers and promises to yield himself and be Tom's servant. ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... on anybody—at least I hope she isn't. She used to be inclined to get sentimental at times—she thought she was in love and all that sort of thing. I soon knocked that nonsense out of her head. 'Laura' I said—'you've no time to fool. You won't be fresh and pretty all your life. Make hay while the sun shines. It's time to fall in love when you get old and faded and wrinkled. Business before pleasure every time.' You know, Brockton has been very good to her. She was lucky to find such a steady. She has money to burn, a luxurious apartment, automobiles, influence ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... They answered, Yes, I had some that belonged to me as a brother of St. Francis, if I would give it up. I said I did not know even that I was a brother of St. Francis; but I thought to myself, that perhaps the Franciscans of Fesole, whom I had helped to make hay in their field in 1845, had adopted me for one; only I didn't see how the consequence of that would be my having any money. However, I said they were welcome to whatever I had; and then I heard the voice of an Italian woman singing; and I have never heard such divine ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... Dickinson, the most pregnant and provocative of recent writers on this and similar subjects, is far too solid a man to have fallen into this old error of the mere anarchy of Paganism. In order to make hay of that Hellenic enthusiasm which has as its ideal mere appetite and egotism, it is not necessary to know much philosophy, but merely to know a little Greek. Mr. Lowes Dickinson knows a great deal of philosophy, ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... There is booty to be got here among the hills; and whether the soldiers belong to the well-trained battalions of Chili, or the wretched levies of Peru, they are always prepared, for plunder— ready to make hay while the sun shines. I only hope, Senhor Armstrong, that—but come, let us advance and see ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... the map hung up in my room here in California, and when I want to go home, I look at this map. I do not see the paper. I see fields and woods and stone walls and paths and roads and grazing cattle. In this field I used to help make hay; in this one I wore my fingers sore picking up stones for these stone walls; in this I planted corn and potatoes with my brothers. In these maple woods I helped make sugar in the spring; in these I killed my first ruffed grouse. In this field I did ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... as he handed me the landing-net to take in his third or fourth trout, "this is sport. You use the net, and I'll trail them to you. Let us make hay while the sun shines. The other boat will soon be along, and Smith will be for dipping his spoon into my dish. I want to ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... ashes, bones, nor teeth, have any intelligence to give us; nor yet that by the reverential scrutiny of those relics the living can be neither benefited nor improved. All that depends upon the intelligence of the scrutineer. Doubtless your Philister would turn over the skull or the bones, or make hay with the dust, just as Peter Bell could see nothing in a primrose but a weed in flower. What message a bone or a weed may have for the man or the race depends wholly upon the recipient. Your Shakespeare or Goethe, your Owen or Huxley, would find in it an ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby
... 'man is but grass; but I for one must make hay when the sun shines. Now for the Donna Maria,'—for the poor thing was asleep in the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... [Lat.]; spare time &c (leisure) 685. V. seize an opportunity &c (take) 789, use an opportunity &c 677, give an opportunity &c 784, use an occasion; improve the occasion. suit the occasion &c (be expedient) 646. seize the occasion, strike while the iron is hot, battre le fer sur l'enclume [Fr.], make hay while the sun shines, seize the present hour, take time by the forelock, prendre la balle au bond [Fr.]. Adj. opportune, timely, well-timed, timeful^, seasonable. providential, lucky, fortunate, happy, favorable, propitious, auspicious, critical; suitable &c 23; obiter dicta. Adv. opportunely ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... miles in length. The valley presents a beautiful picture as you go eastward; at this time of the year the alfalfa is so green. Each farm joins another. Each has a cabin in which the rancher lives while they irrigate and make hay. When that is finished they move into their houses in "town." Beyond the hogback rise huge mountains, rugged canyons, and noisy mountain streams; great forests of pine help to make up the picture. Looking toward the east ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart |
