"Toil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all so utterly discouraging that I despair of effecting anything for the honor of the country, or even to accomplish the purpose of the bequest, the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. It is hard to toil through life for a great purpose, with a conviction that it will be in vain; but possibly seed now sown may bring forth some good fruits. In my report, in January, 1836, I laid down all the general principles on which the fund should have been accepted and ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... their preparations before 'launching out into the deep' were complete. But even their courage was not the most splendid in the affair. When the prisoners had actually started, they found that the boat was overloaded, so 'two were content to stay on shore.' They were 'content' to return to toil and slavery indefinitely, and to face the bitter wrath and vengeance of their captors, enraged by the loss of so ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... kind of Hyper-Jacobinism, or rabid 'Faction des Enrages;' which has given orthodox Patriotism some umbrage, of late months. To 'know a Suspect on the streets:' what is this but bringing the Law of the Suspect itself into ill odour? Men half-frantic, men zealous overmuch,—they toil there, in their red nightcaps, restlessly, rapidly, accomplishing what of Life is ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... law as there was with a quick forefinger and an uncompromising eye. His gray hairs were honorable in that he had known no wastrel years. Nature had shaped him to a great, rugged being fitted for the simplicity of mountain life and toil. He had no argument with God and no petty dispute with man. What he found to do he did heartily. The horse-trader, camped near Concho, ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... ago was so lighthearted and bright with hope now rose at daybreak for a work of Herculean toil as usual, but no longer with the spirit that makes labor light. The same strength, the same dogged perseverance were there, but the sense of lost money, lost time, and invincible ill-luck oppressed ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... that Socialism will destroy individual liberty and hinder intellectual development go with their talk to the machine-workers of our great northern towns, who are chained for eleven hours a day to a monotonous toil, with the eye of the overseer and the fear of dismissal spurring them on to an exertion which leaves them at the end of their day's work physical wrecks, with no ambition but to restore their wasted energies at the nearest public-house. Let them go with ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... my dreams I see them, the long lines of naked men, their strong bodies shining with wet and bleeding from many a cut, keeping time in a wild chant as they tug at the taut line; a rope breaks and the toil of hours is lost; one misstep and a life ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... to refer to such witnesses who give the most precise information on the actual condition of the independent labourer, with minute instructions for his general guidance, and the economical expenditure of his income. 'He should,' they say, 'toil early and late' to make himself 'perfect' in his calling. 'He should pinch and screw the family, even in the commonest necessaries,' until he gets 'a week's wages to the fore.' He should drink in his work 'water mixed with some powdered ginger,' ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... Mon lightly. "You, and Marcos and I. We may sweat and toil as we will—but believe me, there is more power in Juanita's little finger. It is the ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... entangled, when two blacks, each bending under a load of firearms, preceded Colonel Howard, into the clear space where Borroughcliffe had halted his detachment. Some little time was necessary to enable the veteran to arrange his disordered dress, and to remove the perspiring effects of the unusual toil from his features, before he could observe the addition to the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... who has no employment but to watch his own digestions; and who, on waking in the morning, has no useful occupation of the day presented to his mind. To such a one respiration is a toil, and existence a continued disease. Self-oblivion is his only resource, indulgence in alcohol in various disguises his remedy, and death or superstition his only comfort and hope. For what was he born, and why does he live? are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... he, "I have nourished a wish that has engrossed all my thoughts; for I am bent on setting up a molten image in honour of Buddha; with this object I have wandered through various provinces collecting alms, and (who knows by what weary toil?) we have succeeded in amassing two hundred ounces of silver—enough, I trust, to erect a ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... may enjoye No toil I will refuse; But wanting you, my life is death; Nay, death Ild ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... selected Awatubi, Walpi, and Shumopavi as the sites for their mission buildings, and at once, it is said, began to introduce a system of enforced labor. The memory of the mission period is held in great detestation, and the onerous toil the priests imposed is still adverted to as the principal grievance. Heavy pine timbers, many of which are now pointed out in the kiva roofs, of from 15 to 20 feet in length and a foot or more in diameter, were cut at the San Francisco Mountain, and gangs of men were compelled ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... and a negligent master, and therefore I forbear to enlarge upon it; but it is so important in both cases, that indeed it cannot well be mentioned too often: the master's full application, in his own person, is the only answer to both. He that takes a partner only to ease him of the toil of his business, that he may take his pleasure, and leave the drudgery, as they call it, to the partner, should take care not to do it till about seven years before he resolves to leave off trade, that, at the end of the partnership, he may ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... to each man severally after the manner of God. Bear the maladies of all, as a perfect athlete. Where there is much toil, there is much gain. If thou lovest good scholars, this is not thankworthy in thee. Rather bring the more pestilent to submission by gentleness.... The season requireth thee, as pilots require winds, or as a storm-tossed mariner a haven, that it may attain unto ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... the waves: their stormy voices teach That not on earth may toil and struggle cease. Look on the mountains: better far than speech Their silent ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... In common with all animals, he has that perfect adaptation of part to part, and of all the parts to general objects, which demonstrate consummate wisdom in the Cause which thus adapted them. His eyes are so placed as to look the same way in which his feet are placed to walk, and his hands to toil. His feet correspond with each other, being both placed to walk in the direction, and with their corresponding sides towards one another, without which he would hobble, even if he could walk at all. His mouth is placed in the forepart of the head, by which ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... would be wantonly violating probability and the unity of a great life to suppose that this purpose, though transformed, was ever forgotten or laid aside. The poet knew not, indeed, what he was promising, what he was pledging himself to—through what years of toil and anguish he would have to seek the light and the power he had asked; in what form his high venture ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... means of which we rest, has also betrayed him. Here and there it is ulcerated; for man was not meant to lie perpetually on his back, but only to lie and sleep on it after a day of toil. ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... Herbert; "think of this! He comes here at the peril of his life, for the realization of his fixed idea. In the moment of realization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. Do you see nothing that he might do, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... work that I must do. Teaching the little Thornes was hateful to me; yet I could teach ragged children in the Sunday-school for hours. Mending Jack's things and talking to mother were wearisome details; yet I could toil through fog and rain in Nightingale lane, and feel no fatigue. My work was impure, my motives tainted by self-will. Could it be accepted by Him who was subject to His parents for thirty years, who worked at the carpenter's bench, when ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... took up the frock, and was soon as busily at work again with her needle as the two children with their snow-image. But still, as the needle travelled hither and thither through the seams of the dress, the mother made her toil light and happy by listening to the airy voices of Violet and Peony. They kept talking to one another all the time, their tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands. Except at intervals, she ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... below, a chime of falling water, the music, faint and distant, in rising and falling cadence of a marching military band. In at it also, and rising superior to all these in imperativeness and purpose, came the voice of Naples itself—no longer that of a city of toil and commerce, but that of a city of pleasure, a city of licence, until such time as the dawn should once again break, and the sun arise, driving back man and beast alike to labour, the one from merry sinning, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... almost driven to despair, and cried out for a ray of light in the darkness, for a flicker of hope amid the hopeless condition and sad chaos of her life. Through all the bitter days of suffering her mind was turned to the things hereafter, and she determined that if she had to toil and suffer here she would, if at all possible, do something to escape the suffering in the life to come. But how should she begin? What was she to do? Was there anything that could give her aching ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... at last, thought Cecilia, are half so much the slaves of the world as the gay and the dissipated? Those who work for hire, have at least their hours of rest, those who labour for subsistence are at liberty when subsistence is procured; but those who toil to please the vain and the idle, undertake a task which can never be finished, however scrupulously all private peace, and all internal comfort, may be sacrificed in reality to ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... smaller pyramids beside the Kings. These mountains of wasted masonry belong to the earliest ages of the Pharaonic monarchy, before the time of the Sesostrian conquests, and therefore they bespeak the toil and suffering, not of captives, but of native slaves. Before them couches the Sphinx, hewn from the rock, to spare, as a Greek inscription says, each spot of cultivable land. His riddle—for it is a male—is read. He represents, perhaps portrays, the reigning King, and the thick lips may indicate ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... and free be the style of his romance, and though its flexibility and ease seem at first sight to have cost no trouble at all, yet its merit lies precisely in the fact that it succeeds in concealing the toil, in hiding the seams. He could not have reached this perfection at a first attempt. He must have worked long at the task, revised it again and again, corrected much, and added rather than cut away. The aptness of form and expression has been arrived at by ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... heroic Henare Taratoa; he had taken the retired bishops Hobhouse and Abraham as his coadjutors; and, in the hours of unconsciousness which preceded the last breath, he murmured two sayings which seemed to go back to the old days of toil among the Maoris and at St. John's College. One was, "They will come back." The other, "Who's seeing ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... At work—her daily toil! He covered his wasted face with his wasted hands, and tears that were like a woman's fell from him. He had been weak and worn out for a long time—he gave way utterly, body ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... paused a moment before speaking, and looked at her with a kind of reverence. It would not have been strictly true to call her beautiful. For years,—since her earliest womanhood,—those slender hands had taken the bread which repaid the toil of heart and brain from the coarse palms which offered it in the world's rude market. It was not for herself alone that she had bartered away the life of her youth, that she had breathed the hot air ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of woe may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... kings of men he was descended, who conquered out of the jaws of the wilderness the priceless inheritance of American privilege and freedom. And while kings at home were trying to crush out the liberties of their subjects, or were dallying with wantons in the palaces built out of the unrequited toil of the long-suffering and downtrodden people, these men of iron were the pioneers of American civilization, at a time, which ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... creeping up the mountains, where the cool air of the upper slopes preserved the verdure longer than in the sunburnt valley. The air was light and fresh, with a brisk breeze from the west. The world seemed instinct with fruition and the gathering of that which had been sown with toil and carefulness. Is it the world that fits itself to our humour, or does the Creator mould our thoughts with wind and sky, light ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... might not earnest humility recover that mysterious lurking-place? Might not one, by devoted toil, by utter self-sacrifice, with eyes purified by long searching from worldly and selfish pollution,—might not such a one tear away the veil of centuries, and, even though dying in the attempt, gain one look into this arcanum? Might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... floor, and even found some time to read out of her books? Could they, with their bright frocks and rosy cheeks, have such very weak and wicked causes for their displeasure against this poor child? Could they so willingly hurt her heart, when she had come from so many days of toil to what she had thought would be a day of pleasure, so that she must often turn her head to wipe off the tears with her little red hand? And these children, had they come to honor ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... day! Sit down with thee! Mind thy paper, and give over spying!" How meanly he was kept in regard to clothing—how he had to sleep, for his life long, in a child's bed, far too short for him, for want of a straw mattress—and how, under such continual toil and miserable constraint, he at last sank, and died of water in the chest, it is now needless to say or to lament. We turn, rather, to the more pleasing contemplation of what Mind, in this most unfavourable situation, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... 1666, the death-rate had sunk to nearly its ordinary amount; a case of plague occurred only here and there, and the richer citizens who had flown from the pest had returned to their dwellings. The remnant of the people began to toil at the accustomed round of duty, or of pleasure; and the stream of city life bid fair to flow back along its old bed, with renewed and ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... December 3d said, and I can believe that Greeley himself wrote the words: "John Brown, dead, will live in millions of hearts, will be discussed around the homely hearth of Toil, and dreamed of on the couch of Poverty.... Yes, John Brown, dead, is verily a power like Samson in the falling temple of Dagon, like Ziska, dead, with his skin stretched over a drum head still routing the foe he bravely ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... fighting. And at the end of the conflict he said: "Now is it not shameful, fellow-soldiers, that these men who have been captured by us are so disposed toward bravery as to be eager to die in place of becoming slaves, whereas we shrink from incurring a little toil and danger for the purpose of not being subservient to others,—yes, and ruling them besides?" (Mai, p.192. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... gentle spirits who from their prisoning circumstance looked up and afar how the heart ached to think of them! Some girl, of delicate instinct, of purpose sweet and pure, wasting her unloved life in toil and want and indignity; some man, whose youth and courage strove against a mean environment, whose eyes grew haggard in the vain search for a companion promised in his dreams; they lived, these two, parted perchance only by the wall of neighbour houses, yet all huge ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... were not concealed by his clothes, was like that of one who had known hardships and exertion from his earliest youth. His person, though muscular, was rather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung and indurated by unremitted exposure and toil. He wore a hunting-shirt of forest green, fringed with faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins which had been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of wampum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the Indian, but ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... not in ladies' gardens, My peasant posy! Smile thy dear blue eyes, Nor only—nearer to the skies— In upland pastures, dim and sweet— But by the dusty road Where tired feet Toil to and fro; Where flaunting Sin May see thy heavenly hue, Or weary Sorrow look from thee Toward a more ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the preacher worked alone. Now came in the training of those early days on the farm, when he learned to swing an axe; when he builded up rugged strength in a stalwart frame, when his muscles were hardened and knotted with toil." ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... the bully. There was a terrible smile on his face as he seized the young brave's wrists in a grip of iron. The Oneida was a strong youth, but he wrestled in vain. The Chevalier had always been gifted with strength, and these weeks of toil and hardship had turned his muscles into fibers unyielding as oak. Gradually he turned the Indian around. The others watched the engagement with breathless interest. Presently the Indian came to his knees. Quick as light the Chevalier forced him upon ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... nearly four thousand a year. Why could he not as easily have said four as two to his mother? The simple answer is that he was afraid to say four. It was as if he ought to blush before his mother for being so plutocratic, his mother who had passed most of her life in hard toil to gain a few shillings a week. Four thousand seemed so fantastic! And in fact the Thrift Club, which he had invented in a moment, had arrived at a prodigious success, with its central offices in Hanbridge and its branch offices in the other four towns, and its scores of clerks and collectors ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... carrying out his intellectual aspirations. We have great numbers of people whom we have reason to believe are as able on the average, have as large a proportion of talent as the well-to-do, whose poverty is so crushing and whose days of toil are so long and so consuming of energy that the element of leisure is lacking. It is only an occasional individual of this class of people who is able to secure the wealth which means a measure of leisure by which he is able to mount out of obscurity. ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... here. The curse is a very real thing—and it would not be fair to you. Now I can save enough from the wreck to start us without positive hardship over seas, and George has written offering me a small share in his Australian cattle-run. You shall want for nothing, Millicent, that toil can win you, and I know that, with you to help me, I shall achieve at ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... of this busy day, a yet greater toil must be undergone by Whitelocke to make his despatches for England. By his letters to Thurloe he again acquainted the Council with the good conclusion of his treaty, and with his taking leave of ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... the old life of toil, and pouted crossly because duties called her when she wanted to do nothing but sit idly dreaming of the gay court scenes in which she had taken a bright, brief part. The old flax-spinner's fingers trembled ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... came out of the eating house the streets were still far from crowded. Laborers were going to their toil, but it was yet too early for the business men of the city to be on their way to offices, or ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... result of an ever-moving present. The future is the province of the poet, the prophet and the seer. The past is adamant, the future is plastic clay. The past is with God alone; the future is with God and man. We toil for it; dream of it; look to it; and all seek ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... the squad-drills I perceive that the men learn less laboriously than whites that "double, double, toil and trouble," which is the elementary vexation of the drill-master, that they more rarely mistake their left for their right, and are more grave and sedate while under instruction. The extremes of jollity and ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... of a face after all that constitutes its beauty, and among our girls who are compelled to earn their livelihood in factories and offices, one will behold faces delicate and features classically beautiful. The anxieties attending daily toil do not destroy their beauty, and some of these girls have features that light up with expressions wondrously charming, and here also the types are varied, and it is wonderful how an impression will sometimes be mutually made. This is what is commonly called "love at first ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... which this deliverance from toil was effected struck Jack forcibly. He compared this scene with the cries, the jostling on the pavements which in Paris enliven the exit from the workshops, and make it as noisy as that of a school. Here, rule and discipline were sensibly ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... this but the philosophy of our formula for ushering out the Sabbath and welcoming in the days of toil, accepting the holy and the profane, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... lived for the day, intent only on his art. His own thoughts reveal him in another light. "I wish to work miracles," he wrote. And elsewhere he exclaimed, "Thou, O God, sellest us all benefits, at the cost of our toil.... As a day well spent makes sleep {xiii} seem pleasant, so a life well employed makes death pleasant. A life well ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... to the needs of the occupants are poured. Then were the tools of Ceres, and the stones with which the corn is ground, dragged along by the labouring oxen. Pregnant mothers, forgetful of their sex and of the burden which they bore, undertook the toil of providing food for the families of thy people. Followed the reign of winter in thy camp. Over the hair of thy men the long frost threw a veil of snowy white; the icicles hung in a tangle from their beards. So hard was the frost that the garment which the matron's persevering ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... herbivora and carnivora from this point of view Dr. Kingsford writes: 'The carnivora, indeed, possess one salient and terrible quality, ferocity, allied to thirst for blood; but power, endurance, courage, and intelligent capacity for toil belong to those animals who alone, since the world has had a history, have been associated with the fortunes, the conquests, ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... our hands upon the latch, and God alone knew what was behind the gate. Toil, with a certainty, but our lives had known it. Death, perchance. But Death had been near to all of us, and his presence did not frighten. As we climbed towards the Gap, I recalled with strange aptness a quaint saying of my father's that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the world that you should have but seven more days to live upon the earth—seven days to help redeem your soul from everlasting shame and death. Mortal, see to it that thou use the precious time like those who toil for jewels in the mine beneath the sea. I who speak unto thee ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... wind, however, had no place in the thoughts of the lonely farmer at the moment. Such things he had been used to ever since he first homesteaded; this long haul with the products of his toil he had been making for many years. What immediately concerned him was the discouraging prospect of another wheat blockade instead of any improvement in conditions which had become unbearable. With the country as full of ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... swiftness of a snuffed candle. For an hour Rosendo had been straining his eyes toward the right bank of the river, and as he gazed his apprehension increased. But, as night closed in, a soft murmur floated down to the cramped, toil-worn travelers, and the old man, with a glad light in his eyes, announced that they were approaching the quebrada of Caracoli. A half hour later, by the weird, flickering light of the candles which Reed and Harris held out on either side, Rosendo turned the canoe into a brawling stream, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... place for a history of the last Italian revolution. That story has never yet been fitly told, but it will furnish a splendid epic one of these days for a great historian. It came like a beneficent earthquake, with toil and trouble and turmoil enough, and it stirred up all Europe, and shook down many unjust forms of government. To my mind it is the happiest and most beautiful event in the modern history of Europe, for the revolution, ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... the skins, and placing them on bars near the lower ends of the poles, which trailed on the ground, the upper ends being secured half on each side of the horses. The young squaws and children were mounted on the horses, while the older had to toil along on foot often with loads on their backs. Besides horses, our friends had a number of dogs which were employed in drawing loads on small sledges, and very hard work they must have found it in summer. They had also other dogs ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... Vardeman could, if they had been so disposed, have elected the Governor of Kentucky. Then the Baptists were strong in the affections of the people, and strong in the memory of those men who had, through incredible toil, obloquy, poverty and loss of goods, planted the Baptist cause in the American wilderness. Alexander Campbell, with his eminent gifts of eloquence and learning, was welcomed among the Baptists almost as an angel from heaven. But his well-meant efforts to work a reformation ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... did hasten; There was nothing in the ocean, With six fins about that roweth, Or with eight to move delighteth, But repair'd to hear the music. E'en the briny water's mother {38} 'Gainst the beach, breast-forward, cast her, On a little sand-hill rais'd her, On her side with toil up-crawling. E'en from Woinomoinen's eye-balls Tears of heart-felt pleasure trickled, Bigger than the whortle-berry, Heavier than the eggs of plovers, Down his broad and mighty bosom, Knee-ward from his bosom flowing, From his knee his ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... these remarks, by appealing to the consciences of all who have ever set about the work of religion in good earnest, whoever they may be, whether they have made less, or greater progress in their noble toil, whether they are matured saints, or feeble strugglers against the world and the flesh. They have ever confessed how great efforts were necessary to keep close to the commandments of God; in spite of their knowledge of the truth, and their faith, in spite ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... in a circle small, Or navigate, with madrigals for sails, Blown gently windward by old ladies' sighs? No, grammercy! Bribe kindly editors To spread abroad my verses? Grammercy! Or try to be elected as the pope Of tavern-councils held by imbeciles? No, grammercy! Toil to gain reputation By one small sonnet, 'stead of making many? No, grammercy! Or flatter sorry bunglers? Be terrorized by every prating paper? Say ceaselessly, 'Oh, had I but the chance Of a fair notice ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... saying things that pleased, often things that surprised me. Every day I grew more loath to leave them. While I was at work, they would keep coming and going, amusing and delighting me, and taking all the misery, and much of the weariness out of my monotonous toil. Very soon I loved them more than I can tell. They did not know much, but they were very wise, and seemed capable of learning anything. I had no bed save the bare ground, but almost as often as I woke, it was in a ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... to arrange things mentally," he explained. "Big brains always work best at night. All the great lawyers toil when the stars are out. Why should I be an exception? I dedicate myself to Cynthia Clarke. She will have my undivided attention and all my ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Sunday sermon, and so not likely to be going about the parish, as was his custom of an afternoon, visiting the sick, comforting the afflicted, and warning those evil-doers who preferred idleness and ale at the "Lamb" to honest toil and uprightness of living; consequently the young scapegrace was almost confident of non-interruption from any of his home folk, who, besides being too busy indoors to think of him, were ignorant of his whereabouts. It was also Jupp's heaviest day at the station, so ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... but pre-eminently so in that. Touched as Charlotte was by the letter of St. Ignatius before alluded to, she claimed equal self-devotion, and from as high a motive, for some of the missionaries of the English Church sent out to toil and to perish on the poisonous African coast, and wrote as an "imitation," "Lettre ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... comfort for his master in the least dilapidated room in the house. The walls were thin, and the plaster of the low ceiling was smoke-grimed and dirty. The "bed of lesser value" was stored away in the garret that lay beyond, and the prayer-mat was placed alongside the toil-worn wooden charpoy, that was at least fairly clean and had all four legs intact; and under this bed, the box that held a strange assortment of clothing was put safely away. At the bottom of another ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... me, darling? I was complaining for others, not myself. I do not toil as thousands do. I am impulsive and irascible, and do not mean all I say. I am ungrateful; my heart should be full of gratitude to-night, for the cloud which has hung over me the last six months has shown ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... first he belts it on, than he that day Heard still the clank of the plough-chains against The horses' harnessed sides, as to the field They went to make it fruitful. O'er the hill The sun looked down, baptizing him for toil. ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... the wide valley. This fertile soil makes up the rich lands that are the envy of less fortunate regions in the Great Basin; but the Crawling Stone is not a river to give quiet title to one acre of its own making. The toil of its centuries spreads beautifully green under the June skies, and the unsuspecting settler, lulled into security by many years of the river's repose, settles on its level bench lands and lays out his long lines of possession; but the Sioux will tell you in their own talk that this ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... push apply their shoulders to beams which project behind, using their thick, smoothly-shaven skulls as the motive power when they push their heavy loads uphill. Their cry is impressive and melancholy. They draw incredible loads, but, as if the toil which often makes every breath a groan or a gasp were not enough, they shout incessantly with a coarse, guttural grunt, something like Ha huida, Ho huida, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... listen, as you see; I should be afraid of being selfish in wishing for myself the better part—I mean the suffering. You are right—life is often burdensome and bitter. It is painful to begin a day of toil, especially when Jesus hides Himself from our love. What is this sweet Friend about? Does He not see our anguish and the burden that weighs us down? Why does He not ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... more than last year's leaves? The wind takes off the leaves, but it couldn't manage the hat; that wind, I suppose, has tidied whole forests to-day. Rum idea this is, that tidiness is a timid, quiet sort of thing; why, tidiness is a toil for giants. You can't tidy anything without untidying yourself; just look at my trousers. Don't you know that? Haven't you ever ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... conventionalities of courtly love, or tending to soften the natures of fierce feudal barons, it now sings chiefly of the simple, genuine sentiments of the human heart, of the real beauties of nature, of the charm of wholesome, outdoor life, of healthy toil and simple living, of the love of home and country, and brings at least a message of hope and cheer at a time when greater literatures are burdened with a ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... here and to seriously affect the labor market. It is estimated that over 1,000,000 will be forced from Russia within a few years. The Hebrew is never a beggar; he has always kept the law—life by toil—often under severe and oppressive civil restrictions. It is also true that no race, sect, or class has more fully cared for its own than the Hebrew race. But the sudden transfer of such a multitude under conditions that tend to strip them of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... title of the first proprietor must be determined by his death: but the possession, without any appearance of change, is peaceably continued in his children, the associates of his toil, and the partners of his wealth. This natural inheritance has been protected by the legislators of every climate and age, and the father is encouraged to persevere in slow and distant improvements, by the tender hope, that a long ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... with his material as a child plays with a kaleidoscope; and he is already in a second stage when he begins to use his pretty counters for the end of representation. In that, he must pause long and toil faithfully; that is his apprenticeship; and it is only the few who will really grow beyond it, and go forward, fully equipped, to do the business of real art—to give life to abstractions and significance and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is gray, but not with years. Nor grew it white In a single night, As men's have grown from sudden fears; My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose, For they have been a dungeon's spoil, And mine has been the fate of those To whom the goodly earth and air Are banned and barred—forbidden fare: But this was for my father's ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... upon with Politics, And, utterly fatigued by "bores" and "sticks," While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are "such clever things!" And make perpetual moan, Still from one "Question" to another thrown? Gulls, even, fold their wings, And cease their wanderings, Watching our brows which slumber's holy balm ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... that things are going extremely well, I wonder what those who are crying out that things are wrong are trying to do. Are they trying to serve the country, or are they trying to serve something smaller than the country? Are they trying to put hope into the hearts of the men who work and toil every day, or are they trying to plant discouragement and despair in those hearts? And why do they cry that everything is wrong and yet do nothing to set it right? If they love America and anything is wrong amongst us, it is their business to put their hand with ours to the ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... she felt! How much happier from the contrast of her previous wretchedness, to be suddenly freed from want, toil, fear and all the evils of destitute orphanage, and to find herself blessed with wealth, leisure and safety, under the care of a rich, good and kind father (or as such Capitola continued to believe her guardian to be). It was an incredible thing! It ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... of raising them, or the soil and climate were ill adapted for the purpose. The poor and ignorant planters applied themselves to those articles of husbandry to which probably they had been formerly accustomed, but which poorly rewarded them and left them, after all their toil, in a starved ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... these two old men. Their forms were bent with long years of hard and honourable toil. Their faces were rugged and weatherbeaten, wrinkled with age, and furrowed with care. They had come out together from the Homeland years and years ago. They had borne each other's burdens, and shared each other's confidences, through ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... at her task, though past daybreak, she being the weakest of all. Standing at her hand-mill she utters the ominous word: "O Zeus, ruler, fulfill this wish for me wretched: may the present feast of the Suitors be their last, they who have loosed my limbs with painful toil in grinding their barley meal!" Thus the prayer of the poor overworked slave-woman calls down the vengeance of the Gods, giving the word of friendly omen to the avenger. Certainly a most powerful motive; but again we think, how modern it sounds! Yet ancient too the thought must have been, ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... themselves upon the charity of Kansas. Thousands more were congregating along the banks of the Mississippi River, hailing the passing steamers, and imploring them for a passage to the land of freedom, where their rights of citizens were respected and honest toil rewarded by honest compensation. The newspapers were filled with accounts of their destitution, and the very air was burdened with the cry of distress from a class of American citizens flying from persecutions which they could not longer endure. Their ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... toil he wrought the following scenes, But if they're naught ne'er spare him for his pains: Damn him the more; have no commiseration For dulness on mature deliberation. He swears he'll not resent one hissed-off scene, Nor, like those peevish wits, his play maintain, Who, ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... Soon I shall have ample means. Within a year or two. Already I've told you I love you, though this you must have known, for I've made no effort to conceal my love. To me you're the dearest, sweetest girl in the world; and all I ask is the chance to strive and toil for you, and make a home for you, and relieve you of anxiety and care, and have you for a joyous companion ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... Hohenzollern King has to work for the State! In the same way the business man who rules his staff with a rod of iron might say to his discontented workmen: "See how strenuously I labour for the success of the business!" The workmen would probably answer that the ceaseless toil of the business man is not wholly disinterested, that the millionaire manufacturer is not a philanthropist; and the apologists of the Hohenzollern might be reminded that a King of Prussia in every generation has been wont to work ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... still exist in the vivid imagination of extreme youth, but she is not common to-day. The young girls affect gay attire, and are exempt from the hardships of toil which are imposed on their elder sisters, mothers and grandams, but their fate is infinitely worse. Little beauty is to be discerned among them, and in this regard time seems to have effaced the types which were prevalent a ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... the formalism, of fountains; dividing into fanciful change of dash and spring, yet with the seal of their granite channels upon them, as the lightest play of human speech may bear the seal of past toil, and closing back out of their spray to lave the rigid angles, and brighten with silver fringes and glassy films each lower and lower step of sable stone; until at last, gathered altogether again,—except, perhaps, some ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... from destruction, and warding off the conspiracy that would reduce you to beggary. For your sake only have I so guarded the secret of its wealth that no living soul suspects it. Even the men who delve in its depths know not the value of the material in which they toil, for I have not told them. Nor have I allowed an assay to be made of its smallest fragment; but I know its worth, its fabulous value, that will make the owner of the Copper Princess one of the richest ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... his grave, 'in a full age, as a shock of corn cometh in in his season' (Job 5:26). Jacob also, when he blessed his sons, as he lay upon his death-bed before them, doth sweetly comfort himself with this, after all his toil and travel, saying, 'I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord,'[9] as if he had said, Lord, I have faithfully walked before thee in the days of my pilgrimage, through the help and power of thy grace; and now having nothing to do but to die, I lie waiting for thy coming to gather me up to thyself ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and scribbled fast, he burned the midnight oil, And when he reached "The End" he felt rewarded for his toil; He said, "This charming Children's Book is greatly to my credit." And now he's sorely puzzled that no child ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... virtue of grace and of style and of dash, who went up to London—some of them even went to Paris—and brought back civilization to the Five Towns, who removed from the Five Towns the reproach of being uncouth and behind the times. Was the outcome of two generations of unremitting toil merely Ellis? (Ellis had several pretty sisters, but they did not count.) John could only guess at what old Jack's attitude might have been towards Ellis—Ellis, who had his shirts made to measure. He knew exactly what was Ellis's attitude towards the ideals ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... people are not really cheating themselves or being cheated. Indeed M. Renan himself has expatiated on the charm of seeing figures of the ideal in the cottages of the poor, images representing no reality, and so forth. 'What a delight,' he cries, 'for the man who is borne down by six days of toil to come on the seventh to rest upon his knees, to contemplate the tall columns, a vault, arches, an altar; to listen to the chanting, to hear moral and consoling words!'[7] The dogmas which criticism attacks are not for these poor people 'the object of an explicit affirmation,' ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... wholly improvised attack; and that which could not greatly discompose Caesar's thirteenth legion after the severe trial of the Gallic surprise and the January campaign in the land of the Bellovaci,(14)—the suddenness of the war and the toil of a winter campaign—could not but disorganize the Pompeian corps consisting of old soldiers of Caesar or of ill-trained recruits, and still only in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... for which they have a natural aversion, and absolutely no capacity: hence we see thousands struggling painfully through life in a hated avocation, and witness many a miserable lawyer whom nature designed to be a happy blacksmith. His toil of life is always up hill, without the possibility of ever attaining the summit. Sometimes the rebellion of nature is successful, and the misdirected will shake off the erroneously imposed vocation, and dash away in the pursuit for which the ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... for instance, a student attacked with dysentery while in the hardest part of the session at the university. His whole system became prostrate, and muscular activity to a very small degree would have killed him; so would the continued mental toil necessary to go on with his studies. Yet his brain was in need of exercise almost from the first appearance of his disease. He must have this or be miserable, and not likely soon to recover. An intensely interesting book fell into his hands, altogether away from his ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... more: Defend your rights, defend your shore: Let no rude foe, with impious hand, Let no rude foe, with impious hand, Invade the shrine where sacred lies Of toil and blood the well-earned prize. While offering peace sincere and just, In Heaven we place a manly trust, That truth and justice will prevail, And every scheme ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Biarnarhaf. Halli and Leikner immediately set about executing this prodigious task; while the scornful Asdisa, arrayed in her most splendid attire, came sweeping past in silence, as if to mock their toil. The poetical reproaches addressed to the young lady on this occasion by her sturdy admirer and his mate are still extant. In the meantime, the other servants of the crafty Arngrim had constructed a subterranean ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... own that Mr. Gladstone went to the exchequer), but a financier endowed with a practical imagination of the highest class, with a combination of the spirit of vigorous analysis and the spirit of vigorous system, with the habit of unflagging toil, and above all, with the gift of indomitable courage. If anybody suggested the reappointment of Hume's committee, the idea was wisely dismissed. It was evidently, as Graham said, the duty of the executive government ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... once, but that we have so many things to provide that we are not equal to it at present. One third of our people have fallen sick within the last four or five days, which I think has principally arisen from the toil and privations of the journey; another cause has been the variableness of the climate; but I hope in our Lord that all will be restored to health. My idea of this people is, that if we could converse with them, they would all become converted, for they do ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... retaining it for him for a time. After the death of his father, the temporary inheritor of his position indicated much energy and activity, although, even in this respect, none of the agitators approached their late chief: O'Connell's powers of physical endurance and toil had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... exhausted Figure, reclining on Jacob's Well, preach to us only what He was. It proclaims to us likewise what we should be. For if His work was carried on to the edge of His capacity, and if He shrank not from service because it involved toil, what about the professing followers of Jesus Christ, who think that they are exempted from any form of service because they can plead that it will weary them? What about those who say that they tread in His footsteps, and have never known what it was to yield up one comfort, one ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... of the bark in the dense forests of New Granada, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia is a work of great toil and hardship to the Indian cascarilleros or cascadores engaged in the pursuit. The trees grow isolated or in small clumps, which have to be searched out by the experienced cascarillero, who laboriously cuts his way through the dense forest ta the spot where he discovers a tree. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... speak of the privileges he alone of all his race had ever enjoyed—the privileges of toil and danger, with all their experiences of human dependence and divine aid; the privilege of the confidence and companionship of honourable labouring men, and the understanding of their ways and thoughts and feelings; ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... deeply affected than there; and yet, not so much by the sweet, lifelike statue of the queen as by that of the king, her husband, executed by the same hand.[B] Such an expression of long-desired rest, after suffering the toil, is shed over the face—so sweet, so heavenly! There, where he has prayed year after year—hoping, yearning, longing—there, at last, he rests, life's long anguish over! My heart melted as I looked at these two, so long divided—he so long a mourner, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... follies of past ages, than the art of building. This applies in a special sense to cathedrals and churches, which glorious relics reflect and perpetuate the noble aim, the delicate thought, the refined and exquisite taste, the patient and painstaking toil which have been expended upon them by the devout and earnest ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... whole of Reille's corps, and the effective part of D'Erlon's corps was hotly engaged at and near La Haye Sainte. Above all, the advent of the Prussians on the French right now made itself felt. After ceaseless toil, in which the soldiers were cheered on by Bluecher in person, their artillery was got across the valley of the Lasne; and at 4.30 Buelow's vanguard debouched from the wood behind Frischermont. Lobau's corps of 7,800 men, which, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... let hands of horn and tan And rough-shod feet applaud, Who died to make the slave a man, And link with toil reward. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... cool sitting-room, with a basket of mending, and Henry at another with a library book. Henry was very restless in these days. He pottered about the place and was planning to get in a good hay crop, but this desultory sort of employment did not take the place of his regular routine of toil. He missed it horribly, almost as a man is said to miss a pain of long standing. He knew that he was better off without it, that he ought to be happier, but he knew ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... world of the waking— Its laughter aye ends in a sigh; Dreams only are changeless—immortal: A love-dream alone cannot die. Toil, fools! Sow your hopes in the furrows, Rich harvest of failure you'll reap; Life's riddle is read the most truly By men who but ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... life, and have constituted the preparation for this work my sole recreation. Since my residence in the university of Coimbra, in the service of your highness, I have joined together all these informations; which, together with the duties of my office, have caused much toil both of body and mind. Having now accomplished the composition of this book and others, I most humbly offer the same to your highness; and, after many and most fortunate years of governing, I pray God to take you from the transitory seignory of this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... many of my heart's dearest sensations and my mind's highest thoughts dwelt in those poor paper leaves, in those little crabbed marks of pen and ink! Now I could look on them indifferently—almost as a stranger would have looked. The days of calm study, of steady toil of thought, seemed departed for ever. Stirring ideas; store of knowledge patiently heaped up; visions of better sights than this world can show, falling freshly and sunnily over the pages of my first book; all these were past ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... loamy Vale of Blackmoor, now lying misty and still in the dawn. Instead of the colourless air of the uplands, the atmosphere down there was a deep blue. Instead of the great enclosures of a hundred acres in which she was now accustomed to toil, there were little fields below her of less than half-a-dozen acres, so numerous that they looked from this height like the meshes of a net. Here the landscape was whitey-brown; down there, as in Froom Valley, it was always green. Yet ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... her, even had she the inclination: all her care was needed to help the hasty, tottering steps of the wife who was feebly speeding up the wet and slippery brow to her husband. All Bell thought of was that 'he' was at the end of her toil. She hardly understood when she was to see him; her weary heart and brain had only received one idea—that each step she was now taking was leading her to him. Tired and exhausted with her quick walk up hill, battling all the way with wind and rain, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Within these walls the Eagle of the clouds sucked the blood of the Red Lion, and received the spiritual Love of the Green Dragon, but alas! was childless. In solitude and utter silence did the disciple of the Hermetic Philosophy toil from day to day, from night to night. From the place where thou standest, he gazed at evening upon hills, and vales, and waters spread beneath him; and saw how the setting sun had changed them allto gold, by an alchymy more cunning ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root; and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river." But a sad memory for the days of toil, and struggle, and blood in that little colony, will remind us that this tree was not "transplanted from Paradise with all its branches in full fruitage." Neither was it "sowed in sunshine," nor was it "in vernal breezes and gentle rains that it fixed its roots, and grew and strengthened." Oh, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... to live with, quick to take offense at the least breath of the adverse criticism which she felt, unspoken and forbearing but thick in the air about her. She neglected her music, she neglected her studies; she spent long hours of feverish toil over Aunt Victoria's chiffons and silks. There was need for many toilets now, for the incessantly recurring social events to which she went with young Fiske, chaperoned by Mrs. Draper, who had for her old rival and enemy, Mrs. Hubert, the most ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... eleven on a favourable night in the summer months the fun is fast and furious; thousands of moths of the common sorts come and go; now and then a "good thing" to sweeten the toil. The "Peach Blossoms" and "Buff Arches" slacken at about half-past nine, and do not reappear until exactly the same light reappears in the morning, going on well into the daylight. In fact, I have taken them still coming to the sugar as late as ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... still considered shameful for a Persian to spit in public, or wipe the nose, or show signs of wind, or be seen going apart for his natural needs. And they could not keep to this standard unless they were accustomed to a temperate diet, and were trained to exercise and toil, so that the humours of the body were drawn off in other ways. Hitherto we have spoken of the Persians as a whole: we will now go back to our starting-point and recount the deeds of Cyrus ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... your shawl, and let us go; For one day let us think Of something else than daily care, Or toil, and meat, and drink: For one day let our children sport And feel their limbs their own: For one day let us quite forget The grief that we have known:— Let us forget that we are poor; And, basking in the ray, Thank God that we can still enjoy ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker |
