"Weak-minded" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Clarinda, for she was weak-minded, and could not bear to think that Bony never, never let naughty ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... felt in the domestic circle. Like animals that hate the light and crawl out from their hiding-places when the world is abandoned by man, the members of those impious gatherings passed their nights in mysterious conclave. Fancy can paint the scene: weak-minded men of every shade of unbelief, men of dishonest and immoral sentiments, men who, if justice had her due, should have swung on the gallows or eked out a miserable existence in some criminal's cell, joined in league to trample on the laws and constitution of order, and, in the awful callousness ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were arrested, and the King put to torture ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... secondly, that virtue is to be desired for its own sake, and that there is nothing more excellent or more useful to us, for the sake of which we should desire it; thirdly and lastly that suicides are weak-minded, and are overcome by external causes repugnant to their nature. Further, it follows from Postulate iv. Part.II., that we can never arrive at doing without all external things for the preservation of our being or living, so as to have no relations with things which are outside ourselves. ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... Mwanga, King of Uganda, came to the throne, reports were made to that weak-minded monarch that Mr. Mackay, the missionary, was sending messages to Usoga, a neighbouring State, to collect an army for the purpose of invading Uganda. His mind having thus become inflamed with suspicion, he was ready to ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... tell her you are weak-minded enough to be jealous, she would immediately disown such ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... With a weak-minded prince, averse to anything except the gratification of his passions, and under the influence of such counsellors, France became almost of necessity a scene of rapacity beyond all precedent. The princes ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... sensations as to a thing believed and a thing known. If a man tells you that grass is red and the sky yellow, you merely think him color blind—It does not anger you nor alter your opinion. If he tells you that two and two make ten, you think him ignorant, weak-minded, but your view is not changed, nor are you enraged by him. But if he contradicts you on some religious dogma you are hurt and angry. Why? As a matter of direct physicho-psychological ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... was departing, but reluctantly, and returning unexpectedly to cover the world with snow, to eclipse the thin spring sunshine with cheerless clouds. Helen took herself seriously to task. She assured herself it was weak-minded to rebel. The summer was coming and Fair Harbor with all its old delights was before her. She compelled herself to take heart, to accept the fact that, after all, the world is a pretty good place, and that to think only of the past, to live only on memories and regrets, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... observed that they had said or done. There are people who fancy that in church everybody is looking at them, when in truth no mortal is taking the trouble to do so. It is an amusing, though irritating sight, to behold a weak-minded lady walking into church and taking her seat under this delusion. You remember the affected air, the downcast eyes, the demeanor intended to imply a modest shrinking from notice, but through which there shines the real desire, "Oh, for any sake, look at me!" There are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... contains, the garden, the very trees I see from these windows, are so knitted into the fabric of my past life that I shrink—with a queer sense of homelessness—from any thought of their passing into the occupation of strangers.—Childish, pitifully weak-minded no doubt, and therefore the more natural that one should crave a voice, thus in the disposition of what one has learned through long usage so very falsely ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... hot all over to remember what I suffered that week, and for long, afterwards. But I think it cured me of bragging, which is a mean ungentlemanly habit, and of telling everybody everything about myself and my relations, which is very weak-minded. ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Mr. Tarbill became weak-minded, and babbled of cooling streams of water and delicious food until Ned Scudd, losing all patience, threatened to throw the nervous man overboard if he did not cease. This had the effect of ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... three brothers who had invited him to join the party, one, we have seen, was the hunter, Mestigoit; another, the sorcerer; and the third, Pierre, whom, by reason of his falling away from the Faith, Le Jeune always mentions as the Apostate. He was a weak-minded young Indian, wholly under the influence of his brother, the sorcerer, who, if not more vicious, was far more resolute and wily. From the antagonism of their respective professions, the sorcerer hated the priest, who lost no opportunity of denouncing his incantations, and ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... weak-minded Dhritarashtra regarded fate as supreme and unavoidable. And the king deprived of reason by Fate, and obedient to the counsels of his son, commanded his men in loud voice, saying—'Carefully construct, without loss of time, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... as for those innocent readers who ask why?—I beg (with the permission of their dear parents) to refer them to Shakespeare's pages, where they will read why King John disliked Prince Arthur. With the Queen, his royal but weak-minded aunt, when Giglio was out of sight he was out of mind. While she had her whist and her evening parties, ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her early home; but gold had raised a barrier between her and the companions of her childhood. And what had the possession of gold done for the man who made it his idol? It had put snares in the path of his only son; it had made the weak-minded but head-strong youth be entrapped by the wicked for the sake of his wealth, as the ermine is hunted down for its rich fur. It had given to himself heavy responsibilities, for which he would have to answer at the bar of Heaven; for from him unto whom much has ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... victims for the time see and hear only what these fairies impress upon them, exactly as the mesmerized subject sees, hears, feels and believes whatever the magnetizer wishes. The nature-spirits, however, have not the mesmerizer's power of dominating the human will, except in the case of quite unusually weak-minded people, or of those who allow themselves to fall into such a condition of helpless terror that their will is temporarily in abeyance; they cannot go beyond deception of the senses, but of that art they are undoubted ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... probably the happiest of his life. In 1664 or 1665 he married Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire. About a hundred pounds a year were thus added to his income. The marriage is said not to have been a happy one, and perhaps it was not, for his wife was apparently a weak-minded woman; but the inference from the internal evidence of Dryden's plays, as of Shakespeare's, is very untrustworthy, ridicule of marriage having always been a common stock in trade of the ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... interested in a wounded Uhlan captain who was in that hospital. He began by trying to bribe our poor Nicko, thinking the chocolate peddler too weak-minded to be patriotic. He was mistaken," and the major nodded. "Had the Uhlan not died of his wounds I believe I should have got something of moment ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... more strongly developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of serious disquietude to my friends, and of positive injury to myself. I grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, and a prey to the most ungovernable passions. Weak-minded, and beset with constitutional infirmities akin to my own, my parents could do but little to check the evil propensities which distinguished me. Some feeble and ill-directed efforts resulted in complete failure on their part, and, of course, in total triumph on mine. ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... given by God to Moses on Sinai, "See that thou make all things according to the pattern showed thee in the mount.[143]" But Plotinus teaches that, as the sensible world is a shadow of the intelligible, so is action a shadow of contemplation, suited to weak-minded persons.[144] This is turning the tables on the "man of action" in good earnest; but it is false Platonism and false Mysticism. It leads to the heartless doctrine, quite unworthy of the man, that public calamities are to the wise ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... in any American magazine. Each may conceive himself to be a solitary Napoleon brooding at St. Helena; but the result is a multitude of Napoleons brooding all over the place. Each of them must have the eyes of a mesmerist; but the most weak-minded person cannot be mesmerised by more than one millionaire at a time. Each of the millionaires must thrust forward his jaw, offering (if I may say so) to fight the world with the same weapon as Samson. Each of them must accentuate the length ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... concerning him, "Ah, there's that good-hearted man—open as a child!" If they saw him just after losing a shilling or half-a-crown, or accidentally letting fall a piece of crockery, they thought, "There's that poor weak-minded man Dewy again! Ah, he's never done much in the world either!" If he passed when fortune neither smiled nor frowned on them, they merely thought him ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... to take the place of the king whose military genius and great conquests had won for him the title of "Great"? It is true that Alexander had a half-brother, named Ar-ri-dae'us, but he was weak-minded. The only other heir was an infant son, born shortly after his ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... of superior intelligence can rule, expecting victory. A king should provide for the observance of morality by the aid of his understanding and guided by knowledge derived from various sources. The duties of a king can never be discharged by rules drawn from a morality that is one-sided. A weak-minded king can never display wisdom (in the discharge of his duties) in consequence of his not having drawn any wisdom from the examples before him. Righteousness sometimes takes the shape of unrighteousness. The latter also sometimes takes the shape of the former. He who does not know this, becomes ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Bunker. Frank had been pained to notice that an unnatural intimacy had been growing up between them for several days; and he had already begun to fear that it was in the heart of Tim to lead his weak-minded ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... his mercenaries. And surely we must suppose, that Paeonians and Illyrians, and all such people, would rather be free and independent than under subjection; for they are unused to obedience, and the man is a tyrant. So report says, and I can well believe it; for undeserved success leads weak-minded men into folly; and thus it appears often, that to maintain prosperity is harder than to acquire it. Therefore must you, Athenians, looking on his difficulty as your opportunity, assist cheerfully in the war, sending embassies where required, taking ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... there was more bossin' an' responsibility than brute labor; an' I felt kindly toward him. Winter lasted full four months out there. It was a good ninety miles to the railroad, an' so when the mornin's begun to get frosty every one else scooted for humanity, an' I, bein' more or less weak-minded, took the job o' watchman, at forty a month an' my needin's. I always was a hog for litachure, so I got a bushel o' libraries an' started in to ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... pointed, and, therefore, should never be in the hands of the wicked or foolish, any more than firearms. It is potential or otherwise, in exact proportion to the artist's wisdom and dynamic mentality, and is useless in the hands of the idiotic or weak-minded. A Magic Wand requires brains and vigorous mental force to make it effective, just as the steam engine requires an apparatus for generating the steam, that moves it. With a determined will, and a mental conception ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... moment Margaret stood before her mirror and tidied her hair for luncheon and assured her image in the glass that she was a weak-minded fool. She pointed out to herself the undeniable fact that Billy, having formerly refused to marry her—oh, ignominy!—seemed pleasant-spoken enough, now that she had become an heiress. His refusal to accept part of her fortune was a very flimsy device; ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... feel that I could eat alone to-night, but it was too late to go for Sallie or Cousin Jasmine, and besides it is weak-minded to feel that way. Why shouldn't I want to ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to the ceiling. Carlos, standing behind his chair, opened his mouth a little in a half smile. I was really angry with O'Brien by that time, with his air of omniscience, superiority, and self-content, as if he were talking to a child or someone very credulous and weak-minded. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... her son to his second daughter, the Lady Anne. However agreeable this marriage was to the new friends, it was very disagreeable to the Duke of Clarence, who perceived that his father-in- law, the King-Maker, would never make him King, now. So, being but a weak-minded young traitor, possessed of very little worth or sense, he readily listened to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose, and promised to turn traitor once more, and go over to his brother, King Edward, when a fitting opportunity ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... solution Rhodes could find to the problem, though he milled it around in his mind quite a bit. Unless the boy was curiously weak-minded and frightened at the face of a stranger it was the only explanation he could find, yet the boys of Herrara had always struck him as rather bright. In fact Conrad had promoted Juanito to the position of special messenger; he could ride like ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... but I felt convinced from the general appearance of the country that there was not the slightest probability of our finding water there, and resolved therefore still to continue a direct route. When I gave this order the weak-minded quailed before it: they would rather have perished in wandering up and down those arid and inhospitable banks than have made a great effort and have torn themselves away from the vain and delusive hopes this watercourse held ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... have obtained the reputation of being haunted, and would have been a terror to weak-minded people ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... you know, spares none, not even Odin and his Asa-folk. They all grow old and gray; and, if there were no cure for age, they would become feeble, and toothless and blind, deaf, tottering, and weak-minded. The apples which Idun guarded so carefully were the priceless boon of youth. Whenever the Asas felt old age coming on, they went to her, and she gave them of her fruit; and, when they had tasted, they ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... There was in one corner in a waste-room at least two cart-loads of old books in a cobwebbed dusty pile. Out of that pile I raked the thirteenth known copy of Blind Harry's famed poem, a black-letter Euphues Lely, an Erra Pater (a very weak-minded friend actually shamed me out of making a copy of this great curiosity, telling me it was silly and childish of me to be so pleased with old trash), and many more marvels, which were so little esteemed in Princeton, that one of the professors, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... nineteen persons, one hundred and nineteen were known to be feeble-minded, and only forty-two known to be normal. The families tended to be large, sometimes very large, most of them in many cases dying in infancy or growing up weak-minded.[31] ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... keenly on reaching her late aunt's very neat dwelling in Fourteenth Street, New York. But the manly tenderness of Mulford was a great support to her, and a little time brought her to think of that weak-minded, but well-meaning and affectionate relative, with gentle regret, rather than with grief. Among the connections of her young husband, she found several females of a class in life certainly equal to her own, and somewhat superior to the latter ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... humility, humbugging and self-deceitful. What cares he for the Duke of Bedford, whom he scarcely sees from one end of the year to the other, and why should he care? They have very little in common—neither the idem velle nor idem nolle; and a more uninteresting, weak-minded, selfish character does not exist than the Duke of Bedford.[3] He is a good-natured, plausible man, without enemies, and really (though he does not think so) without friends; and naturally enough he does not think ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... life, to wipe out the social disgrace of leaving neglected wanderers on the highways of human effort who are unable to find the path of safety and of success, and to make a protected place of guidance and possible training for all the weak-minded and abnormal. We can, now we increasingly understand, do more than this; we can help with ever more ingenious and devoted care to give the merely slow and backward a better chance at life's opportunities and help to make these ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... getting weak-minded, I know," she said feverishly. "I resent being forced to resort to this sort of thing when I am doing nothing wrong, according to my own belief. Why should I be forced to behave as if I were sinning ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... bush indeed; that is, so far as any thing in nature can be really ugly. It was lopsided—having on the one hand a stunted stump or two, while on the other a huge heavy branch swept down to the gravel-walk. It had a crooked gnarled trunk or stem, hollow enough to entice any weak-minded bird to build a nest there—only it was so near to the ground, and also to the garden gate. Besides, the owners of the garden, evidently of practical mind, had made use of it to place between a fork ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... recommend him, instead of beating it, to slay and eat it. Donkey is now all the fashion. When one is asked to dinner, as an inducement one is told that there will be donkey. The flesh of this obstinate, but weak-minded quadruped is delicious—in colour like mutton, firm and savoury. This siege will destroy many illusions, and amongst them the prejudice which has prevented many animals being used as food. I can most solemnly assert that ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... mourners sprang to their feet at once. They left the weak-minded old fellow sitting where he was, and the three others tottered off at a quick pace toward the "Star," where they were soon sitting on a bench against the wall, each with a glass in front of him. Huerlin, who had not seen the interior of a tavern for weeks and months, was full of joyous ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... discovered coal on his property, and by threatening him with arrest has gained a complete ascendency over the weak-minded old man. However, the fact remains that his daughter was married by me to M. d'Epernay some ten or twelve days ago at ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... done that tried him sorely, and he made glorious blunders, from which the regimental sergeant-major pulled him with a loyal soul and a shut mouth. Slovens and incompetents raged against him; the weak-minded strove to lure him from the ways of justice; the small-minded—yea, men whom Cottar believed would never do "things no fellow can do"—imputed motives mean and circuitous to actions that he had not spent a thought upon; ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... Des Maizeaux, if he was weak-minded, was not absolutely dishonest) had no effect on Mrs. Collins. The manuscripts were never returned. What their contents were, no one now can inform us. We are justified, however, in supposing that as those eight volumes were the crowning efforts of ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... were singing, 'Nearer my God to Thee.' In the midst of their song the raft struck a large tree and went to splinters. There were one or two wild cries and then silence. The horror of that time is with me day and night. It would have driven a weak-minded person crazy. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... all very well for Diana to people the corridor with imaginary monks; she knew they were images of her own creation; the more weak-minded of her form mates, however, were frankly frightened. Nothing spreads more readily than a ghost scare. Sadie, Jess, and Peggie were bolting squealing along the passage one evening, when they almost ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... to be used in my buildings; it would be such utterly new business to me that I feel certain of a failure, and we business men, Mr. Mall, do not like to fail in our undertakings. You really will have to excuse me from taking part in such a peculiar proceeding. If we have such a poor weak-minded boy in our employ as you describe, I feel very sorry for him, and would recommend his mother to take him home and keep ...
— Three People • Pansy
... especially in his Daily News articles. The rush to the country was not uncommon in the literary world of the moment, and his journalist friends had urged the point that Beaconsfield was not true country, was suburban, was being built over. His friends, G.K. replied, were suffering from a weak-minded swing from one extreme to the other. Men who had praised London as the only place to live in were now vying with one another to live furthest from a station, to have no chimneys visible on the most distant horizon, to depend on tradesmen who only ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... fathers respectively of son Accius and daughter Silena, separately and craftily resolve to bring about by fraud the wedding of these two young people, for the reason that each knows his child to be weak-minded, and, believing his neighbour's child to be sound-witted and of good heritage, perceives that only deceit can accomplish the union. In this attempt to overreach each other they employ their servants, Dromio and Riscio, as principal ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... halted for a glass of tea at the Persian Khafe-Khanas, and in one of them a very amusing incident happened, showing the serious effects that hallucination may produce on a weak-minded person. ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... she was an accomplished performer, she would as often as not begin to cry, and leave the room. My company from this, of course, fancied I was a tyrant over her; whereas I was only a severe and careful guardian over a silly, bad-tempered, and weak-minded lady. ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... refusal of Francis, and after he had learned that the sacrifice of Claude would not help him, he grew desperate, and determined to keep the English girl in his court at any price and by any means. So he hit upon the scheme of marrying her to his weak-minded cousin, the Count of Savoy. To that end he sent a hurried embassy to Henry VIII, offering, in case of the Savoy marriage, to pay back Mary's dower of four hundred thousand crowns. He offered to help Henry in the matter of the imperial crown in case of Maximilian's death—a help much ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... made three gestures, without saying a word: first she pointed to herself, then she shook her forefinger, and lastly she jerked her thumb back in the direction of the door that led to the Senator's apartments. The weak-minded body was not Pina, but her master, since he had brought that handsome singer to teach Ortensia, who had never before exchanged two words with any young man, handsome or plain, except under the nose of the Senator himself; and that had always been at those great festivals to which the Venetian nobles ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... inquiring of Benjamin Bolt whether or no he happened to remember "Sweet Alice, sweet Alice with hair so brown, who wept with delight when you (B.B.) gave her a smile, and trembled with fear at your (B.B.'s) frown?" The portrait also of the aforesaid Alice, evidently rather a weak-minded ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... weak-minded. I know it. But if it doesn't thunder any more I'll keep up. Ever since I was a child the sound of thunder paralyzed me. Thank God, Mrs. Yocomb is beginning ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... notwithstanding its apparent caprice, has always been governed by immutable laws. But these laws were not recognised in the benighted epoch in which we happen to live at present. On the contrary, Fashion is thought a whim, a sort of shuttlecock for the weak-minded of both sexes to make rise and fall, bound and rebound with the battledore called—social influence. But it will interest a great many people to learn that Fashion assumed the dignity of a science in 1940. Ten years later it was taken up by ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... had found his elder son again he began to dote upon him, as in such a case the old and weak-minded often do, and would walk about the gardens and palaces with his arm around his neck babbling to him of whatever was uppermost in his mind. Moreover, his soul was oppressed because he had done Kari wrong in the past, and ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... biographer thought it his duty to give the most minute and peculiar details concerning the poet's private life. In consequence, the book is a deplorable one in many respects, and no plain-minded person can read it without feeling sorry that our sweet singer should be presented to us in the guise of a weak-minded hypocrite. One critic wrote a great many pages in which he bemoans the dreary and sordid family-life of the man who wrote the "Ode to the West Wind." I can hardly help sympathizing with the critic, for indeed Shelley's proceedings rather ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... headed, addle headed, puzzle headed, blunder headed, muddle headed, muddy headed, pig headed, beetle headed, buffle headed^, chuckle headed, mutton headed, maggoty headed, grossheaded^; beef headed, fat witted, fat-headed. weak-minded, feeble-minded; dull minded, shallow minded, lack- brained; rattle-brained, rattle headed; half witted, lean witted, short witted, dull witted, blunt-witted, shallow-pated^, clod-pated^, addle- pated^, addle-brained^; dim-sighted, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... been listening at the door, as usual, and she immediately began crying for joy; for she is a weak-minded old thing, and dotes on Nino. I was very glad myself, I can tell you; but I could not understand how Nino could have the heart to sing, or should lack heart so much as to be fit for it. Before the evening he came home, silent and thoughtful. I asked him whether ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... missionary will, for his own ends, preach resistance to time-honoured customs and privileges which Niger has himself accepted. An unworthy lawyer will urge litigation; a dishonest judge or police-magistrate will make popularity at the expense of equity and honour; a weak-minded official will fear the murmurs, the complaints, and the memorials of those under him, and the tomahawking which awaits him from the little army of negrophiles at home. But the most dangerous class of all ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... so glad that it was over. A whole year almost he never broke out, but took his food quietly when he came home from work, and then crawled into bed. All that time he broke nothing; he just slept and slept; at last I believed he had become weak-minded, and I was glad for him, for he had peace from those terrible ideas. I believed he had quieted down after all his disgraces, and would take life as it came; as the rest of his comrades do. And now he's broken out again ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... his thighs as thick as any athlete's. Still, the most remarkable thing about Mr. Wilde was that a man of his marvellous intelligence and knowledge should have such a head. It was flat and pointed, like the heads of many of those unfortunates whom people imprison in asylums for the weak-minded. Many called him insane, but I knew him to be as ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... strange, but mournfully familiar—it was Martha Taylor on every lineament. I shall try to find a moment to see her again. She lives in a poor but clean and neat little lodging. Her mother seems a somewhat weak-minded woman, who can be no companion to her. Her father has quite deserted his wife and child, and this poor little, feeble, intelligent, cordial thing wastes her brains to gain a living. She is twenty-five years old. I do not intend to stay here, at the furthest, more than a week longer; ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... 4. Coitus only with her husband before myself. Not very passionate. I know nothing about masturbation or homosexuality in her case. Very broad hips, large breasts, and well-developed nates. Deserted by her husband. No children. Rather foolish and weak-minded. Penetration difficult owing to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... looking for it here—over there in the front parlour. The position of husband of a weak-minded woman with a large fortune would ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... exclaimed, after critically surveying her daughter, "I don't see how girls can be so weak-minded. Many a man as good as George Denham has crossed Murder Creek in a freshet. I don't see but what he's big enough and ugly enough to take ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... weak-minded as to give in to you!" she sighed; then handed him the cigar box, and scratched a match for him; he held her wrist—the sputtering match in her fingers—lighted the cigar, blew out the match, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... a dreary episode. There is little more to tell, and it must be told quickly. Percival was kind, but it distressed me to find that he now plainly regarded me as weak-minded from the stress of my trouble. Once, in the extremity of my misery, I began a relation of my adventures to him, for I wanted his help. The look upon his face was enough for me. I did not make the ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... other-day kings are more than made up to the nation in the bright reign of the most excellent Jehoiakim. We do not expect that even the superior administration of our matchless monarch will suit the tastes and desires of weak-minded and superstitious men. The King of Judah, with all his superior powers, is not capable of satisfying the unreasonable demands of those deluded creatures who are yet too numerous in our midst. What good can result to anyone from spending half his time in yonder Temple, ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... Weak-minded folly magnifies All that is rare and strange, And the dull herd's o'erwhelmed with awe At unexpected change. But wonder leaves enlightened minds, When ignorance ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... citizenship of the nation. Restrictive laws have been passed by certain of the States in America, which are eugenic experiments. Feeble-mindedness, in so many ways a social evil, is readily reproduced, and the weak-minded are easily controlled by the sex instinct. To prevent this certain State legislatures have forbidden the marriage of any feeble-minded or epileptic woman under the age of forty-five. It is well known ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... to say, that he did not feel some emotions of regret for his precipitate action. But, having assumed so decided a position in the matter, he could not think of retracing a step that he had taken. Hasty and positive men are generally weak-minded, and this weakness usually shows itself in a pride of consistency. If they say a thing, they will persevere in doing it, right or wrong, for fear that others may think them vacillating, or, what they really are, weak-minded. Just such a man was ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... abstain carefully from any measures that would lead to difficulty or collision, to cries, complaints to the mother, or any of those other forms of commotion or annoyance, which ungoverned children know so well how to employ in gaining their ends. The mother may be one of those weak-minded women who can never see any thing unreasonable in the crying complaints made by their children against other people. Or she may be sick, and it may be very important to avoid every thing that could ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... a bar was exposed to much temptation. A weak-minded man, mingling continually in the company of topers, might possibly end by giving way to drink. Now, Josiah was an exceptionally weak-minded man. It had also to be borne in mind that he had a shrewish ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... light of her countenance to Madame de Verzenay. For this infirmity of purpose many female Dracos would have ordered her off to instant execution—very justly. That silly little Fanny only kissed her, and said, "She was a dear, kind darling." What can you expect of such irreclaimably weak-minded offenders? They ought to be sentenced to six months' hard labor, supervised by Miss Martineau; perhaps even this would not work a permanent cure. Still, on The Tresilyan's part, it was an immense effort of self-denial. She was well aware how she laid herself open to Royston Keene's ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... casting a scrutinising glance on Jesus, went into the adjoining apartment, and ordered the guards to bring him alone into his presence. Pilate was not only superstitious, but likewise extremely weak-minded and susceptible. He had often, during the course of his pagan education, heard mention made of sons of his gods who had dwelt for a time upon earth; he was likewise fully aware that the Jewish prophets had long foretold that one should appear in ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... human comprehension. Their very usefulness, the service they render man, is founded on their own folly; were it not for that, man could not even catch them, let alone force them to submit, like weak-minded ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... with which at once tells its own tale. Fortunately, our existing law is sufficient to keep the nuisance in check, if only it be resolutely administered. The tramp, however, trades upon spurious sympathy. There will always be weak-minded folk to pity the poor man whom the hard-hearted magistrates have sent to gaol for sleeping under a haystack—forgetting that this interesting offender is, as a rule, no better than a common thief at large, who ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Miss ZELIE DE LUSSAN, gifted with a light, pleasant voice, sang admirably. Can't have "Trop de Zelie." Mr. BARTON McGUCKIN, as Don Jim-along-Jose, did all that can be done with this weak-minded soldier. No holes to be picked in Mr. McG.'s performance, though there was a portion of his costume that would have been the better for the attention of Signor SOANSO, the Spanish tailor. Perhaps he is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... from the top shelf of the hospital department of my library—the section devoted to literary cripples, imbeciles, failures, foolish rhymesters, and silly eccentrics—one of the least conspicuous and most hopelessly feeble of the weak-minded population of that intellectual almshouse. I open it and look through its pages. It is a story. I have looked into it once before,—on its first reception as a gift from the author. I try to recall some of the names I see there: ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... answer. "Let us get at once to the point. I am planning to go into the work long carried on by that weak-minded Colonization Society; but on certain lines of ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... the enemy that Plum and Jasniff and Merwell were!" cried Phil. "He was one of the weak-minded kind who thought it was smart to follow ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... curtains and furniture, all the while commenting upon them to her daughter in an envious, complaining tone. In the kitchen she caught up an iron pot that stood on the back of the stove and said: "You got many, Shimerdas no got." I thought it weak-minded of grandmother to give the pot ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... The children had their mother's silly gift—a gift of the weak-minded, of forgetting their own duties and their own sorrows in a vacant interest which they found in books. She had wrapped a piece of coarse red flannel round her head to comfort a swollen jaw, and her face appeared from ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... had the mimic would-be desperado sat trembling on his hoary screw, revolvers ready, while the red eyes of the coach dilated down the road; and as often had the cumbrous ship pitched past unscathed. The week-kneed and weak-minded youth was too vain to feel much ashamed. He was biding his time, he could pick his night; one was too dark, another not dark enough; he had always some excuse for himself when he regained his room, still unstained by crime; and so the unhealthy excitement was ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... "Silence! weak-minded puffin!" thundered the wizard, to the great astonishment of a seal which came up at that moment to breathe, and prudently retired in time ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... opponents he was denounced as a quack, or, at the best, a visionary mystic, who had deluded the young with the mummeries of a free-masonry; had turned the weak-minded into shallow enthusiasts and grim ascetics; and as having conspired against a state which had given him an honourable refuge, and brought disorder and bloodshed upon it. Between such contradictory statements, it is difficult to determine how much we should impute to the philosopher ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... wa'n't real loony, nuther. 'Twas only when he got aboard that—that ungodly, kerosene-smellin', tootin', buzzin', Old Harry's gocart of his that the craziness begun to show. There's so many of them weak-minded city folks from the Ocean House comes perusin' 'round summers, nowadays, that I cal'lated he was just an average specimen, and never ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... occur, are perpetuating a most stupendous fraud upon Christendom, and an earnest and efficient protest should be inaugurated against the further agitation of the monstrous delusion of second adventism, which is frightening thousands of weak-minded people into insanity and causing a vast amount ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... never said that my practice always squared with my principles. Helpless and troublesome creatures have sometimes an insinuating way with them, which forms an additional reason for avoiding them, especially if one is weak-minded. And——" ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... "sempiternus dominus" and "curiosus Deus" of the Stoics. Such, surely, was the meaning of Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny. And hence, of course, the frequent reproach cast on Christians as credulous, weak-minded, and poor-spirited. The heathen objectors in Minucius and Lactantius speak of their "old-woman's tales." Celsus accuses them of "assenting at random and without reason," saying, "Do not inquire, but believe." "They lay it down," he says elsewhere: "Let no educated man approach, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... travel around the world and never speak to a stranger, or make an acquaintance, if he could help it. Then, instinctively, she turned to Gregory. He was looking fixedly at the man, whose manner had attracted general attention. But he only said, "Then I am very weak-minded." ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... ilk, the prince at that time serving as Captain of Hussars at Bonn. Soon afterwards, Emperor William learning that Prince Waldemar of Lippe was dying, took advantage of the fact that he was rather weak-minded to induce him to sign a species of will bequeathing the regency of the principality at his death to Prince Adolph of Schaumburg-Lippe, the next heir to the throne of Lippe; his brother Alexander of Lippe being an ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... has been said, it may confidently be asserted, that a universal remedy still remains as great a desideratum as the philosopher's stone; and either can only obtain credit with the weak-minded, the credulous, or the fanatic. One of the most unfortunate circumstances in the history of such medicines, is the insinuating and dangerous method, by which they are puffed into notice. And as we have little of the beneficial ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... fitted with a single hard definition, rigidly observed, all repetition is a kind of delicate punning, bringing slight differences of application into clear relief. The practice has its dangers for the weak-minded lover of ornament, yet even so it may be preferable to the flat stupidity of one identical intention for a word or phrase in twenty several contexts. For the law of incessant change is not so much a counsel of perfection to be held up ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... with it that courage and that necessary presence of mind which knows how to direct or repress multitudes, how to command obedience and obtain popularity; but when a man is entrusted with the safety of an Empire, and assumes such a brilliant situation, he must be weak-minded and despicable indeed, if he does not show himself worthy of it by endeavouring to succeed, or perish in the attempt. The French emigrant, General Dumas, evinced what might have been done, even with the dispirited Neapolitan troops, whom he neither deserted, nor with whom he offered ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... impel epilepsy, or mania, in the son. Ungoverned passions in the parents may unloose the furies of unrestrained madness in the minds of their children, and the bad treatment of the wife may produce sickly or weak-minded children. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... years before the Victorian period folklore was left to the peasants, or at least kept out of reach of children of the higher classes. No doubt old nurses prattled it to their charges, perhaps weak-minded mothers occasionally repeated the ancient legends, but the printing-press set its face against fancy, and offered facts in its stead. In the list of sixty-two books before mentioned, if we except a few nursery jingles such as "Mother Hubbard" and "Cock Robin," we ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... handsome soldier named Alcibiades, and he had not been asked because, having quarreled with the Government of Athens, he had left that town. The thought that Alcibiades might have proved a true friend did not soften Timon's bitter feeling. He was too weak-minded to discern the fact that good cannot be far from evil in this mixed world. He determined to see nothing better in all mankind than the ingratitude of Ventidius and the meanness ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... Christian you are, the better you know they ought not to happen. And whether they are engaged to be married, or whether they quarrel, trouble must come of it. If people do wrong, it's no good for Christians to say the issue must be right. That's simply weak-minded. You might as well argue nothing wrong ever does happen, since nothing can happen ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... to the future. A brave man ought to ask for what he wants, not for what he expects to get. A brave man who wants Atheism in the future calls himself an Atheist; a brave man who wants Socialism, a Socialist; a brave man who wants Catholicism, a Catholic. But a weak-minded man who does not know what he wants in the ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... had a privilege by which they had the right of receiving all merchandise coming from the West Indies. Now, to disembark these ingots at the port of Vigo was depriving them of their rights. They complained at Madrid, and obtained the consent of the weak-minded Philip that the convoy, without discharging its cargo, should remain sequestered in the roads of Vigo until ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... his industrious companions, Faust and Schoffer, ever have believed that, by the division of labor, their sublime invention would fall into the domain of ignorance—I had almost said idiocy? There are few men so weak-minded, so UNLETTERED, as the mass of workers who follow the various branches of the typographic industry,— compositors, pressmen, type-founders, book-binders, and paper-makers. The printer, as he existed even in the days of the Estiennes, has become almost ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... eloquent. I want you to understand why I don't consider you sociable. You call Mr. Johnson conceited; but, really, I don't believe he's nearly as conceited as yourself. You are too conceited to be sociable; he is not. I am an obscure, weak-minded woman,—weak-minded, you know, compared with men. I can be patronized,—yes, that's the word. Would you be equally amiable with a person as strong, as clear-sighted as yourself, with a person equally averse with yourself to being under an obligation? I think not. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... that he left France alone. Yet France was wretched, because when the wise Charles V. died in 1380, he left two children, Charles the Dauphin, and his brother, Louis of Orleans. They were only little boys, and the Dauphin became weak-minded; moreover, they were both in the hands of their uncles. The best of these relations, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, died in 1404. His son, John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, was the enemy of his own cousin, Louis of Orleans, brother of ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... curiosity. Why, how can the ministers say anything when they are the chaplains of these gilt-edged frauds called "lodges"? It does not take much calculation to show that an institution which spends three dollars in giving away one has no right to exist. Some of the more weak-minded and puerile of the clergy are doubtless in fear lest their "tongues should be torn out by the roots and their hearts buried in the rough sands of the seashore." Brave men are not so ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... have been able to do so because they themselves are among the best men and women of their time. But, unfortunately, as the nineteenth century has many evil characteristics, and as depraved and weak-minded persons are often endowed with some literary capacity, a great deal of poisonous matter has unavoidably come to the surface in English fiction. The writers who have prostituted their talents in pandering to the low tastes of their readers, have carefully avoided any such ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... chamber, stood painted tin obelisks, jars of electricity, retorts, and divers mathematical instruments, of whose uses the pretended sorceress was quite ignorant, but which she had placed there in order to impose on the weak-minded persons ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... proper, to a certain extent, he said, resuming his seat; but, o' course, like everything else, some people carry it too far—they'd believe anything. Weak-minded they are, and if you're in no hurry I can tell you a tale of a pal o' mine, Bill Burtenshaw by name, that'll prove ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... shall like no unprofitable questions." I think it took some self-conceit to refuse to sit at table beside Christiana because of her gay attire. And I hope Mercy did not give up dressing well, even after she was married, to please that weak-minded old churl. And as to unprofitable questions—we are all tempted to think that question unprofitable which our incapacity or our ignorance keeps us silent upon at table. We think that topic both ill-timed and impertinent and unsafe to which we are not ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... sometimes revealed to us during sleep, is one that is widely diffused among the nations of the earth. The greatest men of antiquity have had faith in it; among whom may be mentioned Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, the Scipios, the two Catos, and Brutus, none of whom were weak-minded persons. Both the Old and the New Testament furnish us with numerous instances of dreams that came to pass. As for myself, I need only, on this subject, appeal to my experience, as I have more than once had good ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... natural leader. Such girls always are. Without asserting themselves, other girls will look up to them, and copy them, and follow them. Whereas a bad, or ill-natured, or haughty girl must have some means of bribing the weak-minded ones to gain a ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... here pretty often too, though I have only been in practice here for a couple of years, and I have never heard it mentioned, and I must say I don't believe in anything of the sort. In my opinion ghosts are the invention of weak-minded idiots. ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock
... more and more under Coligny's influence instead of her own. It may be that if she had felt sure of Elizabeth, she would have gone through with the proposed policy; distrusting the English Queen she resolved to end it. She made a desperate and successful attempt to recover her ascendancy over her weak-minded son. She played upon his terrors, and prepared for one of the most appalling tragedies in ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... offering, in token of her friendship, to hand over Flushing to the Spaniards. This proof of her duplicity, and of the impossibility of trusting her as an ally, was made the most of by Catherine; and she easily persuaded the weak-minded king that hostilities with the Spaniards would be fatal to him, and that, should he yield to the Admiral's entreaties, he would fall wholly into the power of the Huguenots. The change in the king's deportment was so visible that the Catholics did not conceal their ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... Even if I were a victim to that foolish disorder, I hardly see why the fact should arouse a feeling of terror in your breast. Only weak-minded girls have headaches." ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... give him credit for his discovery nor even for his apparent innocence. It was, as the captain had said, a serious business, and Uncle Sam was taking no chances where spies and traitors were concerned. Probably they thought Tom was a weak-minded ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... attention. Weakness, and fasting, and horror had overpowered a delicate body and a sensitive mind, and he lay senseless by the shattered relic of happier times. Antoine, the gaoler (a weak-minded man whom circumstances had made cruel), looked at him with indifference while the Jacobin remained in the place, and with half-suppressed pity when he had gone. The place where he lay was a hall or passage in the prison, into which several cells opened, and a number ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... closing years. His wife (the grandmother of Arthur) survived him for some years, although shortly after his death she was declared insane and incapable of managing her affairs. This couple had four sons: the eldest, Michael Andreas, was weak-minded; the second, Karl Gottfried, was also mentally weak and had deserted his people for evil companions; the youngest son, Heinrich Floris, possessed, however, in a considerable degree the qualities which his brothers lacked. ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... conscience and God, whether he should press to an extremity any and every doctrine, though tending to the instant disorganization of society. To lecture against war, and against taxes as directly supporting war, would wear a most colorable air of truth amongst all weak-minded persons. And these would soon appear to have been but the first elements of confusion under the improved views of spiritual rights. The doctrines of the Levellers in Cromwell's time, of the Anabaptists in Luther's time, would exalt themselves upon the ruins ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... nobody pays any attention to except the shorthand reporter,—and them just settin' there sort of helpless and not even able to say a word in their own behalf because the law says they're innocent till they're proved guilty,— why, I tell you, Mr. Dewlap, it's heart-breakin'. And all because some weak-minded smart aleck gets them paroled. As I was sayin', the law's all right if it wasn't for the people ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... ladder; which makes you feel much less safe in the place to which it leads you than if you had got there by a proper flight of stairs. So—very often—has finding yourself face to face with the accomplishment of what you have been striving for, if you happen to be weak-minded. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... every Christian man. 'Ye call Him Father,' but the Father is the Judge. True, the Judge is Father, but Peter reminds us that whatever blessed truths may be hived in that great Name of Father, to be drawn thence by devout meditation and filial love, there is not included in it the thought of weak-minded indulgence to His children, in any of their sins, nor any unlikelihood of inflicting penal consequences on a rebellious child. 'Father' does not exclude 'Judge,' 'and without respect of persons ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... the anxieties, the sleepless nights, the sad little tragedies which come to so many homes. Then the epidemic diseases—measles, scarlet fever, meningitis. Let them survive all those, and what has the parent to face but the battle with other plagues, mental and moral? Think of the number of weak-minded children there are in the world; of perverts, criminally inclined. It is staggering. But if you escape all that, if your children are well and normal, as some are, then you must consider this: Suppose ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... or female with a very low forehead should carefully avoid marriage with a person of like conformation, or their offspring will, in all probability, be weak-minded or victims ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... confined them to the house. Nobody remembered to have seen them abroad for years. How, therefore, or when could they have made an enemy? And, with respect to the maiden sisters of Mr. Weishaupt, they were simply weak-minded persons, now and then too censorious, but not placed in a situation to incur serious anger from any quarter, and too little heard of in society to occupy much ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... ladies with their snuff-boxes, and their passion for play, and their extremely effective language when they got angry; young bucks come to flourish away their money, and gain by their losses the sympathy of the fair; sharpers on the look-out for guineas, and adventurers on the look-out for weak-minded heiresses; duchesses writing letters in the most doubtful English, and chair-men swearing at any one who dared to walk home on foot ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... constitutes the truth, incapacitates you from ever making an impression on the sober reason and sound common sense of the world. You may seduce thousands—you can convince no one. Whenever and wherever you or the advocates of your cause can arouse the passions of the weak-minded and the ignorant, and bringing to bear with them the interests of the vicious and unprincipled, overwhelm common sense and reason—as God sometimes permits to be done—you may triumph. Such a triumph we have witnessed in Great ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... taking up with bad objects. Cricket, Rowing, Volunteering, and such-like, are healthy, and easily obtainable recreations. Gambling, drinking, loitering, are not to be thought of for a moment, they are the curse of the lazy and weak-minded. Theatres are very good if you keep out of the cheap and nasty ones. Music halls are much better avoided. I do not say that it is necessarily wrong to go there, or that you are certain to come to harm if you frequent them, but there is more chance of temptation, and an inferior ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... to let opposition subside, and then began his tricks. Charley's first victim was Aunt Hitty. She was a gentle, weak-minded person, easy to persuade, and when Charley put his head into her lap and called her coaxing names, and was sure she was too kind to disappoint him in the thing he was set upon, her heart softened, and she began to think that they all ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... this yer dance an' Gander-Pullin' I'm pirootin' about the Center when I meets up with Jule James;—Jule bein' the village belle. "Goin' to the dance?" says Jule. "No," says I. "Why ever don't you go?" asks Jule. "Thar ain't no girl weak-minded enough to go with me," I replies; "I makes a bid for two or three but gets the mitten." This yere last is a bluff. "Which I reckons now," says Jule, givin' me a look, "if you'd asked me, I'd been fool enough ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... began to cruise the border and northern seas of the Fatherland, where they would be safe from listening ears, prying eyes, newspapers, telephones and telegraphs. It became known that the Kaiser was cultivating the weak-minded Russian czar in an attempt to win his country from its alliance with England and France. There were no open rumblings of war, but the air was charged with electricity like that preceeding ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... somewhere, having a good time and not caring a flip of her tail feathers what becomes of him. I believe in being goodhearted, but there is such a thing as overdoing the matter. Thank goodness I'm not so weak-minded that I can be imposed on in any ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... whole figure. What do you say to beginning anew and building such a house as no mortal ever built before—something to make everybody wonder what manner of people they are who live in such a habitation—something to convince our neighbors that we are no weak-minded time-servers, but are able to be an architectural as well as domestic law unto ourselves—something to make them stop and stare—a sort of local Greenwich from which the community will reckon their longitude—'so many miles from the house ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... Government, in its various departments, during the last four years, call more loudly for my sympathies than those tears which have been shedding and dropping and dropping for the last twenty years in reference to the poor, oppressed slave—dropping from the eyes of strong-minded women and weak-minded men, until, becoming a mighty flood, they have swept away, in their resistless force, every trace of ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... by this new move, and infinitely amused as she guessed the motive that prompted it; but the more contented she seemed, the more violently Mr. Joe flirted with her rival, till at last weak-minded Miss Clara began to think her absent George the most undesirable of lovers, and to mourn that she ever said "Yes" to a merchant's clerk, when she might have said it to a merchant's son. Aunt Pen watched and approved this stratagem, hoped for ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... disheveled, she was haggard, she was plain. There were rings of dust round her tear-swept eyes and smudges of dust-dried perspiration over her fair cheek. He thought of the beauty, freshness, and elegance of the woman he had just left, and an infinite pity swept the soul of this weak-minded gentleman. He ran towards her, and tenderly lifting her in her shame-stained garments from the buggy, said hurriedly, "I know it all, poor Kitty! You heard the news of Van Loo's flight, and you ran over to the Divide to try and save some of your money. Why ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... do with this snake and, his weak-minded brother?" asked Jeff dryly. "Tie 'em up and ship 'em ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... add, that the apparent sincerity with which the accommodation man pleaded, had its effect on the weak-minded man. He loved dearly the girl, but poverty hung like a leaden cloud over him. Poverty stripped him of the means of gratifying her ambition; poverty held him fast locked in its blighting chains; poverty forbid his rescuing her from the condition necessity had imposed upon ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... as obstinate as a mule, was not likely to tell Cargrim anything he desired to learn. Bell, detesting the chaplain, as she took no pains to conceal, would probably refuse to hold a conversation with him; but Mrs Mosk, being weak-minded and ill, might be led by dexterous questioning to tell all she knew. And what she did know might, in Cargrim's opinion, throw more light on Jentham's connection with the bishop. Therefore, the next morning, Cargrim called on the archdeacon's widow to inveigle ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the expression!" said she. "Young women of Bridget-Mary's age and temperament will think of marriage in convents as much as outside them. Further, I dread delay, entertaining as I do the very certain conviction that this weak-minded man who has thrown your daughter over will be back, begging Bridget-Mary to forgive him and reinstate him in the possession of her affections before another two months are over our heads. That little cat-eyed, squirrel-haired woman he has run away with, and against whom ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... contemptuous gesture she seemed to fling unutterable scorn on Almayer's weak-minded aversion to ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... the centre of the garden, flopped and tinkled a weak-minded little fountain. The shrubbery partly hid it from view of the balcony, but the small, irregular sound of its continuous fall was audible in the quiet of the summer afternoons. Weak-minded though it was, Professor ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... had long ceased to have one interest, one thought, one feeling in common; while the old affection between mother and daughter had now so large an element of bitterness mingled with it that all its original sweetness seemed lost. As for her degenerate, weak-minded, tippling father, Miss Churton regarded him with studied indifference. She never spoke of him, and tried never to think of him when he was out of the way; when she saw him, she looked through him at something beyond, as if he had no more substance than one of ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... broken thigh? In an hour's time, and not before, my people will carry this couch and its burden to my bedroom. Then I shall pretend to sleep; but I shall not sleep. Somehow of late the habit of sleep has left me. Hitherto, I have scorned opiates, which are the refuge of the weak-minded, yet I fear I may be compelled to ask you for one. There was a time when I could will myself to sleep. ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... was Sergeant B., and much trotting of attendants was necessary when he partook of nourishment. Anything more irresistibly wheedlesome I never saw, and constantly found myself indulging him, like the most weak-minded parent, merely for the pleasure of seeing his blue eyes twinkle, his merry mouth break into a smile, and his one hand execute a jaunty little salute that was entirely captivating. I am afraid that Nurse P. damaged her ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... &c. adj., be a coward &c. n.; funk; cower,skulk, sneak; flinch, shy, fight shy, slink, turn tail; run away &c. (avoid) 623; show, the white feather. Adj. coward, cowardly; fearful, shy; timid, timorous; skittish; poor- spirited, spiritless, soft, effeminate. weak-minded; infirm of purpose &c. 605; weak-hearted, fainthearted, chickenhearted, henhearted[obs3], lilyhearted, pigeon-hearted; white- livered[obs3], lily-livered, milk-livered[obs3]; milksop, smock-faced; unable to say " bo " ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... am inclined to think that a schoolmaster will find it better in the long run, for both the character and morals of his school, if he is not too anxious to play the detective, and refrains from encouraging the more weak-minded or cowardly boys to save ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... yet now, in the eleventh hour, when an excellent opportunity presents itself for the accomplishment of that object, you seek to dissuade me from my purpose. Have I entirely mistaken your character? Are you really as weak-minded, and as devoid of courage and spirit, as your language would seem to indicate? When that young ruffian mutilated you in Philadelphia, didn't you consider that you acted perfectly right? Well, this Livingston has destroyed the happiness of my life, and transformed me from a lady of wealth into ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... very glad you were not weak-minded, and that I was so fortunate as to find you,' said the doctor, addressing himself henceforward exclusively to Ida and ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... talk like a school miss instead of a middle-aged woman. He doesn't love you. He wants a housekeeper and a governess. You don't love him. You want to be 'Mrs.'—you are one of those weak-minded women who think it's a disgrace to be ranked as an old maid. That's all there ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... carriage-horses for his mother. Birth and culture had given to him a look of intellect greater than he possessed; but I would not have it thought that he traded on this or endeavoured to seem other than he was. He was simple, conscientious, absolutely truthful, full of prejudices, and weak-minded. Early in life he had been taught to entertain certain ideas as to religion by those with whom he had lived at college, and had therefore refused to become a clergyman. The bishop of the diocese had attacked him; but, though weak, he was obstinate. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... description is strictly accurate. It is, quite simply and literally, a Bill for incarcerating as madmen those whom no doctor will consent to call mad. It is enough if some doctor or other may happen to call them weak-minded. Since there is scarcely any human being to whom this term has not been conversationally applied by his own friends and relatives on some occasion or other (unless his friends and relatives have been lamentably lacking in spirit), it can be clearly seen that this law, like the early ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... doctor conceived the idea of getting out of his difficulty by transferring the dead body of the negro Jim to the despoiled empty grave of Onondaga! This done, he easily persuaded the Indians to go back and find the body of their chief all right: and so he succeeded in humbugging the weak-minded Indians, while the bones of old Onondaga were duly prepared and hung up to show students how Indians and all men are made of bone and muscle. The doctor thought he had done a good thing; but when I went into the office and saw the horrid skull grinning at me, I was ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle |
