"Complacence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... adapted, as it were, to the situation. You may know an R. A. on the private view-day by the broad, expanding jollity of his visage, if he be a man of that stamp, or by a certain quiet, self-satisfied smile of self-complacence, if he be a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... own distaste for soft living and his longings after a hermit's cell was an edifying spectacle. So was the evident pride which he took in his domain, the complacence with which he pointed out the shady, well-stocked garden, and the delight with which he produced and set upon the table a huge pasty and ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... time?" came a harsh voice and a laugh, and he straightened up and murmured an apology. He felt very much embarrassed and disturbed. His mellow complacence had fled precipitately. In his ears sounded the rattle of personalities. It was as harsh and as constant and as senseless as machine-gun fire. At least he ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... as dangerous. By that I mean the clinging to superstitions of the past, and the pedantic desire to enclose art within narrow limits, which still flourish among critics. Who has not met these censors of music? They will tell you with solid complacence how far music may go, and where it must stop, and what it may express and what it must not. They are not always musicians themselves. But what of that? Do they not lean on the example of the past? The past! a handful of works that they themselves hardly understand. Meanwhile, music, by its ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... made, as it were, in wax. When Nature first framed him, she took a secret complacence in her work. He is even her masterpiece in irrational things, borrowing somewhat of all things to set him forth. For example, his slick bay coat he took from the chestnut; his neck from the rainbow, which perhaps make him rain so well. His mane belike ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... only shake his head silently in an ecstasy of impatience for the story to continue. Judith and Sylvia smiled at each other with the insufferable complacence of auditors who know the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... not so good a thing as the harmony between the artist and his public which has prevailed in all great ages of art. But it is better than the harmony of dull and complacent convention which prevailed in the Graeco-Roman decadence. For it means that our artists are not content with such complacence, that they will not accept decadence as an inevitable process. And the fact that we do passionately admire them for their rebellion as soon as we understand what it means, that this rebellion seems to us a glorious and heroic thing, is a ...
— Progress and History • Various
... this morning to beg the administrator to send the strangers back to their own homes. If he would do this they promised to finish the road themselves for nothing. For him it was a victory complete and unqualified. They were humbled. A look of arrogant complacence spread over his large, naked face, and he seemed to swell in his chair like a great bullfrog. There was something sinister in his appearance, so that Mackintosh shivered with disgust. Then in his booming ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... "She has succeeded in making all these beggars laugh at me." He mused that if he had another chance he would show her how disagreeable or detestable or scampish he was under some circumstances. He reflected ruefully that the complacence with which he had accepted the comradeship of the belle of the voyage might have been somewhat overdone. Perhaps he had got a little out of proportion. He was annoyed at the stares of the other men in the smoking room, ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... which he found at least no lack of words. When he attained what he supposed was his best mood, he read over again the work of the preceding day, and was delighted to find that it now glowed with prismatic hues. In his complacence he at once despatched it to the paper for ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Let the past go. What did anything matter? And I tapped my stick on the flooring at the end of the songs I had barely heard, out of sheer good humour, and swallowed the second-rate brandy and smoked an infamous cigar with imperturbable complacence; and as I got up with the mass at the finale I heard my nearest neighbour's remark to his companion, which ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... this limited group. There was little malice in her pleasure at getting this glimpse behind the scenes in Rachael's life; she would repeat her friend's confidence, later, with the calm of a person doing the accepted and expected thing, with the complacence of one who proves her right to other revelations from her listeners in turn. It was by such proof judiciously displayed that Elinor held her place in the front ranks of her own select little group of gossips and intimates. She wished the Breckenridges no harm, but if there were dark ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... of Venees and Florence Be wel ladene wyth thynges of complacence, Alle spicerye and of grocers ware, Wyth swete wynes, alle maners of cheffare, Apes, and japes, and marmusettes taylede, Nifles, trifles, that litelle have availede, And thynges wyth which they fetely blere oure eye, Wyth thynges not enduryng ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... surpass all men in their coffee-drinking courtesy, and Zeyd himself was more than any large of this gentlemen-like imposture: he was full of swaggering complacence and compliments to an humbler person. With what suavity could he encourage, and gently too compel a man, and rising himself yield him parcel of another man's room! In such fashions Zeyd showed himself a bountiful ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... as we see, for instance, in Marino's Adone, that the homosexual ideal found expression. After that date male inversion was for a long period rarely touched in literature, save briefly and satirically, while inversion in women becomes a subject which might be treated in detail and even with complacence. Many poets and novelists, especially in France, might ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... sum of its possibilities, the augurs all sincere, confident, and exulting. They have been justified so often; they know, in their wide fair fields of opportunity, just what qualities will produce what results. There is thus a complacence among adolescent peoples which is vaguely irritating to their elders; but the greybeards need not be over-captious; it is only a question of time, pathetically short-lived in the history of the race. Sanguine persons in Elgin were freely disposed to "bet on" ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Lord Russell appeared in the October number, it would seem probable that Reeve did not encourage the idea. His own relations to Lord Russell were not such as to prompt him to any undue complacence, and he was at all times extremely averse from anything like a controversy either in or about the 'Review.' It has happened to the present writer to have statements or opinions put forward in his contributions to the 'Review' called in question in ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... of Venice and Florence Be well laden with things of complacence, Allspicery and of grocer's ware, With sweet wines, all manner of chaffare; Apes and japes, and marmusets tailed, Nifles and trifles that little have availed, And things with which they featly blear our eye, With things not ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... great inconuenyence As losse, contempt and occasyon of pryde Hath fallyn vnto many by this lewde complacence Whiche haue nat knowen the way themself to gyde The emperour Otho had ay borne by his syde In warre and peas (a glasse) for his pleasaunce To se his ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... get up, burst into a laughter, and, entering the stye, said to Adams, with some contempt, "Why, dost not know how to handle a hog?" and was going to lay hold of one himself, but Adams, who thought he had carried his complacence far enough, was no sooner on his legs than he escaped out of the reach of the animals, and cried out, "Nihil habeo cum porcis: I am a clergyman, sir, and am not come to buy hogs." Trulliber answered, "He was sorry for the mistake, but that he must blame ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... the warfare, until at last every root of pride, or self-complacence, or self-excuse, was utterly cast out. Yet did not Satan despair. Oh, he meant to have this poor sick, weak lamb, if he could get her; no effort should be left unmade. And when he found that she could be no ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... to a pause as he crossed the threshold of the doorway. He turned and looked back at Warden, puzzled, for it seemed to him that Warden was defying him; and he seemed to feel the atmosphere of complacence that surrounded the man. His manner hinted of secret knowledge—strongly; it gave Lawler an impression of something stealthy, clandestine. Warden's business methods were not like Lefingwell's. Lefingwell had been bluff, frank, and sincere; there was something in Warden's manner that seemed to ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... both despise and respect." "Love," says Sir Thomas Overbury, wittily, "is a superstition that doth fear the idol which itself hath made." "To reveal its complacence by gifts," says Mrs. Sigourney, "is one of the native dialects of love." "Love is never so blind as when it is to spy faults," says South. "Love reckons days for years," says Dryden, "and every little absence is an age." "Where love has once obtained an influence," observes Plautus ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... pass the little open window of the skipper's state-room. Not, however, that the latter watched for him, for he did not. He believed that Reardon, like himself, was a prisoner; although, had the chief passed the window and had the captain observed his passing, the complacence of Herr von Staden and his patriotic company would have received a jar ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... contraption—unconsciously hitting on the essential reason for the allure of crinolines. She had to wear one now for dancing-class, as it made movement and spacing so different; but other times she went her wilful way, short nose in air, encouraged by the complacence of her father, who had no more knowledge of what the country people called her "goings-on" than if he had lived ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... order to exorcise that modern slang of yours which is more false than the overstrained forms of a feudal France. To shut out glory is not to be practical. You are not adjusting your life artistically; there is too much strain, too little warmth, too much self-complacence. I see that you are really younger than I thought. The world never censures the crimes of the spirit. You are safe from the world's tongue lashings, and in that safety is the danger against which my friendship ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... like a golden mist over all the scene, irradiating each leaf and flower, softening the bird-calls to fairy flutings, draping the nakedness of distant rugged peaks, bearing gently the purling of the limpid brook along which the path ran in devious complacence. Often, indeed, the lovers' way led them into the shallows, through which their bare feet splashed unconcerned. The occasional prismatic flash of a leaping trout in the deeper pools caught their eyes. So, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... of twenty-five hundred a year now," he said, with apparent complacence, but careful to watch closely for the effect of this statement. It gratified him, too, much as he had expected. The girls stood stock-still and gazed at him, and then, with a violent struggle for ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... in the evening, I remained, but not I fear to work much. I feel sorely fagged. I am sadly fagged. Then I cannot get ——'s fate out of my head. I see that kind, social, beneficent face never turned to me without respect and complacence, and—I see it in the agonies of death. This is childish; I tell myself so, and I trust the feeling to no one else. But here it goes down like the murderer who could not cease painting the ideal vision of the man he had murdered, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... still larger receipts were recorded in the fee-books of his Majesty's attorneys and solicitors. At the Chancery bar of the second Charles, there was at least one lawyer, who in one year made considerably more than four times the income that was suggested to Pepys's vanity and self-complacence. At Stanford Court, Worcestershire, is preserved a fee-book kept by Sir Francis Winnington, Solicitor-General to the 'merry monarch,' from December 1674 to January 13, 1679, from the entries of which record the reader ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... with surprise was my unflinching confidence in the future to which I committed myself in this escapade. I thought I was right, and that the aspiration for spiritual freedom, which was the chief motive of my leaving home, was certain to be supported by Providence, to whom I looked with serene complacence. If my companion had not deserted me I should not have turned back, but his defection destroyed all my plans. In several of my maturer ventures, I can recognize the same mental condition of serene indifference to danger while doing what I thought my duty, owing, perhaps, in a great measure to ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... reading it. Not a very eloquent epistle. There was so much more which he wanted to say, but did not dare to. He folded it again and thrust it into an envelope; then he addressed it and laid it beside that other on his desk, comparing the two handwritings with complacence. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... rows of marigolds and sweet William. He dropped with a sigh in the shadow of the old water-barrel that stood against the house. He felt too warm even to chase his enemy, the cat, into her accustomed shelter of the adjacent pine tree, though she was curled up with impudent complacence upon the top of the barrel. Instead, he lay in the shade, his eyes glancing furtively through the open door. He could see inside the old log shanty, where a figure was moving about the bare, spotless kitchen; his tail began to thump a ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... for years by the consequences. For it was not his way to disturb himself over anything. His principles were easy to laxness. But that Toby—the urchin he had sheltered and nursed like a sick puppy—should have done this thing somehow cut clean through his complacence. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Jewel placed Anna Belle on the seat beside her, where she toed in, in a state of the utmost complacence. ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... April 24, 1897, at the Waldorf Hotel, New York, there was held a political banquet intended as a most impressive function, but which has passed into history as a very ridiculous one. Big with self-complacence and puffed with pride, as it appeared in the brilliant lights and gorgeous appointments of the palatial supper-hall, within twenty-four hours the lacerating indignation of Mr. Watterson and the trenchant raillery of Mr. Bryan had let the tumid pretentiousness ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... I put in memory Theym for to kepe doynge my dylygence With dame Sapyence I dyd longe tary Whiche dyd me teche with partynge influence Of her delycate and doulcete complacence Than spake dyscrecyon anone to me In the presens of her ...
— The Example of Vertu - The Example of Virtue • Stephen Hawes
... cut through his enswaddlings of self-complacence, waited until I saw its acid eating into him. Then I went on: "I hope you will never again deceive yourself, or let your enemies deceive you. As to your plans—the plans for Goodrich and his crowd—I have nothing to say. ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... with admiration. Had it not been indeed for our conversation on the small-pox, I should have imagined we had been honored with her identical presence. This opinion might have been heightened by the good sense she uttered whenever she spoke, by the delicacy of her sentiments, and the complacence of her behavior, together with a certain dignity which attended every look, word, and gesture; qualities which could not fail making an impression on a heart [6] so capable of receiving it as mine, nor was she long in raising in me a very violent degree of seraphic love. I do ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... company, practically all human beings are acutely self-conscious. But self-consciousness is of two kinds. Arkwright, assured that his manners were correct and engaging, that his dress was all it should be, or could be, that his position was secure and admired, had the self-consciousness of self-complacence. Joshua's consciousness of himself was the extreme of the other kind—like a ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... himself from considering at what point of his newly acquired land he should begin the attack upon the forest. "It's a fair enough home for a man to end his days in," he said with complacence. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... more virtuous than I thought," he explained to her one day, not without a touch of complacence, "for if the Devil were truly my friend, he would fly away with your father. Those hawk's eyes of his are ever on me and he orders me daily not to leave the mine. If I could but cook for him," he added mournfully, "he would soon see reason, for," with customary boastfulness, ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... did not miss the official glances of amusement, but his calm complacence was unruffled. "No," he said, "I don't just fancy liners. Fact is, I have been thinking of sailing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... finished them with my thanks. She is much altered, but not for the worse to me, though she is for herself, since the flight of her youth, which is evident, has taken also with it a great portion of an almost set smile, which had an air of determined complacence and prepared acquiescence that ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... despair; for I do not know what to answer if any one were to ask me:—O Socrates, have you indeed discovered that false opinion arises neither in the comparison of perceptions with one another nor yet in thought, but in union of thought and perception? Yes, I shall say, with the complacence of one who thinks that he has made a ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... the tea being poured out, he summoned Mrs Wilkins, and told his sister he had a present for her, for which she thanked him—imagining, I suppose, it had been a gown, or some ornament for her person. Indeed, he very often made her such presents; and she, in complacence to him, spent much time in adorning herself. I say in complacence to him, because she always exprest the greatest contempt for dress, and for those ladies who made ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... cruel cut; but seventeen years of flattery and smoothness had armed Nina in impregnable complacence. She gave a sneering laugh that trembled on the brink of tears, and tried to control a mouth that was shaking with anger. One look of utter scorn she did manage, then she shrugged not so much her shoulders as her whole ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... without complacence. "Do you good to try. You won't succeed. No one ever does. I gather the main trouble is that Dick has gone to town when you didn't want him to. Husbands are like that sometimes, you know. Are you afraid he won't come back—or that ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... which I knew nothing, and sat in judgment upon actions of which I had never been guilty. I scorned to contradict the slanders, and self-love led me to regard the more flattering rumors with a certain complacence. Outwardly my existence was pleasant enough, but in reality I was miserable. If it had not been for the tempest of misfortunes that very soon burst over my head, all good impulses must have perished, and evil would have triumphed in the struggle that went on ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac |
