"Compliant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... half defiant, Half meek and compliant; Black eyes, with a wondrous, witching charm To bring us good or to work us harm, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... behave that fearful night! From the moment she regained her entire consciousness, after I found her praying in the bottom of the sleigh, down to that instant, she had been as little of an encumbrance to my own efforts, as was at all possible. Reasonable, resolute, compliant, and totally without any ill-timed exhibition of womanly apprehension, she had done all she was desired to do unhesitatingly, and with intelligence. In ascending that pile of ice, by no means an easy task under any circumstances, we had acted in perfect concert, every effort ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... danced? Ah, good. You have waltzed? Better. You have felt the hot blood hound through your veins, as your beautiful partner, compliant to the lightest pressure of your finger-tips, her breath responsive, matched her every motion with yours? Best of all—for you have served in the temple—you are of the priesthood of manhood. You cannot misunderstand, you ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... you so compliant, Mr. Donnegan, because that makes my refusal seem the more unkind. But I cannot have you sleeping on the bare floor. Not on such a night. Pneumonia comes on one like a cat in the dark in such weather. It is really impossible to keep ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... indignantly insisted that she should use his name in her signatures. "My name is Hill, madam; my father's name was Hill, madam; all the Hills have been named Hill, madam; Hill is a good name—and by ——, madam, you shall use it." On other matters he was more compliant—humoring her old-maidish fancies in a most docile and conciliating manner. Curiously neat and orderly, Mrs. Medlycott took great pride in the faultlessness of her domestic arrangements, so far as cleanliness and precise order were concerned. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... and decently respectful to its government. But Mr. Genet was also furnished with private instructions, which the course of subsequent events tempted him to publish. These indicated that if the American executive should not be found sufficiently compliant with the views of France, the resolution had been taken to appeal to the people of the United States against their own government, and thus to effect an object which legitimate negotiations might fail ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... fetch 'em along," said the compliant and nervy captain, "and don't stand thar' no'ratin' about 'em—'ceptin' liver," he added. "I hain't got so low down yit ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
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— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... to get up the most amusing Suffrage meetings in the long, narrow garden behind the house; or they combined forces with Lady Maud Parry, and spoke in lilting contralto or mezzo-soprano (with the compliant tenor or baritone of here and there a captive man) across the two gardens. Or somehow they commandeered the Square Garden on the pretext of a vast Garden Party, at which every one talked and laughed at ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... one's call; do one's bidding, do what one is told, do suit and service; attend to orders, serve faithfully. follow the lead of, follow to the world's end; serve &c 746; play second fiddle. Adj. obedient; complying, compliant; loyal, faithful, devoted; at one's call, at one's command, at one's orders, at one's beck and call; under beck and call, under control. restrainable; resigned, passive; submissive &c 725; henpecked; pliant &c (soft) 324. unresisted^. Adv. obediently ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... author had looked to it that his characters were modeled on the vices of the actors." The situation was hardly at all changed since the time when Diderot wrote those lines. The actors had become the models of the art of the theater. As soon as any one of them reached success, he had his theater, his compliant tailor-authors, and ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... that he laughed, she knew he was quite in earnest, and she wondered why he hadn't discerned her compliant mood from her intonations. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... brighter than the brightest thought Can picture, holier than our holiest awe Can worship,—imaged only in I AM! But Thou—apparell'd in a robe of true Mortality; meek sharer of our low Estate, in all except compliant sin; To Thee a comprehending worship pays Perennial sacrifice of life and soul, By love enkindled;—Thou hast lived and breathed; Our wants and woes partaken—all that charms Or sanctifies, to Thine unspotted truth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... suicide to which disappointed young people are prone: what occupied and exasperated her was the sense that there was nothing for her but to live in a way she hated. She avoided going to the rectory again: it was too intolerable to have to look and talk as if she were compliant; and she could not exert herself to show interest about the furniture of that horrible cottage. Miss Merry was staying on purpose to help, and such people as Jocosa liked that sort of thing. Her ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... was to be soon. Marriages were patched up quickly in the light-hearted sixties. And here there was nothing to wait for. Sir John had found Denzil compliant on every minor question, and willing to make his home at the Manor during ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... in the fragrant air; what color was on the calm waters and in the deep sky; how beautiful, how gentle was Nature after her transport of passion! Shall we ever subdue her and make her always submissive and compliant? Who knows? Who knows what man may do with her when once he has got self, the universal self, under perfect mastery? See yonder huge bull-alligator swimming hitherward out of the swamp. Even as you point he turns again in alarm and ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... with a laugh, "Not a word." Fraulein Schult felt that she knew what was expected of her. She was naturally compliant, and above all things she was anxious to get paid for as many hours of her time as possible—much like the driver of a fiacre, because the more money she could make the sooner she would be in a position to espouse ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... blanket and red breech clout, with an extra quantity of paint and feathers, attended by a train of half-naked warriors and nobles. A horse was in waiting to receive the princess, who was mounted behind one of the clerks, and thus conveyed, coy but compliant, to the fortress. Here she was received with devout, though decent joy, by her ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... legally proved, would be to repeat one of the most monstrous of all Cromwell's acts of tyranny, when, in 1656, he placed guards at the door of the House, with orders to refuse admission to all those members whom, however lawfully elected, he did not expect to find sufficiently compliant for his purposes. Mr. De Grey's argument was of a different character, being based on what he foretold would be the practical result of a decision that expulsion did not involve an incapacity to be re-elected. If it ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... of Burns's character and fate. In June, we find him back at Mauchline, a famous man. There, the Armour family greeted him with a "mean, servile compliance," which increased his former disgust. Jean was not less compliant; a second time the poor girl submitted to the fascination of the man whom she did not love, and whom she had so cruelly insulted little more than a year ago; and, though Burns took advantage of her weakness, it was in the ugliest and most cynical spirit, and with a heart absolutely ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... triumph," meaning of course that "triumph" was a thing impossible. Pitt (now Earl Chatham), Burke, Fox, even the Tory House of Lords, petitioned and implored in vain. The confident, stubborn King stood alone, and upon him lies the whole responsibility—Lord North simply acting as his compliant tool. ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... dialects as when the first great Babel was to be built! Some loud as the lion; some small as the sucking dove. Mirabeau himself has his instructive Journal or Journals, with Geneva hodmen working in them; and withal has quarrels enough with Dame le Jay, his Female Bookseller, so ultra-compliant otherwise. (See ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... philosophers who plead for the emancipation of their sex would stoop from the sublimer heights of Woman's Rights to arguments of mere human expediency, we fancy they might find some of their critics disposed to listen in a more compliant mood. We can imagine a very good point being made out of the simple fact of waste, by some feminine advocate who would point out in a businesslike way how much more work the world might get through if only ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... "Address to the People," dated "Berean Meeting House, Dundee," which painted the Government in the darkest colours, and contained these assertions: "You are plunged into war by a wicked Ministry and a compliant Parliament, who seem careless and unconcerned for your interest, the end and design of which is almost too horrid to relate, the destruction of a whole people merely because they will be free.... Your treasure is wasting fast: the blood of your brethren is pouring out, and ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Therefore, if your kitmudgar, nodding behind your chair, permits his astonished fly-flapper to become a part of the great Quiescent, or if your punka-wallah, having subsided into a comatose beatitude, suddenly invites his compliant machine to repose in himself, in a dream of absolute stagnation, with the thermometer at 120 deg. outside the refrigerator, you must not say, "Damn that boy,—he's asleep again!"—but patiently survey and intelligently admire the spiritual processes by which an exalted sentient ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... accommodate him, but was so miserly that he would never do so of his own accord, nor was Saladin disposed to constrain him thereto. So great, however, was his necessity that, after pondering every method whereby the Jew might be induced to be compliant, at last he determined to devise a colourably reasonable pretext for extorting the money from him. So he sent for him, received him affably, seated him by his side, and presently said to him:—"My good man, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... intended to honour with his visit, he took back his heavy cloak. On entering the house he gave his blessing to everybody, and everyone in the family came to kiss his hand. The mistress of the house requested him to say mass for them, and the compliant monk asked to be taken to the vestry, but when I whispered in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... was now taken by Titus to relax the siege for a little while, and to afford the seditious an interval for consideration, and to see whether the demolishing of their second wall would not make them a little more compliant, or whether they were not somewhat afraid of a famine, because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be sufficient for them long; so he made use of this relaxation in order to compass his own designs. Accordingly, as ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... stayed and stared. Then he took two faltering steps into the room and stopped again, and, finally, he looked up at Challis with doubt and question; his gaze no longer quelling and authoritative, but hesitating, compliant, perhaps a ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... rigor of misfortune or the dulness of experience has spoilt it. The dramatis personae are three individuals, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. There are the mysterious tree, with its wonderful fruit,—the beautiful, but inquisitive woman,—the thoughtful, but too compliant man,—and the insinuating reptile. One speaks, the other rejoins, and the third fills up the chasm of interest. The plot thickens, the passions are displayed, and the tragedy hastens to its end. Then is heard the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... in the reforms effected by the missionaries was the total change in the behaviour of the women. From being, according to the statements of Cook, Bougainville, and contemporary explorers, compliant to an unheard of degree, they had become most modest, reserved, and decently conducted; so that the whole island wore the air of a convent, a revolution as amusing ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... of the Spanish dance But the grace of movement which won the murmuring applause of all around me, only increased the agony of my afflictions. I saw their linked arms—the compliant, willing movements of their mutual forms—and dark were the images of guilt and hateful suspicion which entered my brain and grew to vivid forms, in action before me. I fancied the fierce, passionate yearnings in the heart of Edgerton; I trembled ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... commenced more readily, so would it have been bound by a weaker tie. For then, as we should have recollected that we entered into friendship on equal terms, we might be equally friendly as now, but less submissive and compliant with your wishes. Now, won over by your compassion for us, and defended by your aid in our critical circumstances, it is incumbent on us that we show our sense also of the kindness received; lest ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... the wandering and uncertain career of the scholar and man of letters of the sixteenth century. Perhaps Buchanan's temper was less compliant, his character less easily adaptable to the society in which he found himself, than most; but it may be doubted whether this was the cause of the very small advancement in life to which he had come, since he was complaisant enough to indite ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... a man, and therefore to be compliant?" returned Eva, her smile tempering her insolence. Then, pleading, although her eyes grew no softer: "Only one thing do I ask, Senator. Please, please grant me that! Don't you care for me more than for Senator Danvers? Break your ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... mild persuasion which always accomplishes more than compulsion or violence. For even the spirit and nerves and bones, and other parts of the body, though devoid of reason, yet at any instigation of reason, when she shakes as it were the reins, are all on the alert and compliant and obedient, the feet to run, and the hands to throw or lift, at her bidding. Right excellently has the poet set forth in the following lines the sympathy and accordance between the ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... their home—their father, Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, having lived there. The lovely Dorothy Sydney, Waller's Saccharissa, once, in all purity and grace, had danced in that gallery where the vulgar, brazen Lady Middlesex, and her compliant lord, afterwards flattered the weakest of princes, Frederick. In old times Leicester House had stood on Lammas land—land in the spirit of the old charities, open to the poor after Lammas-tide; and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... and his mother, and addressed him as 'his majesty,' I won his love. He opened his heart to me, confessed that he was Louis XVII., and asked my counsel and help. I promised him both, and showed myself to him in a very compliant and devoted mood. My first counsel was, that he should live incognito under a borrowed name. In order that this might be possible, I gave him the name for his incognito, and had all the necessary documents prepared, the certificate of his birth, baptism, ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... in their decent graves. But the gist of the whole was, that they did not want children, and Dr. Saxham had such a great and justly-earned reputation in skilful and delicate operations ... and, in short, would he not be compliant and oblige? They would pay anything. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... of the English service was forwarded to St. Leger in February 1551, and was promulgated in the beginning of March. Bishop Quinn of Limerick was forced to resign the temporalities of his See to make way for William Casey, who was expected to be more compliant. A number of bishops and clergy were summoned to meet in conference in Dublin to consider the change. At this conference the reforming party met with the strongest opposition from the Primate of Armagh. Although ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... powerful and earnest speaker; she made me desire above everything, at the first opportunity, to use my share of the power in this Government to provide each woman with a vote. And just as I had reached this compliant stage there came a girl smiling and passing her little basket. The sheer art of it! So I dropped in my coin and took the little leaflet she gave me and put it side by side with the other ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... scandalous that the Chief Justice of the High Court should have been deposed. But, in 1839, President Johnson, of the United States, met the difficulty by making a majority of nine in the High Court, thus assuring to himself a compliant majority. ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... was immediately summoned at Westminster; and the king doubted not to find the peers, and still more the commons, very compliant with his will. This house had in a former parliament given him very sensible proofs of their attachment;[***] [15] and the present suppression of Glocester's party made him still more assured of a favorable election. As a further expedient for that purpose, he is also said to have ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... and are therein compliant to their Parents; yet we perceive that this also is subject to many vexations, by reason that the children through a contrary drift, many times disturb their Parents night rest; especially when there are such kind of Maids in the house, that ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... required of him as a task to talk for the entertainment of them and their company; but that he was not quite at his ease; which, however, might partly be owing to his own honest pride—that dignity of mind which is always jealous of appearing too compliant. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell |
