"Conscientiousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... charitable parts had implied that there would undoubtedly be good news and congratulations awaiting him. This did not mean that the board intended to slight its duty and fail to consider the matter of the incurables with due conscientiousness—the board was as strong for conscience as for conservation. It merely went to show that the fate of Ward C had been preordained from the beginning; and that the President felt wholly justified in requesting the presence of the Senior ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... significantly characteristic of the man than that he was a good citizen. He possessed in rich measure the consciousness of personal responsibility for the standards, government, and ideals of his town, his city, and his country. Civic conscientiousness burned strong within him; and he fought to develop and to maintain breadth of public view and sanity of popular ideals. Blind patriotism was impossible for this great American: he exposed the shallowness of popular enthusiasms and the ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... demonstrates practically to the whole world your good faith as a statesman and your broad sympathy as an American; it shows the conscientiousness and the care with which you wish to place before the President and the country the fundamental points of your national ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... them speeding far away in the distance, and returned to the ruins. With unconscious irony, he selected a charred post from the embers, stuck it in the ground a few feet from the debris of outcrop, and finally affixed his "Notice." Then, with a conscientiousness born possibly of his new religious convictions, he dislodged with his pickaxe enough of the brittle outcrop to constitute that presumption of "actual work" upon the claim which was legally required for its maintenance, and returned to his horse. ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... elucidation of his own character, concluding that Hamlet "procrastinates from thought." Gervinus, while following Schlegel as to "the bent of Hamlet's mind to reflect upon the nature and consequences of his deed, and by this means to paralyze his active powers," adds to this defect a deplorable conscientiousness, which unfits Hamlet for the great duty of revenge. And Mr. Dowden, while most ably collating these various kinds and degrees of irresolution, concludes that Hamlet is "disqualified for action by his excess of ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... mind, honest, indeed, and religious, but narrow and obstinate by nature, and at once debilitated and excited by disease. Seldom, indeed, have the ambition and perfidy of tyrants produced evils greater than those which were brought on our country by that fatal conscientiousness. A conjuncture singularly auspicious, a conjuncture at which wisdom and justice might perhaps have reconciled races and sects long hostile, and might have made the British islands one truly United Kingdom, was suffered to pass away. The opportunity, once lost, returned no more. Two generations ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... knowing how William regarded her conscientiousness, was uneasy because of a certain recollection. She must get to the bottom of this. She sought Aunt Louise privately. "Aren't you a ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... employer's intention. Gammire also appeared to mistake it, for he came down upon the lawn, rose to his full height, on his "hind legs," and in that humanlike posture "walked" in a wide circle. He did this with an affectation of conscientiousness thoroughly hypocritical; for he really meant to ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... insight into the mental constitution of the judge who wrote on natural science, and at the same time exerted himself to secure the conviction of witches. A more pleasant and commendable illustration of his conscientiousness in pecuniary matters, is found in the steadiness with which he refused to throw upon society the spurious coin which he had taken from his clients. In a tone of surprise that raises a smile at the average morality of our forefathers, Bishop Burnet tells of Hale: "Another remarkable instance of his ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... of conscientiousness in this matter, a letter he wrote to Mr. Frederick Yates, in 1829, may be cited. A dramatic author, the friend both of Colman and Yates, had bitterly complained of the retrenchments made by the Examiner in a certain play, or, to follow Colman's ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... meanwhile, John A. Kennedy was unquestionably more sinned against than sinning—made the tool of worse and more unscrupulous men, who used his hard conscientiousness and his narrow bigotry of mind, fostered by too long and too close connection with the lodges of secret societies—to carry out their own designs of despotism, without the nobility to stand between him and his possible sacrifice for obeying the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... and more thoughtful as he gazed into the face of his wife, and his mind went over the ground of his church experience. If, only, he was, perhaps, thinking, if only the good God had not given him so sensitive and fine-tempered a spirit of conscientiousness. He almost envied men of coarse, blunt feelings, of common ideals of duty ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... bowl, which had been put in the garret with some cracked crockery. This he took along when sent on his daily errand for milk for the family, and, having a penny or two in his pocket, he told Mrs. Burton about his kitten, and asked if she would not sell him some every day. Pleased with the conscientiousness which prompted the boy to buy food for his favourite rather than take a crumb from his employers without their permission, she told him he might keep his pennies, for she would give him a little milk ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... weapon been at hand. I seized the animal by the horns, shook, cuffed, and kicked him, but all to no purpose. Long Isaac, who was passing in his pulk, made some remark, which Anton, with all the gravity and conscientiousness of his new position ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... love her at all, love her for her tenderness, conscientiousness and delicacy and deem it a pleasure to work for her, and she is one type of woman who usually ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... Gentil sold the release given by Louise de Savoie to Semblancay; a War Office clerk sold the plan of the Russian campaign to Czernitchef; and these traitors were more or less rich. The prospect of a post in the Palais and professional conscientiousness are enough to make a judge's clerk a successful rival of the tomb—for the tomb has betrayed many secrets since ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... perhaps better than those cultivated in England, and this he believes to be the highest compliment which can be paid to a fruit, or indeed to anything else. He found reason to speak well of the influence of the Christian missionaries on the natives, and of the conscientiousness of the latter, in opposition ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... female companion in a frightful bass voice, and in the very worst kind of language. They also summoned an armless boy and his mother. I saw that Ivan Fedotitch was in great straits, on account of his conscientiousness, for me knew that whatever was given would immediately pass to his tavern. But I had to get rid of my thirty-two rubles, so I insisted; and in one way and another, and half wrongfully to boot, we assigned and distributed them. Those who ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... retorted, "I see you still play your role of protector. You might tell your charge whether or not I am mistaken as to the probable result of his—ah—artistic conscientiousness." ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... in the paddy fields as long as they could see. These people do not work with the fierce energy of the American mechanic, but their workday is from twelve to fourteen hours and, considering these long hours, they show great industry and conscientiousness. ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was tending! Still, I like Charles—I respect him—I pity him, poor ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... all—and of course I don't know how much the seat of thought is situated in the crown of the head and hair and whether the entire citadel would go with the scalp, but if I could think and keep my conscientiousness as I spoze I should, I should have to give in right then and there that it wuz only justice fur the white races to submit to the revenge of the darker complected, thinkin' what ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... some weeks, at the end of which time he received the proofs, which he read and re-read with real pleasure before setting himself to correcting them with meticulous care. He performed this task with such conscientiousness, and made so many minor alterations—he changed most of those flighty colons to more conventional semicolons—that the confidential clerk swore terribly when he glanced at the proofs before handing them to a boy, with ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... teachers or governors. He was gifted with great ability, for, sharing as he did, the studies and duties of his brothers, he very soon surpassed them all in polite accomplishments. Francesco Riccio, now the Duke's Major-domo, noted the young prince's cheerfulness, conscientiousness and diligence. The reports which Maestro Antonio da Barga made to his father of his son's progress were full of praise of his young pupil's aptitude and perseverance. Giovanni de' Medici was, in many respects, a ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... content himself with knocking up centuries in college matches, and an annual performance among the Seniors. It was rumoured that Grayson—always a just youth, too— would have given him his blue, had not Verinder's conscientiousness been more than Roman. My own belief is that the distinction was never offered, and that Verinder liked his friend all the better for it. At the same time the disappointment of what at that time of life was a serious ambition ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... singular. But if the Alexandrine did not appear to us peculiarly adapted to the free imitative expression of pathos, on the other hand, it must be owned that a comical effect is produced by the application of so symmetrical a measure to the familiar turns of dialogue. Moreover, the grammatical conscientiousness of French poetry, which is so greatly injurious in other species of the drama, is fully suited to Comedy, where the versification is not purchased at the expense of resemblance to the language of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... 1683, saw the publication of Religio Laici (the religion of a layman). In 1686 D. joined the Church of Rome, for which he has by some been blamed for time-serving of the basest kind. On the other hand his consistency and conscientiousness have by others been as strongly maintained. The change, which was announced by the publication, in 1687 of The Hind and the Panther, a Defence of the Roman Church, at all events did not bring with it any worldly advantages. It was parodied by C. Montague and Prior in the Town and ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... her persistently, quietly, bringing her books—which she seldom opened—an occasional bunch of flowers, or, more rarely still, a box of sweets of some variety which his professional soul warranted harmless, for Mr. Dowson was conscientiousness itself, and nothing would have persuaded him to place his lady-love's little white teeth in jeopardy, even though by such means she might be brought into contact ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... good? Take away thought from virtue, and what remains worthy of a man? Is not high virtue more than blind instinct? Is it not founded on, and does it not include clear, bright perceptions of what is lovely and grand in character and action? Without power of thought, what we call conscientiousness, or a desire to do right, shoots out into illusion, exaggeration, pernicious excess. The most cruel deeds on earth have been perpetrated in the name of conscience. Men have hated and murdered one another from a sense of duty. The worst frauds have taken the name of pious. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the Revolution of the 9th of November, 1799, Bonaparte gave him the office of judge of the criminal tribunal, and in 1804 made him a Commander of his Legion of Honour. He is now one of our Emperor's most faithful subjects and most sincere Christians. Such is now his tender conscientiousness, that he was among those who were the first to be married again by some Cardinal to their present wives, to whom they had formerly been united only by the municipality. This new marriage, however, took place before Madame Thuriot had introduced herself to the acquaintance ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... served and M. Cantagnac, seated comfortably, was trying the delicacies with rare conscientiousness about any escaping his harpoon-like fork. Cesarine did not give him a second look and neither he nor Clemenceau, with whom he was chatting on politics, more than glanced up at her. M. Daniels was more polite, for he warmly accepted a second cup of coffee as soon as she, without any attempt ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... instrument. It may also be said that no extraordinary talent for music is absolutely necessary, since many of the best tuners are not musicians in any sense of the word. Patience and perseverance, associated with conscientiousness and an insatiable desire to excel, are among the foremost requirements. Having these it only remains to gain a thorough knowledge of every detail of the work; a little practice will bring ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... indicated what remained to be told in the few unwritten chapters, and it comes to us, therefore, not as a curious fragment, but as an all but finished work. There is something most tender and sad in the supreme artistic conscientiousness of one who could give such an illustration of fidelity and so emphasize the nobility of labor from her death-bed. These things that bring back the gracious spirit from whose loss the heart of the reading world is still smarting, ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... will observe the general activity of the intellect and the adjacent social sentiments indicated by the translucency, and the general torpor, indicated by the opacity in the regions of Religion, Hope, Reverence, Love, Conscientiousness, Industry, Cheerfulness, Love of Approbation, Sense of Honor, and Self-respect. Secretiveness shows opacity, while Combativeness shows intense activity which extends into Adhesiveness ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... matters of practical life,—such as housekeeping in all its branches, and the various political relations of her native village. And, underlying all, deeper than anything else, higher and broader, lay the strongest principle of her being—conscientiousness. Nowhere is conscience so dominant and all-absorbing as with New England women. It is the granite formation, which lies deepest, and rises out, even to the tops ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... owners of slaves in Connecticut to sell their slaves to Southern purchasers! 'There seems to me,' he said, 'no evidence of superior humanity in this; nor was it repentance for slavery as a sin.' He thought that if we feel compelled, by our superior conscientiousness, to require any duty of the South, all that decency will allow us to demand is, that she ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... serious on the whole, but still with a smile lurking around the lips and shining in the eyes. The face of a good—almost a great man. No one could associate it with meanness or impurity. An intellectual face too, with a broad forehead and large, speaking eyes. A face which suggested conscientiousness, which proclaimed the fact that its owner must do whatever conscience told him to do, no matter ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... spirits, exquisitely simple her worldly ignorance, and irresistible her powers of mimicry, strangely enough they were considered out of place in St. Barabbas' Hospital. A light-hearted disposition to mistake a blister for a poultice; that rare Manx conscientiousness which made her give double doses to the patients as a compensation when she had omitted to give them a single one, and the faculty of bursting into song at the bedside of a dying patient, produced some liveliness not unmixed with perplexity ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... Manetho had here embalmed his foster-father: through long hours had he labored at his hateful task, with curious zest and conscientiousness. As regarded the strange place of sepulture, the Egyptian had perhaps imagined a symbolic fitness in enclosing his human immortal in the empty shell of time. Over this matter of Hiero Glyphic's death and burial, however, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... betrayed into any acts of foolish anger which must have recoiled upon himself. In him warm feelings were found in singular combination with a cool head. An unyielding (p. 034) temper and an obstinate courage, an invincible confidence in his own judgment, and a stern conscientiousness carried him through these earlier years of severe trial as they had afterwards to carry him through many more. "The qualities of mind most peculiarly called for," he reflects in the Diary, "are firmness, perseverance, patience, coolness, and forbearance. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... particular forms of expression: the heavy frame, so slow and deliberate in movement, so settled in repose; the timid and yet scrutinising eyes; the mannered, yet so personal, voice; the precise, pausing speech, with its urbanity, its almost painful conscientiousness of utterance; the whole outer mask, in short, worn for protection and out of courtesy, yet moulded upon the inner truth of nature like a mask moulded upon the features which it covers. And the books are the man, literally the man in many accents, turns of phrase; and, far more than that, the man ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... and reflective organs are very large—those, of calculation weak. He may make a poet or a painter, or you may make a sojer of him, though worse men than him's good enough for that—but a bad merchant, a lazy lawyer, and a miserable mathematician. He has wit and conscientiousness, so ye mustn't think of making a ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to suit special occasions is done sometimes from extreme conscientiousness, sometimes from sheer ignorance of the ways of children. It is the desire to protect them from knowledge which they already possess and with which they, equally conscientious, are apt to "turn and rend" the narrator. I remember once when I was telling the story of the Siege of Troy to very ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... to grow? It is hoped that the Great President, while giving due consideration to the maintenance of the dignity of the Central Government, will at the same time allow the local life of the provinces to develop. Ethics, Righteousness, Purity and Conscientiousness are four great principles. When these four principles are neglected, a country dies. If the whole country should come in spirit to be like "concubines and women," weak and open to be coerced and forced along with whomsoever be on the stronger side, how ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... a piece of good-fortune which I cannot too highly appreciate, that your studies should have been directed to the most difficult portion of Spanish history, from which you have thus removed for me all the thorns. The conscientiousness and the thoroughness of your researches, the perfect trustworthiness of your conclusions, and the lofty calmness of your judgments, are the precious supports on which I lean; and I have now, for the reign of Philip the Second, a guide whom I shall be ever proud and happy to follow, as I have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... me see, now, whether you can draw it out of the sheath without hurting yourself." That process having been gone through more than once, Mr. Poulter felt that he had acted with scrupulous conscientiousness, and said, "Well, now, Master Tulliver, if I take the crown-piece, it is to make sure as you'll do no mischief with ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... than the camp could supply. Practically the same processes were carried through as at Vassar, and the verdict of the farmer on his new helpers was that "while less strong than men, they more than made up for this by superior conscientiousness and quickness." Proof of the genuineness of his estimate was shown in his willingness to pay the management of the camp the regulation two dollars for an eight hour working day. And it indicated entire satisfaction with the experiment, rather than abstract faith in woman, that each farmer anxiously ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... said my lady. "Go and lie down in my room, and hear what Medlicott and I can decide upon in the way of strengthening dainties for that poor young man, who is killing himself with his over- sensitive conscientiousness." ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... hesitation seemed to be more from some habitual conscientiousness of statement than awkwardness. The man in the ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... himself to be cowed into submission and meekly gave the pen to Melvina who with blind faith inscribed her name on the crisp white paper in a small cramped hand. Caleb Saunders, the witness Mr. Benton had brought with him, next wrote his name, forming each letter with such conscientiousness that Ellen could hardly wait until the painstaking and elaborate ceremonial ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... better known by her pseudonym of Dora d'Istria,[1] came of the family of the Ghikas, formerly princes of Wallachia, and was born at Bucharest, on the 22nd of January, 1829. Through the care and conscientiousness of her instructor, Mons. Papadopoulos, and her own remarkable capacity, she acquired a very complete and comprehensive education. When but eleven years old, she composed a charming little story, and before she ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... historians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries do not attain the first rank. The way was partly prepared for Gibbon by two Scottish historians, his early contemporaries, the philosopher David Hume and the clergyman William Robertson, but they have little of his scientific conscientiousness. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... neighbours, nearly tumbling down the companion-ladder in their eagerness to be first in the field. They lost no time over the unlovely detail of tucking a corner of their napkins down their necks, and smoothing its folds over their protuberant persons; and they studied the Speise-Karte with a conscientiousness that was ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... well-dumped wool-bale.' When opposed in will or contradicted in her opinion, she smiled resignedly, and, if it appeared due to her dignity, sulked for a period. Yet generally she was 'the evenest-tempered woman that ever a well-meaning husband found it difficult to get on with.' A pattern of order and conscientiousness, 'governed by principles that were as correct as her manners and costume, and as firmly established as the everlasting hills,' she might have made an admirable wife for a clergyman, but was totally unsuited to ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... invaluable," Mrs Forrest had said to her brother-in-law, and so she was. When Anna was ill, she nursed her; when she wanted change of air, she took her to the sea-side; she looked after her both in body and mind, with the utmost conscientiousness. But there was one thing she could not do: she could not be an amusing companion for a girl of fifteen, and Anna had ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... achievement. The forbearance of McIlraith, while passing through the country, had touched his heart. He withdrew his forces, not displeased that his enemy had secured a stronghold in Singleton's Mill. The conscientiousness of the British officer is said to have incurred the displeasure of his commander, and that of his brother officers. When he reached Charleston he was put into coventry. Our authorities ascribe this to his gratuitous humanity, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... interest in his work. If anything, he applied himself more industriously during the many absences of his chief than when President Wade was there to observe and commend, a zeal which might or might not have been a tribute to his conscientiousness. But to-day Mr. Podmore, although dressed with that care which habitually imparted to his well proportioned figure something of the beau brummel,—to-day he was not quite his customary polite self. Things irritated him which ordinarily he would not have ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... house, one Sunday, when we were invited to spend the evening with him and his family. This sort of acrid fruit is no uncommon first harvest of youthful religious zeal; and I suppose my parents and my worthy pastor thought it a piece of unripe, childish, impertinent conscientiousness, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... her punishments like a martyr—and continued surreptitiously to read and to study whenever and whatever she could; and not even the extreme conscientiousness of a New Mennonite faltered at this filial disobedience. She obeyed her father implicitly, however tyrannical he was, to the point where he bade her suppress and kill all the best that God had given her of mind and heart. Then she revolted; and she never for an instant doubted ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... would always be present to her, for she had that kind of conscientiousness, and having once helped him, she must always hold herself ready to do it again. The chain binding them was not altogether broken, but she no longer felt its weight. She had a lightness of spirit unknown for years; the anger, the jealous rage and the disgust had vanished with ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... dull reading in the book, no interminable preludes or introductions. We are presented in the very first chapter to the hero, the young schoolmaster, about to be tarred and feathered by a brutal mob. And a real hero he proves himself in his gentleness, conscientiousness, and manly moral and physical courage. Carl, the German boy, is an inimitable picture of young German life and character. Toby, the house negro, is, in his mingled stupidity, cunning, and faithfulness, drawn ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... society took in all the people of right ideas and good sense, it would expand beyond the calling capacity of its most active members. Even your mother's social conscientiousness could not compass it. Society is a very different sort of thing from good sense and right ideas. It is based upon them, of course, but the airy, graceful, winning superstructure which we all know demands different qualities. Have your friends got these qualities,—which ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which they could not prevent, and oppression of native by native which they would not check, and the delay or development of reforms which the few missionaries long called for in vain. In a word, after making the most generous allowance for the good intentions of Cornwallis, and conscientiousness of Shore, his successor, we must admit that Carey was called to become the reformer of a state of society which the worst evils of Asiatic and English rule combined to prevent him and other self-sacrificing or disinterested philanthropists from purifying. The East India Company, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... intellect is daily lost in other avocations. Generally, the temper which would make an admirable artist is humble and observant, capable of taking much interest in little things, and of entertaining itself pleasantly in the dullest circumstances. Suppose, added to these characters, a steady conscientiousness which seeks to do its duty wherever it may be placed, and the power, denied to few artistical minds, of ingenious invention in almost any practical department of human skill, and it can hardly be doubted that the very humility and conscientiousness which would have perfected ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... tempted to do as the captain told him; but the man's love of duty and conscientiousness was strong within him. He knew that the vessel, worth probably a hundred thousand pounds, would certainly go to destruction if left to pursue its course, and how could he, as a humane and honest man, allow that to occur because a captain ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... in honesty and moderation by being arrived at collectively; for apart from the fact that, in the case of voting by majority, arithmetic and chance take the place of logical reasoning, that feeling of personal responsibility, in which lies the essential guarantee for the conscientiousness of the decision, is lost directly it comes about by means of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... to us to take a commendable interest in their operation and them, and to rally round what Sir Henry Hoare (who may be described, perhaps, as a Barbarian converted to Philistinism, as I, on the other hand, seem to be a Philistine converted to culture) finely calls the conscientiousness of a [256] Gladstone and the intellect of a Bright,—it is rather our duty to abstain, and, instead of lending a hand to the operation of our Liberal friends, to do what we can to abate and dissolve the mass of prejudice, Tory ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... and conscientiousness in making his narratives historically correct and in giving to each heroine her ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... proper proof; not a determination to believe without investigation. He also pointed out to me what I was less prepared to hear, that the charity spoken of does not mean, as I supposed it to express, conscientiousness, but love and good fellowship, in action and speech; in fact, more in accordance with the sense in which the word is commonly understood. This will show you the evil of coming to conclusions on insufficient data. Depend upon it, you must always hear both sides of a story before ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... insistence, and to feel more disposed to discuss the question again. But before doing so she wished to ask the advice of a friend in whom she placed much confidence, and so for the present she contented herself with applauding Frank for his conscientiousness, and assuring him that she would a thousand times rather have him always poor than grow rich after the same fashion ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... herself beautiful for her lover: the lover who had seemed over a gulf from her this afternoon, and now what worlds away.... And if the rites were done somewhat hurriedly perforce, there was no lack of conscientiousness here. She, who had said that she had never paid her way through life, could only pay in ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... sympathetic, and emotional part of his nature; and this combination made him a popular preacher. There was more than mere animal magnetism needed to account for this; there was intellectual power, but not much firmness or conscientiousness. If he were present, he would probably acknowledge that something had led him on to do whatever he had done in spite of himself. What was very peculiar in the man was his youthfulness. He had been before the world for forty ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... might have been pleasant enough,—this little interval before his voyage,—as the Shands, though rough and coarse, were kind to him and good-humoured, had it not been that a great trouble befell him through over conscientiousness as to a certain matter. After what had passed at Babington House, it was expedient that he should, before he started for New South Wales, give some notice to his relatives there, so that Julia might know that destiny did ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... correlation was .539.[107] In athletic power the coefficient was still higher, .72 between brothers, .75 between sisters and .49 between brothers and sisters. Measurements of mental characteristics—vivacity, assertiveness, introspection, popularity, conscientiousness, temper, ability and handwriting proved to be as easily correlated, the mean coefficients being; brothers, .52, sisters .51, brothers ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... every transaction with servants in India we find them most unscrupulous respecting the truth of any account which they give, and yet at the same time they will fulfil every engagement they enter into with a conscientiousness almost unknown in Christian countries. The lowest servant of the establishment may be trusted with money, which will be faithfully appropriated to the purpose for which it was intended, but certainly they entertain little or no respect for ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... a window which overlooked this sylvan aspect, modified if not fashioned by man, a young woman with seeming conscientiousness, told her beads. The apartment, though richly furnished, was in keeping with the devout character of its fair mistress. A brush or aspersorium, used for sprinkling holy water, was leaning against the wall. Upon a table lay an open psalter, with its long ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... cool penetration of the general and the persevering fortitude of the man, with the daring resolution of youth; with the wild ardour of the warrior, the sober dignity of the prince, the moderation of the sage, and the conscientiousness of the man of honour. Discouraged by no misfortune, he quickly rose again in full vigour from the severest defeats; no obstacles could check his enterprise, no disappointments conquer his indomitable perseverance. His genius, perhaps, soared ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... time. That he did hit it occasionally, however, argues no mean ability, no paltry knowledge of youthful human nature. Over their Sunday dinners, the girls discussed his sermons with increasing vigour. The echoes of these discussions, coming to Brenton's ears, set him to preaching with increasing conscientiousness. However, there still was salvation for him; it was his sermons that he took so much in earnest, and not himself, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... they once were. In olden days "holy fathers" could wear horse-hair shirts and scarify their epidermis with a finer cruelty than their modern successors, and they could, after all that, make the blithest songs, sing the merriest melodies, and quaff the oldest port with an air of jocund conscientiousness, making one slyly like them, however much inclined to dispute the correctness of their theology. And the parsons of the past were also a blithesome set of individuals. They were perhaps rougher than those mild and refined gentlemen who preach now-a-days; but ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... of equal authority but apparently different meaning, is necessarily one-sided and imperfect, and therefore narrow. That is exactly the difficulty under which Calvin labored. He seems, to a large class of Christians of great ability and conscientiousness, to be narrow and one-sided, and is therefore no authority to them; not, be it understood, in reference to the great fundamental doctrines of Christianity, but in his views of Predestination and the subjects ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... up from poverty, and never lost an active sympathy with the struggling. He helped more than fifty young men to get an education. He was of a slight and fragile frame, and had much physical suffering, which he bore with indomitable courage. His conscientiousness was almost morbid. His temperament was melancholy, and his life was lonely. In early life he was twice in love, but poverty forbade his marriage. He was a clear and logical thinker, much given to refined exposition of constitutional theories, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... it was impossible to know him without being reminded of this. In any case he must have been recognised as a man of original and energetic genius; but it was his strong and truthful moral nature, his intellectual sincerity, the abiding conscientiousness of his imagination, which enabled that genius to do its great work, and bequeath to the England of the future the most solid mass of deep-hearted and authentic poetry which has been the gift to her of any poet since the Elizabethan age. There was in his nature a veracity, which, had it ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... CONSTANT.—But let this first love be broken off, and the flood-gates of passion are raised. Temptations now flow in upon him. He casts a lustful eye upon every passing female, and indulges unchaste imaginations and feelings. Although his conscientiousness or intellect may prevent actual indulgence, yet temptations now take effect, and render him liable to err; whereas before they had no power to awaken improper thoughts or feelings. Thus many young men find ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... only physicians of large conscientiousness, or of great independence of character, who will dare to go counter to the ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... unscrupulous jerry-builder then, as now, could be guilty of, in order to keep down the net cost and satisfy the natural parsimony of his patrons without lessening his own profits.* Where, however, the master-mason has not been hampered by being forced to work hastily or cheaply, he displays his conscientiousness, and the choice of materials, the regularity of the courses, and the homogeneousness of the building leave nothing to be desired; the blocks are adjusted with such precision that the joints are almost invisible, and the mortar ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his formal, old-fashioned courtesy which she had found attractive she recognized a stern conscientiousness. He must, if possible, be convinced that the course she meant to urge was the best, though she had the means of putting pressure on him if this ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... she says. Her morbid conscientiousness runs away with her. I tell you the plain truth, as man to man, without any hysterics—I kissed her of my own free will—your daughter, sir. And I am here now to stand by my act. If she will forgive my—my tardiness—as you know, I was in no position then to aspire to marriage with ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... endeavor to create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives for it, strives for something that is Godlike." The habit, unyieldingly persisted in, of doing everything with the most scrupulous conscientiousness, builds up in the one who so lives a ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... "His conversation gives one more the notion of activity, energy, and conscientiousness, than of great ability. I presume you were not able to slip in a question, but, on the other hand, if you had succeeded he would not have heard it. He is in favour of the complete evacuation of Cairo.... He has full confidence ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... the floor above, was busily engaged in looking after his two subordinates as they bustled about in the operations of clearing away. He was a man of whom, if the shape of certain bones and muscles of the face is ever to be taken as a guide to the character, one might safely have predicated conscientiousness in the performance of duties, a thorough knowledge of all that appertained to them, a general desire to live on without troubling his mind about anything which did not concern him. Any person interested in the matter would have assumed without hesitation that the estimate his employer had ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... solemnly, "is unknown to any one, at least," he added with much conscientiousness, "as far as I can learn. Every fellow in the Quarter bows to her and she returns the salute gravely, but no man has ever been known to obtain more than that. Her profession, judging from her music-roll, is that of a pianist. Her residence is in a small and humble street which ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... errents not alone to Serepta Pester, but to the hull race of wimmen that it kep' my mental head rained up so high that I couldn't half see and enjoy the sight of the most beautiful city in the world, and still I spoze its grandeur and glory sort o' filtered down through my conscientiousness, as cloth grows white under the sun's ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... and conditions. If there had been occasion, Mr. Spurgeon could have led them for any sacrifice to what they believed to be right. I felt the power of that suppressed feeling—I would not say fanaticism, but intense conscientiousness—which occasionally in elections greatly surprises ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... that I can picture to myself easily the sad earnestness with which you now point the thick thumb of your editorial refinement in deprecation of my choicer "rowdyism"? And knowing your analytical conscientiousness, I can even understand the humble comfort you take in Oscar's meek superiority; but, for the life of me, I cannot follow your literary intention when you say that my care of "''Arry,' dead and neglected by the parish," goes far to prove that my "sense of smell is not so delicate nor so ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... to continue sinning against the light. He knew that his own contumacy in this respect would land his soul in perdition, and he deliberately let it go at that. Brave old Rory! Never does erratic man appear to such advantage as when his own intuitive moral sense rigorously overbears a conscientiousness warped by some fallacy which he ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... father's side, sitting up late at roystering feasts till he nodded in his chair, seeing all that rough men saw, and hearing all that rough men said, the child was in a fair way to be ruined outright; and so Willan Blaycke at last came to see, and one day, in a fit of unwonted conscientiousness and wisdom, he packed the poor sobbing little fellow off to England in charge of a trusty escort, and sternly made up his mind that the lad should not return till he was a man grown. It was only a few months after this that Jeanne Dubois became Mistress ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Colony. Like many of the Revolutionary fathers, Otis was not at heart a rebel, or from the outset disloyal to the Crown in its administration of the affairs of the Colonies. His occupancy of the Crown post of Advocate-General and his own well-known integrity and conscientiousness forbid that idea, not to speak of his pride in the fact that his ancestors were English and for generations had held high judicial offices and militia appointments in the gift of the King and the ministry of the period. But though by tradition and training, at the outset ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... an act he wished to observe it so closely as to be able to judge it by more senses than one. Hence arose absurd disgust to the facts examined. No man can be a statesman who gives way to such overstrained delicacy. Excess of conscientiousness degenerates into infirmity. Scruple is one-handed when a sceptre is to be seized, and a eunuch when fortune is to be wedded. Distrust scruples; they drag you too far. Unreasonable fidelity is like a ladder leading into a cavern—one ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... temperament. They have assimilated some of the best qualities of the Teuton without sacrificing those which are inherent in men of their own race. A thorough grasp of detail and a gift for organization characterize their conceptions, and precision, thoroughness, and conscientiousness are predicated of their methods. If it be true that the first reform peremptorily called for in the new republic is an administrative purge, it follows that it can be most successfully accomplished with ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... here is a faith capable of producing a distinctive type of character. It tends at its best toward an extreme conscientiousness and an always excessive introspection; it creates also a vast and brooding patience. "In countries where reincarnation and karma [the law of Cause and Effect] are taken for granted by every peasant and labourer, the belief spreads a certain ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... I feel sure that when both of you have talked it well over, we can trust you both to come to a most reasonable decision." She breathes heavily and moves with her appurtenance to the door, secure as an ostrich in the belief that Oliver thinks her impartial, even affectionate. Her conscientiousness gives her a good deal of applause for leaving the two young people so soon when they have all one evening and another morning to be together—but subconsciously she knows that she has done her best by her recent little speech to make this talking-it-over ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... appreciates the high quality of your work or not, or thinks more of you for your conscientiousness, you will certainly think more of yourself after getting the approval of that still small voice within you which says "right" to the noble act. The effort always to do your best will enlarge your capacity for ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... peasant parentage in 1575; and, after being taught to read and write, was apprenticed to a shoemaker. His time was divided between reading his Bible, going to church, making shoes, and taking care of the cow. But in that boy's heart there were as deep a conscientiousness, imperturbable patience, purity of soul, and love of God as can be found in a like period of spiritual dearth. Having reproved his master one day, he was dispatched on his apprentice-pilgrimage somewhat sooner than he had anticipated. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... tin kettle, which Maggie had placed by the stove, there arose an odor of fried sausages—a savory mess to a hungry man, possessed of a reasonable amount of confidence in the integrity and conscientiousness of sausage-makers in general. Andre made himself as useful as possible to his employers, and they could not well spare him in the middle of the day to go home to his dinner, for during 'change hours the shop was full of customers. If there was a lull any ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... apparently, everywhere they went, as he had been before. It need hardly be said, though, that such an idea never occurred to Bob's mother, who knew well how Dick had risked his life to save her son's; the thought, really, was entirely due to the old sailor's ultra conscientiousness! ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Niebuhr says,[304] "If there is any sublime human virtue, it is his." He adds: "He was certainly the noblest character of his time; and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, mildness, and humility with such conscientiousness and severity towards himself." "If there is anywhere an expression of virtue, it is in the heavenly features of M. Aurelius. His 'Meditations' are a golden book, though there are things in it which cannot ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke |
