"Groveling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his great hand with its combination of fat palm and taper fingers. "It disturbs me. Perhaps, some day, I shall need tell you. The amiable Early is as are all mankind. On the one side he gropes among infinities. Do we not all so? On the other side he is tied by this body of clay to the groveling earth. Are we not all so? Am not even I myself?" The Swami ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... has known it since the hour of my father's death. He knows that I know it. Yet he has kept the lands to this day." Another uneasy perambulation. "Do you think of that when you talk of revenge? Manliness? He has none. He is a pitiful, truculent, groveling coward, ready to buy profit at any price. He has robbed me of my inheritance. He stands in my place. He is a living lie. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... great part of the old time manner of communion with God because we first lost the old time spirit of supplication and the groveling spirit of the outside world, but we have not ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... whole human race, I am forced to admit, with all my hatred of despotic institutions, that they are not always a sure indication of an illiberal and insincere spirit on the part of the rulers, or of a base, sordid, and groveling spirit on that of the subjects. It is a matter of regret, calculated to shake our faith in the beneficial effects of a high order of intelligence among men, that the course of England and France, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... of the rustic. Here she accumulated a thousand various gratifications; here she wantoned in all the secret and licentious desires of her heart. But her castle was not merely a scene of thoughtless pleasure. Within its circle she held crouds of degenerate shepherds, groveling through the omnipotence of her incantations in every brutal form. Even the spectres and the elves that disobeyed her authority, she held in the severest durance. She compressed their tender forms in the narrowest ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... kind of man is he, whose lovely wife thou hast carried off by stealth. Of no avail will be thy sounding lyre, thy beauteous face and curling hair, or all the gifts of golden Venus, when thou liest groveling in ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... he leaped at her, as she lay groveling at his feet. He seized her by the throat. "Tell me!" he gasped, hoarsely. "Quick! Who took you to ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Groveling, they slipped forward, dim, moving shadows in a world of brown obscurity. At any moment, one might lay a hand on a sleeping puff-adder or a scorpion. But even that had been fore-reckoned. All three of them had thought of such contingencies ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... far above all mean, low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transporting thought of the good and glory of one's country, are never felt in his impenetrable bosom. That patriotism which, catching its inspiration from on high, and, leaving at an immeasurable distance below all lesser, groveling, personal interests and feelings,—animates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devotion and of death itself,—that is public virtue; that is the noblest, the sublimest of all ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... like a cloud of mist. Everything was perfect, from the wreath and veil to the tiny sandaled feet and lying there in her mute repose she looked more like some exquisite piece of sculpture than anything that had ever lived and moved in this groveling world of ours. But from one shoulder the dress had been pulled down, and there lay ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... me utterly wretched. What a boor she must have thought me, to misconstrue her simple act of kindness! I loathed myself with a hatred that sent me groveling to my blanket in the pantry, and that kept me, once there, awake through all the early ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to the headwaters of Miller's Creek on the right. Miller used to run sheep up in the meadows, which afford a smooth grade for the road for some distance. There are many alders here, which bear mute though powerful testimony, in the shape of their gnarled and bent over ground-groveling trunks, of the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... holy!—behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last!—at last!—I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood; here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from groveling down upon my face! Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk hath been—wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose—it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance round about her. But there stood one in the midst ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... another, "whenever I think of Heaven; and I long for the wings of a dove, that I may rise at once from this low, ignorant, groveling state, and bathe my whole soul in the sunlight of eternal felicity. What joy it will be to cast off this cumbersome clay; to leave this poor body behind, and spread a free wing upon the heavenly atmosphere. I shall hail with delight the happy moment ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... The soul that had become a brute fled hissing along the valley, and behind him the other speaking spits. Then he turned upon him his new shoulders, and said to the other,[2] "I will that Buoso[3] run, as I have done, groveling ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... the elegant expression of Plutarch, it extinguishes her principal and brightest eye, the knowledge of divinity. In short, the one leads to all that is grand, sublime and splendid in the universe; the other to all that is little, groveling[14] and dark. The one is the parent of the most pure and ardent piety; the genuine progeny of the other are impiety and atheism. And, in fine, the one confers on its votary the most sincere, permanent, and exalted delight; the other continual ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... a patch of moonlight. It was four-limbed, its body silvery—and it was large. But the worst was that it had been groveling on all fours when it fell, and now it was rising on its hind feet, one forepaw striking madly at the two arrows dancing head-deep in its upper shoulder. Man? No! But something sufficiently manlike ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... counted them up—a girl music pupil, then an art student, then the wife of a banker at whose house Harold played socially. There followed strange, sullen moods on the part of Rita, visits home, groveling repentances on the part of Harold, tears, violent, passionate reunions, and then the same thing over again. What ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... not righted in his dominions, radically and speedily, to the satisfaction of the East India Company. Harsh measures, equally with mild, were, however, altogether wasted on him. Personally, he was a groveling debauchee, exhausted alike in mind and in body to sheer imbecility; and his courtiers and counselors were little better than himself. To anarchy, insurrection seemed inevitably imminent. It was precluded by annexation, and the kingdom of Oude, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... slave: Better it is 'mongst fiddlers to be chief, Than at [a] player's trencher beg relief. But is't not strange, this mimic ape should prize Unhappy scholars at a hireling rate? Vile world, that lifts them up to high degree, And treads us down in groveling misery. England affords those glorious vagabonds, That carried erst their fardles on their backs, Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets, Sweeping[128] it in their glaring satin suits, And pages to attend their masterships: With mouthing words that better ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... to all these they would assert my Right. And my great Thoughts do whisper there is none Can be more neer a Father, than his Son. This prompts me to oppose Eliakim, And never yield my Father's Crown to him. But then one groveling thought strait pulls me down, And throws me at a distance from The Crown. Oh, would to God———And here he stopt and sigh'd, Whilst Hushai thus to the griev'd ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... slight improvement took place in his situation. His mother, to whom he was indebted for all the happiness of his childhood, opened a day school, and, as it abstracted her from the groveling cares of a butcher's shop, his home was made much more comfortable; and, instead of being confined to his father's business, he was placed in a stocking loom, with the view of bringing him up to the trade of a hosier, ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... soon groveling at my feet, and, heavy as my demands were, I sometimes wondered like Clive at ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... blood of their comrades in King Street quickened their impulses, and hastened the day for a more general outbreak, which we now call the Revolutionary War." This was no mob, as some have been disposed to call it. They had not the low and groveling spirit which usually incites mobs. This was resistance to tyranny; this was striking for homes and firesides; this was the noblest work which a patriot can ever perform. As well call Lexington a mob and Bunker Hill a mob. I prefer to call this skirmish ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... flinty hearts is an expression worth an empire, and is always used with peculiar emphasis and enthusiasm. For a favourite topic of these epistles is the groveling spirit and sordid temper of the parents, who will be sure to find no quarter at the hands of their daughters, should they presume to be so unreasonable as to direct their course of reading, interfere in their choice of friends, or interrupt their very important correspondence. But as ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... no!" she cried, flinging herself at his feet and groveling there. "No, no! For the love of the Virgin, signor, not that! I have been good. Oh, for the love of God, signor! ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... must disclaim whate'er he can express; His groveling sense will show my passion less: But stay,—if what he said my message be, What fear, what danger, could arrive from me? He said, he feared you ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... him the most groveling Attentions and bright eyes grew brighter yet when he suggested pulling a little Supper, with a ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... It is a word of noble import. It lifts the soul of man from low and groveling pursuits, to the achievement of great and noble deeds, and ever keeps the object of his aspiration in view, till his most sanguine expectations ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... thrown down," replied Rebecca, shuddering; "the soldiers lie groveling under them like crushed reptiles; the besieged have the better." "Saint George strike for us!" said the knight; "do the false yeomen give way?" "No," exclaimed Rebecca, "they bear themselves right yeomanly; the Black Knight approaches the postern ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... closed." That's how Mac would start. Then there was Bond; he would probably do St. Paul's. He fancied his own literary touch. My word, what a theme for him! "Standing in the little gallery under the dome and looking down upon that packed mass of despairing humanity, groveling at this last instant before a Power which they had so persistently ignored, there rose to my ears from the swaying crowd such a low moan of entreaty and terror, such a shuddering cry for help to the Unknown, that——" and ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... confess, without reserve or wheedle, I view that groveling idea as one Worthy some parish clerk's ambitious son, A charity-boy who longs to be a beadle. On such a vital topic sure 'tis odd How much a man can differ from his neighbor, One wishes worship freely given to God, Another wants ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... These groveling worms of the earth are nominally Buddhists, but are forbidden to enter a temple. Hence they pray "standing afar off." Demon worship is accredited to them. Their headman can officiate only when he has obtained the sanction ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... his eyes, stumbled blindly and fell down, groveling in the yellow sand of the ore floor, as that one of old whom the possessing devils tore and rended. Hell and the furies!—was this to be the end of it? Did the old, time-worn fables planted in the lush and mellow soil of childhood wait only ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... neither in substance nor in use has any change taken place; under its Greek, Catholic or Protestant envelope, it is still, for four hundred millions of human beings, the spiritual means, the great, indispensable pair of wings by which man rises upward above himself, above his groveling existence and his limited horizons, leading him on through patience, hope and resignation to serenity, and beyond to temperance, purity, goodness, and self-devotion and self-sacrifice. Always and everywhere, for the past eighteen hundred years, as soon as these wings ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... diminished, they have gradually advanced; nor can I believe that there is any other great impediment in the way to a higher state of improvement. That prejudice against color is not destroyed, we very well know. Its effects may be seen in our down-cast, discouraged, and groveling countrymen, if no where else. Notwithstanding the late diminution, it exists in many of our hotels: some of them would as soon admit the dog from his kennel, at table, as the colored man; nevertheless, he is sought as a waiter; ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward |
