"Importune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wide house from the wing to the centre. Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter. Spend my whole day in the quest, who cares? But 'tis twilight, you see—with such suites to explore, Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!" ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... determination, ruthlessness were eloquent in his countenance; I felt like a child before such a combination of qualities. Then he began to talk. He has an air, that brigand; he can cock his head so as to deceive a bailiff; he can wear a certain nobility of countenance; and with it all he can importune like a beggar. He has a horrid and plausible fluency; he is deaf to denials; he drugs you with words and robs you before you recover consciousness. He had got the length of quoting my own verses to me, and I ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... conclusion that he spoke no other English, and so she ceased to importune him for information; but never did she forget to greet him pleasantly or to thank him for the hideous, nauseating ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Graevenitz, Landhofmeisterin de Wirtemberg.—In view of a great change impending in my dukedom, I command you to depart instantly from my court of Ludwigsburg. You are at liberty to reside at any of the castles you have obtained from me, but I forbid you to venture into my presence or to importune the members either of my government or of my court. You have refused obedience to my commands, delivered by my Finance Minister, Baron Schuetz, and by various high law officials. I now make known to you that such future defiance will be punished as traitorous to me. Here is my warrant and signed ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... aught else." With this the woman held her peace; but she said in herself, "There is no help but that I search this basket and know what is there." So she egged on her children and enjoined them to ask him of the pannier and importune him with their questions, till he should tell them what was therein. They presently concluded that it contained something to eat and sought every day of their father that he should show them what was therein; and he still put them off with pleasant presences and forbade ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... was a fog. This seemed now a long time ago. What, then, was to prevent her from showing herself on his arm before the whole world without any fear on her part, and without any mental reservation on his, not having anyone around them who could importune them? ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... and said: "Give me your hatyk. I have the feeling that you are troubled about those whom you love, and I want to pray for them. And you must pray also, importune God and direct the sight of your soul to the King of the World who was here and sanctified ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... gravely; "you are the only person who could not disturb me, since my employment was making memorandums for a letter to yourself: with which, however, I did not desire to importune you, but that you have denied me the honour of even a five ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... ladies at Otaheite, after they had pretty well stripped their lovers of shirts, found a method of clothing themselves with their own cloth. It was their custom to go on shore every morning, and to return on board in the evening, generally clad in rags. This furnished a pretence to importune the lover for better clothes; and when he had no more of his own, he was to dress them in new cloth of the country, which they always left ashore; and appearing again in rags, they must again be clothed. So that the same suit might pass through ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... other. Sigh out a story of her cruel deeds, With interrupted accents of despair; A monument that whosoever reads, May justly praise and blame my loveless Fair; Say her disdain hath dried up my blood, And starved you, in succours still denying; Press to her eyes, importune me some good, Waken her sleeping pity with your crying: Knock at her hard heart, beg till you have moved her, And tell th'unkind how dearly ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... the Virgin together, with serene countenance, stood watching. Hence, conqueror of hell, freed from the bands of the flesh, he removes in placid sleep to the everlasting seats, and binds his temples with bright chaplets. Him, therefore, reigning, let us all importune, that he would be present with us, and that he obtaining pardon for our transgressions, would assign to us the rewards of peace on high. Be praises to thee, be honours to thee, O Trine God, who reignest, and assignest golden crowns to ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... his mouth is full-crammed of meat. Yet do his bulging eyes supplicate the wherefore of smocks, and his goodly large ears do twitch for the why of sacks. O impatient Rogerkin, bolt thy food, man, gulp— swallow, and ask and importune ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... (worship) 990; whistle for. beg hard, entreat, beseech, plead, supplicate, implore; conjure, adjure; obtest[obs3]; cry to, kneel to, appeal to; invoke, evoke; impetrate[obs3], imprecate, ply, press, urge, beset, importune, dun, tax, clamor for; cry aloud, cry for help; fall on one's knees; throw oneself at the feet of; come down on one's marrowbones. beg from door to door, send the hat round, go a begging; mendicate[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.[166] Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage[167] of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested: "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied: "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... my thought, my heart, my being's fortune, The search for thee my growth's first conscious date; For nought, for everything, I thee importune; Thou art my all, my origin ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... negative, to the end that, as on one side we would have nothing pass us to remain upon record which either for the form might not become us or for the substance might cross our many proclamations (pursued with good success) for buildings, or, on the other side, might give them cause to importune us after they had been at charges; to which end we wish that you call them before you and let them know our pleasure ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... hegira am I brought into sore distress and grievous discomfiture; for not only doth that austere man, Sir Melville, make me to perform prodigies of literary prowess, but all the other knights do laugh me to scorn and entreat me shamelessly when I be an hungered and do importune them for pelf whereby I may compass victual. Aye, marry, by my faith, I swear't, it hath gone ill with me since you strode from my castle in the direction of the province wherein doth dwell Sir Walter, the Knight of the Tennis and Toboggan. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... extension of Boer dominion over the natives was, however, accompanied by a willingness to oblige the Transvaal people in other ways. Though they had not observed the conditions of the Convention of 1881, the Boers had continued to importune the British government for an ampler measure of independence. In 1884 they succeeded in inducing Lord Derby, then Colonial Secretary, to agree to a new Convention, which thereafter defined the relations between the British crown and the South African Republic, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... find you! The peasant rancour in him had been awakened. If you escape to the end of the world he will pursue you; if you dig yourselves into the ground he will dig you out with his hands; if you escape to Heaven he will stand at the gate and importune the saints until they fly all over the universe and give him ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... appear that Mr. Dill needed time to think this over, for he said nothing more for a long while. Charming Billy half turned once or twice to importune his pack-pony in language humorously querulous, but beyond that he kept silence, wondering what freakish impulse drove Alexander P. Dill to Montana "to raise wild cattle for the Eastern markets." The very ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... to importune you I should ill deserve the generous compassion which I was informed some months ago you expressed upon being acquainted with my distress. I take this as the least troublesome way of thanking you, and desiring you to lay my application before the king in such a light as your own humanity will suggest. ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... all sense you importune her. Should Isabel kneel down to beg for mercy, her brother's ghost would break his paved bed and take her hence ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... have a hundred louis a month for pin-money, and I distribute it in alms and presents, but with due economy, so that I am not penniless at the end of the month. I have a foolish notion that the chief reason the king loves me is that I do not importune him." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... malheureux de la haute fortune, D'un roi trop indolent souverain absolu, Surcharge de travaux dont le soin L'importune. Bruhl, quitte des grandeurs L'embarras superflu. Au sein de ton opulence Je vois le Dieu des ennuis, Et dans ta magnificence ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... diximus?—Manent illa omnia, iacet ista causa: veracis suos esse sensus dicit.—Igitur semper auctorem habes eum, qui magno suo periculo causam agat! Eo enim rem demittit Epicurus, si unus sensus semel in vita mentitus sit, nulli umquam esse credendum. 80. Hoc est verum esse, confidere suis testibus et importune insistere! Itaque Timagoras Epicureus negat sibi umquam, cum oculum torsisset, duas ex lucerna flammulas esse visas: opinionis enim esse mendacium, non oculorum. Quasi quaeratur quid sit, non quid videatur. Sed hic quidem maiorum similis: ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and set forth sundrie Theses, which by publick dispute he would defend against all men. Now Poliander y^e other proffessor, and y^e cheefe preachers of y^e citie, desired M^r. Robinson to dispute against him; but he was loath, being a stranger; yet the other did importune him, and tould him y^t such was y^e abilitie and nimblnes of y^e adversarie, that y^e truth would suffer if he did not help them. So as he condescended, & prepared him selfe against the time; and when y^e day came, the Lord did so help him to defend y^e truth ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... fairness: The more to God ought I to do fea'ty With will, life, land, and love of perfectness. I deny not but Calisto is of great worthiness, But what of that? for all his high estate, His desire I defy, and utterly shall hate. Oh, his sayings and suits so importune, That of my life he maketh me almost weary! Oh, his lamentations and exclamations on fortune, With similitude [of] manner as one that should die! But who shall pity this? In faith, not I. Shall I accomplish his carnal desire? Nay, yet at a stake rather bren in a fire. Of truth, I am sorry for ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... nothing to be done—nothing? Men of his stamp do not, as a general thing, see very deep even into those who are nearest to them; but to-night he saw his daughter's nature more fully perhaps than ever before. No use to importune her to act against her instincts—not a bit of use! And yet—how to sit and watch it all—watch his own passion with its ecstasy and its heart-burnings re-enacted with her—perhaps for many years? And the old vulgar ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not startle your nerves and confuse your intellect with a history that, as yet, you could not understand. Do not importune me again; I ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... replied Mr. Paulding, "are never common beggars—never those who solicit in the street or importune from house to house. They try always to help themselves, and ask for aid only when in great extremity. They rarely force themselves on your attention; they suffer and die often in dumb despair. We find them in ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... Considered all things visible in Heaven, Or Earth, or Middle; all things fair and good: But all that fair and good in thy divine Semblance, and in thy beauty's heavenly ray, United I beheld; no fair to thine Equivalent or second! which compelled Me thus, though importune perhaps, to come And gaze, and worship thee of right declared Sovran of creatures, universal Dame! So talked the spirited sly Snake; and Eve, Yet more amazed, unwary thus replied. Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt The virtue of ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... offer me a handsome salary, it would be worth my notice. At present nobody thinks of me, because they imagine I am employed by a great King. I have lost some powerful friends: those who are now in power wish me well; but they have too much business on their hands, and I don't love to importune." ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... qui me cherchant au sein de l'infortune, Relevas mon sort abattu, Et sus me rendre chere une vie importune. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... last year presented to Congress several notes, respecting which no answer has been given me. I have reason to believe, however, that it has taken resolutions on many of these notes. Not to importune Congress by reiterations, I pray you to be pleased to inform me of what has passed on this subject, and especially with regard to the ratification of the contract entered into between the King and the United States, for the various ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... vie importune Une volage me trahit, J'eus peu de bien de la fortune, L'injustice ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... pleading for leniency. She had expected him to importune, to scold, but in the end to trust. Suddenly, in the girl's imagination, Ann's gentle face bending over Floyd rose ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... rather owe every thing to your affection, and, I may add, to your reason, (for this immoderate desire of wealth, which makes ——— so eager to have you remain, is contrary to your principles of action), I will not importune you.—I will only tell you, that I long to see you—and, being at peace with you, I shall be hurt, rather than made angry, by delays.—Having suffered so much in life, do not be surprised if I sometimes, when left to myself, grow gloomy, and suppose ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... her reproached her for hating this man so long—how could she have done it? He had always been delicacy itself towards her, he had never demanded anything of her, and no doubt the reason why he had held back from his young wife for a time was because he would not importune her with his presence—her who had now learnt to recognize him ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... had used his Authority to Suppress them: But he with his Merchants living always ashore, there was no Command; and therefore every Man did what he pleased and encouraged each other in his Villanies. Now Mr. Harthop, who was one of Captain Swan's Merchants, did very much importune him to settle his Resolutions, and declare his Mind to his Men; which at last he consented to do. Therefore he gave warning to all his Men to come Aboard the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... forensic and domestic futilities. The poem is a great poetic Mansion, with many chambers, and he will lead us sooner or later to its inner shrine; but on the way there are "closets to search and alcoves to importune,"— ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... led more and more to importune the Lord to send me the means, which are requisite in order that I may be able to commence the building. Because (1) it has been for some time past publicly stated in print, that I allow it is not without ground that some of the inhabitants of Wilson Street consider themselves ...
— Answers to Prayer - From George Mueller's Narratives • George Mueller
... Cheltenham; and Mr Rainscourt, following up his plan, made an avowal to his wife, that he had now abandoned all hopes of success, and would not importune her any more. He only requested that she would receive him on those terms of intimacy in which consisted the present happiness of his life. Mrs Rainscourt, who, although she had resolution sufficient ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... lie crying at the door of beauty;— This wails, this sends out tears, this cries apace, All do reward expect of faith and duty; Now either thou must prove th' unkindest one, And as thou fairest art must cruelest be, Or else with pity yield unto their moan, Their moan that ever will importune thee. Ah, thou must be unkind, and give denial, And I, poor I, must stand unto ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... of peace," I replied, "and in self-protection, since as long as you stay obdurate I shall continue to importune, and by and by I shall ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... relentless, she would have had hours of ecstatic forgetfulness these last long years. Of course there was always the Almighty Power to whom one could pray, and who certainly could grant prayer if He chose. But it seemed to her an impertinence for ordinary insignificant beings to importune this remote and absolute God, so forbidding in His monotonous mystery. She had all the arrogance of intellect despite her remorseless limitations. Had she been granted the gift of creation,—in other words, a spark from the great creative force commanding the Universe,—she ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... vices Embrion to aforme: But still the prince of darknesse to them brought occasions fore-locke, which they off have torne. Sin like a Cedar shadowes all our good: Whilst vertues bounded like a narrow flood. As see now, how the occasion of misfortune; Mirrha's much abus'd-mother did importune. ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... the Turks in Tripoli, the vessel continued its voyage, and the Jew began to importune me with his solicitations, which I treated with the scorn they deserved. Despairing, therefore, of success, he resolved to get rid of me upon the first opportunity; and knowing that the two pashas, Ali and Hassan, were in this island, where he could sell his goods as well as in ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that philosopher, still make answer to thy friends that importune thee to marry, adhuc intempestivum, 'tis yet unseasonable, and ever ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... from him, and yet I could find no means to resist his importunity. At last I told him, I would accept of part of his present, and that I esteemed his respect in that as much as the whole, and that I would not have him importune me farther; so I took the ring and watch, with the horse and furniture as before, and made him turn all the rest into money at Leipsic, and not suffering him to wear his livery, made him put himself into a tolerable equipage, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... ceased to importune her daughter, and with tearful resignation said she would not attempt to influence her decision, that her happy settlement in life was the only anxiety that weighed upon ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... crime enough to deserve early death! No sooner had the victim formed a kind thought of me, than the poisoned cup, the axe and block, the dagger, the mine, were ready to punish them for casting away affection on such a wretch as I am!—Importune me not—I will fly no farther—I can die but once, and I ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... silence their clamours against the Church. However, since they could not come to any agreement in a form for divine service, he had a handsome opportunity for a release: for now they could not decently importune him any farther. To part smoothly with them, he assured their agents that, when they came to any unanimous resolve upon the matter before them, they might expect his friendship, and that he should be ready to bring their scheme ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... in every path, temptations in every vocation; but I go, I run, I fly into the ways of temptation which I might shun; nay, I break into houses where the plague is; I press into places of temptation, and tempt the devil himself, and solicit and importune them who had rather be left unsolicited by me. I fall sick of sin, and am bedded and bedrid, buried and putrified in the practice of sin, and all this while have no presage, no pulse, no sense of my sickness. O height, O depth of misery, where the first symptom of the sickness ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... your comfortable news: This ring, the certain sign you met with him: Binds me in duteous love unto your grace; But on my knees I fall, and humbly crave Importune that no more ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... man living may be drunk at a time, man. I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the general. Confess yourself freely to her; importune her help to put you in your place again. She is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. This broken joint between you and her husband, entreat her to splinter; and, my fortunes against any ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... try to find out anything, or try to learn anything until the not knowing it has come to be a nuisance to you for some time. Then you will remember it, but not otherwise. Let knowledge importune you before you will hear it. Our schools and universities go on the ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... to know your terms with regard to "Melusina." [See No. 331.] In so far she has asserted herself, which is certainly better than being obliged to importune others on such matters. My household has been in great disorder for some time past, otherwise I should have called on you, and requested you to visit me in return.[1] Pray, write your conditions at once, either to the directors or to myself, in which case ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... see her sickness grow greater, yet if ill she must be, I do hope that her worst day will be upon the morrow, in which case she could not accompany Lady Madge and me. I shall nurse my good aunt carefully this day, and shall importune her to take plentifully of physic that she may quickly recover her health—after to-morrow. Should a gentleman ask of Will Dawson, who will be in the tap-room of the Royal Arms at eleven o'clock of the morning, Dawson will be glad to inform the gentleman ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... officer as a woman bows to dismiss an importune visitor, she turned away too quickly to see him once more fold his arms. She unlocked the doors she had closed, and did not see the threatening gesture which was Crevel's parting greeting. She walked with a proud, defiant step, like a martyr to the Coliseum, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... our attempting it: except one of the consuls would be entreated for our safety, to undertake the guard of us home; then we should most readily adventure. In the mean time, it shall not be fit for us to importune so judicious a senate, who know how much they hurt the innocent, that spare the guilty; and how grateful a sacrifice to the gods is the life of an ingrateful person, We reflect not, in this, on Sejanus, (notwithstanding, if you keep an eye upon him-and ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... woman, but she had a manner which removed her entirely from the class of those who merely came to importune. There was absolute certainty in the eyes she fixed with steadiness on the man's face. He took her card, ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... cultellos, chirothecas, bursas, corrigias, omnia admirantes et volentes habere. Excusabam me, quia longa nobis restabat via, nec debebamus ita cito spoliare nos rebus necessarijs ad tantam viam perficiendam. Tunc dicebant quod essem batrator. Verum est quod nihil abstulerint vi: Sed valde importune et impudenter petunt qu vident. Et si dat homo eis perdit, quia sunt ingrati. Reputant se dominos mundi, et videtur eis, quod nihil debeat eis negari ab aliquo. Si non dat, et postea indigeat seruicio eorum, male ministrant ei. Dederunt nobis bibere de lacte ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... person in the house? To this interrogation the stranger replied, without lifting up his head, "Overwhelmed as I am with Count Melvil's generosity, together with a consciousness of my own unworthiness, it ill becomes a wretch like me to importune him for further favour; yet I could not bear the thought of withdrawing, perhaps for ever, from the presence of my benefactor, without soliciting his permission to see his face in mercy, to acknowledge my atrocious crimes, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... since they had given him to me for a husband, they ought not to hinder me from partaking of his fortunes; that I was resolved to go to him, and that if I had not their leave, I would get away how I could, even at the hazard of my life. The King answered: "Sister, it is not now a time to importune me for leave. I acknowledge that I have, as you say, hitherto prevented you from going, in order to forbid it altogether. From the time the King of Navarre changed his religion, and again became a Huguenot, I have been against your going to him. What the Queen ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre |
