"Mindless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... James said and, for an irrational moment, he hated everything that was blue that should have been green, everything sweet that should have been vicious, everything intelligent that should have been mindless. ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... from our aeroplane, circling at a height of a mile or rising to two miles in case of danger, we looked down on fierce fighting in the trenches and saw the Germans drive steadily forward, sweeping ahead in close formation, mindless of heavy losses and victorious by reason of ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... creativity and your worldwide success and we support your freedom of expression but you do have a responsibility to assess the impact of your work and to understand the damage that comes from the incessant, repetitive, mindless violence and irresponsible conduct that permeates our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... stalky, staring houses of our villages, with their plain gable-roofs, of a pitch neither high enough nor low enough for beauty, and disfigured, moreover, by mere excrescences of attic windows, and over the whole structure the awkward angularity, and the look of barren, mindless conformity and uniformity in the general outlines, and the meagre, frittered effect inherent in the material. But when we come to build, we find that the blockheads who invented this style, or no-style, have got ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... snow-coloured hands! once were they chains, mighty to bind me fast; Now no blood in them burns, mindless of ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was, Mary felt it a relief when he ceased to be capable of watching the progress of it himself: his misery at least was over. Thereafter he slipped into perfect mindlessness, happy and harmless, but hopelessly mindless and vacant. Meantime, Lady Louisa Moor made a very brilliant marriage to a marquis, the eldest son of a duke, the account of which Mary Brunton read in the newspapers while watching her brother's face with its meaningless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... to leave her alone when he saw in his fancy the clean, simple, mindless, honest life that her fanciful girlhood would settle down into as time should go on. But when in the figure of the woodman there was painted visibly on the dusky sky that end for her which he had foreseen, he was not indifferent to it; he resented it; he was stirred to a ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... gods are not human. His instinct still is to nail skulls and trophies to the sacred tree, deep in the forest. The tree of life and death, tree of good and evil, tree of abstraction and of immense, mindless life; tree of everything except ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... occurs among birds or insects. Nevertheless we may venture to state with some confidence that both the sociologists and the reactionaries are wrong. It does not follow that human beings become less than human because their ideas appeal to more and more of humanity. Nor can we deduce that men are mindless solely from the fact that they are all of one mind. In plain fact the virtues of a mob cannot be found in a herd of bulls or a pack of wolves, any more than the crimes of a mob can be committed by a flock of sheep or a shoal of herrings. Birds have never been ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... The ballot's purity no more your care, With equal privilege to dark and fair. To Yesterday a traitor, to To-day You're constant but the better to betray To-morrow. Your convictions all are naught But the wild asses of the world of thought, Which, flying mindless o'er the barren plain, Perceive at last they've nothing so to gain, And, turning penitent upon their track, Economize their strength ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... Hob henceforth goes tottering, muttering, mumbling with a mindless docility, they are, like Browning's men of the Paris morgue, only "apparent failures"; there was in them that spark of divine illumination which can never be wholly extinguished. Positive misdeeds, the presence of a wild crew of evil passions, do not ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... dull. Chaplain, turnkeys, jailers, all who live in prisons are prisoners. Barren of mental resources, too stupid to see far less read the vast romance that lay all round him, every cell a volume; too mindless to comprehend his own grand situation on a salient of the State and of human nature, and to discern the sacred and endless pleasures to be gathered there, this unhappy dolt, flung into a lofty situation by shallow ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... tints the sunset streams, The country doctor in the foreground seems, Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains. I could not paint the scenery of my song, Mindless of one who looked thereon so long; Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round, Made friends o' the woods and rocks, and knew the sound Of each small brook, and what the hillside trees Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys; Who saw ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... her father's door, he lingered an instant and held out his hand. There was defiant sympathy in his act—disdain of the judgment of Kingsborough—and of General Battle, who was passing—and pity for a bruised common thing that looked at him with beautiful, mindless eyes. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... to-morrow drags out its weary course from day to day,'" she quoted with mindless cheerfulness, only to interrupt herself good naturedly, "say, Berta, do you realize that the third to-morrow aforementioned is April Fool's Day? I wish something interesting would happen. This is the most monotonous ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... time would seem if, as some believe, his remains may be traced as far back as the Eocene! But after this rude man of the Quaternary and Tertiary epochs had passed away there is a void, a period which to the imagination seems measureless, when sun and moon and stars looked on a waste and mindless world. When man once more reappears he seems to have been re-created ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... and England and America have read with tingling blood the tales which stirred their souls, by what name would we call him? By that name let him stand forth impaled upon the scorn of an age that has not lost the grace of reverence, who, mindless of majestic age, the dignity of letters, an influence unrivalled and benign, associations tender and most holy, upon these venerable and sacred books spits his shallow scepticism, spumes his spleenful sarcasm, and smuts them with his ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... that he and his guides were becoming part of a general movement of people, a flow as mindless as that of blood corpuscles through the veins, yet at the same time dimly purposeful—at least there was the feeling that it was at the behest of ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... their side. They sat round them, and did nothing but cry. Chia She and Chia Cheng too were a prey, at this juncture, to misgivings lest weeping should upset dowager lady Chia. Day and night oil was burnt and fires were, mindless of expense, kept alight. The bustle and confusion was such that no one, either master or servant, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... painter sit in future days, Some future poet meditate his lays! Not mindless of that distant age, renowned, When inspiration hovered o'er this ground, The haunt of him who sang, how spear and shield In civil conflict met on Bosworth field, And of that famous youth (full soon removed From ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the mind, dismiss from the thoughts &c. 451. indulge in reverie &c. (be inattentive) 458. put away thought; unbend the mind, relax the mind, divert the mind, veg out. Adj. vacant, unintellectual, unideal[obs3], unoccupied, unthinking, inconsiderate, thoughtless, mindless, no-brain, vacuous; absent &c. (inattentive) 458; diverted; irrational &c. 499; narrow-minded &c. 481. unthought of, undreamt 'of, unconsidered; off one's mind; incogitable[obs3], not to be thought of. Phr. absence d'esprit; pabulum ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... and vesper draweth nigh. Christians and Pagans, sword in hand, engage; And valiant are their chiefs, nor mindless they Of battle cries:—"Precieuse!" the Emir shouts, And Carle:—"Montjoie!" the glorious sign. Each knows The other by the clear sonorous voice, And 'mid the field encountering, gives and takes Fierce blows. Each massy shield ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... thy sorrows flow, And thy heart waste with life-consuming woe: Mindless of food, or love, whose pleasing reign Soothes weary life, and softens human pain? O snatch the moments yet within thy power; Not long to live, indulge the amorous hour! Lo! Jove himself (for Jove's command I bear) Forbids to tempt the wrath of heaven too far. No longer then ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... morning, gave him a quick glance. He found she had not expected him so early and knew she saw at once how harassed he was. He insisted on sitting down to breakfast with them and, after Jerry had gone out, went over the house in a mindless way, into all the rooms, to give himself something to do. Also there seemed to be a propriety in it, a fittingness in presenting himself to his own walls and accepting their silent recognition. Then, hearing Charlotte ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... aid thee still, With hearts and States to testifie their will; Blest be thy Preachers, who did chear thee on, O cry the Sword of God and Gideon; And shall I not on them with Mero's curse, That help thee not with prayers, Arms and purse? And for myself let miseries abound, If mindless of thy State I ere be found. These are the dayes the Churches foes to crush, To root out Popelings, head, tail, branch and rush; Let's bring Baals' vestments forth to make a fire, Their Mytires, Surplices, and all their ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... About her glowd, oft stooping to support Each Flour of slender stalk, whose head though gay Carnation, Purple, Azure, or spect with Gold, Hung drooping unsustaind, them she upstaies 430 Gently with Mirtle band, mindless the while, Her self, though fairest unsupported Flour, From her best prop so farr, and storm so nigh. Neerer he drew, and many a walk travers'd Of stateliest Covert, Cedar, Pine, or Palme, Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen Among thick-wov'n Arborets and Flours Imborderd on each Bank, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... tombs, the traveller ought to notice carefully that of Pietro Bernardo, a first-rate example of Renaissance work; nothing can be more detestable or mindless in general design, or more beautiful in execution. Examine especially the griffins, fixed in admiration of bouquets, at the bottom. The fruit and flowers which arrest the attention of the griffins may well arrest the traveller's also; nothing can be finer of their kind. The tomb of Canova, by Canova, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... train, With joy the new-shorn Flock he hears Come bleating homeward o'er the russet plain; While slow, with languid neck, the weary Steers Th' inverted ploughshare drag along, Mindless of the Shepherd's song; Then, round his smiling Household-Gods, surveys A numerous, menial Group, the proof ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... feel the steadily-growing pull of his mindless enemy in the distant sky. Floating and kicking his way over to the Tele-screen, he quickly switched the instrument on. Rotating the control dials, he brought the blinding white image of the onrushing solar disk into perfect focus. Automatically he adjusted the two superimposed polaroid filters ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara
... are shut up for life. So jealous is the queen, that no female is allowed to approach the walls within one hundred yards. Never beholding any of their race but the queen and a few dried-up and ugly spinsters, the poor creatures vegetate, mindless and joyless. ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... the cool Piraeus, With drunken shout. The remnants of the feast, The crumpled cushions and the broken wreathes, Lie scattered in yon shadowy court, whose stones Through the warm hours drink up the staining wine. The bridal oxen in their well-filled stalls Sleep, mindless of the happy weight they drew. The torch is charred; the garlands at the door, So gay at morning with their bright festoons, Hang limp and withered; and the joyous flutes Are empty of all sound. Only my brain Holds now in it's remote unsleeping ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... such a thing as goodness or pity to appear in a fortuitous, mindless, soulless universe? Where does it come from? What is its origin? Whence sprang the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Old Year had gone out. The mindless old man—he who had been President—went with it. A New Year had come in, and on its infant heels shambled a tall, gaunt shape that seated itself by the White House windows and looked out into the murk of things with eyes ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... clumsy attitude it was almost possible to divine his slow, mindless nature—for there is expression in the very turn of a man's leg as he stands—and it was easy to see that he was guarding the little path down the ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... discover that in many of the subjects which interested him the most deeply, he had found May Webster a ready pupil; and when she differed from him she held her own with such merry defiance, that it gave her an added charm in his eyes. And now this mindless, fox-hunting squire was to carry her off, and life at Rudham would sink into one dead level of dulness. Thus it happened that he came home ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... shrank in sudden passion from the whole world of ideas concerned—from all those stifling notions of sin, penance, absolution, direction, as they were conventionalised in Catholic practice and chattered about by stupid and mindless people. In defiance of them, her whole nature stood like a ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dazzling snow-mist shone. No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. A solitude made more intense By dreary-voiced elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the glass the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... foregoing three assumptions could be planted? Nature, according to his picturing, is base and cruel: what is the inference to be drawn regarding its Author? If Nature be 'red in tooth and claw,' who is responsible? On a Mindless nature Mr. Martineau pours the full torrent of his gorgeous invective; but could the 'assumption' of 'an Eternal Mind'—even of a Beneficent Eternal Mind—render the world objectively a whit less mean and ugly than it is? Not an iota. It is ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... that which all who look may now behold, advancing as a deluge, black with destruction, resistless in might, uprooting our most cherished hopes, engulfing our most precious creed, and burying our highest life in mindless desolation.'[32] ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... for there are times in our lives when grief, as it were, congeals the mind by arresting all its functions, and any chance impression made at such moments is retained by a frost-bound memory. Schmucke heard his companion with such a fixed, mindless stare, that Remonencq ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... have to note is that she has succeeded in obsessing them with that ideal. No other modern country has even attempted such a moral and mental solidarity as Germany has achieved. And good ideals need, just as much as bad ones, systematic inculcation, continual open expression and restatement. Mute, mindless, or demented nations are dangerous and doomed nations. The great political conceptions that are needed to establish the peace of the world must become the common property of the mass of intelligent adults if they are to hold against ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... certainly not; that he'd used a good quick method of demonstrating that he and his people weren't like those mindless ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... numbers do but raise Confusion and divided will; In storm, the mindless deep obeys Not multitudes but single skill; In calm, your numbers, closely pressed. Do breed a mutiny ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... drop of his head was curiously beautiful to her, the straight, powerful nape of the neck, the delicate shape of the back of the head, the black hair. The way the neck sprang from the strong, loose shoulders was beautiful. There was something mindless but intent about the forward reach of his head. His face seemed ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... I was not mindless of the possibility that these forebodings, specious as they were, might be false. The dying person might be some other than Wallace. The whispers of my hope were, indeed, faint; but they, at least, prompted me to snatch ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown |
