"Octogenarian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... action came—where were they then? She had no idea how he and others were boiling with indignation over this display of loathsome cowardice. And what was the mighty adversary like? Sweden! That invincible world power full of doddering senility! He must compare Sweden to an octogenarian who sat, dead drunk and feeble, and boasted of his warlike temper: "I'll never yield—never!" And when Parliament heard that quavering voice it grew palsied with fear. No, he, Irgens, should ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... had stopped, and the crowd broke into a cheer that echoed strangely on the night-air. It had hardly died away when a quavering, high-pitched voice started 'God Save the King,' and with a sturdy indifference to pitch the rest followed, the octogenarian who had begun it sounding clear above the others as he half-whistled and half-sang the anthem through his two ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... asleep! Weary arm gathering strength for to-morrow's toil. Hot brain getting cooled off. Rigid muscles relaxing. Excited nerves being soothed. White locks of the octogenarian in thin drifts across the white pillow—fresh fall of flakes on snow already fallen. Children with dimpled hands thrown put over the pillow, with every breath inhaling a new store ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... between the embryo and the octogenarian, we must have it also between the octogenarian and the corpse, and do away with death except as a rather striking change of thought and habit, greater indeed in degree than, but still, in kind, substantially ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... formed in England a company of "merchant adventurers of England for the discoverie of landes, territories, isles, dominions, and seigniories unknowen," commonly called "the Muscovy Company," Sebastian Cabot, then almost an octogenarian, was appointed governor for the term of his natural life, and a number of privileges were conferred upon it by the rulers both of England and Russia. At the same time negotiators, merchants, and inquirers were sent by different ways from England to Russia in order to confirm ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... believe there was no exemption for those to whom he stood in any personal relation. He remembered how, soon after he went to Eton, he had received almost with incredulity the news of the death of his god-father, Lord Stackley, an octogenarian.... He took from the table his album, knowing that on one of the earliest pages was inscribed his boyish sense of that bereavement. Yes, here the passage was, written in ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... in the home of an old farmer, an octogenarian who had never in all his life been twenty miles from his farm. He had never seen Boston, or Portland, but he had been twice to Nashua, returning, however, in time for supper. He, as well as his wife (dear simple soul), looked upon us as next door to educated Indians and ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... with "The Creation" and "The Seasons." They were the summit of his achievement, as little to be expected from him, considering his years, as "Falstaff" was to be expected from the octogenarian Verdi. Some geniuses flower late. It was only now, by his London symphonies and his "Creation," that Haydn's genius blossomed so luxuriantly as to place him with almost amazing suddenness among the very first of composers. There is hardly anything more certain than this, that if he ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... look—'there is nothing I should like better. I am very tired with walking about in the church, and have still some little time to wait, for I am going to London by the evening train.' Poor young man! (for Lord Blandamer was still young in Cullerne, which had only known his octogenarian predecessor) he is no doubt called to London on some public business—the House of Lords, or the Court, or something like that. I wish he would take as much care of himself as he seems to take for others. He looks so very tired, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... friendly; both were honestly anxious to take a crusade in hand. The two were brought no further than the verge of a serious breach about Frederick's exercise of authority over rebellious ecclesiastics. But Gregory IX., though an octogenarian, was recognised as of transcendent ability and indomitable resolution; and his will clashed with that of the young emperor, a brilliant prince, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... endurable till we have time for really becoming so of ourselves, without their aid; when they leave us ... little by little, he sees fit to forego claim after claim on the world, puts up with a less and less share of its good as his proper portion; and when the octogenarian asks barely a sup of gruel and a fire of dry sticks, and thanks you as for his full allowance and right in the common good of life,—hoping nobody may murder him,—he who began by asking and expecting the whole ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... deserves, by his position and ability, our very sincere respect; compared with the octogenarian sentimentalism of Jean Kostka, the violence of Signor Margiotta, and the paste-pot of M. de la Rive, one breathes a pleine poitrine in the altitudes of ecclesiastical erudition, artificial as their eminence ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... that at the same time an octogenarian mathematician of Aberdeen was composing a book on the same subject. Hamilton's PROGRESS OF SOCIETY is now utterly forgotten, but it must have contributed in its day to propagating the same moderate view ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury |
