"Extemporary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said my wife. "I never could write. I know what ought to be said, and I could say it to any one; but my ideas freeze in the pen, cramp in my fingers, and make my brain seem like heavy bread. I was born for extemporary speaking. Besides, I think the best things on all subjects in this world of ours are said, not by the practical workers, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hymns, accompanied by the trombones of the band, are sung. Then the emperor reads the epistle and the gospel with great feeling, and recites the liturgical prayers with considerable fervor. Next he preaches a sermon, which, as a rule, is of his own composition, and extemporary, though occasionally he will read the sermon of some ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... had anticipated this; he had already slipped under the large table which stood in the middle of the room. As the housekeeper now made a plunge to drag him out of his extemporary fortress, he gave her such a hearty pinch on the leg, that she sprang back with a scream, and sank, wholly overcome by the pain, into the huge, leather-covered elbow-chair which was near her workstand at ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... over your extemporary lectures. You are now on the open sea, and "will go on swimmingly." Always keep the young men well in mind, and arrange your lectures entirely for them. I should think that the history of Greek literature ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... speaking extempore; that he requires careful and studious preparation, and is never ready, off-hand, to shoot on the wing. I do not agree with Mr. Blaine's estimate of Mr. Schurz in that particular. I have heard him make very effective speeches in the Senate, and elsewhere, that were undoubtedly extemporary. Mr. Blaine says that Mr. Schurz is so deficient in this respect that he has been known to use manuscript for an after-dinner response. But that has been done, not infrequently, by persons who have first-rate capacity for extemporary speaking, but who desire ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... thereupon after a movement which intimated that all present were kneeling, the presiding voice offered up an extemporary prayer of great power and even eloquence. This was succeeded by the Hymn of Labour, and at its conclusion the arms of the neophyte were unpinioned, and then his ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... you stay a moment," asked Phoebus, "and hear me turn the pretty and touching story of Proserpina into extemporary verses?" ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... kindly smiles, until one day, that is, yesterday, they mutually found out by some happy accident how very dear they were to each other; and mutually vowed ever to continue so. It was quite a surprise this, even to both of them—an extemporary unrehearsed outburst of the heart; and Maria discovered herself pledged before she had made direct application to mamma about the business. However, once done, she hastened to confide the secret to her mother's ear, earnestly ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... This Merry Landlord I thought was very conveniently posted to divert People after their Misfortunes, we never went about to examine him, whether his Demand was customary, or only a Piece of shire Wit, and an extemporary Instance of his prolifick Genius, but sat down, and made our selves most immoderately drunk. The Landlord discanted very copiously upon the ancient and modern Practise of Robbing upon the Road, and seem'd very much inclin'd to lessen the ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... offering up some extemporary orisons, the Captain found an opportunity of growling ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... given as a reason for a man's failure in any undertaking. But in ancient times, when no man could make a figure without the talent of speaking, and when the audience were too delicate to bear such crude, undigested harangues as our extemporary orators offer to public assemblies; the faculty of memory was then of the utmost consequence, and was accordingly much more valued than at present. Scarce any great genius is mentioned in antiquity, who is not celebrated for this talent; and Cicero enumerates it ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... same road and had failed, and their failure stared out of their crudely painted faces. But perhaps they were grateful to her for not having forgotten them—or for other more obscure reasons. They gave her what they could—extemporary gifts some of them—a tawdry ring or a flower which she stuck jauntily among the outrageous feathers. The significantly small parcels she did not open—either from idle good nature or from sheer indifference. Stonehouse wondered ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... pages by the camp-fire, after a terrible scratch with the Sikhs; and within the same twenty-four hours you may fairly surmise that some green mountain volunteer, on the wrong side of the Rio Grande, has lighted a pine-knot, and is reading one of the Marlborough articles to his mess, with extemporary paralellisms in favour of General Taylor, which the shade of the great Churchill must not venture to overhear. Swinging in his hammock, the midshipman holds Blackwood to the smoky lamp of the orlop, as he plunges and pitches around Cape Horn. Lounging in his state-room, and bound for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... upon, he imitated the example of magnanimity lately set him by Nathan, stripped off and converted his venerable wrap-rascal into extemporary halters, and so made sure of half a dozen more of the best horses; with which, and the four first selected, not doubting that the remainder of the herd would readily follow at their heels, he crept from the fold, to make his way up the valley, and round among the hills, to the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any common-wealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees; by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at home, only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke |
