"Singleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the flat doorstones before what was once the threshold. Grass and brambles covered the foundations; lilacs, with spikes of brown dead blossoms, grew tall and thick around it, and roses, gone back to wild singleness, blossomed near the steps and along a path, which was only a memory, the grass had tangled so ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... before I die," he said. This was after John Ludlow had been compelled to give it up, though the Doctor had advised him to persevere. The Doctor exercised no further pressure, and had the credit of not "worrying" at all over his daughter's singleness. In fact he worried rather more than appeared, and there were considerable periods during which he felt sure that Morris Townsend was hidden behind some door. "If he is not, why doesn't she marry?" he asked himself. "Limited as her intelligence may be, she must understand perfectly ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... beyond the beautiful round of the affections. Noble woman whose heroism is purely of the heart, not of the head. There are many species of martyrdom, but that of mere love is the grandest in the concentration of its own singleness. ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... recovered: one married a dancer, others stole a friend's wife, or stagnated or maundered, or else, unmarried, strove to believe that the peace of singleness was peace, and not—what they were finding it! But whatever these rejected suitors did, the truth about her was ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... and groundless confidence that you have reached me. You have employed without scruple all those advantages it put into your hands. You have undermined me at your ease. I left you to protect my life's blood, my heart of heart, from every attack, to preserve the singleness of her affections, and the constancy of her attachment. It was yours to have breathed into her ear the sighs of St. Julian. It was yours ambitiously to expatiate upon his amiable qualities. You were every day to have added fuel to the flame. ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... the Hindoo education, equal laws, protection to life and property; develop the resources of the country; foster all the virtues you can find in the native mind; but till you can give him the energy, the integrity, the singleness of purpose, the manly, honourable straightforwardness of the Anglo-Saxon; his scorn of meanness, trickery, and fraud; his loyal single-heartedness to do right; his contempt for oppression of the weak; his self-dependence; his probity. But why go on? When you make Hindoos honest, truthful, God-fearing ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... of less use than it was, and might possibly have been able to call Stuart's entire force away from Lee's army. Nor was it impossible, in part at least, to do the work cut out for it. Even to threaten Lee's communications would have seriously affected the singleness of purpose he displayed in ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... appealingly, "He and his brave soldiers are now in the midst of their great trial, and I trust that at your meeting you will so shape your good words that they may turn to men and guns, moving to his and their support." This patriotic singleness of thought for the country's safety defeated and scattered all more political plans, and the hearts of the people turned more and more to Mr. Lincoln. He had been steadily growing in the esteem of his countrymen. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... are, through all the variety of occupations, true to the one purpose of serving and keeping near God, then we have a charm against the frittering away of our lives in distractions, and the misery of multiplicity; and we enter into the blessedness of unity and singleness of purpose; and our lives become, like the starry heavens in all the variety of their motions, obedient to one impulse. For unity in a life does not depend upon the monotony of its tasks, but upon the simplicity of the motive which impels to all varieties of work. So it is possible for a man ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of his long degraded state were less vicious than callous, and their callousness was effectively cured by the dramatic event which had removed a corrupt official from the head of the state government, and put in his place a man whose first acts were proofs positive of strength, integrity, and singleness of purpose. The revulsion of feeling was overwhelming. Even the press which had sneered at and cried down John Barclay was forced to the other extreme. Relieved from the burden of lawlessness which had lain on Kenton City for close upon three months, the citizens went over in a body to ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... might break through the walls of my prison; and accordingly, when he next morning came in to see me, I failed not to try their edge. I entered into discourse with him, and told him of many things which I have recorded in this book, and so won upon his confidence and the singleness of his heart, that he shed tears of grief at the thought of so many blameless men being ordained to an untimely end. "It has pleased God," said he, "to make me as it were a leper and an excommunicant in this world, by the constraints of a low estate, and without any fault of mine. But for this ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... depends Upon that law as on the best of friends. Who if he rise to station of command Rises by open means, and there will stand On honorable terms, or else retire, And in himself possess his own desire: Who comprehends his trust, and to the same Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; And therefore does not stoop nor lie in wait For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state; Whom they must follow, on whose head must fall Like showers of manna, if they come at all. 'Tis finally the man, who, lifted high, Conspicuous object in a nation's eye, ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... nature and in closeness of communion. For the force of the analogy and the emphasis of that word which is even more emphatic in the Greek than in the English 'His own Son,' point to a community of nature, to a uniqueness and singleness of relation, to a closeness of intimacy, to which no other is a parallel. And so we have to estimate the measure of the surrender by the tenderness and awfulness of the bond. 'Having one Son, His well-beloved, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... purpose into a position repellent to her. In a man of his type, her independence awoke only admiration and her coldness served but to inflame him the more. Delicacy, in Glenister, was lost in a remarkable singleness of purpose. He could laugh at her loathing, smile under her abuse, and remain utterly ignorant that anything more than his action in seizing her that night lay at the bottom of her dislike. He did not dream that he possessed characteristics abhorrent to her; ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... important patriotic measure in this region has had his sympathy, and of many he has been the prime mover. He gave to each his strong support, but uniformly shunned to appear in public. For himself or his friends he asked no reward: for himself, he asked only to do the hard work. His transparent singleness of purpose, his freedom from all by-ends, his plain good sense, courage, adherence, and his romantic generosity disarmed first or last all gainsayers. His examination before the United States Senate Committee on the Harper's Ferry Invasion, ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... and if he have the courage to stand alone, face to face with the abyss of the Eternal and Unknowable, let him be content, once for all, not only to renounce the good things promised by "Infallibility," but even to bear the bad things which it prophesies; content to follow reason and fact in singleness and honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, in the sure faith that a hell of honest men will, to him, be more endurable than a paradise full ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... had followed Patsey Hubbard through the varied duties of a single day, would have acknowledged that there is no spectacle in this world more pleasant, than that of a human being, discharging with untiring fidelity, and singleness of heart, duties, however humble. The simple piety of her first morning prayer, the plain good sense of her domestic arrangements, and thorough performance of all her household tasks, her respectful, considerate kindness to her step-mother, and even a shade of undue ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... I don't deserve it; it scorches me," he protested with eyes suddenly grave and glowing. "The 'one' is of course one's self, one's conscience, one's idea, the singleness of one's aim. I think of that pure spirit as a man thinks of a woman he has in some detested hour of his youth loved and forsaken. She haunts him with reproachful eyes, she lives for ever before him. As an artist, you know, I've married for money." Paul stared and even blushed ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... nature, I think, a pianist. You would never find yourself. In the effort to do so, I'm afraid your playing would become warped, eccentric." He threw back his head and looked at his pupil intently with that one eye which sometimes seemed to see deeper than any two eyes, as if its singleness gave it privileges. "Oh, I have watched you very carefully, Miss Kronborg. Because you had had so little and had yet done so much for yourself, I had a great wish to help you. I believe that the strongest need of your nature is to find yourself, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... among them than in Europe. Nor can it be said that their religion is something detachable from ordinary life: the burden of daily observances prescribed and duly borne seems to us intolerable. But Buddhism and many forms of Hinduism present themselves as methods of salvation with a simplicity and singleness of aim which may be paralleled in the Gospels but only rarely in the national churches of Europe. The pious Buddhist is one who moulds his life and thoughts according to a certain law: he is not much concerned with worshipping the gods of the state or city, but has nothing against such ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... to leave the trust last confided to you without an expression of his regard and respect, the result of many years of intimate association in peace and war. Although differing on some points of general policy, your singleness of purpose, perfect integrity, and devotion to your country have been always known to him. In the embarrassing and delicate position you have lately occupied your conduct, and especially your last official note in closing your correspondence ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... not deserve, and get the praise of men by it; but remember that you cannot deceive Almighty God, who sees your wickedness and deceit, and will punish you accordingly. For the rule is, that you must obey your masters in all things, and do the work they set you about with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good-will doing service as to the Lord, and ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... and our hostess too distracted at the moment for any explanations. We were swept away, and both of us spent the remainder of the evening feebly protesting our singleness. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... addition, one good quality without any defect to balance it. He was always ready to help people. And when he set himself to do this, he was never put off by discomfort or risk. He went at the thing with a singleness of purpose ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... come upon his throne. Take your seat at his side if you would put his divinity to the proof. Or else be content to serve him in silence and singleness of heart, even ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... the Institution is to provide and maintain boats that shall save the lives of shipwrecked persons, and to reward those who save lives, whether by means of its own or other boats. The grandeur of its aim and singleness of its purpose ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... results would show. For, in Russian novels, the irresolution of the men is equalled only by the driving force of the women. The Russian feminine type, as depicted in fiction, is the incarnation of singleness of purpose, and a capacity to bring things to pass, whether for good or for evil. The heroine of "Rudin," of "Smoke," of "On the Eve," the sinister Maria of "Torrents of Spring," the immortal Lisa of "A House ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... being mainly rural, it perhaps approaches more nearly to the epic. There is an Homeric simplicity in its descriptions of half-drunken warriors with their superb physique, their bravado, their native dignity and singleness of character. Marianka, the beautiful heroine, passes from one picture to another in her quiet, regular toil. Whether, clad in a loose skirt of pink cotton, she drives the oxen or piles the kizyak or dung-fuel along the fence with her hoe, or in holiday attire mingles with other girls at evening, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... blessed singleness of heart, What heed has she for nations' wrath? She sings a little peaceful hymn As she ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ. Not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good-will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... occasions that this sentiment got possession of him strongly. He was generally able to keep it down. Hard work, assisted by his natural faculty for singleness of purpose and concentration of attention, kept him from lifting the eyes of his heart toward the unattainable. Moreover, he had developed an enthusiasm, genuine in its way, for the land of his adoption. The elemental hugeness of its characteristics—its rivers fifty to a hundred miles ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... the popular will, he made no doubt; and there were times when he was strongly tempted to carry the war boldly into the wider field of graft and bossism. That he postponed the bigger battle was due quite as much to the singleness of purpose which was his best gift as to the desire to spare his father. Telling himself resolutely that the reformation of the railroad company's political methods was his chief object, and the only ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... stronger proof could be given of the confidence felt in him, than these concurrent last wishes of two such men. Each had brought to the office he held not merely intellectual pre-eminence, but a dignity and elevation of character, and a singleness of purpose, rarely equaled; and to each the future welfare of the institution over which he presided was an object ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... not recognise the man for what I knew him to be. He groped, as one in the dark, or as a sea animal taken out of its element and placed on the sands. Courage had given place to fear; decision to wavering; and singleness of purpose to a divided counsel. He who had so thoroughly dominated the entire ship, eagerly accepted advice of me—a ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... her theories that Isabel Archer was very fortunate in being independent, and that she ought to make some very enlightened use of that state. She never called it the state of solitude, much less of singleness; she thought such descriptions weak, and, besides, her sister Lily constantly urged her to come and abide. She had a friend whose acquaintance she had made shortly before her father's death, who offered so high an example of useful activity that Isabel always thought of her as a model. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... waiting to go aboard. It does not look inviting, and they hesitate. In a minute or two their spirits sink so low, that if they should see the wooden bull step out of a grotto on the deck of the steamer the spectacle could not revive them. At that instant they think, with a surprising singleness, of Nantasket Beach, and the bright colors in which the Gardens of Maolis but now appeared fade away, and they seem to see themselves sauntering along the beautiful shore, while the white-crested breakers crash upon the ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... it in the morning," said Eddring, quietly. His singleness of purpose had its effect. Captain Wilson abruptly turned ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... Seth, whose innate culture could not but communicate itself, Cyclona was totally untutored. She knew nothing of coyness, caprice or mannerisms. Singleness of purpose and unselfishness shone in her tranquil and steadfast gaze which Hugh was fortunate enough ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... not an extravagant theory that the cabby's singleness of purpose and concentrated view of life are the results of the hansom's peculiar construction. The cock-of-the-roost sits aloft like Jupiter on an unsharable seat, holding your fate between two thongs of inconstant leather. Helpless, ridiculous, confined, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... that in thy bosom, Conscience? Diligence, reach it hither. [Make as though he[229] read it. Conscience, speak on; let me hear what thou canst say, For I know in singleness thou wilt a ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... takes to the trees it makes the toes prehensile; for the one which learns to stand erect and run along the ground it flattens the sole, making it steady and supporting. To resist, to survive, to win through, is the end to which the life-principle sets itself with such singleness of aim as to unfold a wealth of potentiality astounding to us ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... pass their lives in singleness, devotion, or meditation, for those in holy matrimony, those engaged in life's battle in mountains, and caves, and pits of the earth, our holy fathers and brothers, let ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... papers had appeared in "The Courant," I was encouraged to continue them by hearing that they had at least one reader who read them with the serious mind from which alone profit is to be expected. It was a maiden lady, who, I am sure, was no more to blame for her singleness than for her age; and she looked to these honest sketches of experience for that aid which the professional agricultural papers could not give in the management of the little bit of garden which she called her own. She may have been my only disciple; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the poorest among men. It was love of country, not selfish ambition, which turned his attention to public life, and toward the end of his administration he was rewarded by public confidence and a respect for his honesty and singleness of aim toward the good of the nation. He had a great relish for story-telling and used his fund of anecdote to good advantage in illustrating points ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... quasi-religious movement, ministers and churches, without any very far-reaching hopes and plans, labouring to bring about a spirit which should induce men to renounce Masonry; and in their zeal they worked with the singleness of thought and the accepted methods that dominate the revivalist ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Orson Hyde and Smith's brother Hyrum to write to the Missouri brethren. In this letter they were told plainly that, unless the rebellious spirit ceased, the Lord would seek another Zion. To Phelps the message was sent, "If you have fat beef and potatoes, eat them in singleness of heart, and not boast yourself in these things." It was, however, as a concession to this spirit of complaint, according to Ferris, that Smith announced the "revelation" which placed the church in the hands of a ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... boy grasped. A navy, ships, a railroad to the sea—those he could understand. Treaties were beyond his comprehension. And, with a child's singleness of idea, ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... strength to convert the world. The church—the whole church, without the exception of any of its members, is by profession, not merely a missionary society, but a missionary band: the minute-men of the Lord Jesus, ready to do his will, at home or abroad, with singleness of aim, and with a spirit of ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... devoted himself to political and historical studies, and though apparently retired from public life, his letters show the deep and passionate interest he took in the political vicissitudes through which Italy was then passing, and in all of which the singleness of purpose with which he continued to advance his native Florence, is clearly manifested. It was during his retirement upon his little estate at San Casciano that Machiavelli wrote The Prince, the most famous of all his writings, and here also ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Krishna. Fearlessness, singleness of soul, the will Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand And governed appetites; and piety, And love of lonely study; humbleness, Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives, Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind That lightly letteth go what others prize; ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... raised Kao-yao, and evil vanished; xiii. 17, when governor of Chue-fu asks how to rule; xix. 3, says cling to worthy friends; xix. 4, says small ways end in mire; xix. 5, says he who recalls each day his faults is fond of learning; xix. 6, says in wide learning and singleness of aim love is found; xix. 7, says through study a gentleman reaches truth; xix. 8, says the vulgar gloss their faults; xix. 9, says a gentleman alters thrice; xix. 10, says a gentleman will not lay on burdens before he is trusted; xix. 11, says ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... Millais, of revolt against the style of art in vogue, traceable all the way back to Raphael, and of a bold return to the study of nature itself, agreeably to the advice of Ruskin, that "they should go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought than how best to penetrate her meaning: rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing"; the principle of the movement, as having regard not ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... another cause for self-gratulation, and thankful acknowledgement to the reading public. This continued and unimpaired success amidst a myriad of new-born aspirants, is the best proof of our maintenance of public esteem; and so long as our efforts are guided by the same singleness of purpose that first directed them we shall hope for a continuance of such favour. A multitude of contemporaries "whet each other;" "thinking nurseth thinking;" and, in like manner, reading nurseth reading, and awakens a spirit of inquiry, untiring ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 584 - Vol. 20, No. 584. (Supplement to Vol. 20) • Various
... fifty succeeds in business, therefore it calls for your best efforts if you wish to succeed. It calls for a singleness of purpose. ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... impossible to say any thing better; but it is possible to say something more. Such in fact is the simplicity, the truth, and the loveliness of Juliet's character, that we are not at first aware of its complexity, its depth, and its variety. There is in it an intensity of passion, a singleness of purpose, an entireness, a completeness of effect, which we feel as a whole; and to attempt to analyze the impression thus conveyed at once to soul and sense, is as if while hanging over a half-blown rose, and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... chiefly, if not wholly, on water insects. Strange to say, he never leaves the streams, never makes excursions to the country roundabout, never flies over a mountain ridge or divide to reach another valley, but simply pursues the winding streams with a fidelity that deserves praise for its very singleness of purpose. No "landlubber" he. It is said by one writer that the dipper has never been known to alight on a tree, preferring a rock or a piece of driftwood beside the babbling stream; yet he has the digits ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... and extremely well provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage, needs no apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not; but Sir Walter's continuing in singleness requires explanation. Be it known then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, (having met with one or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications), prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughters' sake. For ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... of truth, his singleness of heart, his sincerity, his earnestness, his modesty, his candour, his absolute sinking of self and selfishness—these, indeed are all conspicuous to every reader on the very face of ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... be to the honor of Congress that in these days of political strife and controversy, we have laid aside for once the sin that most easily besets us, and, with unanimity of counsel, and with singleness of heart and of purpose, have accomplished for our country one ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... him whom you justly call our apostle, during the bustle and gaiety of a court, may yet find better acceptance during the leisure for reflection which this place affords. God knows, lady, that I speak in singleness of heart, as one who would as soon compare himself to the immortal angels, as to the holy man whom you have named. Yet would you but condescend to apply to their noblest use, those talents and that learning which all allow ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... groundwork of uniformity and law), evidence of a multi-personal Divine government, of a division of labour between co-operant agencies. This, of course, goes beyond the doctrine of "appropriation;" and amounts to a denial of the singleness of the Divine operation ad extra. It seems, in short, to imply a diversity of nature in each of the persons, over and above the principle of personal distinctness. Indeed, while it offers a plausible solution of some minor perplexities, it rather weakens ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... plate, she sees another plate three chairs distant, and upon that plate there is a biscuit or some other sweet attraction. Upon such occasions Lulla all but plunges into space between the chairs, in her singleness of purpose. Having reached the lap nearest that plate, she turns and smiles at her late entertainer just to make sure she is not offended. But even if she knew she would be, Lulla would not hesitate. Curly head foremost, eyes on the goal: that ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... deadly singleness of purpose, should have been simple. It attained a complexity at times at which he marveled. An inclination to blurt out the truth with panicky abruptness when he wanted to lie, plunged him into more than ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... go to nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing." Advice which, whether bad or good, involved infinite ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... eccentric and independent mind, wedded to a character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pursued its own path of self-improvement for more than half a century, part gymnosophist, part backwoodsman; and thus did it come twice, though in a subaltern attitude, into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... come upon you."(508) Those who turn away from the light which God has given, or who neglect to seek it when it is within their reach, are left in darkness. But the Saviour declares, "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."(509) Whoever is with singleness of purpose seeking to do God's will, earnestly heeding the light already given, will receive greater light; to that soul some star of heavenly radiance will be sent, to guide ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... strength and prowess, those great bowmen devoted to pure vows, have both derived additional strength from the strength of their affection. According as the cause is, all strong-armed men become, O bull of Kuru's race, heroes or cowards. Actuated by a singleness of purpose, both these kings, who are powerful bowmen, will lay down their very lives in causing a great massacre of thy troops to the best of their might, O slayer of foes! Fierce in battle, these distinguished heroes, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "we did not forget to pray for you, Jane. With respect to your absence, we know it was unintentional. Your mind is troubled, my love, and do not, let me beg of you, dwell upon minor points of that kind, so as to interrupt the singleness of heart with which you ought to address God. You know, darling, you can ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and his companion, "and I beg you will remember that in doing so, however personal my inquiries may seem, they have but one object in view—the solution of this mystery." "I have already had good proof of your singleness of purpose," she replied. "Only too gladly will I give you any information in my possession. Until this assassin is found, and my father's good name freed from the obloquy which has been cast upon it, my existence will be ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... early days it never occurred to me to think what a rare and wonderful being this old domestic was. Not only did she never talk, but she seemed never even to think, of herself. Her whole life was compounded of love and self-sacrifice. Yet so used was I to her affection and singleness of heart that I could not picture things otherwise. I never thought of thanking her, or of asking myself, "Is she also happy? Is she also contented?" Often on some pretext or another I would leave my lessons and run to her room, where, sitting ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... Lord Curryfin said to Miss Niphet. 'You took no part in the conversation of last evening. You gave no opinion on the singleness and ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... more and more strictly of the flesh; with this it was less thrilling. There, he believed, they were not singular; or, anyhow, he wasn't; he saw what he was convinced was the same failure in the men past youth about him. But in Fanny there was, he recognized, that fierce if narrow singleness of impulse, of purity. His thoughts of other women were not innocent of provocative conjecture—Anette's sinuous body, now as dead to him as Alohabad, recurred to his mind—but in this Fanny was utterly loyal. Yes, she had, a thing impossible ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... By her simplicity and singleness of purpose, however, she had innocently drawn my attention to her uncle; then, in a measure, she had verified my awakened suspicions. While Maillot and Felix Page were in the library, engrossed in their own affairs, could Alfred Fluette have been in ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... perfect virgin knight To worship woman as true wife beyond All hopes of gaining, than as maiden girl. They place their pride in Lancelot and the Queen. So passionate for an utter purity Beyond the limit of their bond, are these, For Arthur bound them not to singleness. Brave hearts and ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Music, Rundle street, where I listened with embarrassment to the avalanche of eulogium that overwhelmed me. "What a good thing it is, Miss Spence, that you have only one idea," a gentleman once said to me on my country tour. He wished thus to express his feeling concerning my singleness of purpose towards effective voting. But at this welcome home I felt that others realized what I had often said myself. It is really because I have so many ideas for making life better, wiser, and pleasanter all of which effective voting ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... were very deliberate; there was an absence of superfluous energy that told of intensity of thought and singleness of purpose. He shouldered the saddle with a single movement, walked with it to the lean-to, threw it upon its accustomed peg, hung the bridle from the pommel, and then turned and for a brief time listened ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... inadequate to meet any contingencies of the kind that might arise, whether in respect of industrial capacity or in point of man-power, if these resources were turned to this object with the same singleness of purpose and the same drastic procedure that marks the course of a national establishment guided by no considerations short of imperial dominion. The doubt presents itself rather as an apprehension that the cost would be extravagantly high, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... course—and his only thought was to get that miserable, stripped, undecked, smouldering shell of a ship back again with her head pointing at her port of destination. Bankok! That's what he was after. I tell you this quiet, bowed, bandy-legged, almost deformed little man was immense in the singleness of his idea and in his placid ignorance of our agitation. He motioned us forward with a commanding gesture, and went to ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... statement implies in order to appreciate the great need for the higher culture of the vocal organism. If the individual's condition were attuned to perfect harmony, to perfect unity of action, and to singleness of purpose, together with the habit of personal expression rather than expression through some limited mode of action—if, indeed, this were so, his voice would scarce need training,—certainly not corrective training,—nor would he need "culture" of any kind, ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... With such singleness of purpose to crystallize her, she cannot absorb even the gravest of warnings; not from unwillingness or stupid obstinacy, but from sheer inability to grasp any novelty. That her beloved master and mistress—either or both—should ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... will and the consequent thought of the understanding in the head. Suppose, now, one body to have several heads and each head to be free to act from its own understanding and its own will, could such a body continue to exist? For among several heads singleness of purpose, such as results from one head would be impossible. As in the church, so in the heavens; heaven consists of myriads of myriads of angels, and unless these all and each looked to one God, they would fall away from one another ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... therefore, a surpassing singleness of mankind. The blazing tiger will spring upon the deer, un- dimmed, the hen will nestle over her chickens, we shall love, we shall hate, but it will be like music, sheer utterance, issuing straight out of the unknown, ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... crowded plot which spoilt Cambyses, it attains more nearly to tragedy. The low characters, Mansipulus and Mansipula, the Vice (Haphazard), and the abstractions, Conscience, Comfort and their brethren, reappear with as little success. But the singleness of the theme helps towards that elevation of the main figures and intensifying of the catastrophe which tragic emotion demands. Unfortunately, from the start the author seems to have been obsessed with the notion that the familiar rant of Herod was peculiarly ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Church over Europe? This is not the result that must have occurred had there been in Rome an unremitting care for the spiritual and material prosperity of the continent, had the universal pastor, the successor of Peter, occupied himself with singleness of purpose for the holiness ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... younger generation and, more especially, to those choosing the profession of the physician, and the reader can discern therein something of the man himself, can get some glimpse of his life and its meaning, can gain some sense of the sincerity, the simplicity, the self-sacrifice and singleness of purpose which guided him and finally lifted him so far out of and above the ordinary, then will the pleasant task of recalling fully justify ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... through ill-assorted unions, Or habits reckless of maternal dues; How marriage, sacredest of mortal steps, Is entered on from motives all unworthy; Social ambition, mercenary aims, The dread of poverty, of singleness,— The object of uniting families,— And momentary passion fatuous. So I resolved, God helping, to be true To my own self, and that ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... not been passed in singleness. His Helpmate was a comely matron, old— Though younger than himself full twenty years. 80 She was a woman of a stirring life, Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool; That small, for flax; and if one wheel had rest, ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... numerous and expensive, but women were never to be seen in his house; and his confirmed dislike to them was the occasion of his seldom visiting, except with those who were like himself in a state of happy singleness. In other points, he was a liberal, worthy man, and a perfect gentleman, but extremely choleric ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... been rejected with language and almost with violence. Then a strange thing took place. If Jason had married Selina without opposition, his congregation would have been enraged. He might have been forced from his pulpit. Now it regarded him as a martyr, and with clacking tongues and singleness of purpose it espoused his cause and declared that their minister was good enough to marry any girl alive, and that Deacon Pettybone was a mean, narrow-minded, bigoted, cantankerous old grampus. The thing became a public question, second in ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... sees with everybody's eyes, and hears with everybody's ears. It has no capricious distinctions, no perplexities, and no mysteries. It never equivocates, and never trifles. Its language is always intelligible. It is known by clearness of speech and singleness ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... dream of declining years. My object in returning to the London world was to try whether I could not find, amongst the fairest and most attractive women that the world produces—at least to an English eye—some one who could inspire me with that singleness of affection which could alone justify the hope that I might win in return a wife's esteem and a contented home. That object is now finally relinquished, and with it all idea of resuming the life of cities. I might have re-entered a political career, had I first secured to ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... believe in one Almighty Creator, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and is yet more intent on the honors, profits, and friendships of the world than he is, in singleness of heart, to stand faithful to the Christian religion, is in the channel of idolatry; while the Gentile, who, notwithstanding some mistaken opinions, is established in the true principle of virtue, and humbly adores an Almighty Power, may be of the number ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Bhava who is the original cause (of the universe) fully springs up in the heart of one that is conversant with every mode of worshipping that great Deity.[185] Such stainless and pure devotion to Rudra, that has singleness of purpose and that is simply irresistible in its course, is seldom to be found among even the deities, and never among men. It is through the grace of Rudra that such devotion arises in the hearts of human beings. In ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... forgetfulness and decay, in the sight of his own shortcomings and limitations, or on the edge of the tomb, he alone who has found his soul in losing it, who in singleness of mind has lived in order to love and understand, will find that the God who is near to him as his own conscience has a face of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... alone. (8) I speak here only of the outward observances of piety and the external rites of religion, not of piety, itself, nor of the inward worship of God, nor the means by which the mind is inwardly led to do homage to God in singleness of heart. ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... lady, Mis' Flannigan, dat could injuce me ter want ter change de lonesomeness er my singleness fer de 'sponsibilities er matermony, an' I 'm feared she 'd say no ef I 'd ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... pleasures than those which their offices or homes could afford, she was ripe for the coming of the day of open-air games. And having turned to them, she threw herself into their pursuit with the ardour and singleness of purpose which are characteristic of the people and which, as applied to games, seem to English eyes to savour almost of professionalism. As a matter of fact they are only the manifestations of an essential trait of ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... was the daughter of a distinguished officer, whose merits were universally recognized, but not rewarded in proportion. Wardlaw's suit was favorably received by the father, and the daughter gradually yielded to an attachment the warmth, sincerity and singleness of which were manifest. And the pair would have been married but for the circumstance that her father (partly through Wardlaw's influence, by the by) had obtained a lucrative post abroad which it suited his means to accept, at all events for a time. He was a widower, ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... the professional could plead with greater justice that he is not an amateur. The professional has not, he might well say, the leisure and freedom from money anxieties which will let him devote himself to his art in singleness of heart, telling of things as he sees them without fear of what man shall say unto him; he must think not of what appears to him right and loveable but of what his patrons will think and of what the critics will tell his patrons to say they think; he has got to square everyone all round and will ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... he remembered now how he had come along this very road to that great building for the first time in his life, and all the hopes and resolves that had swelled within him as he had drawn near. That dream of incessant unswerving work! Where might he have reached if only he had had singleness of purpose to realise ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... conformity on these terms, nothing could wound it so bitterly nor outrage it so unpardonably. To know that her sensibility is destroying the entireness of the man's nature, its loyalty alike to herself and to truth, its freedom and singleness and courage—surely this can hardly be less distressing to a fine spirit than the suspicion that his heresies may bring him to the pit, or than the void of going through life without even the semblance of religious sympathy between them. If it be urged that the woman would ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... thank-offering to the Lord for having, chiefly by means of the work in which you are engaged in Bristol, opened my eyes in some little measure to His will with regard to His pilgrim people here. I ask your prayers on my behalf, dearest brother, amongst the many who must be on your heart, for singleness of eye, to walk with God by faith, that 'the whole body may be full of light,' and that I may not be permitted to darken the little light I have, by serving any ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... improbable than that the most triumphant beauty of the season should seriously incline to share the long up-hill struggle of a rising barrister? Those dull Temple-chambers are lucky enough if the sun condescends to visit them at rare intervals in his journey westward. But Waring's own singleness of purpose beguiled him more effectually than the most inordinate vanity could have done. Putting character out of the question, he thought a woman could only derogate by allying herself to one of inferior birth; and he knew his own blood to be nearly equal to Miss Tresilyan's. He was right ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... stir of his better nature, this clearing of his mental eyesight under the light of a bright example, that made him call the little torch-bearer his good angel. If this were truth, this purity, uprightness, and singleness of mind, as conscience said it was, where was he? how far wandering ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... — N. perseverance; continuance &c (inaction) 143; permanence &c (absence of change) 141; firmness &c (stability) 150. constancy, steadiness; singleness of purpose, tenacity of purpose; persistence, plodding, patience; sedulity &c (industry) 682; pertinacy^, pertinacity, pertinaciousness; iteration &c 104; bottom, game, pluck, stamina, backbone, grit; indefatigability, indefatigableness; bulldog courage. V. persevere, persist; hold on, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... proportions were evidently no more to be regulated by the laws hitherto observed in detached colonnades. The column expanded into the shaft, or into the huge pilaster rising unbanded from tier to tier; shaft and pilaster were associated in ordered groups, and the ideas of singleness and limited elevation once attached to them, swept away for ever; the stilted and variously centered arch existed already: the pure ogive followed—where first exhibited we stay not to inquire;—finally, and ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... serenity seems to me to cling to the memory of Charles's reign, a sort of "world went very well then" feeling. Certainly Charles was doing his best, and his serenity and singleness of purpose were reflected in the soul of his people, as were the works of his hands reflected in the waters of the Vltava. Some historians credit Charles with deep and sinister designs, such as raising ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... actual existence. And this is exactly what Polybius has done as well as Thucydides. For, as has been well remarked, there is in the works of these two writers a certain plastic unity of type and motive; whatever they write is penetrated through and through with a specific quality, a singleness and concentration of purpose, which we may contrast with the more comprehensive width as manifested not merely in the modern mind, but also in Herodotus. Thucydides, regarding society as influenced entirely by political motives, took no account of forces ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... him, he makes no questioning of Providence,—but why was life given to him at all, if only for this? Sick in mind, and sick in body, but one wish remains to him, that death will come quickly and end all. It is a cry from the very depths of a single and simple heart. But for such simplicity and singleness his friends could not give him credit; possessed beforehand with their idea, they see in his misery only a fatal witness against him; such calamities could not have befallen a man, the justice of God would not have ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... for it is in complete and glaring contrast with what he had repeatedly written in his Antiquities and his Wars about the strife of different sects. His books would have supplied the best argument to any pagan criticising his apology. Josephus further ascribes to the singleness of the tradition the absence of original genius among the people. The excellence of the Law produces a conservative outlook, whereas the Greeks, lacking a fixed law, love a new thing. S.D. Luzzatto, the Hebraist of the middle of the nineteenth ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... many ways in which through hearty cooperation the legislative and executive branches of this Government can do much. The absolute essential is the spirit of united effort and singleness of purpose. I will allude only to a very few specific examples of action which ought then to result. America can not take its proper place in the most important fields for its commercial activity and enterprise unless we have a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... greatest poetry, all the elements of human nature are burning in a single flame. The artifice of criticism is to detect what peculiar radiance each element contributes to the whole light; but this no more affects the singleness of the compounded energy in poetry than the spectroscopic examination of fire affects the single nature of actual flame. For the purposes of this book, it has been necessary to look chiefly at the contribution of ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie
... When, at the moment of conception, the two parent nuclei fuse to form a new unit of life, then takes place the great mystery of creation. A new individual appears—not the result of the fusion merely. Something more. The quality of individuality cannot be derived. The new individual, in his singleness of self, is a perfectly new whole. He is not a permutation and combination of old elements, transferred through the parents. No, he is something underived and utterly unprecedented, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... by the bullet-wound, the bear made after him. As he could not annihilate the two men at once, he confined his efforts with praiseworthy singleness of purpose to the man who had fired the shot. It was lucky for the fugitive that bullet had somewhat lamed the great brute, otherwise it would not have needed to run ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... his subsequent life justifies the idea; he had more pride of character—more need to respect himself—than ambition, as that word is usually understood; excellence more than distinction was his aim;—no one of the leaders in the Revolution sought office less, none fulfilled its duties with more singleness of purpose, or escaped from its responsibilities with greater alacrity; the instincts of John Jay were mainly for truth, duty, and success, in the higher acceptation of the term. What he undertook, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and sold their possessions, and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need, and continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their bread in gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favour with all the people." Those were the fruits of God's Spirit in THEM. Till we see more of that sort of life and society in England, we shall not be able to pride ourselves on having much of ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... heart, a singleness of idea in herself, that prevented her from ever attaching suspicion to others. But a sort of vague, undefined apprehension floated through her brain as she revolved the extraordinary behaviour of her cousin. Yet, it was that sort of feeling to which she could not give either a local habitation ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... first place, the incarnation of an abstraction, the spirit of patriotism roused to the highest pitch of warlike intensity and self-sacrifice, and in the second this abstract motive is expressed in the most elaborate and comprehensive completeness—with a combined intricacy of detail and singleness of effect which must be the despair of any but a master ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... and as he wrote to his editor, "a man must have an exclusive passion for his art, and all the obstinacy and self-denial which is combined with such a temperament—an unconquerable and always enduring will, always working forward to the only goal he knows." This singleness of purpose Beddoes never possessed. Inheriting from his father the qualities of both poet and physician, the faculties of the scientific man, trained and cultivated through a long life by Dr. Thomas Beddoes (with whom poetry was but an occasional pastime), seem to have overbalanced and diverted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... woman may, a native instinct teaches and qualifies her to make a home for herself. If single, taste and housewifery are combined within even the narrow limits of one or two rooms. Her singleness need not chill the heart,—for there are other things to love than men. The power to make tender friendships was born with her, and is part of her nature; nor does it leave her now. She has, moreover, the proud satisfaction of knowing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... else it had not been so freely admitted by her own sex. However that may be, Catherine Cavendish had had few lovers as compared with many a maid less fair and less dowered, and at this time she seemed to have settled into an expectation and contentment of singleness. ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... very. 8 sengeley in synglure, ever in singleness (uniqueness). Now is Susan in sale sengeliche arayed. Pistel of Susan, Vernon MS., fol. 317. 11 dewyne, pine; for-dolked, for-wounded (severely hurt). 16 heuen my happe, increase my happiness. 17 rych my hert range, ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... I have felt the falsehood that pervades the volumes imposed upon the world under the name of Ossian. From what I saw with my own eyes, I knew that the imagery was spurious. In nature everything is distinct, yet nothing defined into absolute, independent singleness. In MacPherson's work it is exactly the reverse: everything (that is not stolen) is in this manner defined, insulated, dislocated, deadened, yet nothing distinct. It will always be so when words are substituted for things. To say that the characters ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... that she was his inferior in culture and social accomplishments; she was still young and flexible, and displayed an aptness for seizing upon his ideas and assimilating them which was fairly bewildering. And if purity of soul and loving singleness of purpose be a proof of noble blood, she was surely one ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... themes which Spenser introduces. The attempt at uniting a series of poems into a single fabric is Spenser's chief contribution to the formal side of pastoral composition. The method by which he sought to correlate the various parts so as to produce the singleness of impression necessary to a work of art, and the measure of success which he achieved, though they belong more strictly to the general history of poetry, must also detain us for a moment. The chief and most obvious device is that suggested by the title—The Shepherd's Calender—'Conteyning ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... He had already been engaged in repressing and punishing God's enemies—this had a tendency to infect him with spiritual pride: and he had a work of destruction to do—this, too, might have made him cruel. Far from it: his peculiar praise is singleness of mind, a pure conscience. Even after years of activity against idolatry, in the words of the text, "his heart was tender," and he still "humbled himself before God." He felt full well the immeasurable distance between himself and his Maker; he felt his own blindness and weakness; ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... she answered. "Why,—you can see that happen every day. Men whom young ladies actually repulse at first, often attract these same ladies in the end by their devotion, determination and singleness of purpose, and they gain the love they seek in the ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... closing decade of the nineteenth century and in the opening years of the twentieth, no literary movement has awakened a livelier interest than the Irish Literary Revival, a movement which, by its singleness and solidarity of purpose, stood alone in a time of confused literary aims and tendencies. Movements, like individuals, have their ancestry, and that of the Irish Literary Revival is easily traced. It descends from Callanan and Walsh, and from the writers ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... failed, which is only memorable because Thucydides, whose judgment in politics is never at fault, pronounced it the best Government Athens had enjoyed, the attempt was renewed with more experience and greater singleness of purpose. The hostile parties were reconciled, and proclaimed an amnesty, the first in history. They resolved to govern by concurrence. The laws, which had the sanction of tradition, were reduced to a code; ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... lead her armies against Spain. But the supreme authority had been confided to Leicester. He had not perhaps proved himself extraordinarily qualified for his post, but he was the governor-in-chief, and his departure, without resigning his powers, left the commonwealth headless, at a moment when singleness of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... little of his ardour had vanished. "Yes, Abdul," he said. "I suppose we must be going on our way. It is sad to leave this camp, where we have witnessed such a wonderful example of humility and singleness of purpose. Don't you shrink from leaving ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... remarkable system of schools, noted for their thoroughness, for their singleness of purpose, for their rapid growth, and for their trained teachers. They gave little attention to primary education, but sought to reach the higher classes. Emulation was ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... ''cos it 'ud ha' gone agin their consciences. A reg'lar coachman's a sort o' con-nectin' link betwixt singleness and matrimony, and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... long time, but Henry, having eaten all that he wanted, sat in silence. Besides the noise of the camp, he heard the usual murmur of the night wind among the trees. He listened to it as one would to a soft low monotone that called and soothed. He had an uncommonly acute ear and his power of singleness and concentration enabled him to listen to the sound that he wished to hear, to the exclusion of all others. The noises in the camp, although they were as great as ever, seemed to die. Instead, he heard the rustling of the young leaves ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... her, had banished all thought of sleep. So she went over in detail everything which had occurred that day but persistently her thoughts returned to the question which had so startled her, coming from the lips of a stranger, and to the singleness of heart which seemed to possess ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... is the most notable example among natural philosophers of a man who worked for science and truth alone, with a singleness of purpose and entire unconcern as to immediate and selfish rewards. Bacon the philosopher was in the strongest contrast to Bacon the politician. He left, he said, his labors to posterity; his name and memory to foreign nations, and "to (his) own country, after some time is past ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee |
