"Temerity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flashed as he glanced at the bold speaker. "You say so, but who vouches for the truth of it? You permit yourself to use a high name, to give your child an honorable father! What temerity! what presumption! What if I should not believe you, but send you to the house of correction, at Spandau, as a slanderer, as guilty of high-treason, as a ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... I supped with him and some friends at a tavern. One of the company* attempted, with too much forwardness, to rally him on his late appearance at the theatre; but had reason to repent of his temerity. 'Why, Sir, did you go to Mrs. Abington's benefit? Did you see?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' 'Did you hear?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' 'Why then, Sir, did you go?' JOHNSON. 'Because, Sir, she is a favourite of the publick; and when the publick cares the thousandth ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... heard that the Sawtooth had on its pay roll men who were paid to kill and to leave no trace. So many heedless ones crossed the Sawtooth's path to riches! Fred Thurman had been one; a "bull-headed cuss" who had the temerity to fight back when the Sawtooth calmly laid claim to the first water rights to Granite Creek, having bought it, they said, with the placer claim of an old miner who had prospected along the headwaters of Granite at the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... present memory, into vagueness, confusion and intolerable heat, Our self-respect was of the common order, but the blaze of the July sun was, even for Tuscany, of the uncommon; so that the project of a trudging quest for Etruscan tombs in shadeless wastes yielded to its own temerity. There comes back to me nevertheless at the same time, from the mild misadventure, and quite as through this positive humility of failure, the sense of a supremely intimate revelation of Italy in ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... and existence grows as timid and trivial as the petty griefs and pleasures that intersperse it. The days drip past, one by one, like water from a spout after a rain-shower; and the dull monotony of them benumbs all wholesome temerity at its core. Maurice Guest had known days of this kind. For before the irksomeness of the school-bench was well behind him, he had begun his training as a teacher, and as soon as he had learnt how to instil his own half-digested knowledge into the minds of others, he received a small post in ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... suggestion that highly tickles everybody. Mr. Gladstone is almost the last to enter from the lobby of the majority. Alone, slowly, with pale face, he walks up the floor. The significance of the great moment, the long years of struggle, of heroic courage, of inflexible temerity, of patient and splendid hope, all this rushes tumultuously to the minds of his friends and followers, and, in a second, without a word of warning or command, the Liberals and the Irish have sprung to their feet, and, underneath their cheers—their waving hats, their uplifted forms—Mr. Gladstone ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... noises or by the visits of snakes or reptiles of some sort. Once we were invaded by a whole army of land-crabs, which were passing across the island, and it was some time before we could persuade them to turn aside from our door. Many paid the penalty of their temerity with their lives, and were cooked next morning for breakfast. By-the-bye, in the cooking department we were at first sadly deficient, but from the instruction we received from some of our French masters, we soon became ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... the pictures any time after next Sunday. I have never regarded them as mine, but never expected they would be placed anywhere until after my death, and only see now my presumption and their defects and shrink from the consequences of my temerity! I should certainly like to have them placed together, but of course can make no conditions. One or two are away, and I am a little uncertain about the sending of some others; if you could spare a moment I should ...
— Watts (1817-1904) • William Loftus Hare
... touched confers immunity from pain upon the corresponding region of their own bodies for the ensuing year. And so from year to year these images are visited. Pain accordingly is almost absent from the city, and only that man suffers pain who has the temerity to neglect the opportunity ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... already overstocked journalistic world, and remember the innumerable papers and magazines which greet one at every street corner and nestle in every armchair, we feel that an apology is due to our readers (if any) for our temerity in swelling the overflow of periodicals, but let us assure you our reasons for putting another paper on the market are purely altruistic. It is no idea of mere gain, or even a desire for notoriety that urges us to issue "The Tacuru"; we have undertaken this responsibility ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... lover before she felt the worst torments of that passion in her jealousy; and the other having been compelled, as it were, to lay open his heart in order to convince his charmer it had no object but herself in view, knew not but his temerity in doing so might be imputed to him as no less a crime than that from which he attempted to be cleared: each had their different anxieties; but those of Horatio were the least severe, because thro' all the indignation of his mistress he saw marks of an affection, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... of the impressions of grace, would have been completely disheartened. Cardinal Richelieu himself, who was so clearsighted in human policy, when spoken to on this subject, treated it as a chimera full of imprudence and temerity. M. Dauversiere (le Royer) made no reply to his distinguished opponent, but went quietly to seek an interview with M. Olier, then professor in the Seminary of St. Sulpice, a man who had devoted all his masterly energies to that great undertaking. This true servant of God generously assisted every ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... of indolent self-importance and consciousness of superiority, which inspired me with profound respect. If the ship had ever chanced to run down a row-boat, or a sloop, or any specimen of smaller craft, I should only have wondered at the temerity of any floating thing in crossing the path of such supreme majesty. The ship was leisurely chained and cabled to the old dock, and then came ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... be qualified in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 398-402 (1821), by Marshall himself, has remained the doctrine of the Court. Secondly, there was good ground for Jefferson's criticism, which did not touch the constitutional features of the decision, but did inveigh against the temerity of the Court in passing on the merits of a case of which, by its own admission, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... mouths (I can hardly use too bold a figure) in this stream of iniquity."[128] The following year, 1820, brought some significant statements from various members of Congress. Said Smith of South Carolina: "Pharaoh was, for his temerity, drowned in the Red Sea, in pursuing them [the Israelites] contrary to God's express will; but our Northern friends have not been afraid even of that, in their zeal to furnish the Southern States with Africans. They are better seamen than Pharaoh, and calculate by that means ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... themselves, and frame a weaker judgment of what they see[13]." But had he consulted experience, he would have found that drunkenness, far from making people fearful, inspires them with boldness and temerity. ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... the coalition, and suddenly invade Belgium before Prussia could take the field. Had Dumouriez alone framed and carried out his own plan, the fate of Belgium and Holland was sealed; but La Fayette, who was charged to invade them at the head of 40,000 men, had neither the temerity nor the rapidity of this veteran soldier. A general of opinion rather than the general of an army, he was more accustomed to command citizens in the public square, than soldiers in a campaign. Personally brave, beloved by his troops, but more ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... made the two damsels laugh at the same time, and their sweet laughter sounded like rippling strains of harmonious music. But the two Ki-Ki frowned angrily, and the two Ki looked at the boy in surprise, as if wondering at his temerity. ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... with many other places and things) of rechristening it Trone de Neptune (Neptune's Throne), and it has so fixed itself in my mind, that I have often during a stormy night wondered if he might not be sitting there ruling the elements, but never had the temerity to go and see. I may here tell the reader that although not naturally superstitious, I have a way of peopling my island with beings during the solitary walks I take in the day, that at night I almost fancy these spirit-forms hover round me—perhaps watching me. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... and that I should have taken it rather for a Satyre, than an Elogium. The operations of the Spirit are too important to be left to the conduct of chance, and I had rather be accused for failing out of knowledge, than for doing well without minding it. There is nothing which temerity doth not undertake, and which Fortune doth not bring to pass; but when a man relies on those two Guides, if he doth not erre, he may erre; and of this sort, even when the events are successefull, no glory is merited thereby. Every Art hath its ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... and his own tense nerves drove Bobbie to a speech which he had been pondering and hesitating to make for several weeks. He blurted it out now, intensely surprised at his own temerity. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... undergrowth, stood a pair of huge, ruddy cave-bears, their monstrous heads held low and swaying surlily from side to side as they eyed the prey which they dared not rush in and seize. The man-animal they had hitherto regarded as easy prey, and they were filled with rage at the temerity of these two humans in remaining so near the dreaded flames. Intent upon them, they paid no heed to their great enemy, the saber-toothed, with whom they were at endless and deadly feud. Away off to the left, quite clear of the woods, but safely remote from the fire, a pack of huge cave-hyenas ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... judges were inclined to regard this as a reflection upon their official conduct. Old Man Curry was reprimanded for his temerity, and descended from the stand, his beard fairly bristling with righteous indignation. Little Mose followed him down the track toward the paddock; he had to trot to keep up with the ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... very simple kindly respectable people, as you'll see in a day or two for yourself. My father and sisters will do themselves the honour to wait upon you," the young man announced with a temerity the sense of which ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... entertained,' she said, in a hurried voice, raising her eyes; then afraid of her own temerity, she looked down again. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Quixote, who was insisting upon the keeper's opening the cages, he said to him, "Sir Knight, knights-errant should attempt adventures which encourage the hope of a successful issue, not those which entirely withhold it; for valor that trenches upon temerity savors rather of madness than of courage; moreover, these lions do not come to oppose you, nor do they dream of such a thing; they are going as presents to his Majesty, and it will not be right to stop them ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... it is true, lest some such fate as Ustani's might punish me for my temerity, but for reasons which doubtless seemed sufficient to himself the wizard merely looked at me through his veil, shook himself a little in his swathings, and said in a matter-of-fact voice, 'Well, well, perhaps we have had enough of such talk as this. Let's get ahead with the business ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... he judged for himself; and, however much his judgment might run counter to prejudice or tradition, he dared to enounce it and persist in it. He spoke with proper contempt of the "tenth-rate critics, for whom any violent shock to the public taste would be a temerity not to be risked"; but that temerity he himself had in rich abundance. Homer and Sophocles are the only poets of whom, if my memory serves me, he never wrote a disparaging word. Shakespeare is, and rightly, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... great canvassing for discovering who were the Aggressors: The Officers had been too frequent, and too publick, in their Addresses, to leave any room for question. Accordingly, they were complain'd of and sought for, but sensible at last of their past Temerity, they endeavour'd, and with a great deal of ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... said the woman. She regarded the child with a look into which I read something of apprehension. If it were apprehension it was a feeling that we all shared. But the rubicund man was magnificent, though, like the lion tamer of my youthful experience, he was doubtless conscious of the aspect his temerity wore in the eyes of beholders. He must have been ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... she was afraid to say anything in opposition to her husband, and gave a forced smile, and tried to make a show of pleasure when she was coarsely caressed and defiled by embraces that excited her terror. Only once Pyotr Leontyitch had the temerity to ask for a loan of fifty roubles in order to pay some very irksome debt, but what an agony ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... peaceful character and ignorance of the people intrusted to their care, and whose excesses and abuses recognize no limits but the natural ones established by the greater or lesser honour of those public servants, their greater or lesser cynicism, and their greater or lesser degree of temerity. ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... on the craggy tops of Mountains; for the Spaniards did not only entertain them with Cuffs, Blows, and wicked Cudgelling, but laid violent hands also on the Governours of Cities; and this arriv'd at length to that height of Temerity and Impudence, that a certain Captain was so audacious as abuse the Consort of the most puissant King of the whole Isle. From which time they began to consider by what wayes and means they might ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... is in no way strange, considering his day and generation, but the striking point about this is that, when he was exposed to the horror himself, he tried to automesmerise himself out of it. After three days he died, as Dr. Francis says, "a victim of his own temerity." ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... the elucidation of such points without professional assistance would be the height of temerity, and my thanks therefore are particularly due for advice and encouragement to Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Custance, Rear-Admiral H.S.H. Prince Louis of Battenberg, and to Captain Slade, Captain of the ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... if not loved and sought in its indivisible unity. There is no modest home-keeping philosophy; no safe and conservative philosophy, that can make sure of a part through renouncing the whole. There is no philosophy without intellectual temerity, as there is no religion without moral temerity. And the one is the supreme interest of thought, as the other is the supreme ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... young middy, to the horror of the spectators, thrust his hand into the jaws of the animal, who, no doubt, was taken as much by surprise as the lookers-on. It was a daring feat; but providentially he did not suffer for his temerity."[143] This reminds the biographer of Nelson's feat with the polar bear, and of Charles Napier's (the soldier) bold adventure with an eagle in his boyhood, as related by Sir William Napier in the history ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... To punish their temerity, a force of all arms was sent out from camp under Brigadier Showers, with the intention of attacking their right flank. We moved up a deep gorge, and coming on them by surprise, forced them to remove their guns, which quickly limbered up and made for the city. There was a great deal of skirmishing ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... question of fact as consisting in the point whether M. Arnauld was guilty of temerity in expressing his doubts as to the propositions being in Jansen’s book after the bishops had declared that they were. No fewer than seventy-one doctors undertook his defence, maintaining that all that could reasonably be asked of him was to say that “he had not been able to find them, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... as best he could; no one but himself knew with what courage and spirit. And so he sat combating with himself, hoping one moment that she would prove what he believed her to be, and the next, scandalized at his temerity in daring to think ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... fourteen long eighteen-pounders, but the carriages of the guns are in a bad state of repair, and the embrasures are so low, that a single broadside of grape would sweep off all who had the courage or temerity to ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... possible they could marry. But meanwhile it was something—she would have been ashamed to own how much—to have someone call her "dear." Once he attained to "dearest," but he was evidently frightened at his temerity, and did not repeat ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... Rex half bowed. It seemed natural to do so, when this fellow lived right next door and was so frequently in his thoughts. He was half alarmed at his temerity, when some one rode up by his side ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... who adores you," said the young gardener, with his eyes on the ground, and blushing deeply at his own temerity. ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... up his residence in St. Petersburg, bringing with him some manuscripts that he had written while at school. He had the temerity to publish one, which was so brutally ridiculed by the critics, that the young genius, in despair, burned all the unsold copies—an unwitting prophecy of a later and more lamentable conflagration. Then he vainly tried various means of subsistence. Suddenly he decided to seek his fortune ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... with admiration, which soon ripened into love; and it was but in vain that reason opposed his passion, by representing how little he was in a condition to make any such pretensions. Love is not to be controuled, it is not to be repelled.—But in some measure to punish his temerity, he condemned himself to an eternal silence; yet, though his tongue was mute, the princess, who had as great a share of sensibility as beauty, soon perceived the effect of her charms written in his eyes, and imprinted in all his motions, and, in secret, rejoiced at the ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... frequent; besides the evil they contain is a purely imaginative, and therefore negligible, quantity. There may be guilt however, in seeking such occasions and without reason exposing ourselves to their possible dangers; temerity is culpable; he ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... Army, carrying audacity to temerity, had continued its endeavor to envelop our left, had crossed the Grand Morin, and reached the region of Chauffry, to the north of Rebaix and of Esternay. It aimed then at cutting our armies off from Paris, in order to begin the investment ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... themselves chided his temerity, the very heavens split and shattered all sound with rending uproar. Coaley squatted, stopped and stood shaking, his heart pounding so that Lance felt its tremulous tattoo against his thigh. The rumbling after-note of the thunder seemed ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... mariner reluctantly withdrew his eyes from the blushing Gertrude, who, in her eagerness to point him out, had advanced to the front, and was now shrinking back, timidly, to the centre of the building again, like one who already repented of her temerity. He then fastened his look on her who put the question; and so long and riveted was his gaze, that she saw fit to repeat it, believing that what she had first ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... looking up at her, spoke coaxingly, merrily, a trifle embarrassed by his own temerity, yet keen to prove his point and acquire possession of this so ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Edward Brice was in San Francisco. But although successful and the bearer of the treasure, it is doubtful if he approached this end of his journey with the temerity he had shown on entering the robbers' valley. A consciousness that the methods he had employed might excite the ridicule, if not the censure, of his principals, or that he might have compromised them in his meeting with Snapshot Harry, considerably ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... newspapers from all the South, and learned the consternation which had filled the Southern mind at our temerity; many charging that we were actually fleeing for our lives and seeking safety at the hands of our fleet on the sea-coast. All demanded that we should be assailed, "front, flank, and rear;" that provisions should be destroyed in advance, so that we would starve; ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... had not vacated either Holdesbury or the town-house; he was defying his uncle Everard, and Cecilia thought with him that it was a wise temerity. She thought with him passively altogether. On this occasion she had not to wait for directness in his eyes; she had to parry it. They were at a dinner-party at Lady Elsea's, generally the last place for seeing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... In California, the birth certificate asks these questions: "Was a prophylactic for ophthalmia neonatorum used? If so, what?" The birth certificate must be filed within five days. Few doctors have the temerity to ignore these questions, or confess that they have used no prophylactic, so the questions on the certificate insure the use of the nitrate of silver solution in nine cases out of ten, though ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... had the temerity to laugh. "That sounds good to me," he told her unsympathetically. "Now maybe you'll come down and keep house for me and let that pinnacle go to thunder. It's no good anyway, and I told you so long ago. That whole eighty ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... through meadow-land, with light heart and smiling eyes, tripped Ivy back again. To Mrs. Geer shelling peas in the shady porch, and to Mr. Geer fanning himself with his straw hat on the steps beside her, Ivy recounted the story of her adventures. Mrs. Geer was thunderstruck at Ivy's temerity; Mr. Geer was lost in admiration of her pluck. Mrs. Geer termed it a wild-goose chase; Mr. Geer declared Ivy to be as smart as a steel trap. Mrs. Geer vetoed the whole plan; Mr. Geer didn't know. But when at sunset Mr. Clerron rode over, and admired Mr. Geer's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... under his arm represented potentially the price of the piano he was going to have. He did it in a roundabout way, with one of his droll, hesitating smiles. The man did not understand at all, and Theron had not the temerity to repeat the remark. He strode home with the precious bundle as ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... to pounce upon any man who might have the temerity to reply. No words being said, ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... preserves. Of these, however, I am not able to say, as I do of the animal varieties, that I have practiced total abstinence; by no means. I have often ventured to indulge, and generally suffer more or less for my temerity. My severest sufferings for the last two years have been in the form of colic, of which I have had frequent slight attacks; but none to ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... desperate state of affairs, convinced there is a courage of the cabinet full as powerful, and far less vulgar than that of the field, our minister would have changed the whole line of that useless, prosperous prudence, which had hitherto produced all the effects of the blindest temerity. If he found his situation full of danger (and I do not deny that it is perilous in the extreme), he must feel that it is also full of glory; and that he is placed on a stage, than which no muse of fire that had ascended the highest heaven of invention could imagine anything more awful and august. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... the house. Now, for the first time, her attention was excited by the silence and desolation that surrounded her. This evidence of fear and of danger struck upon her heart. All appeared to have fled from the presence of this unseen and terrible foe. The temerity of adventuring thus into the jaws of the pest, now appeared to her ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... be recalled to her assistance; and then several attempts had to be made before she finally floated. Caldwell then did an exceedingly gallant thing, the importance of which alone justified, but amply justified, its temerity. Instead of returning at once to the squadron, satisfied with the measure of success already attained, he deliberately headed up the river; and then, having gained sufficient ground in that direction to insure a full development ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... the 17th. When our machine was finished, it remained to make a trial of it: a sailor wanting to pass from the front to the back of it, finding the mast in his way, set his foot on one of the cross boards; the weight of his body made it upset, and this accident proved to us the temerity of our enterprise. It was then resolved that we should all await death in our present situation; the cable winch fastened the machine to our raft, was made loose, and it drifted away. It is very certain that if we had ventured ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... difficulty with one of his neighbors, in which he had attempted to right himself without an appeal to the legal tribunals. In this attempt, he had not only been thwarted, but also made to pay rather roundly for his temerity; and, vexed and soured, he had at once abandoned his old name, and marched off across the prairies, seeking a country in which, as he said, "a man need not meet a cursed constable every time he left his own door." ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... Himself, and desires not to be known of us, we have nothing to do with Him. Here the saying truly applies, 'What is above us does not concern us.'" (E. 221, St. L. 1794.) "We say, as we have done before, that one must not discuss the secret will of [divine] majesty, and that man's temerity, which, due to continual perverseness, disregards necessary matters and always attacks and encounters this [secret will], should be called away and withdrawn from occupying itself with scrutinizing those secrets of divine majesty which it is impossible to approach; ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... to indulge in criticism should ever bear in mind that the Navy was faced with problems which were never foreseen, and could not have been foreseen, by anyone in this country. Who, for instance, would have ever had the temerity to predict that the Navy, confronted by the second greatest Naval Power in the world, would be called upon to maintain free communications across the Channel for many months until the months became years, in face of the naval forces of the enemy established ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... little glance was indubitably directed at little Sammy, as though, God save us! the lad had no right to be anything but well, and ought to be, and should be, birched on the instant if he had the temerity to admit the smallest ache or pain from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. But Sammy looked frankly into the flashing eyes, grinned, chuckled audibly, and ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... Because of his temerity That Cam-u-el's posterity Must wear divided upper lips through all their solemn lives! A prodigy astonishing Reproachfully admonishing Those, wicked, heartless married men who ridicule ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... to the end of my letter I may repent of my temerity and unsay my charge. For are not all our circlets of will as so many little eddies rounded in by the great Circle of Necessity, and could the Truth-speaker, perhaps now the best Thinker of the Saxon race, have written ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... this mode of entrance, which was only resorted to when every other failed, was usually received by the cottager and his family with a degree of mirth and good-humor that were not lost upon the sagacity of the pig. In order to save him from being scorched, which he deserved for his temerity, they usually received him in a creel, often in a quilt, and sometimes in the tattered blanket, or large pot, out of which he looked with a humorous conception of his own enterprise, that was highly ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... last act of temerity, "are you mad, Hector?" he cried, "or have you forgotten what is said by Quintus Curtius, with whom, as a soldier, you must needs be familiar,Nobilis equus umbra quidem virgae regitur; ignavus ne calcari quidem ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... superior talents, there needs that depth of knowledge, which is not only acquainted with the just extent of power, but can also trace its connection with the expedient, to preserve its possessors from the contempt which attends irresolution, or the resentment which follows temerity." ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... of our most useful remedies have been discovered by quacks. Do not therefore be afraid of conversing with them, and of profiting by their ignorance and temerity. Medicine has its pharisees as well as religion. But the spirit of this sect is as unfriendly to the advancement of medicine as it is to Christian charity. In the pursuit of medical knowledge let me advise ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... pound) of pure gold in the form of women's necklaces were at once brought from the two houses, and three days later the caciques subject to Tumanama sent sixty pounds more of gold, which was the amount of the fine imposed for their temerity. When asked whence he procured this gold, Tumanama replied that it came from very distant mines. He gave it to be understood that it had been presented to his ancestors on the Comogra River which flows into the south sea; but the people of Pochorroso and his enemies said that he lied, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... to many of us in these days to state truisms. Yet it is not so long ago that facts which we now presume to be familiar, at least to every undergraduate, were the dangerous discovery of the few who, in an age when people said 'Socialist' as Mr. Pecksniff said 'Pagan', had the temerity to point out, that in things human and political as in mechanics, a chain was and could be no stronger than its weakest link. Even now, in the reaction, often only half conscious, of the employing class against any force which tends to raise the employed to a social plane less removed ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... excellent illustration. The impression that his presence made upon the Marquis de Chastellux, is given in the following words: "I wish only to express the impression General Washington has left on my mind; the idea of a perfect whole, brave without temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous without severity." Gen. Scott, Lord Cornwallis, Dr. Wistar, Bishop Soule John Bright, Jenny Lind Goldsmidt, and Dr. Gall are good representatives of this temperament. Fig. 86 is an excellent illustration of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... counsels, and the enemy of the frenzy of Antonius? But this gladiator has dared to put in writing that he had designed the murder of his father and of his uncle. Oh the marvellous impudence, and audacity, and temerity of such an assertion! to dare to put this in writing against that young man, whom I and my brother, on account of his amiable manners, and pure character, and splendid abilities, vie with one another in loving, and to whom we incessantly devote our eyes, and ears, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... again at the crouching white shape, and the full temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me. What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn? What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... England gave good citizens to America. But the Virginians, who could be wronged and oppressed, but never crushed, protested against the arbitrary use of the king's prerogative; they were punished for their temerity, but rose more determined from the struggle. No man could be sent to Virginia who was strong enough to ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Brave without temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous without severity—Washington seems always to have confined himself within those limits where the virtues, ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... those hundreds of volumes? For what reason had it been so carefully removed? The girl had often speculated thereon, and fitted theory after theory; but never yet, wilful as she was, had she had the temerity to ask the only person who could have ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... With the vocabulary acquired from my Sanskrit reader I built up grandiose compound words with a profuse sprinkling of sonorous 'm's and 'n's making altogether a most diabolical medley of the language of the gods. But my father never scoffed at my temerity. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... which put a great obstacle in the way of advancement. Both were fond of adventurous raids, but Forrest was a really daring soldier and fought his way to recognition in the face of stubborn prejudice. Morgan achieved notoriety by the showy temerity of his distant movements, but nobody was afraid of him in the field at ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... and angry eyes, eluded Howe's familiarities by a backward step, and, raising the glass, defiantly gave, "Success to Washington!" Then, scared at her own temerity, she darted from the room, in her fright carrying away the tumbler of spirits. But she need not have fled, for her toast only called forth an ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... whereof the writers in those ages produce several instances; nor did he want skill and conduct in the process of war. But, his peculiar excellency, was that of great dispatch, which, however usually decried, and allowed to be only a happy temerity, does often answer all the ends of secrecy and counsel in a great commander, by surprising and daunting an enemy when he least expects it; as may appear by the greatest actions and events upon the records of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... suspect the immediate presence of Satan; or whether, according to another custom, he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to determine; but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay, into, the very kirk. As luck would have it, his temerity came ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... me, the result is hideous. I don't mind people taking themselves out of their places; but if the particles of this mighty cosmos have been adjusted by the divine wisdom, what are we to say of the temerity that disturbs the ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... your life by the sacrifice of my own. Here—not one word of expostulation, change habits with me, and you may then pass by the officers, and guards, and even through the approaching mob, with the most perfect temerity. There is a virtue in this garb, and, instead of offering to detain you, they shall pay you obeisance. Make haste, and leave this place for the present, flying where you best may, and, if I escape from these dangers that surround me, I will endeavour to find you out, and bring you what intelligence ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... himself in our power," he said, "and he shall pay for his temerity; nevertheless, I will spare his life provided he assist us to get into the house, or ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... universal uproar only a few had heard his words, and the hot-blooded tailor was so rash as to lay his hand on the praetor's girdle in order to drag him away from the door with the help of his comrades. But he paid dearly for his temerity for the praetor's fist fell so heavily on his forehead that he dropped as if struck by lightning. One of the Britons knocked down the sausage-maker and a hideous hand to hand fight would have been the upshot if help had not come to the hardly-beset Romans ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that Somerset would arrive; then that anybody would come; then, walking towards the portraits on the wall, she flippantly asked one of those cavaliers to oblige her fancy for company by stepping down from his frame. The temerity of the request led her to prudently withdraw it almost as soon as conceived: old paintings had been said to play queer tricks in extreme cases, and the shadows this afternoon were funereal enough for ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... how the northern Chinese princes of those early days were in permanent political touch with the horse-riding nomads. The orthodox Duke of Sung, dressed in his little brief authority as Protector, had the temerity to "send for" the ruler of Ts'u to attend his first durbar. (It must be remembered that the "king" in his own dominions was only "viscount" in the orthodox peerage of ruling princes.) The result was that the King unceremoniously took his would-be protector ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... herself alone. This aroused the envy of the former, who gave Sichir, the master of ceremonies, a considerable blow. The undignified disturbance was winked at by Temudjin, but the quarrel was soon after enlarged. One of Kakurshin's dependents had the temerity to strike Belgutei, the half-brother of Temudjin, and wounded him severely in the shoulder, but Belgutei pleaded for him. "The wound has caused me no tears. It is not seemly that my quarrels should inconvenience you," he said. Upon this Temudjin sent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... provoked with them at last, that I resolved they should bother me no longer. If they would not permit me to shoot one of the others, I was determined they themselves should not escape scot-free, but should pay dearly for their temerity and insolence. I resolved to put a bullet through one ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... elderly man of great dignity, and almost as much of a figure there as the Elder himself. It was an act of great temerity to approach him for items of news for the Leauvite Mercury. Of this fact the young reporter seemed to be blithely ignorant. All the clerks were covertly watching the outcome, and thus attention was turned from Harry King; even the teller glanced frequently at the cashier's desk ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... admired than contemned. Think, on the contrary, with how much honour a man is regarded who understands perfectly what he says and what he does, and then you will confess that renown and applause have always been the recompense of true merit, and shame the reward of ignorance and temerity. If, therefore, you would be honoured, endeavour to be a man of true merit, for if you enter upon the government of the Republic with a mind more sagacious than usual, I shall not wonder if you succeed in ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... door below, alien, hostile and cruel. And yet it was curious how the smile in them had disarmed her and she remembered, with a futile glow of returning hope, that she had not feared him, that she had even had the temerity to defy him. But her courage had ebbed—she could not have defied him now and in the darkness while she waited for Yeva she feared ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... by their arrival was great, as might have been expected. For there were few, even among the most sanguine of their friends, who did not imagine that they had long since paid for their temerity, and fallen victims to the climate or the natives, or miserably perished in a watery grave. Their joy was proportionably great, therefore, as they saw the wanderers now returned, not only in health and safety, but with certain tidings ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... paces forward towards a stump, meaning, no doubt, to get on it and lead the cheering; but, just as he was going to jump, a wretched little mongrel that had been in and out among the people's feet made a dash at him, fixed its teeth in the calf of his leg, and ran away howling at its own temerity. The young giant rushed after it, but the ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... the Ottoman Porte had consented to our occupation of Egypt were suddenly undeceived. It, was then asked how we could, without that consent, have attempted such an enterprise? Nothing, it was said, could justify the temerity of such an expedition, if it should produce a rupture between France, the Ottoman empire, and its allies. However, for the remainder of the year Bonaparte dreaded nothing except an expedition from Gaza and El-Arish, of which the troops of Djezzar had already taken possession. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... meanness; and, which certainly seems a little odd in the midst of these self-laudations, upon his freedom from the 'first and father sin, not only of man, but of the devil, pride.' Good Dr. Watts was shocked at this 'arrogant temerity,' and Dr. Johnson appears rather to concur in the charge. And certainly, if we are to interpret his language in a matter-of-fact spirit, it must be admitted that a gentleman who openly claims for himself the virtues ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... understanding as I am at this instant. The habits of my life, and the natural gaiety, not to say levity, of my temper, have always inclined me rather to incredulity than to superstition. But there are things which no strength of mind, no temerity can resist. I repeat it—this is a warning to me to prepare for death. No human means, no ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... not positively detrimental to you as long as you are on the right side. But that feeling of a prison under the open air is very terrible, and is rendered almost agonizing by the prisoner's consciousness that his position is the result of his own imprudent temerity, of an audacity which falls short of any efficacious purpose. When hounds are running, the hunting man should always, at any rate, be able to ride on, to ride in some direction, even though it be in a wrong direction. He can ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... have propounded theories regarding the structure of the cosmos, the origin and development of animals and man, and the nature of matter itself. Nowadays, so enormously involved has become the mass of mere facts regarding each of these departments of knowledge that no one man has the temerity to attempt to master them all. But it was different in those days of beginnings. Then the methods of observation were still crude, and it was quite the custom for a thinker of forceful personality to find an eager following among disciples who never thought of putting his theories ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams |
