"Undeserving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Christianity, his arguments may reasonably be suspected to be suggested by sins of character, and by dislike to the moral standard of the Christian religion, and, though not on this account necessarily undeserving of attention, must be watched at every point with caution, in order that the emotional may be eliminated from ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... offspring to the revenge of a resentful enemy. This was the best apology of any that had been offered; natural affection was the pleader; and though blinded to its true interest, such weakness had an amiable source, and so was pardoned. But the other pleas were so basely selfish, so undeserving of anything but scorn, that Sir Eustace Maxwell could not forbear expressing it. "When Sir William Wallace is entering full sail, you will send your hirelings to tow him in! but if a plank could save him now, you would not throw ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... father.' He stands between them, which makes his father suddenly grin. 'Laugh on, sir. I don't know what this row's about, but'—here his arm encircles an undeserving lady—'this lady is my mother, and I won't have her bullied. What's a ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... whom they had ministered, the prisoners they had visited and encouraged, all of which mercies are accredited to them as having been rendered to their Lord in person. The blessed company, overwhelmed by the plenitude of the King's bounty, of which they regard themselves as undeserving, will fain disclaim the merit attributed to them; "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... told him that if the head of a great institution like the New York Life Insurance Company would be guilty of such perfidy as charged by you, the organization which would retain him in a position of responsibility was undeserving of confidence or patronage. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... not surprising. She, who would never have harmed a fly, who had never wished ill to any one in her life, became possessed with an awful fury to stamp out the beauty that had robbed her—to destroy the face and body that were more to the man she loved than her own. The other woman, undeserving of consideration as she was, narrowly escaped a horrible punishment. The unfortunate girl was brought back here, and I was sent for to attend her. She grew worse hour after hour. Her mind was completely unhinged. From a furious hatred of the beauty of the woman who had wronged her, the mania increased ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... Perhaps a Spanish school history which he had read in Madrid deserves a part of the credit for this changed point of view, since in that the author, treating of Spain's early misfortunes, brings out the fact that misgovernment may be due quite as much to the hypocrisy, servility and undeserving character of the people as it is to the corruption, tyranny and cruelty of ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... which you have made." "My mother," rejoined she, "O, name her not! The very sound is distraction to me. O my Julia, if your heart be not shut against mercy and compassion towards me, aid me through this trying scene. Let my situation call forth your pity, and induce you, undeserving as I am, to ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... setting forth to Agamemnon the danger of ships being at hand when soldiers are disposed to fly. An army of lions trained in such ways would fly before a herd of deer. Further, a city which owes its preservation to a crowd of pilots and oarsmen and other undeserving persons, cannot bestow rewards of honour properly; and this is the ruin of states. 'Still, in Crete we say that the battle of Salamis was the salvation of Hellas.' Such is the prevailing opinion. But I and Megillus say that the battle ...
— Laws • Plato
... Mrs. Quirk. "Denis, that I believed was dead! Call Mr. Quirk, my dear! Oh, this is too much joy! God is good, far too good, to an undeserving ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... from the consequences of her folly and imprudence, it was less with the arrogance of Fortune's favourite daughter than with the humility of one to whom life had measured out benefactions of which she was consciously undeserving. The assertion that the world owed her a living was forgotten, and if recalled, would have been revised to the sense that she owed the world the duty of honourable and conscientious living. If her temper was tolerably exalted, it was well ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Tamburlaine into the mouth of his ranting Pistol. Marlowe's Edward II. was the most regularly constructed and evenly written of his plays. It was the best historical drama on the stage before Shakspere, and not undeserving of the comparison which it has provoked with the latter's Richard II. But the most interesting of Marlowe's plays, to a modern reader, is the Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. The subject is the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... memory, but the origin of these, if not noted, will in time be lost. There are many other words which the strictest cannot condemn as slang, though even slang, being the speech of the people, is not undeserving of some scientific study; words, for instance, which have come into the language from the Aborigines, and names of animals, shrubs, and flowers. It might even be possible, with sufficient co-operation, to produce an Australian ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... it otherwise. We should cry out against any serious attempt, outside of the pulpit, to alter or readjust an order that enables us to buy for money a position of which we would be otherwise undeserving. It would be most discouraging to us to have substituted for the present arrangement a society in which the only qualifications for admittance were those of charm, wit, culture, good breeding and ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... or to prevail with him to write the desired letter to the abbess. Assuming the high tone of injured innocence, he scoffed at the evidence brought against him, and swore solemnly and deliberately that he was ignorant of Rita's captivity. Paco, he said, as a deserter, was undeserving of credit, and had forged an absurd tale in hopes of reward. As to the pistols, nothing was easier than to cast a bullet to fit them, and he vehemently accused Herrera of having fabricated the account of his firing at his cousin. A violent and passionate discussion ensued, highly agitating ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... which came upon me; that no act of mine invited it on; but though it has nearly killed me, I entertain no doubt that it is lined with mercy, if I could only bring my weak rebellious heart to look for it. You, I feel sure, have been equally undeserving." ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Bank, bearing in a rusty leathern wallet anything, from nothing to a hundred thousand dollars, the daily notes and discounts of James Bowdoin's Sons. James Bowdoin and his father used to watch him occasionally from the window. There were certain pensioners, mostly undeserving, who knew old Mr. Bowdoin's hours better than he did himself. It was funny to see old McMurtagh elbow these aside as he sidelonged up the street. There was an old drunken longshoreman; and a wood-chopper who never chopped wood; and a retired choreman discharged for cause by Mr. Bowdoin's ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... the Serbs are engaged in a forlorn hope and that their claims are no better than those of the English on Normandy. Yet if, in her opinion, the Serbs have been rewarded beyond their deserts, she must acknowledge that they are not wholly undeserving—in the days of her cherished Albanians it was necessary for a Catholic inhabitant to furnish himself with a loaded revolver before guiding her through ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... eyes of Mrs. Thackeray to the bad quality of some of the company she kept. That sagacious lady did not think it worth while to dispute the ipse dixit of a teacher so single-minded, if not sagacious. She bowed respectfully to all his suggestions, promised no longer to bestow her smiles on the undeserving—a promise of no small importance when it is remembered that, at thirty-three, Mrs. Thackeray was for the first time a widow—and that night she might have been seen laughing heartily with Mesdames Ford and Quickly at the amorous pertinacity of the ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... attribution is afforded in more recent political history by the everlasting recurrence of the statement that American prosperity is the result of an American protective system. Yet in the Protectionist dispensation, this has become an article of faith. To my mind, it is undeserving ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... Mittie actually sunk before the calm, rebuking glance, which gave emphasis to every cool, deliberate word. Here was the woman she had dared to treat with disdain, as undeserving her respect, as the usurper of a place to which she had no right, whom she had predetermined to hate because she was her step-mother, and whom she continued to dislike because she had predetermined ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... modest degree, fancied himself with the gun. These young men are here introduced to the reader because a passing sketch of one of their sporting excursions to the country will indicate a type, and show that they might be cockney, but were also not undeserving the name of sportsmen. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... for good?" The King replied, "It boots not: thou must die and that without delay." When the physician saw that the King was irrevocably resolved to kill him, he wept and lamented the good he had done to the undeserving, blaming himself for having sown in an ungrateful soil and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... an undoubted financialist, and never gave a farthing without doing real good, because he always ascertained the purpose and probable effect of his charity beforehand. While he cautiously shunned the idle and undeserving, he would work like a slave, with and for those who would work for themselves; and he would smooth the way for those who had in the first instance been their own pioneers, and would help a man who had once been successful, to attain a ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... here, Ann, the whole thing's so jolly complicated. According to Calway, we're to give the State all we can spare, to make the undeserving deserving. He's a Professor; he ought to know. But old Hoxton's always dinning it into me that we ought to support private organisations for helping the deserving, and damn the undeserving. Well, that's just the opposite. And he's a J.P. Tremendous experience. And the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "However undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem had I not been apprehensive that while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... his debts, and had then a revenue ranging from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars a year. He gave away money continuously, from thirty thousand to a hundred thousand dollars a year, in large sums and in small sums, to the deserving and the undeserving. Of course, he was inundated with begging letters. Every mail brought requests for help to redeem farms, to send children to school, to buy a piano, to buy an alpaca dress with the trimmings, to relieve sufferers by fire, and ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... painful to him to realise that he was returning to wealth and luxury, indeed, monopolising it,-he the helpless, undeserving, indolent son, while all the others, and especially his ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... man! he could not be brought to believe that one so dearly loved and highly trusted could prove so base and undeserving. ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... the misery of sin, and not venture to extend to him the helping hand of a gentle but out-spoken remonstrance. We must condescend in everything, but only up to the altar steps; that is to say, not beyond the point at which condescension would be a sin, and undeserving of its name. I do not say that we must at every instant reprove the sinner. Charitable prudence demands that we rather wait the moment when he is capable of assimilating the remedies suitable for his malady, and ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... result was a series of kicks and plunges, accompanied by a retrograde movement and a shake of the head, as if he were saying, No! I next attempted the soothing system, and lavished sundry caresses and endearing expressions upon him, of which he was utterly undeserving; but my attentions were quite thrown away, and might as well, for any good they produced, have been bestowed upon a rocking-horse. At length, after a final struggle, in which we were both within an ace of falling into a water-course which crossed the park in that ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... people went to chapel on the first of August, to tank God for make such poor undeserving sinners as we free; we no nebber expect to hab it. But it please de Lord to gib we free, and we tank ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... pays no attention to your letter, I shall be satisfied that he really is undeserving of Fanny's esteem. I'll not tell her that you have written, for fear of ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... proved that you are undeserving of my hospitality, my door shall always be open to you; and the more readily, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... dwarfs and the other for the giants; for as these creatures had no free will, and but blindly executed the decrees of fate, they were not thought to be responsible for any harm done by them, and were therefore held to be undeserving ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the laws and principles of logic, Florrie ought to have been a failure. But she was not a failure. She was a fool whose incomparable foolishness had conferred not only prosperity, but happiness upon her. She shone, she scintillated, she diffused the glow of success. Though she was undeserving of admiration, she had been surfeited on it from her childhood; though she was devoid of the moral excellence which should command love, by a flashing glance or a waving curl, she could bring the most exalted love down from the heavens. There ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... weakness is that I have never been able to say No, even to the most thoroughly undeserving people. Besides, I am bound to say that I dont think it is possible in medical practice to go into the question of the value of the lives we save. Just consider, Ridgeon. Let me put it to you, Paddy. Clear ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... exercise of less severity than one deserves, or in a more extended sense, the granting of kindness or favor beyond what one may rightly claim. Grace is favor, kindness, or blessing shown to the undeserving; forgiveness, mercy, and pardon are exercised toward the ill-deserving. Pardon remits the outward penalty which the offender deserves; forgiveness dismisses resentment or displeasure from the heart of the one offended; mercy seeks the highest possible ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Westphalia, in fact, for over an hour, while the latter was occupied with the consumption of a lengthy breakfast, and his impression of the man whom he thus watched closely is summed up briefly:- "A more insignificant personage," he says, "I have never yet beheld!" After which he dismisses Jerome as undeserving of ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... you find in yourself an unmovable, incurable Aversion from him and cannot love and honor and obey him, I shall say no more, nor give you any further trouble in this matter. It had better off than on. So praying God to pardon us and pitty our Undeserving, and to direct and strengthen and settle you in making a right judgment, and giving a right Answer, I take leave, who am, Dear Child, Your ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... faith working by love, and let us all live in the light of that solemn expectation that the Lord will judge His people. Then we may hope that the voice which summoned us will welcome us, and proclaim even of us, stained and undeserving as we rightly feel ourselves to be: 'They have not defiled their garments, therefore they shall walk with Me in white, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... think it worth while to remark, that, in these near intimacies, we are ninety-nine times disappointed in our beggarly selves for once that we are disappointed in our friend; that it is we who seem most frequently undeserving of the love that unites us; and that it is by our friend's conduct that we are continually rebuked and yet strengthened for a fresh endeavour. Thoreau is dry, priggish, and selfish. It is profit he is after in these intimacies; moral profit, certainly; but still profit ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... firesides and never travel, will, I hope, follow with a kind of interest. For, besides the main object of my excursion, I could not help being excited by the incidental sights and occurrences of a trip which to a commercial traveller or a newspaper-reporter would seem quite commonplace and undeserving of record. There are periods in which all places and people seem to be in a conspiracy to impress us with their individuality,—in which every ordinary locality seems to assume a special significance and to claim a particular notice,—in which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... do? what could he say? Clinging to the impulsive brother who had thus spoken out impetuously what all felt to be true, and sobbing out his regrets that such words should have been spoken of one who felt himself to be so undeserving of them, he was utterly at a loss what to reply, nor did any one for the moment venture to add a word. But at last the silence was broken by the clear and gentle voice of Miss Huntingdon. "It may be, dearest ones, that a few words from myself may not be out of ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... Barri. She pressed upon her that she was justified in appearing ignorant of that lady's real position and character; that she need only be aware that she was received at court, and that respect for the king should prevent her from suspecting him of countenancing undeserving people. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... and it was certain that, as long as she received her weekly remittance—paid through an agent in London,—she would trouble herself very little about the rest; or, at all events, any feeling that might possess her would be wholly undeserving of respect. Gradually Julian accustomed ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... letter of Melfort which I have mentioned. There is indeed, among the Nairne MSS, which Macpherson printed, an undated and anonymous letter in which Caermarthen is reckoned among the friends of James. But this letter is altogether undeserving of consideration. The writer was evidently a silly hotheaded Jacobite, who knew nothing about the situation or character of any of the public men whom he mentioned. He blunders grossly about Marlborough, Godolphin, Russell, Shrewsbury and the Beaufort family. Indeed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of those fortunate things, madam, which sometimes befall undeserving persons, as if to refute the theory ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... is the birthplace and home of one John Rallywood,' said Counsellor with a twist of his big moustache. 'You lucky, undeserving beggar! So Selpdorf's ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... "Oh! how utterly undeserving!—how utterly undeserving such love and devotion!" said Lewie, pacing up and down the room. "Sweet sister!—dearest Agnes!—now has my prison lost all its gloom; and were it not for the future, I might be happier here ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... proprietor of the place. In the first draught of the poem, the name of Bridgeman was inserted where Cobham's now stands, but as Bridgeman mistook the compliment for a sneer, the poet thought the landscape-gardener had proved himself undeserving of the intended honor, and presented the second-hand compliment to the peer. The grounds at Stowe, more praised by poets than any other private estate in England, extend to 400 acres. There are many other fine estates in our country of far ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... plenty rich and silly women in Glasgow who are systematically fleeced by the undeserving poor—people who have no earthly business to be poor, who have hands and heads which can give them a competence, only they are moral idiots. No woman should be allowed full use of large sums of money. ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... many gowns in this new country, Avis, and, may be, not even a horse and surrey of your own; but you will have love, and you will have happiness, and, best of all, Avis, you will give a certain very undeserving man his chance—his one sole chance—to lead a real man's life. Are you going to deny him that ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... disappointments which have thus far attended him, and when you think that he had all this trouble to get PERMISSION to lay the cable, and that while he had already passed through much; yet his disappointments were destined to be tenfold greater ere success attended him; will you say he is undeserving of that success? The rights are secure; the stock taken; the cable is done and all ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... presence of those who attended the clinic—(my entire establishment was there to see that I had the proper attention and to tell me how happy they were that it wasn't any worse)—I say, I declared to all of them that I was an unmitigated fool and undeserving of the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... make a path for his comrades through the battle, deliberately flings away his life with a shout of "Teikoku manzai!"—the son or daughter who unmurmuring sacrifices all the happiness of existence for the sake, perhaps, of an undeserving or even cruel, parent; the partisan who gives up friends, family, and fortune, rather than break the verbal promise made in other years to a now poverty-stricken master; the wife who ceremoniously robes herself in white, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... know the origin of the French word CLICHY, as applied to the noted prison of that name, but it is perhaps not undeserving the comment that in Continental Gipsy it means a key and ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... the common intercourse of life. This vice constitutes what we properly call MEANNESS; when a man can submit to the basest slavery, in order to gain his ends; fawn upon those who abuse him; and degrade himself by intimacies and familiarities with undeserving inferiors. A certain degree of generous pride or self-value is so requisite, that the absence of it in the mind displeases, after the same manner as the want of a nose, eye, or any of the most material feature of the face or ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... after fruition, and serves us at a time when hope has failed and fruition is but—a memory. Ah! how we cherish it in our hearts, and how it comes at our beck and call to thrill us through and through and make us thank God that we have lived, and wonder in our hearts why he has given poor undeserving us ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... little hand—as brown as your own, my daughter, for his mother, like myself, was a pure Roman, and looked down upon by her people in consequence for marrying my son, who is of mixed blood (my husband being in family, as in every other respect, undeserving of ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... prejudice that exists among all classes of men against them, this is not likely to be the case: they would not be employed by any, while other persons could be got. At a hop plantation, so lately as 1830, Gipsies were not allowed to pick hops in some grounds, while persons as unsettled and undeserving, were engaged for that purpose. Had this been a parochial arrangement to benefit the poor of their own neighbourhood, who were out of employ, it ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... to Brother Christian Shallaberger's, in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, where they attended night meeting and Brother Daniel Yount spoke from Eph. 2:8, 9, 10. He explained the meaning of the word GRACE, that it is the love of God for the undeserving of his love. He defined FAITH as being a loving acceptance of God's revealed truth: that faith is the gift of God only this far, that he tells man what he is to believe and how he is to believe, that the Gospel of our salvation is what man is to believe; that he is to believe with the ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... foot in the War of 1812, but had been carried on from grade to grade for forty years, until at the time I speak of he was a captain, then the highest rank in the navy. Possibly, probably, he never saw water bluer than that of the lakes, where he was wounded. The undeserving were not treated with quite the same indulgence. Those familiar with the Navy Register of those days will recall some half-dozen old die-hards, who figured from year to year at the head of the lieutenant's list; continuously "overslaughed," never promoted, but never ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... that if any remembered the case at all, they would connect the pension in the least with anything about him, but attribute it solely to the Queen's and Minister's goodness, and the wants of a sincere and not undeserving man of letters, distinguished for his loyal attachment. I certainly think the L500 fine ought not to have been taken out of my pocket, or the other two L125 either; and I think also, that a liberal Whig minister might reasonably ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... perfectly versed in the holy scriptures. He confesses everywhere his own faults with a sincere humility, and extols the great mercies of God towards him in this world, who had exalted him, though the most undeserving of men: yet, to preserve him in humility, afforded him the advantage of meeting with extreme contempt from others, that is, from the heathens. He confesses, for his humiliation, that, among other temptations, he felt a great desire to see again his own country, and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... most undeserving husbands permit themselves with the severest of wives, there were times after their marriage when Colville accused Lina of never really intending to drive him away, but of meaning, after a disciplinary ordeal, to marry him in reward of his ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... pawnbroker as the banker of the poor. The committee were unanimous in condemning the conduct of Morris, and it says much for the members that, in spite of the provocation one of them had received, they did not take the name of so undeserving a man from their list of ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... they carried in their hands, and were not, without difficulty, allowed to escape with the clothes on their backs. Can we blame these people for representing us as a barbarous, unfeeling, and inhospitable nation, however undeserving we may be of such ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... large numbers of men makes it a principle to praise none of them, not because they are undeserving, and not because he dislikes to commend, but because experience has taught him that usually the praise goes to the head of the recipient, both impairing his work and making it harder for others to associate with him. A good test ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... Annixter's eyes. He took her in his arms and held her there for a moment. Never in his life had he felt so unworthy, so undeserving of this clean, pure girl who forgave him and trusted his spoken word and believed him to be the good man he could only wish to be. She was so far above him, so exalted, so noble that he should have bowed his forehead to her feet, and instead, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Suppose a man to propose rewards exclusively to those who assisted at a fire, then X and Y, suppose, have equally seen that many did not assist, even refused to do so. But X perhaps will shrink from exposing them; V will encounter any hatred for truth and justice by exposing the undeserving. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... problem that we have to consider is, briefly, how to apply Christ's teaching in our own town. Let me suggest first: That there are in this city, as in every city, two classes who present their claims for assistance; the deserving and undeserving. Any plan which does not distinguish between these two classes must prove a failure, because it would encourage the idle in their idleness, and so prove a curse instead of a blessing. It would make fraud profitable by placing a premium rather than a penalty on crime; and it would make the ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... sorrows which around I find, Diverse, and manifold as human kind. Let these suffice my gratitude to fire, And with unfeigned praise my tongue inspire. That I, so undeserving, still possess Unnumber'd mercies, through redeeming grace. Let each vicissitude my soul prepare, By patience here, for endless glory there; Where sickness ceases, and where sorrows end, Where no misfortune ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... sake of the many whom he will never see. The facility of Charles was such as has perhaps never been found in any man of equal sense. He was a slave without being a dupe. Worthless men and women, to the very bottom of whose hearts he saw, and whom he knew to be destitute of affection for him and undeserving of his confidence, could easily wheedle him out of titles, places, domains, state secrets and pardons. He bestowed much; yet he neither enjoyed the pleasure nor acquired the fame of beneficence. He never ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... silvery radiance imparted to the whole scene of the proposal in the summer-house (in chapter iii., 'Lyrical'), give to this most unequal and imperfect book a certain crepuscular fascination of its own. Passages in it, certainly, are not undeserving that fine description of a style si tendre qu'il pousse le bonheur a pleurer. Emily's father, Mr. Hood, is an essentially pathetic figure, almost grotesquely true to life. 'I should like to see London before I die,' he says to his daughter. 'Somehow I have ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... the dogmatist of another as the propagator of moral poison; and the dogmatist retaliated on the professor: but I avoided neither; I read both, and turned all 'into honey and fine gold.' No inquiry into wisdom, however superficial, is undeserving attention. The vagaries of the idlest fancy will often chance, as it were, upon the most useful discoveries of truth, and serve as a guide to after and to slower disciples of wisdom; even as the peckings of birds ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... information or furnish means, and even said that they did not wish volunteers. All this may readily be explained by the consideration that a man who thereafter proved to be so bitter an enemy was not sufficiently diplomatic to deceive even the obtuse perceptions of so undeserving a body as the author describes said committee. On the other hand, it would have been more prudent for the writer to have said less on this topic, as such hesitation in accepting his services might induce the reader to think that the Poles were not so anxious for external aid as he seemed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... possibly happen that the sufferer recommended may be a person not deserving the favour intended by the brief; in which case no minister, who knows the sufferer to be an undeserving person, can with a safe conscience, deliberately and affectionately publish the brief, much less earnestly persuade, exhort, and stir up the people to contribute freely and cheerfully towards the relief of such ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... mother, she let me discern more clearly her faith in my firmness and good sense. To be plain, in reward for letting her alone, she did not let me alone. And this reward I accepted becomingly, with a resolve—the metal of which I hoped she would divine—never to show myself undeserving of ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... the best judges. The public after all is mainly composed of untutored minds, that know not good from bad themselves; but when they hear a man praised by the great authorities, they take it for granted that he is not undeserving of praise, and praise him accordingly. It is the same at the games: most of the spectators know enough to clap or hiss, but the judging is done by some five ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... class when he said, 'I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends.' We enjoin the young to honor father and mother, never thinking how undeserving of respect are those whose children suffer from inherited ills, the result of the selfishness and carelessness of their parents in ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... impression upon the Englishman, who was wont to accept strangers in this wild and savage country at their own valuation, asking no questions and assuming the best of them until they proved themselves undeserving of his ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were doing more harm than good, and that the changed economic conditions of the sixteenth century called for a corresponding change in the distribution of relief, to save the country from being overrun by undeserving mendicants, amongst whom some of the religious Orders were themselves to be reckoned. It does not appear that any part of this argument held good against the Augustinian Canons, or that the more serious moral charges brought against the smaller communities ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... eight leagues distant; another, in the morning of the 25th, extending S.E. and N.W.; and the course was continued till the 27th, between several low and partly overflowed islands, four of which were examined and found quite inaccessible, or undeserving of being visited. To the whole cluster, Bougainville gave the name of Dangerous Archipelago, by which they have been generally known since his day, and which sufficiently indicates the nature of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... citizen began to seek distinction, and to display his talents with greater freedom; for, with princes, the meritorious are greater objects of suspicion than the undeserving, and to them the worth of others is a source of alarm. But when liberty was secured, it is almost incredible[56] how much the state strengthened itself in a short space of time, so strong a passion for distinction had pervaded it. Now, for the first time, the youth, ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... of which I am undeserving, that I was suffered, in ever so small a way, to do aught for his comfort by rendering help to Madame Gruithuissens in the making of messes to tempt the sick man to eat, and also by doing what lay in my power to console those who have been beside themselves ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... can have betrayed myself so that she has discovered my miserable secret is more than I can tell I will not own it to her or to any living creature but yourself. Undeserving as I am, I know that I can ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... panegyric into others' praises out of envy and spite, nor should we allow others either to praise us then, but we should make way for those that are being honoured, if they are worthy of honour, and even if they seem to us undeserving of honour and worthless, we ought not to strip them of their praise by self-laudation, but by direct argument and proof that they are not worthy of all these encomiums. It is plain then that we ought to avoid all such conduct ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... amid the lights and shadows that environ the Negro, he is neither undeserving of the assistance rendered, and indispensable for educational development, which has been generous, and for which he is grateful, although handicapped by a prejudice confronting on so many avenues of industry, ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... "that means that you're—that she has accepted you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said: "I ought to want to murder you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but so were the rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite honestly. ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... earth never beheld, but you are wrong. I represent them as they are. I suppose the Professor has faults—though he does not show them to us—they must be of the generous kind, at any rate. Father says that he never could keep a farthing; he would always give it away to undeserving people. Miss Du Prel, I find on closer acquaintance, is not without certain jealousies and weaknesses, but these things just seem to float about as gossamer on a mountain-side, and one counts them in relation to herself, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... those who bore arms. The oppressions of the government were little felt, except by the aristocracy. The institutions of the country when compared with the institutions of the neighbouring kingdoms, seem to have been not undeserving of the praises of Fortescue. The government of Edward the Fourth, though we call it cruel and arbitrary, was humane and liberal when compared with that of Lewis the Eleventh, or that of Charles the Bold. Comines, who had lived amidst the wealthy cities ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... friends, relative to the motions that had lately been brought forward for the relief of the Dissenters. The writer, whose alarm for the interest of the Church had somewhat disturbed his sense of liberality and justice, endeavors to impress upon Mr. Sheridan, and through him upon Mr. Fox, how undeserving the Dissenters were, as a political body, of the recent exertions on their behalf, and how ungratefully they had more than once requited the services which the Whigs had rendered them. For this ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... goes the second M.; it is a certainty.) Thank you for your prompt and kind answer, little as I deserved it, though I hope to show you I was less undeserving than I seemed. But just might I delete two words in your testimonial? The two words "and legal" were unfortunately winged by chance against my weakest spot, and would go ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He finds that he has received from him a real enlargement of mind, and much of the true spirit of philosophy, even when he has ceased to believe in him. He returns again and again to his writings as to the recollections of a first love, not undeserving of his admiration still. Perhaps if he were asked how he can admire without believing, or what value he can attribute to what he knows to be erroneous, he might answer in some such ...
— Sophist • Plato
... Villains. I most humbly beg your Pardon for my late Conduct and unjust Complaint of you. Do but stand my Friend, at this critical Conjuncture, and I'll be your most obedient Vassal till Death. Zadig had now no Inclination to fight for one so undeserving any more. Find some other to be your Fool now, Madam; you shan't impose upon me a second Time. I'll assure you, Madam, I know better Things. Besides he was wounded; and bled so fast that he wanted Assistance himself: And 'tis very ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... in regard to pain and anguish," said Davenport. "I've experienced both, of course, but not so as to learn their effect on women. But suppose, if you can, a woman who should look kindly on an undeserving, but not ill-meaning, individual like myself. Suppose that, after a time, she happened to hear of the reputation of bad luck that clung to him. What ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... be regretted by all the parties most deeply interested, as well as by the public generally. Mr. Webster does not often repeat himself, and no man who has said or written so much has said or written so little that is undeserving a place in literature or in history. The next paragraph introduces us to Mr. Webster's ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... conviction that, without immortality, life is a series of worthless contrasts. An opposite opinion may be entertained, but a man has a right to express his own, which, coming from so great a mind, is not undeserving of attention; or, at least, is hardly deserving of reproof. The poet's idea is also stated thus in The Ring, in terms which perhaps do not fall below the poetical; or, at least, do not drop ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... father's sight; If we shall meet again with more delight; Then draw my life in length; let me sustain, In hopes of his embrace, the worst of pain. But if your hard decrees- which, O! I dread- Have doom'd to death his undeserving head; This, O this very moment, let me die! While hopes and fears in equal balance lie; While, yet possess'd of all his youthful charms, I strain him close within these aged arms; Before that fatal news my soul shall wound!" He said, and, swooning, sunk upon the ground. His servants ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... I now enter here? Will he within Open to sorry me, though I have been An undeserving rebel? Then shall I Not fail to sing ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... them not only of the means of assisting him with their counsel, but even hearing him. Therefore finding he no longer contributed either to the benefit of the republic or of the people generally, he could not perceive any reason for his longer holding the magistracy, of which he was either undeserving, or others thought him so, and would therefore retire to his house, that the people might appoint another in his stead, who would either have greater virtue or better fortune than himself." And having said this, he left the room as if ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... deceived the Princess on these occasions. She was so generously charitable that I should have conceived it a crime. When I could get no satisfactory information, I said I could not trace anything undeserving her charity, and left Her Highness to exercise her ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... was issued the seventh edition of Miller's "Gardener's Dictionary,"[K] in which was for the first time adopted (in English) the classical system of Linnaeus. If I have not before alluded to Philip Miller, it is not because he is undeserving. He was a correspondent of the chiefs in science over the Continent of Europe, and united to his knowledge a rare practical skill. He was superintendent of the famous Chelsea Gardens of the Apothecaries Company, He lies buried in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... considered guess formidable in the competition. More dangerous still was that of the Colonel, for to him would fall the duty of the decisive whistle-blast, and his entry ultimately was not accepted by the 'committee.' As in most sweepstakes, the first prize fell to a most undeserving winner. ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... the outrageous reports that were in circulation about him, yet occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing at them, and learning from the number of begging letters which he received, and into which he usually caused searching inquiry to be made, that there are in the world a vast number of undeserving poor. ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... eminently remarkable, purposely substituted a fictitious designation, for the real name of the place in which his observations were made. We are confirmed in this belief by a little circumstance, apparently slight and trivial in itself, but when considered in this point of view, not undeserving of notice. In Mr. Pickwick's note-book, we can just trace an entry of the fact, that the places of himself and followers were booked by the Norwich coach; but this entry was afterwards lined through, as if for the purpose of concealing even the direction in which the borough is situated. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... It is not every undeserving American who can have the erudition and divination of the Genius Loci in answer to his unuttered prayer during a visit to even a small part of the Roman Forum. But failing the company of the Commendatore Boni, which is without price, there are to be had for a very little money the guidance ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... do. You see, you can never be wholly undeserving in my eyes.' With Lucy, as with many girls in whom gratitude is the precursor of love, most of the sentiments due to the kindling affection ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson |
