"Unready" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his battles, which had been called for by the Commander-in-Chief. They were not compiled in their entirety by his own hand. He was no novice at literary composition, and his pen, as his letter-book shows, was not that of an unready writer. He had a good command of language, and that power of clear and concise expression which every officer in command of a large force, a position naturally entailing a large amount of confidential correspondence, must necessarily ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... cries Danton, starting up, with clenched right-hand, Lasource having done: and descends from the Mountain, like a lava-flood; his answer not unready. Lasource's probabilities fly like idle dust; but leave a result behind them. "Ye were right, friends of the Mountain," begins Danton, "and I was wrong: there is no peace possible with these men. Let ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... having accomplished his exploration, hastened back to Stadacone, where he set about making preparations for spending the winter. A fort was hastily built at the mouth of the St. Croix. But the exiles were unready for the violent season that soon closed in upon them, almost burying their fort in drifting snow and casing the ships in an armour of glistening ice. Pent up by the biting frost, and eking out a wretched existence on ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the air," as the President put it—and yet he hesitated to remove him. "The Young Napoleon" was a good organizer, but no fighter. Lincoln sent him everything necessary in the way of men, ammunition, artillery and equipments, but he was forever unready. ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... the end of a century following the victories of Alfred the Danes again threatened an invasion, and in 981-991 they made several landings, in the latter year overrunning much territory. King Ethelred [the "Unready"] procured their departure by bribery, which led the Danes to repeat their visit the next year, following it up by a descent in force under King Sweyn of Denmark and Olaf of Norway. They defeated the English in battle and ravaged a great part of the country, exacting as before ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... love, and fear, and hope; but I must not be "entangled." Not so concerned about myself, either for sorrow or joy, that I should fail in anything to discern the Lord's will, or be unready, or be slow, to do it. Not so but that my heart should be free, looking to God for its chief strength and joy always and everywhere, - yes, and holding my hopes at his hand, to be given up if he called them ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... four gaping watchers in the stockade on the headland beheld the great ship creep forward under the rising cloud of smoke, her mainsail unfurled to increase her steering way, and go about close-hauled to bring her larboard guns to bear upon the unready fort. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Susan felt the sun's grateful warmth on her shoulders and, watching the daily miracle of birth, felt vaguely some corresponding process stir her own heart. Nature cherishes no yesterdays; the work of rebuilding and replenishing goes serenely on. Punctual dawn never finds the world unready, April's burgeoning colors bury away forever the memories of ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... they protested, because of danger from His enemies: but it was for a moment only. When Jesus said, "Let us go unto him," we almost wonder that it was not John the loving, nor Peter the bold, but Thomas the sometimes unready, that said concerning Jesus, "Let us also go that we may die with Him." But we imagine that John was the readiest to go, and kept the closest to his Master in the pathway to Bethany ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... Majesty escorted by Richelieu, one's old friend in a sense: "Is Trajan pleased?" whispered Voltaire to his Richelieu; overheard by Trajan,—who answered in words nothing, but in a visible glance of the eyes did answer, "Impertinent Lackey!"—Trajan being a man unready with speech; and disliking trouble with the people whom he paid for keeping his boots in polish. O my winged Voltaire, to what dunghill Bubbly-Jocks (COQS D'INDE) you do stoop with homage, constrained by their appearance ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... thoroughbred that morning. But Breckenbridge had managed to assimilate some of the wiles of diplomacy during these last few months and he reasoned that if there were a pursuing-party waiting for him to leave the ranch they would be prepared for that same contingency. Better let them think him unready; then perhaps they would let him get the lead. And once he got it, luck would have to help him carry out his plan. He saddled the hired pony and rode away, leading ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... of course from his seat. By nature he was not a coward, but he was unready, and knew not what to do or to say on the spur of the moment. "I did not come here to be ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... doctrine of supererogation is wholly false.[1165] The Bridegroom's condemnatory disclaimer, "I know you not," was equivalent to a declaration that the imploring but neglectful ones, who had been found unready and unprepared, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... times who estimated Goldsmith according to his true merits as a writer and thinker, and he was repaid by an affectionate devotion that was never worn out during the later years when the Dictator was too ready to make a butt of the unready Irishman. Goldsmith now joined the group of literary friends who gathered frequently at the shop of Tom Davies, the bookseller, where Johnson and Boswell first met, and he was one of the famous Literary Club which grew ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... whose sublime stand had thwarted Germany's murderous plan against an unready world, were a sad little army when they reached the Yser about mid October. It was not what they had endured that contributed most to break their spirit; but what they had been ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... instant decision, men whose mental equipment is all in order, ready to be used on the instant. Yes and no, right and wrong, we must have them labelled and ready to pack to go anywhere, to do anything at any time, or to know why we refuse to do it, if it is something we will not do. Ethelred the Unready died helpless a thousand years ago. The unready are still with us, but the strenuous century will grant them ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... designed, before Shakespeare's dramatic work. It is affluent in beautiful imagery and metrical sweetness, but imbued with a tone of license which may be held either to justify the theory that it was a precocious product of the author's youth, or to show that Shakespeare was not unready in mature years to write with a view to gratifying a patron's somewhat lascivious tastes. The title-page bears a beautiful Latin motto from Ovid's ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... all, the showing would be by no means a discreditable one. It had been a remarkable task; and Smith, now that he came to look back on it, remembering the black days of the reign of Gunterson the Unready, could himself only wonder mildly at the way all these things had come about. In the midst of the satisfaction which he could not help but feel, there was always a genuine sense of amazement at the facile way in which Fate had played into his hand. If he had any doubts, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... one moment in which to note the significance of her attitude, for Lesley changed it as soon as she heard his name. He gave her Ethel's message at once and Ethel's parcel, and then stood, a little confused and unready for she had risen and was looking as if, when his errand was accomplished, he ought to go. Fortunately, Doctor Sophy came in and invited him cordially to sit down; rang for tea and scolded him roundly for not coming oftener; ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... dull and stupid, and care for nothing: take thou care of everything for me, heart and mind and all. I leave all to thee. Wilt thou not at length draw me out of this my frozen wintery state? Let me not shrink from fresh life and thought and duty, or be unready to come out of the shell of my sickness when thou sendest for me. I wait thy will. I wait even the light that I feel now as if I dared not encounter for weariness of ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... a king! The habitual lethargic meekness had vanished from his face, and the large crown threw a shadow, like a frown, over his brow. His spirit seemed to have risen from the weight it took from the sluggish blood of his father, Ethelred the Unready, and to have remounted to the brighter and earlier sources of ancestral heroes. Worthy in that hour he seemed to boast the blood and wield the sceptre of Athelstan and ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a delinquent from so high an office—this day, so much wished, has seemed to me, to the last moment, so distant, that now—now that it Is actually arrived, it takes me as if I had never thought of it before—it comes upon me all unexpected, and finds me unready!" ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... two out of the few who got back to the German lines. Most of the Prussians stayed in the ploughed field. Karl Heinz's scream had frozen the blood of the English soldiers, but it had also ruined the major's plans. He and his men, caught all unready, clumsy with the burdens that they carried, were shot to pieces; hardly a score of them returned. The rest of the force were attended to by an English burying party. According to custom the dead men were searched before they were buried, and ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen
... of life. What knew I of the system of things on which a blow upon the head had ushered me all unready, reluctant, and uninstructed as I was? No more than the ruddiest live stockbroker in the street, whose blood went bounding, that fresh morning, to the antics of the Santa Ma. I was not accustomed to be uninformed; my ignorance appalled ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... think there is no hale man, howsoever desperate and careless of life, but who, faced with sudden, violent death, will not of instinct blench and find himself mighty unready to take the leap into that dark unknown whose dread doth fright us one and all; howbeit thus was it with me, for now as I stared from the pistol muzzle to the merciless eyes behind them, I, that had hitherto esteemed death no hardship, lay there in dumb and sweating panic, and, knowing myself ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol |
