"Laudable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opinion is," Smerdyakov began suddenly and unexpectedly in a loud voice, "that if that laudable soldier's exploit was so very great there would have been, to my thinking, no sin in it if he had on such an emergency renounced, so to speak, the name of Christ and his own christening, to save by that same his life, for good deeds, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... be daunted by the fact that you have been so good a lover as to make your wife happy. You may not be considered a perfect lover even if you have compassed that very laudable end. In fact, the very ones I mean are the apparently successful lovers with ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... approach to a demonstration of specific origin by minute modification. And though it harmonizes well with "Natural Selection," it is equally consistent with the rapid and sudden development of new specific forms of life. Indeed, Professor Huxley, with a laudable caution and moderation too little observed by some Teutonic Darwinians, guarded himself carefully from any imputation of asserting dogmatically the theory of "Natural Selection," while upholding fully the doctrine ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... Mary said hastily. "But need we decide tonight?" she added with laudable calm. "It's so HOT, dearest, and I am so sleepy. Mamma could go to Beach Meadow, I suppose?" she ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... when one fellow has a prize Another bibliophile is needing, Why, then, a satisfactory trade Is quite a laudable proceeding. ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... project to play TCHAIKOVSKY'S "1812" in such perfect time that the audience will have the pleasure of hearing our anti-aircraft men supply the big-gun effects, although laudable, is, it is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... attention away from the classics and away from the Bible, it behooves those of us who would count as the friends of culture to welcome every effort to stimulate interest in either. The Menorah Societies which are finding a place in our chief universities have assumed a laudable task. They are striving to hold before the minds of the youth of this land the fine ideals of the ancient Hebrew literature. In such efforts they should be encouraged by Jew and Gentile alike. For we are all heirs of Hebrew tradition; we are all brothers ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... take a glass of ale, with plenty of malt in it, and as little hop as may well be—ale at least two years old—with the aforesaid friend when the diversion is over." He says he is "not ashamed to speak to a beggar in rags, and will associate with anybody, provided he can gratify a laudable curiosity." More emphatically still, he asks: "Can the rolls of the English aristocracy exhibit names belonging to more heroic men than those who were called respectively Pearce, Cribb, and Spring?" Both "Lavengro" ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... wonder Scarcely less familiar Delightfully characteristic It was a profound conviction Greatly conceived and expressed Blinded by its brightness I have cudgelled my memory Exposed to imminent peril Screening a breach of etiquette By a natural transition Splendid anticipations of success A very laudable attempt Lapsed into complete oblivion With most distinguished success Like embarking on a shoreless sea A really pretty imitation Unless I greatly err Undaunted by repeated failure Became a term of reproach An epoch-making achievement In the guise ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... his repast; and as he had been among the foremost himself to profit by the removal of the impediments which the policy of Spain had placed in the way of all explorers of her trans-Atlantic dominions, whether bent on the purposes of commerce, or, like himself, on the more laudable pursuits of science, he had a sufficiency of every-day philosophy to feel that the same motives, which had so powerfully urged himself to his present undertaking, might produce a like result on the mind ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in mathematics because of the evidence and certainty of its reasons, and that he revered our theology and claimed as much as any to attain to heaven—et pretendais autant qu'aucun autre a gagner le ciel. And this pretension—a very laudable one, I think, and above all very natural—was what prevented him from deducing all the consequences of his methodical doubt. The man Descartes claimed, as much as any other, to attain to heaven, "but having learned as a thing very sure that the way to it ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... merit, in my opinion, in elucidating, if it were only a single word in our great dramatist. Even the attempt, though mayhap a failure, is laudable. I therefore have made, and shall make, hit or miss, some efforts that way. For example, I now grapple ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... kingdom that King John's last words were "an encouragement to the Infant to persevere in his right laudable purpose of spreading the Christian faith in the lands of darkness"; whether true or not, at any rate it was felt to fit the place and the man, and Henry's brothers, Pedro and Edward, took up loyally their father's commission to keep peace at home and sailing ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... In the very laudable and fascinating extensions of our interest in Asiatic arts or faiths, there are two incidental injustices which we tend nowadays to do to our own records and our own religion. The first is a tendency to talk as if certain things were not only present ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... Mill nor Mr. Herbert Spencer joined the society. The letter of the former declining the invitation to join (given in the "Life of W.G. Ward" page 299) is extremely characteristic. He considers the object of the projectors very laudable, "but it is very doubtful whether it will be realised in practice." The undoubted advantages of oral discussion on such questions are, he continues, best realised if undertaken in the manner of the Socratic dialogue, between one and ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Now, to his unutterable disgust, he found himself surrounded by the things he loathed. Books ancient—very ancient, judging by their bindings—and modern—histories, biographies, novels and magazines—anything from ten dollars to five cents, and all arrayed with most laudable tact according to their bulk and condition. But Hamar was neither to be tempted nor mollified. He frowned at one and all alike, and the colossal edition of Miss Somebody or Other's poems—that by reason of ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... idiosyncrasies the absorbing study of his life, and, with the accumulated experience of years to aid him, has applied himself to the task of preparing for their mental delectation a diet that shall be at once wholesome and attractive; and that his efforts in this laudable direction have been successful is conclusively proven by his popularity ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... nodded the Duchess, "highly filial and very pious, oh, indeed, most righteous and laudable, but—there remains ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the Senior Service is the man who gets things done; and long experience has formulated for him a golden rule: "If you want to get things done you must see them done." This laudable maxim applies in a lesser degree to all his subordinates, right down to the newly-joined boy, who can't very well help seeing some things done, unless he makes a habit of working with his eyes shut—a practice which does not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... seriously thinking on this subject, and forming new and laudable resolutions for the future, I do not know; but at last I awoke to the fact that I was still nothing more nor less than a common adventurer, held captive on an isolated projecture in the middle of the sea. This became more apparent as I faintly heard the ocean's waves dashing against the rocks ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... students that finished education, which we are determined they shall have. And, though our principal object is to instruct them in the doctrines, spirit, and practice of Christianity, yet we trust that our college will, in due time, send forth men that will be a blessing to their country in every laudable office and employment of life, thereby uniting the two greatest ornaments of human beings which are too often separated: deep ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... of illegality of the defendant's vote is that she is a woman. If the same act had been done by her brother under the same circumstances, the act would have been not only innocent, but honorable and laudable; but having been done by a woman it is said to be a crime. The crime, therefore, consists not in the act done, but in the simple fact that the person doing it was a woman and not a man. I believe this is the first instance in which a woman has been arraigned in a criminal court merely on account ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... depressing the aristocracy to its proper level and elevating the commons, to consolidate the whole under the lawful supremacy of the crown. At least, such was the tendency of her administration up to the present period of our history. These laudable objects were gradually achieved without fraud or violence, by a course of measures equally laudable; and the various orders of the monarchy, brought into harmonious action with each other, were enabled to turn the forces, which had before been wasted in civil conflict, to the glorious ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... the Registers Rex Fabarum, and Rex Regni Fabarum: which custom continued till the Reformation of Religion, and then that producing Puritanism, and Puritanism Presbytery, the possession of it looked upon such laudable and ingenious customs as popish, diabolical, ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... Thus was I well ware on, that I neuer tell my husband his fautes before companie, nor I neuer caried any complaynte furthe a dores: the mendes is soner made when none knoweth it but two, and there were anie suche faute that myght not be wel borne nor amended by ye wyues tellige, it is more laudable that the wife make complaynte vnto the Parentes and kynsfolke of her husband, then vnto her own, and so to moderate her complaynte that she seme not to hate hym but hys vice nor let her play all the ...
— A Merry Dialogue Declaringe the Properties of Shrowde Shrews and Honest Wives • Desiderius Erasmus
... entreaties. Sometimes a candidate would lay objections to the pedigree, age, or character of a rival, and the Senate would listen with gravity befitting a censor. Consequently, merit told as a rule more than influence. But when this laudable practice was spoilt by excessive partisanship the House had recourse to the silence of the ballot-box in order to cure the evil, and for a time it did act as a remedy, owing to the novelty of the sudden change. But I am afraid that as time goes on abuses will arise ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... fostering care it has prospered beyond the most sanguine expectations of its propagators. Its fame is spread over the United States, and celebrated in foreign countries. It has been a precedent to many cities, who have followed the laudable example. This fame is not more brilliant than just. The hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, shelter is provided for the outcasts, medicine and cordials for the sick, and the soothing voice of sympathy cheers the disconsolate. Who are the authors of all these ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... the Good Spirit; but they were ignorant of the great truths of Christianity, and their devotions were but superstitious acts of blind reverence. In this situation they remain generally at the present day, notwithstanding the many laudable endeavors which have been made to ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... favorable testament, and sometimes of hastening the moment of its execution, is perfectly understood; and it has happened that in the same house, though in different apartments, a husband and a wife, with the laudable design of overreaching each other, have summoned their respective lawyers to declare at the same time their mutual but contradictory intentions. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury often reduces the great to the use of the most ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... so very laudable for a young man to pay his way through college; and Morris Leighton had done this easily and without caring to be praised or martyrized for doing so. He had enjoyed his college days; he had been popular with town and gown; and he had managed ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... and many others of his tribe, possess a laudable curiosity, which might easily be directed to the most important ends; and I believe, that a well-conducted Christian mission to this quarter would not fail of producing the happiest effect. Old Keskarrah alone used boldly to express his disbelief ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... you want it for, friend?' and I answered, 'To learn Danish by'; 'And maybe to learn thy duty,' replied the Antinomian preacher. 'Truly, I have it not, but, as you are a customer of mine, I will endeavour to procure you one, and I will write to that laudable society which men call the Bible Society, an unworthy member of which I am, and I hope by next week ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... however, of the expressions employed, does not in itself {230} of necessity imply any of those sinister and unworthy motives to which it has been usual with many writers to attribute it. In charity, and without any improbable assumption, it may be referred to an honest and laudable desire of making the terms of communion as wide as might be, with a view of comprehending within what was regarded the pale of the Catholic Church, the greatest number of those who professed and called themselves Christians. Be this as ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... noble, great, and venerable Lords, had come to the knowledge of the council; finally the remembrance of that which was done upon this matter in the year 1778, with the best intentions and the most laudable views, finding itself at present crowned with an approbation as public as it is general, indispensibly oblige the undersigned to approach you with this address; not only to congratulate you upon so remarkable an event, but to thank you at the same time with as much zeal as solemnity, for all ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... said that he was brave and manly of temperament, courageous as to personal suffering, eminently solicitous of the welfare of others, and kind and considerate to*such as he had claims upon. This is no doubt true portraiture, but it must be stated (however open to explanation, on grounds of laudable self-depreciation), that it is not the picture which he himself used to paint of his character as a boy. He often described himself as being destitute of personal courage when at school, as shrinking from the amusements of schoolfellows, and fearful of their quarrels; not wholly ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... complete the ruin of the national finances. It is said that I placed him in his situation. The people are made to believe that I am extravagant; yet I have refused to suffer a sum of money from the royal treasury, although destined for the most laudable purpose, even ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... part of his country, and must "thole the feud" of those high-souled citizens who think their country always in the wrong—as perhaps it very frequently is. We are not to expect a tranquil absence of bias in the midst of military excitement, when very laudable sentiments are apt to misguide men in both directions. In any case, political partisanship added to the enemies of the poem, which was applauded by Henry Taylor, Ruskin, George Brimley, and Jowett, while Mrs Browning sent ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... they were able to take their bride to the altar. It was her view that this feature of social life in England was truly the white man's burden, and she vowed that no money of hers would ever help to produce so nauseating a spectacle. Behind Mrs. Delarayne's laudable views on this subject, however, there were doubtless other and less patriotic considerations, which may or may not be revealed in the course ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... for evening lessons did not work long. The school-master to whom he applied professed his entire readiness, even enthusiasm, to further such a laudable pursuit of knowledge under difficulties; but he was young himself, scarcely out of college, and the pretty girls in his school swayed his impressionable nature into many side issues, even when his mind was set upon the ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... time had considerable pride in the idea of building up the family name in his children, 'even unto his children's children.' This he thought a laudable ambition, since he found the phrase in Scripture. But when Belle deserted him, and he found himself not only forsaken but duped, his ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... returned home. Mr. Russell was very anxious to see a Clare Relief Committee. He was indeed astonished. He said he would not have supposed matters were so bad."[150] There is a fine dash of the sensational in this. Mr. Russell's anxiety was very laudable, being evidently akin to that thirst for information which excites travellers like Captain Cook or Dr. Livingstone to seek an assembly or encampment of "natives" in some previously unexplored region; but there happened to be members ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... separately whether he thinks it laudable and worthy of a man of this age to hold a position from which he receives a salary disproportionate to his work; to take from the people—often in poverty—taxes to be spent on constructing cannon, torpedoes, ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... the Jenkins's-Ear-Question, and how 'half the World lay hidden in embryo under it. Colonial-Empire, whose is it to be? Shall half the world be England's, for industrial purposes; which is innocent, laudable, conformable to the Multiplication Table, at least, and other plain laws? Shall there be a Yankee Nation, shall there not be; shall the New World be of Spanish type, shall it be of English? Issues which we may call immense.' This, the possession ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 9: The Expansion of England • John Morley
... had he, who was born even to the inheritance of the throne of England, never had he asked favour or honour from those now his equals, but who might have been his subjects. Would they refuse him? Could they thrust back from the path of distinction and laudable ambition, the heir of their ancient kings, and heap another ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... counting-house in pursuit of gain, form and execute schemes the eventual tenor and bearing of which are not to enrich themselves but the human race. No doubt amongst the mass are noble minds who have a perception of the true object of their calling, who feel a just and laudable pride that they are the employers and benefactors of mankind; whose names, even amongst distant hordes of untaught men, pass current, as a security for probity and honour; who write a few lines in London ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... had more experience in its uncertainty. It was astonishing how many New England clergymen, in the time of the petroleum excitement, took chances in oil. The Wall street brokers are said to do a good deal of small business for country clergymen, who are moved no doubt with the laudable desire of purifying the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the loss of property that would ensue. Joseph John Gurney, who appears to have been favorably impressed by Henry Clay's professions of liberality, his courteous bearing, and consummate address, manifested a laudable anxiety that so influential a statesman should be better informed on the point on which he seemed so much in the dark; he therefore addressed to him his excellent "Letters on the West Indies," of which the great argument is, that ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... trustworthy slaves Titianus; I shall want them for messengers. What are you standing there for man? Lights, I said. You have had half a lifetime to rest in, and when Caesar is gone you will have as many more years for the same laudable purpose—" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... certainly to Italy's best interests to strike up a friendly agreement with the new state, if that were feasible, and some of the men in whose hands her destinies rested, feeling their responsibility, made a laudable attempt to come to an understanding. Signor Orlando, whose sagacity is equal to his resourcefulness, was one. In London he had talked the subject over with the Croatian leader, M. Trumbic, and favored the movement toward reconciliation[205] ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... much complain of boyish as of adult cruelties; though, according to the above showing, such atrocities will be less rare in the next than in the present generation. To conclude, we hope that the present notice may awaken the sympathy of the reader towards the laudable objects of the Society, under whose guidance the Voice of Humanity is published. It is a difficult matter to point out "the uneducated," and writers of all grades are eternally babbling of our high state of civilization ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... happen. It is not, perhaps, once in a century that colonies are established in the most remote parts of the habitable globe; and it is seldom that men are found existing perfectly in a state of nature. When such circumstances do occur, curiosity, and still more laudable sentiments, must be excited. The gratification even of curiosity alone might have formed a sufficient apology for the author; but he has seen too much of virtue even among the vicious to be indifferent to the sufferings, or backward in promoting the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Sir;—I have received your circular proposing to gather information from practical farmers of the results from the use of guano, and to have the same published for general circulation. Conceiving the object to be a very laudable one, I will give the result of a few experiments tried with Peruvian guano by myself, and others which have come under my observation; but in doing so I think it would be of great utility to state what ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... compose a funeral sermon for the daughter of a tradesman, he naturally enquired into the character of the deceased; and being told she was remarkable for her humility and condescension to inferiours, he observed, that those were very laudable qualities, but it might not be so easy to discover ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... to part with one who had proved so valuable an assistant in his school, but all his arguments had failed and he was obliged to give him up, saying, "I hope, Raymond, that all your laudable ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... sheep, camels, and goats. It stands the Government in about a rouble the arshin, and sells for two roubles. This profit, after paying the expenses of the manufactory, leaves a surplus that is used to furnish the hospitals, and for other laudable purposes. Such an institution does honour to any country; nor can there be a more praiseworthy application of the industry of those exiles than that which operates to relieve the sick, the fatherless, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... To meet this laudable desire has been my chief incitement in the preparation of the following pages, but I should be untrue to my own devotion to Lake Tahoe, which has extended over a period of more than thirty years, were I to ignore the influence the Lake's beauty has had over me, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... other;—Peter Tucker and his son George for the king, of course; and this open avowal caused a sufficiently pungent scene in Miss Sally Parsons's keeping-room the very next Sunday night, when the aforesaid George, in company with several of his peers, visited the farm-house for the laudable purpose of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... than admiration that one views both its details and proportions. Though it is perhaps unfair to condemn its style as unworthy of the Augustan age of French architecture, surely the ambition with which the work was undertaken was a laudable one enough, and it is only from the fact that it spells failure in the eyes of many who lack initiative in their own make-up, that it only qualifiedly may be called a ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... gemmen, that, besides the instances I have alleged of Sir Launcelot's extravagant benevolence, I could recount a great many others of the same nature, and particularly the laudable vengeance he took of a country lawyer. I'm sorry that any such miscreant should belong to the profession. He was clerk of the assize, gemmen, in a certain town, not a great way distant; and having a blank pardon left by the judges for some criminals whose cases were attended with ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... however, gave them a lesson in gentleness to dumb animals which they never afterwards forgot, and which some of my boy readers would do well to remember. With a laudable effort to improve the occasion, Mrs McTougall carefully printed in huge letters, and elaborately illuminated the sentence, "Be kind to Doggie," and hung it up in the nursery. Thereupon cardboard, pencils, paints, and scissors ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... Roman name could not pass, can the glory of a Roman man penetrate? Moreover, the customs and laws of diverse nations do so much differ the one from the other, that the same thing which some commend as laudable, others condemn as deserving punishment. So that if a man be delighted with the praise of fame, it is no way convenient for him to be named in many countries. Wherefore, every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home, and that noble immortality of ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... many men do), they look at both sides of the question, applying a magnifying-glass to the best one; and if they still feel tempted to retire without leave, that they smoke a large pipe and drink a full bottle first, and profit by the laudable example of ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... of the Emperor Alexius," (says Gibbon,) "has been delineated by the pen of a favourite daughter, who was inspired by tender regard for his person, and a laudable zeal to perpetuate his virtues. Conscious of the just suspicion of her readers, the Princess repeatedly protests, that, besides her personal knowledge, she had searched the discourses and writings of the most respectable veterans; and that after an interval of thirty years, forgotten ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to be somewhat stiff with him, but his evident admiration of me made me quite forget this laudable intention, and, as he talked on without waiting for an answer, his enthusiasm, his deference to my opinion, his charm of manner, his beautiful face, his luminous eyes, made him perfectly irresistible; and before I was aware ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... be my fault if he is not to-day a governor." In two hours afterwards the nomination was announced to Prince de Z————, who was himself at the head of a cabal against the Minister. In any country such an act would have been laudable, but where despotism rules with unopposed sway, it is both honourable ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... suspect nothing but sincere friendship. I would save you from a fatal error. You have been a laborious, studious young man. You are far better informed on almost all subjects than I have ever been. You cannot fail in any laudable object, unless you allow your mind to be improperly directed. I have somewhat the advantage of you in the world's experience, merely by being older; and it is this that induces me ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... New Orleans. This personage was no other than Mr. Nathan Benson, commonly called at home "Uncle Nathan." He was one of the better class of New England farmers, an old bachelor, well to do in the world, and was now engaged in the laudable enterprise of seeing ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... dynasty, but because he despised the Doctrinaires, who, by their union with the Liberals, brought in the new Soult ministry. He was not satisfied with the purity of motives, he also wanted proper means to attain a laudable object. In the Oriental question, which was agitated under Soult, Lamartine was not felt. His opposition was too vague and undefined: instead of pointing to the interests of France, he pointed to the duties of humanity of a great nation; he read Milton ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... You simply had no intention of remaining Hugh Mainwaring's secretary any longer than was necessary. That was perfectly natural, perfectly laudable, my young friend, and I admire the shrewdness and foresight with which you set about to accomplish your designs. At the same time, I believe I am in a position to give you just the information and advice you need in order ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... individually for information; but, in aid of his laudable enterprise, received some pecuniary assistance from the African Civilization Society and the Royal Geographical Society. Being a member of the former society, and while engaged in constructing the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... so deep and so entire; when my will gives me to anything, 'tis not with so violent an obligation that my judgment is infected with it. In the present broils of this kingdom, my own interest has not made me blind to the laudable qualities of our adversaries, nor to those that are reproachable in those men of our party. Others adore all of their own side; for my part, I do not so much as excuse most things in those of mine: a good work has never the worst grace with me for being made against me. The ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... one of some countenance and possessions, and among his neighbours had in some reputation. In the word of "honourable fame," folk conceive the renown of great estates, much and far spoken of, by reason of their laudable acts. ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... nowadays! Of course the world never saw their like. I have my idea of Aspasia—but there are lots of grander women in London to-day. One ought to live among the rich. What a wretched mistake, when one can help it, to herd with narrow foreheads, however laudable your motive! Since I got back among the better people my life has been trebled—oh, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Affairs, looked upon Ludwig's lapse with more indulgence. "It is not," he wrote from the Wilhelmstrasse, "the first time by any means that kings have chosen to live with dancers. While such conduct is not, perhaps, strictly laudable, we can disregard it if it be accompanied by a certain measure of decorum. Still, a combination of ruler-ship and dalliance with a vagrant charmer is a phenomenon that is as much out of place as is an attempt to govern a ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... "Self-love is no laudable motive, yet an exemption from self-love is not to be found in this world: on self-love is grounded the study of Scripture, and the practice of actions ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... moment, Mike, with waggish good-humor, and in a most laudable fit of industry, reminded the other servants, who had been assisting to secure the bees, that as they (the bees) were now safe, no further necessity existed for ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... hitherto encountered peculiar difficulties. These difficulties arise chiefly from the customs of the people themselves. The material considerations, which have formed a contributing factor in the spread of boys' schools, are inoperative in the case of girls. The natural and laudable desire for education as an end in itself, which is evinced by the upper and middle classes as regards their sons, is no match for the conservative instincts of the Mahomedans, the system of early marriage among the Hindus, and the rigid seclusion of women which is a characteristic ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... nine," said a servant entering the room; "shall I take the carriage for Miss Kamworth, sir?" This being the first time the name of the young lady was mentioned since my arrival, I felt somewhat anxious to hear more of her, in which laudable desire I was not however to be gratified, for the colonel, feeling considerably annoyed by the interruption, dismissed the servant ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... has to show kindness to his enemies. I never spoke of any one I abhorred but he began in a most dexterous manner to defend him, and not less by his words than by his example. Many men had injured him; it grieved him, yet he forgave all, and had the magnanimity to relate some laudable trait or other belonging to each, and seemed ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... are now sailed into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt.' ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... "My friends, in creating our womankind the Maker of us all was beyond doubt actuated by laudable and cogent reasons; so that I can merely lament my inability to fathom these reasons. I shall obey the Queen faithfully, since if I did otherwise Sire Edward would have my head off within a day of his return. In consequence, I do not consider it convenient to oppose his vicar. ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... to say, in my own vindication, that I artfully eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favorable turn, by many degrees, than the strictness of truth would allow. For I have always borne that laudable partiality to my own country, which Dionysius Halicarnassensis[79] with so much justice, recommends to an historian: I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political mother, and place her virtues and beauties in the most advantageous light. This was my sincere ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... whole object and general method are well understood, and are known to be laudable and moral—such as associations for purely literary or reformatory purposes—are not to be sweepingly condemned by reason of a thin veil of secrecy covering their precise methods of procedure; yet we deem that outer veil of secrecy ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... worked Excessively'; and to work excessively is not good for anyone. Yet, on the other hand, you are precluded from using, for your 'cerebral inconveniences,' the heroic remedy exhibited by Mr Hamerton's enterprising tradesman, since on that method you would not attain to the main object of your laudable ambition, ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... to shake off that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable to the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us. By this liberty they entered into a very laudable emulation, to do all of them what they saw did please one. If any of the gallants or ladies should say, 'Let us drink,' they would all drink. If any one of them said, 'Let us play,' they all played. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... "all British prejudices will be against you. Here is a father, the fools will say, trying to protect his young son. If he has made a mistake, it is only through excess of laudable zeal; you would have to prove yourself a religious maniac in order to have any chance against ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... and Moghuls, there existed several powerful and opulent Hindu states of whose maritime relations we are entirely ignorant at present, and can only cherish the hope of future discoveries from the laudable spirit of research that pervades and does so much honour to our Indian ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... grown up as a part of that American system to which we are all committed—to which we owe all that we are and in which we must place all our hopes for the future—then neither democracy nor library will have aught to fear. Democracy will have its "true and laudable" service from the library, and the library in its turn will have adequate sympathy, aid and support ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... his cruel, triple-thonged, raw-hide whip, he urges his well-nigh staggering animal into a canter, lifting his forefeet clear of the ground seemingly by the bridle at every jump. Suspicious as to his lank and angular steed's sure-footedness under the strain, I take the very laudable precaution of keeping as far from him as possible, not caring to get mixed up in a catastrophe that seems inevitable every time the horse, goaded by the stinging stimulus of the whip and the threats, makes another jump. Not more than a mile of the six is covered ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... of Our Lord 1492, thirty-nine years after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks and eighteen years after the establishment of Caxton's printing press, one Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor, set sail from Spain with the laudable object of converting the Khan of Tartary to the Christian Faith, and on his way discovered the continent of America. The islands on which Columbus first landed and the adjacent stretch of mainland from Mexico to Patagonia ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... stranger, 'and very exemplary and laudable, and - ' It seemed to be scarcely worth his while to finish the sentence, so he played ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... his cap to every woman, high or low, he caught sight of, and complimented her in his native tongue, well adapted to such matters; and at each carrion crow or magpie down came his crossbow, and he would go a furlong off the road to circumvent it; and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable neatness, and carried it to the nearest hen-roost, and there slipped in and sat it upon a nest. "The good-wife will say, 'Alack, here is Beelzebub a hatching of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... these characteristics decline and others equally pronounced take their place. "Nominies" disappear and games of simple chase (tag games) decline in interest. Races and other competitive forms of running become more strenuous, indicating a laudable instinct to increase thereby the muscular power of the heart, at a time when its growth is much greater proportionately than that of the arteries, and the blood pressure is consequently greater. A very marked feature from now on is the closer organization ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... madam?" he observed, with some surprise; and he continued: "Indeed, my thoughts were on another trail. I was considering that the demolishers of this place—those English armies, those followers of John Knox—were actuated by the highest and most laudable of motives. As a result we find the house of Heaven converted ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Suleyman, whose gift was for interpretations, 'and in the same way other matters which your Honour blames in us as faults are in reality but laudable and pious uses. Thus, it is customary here among us to allow the servant to help himself a little to his master's plenty in so far as food and means of living are concerned. The servant, being wholly given to his master's ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... calling itself the Constitutional Society, or Society for Constitutional Information, or by some such title, is, I believe, of seven or eight years' standing. The institution of this society appears to be of a charitable, and so far of a laudable nature: it was intended for the circulation, at the expense of the members, of many books which few others would be at the expense of buying, and which might lie on the hands of the booksellers, to the great loss of an useful body of men. Whether the books ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... "under a father cold and stern, defectively educated, taught from childhood to value nothing but military glory," could not withstand the temptation of success. An ambition to be somebody and to do something is always a laudable one in boy or girl, until it supplants and overgrows the sweet, true, and manly boy and girl nature, and makes us regardless of the comfort or the welfare of others. A desire to excel the great conquerors of old, joined to an obstinacy as strong as his courage, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... institutions lived and thrived and grown? Have they lived on greed, or a desire for pelf or power, or out of human desire for adulation and praise? Or have they lived because of man's needs, and out of human wants?" If we probe to the bottom we will find this the corner-stone of all laudable ambitions, because man needs man, and needs help into a higher plane ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... have freely confessed, I believe, that I was unco solicitous of custom, though less from sinful, selfish motives, than from the, I trust, laudable fear I had about becoming in a jiffy the father of a small family, every one with a mouth to fill and a back to cleid—helpless bairns, with nothing to look to or lean on, save and except the proceeds of my daily handiwork. Nothing, however, is sure in this world, as Maister Wiggie more ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... had not seen the Court. For two year's she and her parents had roamed over the world, spending a winter in Egypt or Italy, a summer in Norway, a spring or autumn at Biarritz, or Pau, or some other resort of wealthy and idle Englishmen. These wanderings had been begun with the laudable object of weaning Margaret's heart away from Wyvis Brand, but they had been continued long after Margaret's errant fancy had been chided back to its wonted resting place. The habit of wandering easily ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... recognized now that, in spite of a good deal of provocation, Weston had acted with laudable delicacy. It was clear that his obduracy in the matter of taking her down the fall had been due to a regard for her safety. He had also saddled himself with a laborious task to prevent this fact from becoming apparent. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... cousin Lady Samuelson's residence in Ladbroke Square. This should have proved a source of regret to her host and hostess; and they were conscience- stricken, confessing to themselves—though not to one another, since each accredited the other with more laudable sentiments than his or her own—that relief rather than regret did actually possess them. A secret from one another, and that a slightly discreditable one, was so foreign to the experience of the excellent couple that it lay ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... and other evergreens from the hedgerows. His last journey had been to one of the farms on the Upper Hanyards in quest of mistletoe, which grew abundantly there in an ancient orchard. On getting back he had held a sprig over Jane's head for a certain familiar and laudable purpose, and had been rewarded with a smack that sounded like the dropping of an empty milk-pail. A little later I found him glowering in a cowhouse, and had ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... me and Mr. Brett, but first he wiped some honey from his fingers, on the side of his trousers. As he did it, it was a dignified and laudable act. There was no reason why he should have been glad to see me, a perfect stranger, but he seemed to be so honestly pleased that it warmed my heart, and made me feel already at home in the sweet, old, red-brick farmhouse, which reminded me, ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... common-sense, worldliness, selfishness, and mercenary motives, generally reach the goal. It's a fair enough exchange—so much youth and good looks for so many thousand dollars. I wish you all success, Miss Darrell, in your laudable undertaking. It is well we should understand each other, at once and forever, or even I some day might be tempted to make a fool of myself. Your excellent counsels, my dearest cousin, will be invaluable to me, should my lagging ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... man once torn in four pieces has no particular use for emeralds. He will, I repeat, be moved. In his emotion, in his gratitude, in mere decency, he will reveal to you the location of those eighteen stones, all flawless. If he should not evince a sufficiency of such appropriate and laudable feeling, I tell you candidly, it will be the worse for you. And now ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... can often detect a man's deficiencies in what he admires more clearly than in what he contemns—in the sentiments he presents as laudable rather than in those he decries. And in Young's notion of what is lofty he casts a shadow by which we can measure him without further trouble. For example, in arguing for ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... greater magnitude is wished for; something which will furnish the possessor with more than a competency; which will assist the industrious and enterprizing man, in accomplishing his laudable wishes. ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks
... the great musician [2]—the champion of a noble cause —the modern Achilles, who gained so many victories in the Florida War?" "I bear that name," said the Major, "and those titles, trusting at the same time that the ministers of grace will carry me triumphantly through all my laudable undertakings, and if," continued the Major, "you, sir, are the patronizer of noble deeds, I should like to make you my confidant and learn your address." The youth looked somewhat amazed, bowed low, mused for a moment, and began: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... purity, the fresh breath of life and youth, that is diffused over so dreadful a subject." "Everything dark and ominous is avoided. Orestes enjoys the fulness of health and strength. He is beset neither with doubts nor stings of conscience." Especially laudable is the "austerity" with which Aegisthus is driven into the house to receive, according to Schlegel, a ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... out of the question because of Gerard's inferiority in rank to his mistress, it is decided by the intervention of friends that Gerard shall take his leave of the Brabantine "family." There is a parting of the most laudable kind, in which Katherine bestows on her lover a ring, and a pledge that she will never marry any one else, and he responds suitably. Then he sets out, and on arriving at Bar has no difficulty in establishing himself in another great ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... lists. The torpedoes had been tried in the Revolutionary War, but their failure prevented much notice from being taken of them, and, besides, at that time there was a strong feeling that it was dishonorable to blow a ship up with a powder-can concealed under the water, though highly laudable to burn her by means of a fire-raft floating on the water—a nice distinction in naval ethics that has since disappeared. [Footnote: James fairly foams at the mouth at the mere ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... sir," he said with a laudable endeavor to recover his professional bearing. "It's your—American way of expressing it which makes me ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was quickly surrounded by boats bringing off vegetables, fruit, and fish, some of them containing those persevering personages ever present in foreign ports, washerwomen and washermen, their laudable object being to solicit the honour of cleansing the dirty linen ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... labyrinth, lacerate, lackadaisical, lacrimal, laity, lambent, lampoon, largess, lascivious, laudable, laudation, lavation, legionary, lethargic, licentious, lineal, lingual, literati, litigious, loquacity, lubricity, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... though he exhorts them to continue in the faith of the church of Rome, yet he does not express any sorrow for his crime; nor does he caution them against being engaged in similar conspiracies. It is, therefore, clear, that he viewed the deed as laudable and meritorious, even at the close of ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury
... practice Angling, I hope to make it appear to you, that there is so much contrary reason (if you have but the patience to hear it) as may remove all the anticipations that Time or Discourse may have possess'd you with, against that Ancient and laudable Art. ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... Yes, he had, but I know not, you have bewitch'd him Amongst ye. [weeping. Before he fell to Toryism, he was a sober, civil Youth, and had some Religion in him, wou'd read ye Prayers Night and Morning with a laudable Voice, and cry Amen to 'em; 'twou'd have done one's Heart good to have heard him—wore decent Clothes, was drunk but on Sundays and Holidays; and then I had Hopes ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... perhaps, all ordinary books are ugly and distasteful. Probably they are so to the average schoolboy. Hence the laudable endeavour among publishers of school-books to make them attractive. The desire that books should be made attractive is of great antiquity. How far back in the world's history we should have to go to get in front of ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... historical handbooks has evidently been created by the spread of general education, which stimulates the laudable desire to learn something about subjects of which it is hardly respectable, in these days, to be ignorant. Such knowledge is very useful to those who have no leisure for more; and it is far superior to mere desultory reading, to the habit of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... any spirit of revenge in the magistrates or officers of justice when they punish criminals? Why do such, ordinarily I mean, concern themselves in inflicting punishments, but because it is their duty? and why may not a private man deliver an offender into the hands of justice, from the same laudable motive? Revenge, indeed, of all kinds is strictly prohibited; wherefore, as we are not to execute it with our own hands, so neither are we to make use of the law as the instrument of private malice, and to worry each other with inveteracy and rancour. And where is the great difficulty ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... for robbing,—but the saving of your daughter from the whirlpool of crime. The aim was a laudable one, Kandur: besides you were particular ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... and come. My part of the charity is certainly not small; to be pulled and pushed and dragged hither and thither, and generally "knocked about," as the miserable Belvidera, for three mortal hours, is a sacrifice of self which my conscience bears me witness is laudable. I would much rather pay with my purse than my person in this case. Unfortunately, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... let my readers judge; but the few words of comment that follow, from well-known individuals, bear strong testimony to an effect that must have been duplicated in a great many other instances: and, indeed, if its influence had gone no farther than to a few persons, that alone would justify the laudable attempt of this "venture in philanthropy." My conviction is that it reached farther than to single individuals, and that it still reaches into and influences more or less all ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... in works that treat de re culinaria, that we have no rationale of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors: as to show why cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant-jelly, the shoulder civilly declineth it; why loin of veal, (a pretty problem,) being itself unctuous, seeketh the adventitious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... That laudable curiosity concerning the remains of classical antiquity, which has of late years increased among our countrymen, is in no traveller or author more conspicuous than in Mr. Gell. Whatever difference of opinion may yet exist with regard to the success of the several disputants ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... for I have a letter from Mrs. Curtis, from which it is evident the will not, and so I suppose that laudable conspiracy falls to the ground. However, we shall sort o' look for you all the week. But you won't come. I know it to my fingers' ends. Cradled in luxury, wrapped in comfort, enervated by city indulgences, sophisticated by fashionable society—well, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... to our comfortable hut. Whatever merit there may be in going to the Antarctic, once there you must not credit yourself for being there. To spend a year in the hut at Cape Evans because you explore is no more laudable than to spend a month at Davos because you have consumption, or to spend an English winter at the Berkeley Hotel. It is just the most comfortable thing and the easiest thing to do ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... instances, wholly without foundation. This is the unanimous opinion of the most disinterested and observant leaders of opinion whom I have consulted on the subject, and I do not fear to say that the laudable efforts she is making are greatly handicapped by statements of this kind, nor to urge her as a friend and well-wisher to banish from her vocabulary all such allusions as a source of weakness to the cause ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett |
