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Heedlessness   Listen
Heedlessness

noun
1.
A lack of attentiveness (as to children or helpless people).  Synonym: inattentiveness.
2.
The trait of acting rashly and without prudence.  Synonyms: mindlessness, rashness.
3.
The trait of forgetting or ignoring your responsibilities.  Synonyms: inadvertence, inadvertency, unmindfulness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Heedlessness" Quotes from Famous Books



... not be legal. No law could be drawn which would recognize a marriage of that character, and she knew that she had only to tell her father to have the machinery of the law set in motion. Could she tell him? Could she bear his reproaches, his pity, after her heedlessness? ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... bleating, racing wildly up and down the forest, asking, by terrified looks and actions, "Have you seen my little dappled fawn? He is gone and there is strong bear-scent about the tree-top where I hid him." For several days she haunted the region and her anxiety and heedlessness of her own safety nearly caused her to fall a victim to the wary hunter, ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... me see him, and help you in nursing him? It was for this purpose alone that I stayed here when all the others went. Let me at least be near him, that I may feel myself to be making such poor reparation as my heedlessness requires." ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... sentence was pronounced most disdainfully. The chorister, with head unbroken, and temper unruffled, arose and begged they might all be forgiven their heedlessness; it would be so great a disappointment to have the meeting broken up so prematurely, it would give them great pleasure if Uncle Mat would be so kind as to dispense with singing and proceed to prayers and exhortations. One or two other prominent members followed in much the same strain, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... hold of the ship with a shining silver thong, that not the faintest breath might escape. Then he sent forth the blast of the West Wind to blow for me, to bear our ships and ourselves upon our way; but this he was never to bring to pass, for we were undone through our own heedlessness. ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... they produce, and with that they are not often gratified. They thrust themselves into all conversations, indulge in continual anecdotes, which are varied only by dull disquisitions, listen to others with impatience and heedlessness, and are angry that they seem to be attending to themselves. Such men go through scenes of pleasure, enjoying nothing. They are equally disagreeable to themselves and others. Young men should, therefore, content themselves with being natural. Let them present themselves ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman

... any mystery—we were only——" She stopped, for she felt that Helena's eyes were fixed on her, and Freda was not by nature an untruthful child. It was through her heedlessness and wildness that she often got into what she would have called "scrapes," from which there seemed often no escape but by telling falsehoods, or at least allowing what was not the case to ...
— The Christmas Fairy - and Other Stories • John Strange Winter

... pensions a kind of sacredness which invites the adoption of such principles and regulations as will exclude perversion as well as insure a liberal and generous application of grateful and benevolent designs. Heedlessness and a disregard of the principle which underlies the granting of pensions is unfair to the wounded, crippled soldier who is honored in the just recognition of his Government. Such a man should never find himself side by side on the pension roll with those who have been tempted to attribute ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... could not understand the value or the beauty of the mellow browns and dark colours of the portraits, and they only acted with the intention of giving their parents a pleasant surprise. But they forgot that it is possible to do much harm through heedlessness and ignorant haste ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... rest is paradise. The trouble or peace of parents depends upon their children. If their children are virtuous, parents are as the saints: if their children are wicked, parents suffer the tortures of the damned. If once your youthful spirits, in a fit of heedlessness, have led you to bring trouble upon your parents and cause them to weep, just consider the line of argument which I have been following. From this time forth repent and examine your own hearts. If you will become dutiful, your parents from this day will live happy as ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... grown wise to the folly—yes, rank heedlessness— on board the other launch. If any one had the guardianship of that child she was certainly not ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... know!" answered the others in as fearful a key, and related how they had found the door of their room ajar, and a bright light streaming into the corridor. They did not stop to ponder this fact, but, with the heedlessness of their sex, pushed the door wide open, when they saw seated before the mirror a bewildering figure, with disheveled locks wandering down the back, and in dishabille expressive of being quite at home there, which turned upon them a pair of pale blue eyes, under a forehead remarkable for the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... of the importance of what we have done; we ought to find a common ground on which to meet distasteful people; we ought to labour hard against self-pity as well as against self-applause; we ought to feel that if we have missed chances, it is out of our own heedlessness and stupidity. Self-applause is a more subtle thing even than self-pity, because, if one rejects the sense of credit, one is apt to congratulate oneself on being the kind of person who does reject it, ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... red, red hair that in some fashion seemed to proclaim red blood and recklessness. A young man he was with mighty hands and iron body, with life leaping high in his laughing eyes, a man who might have been some pagan god of youth and joy and heedlessness. ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... said Mary, with perfectly acted heedlessness. "He was my Lady Shrewsbury's page in his boyhood. I should have no objection to ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... took no oil with them. They merely neglected to do so, not having the wit to look ahead and provide against the contingency of a long time of waiting for the bridegroom. Their negligence was the result, not of deliberate wish to let their lights go out, but of their heedlessness; and because of that negligence they earned the name of 'foolish.' If we do not look forward, and prepare for possible drains on our powers, we shall deserve the same adjective. If we do not lay in stores for future use, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... then, ye were not destined to leave me in your heedlessness and to wander far; but fate has turned you back. Poor wretch that I am! What a yearning for Hellas from some woeful madness seized you at the behest of your father Phrixus. Bitter sorrows for my heart did he ordain when dying. And why should ye go ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... take after their papa, more than any of the others, and are much alike. There is the same brilliant cleverness, the same strong feeling, not easy of demonstration, though impetuous in action; but poor Ethel's old foibles, her harum- scarum nature, quick temper, uncouth manners, and heedlessness of all but one absorbing object, have kept her back, and caused her much discomfort; yet I sometimes think these manifest defects have occasioned a discipline that is the best thing for the character in the end. They are faults that show themselves, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... quite close to where I sat. The Cabinet was merely a frame to which were attached black muslin or cloth curtains, and a Spirit can emerge at the side quite as conveniently as in front. Unfortunately this time, through some heedlessness, the Spirit did not creep out of the frame-work with sufficient care, and some portion of her garments must have caught when she was only on her knees. I never shall forget the half-comic, half-appealing, feminine glance as her eyes looked up into mine, when she ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... dived over the bank—and their haste and heedlessness carried them pell-mell to the bottom—there sounded a yell behind them that certainly was not emitted by the bull. Goodness knows, he roared loudly enough! But this was no voice of a bull that so startled the two girls and Tom ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson

... other days, be it forgetfulness, heedlessness or ignorance perhaps—(blessed he who is ignorant! a fool he who is wise!)—in other days in relating the story which I am going to tell you to-day I would, without pausing at the place where the first ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... army shows so little swearing. Take the "Progressive Friends" and put them in red trousers, and I verily believe they would fill a guard-house sooner than these men. If camp-regulations are violated, it seems to be usually through heedlessness. They love passionately three things, besides their spiritual incantations,—namely, sugar, home, and tobacco. This last affection brings tears to their eyes, almost, when they speak of their urgent need of pay: they speak of their last-remembered quid as if it were some deceased ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... was not easy. Simon had many hard lessons to learn. Self-confidence had to be changed into humility. Impetuosity had to be chastened and disciplined into quiet self-control. Presumption had to be awed and softened into reverence. Thoughtfulness had to grow out of heedlessness. Rashness had to be subdued into prudence, and weakness had to be tempered into calm strength. All this moral history was folded up in the words, "Thou shalt ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... The might, the awe of Thee; Did, in my heedlessness, or in my love, On journey, or in jest, Or when we lay at rest, Sitting at council, straying in ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... to Bougival, talking over our projects for the future, which, thanks to our heedlessness, and especially to our love, we saw in ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils

... indeed was, that this continual, violent, helter-skelter slapping of the dough into the moulds, begat a corresponding disposition in the moulder, who, by heedlessly slapping that sad dough, as stuff of little worth, was thereby taught, in his meditations, to slap, with similar heedlessness, his own sadder fortunes, as of still less vital consideration. To these muddy philosophers, men and bricks were equally of clay. "What signifies who we be—dukes or ditchers?" thought the moulders; "all is vanity ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... was no ketching off Santa Fe when it come to slinging good manners, his being that gentlemanly he could a-give points to a New York bar-keep—and says back: "Sir, I beg yours! Heedlessness is my besetting sin. The fault is mine!" And then he said, keeping on talking the toney way he knowed how to: "I trust, sir, that you are not incommoded by the heat. Even for New Mexico in August, this is a ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier

... Quirl ejaculated. "Are you Burroughs, the traitor?" Immediately he regretted his heedlessness. Strom's face darkened in anger, and for a moment the pirate captain did not reply. When he did he was ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl

... Pepperill fell into the ranks, only to get repeatedly and severely reprimanded by the drill-officer for his heedlessness that morning. He did everything awkwardly, if not altogether wrong. His mind was on the child and the errand on which he had sent her, and he kept wondering within himself whether she would do it correctly (children are so apt to do errands amiss!), and ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... father or mother, some inward drawing toward the good thing, some desire to keep an open door of escape, prevent, what a hideous folly is the moral disregard! "The thing is true, but I don't mind it!" What is this acknowledged heedlessness, this apologetic arrogance? Is it a timid mockery, or the putting forth of a finger in the very face of the Life of the world? I know well how foolish words like these must seem to such as Faber, but for such they are not written; they are written for the men ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... diplomatic agents in Spain, dated 1505 and 1507, these fifth and sixth voyages of Vespucci would have been overlooked entirely. The omission illustrates his carelessness in respect to the chronicling of his deeds, his heedlessness as to fame and glory. As one of his eulogists truly says: "In none of his writings does Vespucci claim for himself advancement, honor, or emolument, nor does he seek to delude his patrons with visions of untold wealth. His ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... were, these things: his constant uneasiness on seeing himself watched by her; his invitation when he thought she was going to question him; his access of passion when, through heedlessness or forgetfulness, or simply by chance, she asked him a question on certain subjects, and immediately the tenderness that followed, so sudden that they appeared rather planned in view of a determined ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... with General Vincente and his companion, a white-faced, fluttering man of sixty years, Julia Barenna received them with a smile. There are some men who, conscious of their own quickness of resource, are careless of danger, and run into it from mere heedlessness, trusting to good fortune to aid them should peril arise. Frederick Conyngham was one of these. He now suspected that this was no love letter which the man called Larralde had given him ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... the lawn, and thus spoke one of the boys to another in some pause of the game, "Yonder, see! the Ard-Druid of the Province. Wherefore comes he forth from his druidic chambers to-day at this hour, such not being his wont?" And the other answered lightly, laughing, and with boyish heedlessness, "I know not wherefore; but well he knows himself." And therewith ran to meet the ball which passed that way. There was yet a third who watched the boys. He stood afar off on the edge of the plain. He had a little shield ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... order, he had little to say in his narrative concerning the personnel of his command. In addition to the estimate of the command printed on a preceding page, he wrote, "The Battalion have never been drilled and though obedient, have little discipline; they exhibit great heedlessness and ignorance and some obstinacy." The ignorance undoubtedly was of military matters, for the men had rather better than the usual schooling of the rough period. At several points his diary gave such details as, "The men arrived completely worn ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... now Mr Quilp's cue to change the subject with all convenient expedition, lest Richard Swiveller in his heedlessness should reveal anything which it was inexpedient for the women to know, he proposed a game at four-handed cribbage, and partners being cut for, Mrs Quilp fell to Frederick Trent, and Dick himself to Quilp. Mrs Jiniwin being very fond of cards was carefully excluded by ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... pleading tones which seemed to flow with generous heedlessness above all the facts which had filled Rosamond's mind as grounds of obstruction and hatred between her and this woman, came as soothingly as a warm stream over her shrinking fears. Of course Mrs. Casaubon had the facts ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... my pertinacious folly; I hardly know what feelings resis[t]lessly impelled me. I believe it was that coming out with a determination not to be repulsed I went right forward to my object without well weighing his replies: I was led by passion and drew him with frantic heedlessness into the abyss that he so fearfully avoided—I replied to his terrific words: "You fill me with affright it is true, dearest father, but you only confirm my resolution to put an end to this state of doubt. I will not be put ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... and peacefully jogged on in the same life as if nothing untoward had happened. Still, the mask of jovial heedlessness glued by pride on his face would sometimes be suddenly detached. Then, in lieu of laughter, one saw grief and indignation. Thus it was that one morning, when the little blackguards yelped "Muster Jarvey's Roifle" ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... Tsang said to him, 'When a bird is about to die, its notes are mournful; when a man is about to die, his words are good. 3. 'There are three principles of conduct which the man of high rank should consider specially important:— that in his deportment and manner he keep from violence and heedlessness; that in regulating his countenance he keep near to sincerity; and that in his words and tones he keep far from lowness and impropriety. As to such matters as attending to the sacrificial vessels, there are the proper officers ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge

... and be not heedless! Do not direct thy thought to what gives pleasure that thou mayest not for thy heedlessness have to swallow the iron ball (in hell), and that thou mayest not cry out ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown

... Sir Patrick courteously, 'I trust you will let the young demoiselle have her hawk. It was loosed in ignorance and heedlessness, no doubt, but I trow it is the rule in England, as elsewhere, that ladies of the blood royal are not ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... labourer do with ease a task that would kill his fellow? It was not luck nor chance that decided those differences; it was the patient observation of nature that suggested to some gifted minds rules for their guidance which had escaped the heedlessness ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... at a most opportune time: Hannibal had no longer any provender; Spain was in turmoil; the affection of the allies was being alienated from him: and if they had waited for even the briefest possible period, they would have conquered without trouble. As matters went, however, the heedlessness of Terentius and the submissiveness of Paulus, who always desired the proper course but assented to his colleague in most points—so sure is gentleness to be overcome by audacity,—compassed their defeat. (Mai, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... to those of all the pupils of Taddeo and even to those of the master himself. But the event proved otherwise, for as in youth will conquers every difficulty in the effort after fame, so it often happens that the years bring with them a certain heedlessness which causes men to go backwards instead of forwards, as was the case with Agnolo. Owing to the high repute of his ability, the family of the Soderini, expecting a great deal, allotted to him the principal chapel of the Carmine, where ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... were unclosed after the midnight mass. Some heedlessness in the custodians, too eager to go home and feast or sleep, or too drowsy to know whether they turned the keys aright, had left one of the doors unlocked. By that accident the foot-falls Patrasche sought had passed through into the building, leaving the white marks of snow upon the ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)

... it showed the weakness, indecision, flabbiness, and heedlessness common to all governments, and from which none has ever departed without falling into arbitrariness and violence. In three words it knew nothing, wanted nothing, and would do nothing. Formose, shut in his presidential palace, remained blind, dumb, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... bad! Too bad! Chug-a-rum! It is too bad that such a fine young fellow as Little Joe should spoil a good disposition by such selfish heedlessness. Too ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess

... said Lady de la Poer, seeing her disconsolately surveying it; "perhaps it will not be bad for you to feel a few consequences from your heedlessness." ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge

... persuade one that time has strayed back to its happy childhood again, and that nothing remains of the old activities but play in these immortal fields. Here the carpet is spread over which one runs with childish heedlessness, courting the disaster which brings him back to the breast of the old mother, and makes him feel once more the warmth and sweetness out of which all strength and beauty spring. A little brook crosses the road under a rattling bridge, and wanders on across the fields, limpid and ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... generous; in a word, what is of rare occurrence, you have not been more hurt by poverty than you would have been by prosperity. If the amount of your good qualities has not brought you much more than the heedlessness of youth, this house would not have been open to you, be certain of that, sir. If the proposition that I shall make you to-night is not agreeable to you, I am sure, at least, that you will not carry ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... the sober second thought. The scales of heedlessness have fallen from our eyes. We have made up our minds to square every process of our national life again with the standards we so proudly set up at the beginning and have always carried at our hearts. Our work ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... vessels, and, it is likely, many more from the ports of Europe, which sail daily with partial cargoes, even of the most dangerous species, and without any precaution whatever. The wonder is that no more accidents occur than do actually happen. A lamentable instance of this heedlessness occurred to my knowledge in the case of Captain Joel Rice of the schooner Firefly, which sailed from Richmond, Virginia, to Madeira, with a cargo of corn, in the year 1825. The captain had gone many voyages ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... thing before in peace ironworks, but I saw it again with the same astonishment, the absolute precision of movement on the part of the half-naked sweating men, the calculated efficiency of each worker, the apparent heedlessness, the real certitude, with which the blazing hot cylinder is put here, dropped there, rolls to its next appointed spot, is chopped up and handed on, the swift passage to the cooling crude, pinkish-purple shell shape. Down a long line one sees in perspective ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... I really suffered in many ways for my improvidence and heedlessness, in going to sea so ill provided with every thing calculated to make my situation at all comfortable, or even tolerable. In time, my wretched "long togs" began to drop off my back, and I looked like a Sam Patch, shambling round the deck in my rags ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... heedlessness have they been slain that had escaped from even Karna, that warrior who had barbed arrows and Nalikas for his teeth, the sword for his tongue, the bow for his gaping mouth, and the twang of the bowstring and the sound of palms for his roars—that angry Karna who never retreated ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... it was that she had spoilt the fresh beginning of being so nice and good at her new lessons by being cross to Alie! And in her heart Biddy knew that her sister had not blamed her without reason—it was her old fault of heedlessness; she was quite old enough to understand that she should not have asked Celestina to invite her, and she knew too that Celestina had been right in answering as she did. But all these 'knowings in her heart' did not make ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth

... 9. "All the sincerity, truth, and faithfulness, or disposition of heart or conscience to approve it, found among rational creatures, necessarily originate from God."—Brown's Divinity, p. 12. "Your levity and heedlessness, if it continue, will prevent all substantial improvement."—Brown's Inst., p. 147. "Poverty and obscurity will oppress him only who esteems it oppressive."—Ib. "Good sense and refined policy are obvious to few, because it cannot be ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... at that moment. He had left the box (whether from haste or heedlessness or malice, we could not tell), but the letter was on him. Taken alive, he would use that powerful weapon to save his life or satisfy his anger; if it were found on his body, its evidence would speak loud and clear ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... it well—but dost not see my Ruth, laboring at the ill-fitted shutter of the chamber? The woman will be slain, in her heedlessness—for, hark! there beginneth the volley of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... Inattention. — N. inattention, inconsideration; inconsiderateness &c. adj.; oversight; inadvertence, inadvertency, nonobservance, disregard. supineness &c. (inactivity) 683; etourderie[French], want of thought; heedlessness &c. (neglect) 460; insouciance &c. (indifference) 866. abstraction; absence of mind, absorption of mind; preoccupation, distraction, reverie, brown study, deep musing, fit of abstraction. V. be inattentive ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... punishing Felons, as well as some good ones; for in a Complication of Disorders, such as Ireland labours under, what helps the one is pernicious to the other. It is our peculiar Misery, that the Desertion of some of our People does not hurt us more, than the Sleepiness, the Inactivity and Heedlessness of those that stay behind. Many of our common Irish know as little of the Benefits of useful Labour, as the Savages in the West Indies; and are more inclined to live by Theft and Rapine, than by using their Hands and toiling their Bodies. Nay, Crowds of our Gentlemen are as indolent ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous

... blow he unconsciously dealt me. I met him in Piazza San Fedele, where I lived; and after a few words, he said, "By the by, I hear you have published a novel. Well done!" and then talked away about something quite different with the utmost heedlessness. Not a drop of blood was left in my veins, and I said to myself, "Mercy on me! I am done for: not even a word is said about my poor 'Fieramosca!'" It seemed incredible that he, who belonged to a very numerous ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... of the way we went, and then we found What 'twas to tread upon forbidden ground; And let them that come after have a care, Lest heedlessness makes them, as we, to fare; Lest they for trespassing his prisoners are, Whose Castle's Doubting, and whose ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... and upon you both!" cried Herne. "But you shall pay dearly for your heedlessness,—if, indeed, it has not been something worse. How ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... prelate and his brother were taken up and fixed against the adjoining wall. The turf now covers the space thus thrown into the open churchyard; nothing remains to mark the position of the graves, which in all probability, ere many years elapse, will be disturbed through ignorance or heedlessness, and the ashes of Leighton scattered ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various

... disappointed," said Hervey with a kind of heedlessness that nettled his scoutmaster. "And if anybody should ask you about it, any of the troop, you can just say that I found out something and that I'm not so stuck on the Eagle award, after all. That's ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... taken our own and our friend's bereavements at their peace value. It became necessary to give them a false value; to proclaim the young life worthily and gloriously sacrificed to redeem the liberty of mankind, instead of to expiate the heedlessness and folly of their fathers, and expiate it in vain. We had even to assume that the parents and not the children had made the sacrifice, until at last the comic papers were driven to satirize fat old men, sitting comfortably in club chairs, and boasting of ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... for not marrying Friederike. His real blame consists in the heedlessness with which, in the beginning of their acquaintance, he surrendered himself to the charm of her presence, thereby engaging her affection without a thought of the consequences to either. Besides the disillusion, which showed him, when he came fairly to face the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... to see how unworthily thou him? But, woe is me, I now comprehend what has made thee give so little heed to what thou owest to thyself; it must have been some freedom of mine, for I will not call it immodesty, as it did not proceed from any deliberate intention, but from some heedlessness such as women are guilty of through inadvertence when they think they have no occasion for reserve. But tell me, traitor, when did I by word or sign give a reply to thy prayers that could awaken in thee a shadow of hope of attaining thy base ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... a fit of phrensical heedlessness, I sent a letter to my beloved Miss Howe, without recollecting her private address; and it has fallen into her angry mother's hands: and so that dear friend perhaps has anew incurred displeasure on my account. And here too your worthy son is ill; and my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... conclusions with an absurd heedlessness. Now some people would think it odd that because you, with the budding tastes and the innocent enthusiasms natural to your time of life, enjoyed the Vampires and the volume of nursery jokes, you should imagine that an older person would delight in them too—but I do not ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... with a lighted lamp the gallery he had been warned against. Nobody survived to explain the explosion of the dynamite-cartridge factory in Pennsylvania, but as that type of disaster almost always is due to heedlessness, it is probable that this instance is not an exception ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... hairs from their she-ass's tail. In vain I sought to disarm their simple malice and exhort them to submission. 'My children,' I would warn them, 'the days of easy gaiety and light laughter are gone by.' But they were reckless, and would not hearken; and a sore price they paid for their heedlessness. ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... Satanic capacity for mocking and jeering. He describes Mr. Gladstone most felicitously as "inspired by a mixture of genius and vexation." He speaks of his majority as a "mechanical majority, a majority the result of heedlessness of thought on the part of members who were so full of other questions that they gave pledges in favor of the ballot without ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... woman was full of nervous apprehension for the future and grief for the past. But they loved each other deeply. Esther threw herself in the way to protect her mother, whether at a dangerous crossing or from the heedlessness of the crowd at a corner, and often a passer-by turned his head and looked after them, attracted by the solicitude which the younger woman showed for the elder. In those walks very little was said. They walked in silence, ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... and elasticity are irreparable, and that, after all, are greater than are ordinarily committed by older and more experienced nations. They are not of the most fatal character, and are, for the most part, such as are incident to the conceit, the heedlessness, the ardor, and the impatience of youth, and need excite no serious alarm for ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... calmly and quietly, explaining that the survivor was entirely unhurt, and the poor little victim could not have suffered; adding with all her heart, 'The whole thing was full of mercy, and I do not think you need blame yourself for heedlessness, for it was an accident that the place ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... this golden fever, which attacked the gentlemen more fiercely than it did the common people, the story of Jamestown would not have been one of disaster brought about by willful heedlessness and stupidity. ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis

... inconsiderately blame children, simply because their minds are yet so imperfectly developed that they can not take simultaneous cognizance of more than one or two of them. This is the true philosophy of most of what is called heedlessness in children, and for which, poor things, they receive so many harsh reprimands and so ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... bad enough, but after men had learned to use bows and arrows, spears, knives, and hooks, it was still worse. They became more and more cruel. They delighted to slaughter even creatures for which they had no use. Out of heedlessness, they trod upon the worms and the frogs, and killed them without caring for the pain and suffering which they caused. At last the animals made up their minds to try to find out some means to check the slaughter of ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix

... Presley wondered at the heedlessness of leaving the sheep so slightly guarded, but made no comment, and the two started off across the field in the direction of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... was for such an one A different work among those given, Who've crossed the border of eternity In youthful heedlessness,—as unshriven Naked souls joined the great fraternity O' the dead, while yet their life was ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer

... countries regard it as a sin to destroy the birds. On our riding among them they rose in the air, entirely obscuring he sky and the sun from our view. One of our party attempted to fire among them with his revolver, but, by some heedlessness or accident, the bunch of barrels, being not well screwed down flew off the stock and was lost for a time; it took more than half an hour's search by all of us to find it again, and the Arabs considered this a just punishment for wishing ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... very various changes,—the resistance of Hougomont; the tenacity of La Haie-Sainte; the killing of Bauduin; the disabling of Foy; the unexpected wall against which Soye's brigade was shattered; Guilleminot's fatal heedlessness when he had neither petard nor powder sacks; the miring of the batteries; the fifteen unescorted pieces overwhelmed in a hollow way by Uxbridge; the small effect of the bombs falling in the English lines, and there embedding themselves ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... rule of his. Instruct thy son [thus]; for the obedient man is one that is perfect in the opinion of princes. If he direct his mouth by what hath been enjoined him, watchful and obedient, thy son shall be wise, and his goings seemly. Heedlessness leadeth unto disobedience on the morrow; but understanding shall stablish him. As for the fool, ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn

... a thoughtful young man, mention is made of a "disregard of health," as a common fault in young women. Another mentions but one fault,—"the lack of glad earnestness." Another specifies, "thoughtlessness, heedlessness, a disregard of the feelings of others," Another thinks some young women "so weak and dependent that they incur the risk of becoming a living embodiment of the wicked proverb, 'So good that they are good for nothing.'" On the other hand, however, one writer deplores just ...
— Girls: Faults and Ideals - A Familiar Talk, With Quotations From Letters • J.R. Miller

... said, addressing himself to the Manager. 'Indeed, indeed, this is my fault solely. In a kind of heedlessness, for which I cannot blame myself enough, I have, I have no doubt, mentioned Mr Carker the Junior much oftener than was necessary; and have allowed his name sometimes to slip through my lips, when it was against your expressed wish. But it has been my own mistake, Sir. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... be entertained by him, has in it something so disagreeable, that the utmost Steps which may be made in further Enmity cannot give greater Torment. The gay Corinna, who sets up for an Indifference and becoming Heedlessness, gives her Husband all the Torment imaginable out of meer Insolence, with this peculiar Vanity, that she is to look as gay as a Maid in the Character of a Wife. It is no Matter what is the Reason of a Man's Grief, if it be heavy as ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... short-sighted, and her eyes were rather round; but she had fine long black hair, which hung down in natural curls below her waist; her figure was agreeable, and she was at once both awkward and graceful in her motions; her wit was natural and pleasing; to this gayety, heedlessness and ingenuousness were perfectly suited: she abounded in charming sallies, after which she so little sought, that they sometimes escaped her lips in spite of herself. She possessed several agreeable talents, played the harpsichord, danced well, and ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... ideal," she repeated to herself. Stefan was looking out of the window, again absorbed in the view. She would have liked so well to share with him her tenderness over the little room, but he was all unmindful of its meaning to her, and, as always, his heedlessness made expression hard for her. She was still communing with the future when he turned ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... weight to bear on the rebellious sail, and in his frenzied heedlessness let go his ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... resolves. 'I will put my trust in Thee.' Nature says, 'Be afraid!' and the recoil from that natural fear, which comes from a discernment of threatening evil, is only possible by a strong effort of the will. Foolish confidence opposes to natural fear a groundless resolve not to be afraid, as if heedlessness were security, or facts could be altered by resolving not to think about them. True faith, by a mighty effort of the will, fixes its gaze on the divine Helper, and there finds it possible and wise to lose its fears. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... see now, clear before mine eyes, the cause of my former heedlessness and blindness concerning spiritual things! Filled with earthly aims, and lost in them with all my scheming and striving; put in motion and impelled only by the idea of a result, which is to be actualized ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... importance of the ancient monuments of this country, we believe that it is inclined to move in the right direction, and to do its utmost to preserve those that have hitherto escaped the attacks of the iconoclasts, and the heedlessness and stupidity of the Gallios "who care for none ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... but effective way, and he did not leave them until they were all as well and quiet as the dread circumstances of the situation permitted. Opium slaves are subject to accidents like that which had overtaken Mr. Jocelyn, who, through heedlessness or while half unconscious, had taken a heavy overdose, or else had punctured a vein with his syringe. Not infrequently habitues carelessly, recklessly, and sometimes deliberately end their wretched lives in this manner. Dr. Benton knew well that his patient was in no condition to enter ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... me from sleeping. They propose that I should try the mineral waters of Viterbo; but I cannot go before the beginning of May. For the rest, as concerns my bodily condition, I am much the same as I was at thirty. This mischief has crept upon me through the great hardships of my life and heedlessness." A few days later he writes that a certain water he is taking, whether mineral or medicine, has been making a beneficial change. The following letters are very cheerful, and at length he is able to write: "With regard to my disease, I am greatly improved in health, and have hope, much ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... strange that in the very first flush of her married life this conversation with Elsie should come up. She knew it was only the girl's heedlessness and pretty egotism that made her talk in this really cruel fashion, she was sure of that; still her nature was too proud and self-reliant, for the idea that Mellen had been first attracted towards her from sympathy at her lonely condition, to be at ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... right or wrong, for the documents are too few and the account of Tacitus, clouded by an undiscerning antipathy, sheds no light upon this dark secret. In any case, we are sure that Germanicus did not always respect the laws and that he occasionally acted with a supreme heedlessness which now and then forced Tiberius to intervene personally, as he did on the occasion when Germanicus left his province with Agrippina in order that, dressed like a Greek philosopher, he might make ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero

... said Mr. Pickwick. "But old men may come here through their own heedlessness and unsuspicion. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... armed herself with a cudgel), and unable to contain herself, ran up to the sesame and began turning it over and eating of it; whereupon the woman smote her with that club and cleft her head: so the cause of her destruction were her greed and heedlessness of consequences. Then said the Sultan, "O Shahrazad, by Allah! this be a goodly parable! Say me, hast thou any story bearing on the beauty of true friendship and the observance of its duty in time of distress and rescuing from destruction?" Answered she:—Yes, it hath ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton



Words linked to "Heedlessness" :   attentiveness, mindfulness, inattention, lightheadedness, imprudence, heedfulness, heedless



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