"Inanity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enough against nature; and one seldom kicks at her without getting sore toes. True enough, there do appear cases where it seems to work pretty well; but when they are inquired into, it is generally found either that the husband is a simpleton, submitting by mere inanity, or a man who has resisted to the uttermost, and is at last crumpled up by pure "Caudlish" iteration and perseverance. How Tammas took ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... the better. They are more serviceable than a conscience, in which I presume you're likewise lacking, because you don't have to use them. A conscience is an immediate annoyance, whereas ideals are charming procrastinations. They excuse the inanity of the present. Good Lord, what do you think about all day without ideals ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... the story once more, saw the bleeding man lying in the heather, and the horror of his tragic end made her shudder. Her glance fell on the picture again and again, the usual picture of a soldier which told nothing whatever in its stereotyped inanity, and then on little Jean-Pierre's cradle. Did he resemble his ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... fancy that you are letting them come out to fascinate him; do not condemn yourself to live only by halves, because if you showed too much animation some pragmatical thing in breeches might take it into his pate to imagine that you designed to dedicate your life to his inanity. Still, a composed, decent, equable deportment is a capital treasure to a woman, and that you possess. Write again soon, for I feel rather fierce, and ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... index of her attention, wander easily from one external object to another, and consequently our work must be very gradual, for, if we attempt to hold the attention one moment longer than the mind has strength for, the tense bow snaps, and the overstrained activity lapses into inanity. We must ask her attention for very short intervals at first, and during many years; for every time that we attempt to convey information for so long that the attention gives way, we have weakened, and ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... at the worst moments Bunter really desired to drown Captain Johns. I fancy that all his disordered imagination longed for was merely to stop the ghostly inanity of ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... that Sir Joshua's theory seems to rest on an inclined plane, and is always glad of an excuse to slide, from the severity of truth and nature, into the milder and more equable regions of insipidity and inanity; I am sorry to say so, but so it ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... except that some one saw him going to a packet which he believed was going to Rotterdam. . . . When shall you and I go to an Opera again, or hear one of Beethoven's Symphonies together? You are lost to England, I calculate: and I am given over to turnips and inanity. So runs the world away. Well, if I never see you again, I am very very glad I have seen you: and got the idea of a noble fellow all ways into my head. Does this seem like humbug to you? But it is ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... intercourse of soul between us; for they would shoot their ideas in through my eyes—smile, or look grave—and nod, assent, or shake the head, as various thoughts passed through my mind. After the first visits, I ceased to use articulated language; it was a joyless communion, a languid inanity, and I felt as if my own soul was no longer a dweller in its earthly tabernacle, but held a mysterious middle state between life and death. In vain I endeavoured to exert my energies. I left my bed, and began to move about; still this new torment clung to me. I possessed a strange power. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... contact hourly With heroes simple-souled, He looks no longer sourly On men of normal mould, But, purged of mental vanity And erudite inanity, The clay of his humanity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... throwing on him the burden of a conversational deadlift in the manner with which a girl knows how to discourage all but the dullest of bores. Now and then, indeed, when Mark's conversation showed symptoms of the occasional inanity common to most men who talk much, she did not spare him; but this was due to a jealous anxiety on her part that he should keep up to his own standard, and if she had not liked him she would not have ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... the peepshows, the peripatetic photographers, the weighing-machines, the swings, the merry-go-rounds. And so there are none of the groups of vacant faces, the joyless chawbacons lounging gloomily from stall to stall, the settled inanity and dreariness of the crowd that drifts through an English fair. An English peasant goes to be amused, and the clown finds it wonderfully hard work to amuse him. The peasant of Italy goes to Carnival to amuse himself and to amuse everybody else. He is full of joyousness and fun, and he wishes ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... the fatal inanity of most opera librettos, was touched by these words as if there had been something pathetic in this readiness of response; as if she had heard a starved man talking of the delight of a crust of dry bread. "I suppose you forgot yourself in that story, whatever it was," ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... dainty triolet! Oh, fragrant violet! Oh, gentle heigho-let! (Or little sigh). On sweet urbanity, Through mere inanity, To touch their ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... into a roar of laughter, in which the Teniente could not resist joining, but which seemed to be incomprehensible to the alguazil, whose face assumed an expression which I can only describe as that of astonished inanity. I don't think he is quite certain, to this day, that the incident was not altogether an ugly dream. At any rate, he lost no time in obeying my order to go straight to the first alcalde of the village, and tell him that he ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... dregs, to give the excluded pictures of the life of the exclusives—yet, what have we? You will excuse us, reader, disturbing the current of our thoughts, by recollecting any of this forty novel-power of inanity, vulgarity, and pertness; but if you take up any of the many volumes in marbled boards, with calf backs, that you will find in cart-loads at the circulating libraries, and look over a page of the fashionable "lingo" the Lord Jacob talks to the Lady Suky, or the conversation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... form of speech with which we alone are conversant. Our smiles betray our instincts and our burdens; they reflect our virtues and our inanity. ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... vista, which he has developed for our delectation. The songs and dances, with their words and directions, are for the most part screamingly funny, consisting partly in the perfectly realised absurdity and inanity of the performance, and partly in that quality of absolute truthfulness to life which we are forced to realise in the presentation of them. Laughter is often produced by the mere faithfulness of an imitation, whether the thing copied is funny ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... a monotonous hum; of which hum the true character is extremely difficult to fix. Up to this hour we have never fully satisfied ourselves whether it is a tone and hum of real Humor, which we reckon among the very highest qualities of genius, or some echo of mere Insanity and Inanity, which doubtless ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... inanity of sublunary things has afforded a theme to philosophers, moralists, and divines, from the earliest records of antiquity; "Vanity of vanities!" says the preacher, "all is vanity!" Nor is there any one, I suppose, who has passed the meridian of life, who has not ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... because you fear that some puppy may fancy you are letting them come out to fascinate him; do not condemn yourself to live only by halves, because if you showed too much animation some pragmatical thing in breeches might take it into his pate to imagine that you desired to dedicate your life to inanity. Write again soon, for I feel rather fierce and ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... nothing was replied, Or something which was nothing, as urbanity Required. Aurora scarcely looked aside, Nor even smiled enough for any vanity. The Devil was in the girl! Could it be pride, Or modesty, or absence, or inanity? ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... struggle, with no inheritance but that of brains and character. Wealth without either the wish, the brains, or the power to use it is too often the medium through which men pamper the flesh with good living, and the mind with inanity, until death, operating through the liver, hurries the fortunate youth into an early grave. The inheritance tax should have no ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... inanity that his opinion of her was unreliable; and, contented, he lightly pursued his admiration of what he called her boreal charm. At intervals she responded appropriately and proceeded with breakfast. She had entered a region of dispassionate ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... same age, a victor, worshipped, flattered, and—if we are to believe the Bayreuth legend—crowned with prosperity; Wagner, sad and suffering, doubting his achievements, feeling the inanity of his bitter fight against the mediocrity of the world, had "fled far from the world"[49] and thrown himself into religion; and when a friend looked at him in surprise as he was saying grace at table, he answered: "Yes, I ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... language, of which the signification is so loose and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and the senses detorted so widely from the first idea, that it is hard to trace them through the maze of variation, to catch them on the brink of utter inanity, to circumscribe them by any limitations, or interpret them by any words of distinct and settled meaning; such are bear, break, come, cast, full, get, give, do, put, set, go, run, make, take, turn, throw. If of these the whole power is ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... whirling story. The villain was a traveller in buttons—buttons! To be wronged by a traveller in diamonds might have its compensations—but buttons! Linen buttons, bone buttons, brass buttons, trouser buttons! To be a traveller in the inanity of buttonholes was the only lower degradation. His name was Bondon—he uttered it scathingly, as if to decline from a Bocardon to a Bondon was unthinkable. This Bondon was a regular client of the hotel, and such a client!—who never ordered a bottle of vin cachete or coffee or ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... here, as in everything, we must keep pace with development, or the older ones, especially the boys, may get bored by what suits the less adventurous. In all cases the music should be good and tuneful, modelled not on the modern drawing-room inanity, but on the healthy and vigorous nursery ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... all perish through sheer inanity, or die desperately by suicide if no mystery remained in the world. Mystery takes a thousand beautiful shapes; it lurks even in the handiwork of man, in a stone god, or in some mighty, intricate ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... allowed to escape after this valuable testimony. She comes into history like a will-o'-the-wisp, one of the marsh lights that mean nothing but putrescence and decay, and then flickers out again with her false witness into the wastes of inanity. That she should have been treated so leniently and Jeanne so cruelly! say the historians. Reason good: she was nothing, came of nothing, and meant nothing. It is profane to associate Jeanne's pure ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... a charade to making a pun, does consist in restraining one's nine hundred and ninety-nine serious selves and letting the fool loose. The dullness of the millionaire joke is much deeper. It is not silly at all; it is solely stupid. It does not consist of ingenuity limited, but merely of inanity expanded. There is considerable difference between a wit making a fool of himself and a fool making a wit ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... stone statue-like warriors, who will then rush down upon the attractive object headlong, one falling over the other, until their childish curiosity being satisfied, the wild tumult subsides, and they themselves sink into their wonted blank inanity. But it is a fact, they will sit motionless thus for hours and hours, and not condescend to speak to their best friend amongst the merchants. This is their idea of dignity and superior rank over their fellows. It ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... enjoyment even in her terror and terror in her enjoyment. Then she falls in love with this imminent danger, this sword of Damocles hung over her head by you yourself, thus preferring the delirious agonies of such a passion, to that conjugal inanity which is worse to her than death, to that indifference which is less a sentiment than the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... a difficult matter to show 'em. Well, first (let me see, now), the foolishest passion Of mortals is that for obeying the fashion. It has been, and now is, a curse to humanity, A sinful, ridiculous species of vanity, The very quintessence of perfect inanity, And is likely to lead to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... you with his insight into your nature, be sure that he has mourned; such lore is the alchemy of tears. Hence the insensible and almost universal confusion of idea which confounds melancholy with depth, and finds but hollow inanity in the symbol of a laugh. Pitiable error! Reflection first leads us to gloom, but its next stage is to brightness. The Laughing Philosopher had reached the goal of Wisdom; Heraclitus whimpered at the starting-post. But ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... something wonderful to her; his speech should be like the music and glory and lire that was in him; therefore he was shocked to hear himself remarking, with an inanity of utterance ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... nothing, no thing, mind, nor power. As manifested by mankind it stands for a lie, nothing claiming to be something, - for lust, dishonesty, 330:30 selfishness, envy, hypocrisy, slander, hate, theft, adultery, murder, dementia, insanity, inanity, devil, hell, with all the etceteras that ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... the peace of toil. There is rest on the surface of the caverned lake, which no wind can stir; but that is the peace of stagnation. There is peace amongst the stones which have fallen and rolled down the mountain's side, and lie there quietly at rest; but that is the peace of inanity. There is peace in the hearts of enemies who lie together, side by side, in the same trench of the battle-field, the animosities of their souls silenced at length, and their hands no longer clenched in deadly enmity against each other; but that is the peace of death. ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... which yield not to the tread of man. Alas! no bird of beauty dips its wing in these dead waters, and plumes itself for an aerial flight of love and joy. But the cold contraction chains down all the freer, beautiful life, into a hopeless, chilling inanity. ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... biting things in a smooth and unconcerned fashion when they find a dunce beginning to talk platitudes or to patronize his partner; but the middle generation are unspeakably inane; and the worst is that they regard their inanity as a decided sign of distinction. A grave man who adds a sense of humour to his gravity may find a sort of melancholy entertainment if he listens to a pair of thorough-paced "Society" gentry. He will learn that you do not go to a "function" to please others or to be pleased yourself; ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... in the way of consequences for life of this radical difference of outlook will only become apparent in my later lectures. I wish meanwhile to close this lecture by showing that rationalism's sublimity does not save it from inanity. ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... of every physical object seen; also by forming the habit of constantly metaphorizing. Knock at the door of anything met which interests, and ask, 'Who lives here?' The process is to look, then close the eyes, then look within." The blundering inanity of this kind of writing is equaled only by its bumptious grandiloquence. On p. 137 Dr. Townsend quotes this wholesome admonition from Coleridge: "If men would only say what they have to say in plain terms, how much more eloquent they would be!" As an example of ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... Profissor Maryanna tell him that 'if th' dates iv human knowledge must be rejicted as subjictive, how much more must they be subjicted as rejictive if, as I think, we keep our thoughts fixed upon th' inanity iv th' finite in comparison with th' onthinkable truth with th' ondivided an' onimaginable reality. Boys ar-re ye ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benighted mind in a state of cold and comfortless inanity. ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... that to grasp the true meaning of the nude it must be represented in postures, movements which are natural, not studio attitudes. As Monet exposed the fallacy of studio lighting, so Degas revealed the inanity of its poses. Ibsen said the stage should be a room with the fourth wall removed; Degas preferred the key-hole through which we seem to peep upon the privacy of his ugly females bathing or combing their hair or sleeping, lounging, yawning, quarrelling, and walking. The simian and frog-like ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... doubtless be her occupation more and more as she acquired ease and confidence. The expression that came nearest belonging to her, as it were, was the one that came nearest being a blank—an air of inanity when she forgot herself in some act of sincere attention. Then her eye was heavy and her mouth betrayed a commonness; though it was perhaps just at such a moment that the fine line of her head told most. She had looked slightly bete even when Sherringham, on their first meeting at Madame ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... brightened her prospects of futurity. It is perhaps not in the power of a man whose attention has been divided by diversity of pursuits, and who has not been accustomed to derive from others much of his happiness, to image to himself such helpless destitution, such dismal inanity. Every object of pleasing contemplation is at once snatched away, and the soul finds every receptacle of ideas empty, or filled only with the memory of joys that can return no more. All is gloomy privation, or impotent desire; the faculties of anticipation slumber in despondency, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... practised by the faculty. He gathered together materials for a declaration of war against the medicos, attacking them in their, apparently, most impregnable positions, and showing up, often through their own observations, the fatal inanity—in his eyes—of their therapeutics. At the same time he managed to acquire experience of commerce, finance and administration, and, thus equipped, he opened his campaign. Thaumaturgy, science, occultism, eloquence, knowledge of men ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... will have to be investigated. All that will have to be stopped.... And it makes another reason why it is necessary to fight today, to fight to the death. For these Germans will understand the inanity of their Machiavellian scheming and of their spy system only when they shall see these methods fall to pieces, when they shall ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... brow of Highgate Hill, in those years, looking down on London and its smoke-tumult, like a sage escaped from the inanity of life's battle; attracting towards him the thoughts of innumerable brave souls still engaged there. His express contributions to poetry, philosophy, or any specific province of human literature or enlightenment, had been small and sadly intermittent; but ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... of ashes, and half-consumed beams and crushed and broken brick, lying in smoldering humility, punctuated by stray relics and remnants of an unburned world—pieces of furniture, by some miracle left unharmed, or bric-a-brac of some more than usual inanity. Fireproof buildings through which the flood of destruction had passed, burning all that was burnable, and leaving the gaunt frames naked in the air, their exteriors perhaps scorched and defaced, but with their vast strength unshaken and undismayed. The thousand sounds and odors of the fearful ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... there is, after all, between himself and Lazarus. I have been surprised to see how some of the more recherche "bits" of our genuine humorists have told upon the penny people, and won applause which the stalest burlesque pun or the nastiest music-hall inanity would have failed to elicit. Lazarus must be represented on the platform then, as well as comfortably located in the audience. He must be asked to read, or sing, or fiddle, or do whatever he can. If not, he will feel he is being read at, or sung to, or fiddled for, and will go off ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies |
