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Hesitate   Listen
verb
Hesitate  v. t.  To utter with hesitation or to intimate by a reluctant manner. (Poetic & R.) "Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hesitate" Quotes from Famous Books



... successful in restoring to health more than a million women, you cannot well say without trying it, "I do not believe it will help me." If you are ill, do not hesitate to get a bottle of Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound at once, and write Mrs. Pinkham, Lynn, Mass, U. S. A., for special advice. It is free and helpful, and ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... blood rose slowly to her cheek, but she answered without any hesitation. She was too proud to hesitate. ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... else, then he is refuted and not I. For do you really suppose that any one would admit the memory which a man has of an impression which has passed away to be the same with that which he experienced at the time? Assuredly not. Or would he hesitate to acknowledge that the same man may know and not know the same thing? Or, if he is afraid of making this admission, would he ever grant that one who has become unlike is the same as before he became unlike? Or would ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... nature and report it fully and correctly is no easy matter, but the habit of trying to do so teaches what truthfulness is and leaves the impress of truth upon the whole life and character. I do not hesitate to say, therefore, that elements of science should be taught to children for the moral effects of its influences. At the same time all truth is not sensuous, and this training alone at this age tends to make the mind pragmatic, dry, and insensitive or unresponsive to that other kind of truth ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... of bookkeeping. He could use these city loan certificates deposited with him for manipulative purposes, deposit them at any bank as collateral for a loan, quite as if they were his own, thus raising seventy per cent. of their actual value in cash, and he did not hesitate to do so. He could take this cash, which need not be accounted for until the end of the month, and cover other stock transactions, on which he could borrow again. There was no limit to the resources of which he now found himself possessed, except the resources of his ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... trope, or of a figure."—Ib., p. 133. "The collision of a vowel with itself is the most ungracious of all combinations, and has been doomed to peculiar reprobation under the name of an hiatus."—J. Q. Adams's Rhet., Vol. ii, p. 217. "We hesitate to determine, whether the Tyrant alone, is the nominative, or whether the nominative includes the spy."—Cobbett's E. Gram., 246. "Hence originated the customary abbreviation of twelve months into a twelve-month; seven nights into se'night; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... the queen, the governor of Inverness, who was entirely devoted to him, was refusing to allow Mary to enter this castle, which was a royal one. It is true that Murray, aware that it does not do to hesitate in the face of such rebellions, had already had ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... horror of gloom and darkness was almost morbid. From the tragedies of life he instinctively shrank, and large as was his sympathy, and generous and genuine his affection, he was often prompted to run from suffering and to betray what must have been a constitutional terror of distress. He did not hesitate to acknowledge this characteristic, and sought to atone for it by writing the most tender and touching lines to those to whom he believed he owed a gift of comfort and strength. His private letters to friends in adversity or bereavement were beautiful in ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field

... He played on her imagination delicately, as if she were a harp, and his fingers touched the strings. He realized what a cad he must have seemed. But she was a saint in a shrine—it will be seen that he did not hesitate to borrow from Randy. She was a saint in a shrine, and well, he knelt at her feet—a sinner. "You needn't think that I don't know what I have done, Becky. I swept you along with me without a thought of anything serious in it for either ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... as a means of existence proceed so to speak, fast and furiously, questions of taste are not dwelt upon at leisure. You need not hesitate before saying anything you liked in any one's drawing-room so long as it was amusing enough to make somebody—if not everybody—laugh. Feather had made people laugh in the same fashion in the past. The persons she ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... a little wide reach of the creek about half a mile away," Jack explained; "and as this was a pot hunt, fellows, believe me, I didn't hesitate to shoot the first barrel straight at the three as they sat on the water. Two dropped and the other fellow made to rise; but that was dead easy, and I got him with the ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... "de las Tiendas" he was met by the Lieutenant of the King, by the Sergeant-Major of the town, by Lieutenant-Colonel Creagh, by Captain Madan, carrying the flag of truce, and by the Town Adjutant, who conducted him with eyes bandaged to the presence of our chief. Captain Hood did not hesitate again to demand surrender, which was curtly refused. This decision, and the chances of destruction in case of hostilities continuing, made him alter his tone. At length both chiefs came to terms. The instrument was written ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... fishery he had been unable to provide the number of persons required for the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. This was unpleasant information as it increased the apprehension of our being detained at York Factory the whole winter if boatmen were not taken from hence. I could not therefore hesitate in requesting Mr. Geddes to engage eight or ten men well adapted for our service on such terms as he could procure them, though the Secretary of State's permission had not ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... pavilion oddly. He had seemed to dodge in and hesitate. Then he had chosen his table rather deliberately—and he kept looking, and trying ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... ask us to come again, yet I was sure that she liked us. I felt that perhaps it was the grocery store which had made her hesitate. But whatever it was, I must confess that I was a little lonely as I went away. You see we had come to look forward to our welcome at the Empty House. We had known that we were the honored guests of the flying squirrels and the ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... been held in the highest esteem among the ancients the astrologers would not have called the signs of the zodiac by their names in describing the heavens: and they not only did not hesitate to place them there but many even begin their enumeration of the twelve signs with these animal names, thus giving Aries and Taurus precedence over Apollo and Hercules, whose signs, very gods as they are, are ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... questioned Bandy-legs; for there is a saying to the effect that "babes and fools rush in where brave men hesitate to tread"; which, however, must not be taken to mean that Bandy-legs belonged to either class, although he failed to approach ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie

... undoing. I shall have a good deal more to say about them before I finally lay down my pen, and I shall not hesitate to call them by their true name—the name with which they will be for ever branded before all ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... not pretend not to understand that you are on bad terms with Don Luis. Hence, both his storekeeper and his peons would hesitate to sell food for you or to you. But I have a relative who works in the mine, and he is a brave man. I think I can persuade him to sell me food and ask no questions. In fact, caballeros, that is ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock

... doctor was so moved by her worn appearance that he impulsively said: "Have you some troubles you've said nothing about? Please don't hesitate to ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... laurel thicket. In the succeeding paragraphs he reiterates his former boasting, but asserts in turn that the trouble is caused by a mere hooting owl, a rabbit, or even by the De[']tsata, whose greatest exploit is hiding the arrows of the boys, for which the youthful hunters do not hesitate to rate him soundly. These various mischief-makers the doctor banishes to their proper haunts, the hooting owl to the spruce thicket, the rabbit to the broom sage on the mountain side, and the De[']tsata to the bluffs ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... result of the first stroke," said he. "The Duke of Orleans is in command of the town. He will blow hot and cold after his manner: Conde will ask for shelter, and Gaston will hesitate. There lies our chance. If we can catch and beat the prince meanwhile, all will go well; Gaston ever leans ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... offer of a prince," Tallente replied, after a brief, nervous pause. "If I hesitate, you must remember all that ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... be troubled if you hesitate in conversation, and cannot immediately find the proper word. Search in your mind till you get the expression, then next time it will come more rapidly. One of the best ways to increase fluency of speech is to avoid repetition of words as much as possible. ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... quiet. The little life was safe, rescued at the crucial moment when interference became necessary, by the skill and daring which do not hesitate to use the means at hand when the authorized tools can not be had. Every precaution had been taken against harm from these same unconventional means, and the doctor, when he left his patient in the hands of his nurse, felt small ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond

... advantageous character, and had we accepted them I feel sure that, joining either ship with the reputations which we had honestly won for ourselves, our advancement in the service would have been certain and rapid. But something in the admiral's manner caused me to hesitate, so, with hearty thanks to each for his kind offer, I begged the favour of a few hours for consideration; and Courtenay, taking his cue from me, did the same. When at length we all rose to take leave of our ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... detective would recognise his prey and, if he did not arrest him on the spot, would never allow him to return to Shelby unattended. This would be to defeat the object of my journey, and recalling the judge's expression at parting, I dared not hesitate. My eyes returned with seeming unconcern to the letter I was holding and the detective's to his paper. When we both looked up again the two young men had quit the building and the business which had brought me to Washington was ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... how well both authors loved them), and much besides. There will be interest also for many uninitiated admirers in the account here given of how the famous stories came first into being. Of its more intimate and personal side I hesitate to speak; those who loved "MARTIN ROSS," either through her writings or in the closer relationship of friend, must be glad that her ave atque vale has been spoken, as she would have wished it, by her whose right it was. It will send many to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various

... mistaken. For the last year you have even failed to pay interest as stipulated between us. Your intention is evident. I quite understand that you have made up your mind to defraud me of what is rightfully mine. I don't know how you may regard this, but I consider it as bad as highway robbery. I do not hesitate to say that if you had your deserts you would be in the Penitentiary. Let me advise you, if you wish to avoid further trouble, to make no delay in paying a portion of this debt. Yours, etc. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... it—coming on at a lumbering run, with great red jaws half open and yellow fangs exposed. Rowland had no weapon but a strong jackknife, but this he pulled from his pocket and opened as he ran. Not for an instant did he hesitate at a conflict that promised almost certain death; for the presence of this bear involved the safety of a child whose life had become of more importance to him than his own. To his horror, he saw it creep out of the opening in its white covering, just ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... with much difficulty suppressed his tears while the bishop spoke, whom he answered in these few words: "If Jesus Christ, the Lord of all things, vouchsafed to pardon and pray for those very men that crucified him, ought I to hesitate to pardon them who have offended me? I, who am but a mortal man like them, and a servant of the same Master." The patriarch, overjoyed at his success, prostrated himself at the emperor's feet, wishing ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... marvelous, enticing wonder of it caught him more than once and made him hesitate. The sense of what he was giving up sickened him with a great sudden yearning of regret. The mightiness of that loved leader, lonely and unafraid, trafficking with the principalities and powers of sound, and reckoning without misgiving upon the cooperation of his other ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... ears became attentive to slowly approaching footsteps. They seemed to hesitate and then advanced; he heard a subdued voice, a man's voice—and in answer to it a woman's. Instinctively he drew a step back and stood unseen in the gloom. There was no longer a sound of voices. In silence they walked past his window, clearly revealed to him in the moonlight. One of the two was ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... pause or hesitate. She did not seem to think. Swiftly and accurately she found her walking-shoes and put them on, her hat and cloak; her purse with its half-crown, its sixpence and its few coppers. Swiftly she laid together ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... hope that it would not be so, she watched the silver birch branch hesitate, yield to the under-ebb, and lie at last helpless on the black stagnancy, which continued to vibrate with an air of malice. Soon its pretty leaves were waterlogged, and it sank down to bed with the grassy rottenness beside ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... there would be a swoop on their part to rescue the testator from her clutches. In the balance against 2,000,000 francs and some halfdozen castles with their estates the only wonder is that any reasonable person, knowing the history of Sophie Dawes, should hesitate about the value she was likely to place on ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... unsettled life, and should like to clear off the old place, and end my days there; and because, after all, a married man has a better position than a single one. If that girl Gladys were in the place of either heiress, I would not hesitate a moment. I declare she would grace a coronet; no wonder all the young men round are in love with her. And yet, meet her when I will, I can scarcely get more than 'yes,' ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... great speech on the preceding day, wherein the grievous expensiveness and hideous immorality of Standing Armies were vividly portrayed. He did not hesitate to speak straight out on the subject of the demoralizing influence of Armies on the People among whom they were quartered or posted, and the broad track of moral desolation which an armed force everywhere leaves behind it. If the facts in this connection were but generally known, I ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... struggle—so many are changed or ruined. And, dear lad, you have one temptation that never was a temptation to me. Don't be angry, Harry," for Harry started and grew red. "Even if that is not to be feared for you, there is enough besides to make you hesitate. I have known and proved the world. What we call success in life, is not worth one approving smile from your sister's lips. And if you should fall, and be trodden down, how should I ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... waits to be asked. She seems on the lookout for cases on which to bestow money. As she has plenty, why should I hesitate to accept it?" ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... for once in a while, risk an attack of indigestion. Madame Boche, in a low voice accused Boche of caressing Madame Lerat's knees. Oh, he was a sly one, but he was getting a little too gay. She had certainly seen his hand disappear. If he did it again, drat him! She wouldn't hesitate throwing a pitcher of water ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... which I have given Mr. S. Kirkham's English Grammar, I do not hesitate to recommend it to the public as the best of the class I have ever seen, and as filling up an important and almost impassable chasm in works on ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... did not hesitate. Since disaster had come, it must be faced. Mr. Rassendyll's servant and I followed the constable of Zenda up to the door, or within a few feet of it. Here Sapt, who was in uniform, loosened his sword in its sheath; ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... what is called sociable. The general impression of this silence-loving and shade-seeking side of his character is doubtless exaggerated, and, in so far as it points to him as a sombre and sinister figure, is almost ludicrously at fault. He was silent, diffident, more inclined to hesitate, to watch and wait and meditate, than to produce himself, and fonder, on almost any occasion, of being absent than of being present. This quality betrays itself in all his writings. There is in all of them something cold and light and thin, something belonging ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.

... for that reason likely to be contradictory. They desire both war and peace at the same time, and have interests that may be served by both. They live in indecision like individuals. Motives conflict. They hesitate, and doubt, and fear. They shrink from taking the plunge. It requires the sharp and clear event, the chance event, most often, to precipitate them into wars. It is always to-morrow that they are to wage wars. ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... in dreamy abstraction, her thoughts on Mac and the enticing prospects he had held out. After all what was the use in fighting against all the kindness and affection? If they were willing to take the risk of her going with them, why should she hesitate? They knew she was poor and uneducated and not of their world, and they couldn't help seeing that Mac was in love with her. And still they ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... 'would bring England to her knees.' The idea was ludicrous enough that England and France would instinctively or readily fling themselves into a convulsion, which their great politicians saw was the most tremendous one of modern times. But the puerile argument, which even President Davis did not hesitate to adopt, about the power of 'King Cotton,' amounted to this absurdity: that the great and illustrious power of England would submit to the ineffable humiliation of acknowledging its dependency on the infant Confederacy ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... him into a corner, I said, 'Will you give me a drawing of it?' He seemed to hesitate, so I said, 'If you can not draw it, you never saw it, and never will.' He assented to that, and I was vain enough to think I had staggered him; but yesterday he produced the inclosed sketch and explanation. After this I sadly fear ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... a character and fraught with such glorious results to the great majority of mankind, that, although I may be said to have partly promised to keep the wondrous secret to myself until after I had turned the information to my own enormous advantage, I do not hesitate to reveal to a delighted universe, information which, if true, will so revolutionise the whole constitution of society, that every individual member of the almost innumerable class of the indebted, will feel at once enfranchised ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various

... shore, while they still could see Hugh and Ramsey conversing, she pleadingly, he with few words, mostly negatives. Ned came back into the pilot-house. The parson's wife moved from Watson toward him to ask in undertone why the landing was being made so slowly. The boat seemed to hover and hesitate. Watson, at the wheel, talked on, pretending not to notice that the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... He did not hesitate, however, as to direction; only occasionally he had to stop and cast back and around for a way through. Often, at a low command from him, we dismounted and ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... were not reading they nearly always ran into the ladders, which seemed to possess a magnetic attraction for perambulators and go-carts of all kinds, whether propelled by nurses or mothers. Sometimes they would advance very cautiously towards the ladder: then, when they got very near, hesitate a little whether to go under or run the risk of falling into the street by essaying the narrow passage: then they would get very close up to the foot of the ladder, and dodge and dance about, and give the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... accounting for his sickness, improbably enough but in flattering way. Like a good friend (feminine) she does not hesitate a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... not hesitate any longer. I rose to my feet, and crossed the space which lay between the two tables. As I drew nearer to her I watched the child's face. At first a flash of desperate hope seemed suddenly to illumine it; then a fear more abject even than before took its place as she glanced at her companion. ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... companion's turn to hesitate. "Oh, she didn't ask my advice," she replied at last, with ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... the middle fork as I suspected dose bear considerably to the West of South and the gap formed by it in the mountains after the valley terminates is in the same direction. under these circumstances I did not hesitate in beleiving the middle fork the most proper for us to ascend. about South from me, the middle fork approached within about 5 miles. I resolved to pass across the plains to it and return to Gass and Charbono, accordingly we set out and decended the mountain among some ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... this in an article in which he designated the story as a mauvaise blague and at the same time declared that he would never allow himself such a jest at the expense of a man who was trying to extend his influence in the artistic world. When I heard of this, I did not for a moment hesitate to pay Rossini a visit, and was received by him in the friendliest manner, which I afterwards described in a memorandum devoted to reminiscences of him. I was also glad to hear that my old acquaintance Halevy, during the controversy ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... The hardest bout I ever had was with a woman—Sally Wells, who was afterwards lagged for shoplifting. She attacked me with a carving-knife, and, when I had disarmed her, the jade bit off a couple of fingers from my left hand. Thus, you see, I've never hesitated and never shall hesitate to expose my life where anything is to be gained. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... this and that?' If you were in the Army, I should say learn to spin plates or play a tambourine with your toes. As it is—ask! You belong to a Service that ought to be able to command the Channel Fleet, or set a leg at twenty minutes' notice, and yet you hesitate over asking to escape from a squashy green district where you admit you are not master. Drop the Bengal Government altogether. Even Darjiling is a little out-of-the-way hole. I was there once, and the rents were extortionate. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... Hulot did not hesitate; he had made up his mind to refuse; but to seem grateful to the kind-hearted singer, who was benevolent after her lights, he affected to ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... undoubtedly done a wise thing in quitting their harbor up the river after the advent of those three roughs. He believed he knew who the trio might be, and if he was right they were the ugliest set of desperadoes in that vicinity, who would not hesitate to attempt any sort of dark deed, provided the reward seemed sufficient to compensate ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... "You surely cannot hesitate from doubt of his affection. In a thousand ways he shows you that. And certes you have had enough of suitors to be able to weigh very scrupulously the faith they bring. He loves you honestly. He ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... good elocutionist. He was also a keen debater, and so fond of argument that he would not hesitate to take opposite ground to his own cherished convictions and beliefs, simply for the sake of provoking discussion. So earnestly and logically (for he was a good dialectician) would he carry on the discussion that it was ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... I would want her, to be sure, to have risen above certain social conventions. I should not want her, for instance, to hesitate, if she felt genuine love for me, to be the first to make ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... had been making her cling desperately with that left hand, especially as it held by the thicker part of the bough. But the habit of implicit confidence and obedience was stronger still; she did not hesitate, and tightening her hold with the other hand, she unclasped the left and stretched ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... developed phases I seem to see the New Republic as (if I may use an expressive bull) a sort of outspoken Secret Society, with which even the prominent men of the ostensible state may be openly affiliated. A vast number of men admit the need but hesitate at the means of revolution, and in this conception of a slowly growing new social order organized with open deliberation within the substance of the old, there are no doubt elements of technical treason, but an enormous gain in the thoroughness, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... "and from whom? From your spy-in-chief, no doubt—that rascal Chupin. It surprises me to see that you can hesitate for a moment between the word of your son and the ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... and another girl in the house simply means more work for you and a lot more problems for me. If 'she' (my father had never been able to reconcile himself to pronounce the name of my mother since her untimely death)—if 'she' were here I would not hesitate, but to bring another orphan into a family already half-orphaned ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte

... slightest chance of danger I would not hesitate to take your advice," Kelson said. "But I don't. Nor do you. Since when have you become ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... our entire independence of Canadian canals and of the St. Lawrence as an outlet to the sea secured by the construction of an American canal around the Falls of Niagara and the opening of ship communication between the Great Lakes and one of our own seaports. We should not hesitate to avail ourselves of our great natural trade advantages. We should withdraw the support which is given to the railroads and steamship lines of Canada by a traffic that properly belongs to us and no longer furnish the earnings which lighten the otherwise crushing ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... guessed part, not the whole of the feelings that made Hilary hesitate, shrink even, from the duty before her, turning first so hot, and then so pale. Only as a duty could she have done it at all. "No matter, I must go. Take care of ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... its full vigour, and could not fail to slip in of itself into that most lascivious and gaping cunt when it reached the entrance. My aunt started at such an unexpected result, but was too much gratified to hesitate for an instant. Throwing legs and arms around me, her supple loins were in immediate action. I myself was equally in a state of wild lubricity, so that our course was even more rapid than at first, and we both spent and sank together in the delicious ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... Executive by the act of Congress to which public attention is now called, and reluctant to call into exercise any of the extraordinary powers thereby conferred upon me except in cases of imperative necessity, I do, nevertheless, deem it my duty to make known that I will not hesitate to exhaust the powers thus vested in the Executive whenever and wherever it shall become necessary to do so for the purpose of securing to all citizens of the United States the peaceful enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them by the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... disobey the law, that was to risk his head, that was to make at one blow an enemy of a minister more powerful than the king himself. All this young man perceived, and yet, to his praise we speak it, he did not hesitate a second. Turning towards Athos and his friends, "Gentlemen," said he, "allow me to correct your words, if you please. You said you were but three, but it appears ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... The Ihelian did not hesitate. His fingers deliberated for only a moment above the firing studs in the blue-green glow of the banks, and then they flicked home, and engines ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden

... case for some constitutional means of preventing the performance of a play. True, it is an equally strong case for preventing the circulation of the Bible, which was always in the hands of our regicides; but as the Roman Catholic Church does not hesitate to accept that consequence of the censorial principle, it does not invalidate ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... suspicions; the Spaniards were subtle. The manager might have imagined he knew more than he did; but if it was worth defending by the means Payne had hinted at, the secret must be very important, and the plotters would hesitate about betraying themselves by another attempt upon his life so long as there was any possibility of failure. Besides, it was dangerous to attack a foreigner, since if he were killed, the representative of his country would ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... shows us Beauty, and the Moral Sense teaches us Duty. It is true that the middle term has intimate connection with the two extremes, and only separates itself from Moral Sense by a difference so slight that Aristotle did not hesitate to class some of its delicate operations amongst the virtues. And accordingly what, above all, exasperates the man of taste is the spectacle of vice, is its deformity, its disproportions. Vice threatens the just and true, and revolts intellect and conscience; but as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... much, very much, to say on the condescending kindness of Madame, neither did she hesitate to add a little ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin

... up by the fireplace, looking down at me silently for a moment, then said, 'Do not distress yourself; it is no light thing I am asking you—to give yourself away for life to one you know so comparatively little. If I were a younger man, I should not hesitate so. But I do think we have a bond together which many have not—that of being fellow-workers and servants of the same Master. And,' here his voice broke a little, 'Hilda, dear child, you have my love; shall I be ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre

... upon him, "You fall, you fall!" may fall with the fancy that he taketh thereof; although, if folk looked merrily upon him and said, "There is no danger therein," he would pass over the bridge well enough—and he would not hesitate to run upon it, if it were but a foot from the ground. So, in this temptation, the devil findeth the man of his own foolish fancy afraid and then crieth in the ear of his heart, "Thou fallest, thou fallest!" and maketh the foolish man afraid that ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... about him, seemed to hesitate, as does a bit of driftwood blocked in the current; then, with a sudden straightening of his shoulders, he wheeled and threaded ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... on a dressing-gown, and took from the small safe at his bed-head the Museum keys and a loaded revolver. A somewhat dishevelled figure, pale and wild-eyed, he made his way through the private door and into the ghostly precincts of the Museum. He did not hesitate, but ascended the stairs and unlocked the ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... all the opportunities that—er—come its way. There may be a few pointers that William W. Blithers can give you in respect to your railways and mines—and your general policy, perhaps. I hope you won't hesitate about asking." ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... little work for myself, when the mate, an inexperienced young man, who was connected with the owners, came and ordered us up to help jibe ship. It was easy enough to do this in the watch, but he thought differently. As an old seaman, I do not hesitate to say that the order was both inconsiderate and unnecessary; though I do not wish to appear even to justify my own conduct, on the occasion. A hasty temper is one of my besetting weaknesses, and, at that time, I was in no degree influenced by any considerations of a moral ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; wherever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... with which she insisted on knowing his name made the pretended sailor hesitate between prudence and love. The vexation of a desired woman is powerfully attractive; her anger, like her submission, is imperious; many are the fibres she touches in a man's heart, penetrating and subjugating it. Was this scene only another ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... tone which the leading ministers of that day among the Puritans, did not hesitate to take, even where high dignitaries were concerned and Master Mather had the highest ideas of the ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... look after this villain," said Elliston, when he had heard the detective's story; "but you must be aware that you run a great risk in going about the country without disguise, avowedly in search of the perpetrators of the express robbery. Of course, this man has friends, and they will not hesitate to shoot or stab, as they did in the case ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... works of the first period, we might hesitate to say whether the Pictures of Travel or the Book of Songs were the more characteristic product. In whichever way our judgment finally inclined, we should declare that the Pictures of Travel were essentially prosified ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... started immediately. Even though he might have to meet Dr Fillgrave, he could not hesitate, for he went not as a doctor to the dying man, but as the trustee under Sir Roger's will. Moreover, as Lady Scatcherd had said, he was her only friend, and he could not desert her at such a moment for an army of Fillgraves. He told Mary he should not return that night; and taking ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... family in the garden, silent and gloomy. His family felt that he had been rash, and they did not hesitate to tell him so, which made him still more unhappy. The leader-camel was the favorite of Glaucus's daughter, AEmilia. She was crying in a corner of the garden, thinking about her dear Humpo, whom she never expected to see again. When, ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown

... the story of her husband's first marriage with so much perfection that I hesitate to go over the same ground again, but, as my sister Laura's death had more effect on me than any event in my life, except my own marriage and the birth of my children, I must copy a short account of it ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... not a little nervous as he prepared to press the button this time. It was a heavier charge than any used that day, though the same quantity had been fired on other occasions with safety. But he was not going to hesitate. ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... my arresting one of the Russian rouble note forgers, a ruffian who would not hesitate to stick at anything, I had provided myself with several sized pairs of handcuffs, and it was not until I had obtained the very much needed assistance that I was able to find the suitable "darbies" for his wrists. We managed ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... just as I have seen children hesitate and quiver with terror when for the first time they go into the water to learn to swim. They know their father tells them the truth, for he has never deceived them. He has bound a life-preserver beneath ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... the day after the battle of Peach Creek the searchers for wounded came upon Manson, still alive, but delirious. Of that ghastly battlefield, or the long agony of that wounded boy, I hesitate to speak. No pen can describe, either, and to even faintly portray them is but to add gloom to a narrative already replete with it. The twenty-four hours of his indescribable pain and torturing thirst were only broken by a few hours ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... such attitude. Not he! The city's great names had scant respect from him! Not for an instant did he hesitate to criticise or analyze the most renowned. It was not long before he learned all about the Cora trial and Keith's subsequent efforts to discipline McDougall and ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... or shielding himself. What else can it mean? A man suspected of murder doesn't hesitate to establish an alibi unless he is in a desperately tight corner. The exact position of your strange-eyed acquaintance in the case is not apparent to me at the moment, I'll admit, but I seem to have heard that there have been rare instances of ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... juvenile memories. He is bound to have read somewhere that the style of Sir Thomas Browne is unsurpassed by anything in English literature. One day he sees the *Religio Medici* in a shop-window (or, rather, outside a shop-window, for he would hesitate about entering a bookshop), and he buys it, by way of a mild experiment. He does not expect to be enchanted by it; a profound instinct tells him that Sir Thomas Browne is "not in his line"; and in the result he is even less enchanted than he expected to be. He reads the introduction, ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT

... has personally retired from the business of introducing this system of management (that is, from all work done in return for any money compensation), he does not hesitate again to emphasize the fact that those companies are indeed fortunate who can secure the services of experts who have had the necessary practical experience in introducing scientific management, and who have made a special study of its principles. It is not enough ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor

... on the other hand, proceeded with the extreme care of a man who knew that a false step or uncertain grip might send him into the seething mass of foam and rocks below. But he did not hesitate or betray want of courage in attempting any difficulty which he had made up his mind ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... order of mathematics, the perfect agreement of the objects it deals with, the immanent logic in numbers and figures, our certainty of always getting the same conclusion, however diverse and complex our reasonings on the same subject, we hesitate to see in properties apparently so positive a system of negations, the absence rather than the presence of a true reality. But we must not forget that our intellect, which finds this order and wonders at it, is directed in the same line of movement ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... Was Matravers really so simple, or did he imagine that an actress whose name was as yet unknown would hesitate to play with him at the Pall Mall Theatre. Yet he himself had been hoping that there might be some difficulty,—he had a "Bathilde" of his own who would take a great deal of pacifying. The thing ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... or carefully prepared beforehand, are always hailed with delight by the children. Nor need you hesitate to try your "'prentice hand" at this work. Never mind if you "cannot draw." It must be a rude picture, indeed, which is not enjoyed by an audience of little people. Their vivid imaginations will triumph ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... observation for a long time has shown us, and shows us still in a great number of cases, collections of individuals which resemble each other so much in their organization and by the ensemble of their parts that we do not hesitate to regard these collections of similar individuals as ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... death." Jeremy Taylor says, "Tell them it is as much intemperance to weep too much as to laugh too much"; he does not say, "All men will acknowledge that laughing admits of intemperance, but some men may at first sight hesitate to allow that a similar imputation may be at ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... celebrated Spanheim was the first to publish an edition of her works under the title of Ann Mari a Schurman Opuscula. Leyden, 1648.] and as I had observed a very excellent ingenium in my child, and also had time enough in my lonely cure, I did not hesitate to take her in hand, and teach her from her youth up, seeing I had no boy alive. Hereat their princely Highnesses marvelled greatly, and put some more questions to her in Latin, which she answered without any prompting from me. Whereupon my gracious lord Duke Philippus said ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... real patriots, under such circumstances, would hardly hesitate in their choice, and would sooner accept the dominion of "Beelzebub," or even Paul Buys, than that of Philip II. But the Leicestrians of Utrecht and Friesland—patriots as they were—hated Holland worse than they hated ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... hastened to Valencia's support with twelve thousand men. He was discovered by Cadwallader just as the latter gained the village road; and appreciating the vast importance of preventing a junction between the two Mexican generals, that gallant officer did not hesitate to draw up his brigade in order of battle. So broken was the ground that Santa Anna could not see the amount of force opposed to him, and declined the combat. This was all Cadwallader wanted. Shields's brigade was advancing through the Pedregal, and the troops which had already crossed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... rather hard for Mary to ask him to do this, for she had a fair share of her father's Scotch pride; but she had done too many hard things in her life to hesitate now. The young doctor was genuinely glad to serve her, and he made her feel that she was conferring, instead of asking, ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... them in the order given, but they cover points which the repairman should know in order to work intelligently. Some of the information called for in the questions may often be obtained without questioning the customer. Do not, however, hesitate to ask any and all questions covering points ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... not hesitate," says Burnouf, in his Lotus de la Bonne Loi, "to translate by 'charity' the word maitri, which expresses, not merely friendship, or the feeling of particular affection which a man has for one or more of his fellow-creatures, but that universal feeling which inspires us with ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... disdain, and their habitual attitude toward what men believe in, and get into sweats about, and bellow for, is substantially the same, It takes twice as long to convert a body of women to some new fallacy as it takes to convert a body of men, and even then they halt, hesitate and are full of mordant criticisms. The women of Colorado had been voting for 21 years before they succumbed to prohibition sufficiently to allow the man voters of the state to adopt it; their own majority voice was against it to the end. During the interval the men voters of ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... Christ is praiseworthy, but in justice to truth, we must remember that even the martyrs were not inspired teachers commissioned to build a model for all succeeding ages. That they were heroic does not prove them infallible. We should never hesitate, therefore, to compare their teaching with the pure doctrines of the Word of God, and wherein there is any lack of harmony, we should be guided by the truth as it is ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith

... in Brompton or Kensington an interminable avenue of tall houses, rich but largely empty, that looks like a terrace of tombs. The very steps up to the dark front doors seem as steep as the side of pyramids; one would hesitate to knock at the door, lest it should be opened by a mummy. But a yet more depressing feature in the grey facade is its telescopic length and changeless continuity. The pilgrim walking down it begins to think he will never come to a break or a corner; ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton



Words linked to "Hesitate" :   waver, hesitant, delay, linger over, hesitater, scruple, boggle, vacillate, hesitation, dwell on, falter, linger, hesitator, hesitancy, hem and haw



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