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Negligent   Listen
adjective
Negligent  adj.  Apt to neglect; customarily neglectful; characterized by negligence; careless; heedless; culpably careless; showing lack of attention; as, disposed in negligent order. "Be thou negligent of fame." "He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor."
Synonyms: Careles; heedless; neglectful; regardless; thoughtless; indifferent; inattentive; remiss.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Negligent" Quotes from Famous Books



... Jews a toleration and consideration which he did not always extend to schismatics, heretics, and heathen. He seems to have reserved his most violent language for Lombards and Patriarchs of Constantinople. He called worldly or negligent bishops to order, and in particular took vigorous measures to root out simony, which was very prevalent. He sent Augustine and his companions to England, and wrote them letters of exhortation and instruction; he found time to send them also church ...
— St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music • E. G. P. Wyatt

... Randolph the broken dinner- engagement: at least he had said that immediate concerns of importance had driven the date from his mind, and that he was sorry. Randolph, only too willing to accept any fair excuse, good-naturedly made this one serve: the boy was not so negligent and ungrateful, after all. He got the rest of the story a few days later, in a message from Foster. What was the boy, then? he asked himself. He recalled their talk as they had walked past the sand-hills on that October Sunday. Cope had disclaimed all inclination for matrimony. He ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... young fellow too much than too little dressed; the excess on that side will wear off, with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty and intolerable at sixty. Dress yourself fine where others are fine, and plain where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... necessary national discipline. The national school is, of course, the national life. So far as the school is properly conducted, the methods of instruction are, if you please, pedagogic; but if the masters are blind or negligent, or if the scholars are unruly, there remains as a resource the more painful and costly methods of nature's instruction. A serious error will be followed by its inevitable penalty, proportioned to the blindness and the perversity in which it originated; and ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... entrance of his tent. Please it our general pass strangely by him, As if he were forgot; and, Princes all, Lay negligent and loose regard upon him. I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on him? If so, I have derision med'cinable To use between your strangeness and his pride, ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... then, what exhortation could be more proper than this? "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." What could be more awfully monitory and enforcing of it than that He works only of mere good will and pleasured How should I tremble to think, if I should be negligent, or undutiful, He may give out the next moment, may let the work fall, and me perish? And there is more especial cause for such an apprehension upon the concurrence of such things ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... one of the kings of Arabia directed the officers of his treasury, saying, "You will double a certain person's salary, whatever it may be, for he is constant in attendance and ready for orders, while the other courtiers are diverted by play, and negligent of their duty." A good and holy man overheard this, and heaved a sigh and groan from the bottom of his bosom. They asked, saying, "What vision did you see?" He replied, "The exalted mansions of his devoted servants will be ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... suspected not Guccio Balena of having played him this trick, for that he knew him not to be man enough; nor did he curse him for having kept ill watch lest others should do it, but silently cursed himself for having committed to him the care of his gear, knowing him, as he did, to be negligent, disobedient, careless and forgetful. ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... where she could watch his fine skilled hands at work. The negligent precision with which they accomplished their varied tasks occupied her, made it possible to continue for a while the silence she needed until her world should have stopped swimming; until the blindness of ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... which good work, you will do them, the church, yea, Christ himself, good and acceptable service. Church members should carefully observe, if all do keep close to their duty in the church, or are remiss and negligent;—if they conduct themselves in a holy, righteous, and sober way; or if, on the contrary, they are frothy, vain, proud, extravagant, unjust, idle, careless, or any way scandalous. They should strictly observe if there be any tattlers, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... them, and this He gave, gave freely too, that they might be fitted to deck His diadem of glory. He has encased these gems in caskets of exquisite workmanship, and given them to us, that we may keep them safely, and return them to Him when He shall ask them of us. Shall we be negligent of this trust? Shall we be busy, here and there, and suffer the adversary of souls to secure them to himself? We know that God is pleased to accept the efforts of the faithful mother; his language to us is, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." But on this ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... situation and different countries of the Gauls, lest, among the narration of fiery preparations and the various chances of battles, I should seem, while speaking of matters not understood by every one, to resemble those negligent sailors, who, when tossed about by dangerous waves and storms, begin to repair their sails and ropes which they might have attended to ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... the local regulation materially interferes with interstate commerce."[833] Also, the Court has consistently sustained State regulations requiring motor carriers to provide adequate insurance protection for injuries caused by the negligent operation ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... Saturday night, eight days after the elopement. Mostyn had that day been irritated—that is, as much as a man in his plight could be irritated by any extraneous incident—by Delbridge's open criticism of the negligent condition of some of his accounts. The work of going over the books with his successor in rectifying really glaring mistakes detained him at the bank till late at night. It was twelve o'clock when he finally ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... Its merits are principally its illustrations, many of which are from original dissections, some of which are very good diagrams, others ordinary, and some—such as the view of the human brain and spinal chord on page 282—wretched. The colored figures are washed with dull tints in a very shabby and negligent way. The text is mainly an account of the objects illustrated in the figures, and will prove interesting to the working microscopist as explaining the observations of a skilful dissector. As a "Text-Book ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... and the rascal having promised to do so, I went to bed without further ado. But he forgot; and when I opened my eyes, the sun was shining into the room and it was after eight o'clock...! What a disaster...! I was dumbfounded, and having cursed and upbraided the negligent porter, I had to think what I could do. The first difficulty was that the stage-coach ran only every second day, but that was not the major problem, which was that though the regiment had paid for my seat because ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... parte called the chauncels, that it breedeth no small offence and slaunder to see and consider on the one part the curiositie and costes bestowed by all sortes of men upon there private houses, and the other part, the unclean or negligent order or sparekeeping of the house of prayer, by permitting open decaies, and ruines of coveringes, walls, and wyndowes, and by appointing unmeet and unseemly tables, with fowle clothes, for the communion of the sacraments, and generally leavynge the place ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam

... inferiour or meane officer of what degree or condition he shalbe, shalbe tried vntrue, remisse, negligent, or vnprofitable in or about his office in the voyage, or not to vse himselfe in his charge accordingly, then euery such officer to be punished or remoued at the discretion of the captaine and assistants, or the most part of them, and the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... took his seat and began the exercises of his school. The smaller boys recited their lessons well enough, but some of the larger ones were negligent and surly. He noticed one or two of them looking toward the door, as if expecting somebody or something in that direction. At half past nine o'clock, Abner Briggs, Junior, who had not yet shown himself, made his appearance. He was followed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... Jason. He entered St. Peter's, Albany, with exactly the same indifferent and cynical air with which he had seemed to regard everything but money, since he entered "York Colony." Usually, he wore his cocked-hat on the back of his head, thereby lending himself a lolloping, negligent, and, at the same time, defying air; but I observed that, as we all uncovered, he brought his own beaver up over his eye-brows, in a species of military bravado. To uncover to a church, in his view of the matter, was a sort of idolatry; ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... equally unprincipled and far more adroitly managed strife on the part of the negroes to get the better of the planters. Long and close observation of the emancipated black has satisfied the writer beyond all doubt that laziness is not one of his prominent faults. Negligent, unthrifty, careless of time, and sufficiently disposed to take his ease, he undoubtedly is. But every year of freedom has shown an advance, and the five years and a half of the writer's residence showed so unmistakable ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... I suppose, never throw off the mask when their bird is in the net. The husband never becomes negligent, ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... was not always correct or polished; on the contrary, he was sometimes ungrammatical, negligent, and unenforcing, for he concealed his art, and was superior to the knack of oratory. Upon many occasions he abated the vigour of his eloquence, but even then, like the spinning of a cannon ball, he was still ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... astonished at all this; he did not consider that negligence and inhumanity are widely different. The lady-patronesses had, perhaps, been rather negligent in contenting themselves with seeing the charity-children show well in procession to Church, and they had not sufficiently inquired into the conduct of the schoolmistress; but, as soon as the facts were properly stated, the ladies were eager ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... human bones a treasure found; But as his sacrilege was great, To covet riches was his fate, And punishment of his offence; He therefore never stirr'd from thence, But both in hunger and the cold, With anxious care he watch'd the gold, Till wholly negligent of food, A ling'ring death at length ensued. Upon his corse a Vulture stood, And thus descanted:— "It is good, O Dog, that there thou liest bereaved Who in the highway wast conceived, And on a scurvy dunghill bred, Hadst royal riches ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... them with a negligent air, stuck one of the buds into the band of his broad-brimmed hat that lay on the table, and allowed the rest to fall upon the rushes that strewed the stone floor. Marguerite, with a slight and mocking grimace, watched the ill-tempered ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... within her limits, of her probable course in the event of an election of a Black Republican President, and she is totally unprepared for any warlike measures. Her arsenals are empty. While some of her sister States have been preparing for an emergency, which I fear is now imminent, she has been negligent in this ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... testimony to itself, whether in heathen commonwealths or others; and the rather, because so it is, that we who have the holy Scriptures, and in them the original of a commonwealth, made by the same hand that made the world, are either altogether blind or negligent of it; while the heathens have all written theirs, as if they had had no other copy; as, to be more brief in the present account of that which you shall have more at ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... them; for, since the adventure of the Mitylenian, Hereward had rather thought himself annoyed than distinguished by his moonlight ramble in the company of his commander, excepting always the short and interesting period during which he conceived they were on the way to fight a duel. Still, however negligent in the strict observance of the ceremonies of the sacred palace, the Varangians had, in their own way, rigid notions of calculating their military duty; in consequence of which Hereward, without speaking to his companions, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... that the rush of the Fall disturbs the superincumbent gases too much to permit it; for there can be but little doubt that there is plenty of materiel at hand, and, some day or other, a lighthouse will be lit with it to guide sleepy loons and other negligent water-fowl over the Falls. I wonder they do not get up a Carburetted Hydrogen Gas Company there, with a suitable engineer and railway, so that visitors might cross over to Goat Island on an atmospheric line. ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... from these statistics, that the European powers are not so negligent in educating their officers, and in instructing and disciplining their soldiers, as some in this country ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... independent, and though she knows a great deal, it is in a strange, wild way. She reads everything, composes German verses, has imagined and put together a fairy world, dress, language, music, everything, and talks to them in the garden; but she is sadly negligent of her own appearance, and is, as Sterling calls her, Miss Orson. . . . Lucie now goes to a Dr. Biber, who has five other pupils (boys) and his own little child. She seems to take to Greek, with which her father is very anxious to have her thoroughly imbued. As this scheme, even if we stay ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... mortality of the army of the Potomac during the summer months averaged 3 1/2 per cent., and for the whole army it is stated at 5 per cent." "Of the camps inspected, 5 per cent.," he says, "were in admirable order; 44 per cent. fairly clean and well policed. The condition of 26 per cent. was negligent and slovenly, and of 24 per cent. decidedly bad, filthy, and dangerous." Thus 50 per cent. were either negligent and slovenly, or filthy and dangerous. I wonder what the report would have been had Camp Benton, at St. Louis, been surveyed! "In about 80 per cent. of ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... warm dark shadow, in which a circular mirror shone like a pool of brown water. I carried off my raid by behaving like a slave of etiquette. There were moments when I think I really made Lady Osprey believe that my call was an unavoidable necessity, that it would have been negligent of me not to call just how and when I did. But at the best those were ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... JOSEPH,—You know my numerous avocations, and, amid the press of business which surrounds me, will, I am sure, forgive me for being a very negligent and remiss correspondent. Nevertheless, I assure you, no one can more sincerely sympathize in that good fortune which has befallen my charming niece, and of which your last letter informed me, than I do. Pray give my best love to her, and tell her how complacently I look forward ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... are, if possible, more insolent here than in other places, and it is evident that the dogs are not yet reconciled to the annexation, for the guard swept through the streets amid a perfect tornado of howls from the negligent scavengers of the place. For my own part, I was not pleased with the change of rule, when I found that since Annecy has become French, the vin d'Asti has become dear, as being now ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... in the radiant unquenchable laughter that lurked in Lysia's lovely eyes, . . something positively devilish in the grace of her manner, as with a negligent movement, she reseated herself in her crystal throne, and taking a knot of magnolia-flowers that lay beside her, idly toyed with their creamy buds, all the while keeping her basilisk gaze fixed immovably and relentlessly on her sentenced victim. He, grasping the lily-shaped chalice convulsively ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... him at the entrance to the sleeping-berths. He looked into one, and observed Forsyth's head and arms lying in the bed, in that peculiarly negligent style that betokens deep and sweet repose. Dumsby's rest was equally sound in the next berth. This fact did not require proof by ocular demonstration; his nose announced it ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... says cautious Wodrow, "to be weel attested, and I have writ to Mr Reid anent it." Curiosity urged me to look for and find among Wodrow's manuscripts Mr Reid's answer. He says he often heard the story from his father as a truth, but had been unaccountably negligent in noting the particulars of it; and then he favours his correspondent with some special providences anent himself, which appear not to have been sufficiently ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... reduce the amount of tobacco planted, and to increase the amount of corn. He also sent ships into the Chesapeake and southward to Cape Fear to trade for corn with the Indians to make up the deficit left by the negligent planters. But most important of all, Harvey put into effect the long-dreamed-of plan to secure the entire area between the James and the York by building a palisade between Archer's Hope Creek (now College Creek), emptying into ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... sure it is one I thought not of when I began to write,) that, by searching it to the bottom, and turning it on every side, some part or other might meet with every one's thoughts, and give occasion to the most averse or negligent to reflect on a general miscarriage, which, though of great consequence, is little taken notice of. When it is considered what a pudder is made about ESSENCES, and how much all sorts of knowledge, discourse, and conversation are pestered and disordered by the careless and ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... prevent them from obtaining the fair market price for their labour, while their masters are permitted, nay, encouraged, to combine and conspire together to keep down the price of their wages. Again let me impress on the mind of the reader, that a people who are careless and negligent of their political rights, are always sure of being plundered of a great portion of what they earn by the sweat of their brows; they imperceptibly become slaves of the basest cast; and, like slaves, when ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... thereupon piped away, and when she was in the water and her crew in her I proceeded in my most stately manner down the side and flung myself in an easily negligent attitude into ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... cause for the decrease in the disease which has afflicted the cocoons for several years past. Wine and oil are at present articles of import solely,—the former because of a malady of the grape, the latter because of negligent cultivation of the olive. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... Miss Anderson is very clever and highly accomplished. Her talents are brilliant and abundant, and they have been carefully cultivated to every perfection of art save one—the concealment of it. She has grace, but it is studied, not negligent grace; her action is always picturesque and obviously premeditated; everything she says and does is impressive, but it speaks a foregone conclusion. Her acting is polished and in correct taste. What it wants is freshness, spontaneity, abandon. Among English artists of a bygone age ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... much. You know I said they were counterparts, just made for each other, and so they were; but they are of different sexes, made of different stuff, and trouble has had a different effect on them. He has neglected himself, and she is negligent of her dress too, but not in the same way. She is still neat, but utterly regardless of what her attire is; but let it be what it may, and let her put on what she will, still she looks like a lady. But her health is gone, and her spirits too; and in their place a little, delicate ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... put any shadow in her face at his peril'. The next time the Raja came, the Emperor took the opportunity of consulting him upon a subject that had given him a good deal of anxiety for many months, the dismissal of one of his personal servants who had become negligent and disrespectful. He first took care that no one should be within hearing, and then whispered in the artist's ear that he wished to dismiss this man. The Raja said carelessly, as he looked from the imperial head to the canvas, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... all very excellent and satisfactory, but its carrying out was defective. Negligent clerks did not send their returns in spite of admonition, caution, fine, or brotherly persuasion. The searchers' information was usually unreliable. Complications arose on account of the Act of the Commonwealth Parliament requiring ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... walking. Leaving the arrangement of this affair, therefore, to our obliging friend, we retired to rest upon clean comfortable mattresses spread for us on the floor; and on waking in the morning, we found that he had not been negligent in the charge assigned to him. Our party consisted of five officers, with five servants, for whose accommodation we found ten asses at the door, each attended by its driver, who wielded a long pole tipped with an iron spike, for the purpose ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... paragraph is from the Massachusetts Colony Laws of 1642; "Forasmuch as the good education of children is of singular behoof and benefit to any commonwealth, and whereas many parents and masters are too indolent and negligent of their duty in that kind, it is ordered that the select-men of every town in the several precincts and quarters, where they dwell, shall have a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors, to see, first, that none ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... found out when he was very young that his mother gave him everything he asked for, not because she loved him, but because she was too weak to refuse, and too indolent to care for the result. He had found her inaccurate in what she told him, and negligent in fulfilling the little promises upon which a child builds such great hopes, though she was always ready to pay damages for her forgetfulness by excessive indulgence in something else, when it was agreeable to her. Greif had discovered that his father rarely promised him ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... solicitude. Now solicitude pertains to the reason, and rectitude of solicitude to prudence. Hence, on the other hand, negligence pertains to imprudence. This appears from its very name, because, as Isidore observes (Etym. x) "a negligent man is one who fails to choose (nec eligens)": and the right choice of the means belongs to prudence. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... narrative and description, that are necessary to preserve its connection; and the explanation, that must frequently prepare us for the great scenes and splendid passages. In these, all the requisite ideas may be conveyed, with sufficient clearness, by the meanest and most negligent expressions; and if magnificence or beauty is ever to be observed in them, it must have been introduced from some other motive than that of adapting the style to the subject. It is in such passages, accordingly, that we are ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... deference which she looked for. Recommending Antony to frequent "the religious exercises of the sincerer sort," she warns him not to follow his brother's advice or example. Antony was advised to use prayer twice a day with his servants. "Your brother," she adds, "is too negligent therein." She is anxious about Antony's health, and warns him not to fall into his brother's ill-ordered habits: "I verily think your brother's weak stomach to digest hath been much caused and confirmed by untimely going to bed, and then musing nescio quid when he should sleep, and then ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... end of the year approached Dr. Balmuto was expected. He made a visit to Pittenloch every three months. Then he consoled the sick, baptized weakly infants, reproved those who had been negligent in attending kirk, and catechised and examined the young people previous to their admission to The Tables. Maggie had not been very faithful about the ordinances. The weather had been bad, the landward road was dangerous when snow had fallen, and she did not like going in the boats ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... loses its temper, that teases, that is petulant and disobedient, and a nuisance to everybody, is merely a victim, poor little thing, of parents who have been too incompetent or negligent to train it to obedience. Moreover, that same child when grown will be the first to resent and blame the mother's mistaken "spoiling" and lack of ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... Angora chaps and cream-colored shirt and silver-filigreed hatband as ornamental touches to his attire, did not look like a man who was greatly worried over his crop of string beans while he rode with a negligent grace away from a glowing sunset. But in these days the West is full ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... of some negligence," said Leuchtmar carelessly. "He has often been negligent of late, as it seems to me. He has some love affair on hand, has ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... ministerial function according to the Ecclesiastical lawes and orders of the churche[361] of Englande, and every Sunday in the afternoon[362] shall Catechize suche as are not yet ripe to come to the Com.[363] And whosoever of them shalbe[364] found negligent or faulty in this kinde shalbe subject to the censure of the ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various

... Sentiment daughter luxuriant and flowing, and the Comedy daughter in the arch style, with a good deal of sprightly forehead, and vivacious little curls dotted about the corners of her eyes. They were dressed to correspond, though in a most untidy and negligent way. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... suites" from arising because of defective surveys when the lines were first run or because the restriction against resurveys did not resolve the boundary disputes. Conflicts continued if the surveyor had been negligent in marking clearly the boundaries, or if lines had become indistinct by the chops in trees filling out, by piles of stones being scattered, or by trees being removed. To prevent "the inconvenience of ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.

... alert at surprising their enemies, were themselves, on many occasions, liable to surprise. Their men were undisciplined, and sometimes negligent of the patient duties of the sentinel; and, besides, their foragers and flying parties, who scoured the country during the preceding day, had brought back tidings which had lulled them into fatal security. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... great are the latent vices that could authorize us at once to level so specious a fabric with the ground. I do not recognise in this view of things, the despotism of Turkey. Nor do I discern the character of a government that has been, on the whole, so oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly UNFIT FOR ALL REFORMATION. I must think such a government well deserved to have its excellences heightened, its faults corrected, and its capacities improved into a ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... will not go over them again. It was the history of all the other Colonies; poor, proud, with large masses of children clustering about, and Indians lurking in the out-buildings. The mother-country was negligent, and even cruel. Her political offscourings were sent to rule the people. The cranberry-crops soured on the vines, ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... the hero of this lay Olga and Tania led. Malign, Oneguine Olga bore away. Gliding in negligent career, He bending whispered in her ear Some madrigal not worth a rush, And pressed her hand—the crimson blush Upon her cheek by adulation Grew brighter still. But Lenski hath Seen all, beside himself with wrath, And hot with ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... robin's nest in the tree, in the bird boxes which have been put up for more desirable creatures; anywhere and everywhere this industrious little mother is liable to build her nest. Her husband will help her more or less in the task, often bringing material and helping to place it in the negligent pile of which their nest is composed. But he does a good deal more fussing and cheering up than he does actual work, and she seems to depend much upon his cheerful presence for her happiness. It is hard to discourage Madam Sparrow when once she has set her mind on ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... minutes more had passed away: the child was lost, the fearful question of where and how he might be found was on everybody's lips. Poor Marten, it was dreadful to see his terror and grief, and Mary, oh! how negligent Mary felt herself, for had she not assisted greatly to his loss by taking him from his brother, and had she not promised that brother the evening before to see him in his bed and look after him, which she had forgotten to do. Jenkins, too, the motherly female who had so kindly ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood

... took the paper with negligent curiosity. It was rumpled and dirty, far different from its appearance when in the box, and he did not recognize it. But as soon as he had smoothed it, and saw the handwriting, he sprang to ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... to be slack and negligent; or loose, and wanton in thy actions; nor contentious, and troublesome in thy conversation; nor to rove and wander in thy fancies and imaginations. Not basely to contract thy soul; nor boisterously to sally out with it, or furiously ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... not," says Xenophon, "difference in knowledge or opportunities of knowledge that makes some farmers rich and others poor; but that which makes some poor and some rich is that the former are negligent and lazy, the latter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... occupied positions of some trust and responsibility. One named Davy was for many years manager of Muddy Hole Farm, and Washington thought that he carried on his work as well as did the white overseers and more quietly than some, though rather negligent of live stock. Each year at killing time he was allowed two or three hundredweight of pork as well as other privileges not accorded to the ordinary slave. Still his master did not entirely trust him, for in 1795 we find that Washington suspected Davy ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... attended all their ambitious projects. At the time of the visit of the Landers, they were effectually in the heart of the kingdom, they had entrenched themselves in strong walled towns, and had recently forced from Mansolah a declaration of their independence, whilst this negligent and imbecile monarch beheld them gnawing away the very sinews of his strength, without making the slightest exertion to apply a remedy for the evil, or prevent their future aggrandizement. Independently of Raka, which is peopled ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... board there;—to make the Newspapers believe. Stanislaus himself drove through Berlin, a day or two ago; gave the sentry a ducat at the Gate, to be speedy with the Passports,—whom Friedrich Wilhelm affected to put under arrest for such negligent speed. And so, on the 10th of the month, Stanislaus being now rested and trimmed; makes his appearance on the Field of Wola itself; and captivates all hearts by the kind look of him. So that, on the second ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Godwin Swift, himself a poor man; but was not grateful for his assistance, always saying that his uncle had given him the education of a dog. At the University of Dublin, where he was entered, he did not bear a good character: he was frequently absent from his duties and negligent of his studies; and although he read history and poetry, he was considered stupid as well as idle. He was more than once admonished and suspended, but at length received his degree, Speciali gratia; which special act of grace implied that he had not fairly ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... this little drama of success, that hung in a recess of the hall at the foot of the stairs. R. Gordon Carson, as the great psychologist had seen him, was a striking person, an embodiment of modern waywardness, an outcropping of the trivial and vulgar. In a sacque coat, with the negligent lounging air of the hotel foyer, he stared at you, this Mr. R. Gordon Carson, impudently almost, very much at his ease. Narrow head, high forehead, thin hair, large eyes, a great protruding nose, a thin ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... had undertaken the charge. She watched over them with unceasing vigilance, whilst diffidence of her own abilities was happily supported by her high opinion of Madame de Fleury's judgment. This lady constantly visited her pupils every week; not in the hasty, negligent manner in which fine ladies sometimes visit charitable institutions, imagining that the honour of their presence is to work miracles, and that everything will go on rightly when they have said, "Let it be so," or, "I must have it so." Madame de Fleury's visits ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth

... lie a dying, and the devils stand by ready to scramble for them? 10. Was Christ slothful in the work of your redemption? 11. Are his ministers slothful in tendering this unto you? 12. And lastly, If all this will not move, I tell you God will not be slothful or negligent to damn you, (their damnation slumbereth not, 2 Pet. ii. 3;) nor will the devils neglect to fetch thee, nor hell neglect to shut ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan

... consolation of giving now and then preferments to those for whom they have no value; they are unhappy in their situation, yet find it impossible to resign. Until, at length, soured in temper, and disappointed by the very attainment of their ends, in some angry, in some haughty, or some negligent moment, they incur the displeasure of those upon whom they have rendered their very being dependent. Then perierunt tempora longi servitii; they are cast off with scorn; they are turned out, emptied of all natural character, of all ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... indicated, no place for him at home; and suddenly he realized that his duties at college had been a tedious grind for inconsiderable return. This admission brought to him the realization that he detested the whole thing—the hours in class; the droning negligent recitations of the men; the professor of philosophy and letters' pedantic display; the cramped academic spirit of the institution. The vague resentment he had felt at the half-concealed disdain of his fellows gave place to ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... sweep of them, and leave none to tell the tale; and if they needed any assistance they were commanded to hire the Indians as their allies, promising them a share of the booty. They were to be neither slothful nor negligent in their duty, and to be punctual in sending the teams back to him before winter set in, for this was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... wherefore the Ydalcao holds it in so little esteem that he puts upon it every day a thousand affronts and requisitions. Of this King there is nothing more so far to recount, save that he is a man that they hold to be of little force of character, and very negligent of the things which most concern the welfare of his ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... well, and not over-work, starve, or famish them, besides other Inducements to favour them; which is done in a great Degree, to such especially that are laborious, careful, and honest; tho' indeed some Masters, careless of their own Interest or Reputation, are too cruel and negligent. ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones

... serious," remarked his father, "for I found this morning that I had left my bunch of keys on my desk. I don't see how I came to be so negligent." ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... liked to dine, and often he dined alone. Young Jacob was in great demand all over town, and his father knew that he ought to go out and amuse himself. And the young man, although he was kind and loving, and never negligent in any office of respect or affection, had that strong youth in him which makes it impossible to sit every day of the week opposite an old man whose world had slipped by him, who knew nothing of youth except to love ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner

... again, launching a kick at a snorting animal that reared back against Margaret's saddle. If she should lose her courage and fall now, under those hoofs—He struck out again and again, kicking right and left with all his might. Already the negligent drivers had galloped into the cut, and their long quirts were whistling over the heads of the herd. As suddenly as it had come, the struggling, frantic wave of wild life swept up out of the gulch and on across the open prairie, and with a long despairing ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... perhaps, that the trust company had been, even from the easy American standard, a rather negligent parent, chiefly concerned with its ward's fortune, and hastened to say defensively,—"We placed you with an excellent woman,"—Adelle had placed herself, but it made no difference,—"one in whom we ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... afternoon he drove from the rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer toward the elegant latitudes of the Madeleine. It may well be believed that certain cares had been bestowed upon his toilet, which ought to present a happy medium between the negligent ease of a morning costume and the ceremonious character of an evening suit. Condemned by his profession to a white cravat, which he rarely laid aside, and not venturing to present himself in anything but a dress-coat, he felt himself being drawn, of necessity, ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... respond to new notes in the world about us. We are arenas for a conflict between suggestions flung in from all sources, from the most diverse and essentially incompatible sources. We live long hours and days in a kind of dream, negligent of self-interest, our elementary passions in ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... story he had to tell. Even then, with my limited knowledge of painting, he seemed to me to furnish the antithesis to Pyne,—one too careful of style and running to excessive precision, the other too negligent and running into indecision; and this judgment still holds. Of Davidson, my immediate teacher, there was only to be got certain ways of doing certain things, limited to the elements of landscape; how to wash in the sky, to treat foliage in masses, and ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... the minister erased by the King was frequently unsuitable, and dictated by the minister's private feelings; but the King's was always the natural expression. He himself composed, three times or oftener, his famous answers to the Parliament which he banished. But in his letters he was negligent, and always incorrect. Simplicity was the characteristic of the King's style; the figurative style of M. Necker did not please him; the sarcasms of Maurepas were disagreeable to him. Unfortunate Prince! he would predict, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... care in this respect it is apt to degenerate into a mere prosaical imitation of reality, and thereby to forfeit its pretensions to rank as either poetry or art. It is exactly, however, in the form, that the English comedies are most negligent. In the first place, they are written entirely in prose. It has been well remarked by an English critic, that the banishment of verse from Comedy had even a prejudicial influence on versification in Tragedy. The older dramatists could elevate or lower the tone of their Iambics at pleasure; ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... his brothers had often to work for hours before they could find the lost animals. The father often let the boy feel the rod severely enough, but it had no more effect than water poured on the back of a goose. When the boy grew up into a youth, he did not mend his ways. No work prospered in his negligent hands; he hacked and broke the tools, wearied out the draught cattle, and yet never did ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... clerk with jealous eyes. He knew and knew well that Howard was savagely glad when Brannan was sent to the reservation with Boynton's party. He noted that Howard became of a sudden fitful, restless, sullen, and then reckless and negligent of his work and eager to go frequently to Braska. Presently he heard things of him that made him believe Howard was contemplating desertion, and no sooner had Lieutenant Davies arrived than he became assured of it. "I had to serve under that damned, canting Methodist preacher," ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... the foundation for consumption, paralysis and heart disease. It weakens the memory, makes a boy careless, negligent and listless. It even makes many lose their minds; others, when grown, commit suicide. How often mothers see their little boys handling themselves, and let it pass, because they think the boy will outgrow the habit, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... tell that corn and victuals were sold in Egypt, and said to his sons: Why be ye negligent? I have heard say that corn is sold in Egypt; go ye thither and buy for us that is necessary and behoveful, that we may live, and consume not for need. Then the ten brethren of Joseph descended into Egypt for to buy wheat, and Benjamin was left at home with the father, because whatsoever happed ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... Denmark is not ill contriv'd; but I cannot think that his Stratagem is natural or easy, by which he brings that Destruction upon the Heads of his Enemies, which was to have fallen upon himself. It was possible, but not very probable; because methinks, their Commission was kept in a very negligent Manner, to be thus got from them without their knowing it. Their Punishment was just, because they had devoted themselves to the Service of the Usurper in whatever he should command, as ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous

... parent requires, the presence of a daughter who prefers the gaiety of the city to the quiet of the old homestead that is imperiously demanded. If the parent be feeble or sick, the undutiful child is criminally negligent; the crime is still greater if there be danger through that absence of the parent's dying ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... been, according to her own opinion, above rather than beneath them. The lover-like pretensions of Shade Buckheath, a man dangerous, remorseless, as careless of the rights of others as any tiger in the jungle, she regarded with negligent composure. But Gray Stoddard—ah, there her treacherous heart gave way, and trembled in terror. The air of perfect equality he maintained between them, his attitude of intimacy, flattering, almost affectionate, this it was which she felt she ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... workers were at hand. Orders were obtained; and carriages returning from church, hotel omnibuses—every wheeled thing upon the streets were impressed for the service of mercy. By late afternoon the wards of Winder Hospital were over-flowing; but negligent, or overworked, commissaries had neglected to provide food, and many of the men—in their exhausted condition—were reported dying of starvation! Few women in Richmond dined that Sabbath. Whole neighborhoods brought their untasted dinners to the chief worker among them; and carriages and carts—loaded ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... taking the Bristol traders in the Bristol Channel;—to the latter, when his remonstrances on the subject of captures were the jest of Paris and of Europe. This fine step was taken, it seems, in honor of the zeal of these two profound statesmen in the prosecution of John the Painter: so totally negligent are they of everything essential, and so long and so deeply affected with trash the most low and contemptible; just as if they thought the merit of Sir John Fielding was the most shining point in the character of great ministers, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... he shall see the people negligent to come to the holy Communion, instead of the former, he shall use this Exhortation, Dearly beloved brethren, ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... task of forging chains for her friends and children, and, instead of giving support to freedom, turns advocate for slavery and oppression, there is reason to suspect she has either ceased to be virtuous, or been extremely negligent in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... beauty of Rome[475]. But what shall we say of the marbles, precious both by material and workmanship, which many a hand longs, if it has opportunity, to pick out of their settings? Who when entrusted with such a charge can be negligent? who venal? We entrust to you therefore for this Indiction the dignity of the Comitiva Romana, with all its rights and just emoluments. Watch for all such evil-doers as we have described. Rightly does the public grief[476] punish those ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... Society, upwards of 2,500 miles."[44] In cities like Toronto and Kingston it was on the whole the church of the governing class, and shared in the culture and public qualities of that class. Nor was it negligent of the cure of poorer souls, for Anglicans co-operated with Presbyterians in the {44} management of the poor schools in Kingston, and in that and the other more prominent towns of the province, the English ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... but will be born on the spirit plane. While these have waited for the coming of the Lord, the foolish ones have been indifferent. They have had no oil, have not had the spirit of the truth, the loving zeal for the Lord and his cause; hence they have been negligent. Whereas the wise virgins have been watching and have kept their lamps trimmed and burning; which means they have studied the Word of God and watched the fulfillment of prophecies, striving to develop the fruits and graces of the spirit and to be prepared for the coming of the Bridegroom. ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... of a legal court, the magistrates set up a jurisdiction of their own. Criminal trials were dispatched by the simplest process, and the mixed penalties of a military and civil court inflicted on the assumed offender.[83] Thus, the negligent provision for the administration of justice secured impunity to crime, or seemed to ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... thought, but it did not really help. There was still this pressure of a flood of tears behind her eyes. She looked out of the window and exclaimed, "It's getting dark!" She said it peevishly, as if the sun's descent was the last piece of carelessness on the part of a negligent universe. And as her eye explored the dusk and saw that the bright spheres round the lamps were infested by wandering ghosts of wind-blown humidity she thought of her walk home up the Mound and what it would be like on this night of gusts and damp. "That puts the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... bottle of porter, the froth of which you are quite sure from the manner in which the bottle is held, will chiefly fall upon the sheets between which you are destined to sleep,—unless some half drunken ruffian, regardless of rights of possession and negligent of etiquette, deposits himself there before the hour at which you may think good to retire ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... hysterical inclination to laugh. He was so totally negligent of her presence that even this little incident had failed to make him sensible of her scrutiny. Immersed in his thoughts he was very obviously miles away from Craven Towers and the vicinity of a troublesome ward. And suddenly ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... was diverted by a slight sound which was half a cough and half a sniff; and, turning, found himself gazing into the clear blue eyes of a large man in uniform, who had stepped into the room from the fire-escape. He was swinging a substantial club in a negligent sort of way, and he looked at Archie with a ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... a case in which the arrears were not only remitted, but the rent lowered to a reasonable standard, such as, considering the markets, could be paid. And what was the consequence? The tenant who was looked upon as a negligent man, from whom scarcely any rent could be got, took courage, worked his farm with a spirit and success which he had not evinced before; and ere long was in a capacity to pay his gales to the very day; so that the judicious and humane landlord was finally a ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... that M. de Polignac presents to the imagination, with his unruffled serenity, his extreme audacity, his violent measures, his negligent preparation, his strong will, his weak intelligence. The minister is always smiling, and, in the midst of disaster and ruin, is still beaming with self-confidence; he seems to have thought that self-confidence wrought like magic, or like faith, and could of itself remove mountains. If ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... resolutely opposes them and, as here stated, "puts to death the deeds of the body." To do this means a severe struggle, a battle, which never abates nor ceases so long as we live. The Christian dare never become slothful or negligent in this matter. He must arouse himself through the Spirit so as not to give place to the flesh. He must constantly put to death the flesh lest he himself be put to death by it. The apostle declares, "If ye live after the flesh, ye must die," and again comforts us, "If by the Spirit ye put to death ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... breathed freely as a man released. He married again,—a woman with no beauty, but much love and goodness,—a woman who asked little, blamed seldom, and then with all the tact and address which the utmost thoughtfulness could devise; and the passive, negligent husband became the attentive, devoted slave of her will. He was in her hands as clay in the hands of the potter; the least breath or suggestion of criticism from her lips, who criticized so little and so thoughtfully, weighed more with him than many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... the climax, the government officials were so negligent that Secretary Crawford, in 1820, confessed to Congress that "it appears, from an examination of the records of this office, that no particular instructions have ever been given, by the Secretary of the Treasury, under the original or supplementary acts prohibiting ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... superstition in worship, Prelacy and Erastianism in government, and overthrowing all good discipline. 4. Because of our own sinful miscarriages in, and woful declinings from our covenanted duties, our proneness to break covenant with God, and to be indifferent, lax, negligent and unsteadfast in the cause and work of God, and to be led away with the error of the wicked, and to fall from our steadfastness; wherefore we thought it necessary to bind ourselves by a new tie to the Lord, and one to another in a zealous prosecution of covenanted duties, ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery

... conceal the surprise he experienced at every fresh intelligence. He was now in this situation, and to this vanity was added the feeling of friendship; he would not have it supposed that Cinq-Mars had been negligent toward him, and, for his friend's honor even, would appear to be ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... indulged, or that she should not be made to work out her own salvation; but that she should realize that, if she tries, some one will know and bless her, and if she stumbles, some one will help her up again. Just as truly should she know that, if she is careless of endeavor or negligent of her days, she will meet with disparagement ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... tilts and boxing of the waggons. Under this friendly cover we were enabled to approach close up to the vehicles, without much risk of attracting observation. But few persons were straying outside—only the cattle-guards and other routine-officers of the caravan, all equally negligent of their duties. They knew they were in Utah territory, and had ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... with affright, Wak'd Priam in drawing his curtains by night. 110 But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her? That she came with some terrible news from the baker: And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven Sad Philomel thus — but let similes drop — 115 And now that I think on't, the story may stop. To be plain, my good Lord, it's but labour misplac'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... a courtier, and came rarely to the Emperor, except on his regular visit each Wednesday and Saturday. He was very candid with the Emperor, insisted positively that his directions should be obeyed to the letter, and made full use of the right accorded to physicians to scold their negligent patient. The Emperor was especially fond of him, and always detained him, seeming to find much ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... she spoke; "and had my advice been listened to, they had been apprehended in the very fact; and so dealt with, as to be a warning to all others how they sought this independent principality on such an errand. But my son, who is generally so culpably negligent of his own affairs, was pleased to assume the management ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... the labour of effecting it; and we returned to supper at eight o'clock, well-disposed to cut the day as short as possible. But we were now in Saxony, and the Saxon police thought fit to convince us, that, however negligent their brother-officials in Austria and Prussia might be, they were not to be caught napping. I was sound asleep, when about twelve o'clock, a loud rapping at the chamber-door awoke me. I demanded the cause of so ill-timed ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... Abbey of Fulda transcribing the forgery of Bracciolini and incorporating it with the works of Tacitus in closely copied Lombard characters of great antiquity. The monk was not only slow at his work; he was also negligent; for when he went to Rome in the winter following, and should have taken his transcript to Bracciolini, he had left it behind him at the abbey. "The Hirschfeldt monk has come without the book," writes Bracciolini angrily to Niccoli on the 26th February, 1429; "and ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... and what was the best use that might be made of travelling. He freely told me that the first thing above all was to remember our Creator in the dayes of our youth, to be serious wt our God: not to suffer ourselfes to grow negligent and slack in our duty we ow to God, and then to seik after good and learned company whence we may learn the customes of the country, the nature and temper of the peaple, and what wast diversity of humours is to be sein in the world. He told me also a expression ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... to them, and gave them each a word as they passed in review. She was gracious, she was smiling, yet somehow she was negligent. I was not prepared that she should be used to homage. Perhaps I had thought that this bit of vassalage would give her pleasure. She treated it ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... time, at least, has always had an active and swift communication with the rest of the world. As a people, we are, beyond a question, decidedly provincial; but our provincialism is not exactly one of external appearance. The men are negligent of dress, for they are much occupied, have few servants, and clothes are expensive; but the women dress remarkably near the Parisian modes. We have not sufficient confidence in ourselves to set fashions. All our departures from the usages of the rest of mankind are results of circumstances, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... There was no safety outside the precincts of the feeble forts that dotted the Indian territory. Bouquet had hoped for help from the settlers and government of Pennsylvania; but the settlers thought only of immediate safety, and the government was criminally negligent in leaving the frontier of the state unprotected, and would vote neither men nor money for defence. But they must be saved in spite of themselves. By energetic efforts, in eighteen days after his arrival at Carlisle, ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... point out. The fragments and moral maxims of the comic writers are, in their versification and language, distinguished by extreme purity, elegance, and accuracy; moreover, the tone of society which speaks in them breathes a certain Attic grace. The Latin comic poets, on the other hand, are negligent in their versification; they trouble themselves very little about syllabic quantity, and the very idea of it is almost lost amidst their many metrical licences. Their language also, at least that of Plautus, is deficient in cultivation and polish. Several learned ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... Dally a while with each dear dame; And then my strength thy pride shall tame For, should I smite thee drunk with wine Enamoured of those dames of thine, Beneath diseases bowed and bent, Or weak, unarmed, or negligent, My deed would merit hate and scorn As his who slays the child unborn." Then Bali's soul with rage was fired, Queen Tara and the dames retired; And slowly, with a laugh of pride, The king of Vanars thus replied: ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... of the hearers. See the Historical Abstract in this volume.] against them for the rights of Greece. Why do I mention this? To show and convince you, Athenians, that nothing, if you take precaution, is to be feared, nothing, if you are negligent, goes as you desire. Take for examples the strength of the Lacedaemonians then, which you overcame by attention to your duties, and the insolence of this man now, by which through neglect of our interests we are ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... thus recalled to the surrounding objects, the straight walks, square parterres, and artificial fountains of the garden, could not fail, as she passed through it, to appear the worse, opposed to the negligent graces, and natural beauties of the grounds of La Vallee, upon which her recollection ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... Irish Mary flapped a negligent palm. "Ah, well, change is what we all want, now and then." She looked at Harrietta sharply. "You're not wantin' to go ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... stock, than to add to their faith virtue? &c. Who among you is enlarging his desires, as the grave, after conformity to Jesus Christ, and the righteousness of his kingdom, that this treasure of grace may abound? Alas, we are poor mean Christians, because we are negligent! For "the hand of the diligent maketh rich," Prov. x. 4. But we become poor in grace, because we deal with a slack hand. Is there any great thing that is attainable without much pains ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... by means of which distant objects appeared nearer to the beholder, addressed himself to the cause of such a phenomenon, which led to the invention of the telescope and proved the beginning of the modern science of astronomy. Discoveries such as these could never have been made by a negligent observer, or by ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... O Lord, and call not into judgment my manifold sins; and chiefly those whereof the world is not able to accuse me. In youth, mid age, and now after many battles, I find nothing in me but vanity and corruption. For, in quietness I am negligent; in trouble impatient, tending to desperation; and in the mean [middle] state I am so carried away with vain fantasies, that alas! O Lord, they withdraw me from the presence of thy Majesty. Pride and ambition assault me on the one part, covetousness ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... subjected to mental and moral degradation by the vicious suggestions received in some of these places. Weak teachers have a false modesty in regard to such conditions and school boards are often thoughtless or negligent. ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... sharp recall of wandering thoughts, and Haward had the situation in hand. An easy greeting to the gentlemen, debonair compliments for the ladies, a question or two as to the entertainment they had left, then a negligent bringing forward of Audrey. "A little brown ward and ancient playmate of mine,—shot up in the night to be as tall as a woman. Make thy curtsy, child, and go tell the minister what I have said on the subject ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... said Niccolo Ridolfi, a middle-aged man, with that negligent ease of manner which, seeming to claim nothing, is really based on the lifelong consciousness of commanding rank—"I remember our Antonio getting bitter about his chiselling and enamelling of these metal things, and taking in ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... take it from a mother's tongue. Alas! what is't for us to sound, to explore, To watch, oppose, plot, practise, or prevent, If he, for whom it is so strongly labour'd, Shall, out of greatness and free spirit, be Supinely negligent? our city's now Divided as in time o' the civil war, And men forbear not to declare themselves Of Agrippina's party. Every day The faction multiplies; and will do more, If not resisted: you can best enlarge it, As you find audience. Noble Posthumus, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... all the world, would not such treatment on a mother's part be equal to infanticide? And then as to Mr. Gibson himself! Camilla was not prone to think little of her own charms, but she had been unable not to perceive that her lover had become negligent in his personal attentions to her. An accepted lover, who deserves to have been accepted, should devote every hour at his command to his mistress. But Mr. Gibson had of late been so chary of his presence at Heavitree, that Camilla could not but have ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... first philosophy is the original language of the gods. I would have my matter distinguish itself; it sufficiently shows where it changes, where it concludes, where it begins, and where it rejoins, without interlacing it with words of connection introduced for the relief of weak or negligent ears, and without explaining myself. Who is he that had not rather not be read at all than after a drowsy or ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... men had been leaning at various negligent angles,—some with their elbows upon the table, some with their arms thrown across the backs of their chairs. The partridge had been excellent, the wine delicious, the tobacco irreproachable. Burma, the tinkle of bells in the temples, ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... Fenellan was the critic on his friend, the shadow cast over his negligent hedonism by Victor's boiling pressure, drove him into the seat of judgement. As a consequence, he was rather a dull table-guest in the presence of Dr. Themison, whom their host had pricked to anticipate high entertainment from him. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... why the 'Village Minstrel' passed entirely unnoticed, another and still more important cause was the negligent manner in which it was published. Books, like all other earthly objects requiring to be bought and sold, must undergo certain preparations, and run through prescribed channels of trade in their way from the producer ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... confused me to purpose. Na, naething confuses me, unless it be a screed o' drink at an orra [*Occasional] time. Besides, I behooved to be round the hirsel this morning, and see how the herds were coming on—they're apt to be negligent wi' their footballs, and fairs, and trysts, when ane's away. And there I met wi' Tam o' Todshaw, and a wheen o' the rest o' the billies on the water side; they're a' for a fox-hunt this morning,—ye'll gang? I'll gie ye Dumple, and ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... the most trying and dangerous. Courage, caution, patience, sleepless vigilance, and iron nerve are essential to its due performance. Upon the picket-guards of an army rests an immense responsibility. They are the eyes and ears of the encamped or embattled host. Hence, if they are negligent or faithless, the thousands dependent upon their zeal and watchfulness for safety, might almost as well be blind and deaf. The bravest army, under such circumstances, is liable, like a strong man in his sleep, to be pounced upon and discomfited by an inferior ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... intended to make a man of himself, and he could only accomplish his purpose by constant exertion, by constant study and constant "trying again." He was obliged to keep a close watch over himself, for often he was tempted to be idle and negligent, to be ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... gave in 1753 a list of curious names of wigs: "The pigeons wing, the comet, the cauliflower, the royal bird, the staircase, the ladder, the brush, the wild boars back, the temple, the rhinoceros, the crutch, the negligent, the chancellor, the out-bob, the long-bob, the half-natural, the chain-buckle, the corded buckle, the detached buckle, the Jasenist bob, the drop wigg, the snail back, the spinage-seed, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... retenir plus longtemps le General Major Fleetwood avec moi, son desir le portait si fort de se trouver a Upsale, au couronnement, de crainte qu'il ne semblerait negligent, et manquer a son devoir envers son Altesse Royale; mais la raison de ce qu'il a presente ma requete a votre Excellence est qu'il vous plaise moyenner envers son Altesse Royale, afin qu'il retourne a Stockholm; et que je puisse jouir de sa compagnie jusqu'a mon depart, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... helpless anger. "I have it, I think," said he at last. "The Maid is right busy, as needs must be, gathering guns and food for her siege of Jargeau. But it is not fitting that she should visit Orleans without seeing you, nor would she wish to be so negligent. Yet if she were, I would put it in her mind, and then, when you are with her, which Elliot shall not know, I will see that Elliot comes into the chamber, and so leave all to you, and to her, and to the Maid. ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang



Words linked to "Negligent" :   lax, inattentive, negligence, hit-and-run, neglect, neglectful, slack, derelict



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