Phlegmatic Quotes

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Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so. By the same token, though, I suppose that boulders and mountains and moons could be accused of being a little too phlegmatic.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I was lying, but I wanted to rouse him. I have an inborn urge to contradict; my whole life has been a mere chain of sad and futile opposition to the dictates of either heart or reason. The presence of an enthusiast makes me as cold as a midwinter's day, and, I believe, frequent association with a listless phlegmatic would make me an impassioned dreamer.
Mikhail Lermontov (A Hero of Our Time)
Nothing is as irritating to a shy man as a confident girl.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Some people hate people who are overconfident, only because their overconfidence reminds them of their underconfidence.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!
Gerard Nolst Trenité (Drop your Foreign Accent)
Gray. The overcast skies had the colour of deadened stones, and seemed closer than usually, as though they were phlegmatically observing my every movement with their apathetic emptily blue-less eyes; each tiny drop of hazy rain drifting around resembled transparent molten steel, the pavement looked like it was about to burst into disconsolate tears, even the air itself was gray, so ultimate and ubiquitous that colour was everywhere around me. Gray...
Simona Panova (Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew))
I had lost all perspective; I was wandering in a desperate purgatory (with a gray man in a gray boat in a gray river: an apathetic Charon dawdling upon a passionless phlegmatic River Styx ... and a petulant Christ child bawling on the train ... ).
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
Only the stupid and the phlegmatic should teach.
Willa Cather
Why, they are so sure of themselves that they do not even hurry. They move slowly, phlegmatically; they speak of necessary centuries. They swallow worlds at leisure; creep through systems with dawdling complacence.
Isaac Asimov (Foundation and Empire (Foundation, #2))
Bodily functions are a wonderful, indeed sensual, thing. Why, the mere blowing clear of a nose is a potential source of ecstasy, once you grasp its phlegmatic allure.
Steven Erikson (Midnight Tides (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #5))
He stumbled out of his phlegmatic apathy, when she entered his life like an epiphany.
Neelniki
I resume my pen, in reply to the curious epistle, you have been pleased to favour me with; and can assure you, that, notwithstanding, I am naturally of a grave and phlegmatic disposition, it has been the source of abundant merriment to me. The spirit that breathes throughout is so rancorous, illiberal and imperious: The argumentative part of it so puerile and fallacious: The misrepresentations of facts so palpable and flagrant: The criticisms so illiterate, trifling and absurd: The conceits so low, sterile and splenetic, that I will venture to pronounce it one of the most ludicrous performances, which has been exhibited to public view, during all the present controversy.
Alexander Hamilton (The Works of Alexander Hamilton: The Federalist, The Continentalist, A Full Vindication, The Adams Controversy, The Jefferson Controversy, Military Papers ... (26 Books With Active Table of Contents))
His mind was of a most phlegmatic sort, cool in its private applications, quick, and excessively rational; he possessed a fault common to those of high intelligence, however, which was that he tended to regard the gift of his intellect as a license of a kind, by whose rarefied authority he was protected, in all circumstances, from ever behaving ill. He considered his moral obligations to be of an altogether different class than those of lesser men, and so rarely felt shame or compunction, except in very general terms.
Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries)
Okay,’ said Jack phlegmatically. ‘Be seeing you.’ Friends and women, he knew, never really mixed.
Nevil Shute (Trustee from the Toolroom)
All human temperaments were considered to belong to one or another of the four humors—sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic.
Barbara W. Tuchman (A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century)
I suppose I must be one of the neurotic younger generation you read about in the papers nowadays, because it was pretty plain within half a second that I wasn't strong and I wasn't phlegmatic.
P.G. Wodehouse (Carry On, Jeeves: (Jeeves & Wooster) (Jeeves & Wooster Series Book 3))
It is thus religion infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity and fanaticism: if he has a heated imagination it drives him on to fury; if he has activity, it makes him a madman, who is frequently as cruel to himself, as he is dangerous and incommodious to others: if, on the contrary, he be phlegmatic or of a slothful habit, he becomes melancholy and is useless to society.
Paul-Henri Thiry
You see, I had been exploring the tunnels of my own mind, and my greatest idea had come to me." "What was it?" Neverfell was fascinated. "I do not know," the Kleptomancer answered, perfectly phlegmatically. "But I am sure I will let myself know when the time is right. You see, anybody who chases a plan, however secretively and indirectly, gives themselves away. After a while you can predict them, work out what they want. So I decided the only way to avoid this was not to know what the plan was, or even the parts of the plan, until I needed them. Nobody could predict me, because I could not predict myself. Nobody could work out what I wanted, because I did not know what I wanted.
Frances Hardinge (A Face Like Glass)
The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one’s ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment.
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
Progress is a wonderful thing of course, and I can appreciate the lactiferins that are sprinkled on the pasture to turn the grass to cheese. And yet this lack of cows, however rational it may be, gives one the feeling that the fields and meadows, deprived of their phlegmatic, bemusedly ruminating presence, are pitifully empty.
Stanisław Lem (The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy)
The four elements: earth, water, fire and air; the qualities recognized by touch: cold, heat, dryness, and moisture; the temperaments: sanguineous, phlegmatic, choleric, and saturnine; the faculties: natural, animal, and vital.
Noah Gordon (The Physician (The Cole Trilogy, 1))
...if in the heat of the dispute he insists and asks, 'Am I not the master of throwing myself out of the window?' I shall answer him, no; that whilst he preserves his reason there is no probability that the desire of proving his free agency, will become a motive sufficiently powerful to make him sacrifice his life to the attempt: if, notwithstanding this, to prove he is a free agent, he should actually precipitate himself from the window, it would not be a sufficient warranty to conclude he acted freely, but rather that it was the violence of his temperament which spurred him on to this folly. Madness is a state, that depends upon the heat of the blood, not upon the will. A fanatic or a hero, braves death as necessarily as a more phlegmatic man or a coward flies from it.
Paul-Henri Thiry
Make sure that you are doing a job suited to your particular temperament.  If you are a choleric person, find a leadership job that is suitable for choleric people.  If you are phlegmatic, ask to be excused from jobs that require a driving, leadership personality!
Dag Heward-Mills (The Art of Ministry)
The object of the intellect is to light and lead the will on its path, and therefore, the greater the force, impetus and passion, which spurs on the will from within, the more complete and luminous must be the intellect which is attached to it, that the vehement strife of the will, the glow of passion, and the intensity of the emotions, may not lead man astray, or urge him on to ill considered, false or ruinous action; this will, inevitably, be the result, if the will is very violent and the intellect very weak. On the other hand, a phlegmatic character, a weak and languid will, can get on and hold its own with a small amount of intellect; what is naturally moderate needs only moderate support.
Arthur Schopenhauer (Essays of Schopenhauer)
The easiest person to like is a SanPhleg. The overpowering and often obnoxious tendencies of a Sanguine are offset by the gracious, easygoing Phlegmatic. SanPhlegs are happy-go-lucky people whose carefree spirit and good humor make them lighthearted entertainers. Helping people is their regular business, along with various forms of sales. The least extrovertish of the Sanguines, they often react to their environment and circumstances rather than being proactive and self-motivated.
Tim LaHaye (Spirit-Controlled Temperament)
phlegmatic,
Thomas Savage (The Power of the Dog)
Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands.
Abigail Adams
But that I am by nature phlegmatic, slow to wrath, and prone to lechery (to love, I would say),
Christopher Marlowe (Dr. Faustus)
The Empire does what is necessary,” the subofficer observed in a phlegmatic manner which would have gratified his superiors.
Alan Dean Foster (Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind's Eye)
I could not bank on the phlegmatic Chinese; I would have to take care of it myself. This would be safer and also consistent with my own responsibility. The latter is the anarch’s ultimate authority.
Ernst Jünger (Eumeswil)
Formed of the emanations of the thousands who had died of boredom while on hold with customer service, phlegmatic fields represented the most powerful of the few joint creations of Hades and Hephaestus.
Michael G. Munz (Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure (Zeus Is Dead, #1))
(Tuesday, 21 April 1964) They needn't talk to me about loneliness. I've walked too many miles of pavement. I've scanned so many faces - I've looked with so much furtive hope, but it's never right. Only in my imagination. There, I have marvellous conversations with someone attractive, slow, charmingly phlegmatic & naturally reticent, and with me, he becomes articulate. But in fact, I take a sleeping pill & tell myself to shut up.
Kenneth Williams (The Kenneth Williams Diaries)
What the . . . Look, Panas, the moon’s gone.” “So it is,” kum agreed phlegmatically. “Right, and you just accept it, like that’s the way it should be?” “Well, what else can I do about it?” “What devil has done this to the moon, I want to know? May he never have a shot of vodka in the morning,
Nikolai Gogol (The Night Before Christmas)
How this seemingly dull, phlegmatic man, in a stupendous act of nation building, presided over the victorious Continental Army and forged the office of the presidency is a mystery to most Americans. Something essential about Washington has been lost to posterity, making him seem a worthy but plodding man who somehow stumbled into greatness.
Ron Chernow (Washington: A Life)
Forty years ago, before I went away, you could get the same phlegmatic responses to economic hardship from the Suzi Petkovskis of this world. The same clamped, chain-smoking capacity for endurance, the same grim shrug, as if politics were some kind of massive, capricious weather system you couldn’t do anything about. I went back to watching the skyline.
Richard K. Morgan (Woken Furies (Takeshi Kovacs, #3))
The phlegamtic female is a weepy, bug-eyed, fat, lumpy, fleshy German. She looks like a sack of flour. She is born in order to become a mother-in-law. That is her whole ambition.
Anton Chekhov (The Prank: The Best of Young Chekhov (New York Review Books Classics))
Why should our rulers, normally phlegmatic men, react with sudden hysteria to the pinpricks of terrorism when for decades they were able to go about their everyday business unruffled, in full awareness that in a deep bunker somewhere in the Urals an enemy watched and waited with a finger on a button, ready if provoked to wipe them and their cities from the face of the earth?
J.M. Coetzee
Two Types Excitable A woman was depressed and distraught for days after losing her pen. Then she became so excited about an ad for a shoe sale that she drove three hours to a shoe store in Chicago. Phlegmatic A man spotted a fire in a dormitory one evening, and walked away to look for an extinguisher in another building. He found the extinguisher, and walked back to the fire with it.
Lydia Davis (The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis)
Miles gathered his reins, tensed one calf, and shifted his weight slightly, and Fat Ninny responded with a neat half turn and two precise back steps. The thick-set roan gelding could not have been mistaken by the most ignorant urbanite for a fiery steed, but Miles adored him, for his dark and liquid eye, his wide velvet nose, his phlegmatic disposition equally unappalled by rushing streams or screaming aircars, but most of all for his exquisite dressage-trained responsiveness. Brains before beauty. Just being around him made Miles calmer; the beast was an emotional blotter, like a purring cat. Miles patted Fat Ninny on the neck. "If anybody asks," he murmured, "I'll tell them your name is Chieftain." Fat Ninny waggled one fuzzy ear, heaving a whooshing, barrel-chested sigh. Grandfather
Lois McMaster Bujold (The Mountains of Mourning)
Hippocrates’s theory of the humors, which was perpetuated by Galen. The theory held that the body possessed four fluids, or humors, which corresponded to the four elements from which all material being was composed: earth (black bile), fire (yellow bile), water (phlegm), and air (water). A predominance of one humor affected an individual’s temperament, so a warm, happy, extroverted personality was associated with blood. A choleric, fiery temperament indicated a predominance of yellow bile (khole in Greek), while a melancholic or dark disposition was caused by the predominance of black bile. Finally, a phlegmatic temperament was due to an excess of phlegm. It was believed that an individual in good health enjoyed a balance of the four humors and that illness was an expression of imbalance.
Charles River Editors (The Byzantine Empire and the Plague: The History and Legacy of the Pandemic that Ravaged the Byzantines in the Early Middle Ages)
Agitation from the other side of the desk. “No—now you must take this phlegmatically. You had hoped you would qualify. You had feared you would not. Actually, both hope and fear are weaknesses. You knew you would qualify and you hesitate to admit the fact because such knowledge might stamp you as cocksure and therefore unfit. Nonsense! The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise. It is part of your qualification that you knew you would qualify.” Relaxation on the other side of the desk. “Exactly. Now you feel better and your guard is down. You are fitter to concentrate and fitter to understand. Remember, to be truly effective, it is not necessary to hold the mind under a tight, controlling barrier which to the intelligent probe is as informative as a naked mentality. Rather, one should cultivate an innocence, an awareness of self, and an unselfconsciousness of self which leaves one nothing to hide. My mind is open to you. Let this be so for both of us.
Isaac Asimov (Second Foundation (Foundation, #3))
Amongst my sisters, I was certainly “the Russian girl”. Tatiana could have been Parisienne in her reed-thin elegance; Olga (we dare not say this) is Germanic in appearance—the protuberant forehead, milky-blue eyes and stubborn set to her squared jaw, her phlegmatic moods. Anastasia? My Shvybz is without any identity but that of an elf! Her spirit is too light for earth; she came from faeries. When we play Peter Pan at the Wendy House on our Children’s Island, Shvybz is well cast as Tinkerbelle. Alexei, of course, was always Pan. Mama, we joked, was Mrs. Darling. For all her love of Russia, Mama dresses, sounds, and decorates like an Englishwoman. Papa and I are Russians to the heart and bone. As
Laura Rose (The Passion of Marie Romanov)
To say that Deronda was romantic would be to misrepresent him; but under his calm and somewhat self-repressed exterior there was a fervor which made him easily find poetry and romance among the events of every-day life. And perhaps poetry and romance are as plentiful as ever in the world except for those phlegmatic natures who I suspect would in any age have regarded them as a dull form of erroneous thinking. They exist very easily in the same room with the microscope and even in railway carriages: what banishes them in the vacuum in gentlemen and lady passengers. How should all the apparatus of heaven and earth, from the farthest firmament to the tender bosom of the mother who nourished us, make poetry for a mind that had no movements of awe and tenderness, no sense of fellowship which thrills from the near to the distant, and back again from the distant to the near?
George Eliot (Daniel Deronda)
Sanguine, from the Latin sanguineus for “blood,” describes an optimistic, confident person. In the 1495 Manual of Medicine by Johannes de Ketham, a sanguine person was described as fat and merry and liking Bacchus and Venus, the gods of wine and love. Not a surprising description perhaps, since these conditions—drink and love—are often associated with a rosy or blushing countenance, which is indeed caused by blood rushing to the cheeks. The opposite type in de Ketham’s text, the melancholic, is a combination of melan, Latin for “black,” and choler, or bitter bile. A melancholic person is gloomy and bitter. But pure bile, or choler, makes one impetuous and irascible. Today, the French word for anger is colere, and the root of the word shows up also in a “colicky” baby—one who is irritable. Phlegm, on the other hand, makes one fat and languid, slow-moving. Today phlegmatic has come to mean stolidly calm, unexcitable, and unemotional.
Esther M. Sternberg (The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions)
Agnes leaned over the edge of the crate and cooed at the chicks. “Oh, they’re all so adorable at this age…” “Focus,” said the dust-wife. “Oh, yes, of course. I suppose we’ll have to keep it, won’t we? He won’t just let us borrow a chicken…” The chicken seller did not look like a man who would routinely let customers borrow chickens. Marra shoved her hands in her pockets and tried to look like someone who was possibly a nun and definitely not the queen’s runaway sister. After a minute or two, though, it became obvious that she didn’t need to bother. The chicken seller gazed at Agnes, who was picking up each chick and whispering to it, then slowly turned to Fenris. He didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows were eloquent. “She’s very particular about her chickens,” said Fenris. “Very particular.” “It’s not taking,” Agnes whispered to the dust-wife, just loud enough for Marra to make out the words. “It won’t take. Oh, it was a silly idea. I don’t know why I thought it would ever work…” “Keep trying,” ordered the dust-wife. The chicken seller looked back at Agnes, then to Fenris again. His eyebrows inched higher up his skull. Fenris remained absolutely deadpan, as if it were perfectly normal for women to whisper to chicks before buying them. Marra didn’t dare look at Agnes, because if she did, she was going to burst into hysterical laughter. “Fine,” said Agnes in the tone of someone reaching her limits. Marra’s ears popped. “There!” “That took,” observed the dust-wife dispassionately. “Not well at all and I have to keep…I’m pushing it…it doesn’t want to stick; it’s like jelly sliding down a bowl!” “Keep pushing,” said the dust-wife. “Keep blessing it over and over if you have to.” “Oh dear…” Marra darted a glance at the chick in question. It was a dark, fuzzy, little lump with a bright yellow bill and, for a chicken, a remarkably phlegmatic expression. The chicken seller’s eyebrows did a complex dance across his forehead. He named a price that was frankly ridiculous for a day-old chick. “Don’t be absurd,” said Marra, stung out of her silence. “It’s a chicken, not a phoenix.” The chicken seller’s eyes drifted back over to Agnes, followed by his eyebrows. “The sooner we pay,” rumbled Fenris, “the sooner we will go away.” The price mysteriously plummeted.
T. Kingfisher (Nettle & Bone)
Mauve cream Kabuki actors use conceal dark circles under my eyes. I brush soothing sable bristles of coral blush across high cheekbones, smudge taupe color on eye lids, darken thick lashes, dot ash rose gloss across my lips. Heavy red frame glasses and rose lenses cover grey eyes. I rip the telephone from the wall and stumble, drunk and crying, to the door, batter the facing with the phone handle, counting arrhythmic phlegmatic beats. Splinters and fragments of wood fall to the floor, a lingering catarrh lying among pale turquoise and gold threads. The scent of roses and jasmine lingers. The sky and dot and window refracture. I look into the gold leaf mirror, pleased with the effect: A perfect face reflects no inner turmoil.
Kay Merkel Boruff (Z.O.S.: A Memoir)
To some people mishaps never come singly. Shells vanished from the desk of Commander Richardson, but in their place arrived two Free Balloon Barrage detonators. Richardson soon forgot his unnerving experience, and a month later he was again speaking on the phone — this time to Captain Long at the Ordnance Board when he prodded one of the detonators with his pen-nib. There was a deafening explosion, and as Richardson staggered into the outer room clutching a wounded hand the phlegmatic Swan picked up the receiver. “Would you mind calling back a little later, sir?” he said. “Commander Richardson has just shot himself, but I don’t think it’s anything more serious than usual.
Gerald Pawle (Secret Weapons of World War II)
To your inquiries whether it is safe, your yamstchik (post-boy) is sure to reply, "Nitchevo!"—a word which, according to the dictionaries, means "nothing" but which has, in the mouths of the peasantry, a great variety of meanings, as I may explain at some future time. In the present case it may be roughly translated. "There is no danger." "Nitchevo, Barin, proyedem" ("There is no danger, sir; we shall get over"), he repeats. You may refer to the generally rotten appearance of the structure, and point in particular to the great holes sufficient to engulf half a post-horse. "Ne bos', Bog pomozhet" ("Do not fear. God will help"), replies coolly your phlegmatic Jehu.
Donald Mackenzie Wallace (Russia)
Many [British politicians] do not know much more of continental conditions than we do of the condition in Peru or Siam. They are also rather naive in their artless egoism. They find difficulty believing in really evil intentions in others; they are very calm, very phlegmatic, very optimistic. The country exudes wealth, comfort, content and confidence in its own power and future. The people simply cannot believe that things could ever go really wrong, either at home or abroad.
Robert K. Massie (Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the Winning of the Great War at Sea)
phlegmatic
Esther Perel (The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity)
There are quiet people, and there are people who are quiet for a reason.
Michael Bassey Johnson (Stamerenophobia)
Mr. Nobley had entered the room before he noticed her. He groaned. “And here you are. Miss Erstwhile. You are infuriating and irritating, and yet I find myself looking for you. I would be grateful if you would send me away and make me swear to never return.” “You shouldn’t have told me that’s what you want, Mr. Nobley, because now you’re not going to get it.” “Then I must stay?” “Unless you want to risk me accusing you of ungentleman-like behavior at dinner, yes, I think you should stay. If I spend too much time alone today, I’m in real danger of doing a convincing impersonation of the madwoman in the attic.” He raised an eyebrow. “And how would that be different from--” “Sit down, Mr. Nobley,” she said. He sat in a chair on the opposite side of a small table. The chair creaked as he settled himself. She didn’t look at him, watching instead the rain on the window and the silvery shadows the wet light made of the room. She spent several moments in silence before she realized that it might be awkward, that conversation at such a time was obligatory. Now she could feel his gaze on her face and longed to crack the silence like the spine of a book, but she had nothing to say anymore. She’d lost all her thoughts in paint and rain. “You are reading Sterne,” he said at last. “May I?” He gestured to the book, and she handed it to him. Jane was remembering a scene from the film of Mansfield Park when suitor Henry Crawford read to Frances O-Connor’s character so sweetly, the sound created a passionate tension, the words themselves becoming his courtship. Jane glanced at Mr. Nobley’s somber face, and away again as his eyes flicked from the page to her. He began to read from the top. His voice was soft, melodious, strong, a man who could speak in a crowd and have people listen, but also a man who could persuade a child to sleep with a bedtime story. “The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape of Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the same wine at the Cape, the same grape produced upon the French mountains--he was too phlegmatic for that--but undoubtedly he expected to drink some sort of vinous liquor; but whether good, bad, or indifferent--he knew enough of this world to know, that it did not depend upon his choice…” Mr. Nobley was trying very hard not to smile. His lips were tight; his voice scraped a couple of times. Jane laughed at him, and then he did smile. It gave her a little thwack of pleasure as though someone had flicked a finger against her heart. “Not very, er…” he said. “Interesting?” “I imagine not.” “But you read it well,” she said. He raised his brows. “Did I? Well, that is something.” They sat in silence a few moments, chuckling intermittently. Mr. Nobley began to read again suddenly, “Mynheer might possibly overset both in his new vineyard,” having to stop to laugh again. Aunt Saffronia walked by and peered into the dim room as she passed, her presence reminding Jane that this tryst might be forbidden by the Rules. Mr. Nobley returned to himself. “Excuse me,” he said, rising. “I have trespassed on you long enough.
Shannon Hale (Austenland (Austenland, #1))
Max spat his coffee out all over himself. He tried to laugh and choke at the same time and so the only thing that came out was a sputtering bark that sounded like a phlegmatic seal with a pack and a half a day Lucky Strike habit -non filtered.
Zachary J. Kitchen (The Unbeliever)
Possessing a phlegmatic and loving penis is the hallmark of true male authority. Reverse your idea of your manhood as a desensitized ‘getting’ device. Instead of using it to ‘get your rocks off,’ see it as an energetic ‘giving’ instrument. Open your heart, cultivate loving feelings and kindness to your partner. It is through unconditional giving that you’ll receive your ‘Grove of Love.’ “This practice is essential for couples to bond on a soul level and experience a richly rewarding relationship.
Young (Turpitude (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 4))
fathered an out-of-wedlock child.” “Well, at least he isn’t shooting blanks,” Grammy remarked phlegmatically. “Be careful, Allie. Make him marry you first.
Judith Arnold (Father Found (The Daddy School, #1))
Yet our management practices remain mired in the mindset of Edwards and of Frederick Winslow Taylor, who told Congress in 1912 that management needs to tightly control workers, who were too feeble-minded to think for themselves:   I can say, without the slightest hesitation, that the science of handling pig iron is so great that the man who is … physically able to handle pig iron and is sufficiently phlegmatic and stupid to choose this for his occupation is rarely able to comprehend the science of handling pig iron.
Laszlo Bock (Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead)
phlegmatically.
Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3))
phlegmatic.
Stephen King (You Like It Darker: Stories)
If jungles have a purpose, it is precisely that: to realize one’s worst fears and make a mockery of one’s phlegmatic delusions.
Andrew Gillsmith (The Pilot: Planet Gallywood #2)
While many Germans find the Dutch accent inherently hilarious, Cabal’s humours were balanced differently: strong in the choleric, and barely less so in the melancholic, a good showing for the phlegmatic, but the sanguine potters over the finishing line last and alone.
Jonathan L. Howard (The Brothers Cabal (Johannes Cabal, #4))
You know Mars is hot and dry, and you know as well that winter is cold and moist; then you may know as well the reason why nettle-tops, eaten in the spring, consumeth the phlegmatic superfluities in the body of man, that and coldness and moistness of winter hath left behind.
Matthew Wood (The Book of Herbal Wisdom: Using Plants as Medicines)
When I have pictorially captured smell, the most palpable of the senses, the next thing will be to imprison sound- vulgarly speaking, to bottle it. Just think a moment. Force is as imperishable as matter; indeed, as I have been somewhat successful in showing, it is matter. Now, when a sound wave is once started, it is only lost through an indefinite extension of its circumference. Catch that sound wave, sir! Catch it in a bottle, then its circumference cannot extend. You may keep the sound wave forever if you will only keep it corked up tight. The only difficulty is in bottling it in the first place. I shall attend to the details of that operation just as soon as I have managed to photograph the confounded rotten-egg smell of sulphydric acid." The professor stirred up the offensive mixture with a glass rod, and continued: "While my object in bottling sound is mainly scientific, I must confess that I see in success in that direction a prospect of considerable pecuniary profit. I shall be prepared at no distant day to put operas in quart bottles, labeled and assorted, and contemplate a series of light and popular airs in ounce vials at prices to suit the times. You know very well that it costs a ten-dollar bill now to take a lady to hear Martha or Mignon, rendered in first-class style. By the bottle system, the same notes may be heard in one's own parlor at a comparatively trifling expense. I could put the operas into the market at from eighty cents to a dollar a bottle. For oratorios and symphonies I should use demijohns, and the cost would of course be greater. I don't think that ordinary bottles would hold Wagner's music. It might be necessary to employ carboys. Sir, if I were of the sanguine habit of you Americans, I should say that there were millions in it. Being a phlegmatic Teuton, accustomed to the precision and moderation of scientific language, I will merely say that in the success of my experiments with sound I see a comfortable income, as well as great renown. A SCIENTIFIC MARVEL By this time the professor had another negative, but an eager examination of it yielded nothing more satisfactory than before. He sighed and continued: "Having photographed smell and bottled sound, I shall proceed to a project as much higher than this as the reflective faculties are higher than the perceptive, as the brain is more exalted than the ear or nose. "I am perfectly satisfied that elements of mind are just as susceptible of detection and analysis as elements of matter. Why, mind is matter. "The soul spectroscope, or, as it will better be known, Dummkopf's duplex self-registering soul spectroscope, is based on the broad fact that whatever is material may be analyzed and determined by the position of the Frauenhofer lines upon the spectrum. If soul is matter, soul may thus be analyzed and determined. Place a subject under the light, and the minute exhalations or
Edward Page Mitchell (The Clock that went Backwards and other Stories (Classics Book 7))
Find them? That I did,’ cried Riose. His lips were stiff as he spoke. It seemed to require effort to refrain from grinding molars. ‘Patrician, they are not magicians; they are devils. It is as far from belief as the outer nebulae from here. Conceive it! It is a world the size of a handkerchief, of a fingernail; with resources so petty, power so minute, a population so microscopic as would never suffice the most backward worlds of the dusty prefects of the Dark Stars. Yet with that, a people so proud and ambitious as to dream quietly and methodically of Galactic rule. ‘Why, they are so sure of themselves that they do not even hurry. They move slowly, phlegmatically; they speak of necessary centuries. They swallow worlds at leisure; creep through systems with dawdling complacence. ‘And they succeed. There is no one to stop them. They have built up a filthy trading community that curls its tentacles about the systems further than their toy ships dare reach. For parsecs, their Traders – which is what their agents call themselves
Isaac Asimov (Foundation and Empire (The Foundation Trilogy #2))
In the summer, things are more phlegmatic, and the weather is basically good, or it tries to be. In winter it is more violent and moves and changes quickly.
Robert N. Buck (Weather Flying)
Tudors believed that women were creatures dominated by cold, wet phlegmatic humours with an uncontrollable hunger for sex whereas men could control their appetites.
Carol McGrath (Sex and Sexuality in Tudor England)
phlegmatic
Thomas Erikson (Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business (and in Life))
English is full of these delights, and we eat them up like penny candy. They're not only fun but informative: Why do we call them 'sideburns'? It's a play on the name of the Civil War officer who made them popular, General Burnside. Why do we call practical and unflappable people 'phlegmatic'? Because we used to believe that they were unexcitable because they had an overabundance of phlegm in them. Why do we say that someone's 'worth their salt'? Because in the ancient world salt was such a valuable commodity that we used to pay people in it (and this is why you also get a salary). Ah! we cry, and e-mail this factoid to all our friends: see, there's a reason!
Kory Stamper (Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries)
The phlegmatic temperament People under this temperament group are mostly referred to as “the watchers”: as they are always assuming a stand-and -watch position. They are extremely quiet type in nature with very little in talking and very shy. They normally hide their emotions and very reluctant-showing great unwillingness in getting involved and unwilling to decide. This attitude in them dampens the interest of others easily. They are very neutral at taking sides and always willing to avoid conflicts. They think most times before acting, very good at listening, very peaceful, patient and dependable. They are consistent at doing things and very trustful. Phlegmatics are often not in a hurry to do things, making them very sluggish and stubborn in appearance. They are able to tolerate others however, they do worry a lot. CHAPTER
Emmanuel Koranteng (TEMPERAMENTS: WHY PEOPLE BEHAVE THE WAY THEY DO)
THE PHLEGMATIC STRENGHTS WEAKNESSES Very calm and peaceful Very shy Good at listening Not good at talking/conversation Keeps emotions under control Hard to motivate Can tolerate others/things Self-centered Very faithful & loyal Unwilling / reluctant/uninterested Very dependable Lazy Thinks before acting Stubborn Easy to go along with Not deciding at all
Emmanuel Koranteng (TEMPERAMENTS: WHY PEOPLE BEHAVE THE WAY THEY DO)
The Phlegmatic-Sanguine Person (PHLEG-SAN) These people are mostly seen as introverts. They are most peaceful people who go forgo their rights in order to live peacefully with others. Their temperament combination makes them very ideal people to get along with. Strengths of the PHLEG-SAN person They are gentle people who are honored in any group they find themselves. They are also very thoughtful and diplomatic. They are dependable and will rarely let the secret confided to them by friends. They have self-control. They are rarely seen exchanging words with people. They prefer forfeiting their rights and living peacefully with people to demanding these, which may lead to married relations. They enjoy the quiet life. They are the types who tell jokes without laughing. while others are laughing, they remain quiet, as if the humor came from somewhere else. It seems all fields of work are open to them. For example, they are good accountants, registrars, ministers, mechanics, teachers, and counsellors. This group of people do not enjoy trading activities but can do them when motivated Weaknesses of the PHLEG-SAN person These types of people are almost similar to their counterpart- the SAN-PHLEG. They lack motivation. They need to be motivated else they will leave their responsibilities undone. They allow themselves to be instructed and directed by people around them. Thus here, they fall victim to the sin of negligence. They procrastinate and often come out late. As senior officers their trays are always full of pending letters. They build shells around themselves and avoid many people and activities that could be useful to them in future. They let golden opportunities to pass by peacefully. Unless they develop personal discipline, they may never develop their natural potential. They are fearful; they need little motivation to put them to action. They lead a too relaxed life; they can even fall asleep while waiting for friends at the reception. A person of this temperament can always move peacefully with the strong willed CHOL-MEL person.
Emmanuel Koranteng (TEMPERAMENTS: WHY PEOPLE BEHAVE THE WAY THEY DO)
The Phlegmatic-Melancholic Person (PHLEG-MEL) The Phlegmatic-Melancholy persons are seen as extreme introverts. They are the quietest persons who rarely voice out their views. The phleg-mel types are the quietest persons among all the groups. Hardly will they offer threats to people or flatter them with words. Often, they are seen walking alone without friends. Strengths of the PHLEG-MEL person They are people who scarcely exchange words with others. They even live at peace with their enemies. Hardly will they be ruthlessly, even in situations that demand severe action, they are gentle. They may only flare up occasionally when they have been criticized and stirred up beyond their limits. At meetings where people argue and insult one another, they will act gently, as if they were not present. They have the natural ability of showing mercy and being helpful to others. They forgive freely and are not often offended by others. They do not verbalize their criticisms nor create hatred for themselves like the San-Mels. They do not criticize their superior officers in their absence to destroy unity, as do the Mel-Chol types. They do not spend precious time to socialize and also, they scarcely come out of themselves to do things. This behavior traits in them make them good in job fields or occupations that demand patience and detail, such as radio mechanics, computer engineering, watch repairing, taking of inventory and costing. When books are misplaced in a library, they are the persons to search for them; they have the patience for it. Weaknesses of the PHLEG-MEL person They are too shy and slothful. They allow the brightest opportunities in their lives to slip by. With the combination of the phlegmatic and the melancholic traits, both of whom refuse leadership, if they are not careful, they will miss all the golden opportunities in their lives
Emmanuel Koranteng (TEMPERAMENTS: WHY PEOPLE BEHAVE THE WAY THEY DO)
The Phlegmatic is not so easily affected by impressions, nor does it seem primarily inclined to react; and the impressions, in turn, very soon, disappear. He is characterized by his absence of emotions
Ulisses Ribeiro (TEMPERAMENTS: HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM And ENJOY THEM)
Phlegmatic They're more rested, if we have money we have, if we don't have everything, we buy next month. They forget to plan, although they're great administrators when they put themselves in for it. Because they love comfort and safety, they like spreadsheets and administration, but if this is a source of fights and discussions, give up for the other to take care as he sees best. He is a thinker and listener, so it becomes great at predicting the future of investments, and perfect for predicting unforeseen travel or events, only not exposing themselves to avoid fights, but are perfect for a safe and balanced administration. In the event of a bad month, they tend to save more than chasing the damage, for them wear is less and easier to assimilate than to face something unknown. They won't care about the details like coins, and what's inside the card, the important thing is that we organize to spend X and stay on it, whether buying clothes or food, it's all right.
Ulisses Ribeiro (TEMPERAMENTS: HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM And ENJOY THEM)
Phlegmatic- Likes to be seen as Trustworthy They feel that this way they can offer their heart and ear to bring comfort, affection, and protection to those they love and who need attention. It is not for the simple feeling of being loved, but of being close, being present and offering your life to give peace and comfort in any situation. Whenever they "feel" that they are exposing their personal life, they withdraw, withdraw, and close themselves off, without showing this externally, and people around them may not even notice that they are closed.
Ulisses Ribeiro (TEMPERAMENTS: HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM And ENJOY THEM)
Phlegmatic Your mind is active about thinking about the consequences. They think long and hard before they act. They like to keep their steps constant, and for this they need to know the way to be trodden. Safety is your motto, so the whole trajectory is done mentally, and then done physically, regardless of whether it's a ride or a work idea.
Ulisses Ribeiro (TEMPERAMENTS: HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM And ENJOY THEM)
Phlegmatic are masters in any activity that requires meticulous patience and daily routine. Thus, they can be teachers, engineers, technical assistants, diplomats, among others
Ulisses Ribeiro (TEMPERAMENTS: HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM And ENJOY THEM)
Phlegm means serenity, impassibility, lack of emotion, slow, silly. The Phlegmatic Temperament is found in slow, apathetic, cold-blooded people, with a great tendency not to get emotional easily. The phlegmatic is ruled by Water and, like its ruling element, they tend to easily accommodate with the situation.
Ulisses Ribeiro (TEMPERAMENTS: HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM And ENJOY THEM)
It is the calmest of temperaments. Seeing a nervous phlegmatic is very rare, but when he is on the edge, he can make irreparable mistakes. You don't see any difficulties and you're always in a good mood. He's not gifted with great wisdom, usually never says no and is driven much more by heart than reason, so he's easy to be fooled by bad guys The Phlegmatic does not like to make commitments or leadership, but when he takes them on, he does them with merit, because he is very obedient to his leaders.
Ulisses Ribeiro (TEMPERAMENTS: HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM And ENJOY THEM)
He needs to learn to put himself more into action. A phlegmatic cannot understand the feelings of other temperaments. A phlegmatic child should be encouraged to live with many people, because they learn more from the experiences of others than from their own. A- Emotions: Strengths: Calm Personality / Serene and Relaxed / Imperturbable / Patient and Balanced
Ulisses Ribeiro (TEMPERAMENTS: HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM And ENJOY THEM)
We find the following eight character logical types: the passionate, the angry, the nervous, the sentimental, the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the apathetic and the amorphous.
K.M. Butt (Five Major Basic Wounds Experienced By Humans)
phlegmatically.
Faith Martin (Murder at Work (DI Hillary Greene, #11))
I think there are three main programs that every child needs. They are: ‘Education’, ‘I’m OK’ and ‘The world is OK’. Education is obvious; you need to learn some stuff to get by in the world. But even more important, you need to learn that whatever happens, whatever you do or don’t achieve, whatever anybody says about you, you are OK, because you are you. Whatever happens, good or bad, it’ll be OK in the end, because the world is an OK place. If you learn these lessons, you have a happy life, unless you are really unlucky and suffer wave after wave of misfortune later in life. You absorb most reverses with phlegmatic acceptance, because of your happy and realistic underlying assumptions. But if you don’t, you tend to run your life as a set of threats to guard against, hostile circumstances to overcome and people to please.
Tim Cantopher (Overcoming Stress: Advice for People Who Give Too Much)
If only we could believe we were just carbon and water, we could leave life behind very phlegmatically, but belief gets in the way.
Will Eaves (Murmur)
Driving a hearse didn’t worry him, Robin explained (although nobody had asked him to), because being a Buddhist he was phlegmatic about death, ‘Because I know I’ll come back.’ ‘What as?’ Terri asked. ‘A protozoa?’ ‘I think you’ll find,’ Robin said, ‘that protozoa is a plural form, it would have to be protozoon.’ Perhaps Robin was on such a tedious karmic journey that he would just come back as himself. I’m sure it was no coincidence that his name was almost an anagram of ‘boring’. ‘Reincarnation,
Kate Atkinson (Emotionally Weird)
phlegmatic
Faith Martin (The Jenny Starling Mysteries Books 1–4 (Jenny Starling #1-4))
More than just losing a teacher, I worry at London losing you. Many men can sit in a room and talk nonsense, as they seem to do in Parliament, but fewer can go to a prison and phlegmatically sit with a confessed murderer.
Charles Finch (A Stranger in Mayfair)
Sam Anderson. “The Greatest Novel.” New York Magazine (outline). Jan. 9, 2011. New York is, famously, the everything bagel of megalopolises—one of the world’s most diverse cities, defined by its churning mix of religions, ethnicities, social classes, attitudes, lifestyles, etc., ad infinitum. This makes it a perfect match for the novel, a genre that tends to share the same insatiable urge. In choosing the best New York novel, then, my first instinct was to pick something from the city’s proud tradition of megabooks—one of those encyclopedic ambition bombs that attempt to capture, New Yorkily, the full New Yorkiness of New York. Something like, to name just a quick armful or two, Manhattan Transfer, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Underworld, Invisible Man, Winter’s Tale, or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay—or possibly even one of the tradition’s more modest recent offspring, like Lush Life and Let the Great World Spin. In the end, however, I decided that the single greatest New York novel is the exact opposite of all of those: a relatively small book containing absolutely zero diversity. There are no black or Hispanic or Asian characters, no poor people, no rabble-rousers, no noodle throwers or lapsed Baha’i priests or transgender dominatrixes walking hobos on leashes through flocks of unfazed schoolchildren. Instead there are proper ladies behaving properly at the opera, and more proper ladies behaving properly at private balls, and a phlegmatic old Dutch patriarch dismayed by the decline of capital-S Society. The book’s plot hinges on a subtly tragic love triangle among effortlessly affluent lovers. It is 100 percent devoted to the narrow world of white upper-class Protestant heterosexuals. So how can Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence possibly be the greatest New York novel of all time?
Anonymous
I was at the same time impressed with the falsity of the general idea that Frenchmen are excitable and emotional, and that Germans are calm and phlegmatic. Frenchmen are merely gay and never overwhelmed by their emotions. When they talk loud and fast, it is merely talk, while Germans get worked up and red in the face when sustaining an opinion, and in heated discussions are likely to allow their emotions to sweep them off their feet.
James Weldon Johnson (The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Illustrated))