“
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
”
”
Winston S. Churchill (The River War)
“
When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
“
An artist cannot do anything slovenly.
”
”
Jane Austen
“
What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose-knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful, that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through. I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with the aloofness of a work of art. The main requisite, I think, on reading my old volumes, is not to play the part of a censor, but to write as the mood comes or of anything whatever; since I was curious to find how I went for things put in haphazard, and found the significance to lie where I never saw it at the time.
”
”
Virginia Woolf
“
(regarding Charles Lee) This eccentric and notably slovenly man was always trailed by his beloved dogs. "When I can be convinced that men are as worthy objects as dogs", he once explained, "I shall transfer my benevolence to them.
”
”
Ron Chernow
“
Even the word slut used to mean something relatively innocent. The word is so contentious now you’d never guess it came from the comparatively wholesome Middle English term slutte, which merely meant an “untidy” woman. The word was even used for men sometimes (in 1386, Chaucer labeled one slovenly male character as “sluttish”).
”
”
Amanda Montell (Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language)
“
They tended to be stolid, slovenly, heavy, and to my eyes effeminate - not in the sense of delicacy, etc., but in just the opposite sense: a gross, bland fleshiness, a bovinity without point or edge.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness)
“
It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not suffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a manner as that authority will permit.
”
”
Adam Smith (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations)
“
Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I guess I’ve never seen you in a T-shirt before. Or jeans.”
“It’s for the distasteful thing,” Gansey said. He plucked at the T-shirt with deprecating fingers. “I’m rather slovenly at the moment, I know.”
Blue concurred, “Yes, slovenly, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Ronan, I see that you’re dressed slovenly as well.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
“
An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics. If you are a night owl, it’s likely that one (or both) of your parents is a night owl. Sadly, society treats night owls rather unfairly on two counts. First is the label of being lazy, based on a night owl’s wont to wake up later in the day, due to the fact that they did not fall asleep until the early-morning hours. Others (usually morning larks) will chastise night owls on the erroneous assumption that such preferences are a choice, and if they were not so slovenly, they could easily wake up early. However, night owls are not owls by choice. They are bound to a delayed schedule by unavoidable DNA hardwiring. It is not their conscious fault, but rather their genetic fate.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
“
Now, Betteredge, exert those sharp wits of yours, and observe the conclusion to which the Colonel's instructions point!" I instantly exerted my wits. They were of the slovenly English sort; and they consequently muddled it all
”
”
Wilkie Collins (No Name)
“
True delegation implies the courage and readiness to back up a subordinate to the full; it is not to be confused with the slovenly practice of merely ignoring an unpleasant situation in the hope that someone else will handle it.
”
”
Dwight David Eisenhower (Crusade in Europe: A Personal Account of World War II)
“
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.
”
”
Winston S. Churchill (The River War)
“
Those who don’t have a bed at all, you eliminate on the spot. From those who remain, you eliminate the owners of any dirty or slovenly beds. And when only those who have clean and tidy beds remain, you choose the one you find most attractive. Unfortunately, the method is not a hundred per cent foolproof. You can make a terrible mistake.” “You’re
”
”
Andrzej Sapkowski (Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1))
“
Our liturgy has beauties, which not even a careless, slovenly style of reading can destroy; but it has also redundancies and repetitions, which require good reading not to be felt.
”
”
Jane Austen (Mansfield Park)
“
No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted.
”
”
Mark Twain (On the Decay of the Art of Lying)
“
perhaps it is clear why a writer should be interested in the constant, bullying, murderous, slovenly crime of war.
”
”
Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms)
“
Really good films don't diminish anything, they don't close things off. On the contrary, they open up new insights, they make new thoughts thinkable. They crowd us, they deflate our slovenly lifestyle, our thoughtless way of chattering and pissing away our time and energy and passion. Believe me, films can teach us a huge amount. And they give us a true picture of the way life is."
Mari laughed. "Of our slovenly lifestyle, you mean? You mean, maybe they teach us to piss our lives away with a little more intelligence, a little more elegance?
”
”
Tove Jansson (Fair Play)
“
Racism, at the individual level, can be seen as a predictive model whirring away in billions of human minds around the world. It is built from faulty, incomplete, or generalized data. Whether it comes from experience or hearsay, the data indicates that certain types of people have behaved badly. That generates a binary prediction that all people of that race will behave that same way. Needless to say, racists don’t spend a lot of time hunting down reliable data to train their twisted models. And once their model morphs into a belief, it becomes hardwired. It generates poisonous assumptions, yet rarely tests them, settling instead for data that seems to confirm and fortify them. Consequently, racism is the most slovenly of predictive models. It is powered by haphazard data gathering and spurious correlations, reinforced by institutional inequities, and polluted by confirmation bias.
”
”
Cathy O'Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy)
“
But then someone didn’t do the laundry for two weeks, and now it’s nothing but tears and red faces and imprecations against one person or the other’s slovenly upbringing and laser cannons and singularity-bombs
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (Space Opera (Space Opera, #1))
“
My complaint simply concerns the decay of the _art_ of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted.
”
”
Mark Twain (On the Decay of the Art of Lying)
“
Now, tell me, my dear, I said, what are you crying about?
About the years that are gone, Mr. Betteredge," says Rosanna quietly. My past life still comes back to me sometimes.
Come, come, my girl, I said, your past life is all sponged out. Why can't you forget it?
"She took me by one of the lappets of my coat. I am a slovenly old man, and a good deal of my meat and drink gets splashed about on my clothes. Sometimes one of the women, and sometimes another, cleans me of my grease. The day before, Roseanna had taken out a spot for me on the lappet of my coat, with a new composition, warranted to remove anything. The grease was gone, but there was a little dull place left on the nap of the cloth where the grease had been. The girl pointed to that place, and shook here head.
The stain is taken off, she said. But the place shows, Mr. Betteredge--the place shows!
”
”
Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone)
“
Writers—particularly storytellers like myself—write about people. That is ironic, since we actually know nothing about them. Think about it. Why does someone become a writer? Is it because they like people? Of course not. Why else would we seek out a job where we get to spend all day, every day, cooped up in our basement with no company besides paper, a pencil, and our imaginary friends? Writers hate people. If you’ve ever met a writer, you know that they’re generally awkward, slovenly individuals who live beneath stairwells, hiss at those who pass, and forget to bathe for weeklong periods. And those are the socially competent ones.
”
”
Brandon Sanderson (The Scrivener's Bones (Alcatraz, #2))
“
Oh, those lapses, darling. So many of us walk around letting fly with “errors.” We could do better, but we’re so slovenly, so rushed amid the hurly-burly of modern life, so imprinted by the “let it all hang out” ethos of the sixties, that we don’t bother to observe the “rules” of “correct” grammar.
To a linguist, if I may share, these “rules” occupy the exact same place as the notion of astrology, alchemy, and medicine being based on the four humors. The “rules” make no logical sense in terms of the history of our language, or what languages around the world are like.
Nota bene: linguists savor articulateness in speech and fine composition in writing as much as anyone else. Our position is not—I repeat, not—that we should chuck standards of graceful composition. All of us are agreed that there is usefulness in a standard variety of a language, whose artful and effective usage requires tutelage. No argument there.
The argument is about what constitutes artful and effective usage. Quite a few notions that get around out there have nothing to do with grace or clarity, and are just based on misconceptions about how languages work.
Yet, in my experience, to try to get these things across to laymen often results in the person’s verging on anger. There is a sense that these “rules” just must be right, and that linguists’ purported expertise on language must be somehow flawed on this score. We are, it is said, permissive—perhaps along the lines of the notorious leftist tilt among academics, or maybe as an outgrowth of the roots of linguistics in anthropology, which teaches that all cultures are equal. In any case, we are wrong. Maybe we have a point here and there, but only that.
”
”
John McWhorter (Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English)
“
Brilliant in the creation, slovenly in the consideration of consequences. Wasn’t that true of every creator? Didn’t anyone who changed things ultimately lead some people—perhaps many people—to death, grief, torment? The poor human Prometheuses who brought fire to their fellows. Nobel.
”
”
Greg Bear (Blood Music)
“
The textbooks also fail to show how the continuous Indian wars have reverberated through our culture. Carleton Beals has written that "our acquiescence in Indian dispossession has molded the American character." As soon as Natives were no longer conflict partners, their image deteriorated in the minds of many whites. Kupperman has shown how this process unfolded in Virginia after the Indian defeat in the 1640s: "It was the ultimate powerlessness of the Indians, not their racial inferiority, which made it possible to see them as people without rights." Natives who had been "ingenious," "industrious," and "quick of apprehension" in 1610 now became "sloathfull and idle, vitious, melancholy, [and] slovenly." This is another example of the process of cognitive dissonance.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
I will not pretend to justify this espionage I carried on, and I will say openly that all these signs of a life full of intellectual curiosity, but thoroughly slovenly and disorderly at the same time, inspired me at first with aversion and mistrust. I am not only a middle-class man, living a regular life, fond of work and punctuality; I am also an abstainer and a nonsmoker, and these bottles in Haller's room pleased me even less than the rest of his artistic disorder.
”
”
Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf)
“
— So what! So fuckin what!
— So ye hud they powers, ye jist couldnae be bothered usin thum. That's why ah'm interested in ye Boab. You're jist like me. A lazy, apathetic, slovenly cunt. Now ah hate bein like this, n bein immortal, ah canny punish masel. Ah kin punish you though, mate. That's whit ah intend tae dae.
”
”
Irvine Welsh (The Acid House)
“
Slovenly, slatternly sluts and slipshod, sleezy slammerkins that we are!
”
”
Emma Donoghue (Slammerkin)
“
Marie thinks, truly, she does not believe she could live her in this bitter, sloven place without at least the consolation of bacon.
”
”
Lauren Groff (Matrix)
“
Rebecca had invited me into her home, allowed me to see her in her natural state, however slovenly and nervous. That was friendship.
”
”
Ottessa Moshfegh (Eileen)
Thomas Savage (The Power of the Dog)
“
serial adulterer, shameless fraudster, slovenly vulgarian, tax cheat, vainglorious layabout, indiscriminate liar, and sociopathic narcissist.
”
”
Aldous J. Pennyfarthing (Dear F*cking Moron: 101 More Rude Letters to Donald Trump (101 Rude Letters to Donald Trump Book 2))
“
At once slovenly and uxorious, [the Sudanese soldier] detested his drills and loved his wives with equal earnestness.
”
”
Winston S. Churchill (Churchill by Himself: In His Own Words)
“
What is there to hold a post-prosperity, constrained-liberty, un-dreamt America together? The nation's ruling class has, in practical terms, already seceded from the idea of America. In the ever more fractious, incoherent polity they're building as a substitute, why would they expect their discontented subjects not to seek the same solution as Slovenes and Uzbeks?
”
”
Mark Steyn (After America: Get Ready for Armageddon)
“
The entrance to the natural EM senses is now guarded by artificially monstrous EM waves carrying every kind of pattern irrelevant to nature, from TV sitcoms to defense radar broadcasts. It is as though we have covered the whole surface of the globe with a slum of slovenly, impalpable constructions during the past eighty years or so since Marconi. They are literally skyscrapers in as much as they touch the ionosphere and are reflected from it. They are tenements full of the disorderly displays of sitcoms and the sterile reflections of military radar.
”
”
Peter Redgrove (The Black Goddess and the Unseen Real: Our Uncommon Senses and Their Common Sense)
“
Is not literature meant to speak of our being a thousand different kinds of things, at times creating even this diversity? If literature gives up this purpose, this duty, it renounces all claim to legitimacy. I am Hungarian. I am Slovene. I am Serbian. You do not need literature for sentences like that. A bureaucrat will do, and a rubber stamp. A border guard. An Army.
”
”
Péter Esterházy
“
My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.
”
”
Mark Twain (The Awful German Language. Die Schreckliche Deutsche Sprache. Slovenly Peter. Nachdichtung von Heinrich Hoffmanns 'Struwwelpeter')
“
Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine,
Marching below, and we still gulping wine?”
From the sad magic of his fragrant cup
The red-faced old centurion started up,
Cursed, battered on the table. “No,” he said,
“Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion’s dead,
Dead in the first year of this damned campaign—
The Legion’s dead, dead, and won’t rise again.
Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die,
But we need pity also, you and I,
Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss,
Who live to see the Legion come to this,
Unsoldierlike, slovenly, bent on loot,
Grumblers, diseased, unskilled to thrust or shoot.
O, brown cheek, muscled shoulder, sturdy thigh!
Where are they now? God! watch it struggle by,
The sullen pack of ragged ugly swine.
Is that the Legion, Gracchus? Quick, the wine!”
“Strabo,” said Gracchus, “you are strange tonight.
The Legion is the Legion; it’s all right.
If these new men are slovenly, in your thinking,
God damn it! you’ll not better them by drinking.
They all try, Strabo; trust their hearts and hands.
The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands,
And these same men before the autumn’s fall
Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul.
”
”
Robert Graves
“
Approaching us through a haze of dust that overhung the road was a long column of men - a slovenly column that marched irregularly and out of step, so that it had the look of a gigantic centipede whose feet hurt.
”
”
Kenneth Roberts (Oliver Wiswell)
“
Lola’s was not exactly a bar. It was a small beer-and-soda joint. There was a Coca-Cola box full of beer and soda and ice at the left of the door as you came in. A counter with tube-metal stools covered in yellow glazed leather ran down one side of the room as far as the jukebox. Tables were lined along the wall opposite the counter. The stools had long since lost the rubber caps for the legs and made horrible screeching noises when the maid pushed them around to sweep. There was a kitchen in back, where a slovenly cook fried everything in rancid fat. There was neither past nor future in Lola’s. The place was a waiting room, where certain people checked in at certain times.
”
”
William S. Burroughs (Queer)
“
Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it's right, it's easy. It's the other way round, too. If it's slovenly written, then it's hard to read. It doesn't give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.
Maya Angelou
”
”
Shannon C. Miles (All I Want: The Long Road To You: Book One)
“
To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency, and humility, is to Honour him; as signes of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do any thing before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently, is to Dishonour.
”
”
Thomas Hobbes (Hobbes: Leviathan: Revised student edition (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought))
“
books that Uncle bought in Odessa or acquired in Heidelberg, books that he discovered in Lausanne or found in Berlin or Warsaw, books he ordered from America and books the like of which exist nowhere but in the Vatican Library, in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, classical and modern Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, medieval Arabic, Russian, English, German, Spanish, Polish, French, Italian, and languages and dialects I had never even heard of, like Ugaritic and Slovene, Maltese and Old Church Slavonic.
”
”
Amos Oz (A Tale of Love and Darkness)
“
When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixes duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War (Wisdom of War and Power))
“
When the general is morally weak and his discipline not strict, when his instructions and guidance are not enlightened, when there are no consistent rules to guide the officers and men and when the formations are slovenly the army is in disorder.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
“
A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish—read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work, and the business of his own life is to dine.”
“There are such clergymen, no doubt, but I think they are not so common as to justify Miss Crawford in esteeming it their general character. I suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure, you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy. You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusively. You are speaking what you have been told at your uncle’s table.”
“I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct. Though I have not seen much of the domestic lives of clergymen, it is seen by too many to leave any deficiency of information.
”
”
Jane Austen (Mansfield Park)
“
He hovered, as it were, on the fringes of both the scientific and the classical worlds, making, apparently, no deep impression on either. Perhaps the characteristics that he inherited from D'Arcy the Elder partly accounted for this. Gifted, volatile, impulsive, and individual, neither could suffer a fool gladly, and they spoke their minds freely when occasion demanded and sometimes when it did not. They both went their own way; they would not ‘run with the pack’; they despised the instinct that leads men to say what others say because it is easier, or do as others do for fear of being thought different. Alike in demanding the highest standard of integrity in behaviour and work they spared no man who was slovenly in either; critical of their own achievements they were equally so of other men's.
”
”
Ruth D'Arcy Thompson (D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson: The Scholar-Naturalist (1860-1948))
“
Winston Churchill on Islam: “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science—the science against which it had vainly struggled—the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
”
”
Robert Spencer (The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades))
“
So this was Richard’s brother. Every line of him spoke, palimpsest-wise, with two voices. The clothes, black and rich, were vaguely slovenly; the skin sun-glazed and cracked; the fine eyes slackly lidded; the mouth insolent and self-indulgent. He returned the scrutiny without rancour.
”
”
Dorothy Dunnett (The Game of Kings (The Lymond Chronicles, #1))
“
If you have any choice at all,” the enchantress twisted her lips in a smile, “but don’t have much experience, you first appraise the bed.” Ciri’s emerald eyes turned the shape and size of saucers. “How’s that… The bed?” “Precisely that. Those who don’t have a bed at all, you eliminate on the spot. From those who remain, you eliminate the owners of any dirty or slovenly beds. And when only those who have clean and tidy beds remain, you choose the one you find most attractive. Unfortunately, the method is not a hundred per cent foolproof. You can make a terrible mistake.
”
”
Andrzej Sapkowski (Blood of Elves (The Witcher, #1))
“
This was the sort of girl who should be attending college, not ones like that dreadful Minkoff girl, that brutal and slovenly girl who had almost been raped by one of the janitors just outside of his office. Dr. Talc shuddered at the very thought of Miss Minkoff. In class she had Insulted and challenged and vilified him at every turn, egging the Reilly monster to join in the attack. He would never forget those two; no one on the faculty ever would. They were like two Huns sweeping down on Rome. Dr. Talc idly wondered if they had married each other. Each certainly deserved the other.
”
”
John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
“
What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace any thing, solemn, slight or beautiful that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk, or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (A Writer's Diary)
“
Some of these words deserve to be better known. Take velleity, which describes a mild desire, a wish or urge too slight to lead to action. Doesn’t that seem a useful term? Or how about sluibbergegullion, a seventeenth-century word signifying a worthless or slovenly fellow? Or ugsome, a late medieval word meaning loathsome or disgusting.
”
”
Bill Bryson (The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way)
“
How fares the thumb, boy? well? Aye, merry, ’tis the sign of the penis. With the women, look you, observe the ear. The parts appear and come together. So obesity and malice. So grumbling and nagging. So gossip, envy, spite, and avarice. Slowly settling into. So feminine weakness. Heartless piety. Savage morals. They come together. No more goody geedge. Ruthless, lifelong revenge. Zrrr. Grease in a cold pan. Stay off from gingerly lobed and delicately whorled ones. Thus appear the parts. Mind your uncle, boy, who knows. And the men then. Lewd speech and slovenly habits. And the peasant’s suspicion, his cruelty and rancor, his anger, drunkenness, pig-headed ignorance and bestiality. Inevitable they should be parts. Hoolyhoohoo. All in the normal course of nature. And they were saying we had evolved. What did it mean? But, he said in a voice that was clearly audible, I protest this world of unilluminated cocks. He caught the sense of his own words—so absurd—and his body began to shake—half in laughter, half in despair.
”
”
William H. Gass (Omensetter's Luck)
“
In my criminal work anything that wears skirts is a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From the frayed and slovenly petticoats of the woman who owns a poultry stand in the market and who has grown wealthy by selling chickens at twelve ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie Tracy, whose diamonds have been stolen down on the avenue...
”
”
Mary Roberts Rinehart (The Window at the White Cat)
“
I was caught between the crossfire of the atheist school and a Baptist church and family. Both had a prescription for how I was supposed to think and behave. On most points, they actually agreed. I was supposed to be clean, have short hair, talk modestly, listen and obey, never fight. Consequently, I was slovenly, grew long hair, and fought every day.
”
”
Josip Novakovich (Shopping for a Better Country)
“
Is not literature meant to speak of our being a thousand different kinds of things, at times creating even this diversity? If literature gives up this purpose, this duty, it renounces all claim to legitimacy. I am Hungarian. I I am Slovene. I am Serbian. You do not need literature for sentences like that. A bureaucrat will do, and a rubber stamp. A border guard. An Army.
”
”
Péter Esterházy
“
Everywhere the crisis of the private financial system has been transformed into a tale of slovenly and overweening government that perpetuates and is perpetuated by a dependent and demanding population... For about ten days the crisis was interpreted as a consequence of the ineptitude of the highly paid, and then it transmogrified into a grudge against the populace at large.
”
”
Marilynne Robinson (When I Was a Child I Read Books)
“
Beautiful she was by the morning light; with her fair, rich color, and her gleaming eyes, and her crown of halfbright, half-dusky hair, like the bronze in which there much mixture of gold. But I thought I never saw anything of so much greed, or so intensely selfish. There was a vivid animal pleasure in the sight of what were dainties to her senses ; but there was no sort of gratitude or feeling at the generous and thoughtful affection which had been thus tender of her in her absence. She ate all there was on the table; seeming to like to draw the pleasure out to its longest span; when ended, she washed the things and set them away, and did a little house-work, all in a very idle, slovenly manner—like one whose heart was not at all in her occupation.
”
”
Ouida (Puck)
“
...there was almost no opinion, however nonsensical, that wasn't tolerated, at least for long enough for it to be delivered. But it wasn't just that, nor his charm nor eccentricity, his sometimes slovenly, sometimes stunning intelligence, that made him so attractive as a tutor; it was the utterly unfamiliar sensation one got, as a student, of his respect for, or at least well-performed interest in, what one thought.
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Janet Hobhouse (The Furies (New York Review Books Classics))
“
When Hamilton, debilitated from illness, rejoined his comrades at Valley Forge in January 1778, he must have shuddered at the mud and log huts and the slovenly state of the men who shivered around the campfires. There was a dearth of gunpowder, tents, uniforms, and blankets. Hideous sights abounded: snow stained with blood from bare, bruised feet; the carcasses of hundreds of decomposing horses; troops gaunt from smallpox, typhus, and scurvy. Washington’s staff was not exempt from the misery and had to bolt down cornmeal mush for breakfast. “For some days past there has been little less than a famine in the camp,” Washington said in mid-February. Before winter’s end, some 2,500 men, almost a quarter of the army, perished from disease, famine, or the cold. 1 To endure such suffering required stoicism reminiscent of the ancient Romans, so Washington had his favorite play, Addison’s Cato, the story of a self-sacrificing Roman statesman, staged at Valley Forge to buck up his weary men. That
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Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton)
“
Homo sapiens who lived in caves put trash in front and slept in the back; not so in the caves occupied by Homo heidelbergensis. Those humans, probably the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens and neanderthalensis, lived like frat boys 700,000 to 300,000 years ago, “flinging shit everywhere”—and the idea of slovenly boy and girl ancestors fascinated me. “Big heavy stone tools . . . probably solved things with brute force. Commandos without too much thought,” Shea riffed. “If you were going to cast Jersey Shore, you’d go with heidelbergensis.
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Marilyn Johnson (Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble)
“
Later, when the time for the baby grew nearer, he would bustle round in his slovenly fashion, poking out the ashes, rubbing the fire-place, sweeping the house before he went to work. Then, feeling very self-righteous, he went upstairs.
"Now I'n cleaned up for thee: that's no 'casions ter stir a peg all day, but sit and read thy books."
Which made her laugh, in spite of her indignation.
"And the dinner cooks itself?" she answered.
"Eh, I know nowt about th' dinner."
"You'd know if there weren't any."
"Ay, 'appen so," he answered, departing.
”
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D.H. Lawrence (Sons and Lovers)
“
Three miles from my adopted city
lies a village where I came to peace.
The world there was a calm place,
even the great Danube no more
than a pale ribbon tossed onto the landscape
by a girl’s careless hand. Into this stillness
I had been ordered to recover.
The hills were gold with late summer;
my rooms were two, plus a small kitchen,
situated upstairs in the back of a cottage
at the end of the Herrengasse.
From my window I could see onto the courtyard
where a linden tree twined skyward —
leafy umbilicus canted toward light,
warped in the very act of yearning —
and I would feed on the sun as if that alone
would dismantle the silence around me.
At first I raged. Then music raged in me,
rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough
to ease the roiling. I would stop
to light a lamp, and whatever I’d missed —
larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd’s
home-toward-evening song — rushed in, and I
would rage again.
I am by nature a conflagration;
I would rather leap
than sit and be looked at.
So when my proud city spread
her gypsy skirts, I reentered,
burning towards her greater, constant light.
Call me rough, ill-tempered, slovenly— I tell you,
every tenderness I have ever known
has been nothing
but thwarted violence, an ache
so permanent and deep, the lightest touch
awakens it. . . . It is impossible
to care enough. I have returned
with a second Symphony
and 15 Piano Variations
which I’ve named Prometheus,
after the rogue Titan, the half-a-god
who knew the worst sin is to take
what cannot be given back.
I smile and bow, and the world is loud.
And though I dare not lean in to shout
Can’t you see that I’m deaf? —
I also cannot stop listening.
”
”
Rita Dove
“
Ze had heel Duitsland doorkruist en scheerde alle Duitsers over één kam: het waren louter kleine handelaars, ambachtslieden, kooplui, stokstijve officieren met soldateske gelaatstrekken en ambtenaartjes met alledaagse gezichten, die allen korte pijpjes rookten, tussen hun tanden door spuwden en alleen geschikt waren voor zware arbeid, moeizaam sloven om geld te verdienen, voor banale orde en regelmaat, een saai georganiseerd leven en pedante plichtsbetrachting: burgermensen met onbehouwen manieren, grote, grove handen, een burgerlijk frisse gelaatskleur en een ruwe manier van spreken.
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Ivan Goncharov
“
and in any case his attention was distracted by another object that was sparkling cheerfully where it lay in the middle of the road. Erast Fandorin did not realize what it was for a moment. The only thought that came to him was that the ground was definitely no place for that. Then he recognized it: a gold ring glittering on the third finger of a slim girl’s arm severed at the elbow. THE FOPPISHLY DRESSED but terribly slovenly young man stumbled along Tverskoi Boulevard with rapid, erratic steps, paying no attention to anyone—expensive crumpled frock coat, dirty white tie, dusty white carnation in his buttonhole.
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Boris Akunin (The Winter Queen (Erast Fandorin Mysteries, #1))
“
Martin, perceiving some shelves filled with English books, said to the senator, “I fancy that a republican must be highly delighted with those books, which are most of them written with a noble spirit of freedom.”
“It is noble to write as we think,” said Pococurante; “it is the privilege of humanity. Throughout Italy we write only what we do not think; and the present inhabitants of the country of the Caesars and Antonines dare not acquire a single idea without the permission of a Dominican father. I should be enamored of the spirit of the English nation, did it not utterly frustrate the good effects it would produce by passion and the spirit of party.”
Candide, seeing a Milton, asked the senator if he did not think that author a great man.
“Who?” said Pococurante sharply; “that barbarian who writes a tedious commentary in ten books of rumbling verse, on the first chapter of Genesis? that slovenly imitator of the Greeks, who disfigures the creation, by making the Messiah take a pair of compasses from
Heaven’s armory to plan the world; whereas Moses represented the
Diety as producing the whole universe by his fiat? Can I think you have any esteem for a writer who has spoiled Tasso’s Hell and the Devil; who transforms Lucifer sometimes into a toad, and at others into a
pygmy; who makes him say the same thing over again a hundred times; who metamorphoses him into a school–divine; and who, by an absurdly serious imitation of Ariosto’s comic invention of firearms, represents the devils and angels cannonading each other in Heaven? Neither I nor any other Italian can possibly take pleasure in such melancholy
reveries; but the marriage of Sin and Death, and snakes issuing from the womb of the former, are enough to make any person sick that is not lost to all sense of delicacy. This obscene, whimsical, and disagreeable poem met with the neglect it deserved at its first publication; and I only
treat the author now as he was treated in his own country by his contemporaries.
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Voltaire (Candide)
“
Fascists need a demonized enemy against which to mobilize followers, but of course the enemy does not have to be Jewish. Each culture specifies the national enemy. Even though in Germany the foreign, the unclean, the contagious, and the subversive often mingled in a single diabolized image of the Jew, Gypsies and Slavs were also targeted. American fascists diabolized blacks and sometimes Catholics as well as Jews. Italian Fascists diabolized their South Slav neighbors, especially the Slovenes, as well as the socialists who refused the war of national revival. Later they easily added to their list the Ethiopians and the Libyans, whom they tried to conquer in Africa.
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Robert O. Paxton (The Anatomy of Fascism)
“
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.” “The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.” “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities–but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.” –Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248–50).
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Arthur Kemp (Jihad: Islam's 1,300 Year War on Western Civilisation)
“
Ah, there she was, the woman in yellow who must be Mrs. Croxon. All Peg's senses quickened. What a beanpole, she crowed to herself- stooped shoulders, gown ill-fitting. Why, she looked a born bleater- no match at all for Peg Blissett. She picked up her borrowed ladle, went downstairs, and sauntered over to the new mistress of Delafosse Hall. Then, gathering all her sweetness, Peg smiled at Mrs. Croxon.
The woman responded with a slight bow of her head, and then said, so quietly that Peg could barely hear her, "I see by the ladle you must be a cook. Am I led to believe-are you-"
Mrs. Croxon had a nasty rash, and slovenly-dressed hair. But looking more closely she was not so ill-looking. And her voice was so pleasant and genteel that Peg couldn't stop herself aping it.
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Martine Bailey (A Taste for Nightshade)
“
There always are and always will be some strange personalities in our country, whatever the conditions, who though peaceful and not at all lazy will ever be beggars by some mysterious behest of destiny. They are always unmarried, always slovenly, always humble and downtrodden. They are forever fetching and carrying for the newly rich and newly exalted. All initiative and enterprise are a burden and a grief to them. They seem to have been born with the stipulation that they shall never do anything on their own, but always dance to someone else’s tune. It is their destiny to do what other people tell them to do. And last but not least, no change of circumstances, no upheavals can make them prosper. They will always be beggars! I have, indeed, noticed them not only among the common people, but in all walks of life, in all groupings, magazines, and associations.
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”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The House of the Dead)
“
We know that someone is in love when the beloved’s most repellant qualities undergo a complete reversal of valence. A person’s unpleasant smell, slovenly attire, or obnoxious eating habits become appealing quirks rather than reasons for keeping a distance. The lover embraces the most unflattering characteristics of the beloved and treats them as sublime indexes of the beloved’s worth. The unpleasant odor resulting from a refusal to shower, for instance, would become an indication of the beloved object’s disdain for obsessive daily rituals with which others waste their time. There is no quality so universally negative that it could not undergo this transubstantiation in the act of love: fat can become cuddliness, emaciation can become fitness, bad attire can become idiosyncratic style, and so on. In contrast to desire, love depends on the embrace of what is undesirable in the object.
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Todd McGowan (Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets)
“
A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace.
Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops.
One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward.
It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. . . .
I was shocked to see what the people of this other congregation wore to church. There was not a suit or tie among the men. They appeared to have come from or to be on their way to the golf course. It was hard to spot a woman wearing a dress or anything other than very casual pants or even shorts. Had I not known that they were coming to the school for church meetings, I would have assumed that there was some kind of sporting event taking place.
The dress of our ward members compared very favorably to this bad example, but I am beginning to think that we are no longer quite so different as more and more we seem to slide toward that lower standard. We used to use the phrase “Sunday best.” People understood that to mean the nicest clothes they had. The specific clothing would vary according to different cultures and economic circumstances, but it would be their best.
It is an affront to God to come into His house, especially on His holy day, not groomed and dressed in the most careful and modest manner that our circumstances permit. Where a poor member from the hills of Peru must ford a river to get to church, the Lord surely will not be offended by the stain of muddy water on his white shirt.
But how can God not be pained at the sight of one who, with all the clothes he needs and more and with easy access to the chapel, nevertheless appears in church in rumpled cargo pants and a T-shirt? Ironically, it has been my experience as I travel around the world that members of the Church with the least means somehow find a way to arrive at Sabbath meetings neatly dressed in clean, nice clothes, the best they have, while those who have more than enough are the ones who may appear in casual, even slovenly clothing.
Some say dress and hair don’t matter—it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what’s inside a person that counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.” In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation—look the part.
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D. Todd Christofferson
“
Yes, many a function calls for fulfilment. For instance, why should it be thought foolish or low to superintend the kitchen? Why should care not be taken that the storeroom never lacks supplies? Why should a housekeeper be allowed to thieve? Why should slovenly and drunken servants exist? Why should a domestic staff be suffered in indulge in bouts of unconscionable debauchery during its leisure time? Yet none of these things were thought worthy of consideration by Manilov’s wife, for she had been gently brought up, and gentle nurture, as we all know, is to be acquired only in boarding schools, and boarding schools, as we know, hold the three principal subjects which constitute the basis of human virtue to be the French language (a thing indispensable to the happiness of married life), piano-playing (a thing wherewith to beguile a husband’s leisure moments), and that particular department of housewifery which is comprised in the knitting of purses and other “surprises.
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Nikolai Gogol (Dead Souls)
“
On May 21, 1941, Camp de Schirmeck, Natzweiler-Struthof, located 31 miles southwest of Strasbourg in the Vosges Mountains, was opened as the only Nazi Concentration Camp established on present day French territory. Intended to be a transit labor camp it held about 52,000 detainees during the three and a half years of its existence. It is estimated that about 22,000 people died of malnutrition and exertion while at the concentration camp during those years. Natzweiler-Struthof was the location of the infamous Jewish skeleton collection used in the documentary movie “Le nom des 86” made from data provided by the notorious Hauptsturmführer August Hirt. On November 23, 1944, the camp was liberated by the French First Army under the command of the U.S. Sixth Army Group. It is presently preserved as a museum. Boris Pahor, the noted author was interned in Natzweiler-Struthof for having been a Slovene Partisan, and wrote his novel “Necropolis,” named for a large, ancient Greek cemetery. His story is based on his Holocaust experiences while incarcerated at Camp de Schirmeck.
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Hank Bracker
“
Just so surely as we tend to disintegrate these nuclei of nationalistic culture do we tend to create hordes of men and women without a spiritual country, cultural outlaws, without taste, without standards but those of the mob. We sentence them to live on the most rudimentary planes of American life. The influences at the centre of the nuclei are centripetal. They make for the intelligence and the social values which mean an enhancement of life. And just because the foreign-born retains this expressiveness is he likely to be a better citizen of the American community. The influences at the fringe, however, are centrifugal, anarchical. They make for detached fragments of peoples. Those who came to find liberty achieve only license. They become the flotsam and jetsam of American life, the downward undertow of our civilization with its leering cheapness and falseness of taste and spiritual outlook, the absence of mind and sincere feeling which we see in our slovenly towns, our vapid moving pictures, our popular novels, and in the vacuous faces of the crowds on the city street. This is the cultural wreckage of our time, and it is from the fringes of the Anglo-Saxon as well as the other stocks that it falls. America has as yet no impelling integrating force. It makes too easily for this detritus of cultures. In our loose, free country, no constraining national purpose, no tenacious folk-tradition and folk-style hold the people to a line.
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Randolph Bourne
“
MH: In an early letter to William Kennedy you spoke of the "dry rot" of American journalism. Tell me what you think. What's the state of the American press currently?
HST: The press today is like the rest of the country. Maybe you need a war. Wars tend to bring out out the best in them. War was everywhere you looked in the sixties, extending into the seventies. Now there are no wars to fight. You know, it's the old argument about why doesn't the press report the good news? Well, now the press is reporting the good news, and it's not as much fun.
The press has been taken in by Clinton. And by the amalgamation of politics. Nobody denies that the parties are more alike than they are different. No, the press has failed, failed utterly -- they've turned into slovenly rotters. Particularly The New York Times, which has come to be a bastion of political correctness. I think my place in history as defined by the PC people would be pretty radically wrong. Maybe I could be set up as a target at the other end of the spectrum. I feel more out of place now than I did under Nixon. Yeah, that's weird. There's something going on here, Mr. Jones, and you don't know what it is, do you?
Yeah, Clinton has been a much more successfully deviant president than Nixon was. You can bet if the stock market fell to 4,000 and if four million people lost their jobs there'd be a lot of hell to pay, but so what? He's already re-elected. Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn't anticipate. Or maybe he did, at the end of his life. He got very bitter about the press. And what is it he said? "I tremble for my nation when I reflect that God is just"? That's a guy who's seen the darker side. Yeah, we've become a nation of swine. - HST - The Atlantic , August 26, 1997
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Hunter S. Thompson
“
THE MAJOR ATTRIBUTES OF LEADERSHIP The following are important factors of leadership:- 1. UNWAVERING COURAGE based upon knowledge of self, and of one's occupation. No follower wishes to be dominated by a leader who lacks self-confidence and courage. No intelligent follower will be dominated by such a leader very long. 2. SELF-CONTROL. The man who cannot control himself, can never control others. Self-control sets a mighty example for one's followers, which the more intelligent will emulate. 3. A KEEN SENSE OF JUSTICE. Without a sense of fairness and justice, no leader can command and retain the respect of his followers. 4. DEFINITENESS OF DECISION. The man who wavers in his decisions, shows that he is not sure of himself. He cannot lead others successfully. 5. DEFINITENESS OF PLANS. The successful leader must plan his work, and work his plan. A leader who moves by guesswork, without practical, definite plans, is comparable to a ship without a rudder. Sooner or later he will land on the rocks. 6. THE HABIT OF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR. One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness, upon the part of the leader, to do more than he requires of his followers. 7. A PLEASING PERSONALITY. No slovenly, careless person can become a successful leader. Leadership calls for respect. Followers will not respect a leader who does not grade high on all of the factors of a Pleasing Personality. 8. SYMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING. The successful leader must be in sympathy with his followers. Moreover, he must understand them and their problems. 9. MASTERY OF DETAIL. Successful leadership calls for mastery of details of the leader's position. 10. WILLINGNESS TO ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY. The successful leader must be willing to assume responsibility for the mistakes and the shortcomings of his followers. If he tries to shift this responsibility, he will not remain the leader. If one of his followers makes a mistake, and shows himself incompetent, the leader must consider that it is he who failed. 11. COOPERATION. The successful leader must understand, and apply the principle of cooperative effort and be able to induce his followers to do the same. Leadership calls for POWER, and power calls for COOPERATION. There are two forms of Leadership. The first, and by far the most effective, is LEADERSHIP BY CONSENT of, and with the sympathy of the followers. The second is LEADERSHIP BY FORCE, without the consent and sympathy of the followers.
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Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich [Illustrated & Annotated])
“
The Old Issue
October 9, 1899
“HERE is nothing new nor aught unproven,” say the Trumpets,
“Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.
“It is the King—the King we schooled aforetime !”
(Trumpets in the marshes—in the eyot at Runnymede!)
“Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger,” peal the Trumpets,
“Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall.
“It is the King!”—inexorable Trumpets—
(Trumpets round the scaffold at the dawning by Whitehall!)
“He hath veiled the Crown and hid the Sceptre,” warn the Trumpets,
“He hath changed the fashion of the lies that cloak his will.
“Hard die the Kings—ah hard—dooms hard!” declare the Trumpets,
Trumpets at the gang-plank where the brawling troop-decks fill!
Ancient and Unteachable, abide—abide the Trumpets!
Once again the Trumpets, for the shuddering ground-swell brings
Clamour over ocean of the harsh, pursuing Trumpets—
Trumpets of the Vanguard that have sworn no truce with Kings!
All we have of freedom, all we use or know—
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw—
Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law.
Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing
Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the King.
Till our fathers ’stablished, after bloody years,
How our King is one with us, first among his peers.
So they bought us freedom—not at little cost
Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost,
Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.
Give no ear to bondsmen bidding us endure.
Whining “He is weak and far”; crying “Time shall cure.”,
(Time himself is witness, till the battle joins,
Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people’s loins.)
Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace.
Suffer not the old King here or overseas.
They that beg us barter—wait his yielding mood—
Pledge the years we hold in trust—pawn our brother’s blood—
Howso’ great their clamour, whatsoe’er their claim,
Suffer not the old King under any name!
Here is naught unproven—here is naught to learn.
It is written what shall fall if the King return.
He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom’s name.
He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware;
He shall change our gold for arms—arms we may not bear.
He shall break his judges if they cross his word;
He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.
He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
Watchers ’neath our window, lest we mock the King—
Hate and all division; hosts of hurrying spies;
Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies.
Strangers of his counsel, hirelings of his pay,
These shall deal our Justice: sell—deny—delay.
We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse
For the Land we look to—for the Tongue we use.
We shall take our station, dirt beneath his feet,
While his hired captains jeer us in the street.
Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,
Far beyond his borders shall his teachings run.
Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled,
Laying on a new land evil of the old—
Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain—
All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again.
Here is naught at venture, random nor untrue—
Swings the wheel full-circle, brims the cup anew.
Here is naught unproven, here is nothing hid:
Step for step and word for word—so the old Kings did!
Step by step, and word by word: who is ruled may read.
Suffer not the old Kings: for we know the breed—
All the right they promise—all the wrong they bring.
Stewards of the Judgment, suffer not this King!
”
”
Rudyard Kipling
“
The troll’s tones were rough, his vowels most uncul-tured, the whole tenor of his speech was slovenly and un-educated to a degree far worse than any rustic peasant might employ: in fact, to Rambo’s ears, the accent might even belong to that most awful of entities – a town!
”
”
M. Jonathan Jones (The Robbit: Or Turned Out Nice Again)
“
My grandfather Alexander and my grandmother Shlomit, with my father and his elder brother David, on the other hand, did not go to Palestine even though they were also ardent Zionists: the conditions of life there seemed too Asiatic to them, so they went to Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, and
arrived there only in 1933, by which time, as it turned out, anti-Semitism in Vilna had grown to the point of violence against Jewish students. My Uncle David especially was a confirmed European, at a time when, it seems, no one else in Europe was, apart from the members of my family and other
Jews like them. Everyone else turns out to have been Pan-Slavic, PanGermanic, or simply Latvian, Bulgarian, Irish, or Slovak patriots. The only Europeans in the whole of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s were the Jews.
My father always used to say: In Czechoslovakia there are three nations, the
Czechs, the Slovaks, and the Czecho-Slovaks, i.e., the Jews; in Yugoslavia
there are Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Montenegrines, but, even there, there
lives a group of unmistakable Yugoslavs; and even in Stalin’s empire there
are Russians, there are Ukrainians, and there are Uzbeks and Chukchis and
Tatars, and among them are our brethren, the only real members of a Soviet
nation.
”
”
Amos Oz (A Tale of Love and Darkness)
“
At a glance. There does seem to be some textual evidence for a bipartite division among the Slavic tribes. In the 6th century CE, Byzantine sources divide the new barbarian menace into two tribes known as the “Sclavenes” and the “Antes.” Obviously, the Sclavenes are Slavs. But who were the Antes? There is no such group around today, as far as we know. In theory, some Ukrainians and South Slavs could be their descendants, however. According to Procopius, the Antes and Sclavenes both spoke the same “barbarous” tongue. He claims that they were both descended from a people known as the Sporoi.82 This is very reminiscent of the Hungarian origin legend, which claimed that “Magor” and “Hunor” were originally brothers, and hence the Magyars and Huns shared common origins. We know that “Slav” probably comes from “Slovo” meaning simply “Word.” Therefore, a “Slav” probably originally referred to an ethnolinguistic identity. This explains the name “Sclavene” or “Slovene.” Interestingly, the name “Ante” does not appear to be Slavic in its origins. The most prevalent theory - held by scholar George Vernadsky, is that the name “Ante” is of Iranian (Sarmatian) origins.83 If so, it may well be that the bipartite social structure seen among the Slavs originated from the Antes - and perhaps Dazhbog was originally the patron hearth deity of the Antes. Meanwhile, Volos was regarded as the divine ancestor of the Sclavenes. This would make the Antes rough equivalents of the Ob-Ugrian “Mos” phratry, who claimed descent from a very “Iranian” deity with many names. He was described as a golden hero who rode a winged horse. By this logic, the so-called “Sclavenes” were the Slavic counterparts of the “Por” who retained the totemistic of belief in their descent from a bear spirit.
”
”
T. D. Kokoszka (Bogowie: A Study of Eastern Europe's Ancient Gods)
“
We tried to see her without looking at her, and never, never went near. Not because she was absurd, or repulsive, or because we were frightened, but because we had failed her. Our flowers never grew. I was convinced that Frieda was right, that I had planted them too deeply. How could I have been so sloven?
”
”
Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye)
“
Intelligent vs. unintelligent High strung vs. placid & laid back Extraverted vs. introverted Low psychic metabolism (low energy) vs. high psychic metabolism (high energy) Extraordinary talent (or accomplishment) vs. ordinary abilities & accomplishments Ambitious vs. content with status quo Attractive vs. unattractive Cultured vs. barbarian Spiritual vs. unspiritual (or different styles of spirituality) Philosophical vs. frivolous Risk taker vs. obsessed with safety Commitment to vigorous personal growth vs. content with the status quo Visionary vs. lives in the moment Scrupulously honest vs. morally flexible Wealth-acquisition mindset vs. poverty mindset Neat and organized vs. slovenly and disorganized Logical thinker vs. emotional, reactive thinker Couch potato vs. physically active Regular exercise regimen vs. none Involved in service outreaches vs. pursues only personal pleasuring Argumentative Andy vs. non-confrontational Carla Back packer Bert vs. five-star-hotel-connoisseur Connie Frugal Freddy vs. shop-‘til-you-drop Shelley
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Elizabeth E. George (The Compatibility Code: An Intelligent Woman's Guide to Dating and Marriage)
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The female body, stark-white, slovenly. At its core a hungry mouth that can never sate its hunger.
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Joyce Carol Oates (Babysitter)
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The Major Attributes of Leadership The following are important factors of leadership: 1. UNWAVERING COURAGE based upon knowledge of self and of one’s occupation. No follower wishes to be dominated by a leader who lacks self-confidence and courage. No intelligent follower will be dominated by such a leader for very long. 2. SELF-CONTROL. People who cannot control themselves can never control others. Self-control sets a mighty example for one’s followers, which the more intelligent will emulate. 3. A KEEN SENSE OF JUSTICE. Without a sense of fairness and justice, no leader can command and retain the respect of his or her followers. 4. DEFINITENESS OF DECISION. People who waver in decisions show that they are not sure of themselves. They cannot lead others successfully. 5. DEFINITENESS OF PLANS. The successful leader must plan the work, and work the plan. A leader who moves by guesswork without practical, definite plans is comparable to a ship without a rudder. Sooner or later it will land on the rocks. 6. THE HABIT OF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR. One of the penalties of leadership is the necessity of willingness, upon the part of the leaders, to do more than they require of their followers. 7. A PLEASING PERSONALITY. No slovenly, careless person can become a successful leader. Leadership calls for respect. Followers will not respect leaders who do not score highly on all factors of a pleasing personality. 8. SYMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING. Successful leaders must be in sympathy with their followers. Moreover, they must understand them and their problems. 9. MASTERY OF DETAIL. Successful leadership calls for mastery of details of the leader’s position. 10. WILLINGNESS TO ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY. Successful leaders must be willing to assume responsibility for the mistakes and shortcomings of their followers. If they try to shift this responsibility, they will not remain leaders. If followers make mistakes and become incompetent, it is the leader who has failed. 11. COOPERATION. Successful leaders must understand and apply the principle of cooperative effort and be able to induce followers to do the same. Leadership calls for power, and power calls for cooperation.
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Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
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improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture… exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men… No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. This was one more opinion which Churchill never changed.
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Geoffrey Wheatcroft (Churchill's Shadow: The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill)
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My body felt like a lie—I was not the person that my body insisted I was. In my head, I wasn’t fat. In my head, I was lovely and bright and sprightly and confident and I could be a happy person. In my body I felt like I was trapped by gravity, earthbound, sure that anyone who saw me believed in all the clichés about fat people—that they thought I was slovenly, lonely, bad-smelling, alone.
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Jen Larsen (Stranger Here: How Weight-Loss Surgery Transformed My Body and Messed with My Head)
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Before it carried any sexual connotation, the word slut was a term for a slovenly woman, a poor housekeeper.
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Melissa Febos (Girlhood)
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If Michelangelo was slovenly and, at times, melancholy and antisocial, Raphael was, by contrast, the perfect gentleman. Contemporaries fell over themselves to praise his polite manner, his gentle disposition, his generosity toward others.
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Ross King (Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling)
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A slovenly woman with a plain face and meaty bare arms
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Ken Follett (The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1))
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In Slovenia as well, there is an analogous figure associated with Tuesday. This is Baba Torka (named after “Torek” which is “Tuesday” in Slovene). Like Paraskeva-Friday, she punishes women who break taboos around spinning. She doesn’t differ much from the folklore figures already mentioned, except to illustrate that not all of them are associated exclusively with “Friday.” However, there is another element that shows up in association with all of these fate spirits - and that’s the domestic element.
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T. D. Kokoszka (Bogowie: A Study of Eastern Europe's Ancient Gods)
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The first thought of writing this book came to me two years ago after I had driven through the mining district of Lanarkshire. The journey took me through Hamilton, Airdrie and Motherwell. It was a warm, overcast summer day; groups of idle, sullen-looking young men stood at the street corners; smaller groups were wandering among the blue-black ranges of pit-dumps which in that region are the substitute for nature; the houses looked empty and unemployed like the tenants; and the road along which the car stumbled was pitted and rent, as if it had recently been under shell-fire. Everything had the look of a Sunday which had lasted for many years, during which the bells had forgotten to ring - a disused, slovenly everlasting Sunday.
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Edwin Muir (Scottish Journey)
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The worst thing about the age we live in? Any slovenly Howard can crawl out of his chive-chip hovel to meet his female algorithmic dopple for neutral non-threatening coffee to laugh over season two episode six of some bullshit, the one where everyone at the space station gets a free case of Sprite and poor deaf Ronnie finds a dollar. And to each other they say, “How’d people even meet before the blessed holy internet?” Well Nintendo Power, I’ll tell you. They locked beery eyes from across the bar, palpitated wildly, jostled their way past flying darts and poking cues until one stood only a couple feet from the other, close enough for smell to factor in, and then—without even knowing what the other thought of Woody Allen—they sacked up, leaned in, and said, simultaneously: “Hi.
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Gabe Durham (Fun Camp)
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have no idea how delicate and beautiful a thing a real feathered courtship is. To tell the truth, these foreigners have associated too long and too intimately with men, and have fallen far away from their primal innocence. There is no need to describe their actions. The vociferous and most unmannerly importunity of the suitor, and the correspondingly spiteful rejection of his overtures by the little vixen on whom his affections are for the moment placed,—these we have all seen to our hearts' discontent. The sparrow will not have been brought over the sea for nothing, however, if his bad behavior serves to heighten our appreciation of our own native songsters, with their "perfect virtues" and "manners for the heart's delight." The American robin, for instance, is far from being a bird of exceptional refinement. His nest is rude, not to say slovenly, and his general deportment is unmistakably common.
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Bradford Torrey (Birds in the Bush)
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Gentle Sir Conan, I'll venture that few have been
Half as prodigiously lucky as you have been.
Fortune, the flirt! has been wondrously kind to you.
Ever beneficent, sweet and refined to you.
Doomed to the practise of physic and surgery,
Yet, growing weary of pills and physicianing,
Off to the Arctic you packed, expeditioning.
Roving and dreaming, Ambition, that heady sin,
Gave you a spirit too restless for medicine:
That, I presume, as Romance is the quest of us,
Made you an Author-the same as the rest of us.
Ah, but the rest of us clamor distressfully,
"How do you manage the game so successfully?
Tell us, disclose to us how under Heaven you
Squeeze from the inkpot so splendid a revenue!"
Then, when you'd published your volume that vindicates
England's South African raid (or the Syndicate's),
Pleading that Britain's extreme bellicosity
Wasn't (as most of us think) an atrocity
Straightaway they gave you a cross with a chain to it
(Oh, what an honor! I could not attain to it,
Not if I lived to the age of Methusalem!)
Made you a knight of St. John of Jerusalem!
Faith! as a teller of tales you've the trick with you!
Still there's a bone I've been wanting to pick with you:
Holmes is your hero of drama and serial:
All of us know where you dug the material!
Whence he was moulded-'tis almost a platitude;
Yet your detective, in shameless ingratitude
Sherlock your sleuthhound with motives ulterior
Sneers at Poe's "Dupin" as "very inferior!"
Labels Gaboriau's clever "Lecoq," indeed,
Merely "a bungler," a creature to mock, indeed!
This, when your plots and your methods in story owe
More than a trifle to Poe and Gaboriau,
Sets all the Muses of Helicon sorrowing.
Borrow, Sir Knight, but in decent borrowing!
Still let us own that your bent is a cheery one,
Little you've written to bore or to weary one,
Plenty that's slovenly, nothing with harm in it,
Give me detective with brains analytical
Rather than weaklings with morals mephitical
Stories of battles and man's intrepidity
Rather than wails of neurotic morbidity!
Give me adventures and fierce dinotheriums
Rather than Hewlett's ecstatic deliriums!
Frankly, Sir Conan, some hours I've eased with you
And, on the whole, I am pretty well pleased with you
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”
Arthur Guiterman
Jeff Wheeler (The Banished of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood, #1))
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Mathematics does furnish the power for deliberate thought and accurate statement, and to speak the truth is one of the most social qualities a person can possess. Gossip, flattery, slander, deceit all spring from a slovenly mind that has not been trained in the power of truthful statement.
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S.T. Dutton
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One of my most favored day fancies creates a fool drama that goes something like this: It is evening. We have had our supper and the dishes have been washed and put away. Ima Dean and Romey are in chairs in the sitting room reading books. Though there is candy in the sack on the table they have remembered we cannot afford trips to the dentist and are munching fruit. The pages which so absorb them are taking them to faraway borders and on the way they are being introduced to great men and great women. They have come around to my way of thinking. We do not need television. It’s fare is pretty dull and slovenly compared to the excitement and order there is to be found in the written word.
I go to my room and open the door and look in. The sewing machine is gone. During our day’s absence somebody has come and swiped it. I go back to the sitting room and make my spooky announcement. “The sewing machine is gone. Somebody has swiped it.”
“I’m glad,” says Ima Dean, throwing her legs over the arm of her chair. “Old no-account hunk of garbage. Mrs. Connell knew it was on its last legs when she gave it to us for five dollars. I thank whoever took it. The only thing makes me mad is it didn’t happen sooner. Nobody should have to drive themselves crazy learning how to sew after they’ve worked all day at making a living. Don’t fret, Mary Call. I don’t need any new dresses. When I start to school again if people don’t like the way I look in my old ones they can look the other way. We don’t owe anybody anything and this is a free country. If I went to school in a gunnysack wouldn’t be anybody’s business but yours and mine. Clothes aren’t important, it’s brains that count. My, this is a good book. When I grow up I think I’m going to be a medical missionary and go somewheres far off and work. I don’t want to waste my life. I want it to count for something and be of some good to humanity.”
“I have decided either to become an explorer or an archaeologist,” says Romey. “I haven’t settled on which yet but either way I won’t be wasting my life either. I’ll be working for the good of humanity too. You are raising Ima Dean and me right, Mary Call, and we will always be grateful to you for the way you have sacrificed yourself for us.”
End of dream. The sewing machine has not been swiped. Ima Dean and Romey have not forgotten we don’t have television. They don’t give a whoop or a holler about the great men and great women in our history. Or about humanity or what sacrifices I might be making for their good. Distant shores do not beckon them. They spend their evenings wrangling with each other and listening to radio music. Sometimes, when they feel kind toward each other, they dance.
I love these two but can hardly stand them.
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Vera Cleaver (Trial Valley)