celerity

Celerity is never more admir’d
Than by the negligent.

William Shakespeare -- Antony and Cleopatra

He was always poring through his torn-up pocket dictionary (his name scrawled in Cyrillic on the front, with the English carefully lettered beneath: BORYS VOLODYMYROVYCH PAVLIKOVSKY) and I was always finding old 7-Eleven napkins and bits of scratch paper with lists of words and terms he’d made: bridle and domesticate
celerity
trattoria
wise guy = Kpymoiinauatt
propinquity
Dereliction of duty.
When his dictionary failed him, he consulted me.

Donna Tartt -- The Goldfinch

Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a surgical case.

Bram Stoker -- Dracula

I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that you would be gone with such celerity.

Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice

D’Artagnan was therefore served with miraculous celerity.

Alexandre Dumas -- The Three Musketeers

As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him.

Herman Melville -- Moby Dick

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, with assiduous celerity.

Charlotte Bronte -- Jane Eyre

They slid down behind it with remarkable celerity, and from this position they began briskly to slice up the blue men.

Stephen Crane -- The Red Badge of Courage

He had by degrees assumed such authority over his companions that he was almost like a commander on board; and as his orders were always clear, distinct, and easy of execution, his comrades obeyed him with celerity and pleasure.

Alexandre Dumas -- The Count of Monte Cristo

At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, were added; and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took away Francois’s breath.

Jack London -- The Call of the Wild

But hardly had he tasted a morsel when the man with the wand touched the plate with it, and they took it away from before him with the utmost celerity.

Miguel de Cervantes -- Don Quixote

And, lord bless you, the lubber was astonished at the celerity.

Herman Melville -- Billy Budd

This was the second messenger; it was in 1863, and the messenger was eating breakfast in the kitchen, bolting his food with decorous celerity.

William Faulkner -- Light in August

Meanwhile with a celerity that Jules Peterson, as a business man, would have quite understood, the remains were carried into another apartment of one of the most fashionable hotels in the world.

F. Scott Fitzgerald -- Tender is the Night

Hanson jumped out of bed with more celerity than he usually displayed and looked at the note.

Theodore Dreiser -- Sister Carrie

—Iliad The name of Ivanhoe was no sooner pronounced than it flew from mouth to mouth, with all the celerity with which eagerness could convey and curiosity receive it.

Sir Walter Scott -- Ivanhoe

O most kind maid, It was the swift celerity of his death, Which I did think with slower foot came on, That brain’d my purpose.

William Shakespeare -- Measure for Measure

Proceed at haste and speed and celerity, without delay, diversion or divagation to Dunkirk for the purposes of immediate evacuation on account of being ’orribly and onerously overrun from all directions.

Ian McEwan -- Atonement

Persons who live two or three miles’ distance in the country are considered as next-door neighbours, and transactions at the one house fly with incredible celerity to the other.

Henry Fielding -- Tom Jones

Major Dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave from his good-natured commandant to proceed to Madras, and thence probably to Europe, on urgent private affairs, never ceased travelling night and day until he reached his journey’s end, and had directed his march with such celerity that he arrived at Madras in a high fever.

William Makepeace Thackeray -- Vanity Fair

Notwithstanding the celerity and decision his movements, he did not, however, venture so near the shore without taking due precautions to effect a retreat, in the event of its becoming necessary.

James Fenimore Cooper -- The Deerslayer

…of flame and a white gush of smoke; a deafening explosion followed, which drowned the shoutings of the multitude, and made the ground tremble; the flame-jets, the smoke, and the explosions, were repeated over and over again with marvellous celerity, so that in a few moments the old Tower disappeared in the vast fog of its own smoke, all but the very top of the tall pile called the White Tower; this, with its banners, stood out above the dense bank of vapour as a mountain-peak projects…

Mark Twain -- The Prince and The Pauper

Our Assembly apprehending, from some information, that he had conceived violent prejudices against them, as averse to the service, wish’d me to wait upon him, not as from them, but as postmaster-general, under the guise of proposing to settle with him the mode of conducting with most celerity and certainty the despatches between him and the governors of the several provinces, with whom he must necessarily have continual correspondence, and of which they propos’d to pay the expense.

Benjamin Franklin -- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

…(Parnell’s) a silk one was inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was the man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence meaning to return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost celerity) who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more for the kudos of the thing than anything…

James Joyce -- Ulysses

Again, therefore, she applied herself to the key, and after moving it in every possible way for some instants with the determined celerity of hope’s last effort, the door suddenly yielded to her hand: her heart leaped with exultation at such a victory, and having thrown open each folding door, the second being secured only by bolts of less wonderful construction than the lock, though in that her eye could not discern anything unusual, a double range of small drawers appeared in view,…

Jane Austen -- Northanger Abbey

So stimulated, the business was extremely brisk, and the articles in stock went off with the greatest celerity.

Charles Dickens -- Little Dorrit

And, in fact, many of the qualities that make a great deed were there: the decision, the resolution, the courage, the celerity, the clear eye, and the strong hand.

Henry James -- The American

The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates.

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, & John Jay -- The Federalist Papers

It is by this happy expedient that the respect which is due to the popular voice is combined with the utmost celerity of execution and those precautions which the peace of the country demands.

Alexis de Toqueville -- Democracy In America, Volume 1

A strange breathlessness attacked her, and she attributed it to the celerity with which she was being carried along.

Zane Grey -- The Light of Western Stars

The dark, heavy form of Mrs. Jett could be discerned in the flickering light of fire; contrary to her usual phlegmatic action, she was moving with a celerity that spoke eloquently of the nature of that departure.

Zane Grey -- The Thundering Herd

The tent was struck, the females placed upon the horses, and the whole were on the way towards the squatter’s encampment, with a celerity that might well have served to keep alive the idea of magic.

James Fenimore Cooper -- The Prairie

All the governments of Europe have in our time singularly improved the science of administration: they do more things, and they do everything with more order, more celerity, and at less expense; they seem to be constantly enriched by all the experience of which they have stripped private persons.

Alexis de Toqueville -- Democracy In America, Volume 2

Multitudinous, carrying attaché-cases, dodging with incredible celerity in and out, they went past like a river in spate.

Virginia Woolf -- The Waves

This NATURALL WITTE, consisteth principally in two things; Celerity Of Imagining, (that is, swift succession of one thought to another;) and Steddy Direction to some approved end.

Thomas Hobbes -- Leviathan

Gentlemen, here’s a fender that if you had the misfortune to hang yourselves would cut you down in no time—with astonishing celerity—four-and-sixpence—five—five-and-sixpence—an appropriate thing for a spare bedroom where there was a four-poster and a guest a little out of his mind—six shillings—thank you, Mr. Clintup—going at six shillings—going—gone!"

George Eliot -- Middlemarch

His attention had been drawn to it often by the three words in silver lettering on a black cloth, which, with two model coffins, adorned the window: Economy, Celerity, Propriety.

W. Somerset Maugham -- Of Human Bondage

…me, crowding up the aisle and from the window, Of sudden battle’s hurry and harsh noises—war’s grim game to sight and ear in earnest; The scout call’d up and forward—the general mounted and his aides around him—the new-brought word—the instantaneous order issued; The rifle crack—the cannon thud—the rushing forth of men from their tents; The clank of cavalry—the strange celerity of forming ranks—the slender bugle note; The sound of horses’ hoofs departing—saddles, arms, accoutrements.

Walt Whitman -- Leaves of Grass

Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment: I do think there is mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a celerity in dying.

William Shakespeare -- Antony and Cleopatra

Here, however, she thought she might have launched forth with safety; and the sagacious reader will not perhaps accuse her of want of sufficient forecast in so doing, but will rather admire with what wonderful celerity she tacked about, when she found herself steering a wrong course.

Henry Fielding -- Tom Jones

The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there.

Herman Melville -- Moby Dick

The Miller pressed furiously forward, dealing blows with either end of his weapon alternately, and striving to come to half-staff distance, while Gurth defended himself against the attack, keeping his hands about a yard asunder, and covering himself by shifting his weapon with great celerity, so as to protect his head and body.

Sir Walter Scott -- Ivanhoe

In America the authority exercised by the legislative bodies is supreme; nothing prevents them from accomplishing their wishes with celerity, and with irresistible power, whilst they are supplied by new representatives every year.

Alexis de Toqueville -- Democracy In America, Volume 1

Whilst the new penitentiaries were being erected (and it was the pleasure of the majority that they should be terminated with all possible celerity), the old prisons existed, which still contained a great number of offenders.

Alexis de Toqueville -- Democracy In America, Volume 1

When will the time arrive that the federal government can raise and maintain an army capable of erecting a despotism over the great body of the people of an immense empire, who are in a situation, through the medium of their State governments, to take measures for their own defense, with all the celerity, regularity, and system of independent nations?

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, & John Jay -- The Federalist Papers

There was a ceaseless, intense, inconceivably rapid vibration under her; occasionally she felt a long swing, as if she were to be propelled aloft; but no jars disturbed the easy celerity of the car.

Zane Grey -- The Light of Western Stars