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fickle
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  • It was such a terribly fickle existence.†   (source)
  • And the equipment that worked flawlessly in the university laboratory proved pitifully delicate and fickle in the field.†   (source)
  • "Oh, dear, it seems that I'm more hurt than I thought I was by your fickleness.†   (source)
  • It had been a long time since he'd kissed me this way—between my fickle heart and the fear of being caught, there was no reason to.†   (source)
  • We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.†   (source)
  • Moody, fickle, faddish, insecure: in short, impossible.†   (source)
  • I shudder to think of what he promised them in return for their fickle loyalty.†   (source)
  • Fed by neither streams nor springs, the lake was often filthy and algaed, relying on fickle prairie rains for replenishment.†   (source)
  • He tried to be amused by the fickle nature of clients' tastes; it was part of the job, and if he got exasperated every time someone changed their mind, he'd never survive.†   (source)
  • " 'No fickleness in flight like that of wind or women's fancy: " I quoted.†   (source)
  • Fermina Daza knew then that private life, unlike public life, was fickle and unpredictable.†   (source)
  • …separation came as a relief to them, though Saeed worried what would happen if the fighting to clear their area began so suddenly that they would not both be able to return home in time, knowing from experience that a mobile phone could be a fickle connection, its signal thought in normal circumstances to be like the sunlight or the moonlight, but in actuality capable of an instant and endless eclipse, and Nadia worried about the promise she had made Saeed's father, whom she too had…†   (source)
  • Whereas girls are very fickle about the business of kissing.†   (source)
  • You know, people accuse me of being fickle.†   (source)
  • "I'd have turned you into bacon long since if I'd have known you were going to be so fickle," Augustus said.†   (source)
  • The boys on the perimeter ducked under the lethal salvos; shrapnel was a fickle friend.†   (source)
  • Nately's father was a sober, philosophical and responsible man; this old man was fickle and licentious.†   (source)
  • 'I don't know, she's fickle.†   (source)
  • I was trying to decide where to peg my own truth, how much to reveal about myself—it helped to have such a steadfast father in Ghosh, never fickle, never prying, but knowing when I needed him.†   (source)
  • "I've been listening to it for weeks, and I'm a fickle, hard-to-please girl."†   (source)
  • Crabs are fickle creatures.†   (source)
  • Rough seas and fickle winds had delayed him, but only one ship had been lost, and he was home.†   (source)
  • Well, first of all, he's in love with this Rosaline—don't you think it makes him seem a little fickle?†   (source)
  • Fortune could be fickle, however.†   (source)
  • Time's fickle," he commented.†   (source)
  • They were a fickle people, given to the sentiments of the day.†   (source)
  • Fickle.†   (source)
  • —— NOW THAT SPRING SEEMS TO BE MORE THAN A FICKLE suitor's promise, and the days are warming into a happy assurance that winter is on the run at last, Britain celebrates with a bounty of fairs.†   (source)
  • It's good to remember the fickle spinning of that wheel.†   (source)
  • This shows how fickle people are.†   (source)
  • Weather so fickle, like it break your heart 'bout the time it do your back.†   (source)
  • Marin, Dr. Eisenhart, Dr. Fickle, Dr. Greenstein ….†   (source)
  • My head is much too fickle.†   (source)
  • The Baudelaire orphans were distressed to learn that the Fickle Ferry had no such policy.†   (source)
  • Could you tell me the way to the Fickle Ferry?†   (source)
  • "The Fickle Ferry will take us," Violet said, pointing at a dotted line on the map.†   (source)
  • And the gods as fickle as a giddy girl in May.†   (source)
  • The wood and the canvas had served her well enough so far, but the fickle wind had turned traitor.†   (source)
  • I am certain of nothing in this fickle and treacherous world, my lord.†   (source)
  • The mind was fragile, fickle, but the human body was resilient.†   (source)
  • I wanted you from the first time that I saw you, but you were a sell-sword, fickle, treacherous.†   (source)
  • As it ages, the substance grows ever more, hmmmm, fickle, let us say.†   (source)
  • Friends are fickle, but family is forever.†   (source)
  • Let the false and the fickle feel your flames.†   (source)
  • He is a fickle creature and not to be relied upon.†   (source)
  • And Daenerys Targaryen knows that sell-swords are a fickle lot.†   (source)
  • Though young girls have been known to be fickle.†   (source)
  • At this particular moment she was thinking of how she could improve the engine of the Fickle Ferry so it wouldn't belch smoke into the gray sky.†   (source)
  • He describes for her the shell-blasted schools, the squatters living in roofless buildings, the beggars, the mud, the fickle electricity, but it's like describing music.†   (source)
  • Let me say, they can be very fickle.†   (source)
  • He turned around and began walking to the west, back toward the bus, back into the fickle heart of the bush.†   (source)
  • He felt more secure but did not have many illusions, because he could not forget Fermina Daza's fickle character and unpredictable reactions at the age of twenty, and he had no reason to think that she had changed.†   (source)
  • The only possible bond was something as improbable and fickle as love, if there was any, and in their case there was none when they married, and when they were on the verge of inventing it, fate had done nothing more than confront them with reality.†   (source)
  • They looked down the dock but only saw the Fickle Ferry ticket booth and the foamy waters of the lake, darkening in the gloom of the late afternoon.†   (source)
  • Violet had called Mr. Poe and told him what had happened, and the Baudelaires, too anxious to sleep, had stayed up the whole night waiting for him to arrive on the first Fickle Ferry of the day.†   (source)
  • When they finally reached Damocles Dock, their teeth were chattering and their feet were so cold they could scarcely feel their toes, and the sight of the CLOSED sign in the window of the Fickle Ferry ticket booth was just about more than they could stand.†   (source)
  • After all, the three children had just disembarked from the Fickle Ferry, which had driven them across Lake Lachrymose to live with their Aunt Josephine, and in most cases such a situation would lead to thrillingly good times.†   (source)
  • Those fickle tricks of memory were even more critical when the killing of the workers was brought up.†   (source)
  • Knowing Riddle's fickleness, he opted not to call him directly to negotiate in private; with only the two of them talking, there would be few consequences to backing out.†   (source)
  • Regardless of whether I can shift my affections to another-and the heart, as you observed, is a notoriously fickle beast-the question remains: should I?†   (source)
  • I've seen over two hundred classes come through this school, and while times change, the teenage girl remains a fickle, mysterious beast.†   (source)
  • He is a warrior and a scholar, though fickle in his moods, so we burn offerings to assure his affection at the solstices, before sowing, and at deaths and births.†   (source)
  • A pretty metal, but fickle as a woman.†   (source)
  • Fickle.†   (source)
  • The beat had always been there, of course, but now the fickle crowds had taken up their drums and joined the parade, ready to march en masse.†   (source)
  • Even if the love I felt for him was no more than a weak echo of what I was capable of, even if my heart was far away, wandering and grieving after my fickle Romeo, would it be so very wrong?†   (source)
  • And, unlike my fickle brethren, I've stayed true for over two millennia—even throughout his long imprisonment!†   (source)
  • But he knew that didn't mean they were any less desperate than folks who tethered their survival to dirt, seed, and the fickleness of rain.†   (source)
  • Between the drumbeats, he heard Uthar ordering the hands above deck to trim the sails to take full advantage of the fickle wind.†   (source)
  • "She's a fickle mistress."†   (source)
  • Contrary to what they had expected, Gaston sent them a calm, almost paternal reply, with two whole pages devoted to a warning against the fickleness of passion and a final paragraph with unmistakable wishes for them to be as happy as he had been during his brief conjugal experience.†   (source)
  • The Lannisters had taken him from the . flank, and his fickle bannermen had abandoned him by the hundreds in the hour of his greatest need.†   (source)
  • He still had Bronn's hirelings, near eight hundred of them now, but sellswords were notoriously fickle.†   (source)
  • One day I would grudgingly thank Hema for making us copy in the round and ornate styles: Knowledge shall be promoted by frequent exercise Art polishes and improves nature Fortune is a fair but fickle mistrefs Yesterday misspent can't be recall'd Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.†   (source)
  • Even Galbatorix in his dark seat of power at Uru'baen fears the fickle crowd, although he may deny it to everyone, including himself.†   (source)
  • He saw another of the hulks he'd stuffed full of King Aerys's fickle fruits engulfed by the hungry flames.†   (source)
  • The gods are fickle, and the only immortality we can count on is that which we win through our deeds.†   (source)
  • Fickle, faithless, brutal.†   (source)
  • Fire is a fickle thing.†   (source)
  • The fickle Mexican population soon found as much diversion in being devout as they had once found in being scandalous.†   (source)
  • Arthur had been warned about this by Merlyn—who was now safely locked up in his cave by the fickle Nimue—and he had been fearing it subconsciously.†   (source)
  • How fickle is woman!†   (source)
  • You are not so fickle—I am come on purpose for you—my mother and father will welcome you now!†   (source)
  • You should have seen that fickle crowd snatch off their hats then.†   (source)
  • It brought to him a sense of her fickleness—the probability of her real indifference to him.†   (source)
  • Hurstwood would laugh at him for being a fickle boy.†   (source)
  • Oh, I am a fickle woman, for I am forgetting White Stockings.†   (source)
  • Are you so fickle that you don't know your own mind from day to day?"†   (source)
  • We were too ready to make every sacrifice for an unworthy, perhaps, or fickle man.†   (source)
  • 'a didn't want to be fickle, but he couldn't help it.†   (source)
  • Not that this was fickleness of soul; but hopes cut in twain by dejection—that was her case.†   (source)
  • With typical human fickleness, they jumped from one extreme to the other.†   (source)
  • We had to drive those hogs home—ten miles; and no ladies were ever more fickle-minded or contrary.†   (source)
  • Moreover, he was of a fickle disposition, and, must we say it, rather vulgar in taste.†   (source)
  • Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness.†   (source)
  • 'Fickle!' cried Nicholas; 'what do you suppose?†   (source)
  • Fickle is the heart of woman Treacherous and full of vice; I agree with Ulysses.†   (source)
  • It was the same mood, the same and different, like a fickle companion that to-day guiding you on the true path, with the same eyes, the same step, the same impulse, to-morrow will lead you hopelessly astray.†   (source)
  • An icy horror of loneliness seized him; he saw himself standing apart and watching all the world fade away from him—a world of shadows, of fickle dreams.†   (source)
  • These held her for some time, but presently, true to childish fickleness, she left off playing with them to look for something else.†   (source)
  • By the latter he meant, for instance, the question of who Frau Wurtnbrandt from Vienna, the general consul's wife, had decided would have to pay damages for her loss of fickle Captain Miklosich: the fully mended Swedish bruiser, or Prosecutor Paravant from Dortmund, or—a third possibility—both at once.†   (source)
  • And he said what you said about him, that he's fickle by nature, he's not like you, and I should be a fool to throw you away for him.†   (source)
  • It was a sad and strange sight to see this strong man's nerve and force gradually deteriorate under a fickle fortune.†   (source)
  • I think you are very fickle minded.†   (source)
  • If it were anyone but you—but you see I thought you were fickle the first time I saw you and you are so popular and everthing that I can't imagine you really liking me best.†   (source)
  • As usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took Muff Potter to its bosom and fondled him as lavishly as it had abused him before.†   (source)
  • There were fickle groups that jumped from club to club; there were friends of two or three days who announced tearfully and wildly that they must join the same club, nothing should separate them; there were snarling disclosures of long-hidden grudges as the Suddenly Prominent remembered snubs of freshman year.†   (source)
  • The cowboys roared; Helen and Mrs. Beck and Edith laughed till they cried; Madeline found repression absolutely impossible; Dorothy sat hugging her knees, her horror at the story no greater than at Monty's unmistakable reference to her and to the fickleness of women; and Castleton for the first time appeared to be moved out of his imperturbability, though not in any sense by humor.†   (source)
  • I'm intrigued by its fickle tricks, the way it can toady up to you and then turn incredibly obstinate.†   (source)
  • But Jephson, anxious to divert the attention of the jury from the fact that Clyde was so very fickle—a fact too trying to be so speedily introduced into the case—at once interposed with: "Clyde!†   (source)
  • And as he lay there, one moment the wild laughter of triumph would convulse him, rising up from somewhere deep within, and his heart would stop, aching with an expansive joy and hope he had never known before; and the next moment, he would turn pale with fear and alarm, and the pulsing of his conscience became his heart banging against his ribs in a rapid, fickle rhythm.†   (source)
  • "It's that fickle-tempered, dissipated young goose—poor devil, he find friends pretty scarce today, likely, after the disgrace of carrying a personal assault case into a law-court."†   (source)
  • 'Is he fickle?†   (source)
  • For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable—they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness—and when retained for any object remote and blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the end, it is above all things requisite that temporary interests and employments should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the…†   (source)
  • The trapper, who knew how fickle and sudden were the changes of a savage mind, did not lose a moment in profiting by this advantage.†   (source)
  • Adolph and Rosa had arranged the chamber; volatile, fickle and childish, as they generally were, they were soft-hearted and full of feeling; and, while Miss Ophelia presided over the general details of order and neatness, it was their hands that added those soft, poetic touches to the arrangements, that took from the death-room the grim and ghastly air which too often marks a New England funeral.†   (source)
  • She is not blind or fickle.†   (source)
  • Of this fickle temper he gave a memorable example in Ireland, when sent thither by his father, Henry the Second, with the purpose of buying golden opinions of the inhabitants of that new and important acquisition to the English crown.†   (source)
  • Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the populace sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their better impulses towards generosity and mercy, or which they regarded as some set-off against their swollen account of cruel rage.†   (source)
  • Still, the Tankadere was so light, and her fine sails caught the fickle zephyrs so well, that, with the aid of the currents John Bunsby found himself at six o'clock not more than ten miles from the mouth of Shanghai River.†   (source)
  • As true as I live, he's dying for you; breaking his heart at your fickleness: not figuratively, but actually.†   (source)
  • Whether it was that the children were fickle, or that they had acute senses, and felt that Anna was quite different that day from what she had been when they had taken such a fancy to her, that she was not now interested in them,—but they had abruptly dropped their play with their aunt, and their love for her, and were quite indifferent that she was going away.†   (source)
  • I am so much attached to you that I may confide in you, my dear, as a third party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness itself.†   (source)
  • His warm and fickle imagination, which in Gascony had rendered formidable to young chambermaids, and even sometimes their mistresses, had never dreamed, even in moments of delirium, of half the amorous wonders or a quarter of the feats of gallantry which were here set forth in connection with names the best known and with details the least concealed.†   (source)
  • She entertained herself for some moments with talking to the little terrier, as to whom the proposal of an ownership divided with her cousin had been applied as impartially as possible—as impartially as Bunchie's own somewhat fickle and inconstant sympathies would allow.†   (source)
  • The currents were influenced by the formation of the hills, as a matter of course, a circumstance that rendered even fresh breezes baffling, and which reduced the feebler efforts of the night air to be a sort of capricious and fickle sighings of the woods.†   (source)
  • The placable and soft-hearted Briggs speechlessly pushed out her hand at this appeal; but she felt the desertion most keenly for all that, and bitterly, bitterly moaned the fickleness of her Matilda.†   (source)
  • 'No, nor I neither,' rejoined Miss Price; 'but men are always fickle, and always were, and always will be; that I can make out, very easily.'†   (source)
  • He paused, as if for some words of mine; but I held my peace: then he went on: "At least, if we suffer from the tyranny and fickleness of nature or our own want of experience, we neither grimace about it, nor lie.†   (source)
  • " 'Woman is fickle.' said Francis I.; 'woman is like a wave of the sea,' said Shakespeare; both the great king and the great poet ought to have known woman's nature well."†   (source)
  • "Fickle tyrant!" muttered De Bracy, as he left the presence of the Prince; "evil luck have they who trust thee.†   (source)
  • Now were the fickle monks tempted of the Fiend, and they wrought with their abbot unceasingly by beggings and beseechings that he would construct a bath; and when he was become aweary and might not resist more, he said have ye your will, then, and granted that they asked.†   (source)
  • Women are never tired of bewailing man's fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his constancy.†   (source)
  • "Now, my best of confidantes," said Richard, "I want my cousin Ada to understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back.†   (source)
  • He was a handsome lad, however, when he came to present himself to his aunt at Brighton, and good looks were always a title to the fickle old lady's favour.†   (source)
  • Compared to the vast liquid plains of the Pacific, the Mediterranean is a mere lake, but it's an unpredictable lake with fickle waves, today kindly and affectionate to those frail single–masters drifting between a double ultramarine of sky and water, tomorrow bad–tempered and turbulent, agitated by the winds, demolishing the strongest ships beneath sudden waves that smash down with a headlong wallop.†   (source)
  • The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggan, after absently scrutinising a coal which had fallen among the ashes, took up the narrative, with a private twirl of his eye:— "Well, now, you'd hardly believe it, but that man—our Miss Everdene's father—was one of the ficklest husbands alive, after a while.†   (source)
  • I admire your fasting and severities, but you speak lightly like some frivolous youth, fickle and childish.†   (source)
  • Of Prince John thou thinkest as I do; that he is too weak to be a determined monarch, too tyrannical to be an easy monarch, too insolent and presumptuous to be a popular monarch, and too fickle and timid to be long a monarch of any kind.†   (source)
  • I would suppose him,—Oh, how gladly would I suppose him, only fickle, very, very fickle.†   (source)
  • Such fickleness!†   (source)
  • Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you.†   (source)
  • …such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation.†   (source)
  • It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him.†   (source)
  • …the Reader ought never to forget that he is himself exposed to the same errors as the Poet, and perhaps in a much greater degree: for there can be no presumption in saying, that it is not probable he will be so well acquainted with the various stages of meaning through which words have passed, or with the fickleness or stability of the relations of particular ideas to each other; and above all, since he is so much less interested in the subject, he may decide lightly and carelessly.†   (source)
  • Many girls might have been taken in, for never were such attentions; but I knew the fickle sex too well.†   (source)
  • Could you have believed there had been such inconstancy and fickleness, and everything that is bad in the world?†   (source)
  • O fortune, fortune! All men call thee fickle.   (source)
  •   Be fickle, fortune;
      For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long
      But send him back.   (source)
  •   [speaking to "fortune"]
      If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
      That is renowned for faith?   (source)
  • Lighthearted deceiver and fickle like all his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and for an instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears.†   (source)
  • …print, By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient, Nigh the coffin'd corpse when all is still, examining with a candle; Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure, Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and fickle as any, Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him, Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while, Walking the old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God by my side, Speeding through space,…†   (source)
  • The loss isn't great; and your fickleness Will soon lead you to find a new mistress.†   (source)
  • This is a slave, whose easy-borrowed pride Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows.†   (source)
  • * This world is now full fickle sickerly*.†   (source)
  • Yet for all that, in thy coyness, And thy fickle fits between, Hope is there—at least the border Of her garment may be seen.†   (source)
  • These things, indeed, you have articulate, Proclaim'd at market-crosses, read in churches, To face the garment of rebellion With some fine colour that may please the eye Of fickle changelings and poor discontents, Which gape and rub the elbow at the news Of hurlyburly innovation: And never yet did insurrection want Such water-colours to impaint his cause; Nor moody beggars, starving for a time Of pellmell havoc and confusion.†   (source)
  • He did indeed account somewhat unfairly for this sudden change; for besides some hard and unjust surmises concerning female fickleness and mutability, he began to suspect that he owed this want of civility to his want of horses; a sort of animals which, as they dirty no sheets, are thought in inns to pay better for their beds than their riders, and are therefore considered as the more desirable company; but Mrs Whitefield, to do her justice, had a much more liberal way of thinking.†   (source)
  • Him to unthrone we then May hope, when everlasting Fate shall yield To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.†   (source)
  • But how fickle and wavering is the mind of man, even in our greatest fury and strongest inclinations.†   (source)
  • Meantime the hero cuts the nightly tide: For, anxious, from Evander when he went, He sought the Tyrrhene camp, and Tarchon's tent; Expos'd the cause of coming to the chief; His name and country told, and ask'd relief; Propos'd the terms; his own small strength declar'd; What vengeance proud Mezentius had prepar'd: What Turnus, bold and violent, design'd; Then shew'd the slipp'ry state of humankind, And fickle fortune; warn'd him to beware, And to his wholesome counsel added pray'r.†   (source)
  • Here one curses her and calls her capricious, fickle, and immodest, there another condemns her as frail and frivolous; this pardons and absolves her, that spurns and reviles her; one extols her beauty, another assails her character, and in short all abuse her, and all adore her, and to such a pitch has this general infatuation gone that there are some who complain of her scorn without ever having exchanged a word with her, and even some that bewail and mourn the raging fever of…†   (source)
  • …that God, Creator wise, Though threatening, will in earnest so destroy Us his prime creatures, dignified so high, Set over all his works; which in our fall, For us created, needs with us must fail, Dependant made; so God shall uncreate, Be frustrate, do, undo, and labour lose; Not well conceived of God, who, though his power Creation could repeat, yet would be loth Us to abolish, lest the Adversary Triumph, and say; "Fickle their state whom God Most favours; who can please him long?†   (source)
  • Seeing all the household in confusion, I ventured to come out regardless whether I were seen or not, and determined, if I were, to do some frenzied deed that would prove to all the world the righteous indignation of my breast in the punishment of the treacherous Don Fernando, and even in that of the fickle fainting traitress.†   (source)
  • If of the fickleness of friends, there is Cato, who will give you his distich: Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos, Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.†   (source)
  • She by her fickleness strove to make my ruin irretrievable; I will strive to gratify her wishes by seeking destruction; and it will show generations to come that I alone was deprived of that of which all others in misfortune have a superabundance, for to them the impossibility of being consoled is itself a consolation, while to me it is the cause of greater sorrows and sufferings, for I think that even in death there will not be an end of them.†   (source)
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