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inflexible
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show 188 more with this conextual meaning
  • They argue about what we ought to annex. The head-master with the steel watch-chain wants to have at least the whole of Belgium, the coal-areas of France, and a slice of Russia. He produces reasons why we must have them and is quite inflexible until at last the others give in to him.   (source)
    inflexible = not willing to give in to others' desires
  • I have thought it right upon this occasion to give the House and the country some indication of the solid, practical grounds upon which we base our inflexible resolve to continue the war.   (source)
    inflexible = not willing to change our minds
  • A party of Indians—in their savage finery ... stood apart with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even the Puritan aspect could attain.   (source)
    inflexible = uncompromising (unbending)
  • Oh! don't be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible.   (source)
    inflexible = unbending (unwilling to compromise or make concessions)
  • We have said that Athos loved d'Artagnan like a child, and this somber and inflexible personage felt the anxiety of a parent for the young man.   (source)
    inflexible = not bendable or adaptable
  • He spoke but to command, and commanded but to be obeyed; he dealt sparingly with his words, and bountifully with his whip, never using the former where the latter would answer as well. ... He was, in a word, a man of the most inflexible firmness and stone-like coolness.   (source)
    inflexible = unbending (not willing to compromise or make concessions)
  • No Puseyite, or conservative of any school, was ever more inflexibly attached to time-honored inconveniences than Dinah.   (source)
    inflexibly = in a manner that is not bendable or adaptable
  • Her figure was elegant, and she walked well; but Darcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious.   (source)
    inflexibly = unbendingly
  • Pennsylvania sentencing law was inflexible: For those convicted of second-degree murder, mandatory life imprisonment without the possibility of parole was the only sentence.†   (source)
  • Rose said our mother had made him like this, catering to whims and inflexible demands, but really, we couldn't remember, didn't know.†   (source)
  • "BUT IS SHE SO INFLEXIBLE THAT SHE CAN'T SWITCH CHURCHES FOR ONE SUNDAY OF THE YEAR?†   (source)
  • A man so despised, so foul tempered, so robotically inflexible that on the last day of eighth grade we defaced his yearbook picture with staples and left it like an effigy behind his seat.†   (source)
  • Even though his inflexible new boots had chewed his feet into hamburger, Beck kept hobbling upward, day in and day out, scarcely mentioning what must have been horrific pain.†   (source)
  • Valerie was strict and inflexible and she was the only staff person we trusted.†   (source)
  • Her inflexibility was just a bluff.†   (source)
  • My cursed mortal brain was too small, too inflexible.†   (source)
  • He traded with them, standing there dripping with sweat in summer and shivering in the winter frosts, inflexible, obstinately true to his own ideas: if, as an intellectual, he could have no other contact with books then at least he would have this, and he would not sink any lower.†   (source)
  • She will be cold, inflexible.†   (source)
  • He was inflexible even with the British minister who, on the morning following their departure, appeared in a hunting outfit, with a precision carbine and a double-barreled rifle for killing tigers.†   (source)
  • There's no need to be so inflexible," I muttered.†   (source)
  • The early climbers established paths that were on firm ground with an accessibility that appealed to all, but today the Western routes are all but closed because of dogmatic inflexibility in the face of change.†   (source)
  • The word 'medieval' is used negatively nowadays about anything that is over-authoritative and inflexible.†   (source)
  • The school itself tended to tolerate disrespectful behavior, exhibited inequitable discipline and an inflexible culture-with certain students enjoying prestige given to them by teachers and staff.†   (source)
  • His inflexibility and blindness ill becomea leader, for a leader must temper justice with mercy.†   (source)
  • They were rigid and inflexible, and I was rigid with humiliation.†   (source)
  • But the fact is that she's completely inflexible.†   (source)
  • My mother, Millie Kirkman, was hardheaded and inflexible.†   (source)
  • My legs were like a plastic Barbie's, pale, inflexible.†   (source)
  • Soon, with an inflexible mind, and often even with the most flexible mind, this immortality becomes a penitential sentence in a madhouse of figures and forms that are hopelessly unintelligible and without value.†   (source)
  • Her decision was inflexible.†   (source)
  • But the infection, the empyema, has stiffened the lining of your lung, made it thick and inflexible, like a scab.†   (source)
  • Finally he said: "She's one of the most irritating, inflexible people I've met in my whole life."†   (source)
  • By contrast to Hamilton, Webster wrote, Adams was "a man of pure morals, of firm attachment to republican government, of sound and inflexible patriotism."†   (source)
  • Still, she ruled her court and her country with an inflexible hand.†   (source)
  • Her face was made of angular planes, the shape of her mouth clear-cut, a sensual mouth held closed with inflexible precision.†   (source)
  • Convocations of the honor court on the top floor of Durrell Hall were always conducted with an inflexible and saturnine efficiency.†   (source)
  • What Huck rejects is not religion but an attitude of self-righteousness and inflexibility.†   (source)
  • Yet there had been something, something that caused Jason's stomach to knot, the muscles taut and inflexible, a flat panel of hard flesh constricted … by the darkness.†   (source)
  • That meant that the rope would have to take the weight both of Rafi and Alessandro, and that it would be stiff and inflexible as it passed through the rappel gate that Alessandro had fashioned of four of his carabiners.†   (source)
  • If the monarchy and House of Lords became absolutely inflexible, the government would have been thrown into confusion.†   (source)
  • When two ships are on a collision course, and the men at the wheel inflexibly hold to that course, there is going to be a collision.†   (source)
  • Most of the effect really resided in the eyes: the inflexible, lipless mouth scarcely moved at all.†   (source)
  • Swept with sudden nausea, light-headed and with a perilous tingling moving across her limbs like the faint prickling of a multitude of needles, Sophie watched with dispassionate curiosity as Sholom Weiss's face, sullenly inflexible in its graven unpleasantness, seemed to float away ever so slightly from the neck and the confining collar.†   (source)
  • Her standards were very high and of course inflexible, her authority was total; why wouldn't this carry with it a brass bell that could be heard ringing for a block in all directions?†   (source)
  • "A man of principle," people said, which was to say as inflexible as a chunk of steel, with a heart so cold that if you touched it you'd stick as your fingers stick to iron at twenty below zero.†   (source)
  • But these inflexible monogamists were no hazard.†   (source)
  • For politics and legislation are not matters for inflexible principles or unattainable ideals.†   (source)
  • The process by which the bone hardens, becomes inflexible.   (source)
    inflexible = not bendable or adaptable
  • There were strands of enlisted men molded in a curve around the three officers, as inflexible as lumps of wood, and four idle gravediggers in streaked fatigues lounging indifferently on spades near the shocking, incongruous heap of loose copperred earth.   (source)
  • Today's schedule is full and inflexible.   (source)
  • He answered with inflexible humility, "Won't you--can't you see your way to cut off ten cents' worth?"   (source)
  • Her body, sagging limply from her shoulders, contradicted the inflexible precision of the legs; the cold austerity of her face contradicted the pose of her body.   (source)
    inflexible = unbending (uncompromising)
  • The city was like a mural designed to illuminate and complete the room: the fragile lines of spires on a black sky continued the fragile lines of the furniture; the lights glittering in distant windows threw reflections on the bare, lustrous floor; the cold precision of the angular structures outside answered the cold, inflexible grace of every object within.   (source)
    inflexible = not bendable or adaptable
  • I know his character; he is inflexible in any resolutions formed for his own interests.   (source)
    inflexible = unbending (not willing to compromise or make concessions)
  • All I ask is, that Villefort will be firm and inflexible for the future in his political principles.   (source)
    inflexible = not bendable or adaptable
  • "Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath!" said Estella, opening her hands.   (source)
  • To that mission its stern, inflexible, energetic elements, were well adapted; but, as a Christian, I look for another era to arise.   (source)
  • But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's.   (source)
  • Well, my father worked some five hundred negroes; he was an inflexible, driving, punctilious business man; everything was to move by system,—to be sustained with unfailing accuracy and precision.   (source)
  • But instead of finding sympathy in the eyes of the doctor and his father, he only saw an expression as inflexible as that of Maximilian.   (source)
  • Yet was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile.   (source)
  • And when after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough);   (source)
    inflexibly = in a manner that is not bendable or adaptable
  • "It is well," said Monte Cristo whose countenance brightened at these words; "you wish—you are inflexible."   (source)
    inflexible = not bendable or adaptable
  • Heaven is as inflexible as man, and the signature of the contract is fixed for this evening at nine o'clock.   (source)
  • "Oh, sir," said Villefort, arresting Maximilian by the arm, "if my father, the inflexible man, makes this request, it is because he knows, be assured, that Valentine will be terribly revenged."   (source)
  • "Inflexible man!" she murmured.   (source)
  • Oh, see, Maximilian, see the power you have over me, you almost make me believe you; and yet, what you tell me is madness, for my father will curse me—he is inflexible—he will never pardon me.   (source)
  • The king is either a king or no king; if he be acknowledged as sovereign of France, he should be upheld in peace and tranquillity; and this can best be effected by employing the most inflexible agents to put down every attempt at conspiracy—'tis the best and surest means of preventing mischief.   (source)
  • "He is accused," said the commissary with his inflexible voice, "of having assassinated the man named Caderousse, his former companion in prison, at the moment he was making his escape from the house of the Count of Monte Cristo."   (source)
  • He was, however, the same Cocles, good, patient, devoted, but inflexible on the subject of arithmetic, the only point on which he would have stood firm against the world, even against M. Morrel; and strong in the multiplication-table, which he had at his fingers' ends, no matter what scheme or what trap was laid to catch him.   (source)
  • …the three statues advanced towards him with looks of love, and approached the couch on which he was reposing, their feet hidden in their long white tunics, their throats bare, hair flowing like waves, and assuming attitudes which the gods could not resist, but which saints withstood, and looks inflexible and ardent like those with which the serpent charms the bird; and then he gave way before looks that held him in a torturing grasp and delighted his senses as with a voluptuous kiss.   (source)
  • "I promise you that to make up for her want of loyalty, I will be most inflexibly severe;" then casting an expressive glance at his betrothed, which seemed to say, "Fear not, for your dear sake my justice shall be tempered with mercy," and receiving a sweet and approving smile in return, Villefort quitted the room.   (source)
    inflexibly = in a manner that is not bendable or adaptable
  • The military march boomed through the silence with the inflexible gaiety of a grinning skull.†   (source)
  • The one inflexible event on our weekly schedule was Sunday morning religious services.†   (source)
  • —John Quincy maintained the unflinching and inflexible bearing which became his Puritan ancestry.†   (source)
  • Dumbledore had gone, Hagrid had gone, but he had always expected Professor McGonagall to be there, irascible and inflexible, perhaps, but always dependably, solidly present… 'I don't wonder you're shocked, Potter,' said Madam Pomfrey, with a kind of fierce approval in her face.†   (source)
  • But Arcadio was inflexible.†   (source)
  • Luke's tone was inflexible.†   (source)
  • And he was inflexible.†   (source)
  • They are arguing about dogs, but it's really about how whenever they have a disagreement, she's completely inflexible.†   (source)
  • She rejected him with an inflexible and unmistakable determination, and she barred the door of her bedroom forever.†   (source)
  • Inflexible?†   (source)
  • There was alarm over Franklin's age, Lovell said, adding, "We want one man of inflexible integrity on the embassy.†   (source)
  • On this point, however, Blanca was inflexible, forcing her daughter to observe a strict schedule and the usual rules of hygiene.†   (source)
  • Some of these kids had been heading to a place like Danbury for some time, but one bad decision could suddenly land a young woman in a merciless and inflexible system.†   (source)
  • She really did am have any definite vocation, but she had earned the highest grades by means of inflexible discipline simply in order not to annoy her mother.†   (source)
  • She smiled defiantly, not letting herself know the full meaning of her smile, knowing only that it was the sharpest blow she could strike at his inflexible face.†   (source)
  • He tried to be close to her but he never came to think of her as his daughter, because on that point Blanca was inflexible.†   (source)
  • Although we criticized it, we could not ignore it: the classification system was an inflexible feature of prison life.†   (source)
  • It was his "inflexible determination" to maintain peace with all nations, Adams declared, then expressed a personal esteem for France, stemming from a residence of nearly seven years there.†   (source)
  • As soon as they had taken off the mourning clothes for their grandmother, which they wore with inflexible rigor for three years, their bright clothes seemed to have given them a new place in the world.†   (source)
  • I found that I worked better and thought more clearly when I was in good physical condition, and so training became one of the inflexible disciplines of my life.†   (source)
  • The course was hard to trace: the gaunt figure on the edge of the desk was erect, the cold blue eyes showed nothing but the intensity of a glance fixed upon a great distance, only the inflexible mouth betrayed a line drawn by pain.†   (source)
  • But unlike Amaranta, unlike all of them, Meme still did not reveal the solitary fate of the family and she seemed entirely in conformity with the world, even when she would shut herself up in the parlor at two in the afternoon to practice the clavichord with an inflexible discipline.†   (source)
  • But so inflexible was her determination not to surrender even the most remote corner of the house to the insects that she knocked down every obstacle in her path, and after three days of insistence she succeeded in getting them to open the door for her.†   (source)
  • I could be so self-righteous, so inflexible when I thought that I was right or that the children had been wronged.†   (source)
  • Towards them he felt a grcat humility, as well as admiration for the inflexible patience that had kept them waiting here so long.†   (source)
  • This was the constant, overwhelming reality of her father, a man who had exercised over his household, and especially Sophie, a tyrannical domination so inflexible yet so cunningly subtle that she was a grown woman, fully come of age, before she realized that she loathed him past all telling.†   (source)
  • They are all gone…… I cannot be an instrument to produce such a result, and at the hazard of the ties even of friendship and affection, till calmer times shall do justice to my motives, no alternative is left me but the inflexible discharge of duty.†   (source)
  • The intellect of the Puritan—of John Quincy Adams and his forebears—was, as George Frisbie Hoar has said: fit for exact ethical discussion, clear in seeing general truths, active, unresting, fond of inquiry and debate, but penetrated and restrained by a shrewd common sense…… He had a tenacity of purpose, a lofty and inflexible courage, an unbending will, which never qualified or flinched before human antagonist, or before exile, torture, or death.†   (source)
  • A group of men with this power might often encourage each other's inflexibility.†   (source)
  • Although the objections proved immaterial, some States would have clung to them with dangerous inflexibility if their zeal for their opinions and interests had not been stifled by the more powerful sentiment of self-preservation.†   (source)
  • Suddenly words began to bubble out, swift hot words and there was inflexible hate in the low voice.†   (source)
  • She was as inflexible as the lieutenant: small and black and out of place among the banana groves.†   (source)
  • Inflexibly rigid in her own moral conduct, she condoned weaknesses in others.†   (source)
  • "I was born here," Gitano said patiently and inflexibly.†   (source)
  • Something of its assertion had been drained from stone, something of inflexible precision from iron.†   (source)
  • Her dead white face had a curious carven look; the inflexible solidity of madness.†   (source)
  • He had a sharp, bright, shallow mind, inflexibly dogmatic.†   (source)
  • It was no good crouching in the saddle and clutching it in a rigid grip preparatory to the great shock, for if you held it inflexibly like this its point bucked up and down to every movement of your thundering mount and you were practically certain to miss the aim.†   (source)
  • He didn't know whether to be grateful to Luter for softening the harsh, inflexible edge of his father's temperament, or to be uneasy.†   (source)
  • I made an attempt at bribing Hermine, I put cakes before her and proposed a bottle of good wine, but she was inflexible.†   (source)
  • …helped her break it in with axes and they found him, who had seen his sole means of support looted by the defenders of his cause, even if he had repudiated it and them, with three days' uneaten food beside his pallet bed as if he had spent the three days in a mental balancing of his terrestrial accounts, found the result and proved it and then turned upon his contemporary scene of folly and outrage and injustice the dead and consistent impassivity of a cold and inflexible disapproval.†   (source)
  • She examined in turn the powder in her compact, the ridges on her nail file, the way her comb was inflexible and the threads of her handkerchief.†   (source)
  • Not that stupid shrewdness half instinct and half belief in luck, and half muscular habit of the senses and nerves of the gambler waiting to take what he can from what he sees, but a certain reserved and inflexible pessimism stripped long generations ago of all the rubbish and claptrap of people (yes, Sutpen and Henry and the Coldfields too) who have not quite yet emerged from barbarism, who two thousand years hence will still be throwing triumphantly off the yoke of Latin culture and…†   (source)
  • The voice went on and on, mild and deliberate, inflexibly gentle; the small girls listened intently, framing in their minds little pious sentences with which to surprise their parents, and the boy yawned against the whitewash.†   (source)
  • But not the women of the Old Guard, and the women were the implacable and inflexible power behind the social throne.†   (source)
  • When they looked into her young face and saw there the inflexible loyalty to the old days, they could forget, for a moment, the traitors within their own class who were causing fury, fear and heartbreak.†   (source)
  • And the harshness returned and the inflexible pride, and the voice was again his father's, awakened, surly.†   (source)
  • "How much?" repeated Katie inflexibly.†   (source)
  • Inflexibly.†   (source)
  • When it was at last plain that Gant's will was on this inflexible, Margaret Leonard had said, quietly: "Well, then, go your ways, boy.†   (source)
  • No matter how the child tried to remember that they were inflexibly there and wouldn't give way, she would jump up suddenly out of the soapy water and get her back whacked good on a faucet.†   (source)
  • It was a woman's word, instant, inflexible, desperate.†   (source)
  • He had shown a desire, I continued inflexibly, to go out and shut the door after him….†   (source)
  • I heard it all, listening with amazement, with awe, to the tones of her inflexible weariness.†   (source)
  • Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted it within.†   (source)
  • "Off with it, Sarpent—off with it," resumed the inflexible Deerslayer.†   (source)
  • Such an inflexible little woman, too, through all!†   (source)
  • The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial.†   (source)
  • 'To London, ma'am,' resumed the inflexible beadle, 'by coach.†   (source)
  • It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart.†   (source)
  • The other grasped his hand, answering to the appeal with the stern look of inflexible resolution.†   (source)
  • I would repeat, perhaps, if I were very inflexible.†   (source)
  • Such must I remain—proud, inflexible, and unchanging; and of this the world shall have proof.†   (source)
  • 'By your visiting proposition,' said Bounderby, with an inflexible jerk of the hayfield.†   (source)
  • Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of brass.†   (source)
  • The lawyer, who had taken up the matter purely out of friendship to the young man, and almost against his will, invoked every consideration of justice, delicacy, honour, and even plain figures; in vain, the ex-patient of the Swiss lunatic asylum was inflexible.†   (source)
  • Mr. Phillips might not be a very good teacher; but a pupil so inflexibly determined on learning as Anne was could hardly escape making progress under any kind of teacher.†   (source)
  • She was inflexible about paying for her own seat; said she was in business now, and she wouldn't have a schoolboy spending his money on her.†   (source)
  • Yes, she became for me, as it were, the subject of a bet—the trophy of an athlete's achievement, a parsley crown that is the symbol of his chastity, his soberness, his abstentions, and of his inflexible will.†   (source)
  • Never was spoken language of such inflexible necessity, never had it known questions so pertinent, such obvious replies.†   (source)
  • The reputation of the Mingotts' family physician was largely based on the attack of pneumonia which Mr. Welland had never had; and his insistence on St. Augustine was therefore inflexible.†   (source)
  • The New York ritual was precise and inflexible in such matters; and in conformity with it Newland Archer first went with his mother and sister to call on Mrs. Welland, after which he and Mrs. Welland and May drove out to old Mrs. Manson Mingott's to receive that venerable ancestress's blessing.†   (source)
  • For answer Snap Naab's right hand slowly curved upward before him and stopped taut and inflexible, while his strange eyes seemed to shoot sparks.†   (source)
  • By heavens! it made them heroic; and it made them pathetic too in their craving for trade with the inflexible death levying its toll on young and old.†   (source)
  • He was inflexible, and with the growing loneliness of his obstinacy his spirit seemed to rise above the ruins of his existence.†   (source)
  • It must have been a pretty sight, the fierce industry of these beggars toiling on a motionless ship that floated quietly in the silence of a world asleep, fighting against time for the freeing of that boat, grovelling on all-fours, standing up in despair, tugging, pushing, snarling at each other venomously, ready to kill, ready to weep, and only kept from flying at each other's throats by the fear of death that stood silent behind them like an inflexible and cold-eyed taskmaster.†   (source)
  • The appearance of the being that descended upon them and demanded inflexibly to be taken up to Patusan was discomposing; his insistence was alarming; his generosity more than suspicious.†   (source)
  • Old Tunku Allang, almost out of his mind with fear and indecision, either kept a sullen silence or abused them violently for daring to come with empty hands: they departed very much frightened; only old Doramin kept his countrymen together and pursued his tactics inflexibly.†   (source)
  • There was no appeal, as it were; he was imprisoned within the very freedom of his power, and she, though ready to make a footstool of her head for his feet, guarded her conquest inflexibly—as though he were hard to keep.†   (source)
  • But he conversed with her at some length about matters nearer home, and lost no time in assuring her that he was still an inflexible father.†   (source)
  • He saw, however, equally, that she was resisting her agitation with all the rigor of her inflexible will, and there was nothing like either fear or submission in her stony stare.†   (source)
  • I have been a child of battle from my youth upward, high in my views, steady and inflexible in pursuing them.†   (source)
  • As for him, the need of accommodating himself to her nature, which was inflexible in proportion to its negations, held him as with pincers.†   (source)
  • A few days after this, my other clerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to dispatch certain letters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else earthly to do, Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and carry these letters to the post-office.†   (source)
  • At this response of the inflexible archdeacon, Jehan hid his head in his hands, like a woman sobbing, and exclaimed with an expression of despair: "~Orororororoi~."†   (source)
  • Nevertheless the sympathies of the people declared themselves with so much violence in behalf of France that nothing but the inflexible character of Washington, and the immense popularity which he enjoyed, could have prevented the Americans from declaring war against England.†   (source)
  • Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune.†   (source)
  • Not to speak of other objections, it exposes the romance to an inflexible and exceedingly dangerous species of criticism, by bringing his fancy-pictures almost into positive contact with the realities of the moment.†   (source)
  • There was one condition which need not be mentioned, being generally understood in all cases where the devil grants favors; but there were others about which, though of less importance, he was inflexibly obstinate.†   (source)
  • The compass, which I consulted frequently, gave our direction as southeast with inflexible steadiness.†   (source)
  • Tom never did the same sort of foolish things as Maggie, having a wonderful instinctive discernment of what would turn to his advantage or disadvantage; and so it happened, that though he was much more wilful and inflexible than Maggie, his mother hardly ever called him naughty.†   (source)
  • At the heart of it his mother presided, inflexible of face, indomitable of will, firmly holding all the secrets of her own and his father's life, and austerely opposing herself, front to front, to the great final secret of all life.†   (source)
  • On this groundwork he raises for himself the structure of his own thoughts; nor is he led to proceed in this manner by choice so much as he is constrained by the inflexible law of his condition.†   (source)
  • I had previously seen the snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them.†   (source)
  • So he moved here, where the rent is higher, the land poorer, and the owner inflexible; he rents a forty-dollar mule for twenty dollars a year.†   (source)
  • On the other hand, Richard was as rigid in the observance of the canons of his church as he was inflexible in his opinions.†   (source)
  • On this point he was inflexible.†   (source)
  • Notwithstanding his regret at an event that might prove fatal to the sleepers, and some little vexation at having been so completely outwitted, in the dialogue just related, the old man continued to maintain his air of inflexible composure.†   (source)
  • Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.†   (source)
  • When he at last glided out of the dark doorway corner in which he had been compelled to halt, he caught a glimpse of the twins stealthily peeping in at one corner of the glass case, evidently undecided whether they should follow up their late attack without delay, or for the present postpone laying further siege to the inflexible Tim Linkinwater.†   (source)
  • He maintained his course inflexibly.†   (source)
  • As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected submission — the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and…†   (source)
  • She simply continued to be mild in her temper, inflexible in her judgment, disposed to admonish her husband, and able to frustrate him by stratagem.†   (source)
  • With her near-sightedness, and those tremulous fingers of hers, at once inflexible and delicate, she could not be a seamstress; although her sampler, of fifty years gone by, exhibited some of the most recondite specimens of ornamental needlework.†   (source)
  • It yielded the point de facto, but it remained inflexible upon the principles in question; and whilst Congress was altering the tariff law, it passed another bill, by which the President was invested with extraordinary powers, enabling him to overcome by force a resistance which was then no longer to be apprehended.†   (source)
  • Sustained by his principles, inflexible in the purpose of acting up to them, and superior to any unmanly apprehension, he regarded all before him as a matter of course, and no more thought of making any unworthy attempt to avoid it, than a Mussulman thinks of counteracting the decrees of Providence.†   (source)
  • I have shown that in democratic armies, and in time of peace, the rule of seniority is the supreme and inflexible law of advancement.†   (source)
  • Marius, who had always present to his mind the inflexible grandfather of his early years, interpreted this silence as a profound concentration of wrath, augured from it a hot conflict, and augmented his preparations for the fray in the inmost recesses of his mind.†   (source)
  • …being in some sort tempted by time, place, and opportunity, to give utterance to certain soft nothings, which however well they may become the lips of the light and thoughtless, do seem immeasurably beneath the dignity of judges of the land, members of parliament, ministers of state, lord mayors, and other great public functionaries, but more particularly beneath the stateliness and gravity of a beadle: who (as is well known) should be the sternest and most inflexible among them all.†   (source)
  • Though both were hardened and inflexible villains, the sight of the captive maiden, as well as her excelling beauty, at first appeared to stagger them; but an expressive glance from the Preceptor of Templestowe restored them to their dogged composure; and they delivered, with a precision which would have seemed suspicious to more impartial judges, circumstances either altogether fictitious or trivial, and natural in themselves, but rendered pregnant with suspicion by the exaggerated…†   (source)
  • However that may be, even when fallen, above all when fallen, these men, who at every point of the universe, with their eyes fixed on France, are striving for the grand work with the inflexible logic of the ideal, are august; they give their life a free offering to progress; they accomplish the will of providence; they perform a religious act.†   (source)
  • It may be that her beauty and all the state and brilliancy surrounding her only gives him the greater zest for what he is set upon and makes him the more inflexible in it.†   (source)
  • "It is not so," said Ishmael, whose usually inflexible features were beginning to manifest the uneasiness he felt.†   (source)
  • We cannot be sure that any natures, however inflexible or peculiar, will resist this effect from a more massive being than their own.†   (source)
  • The ancestor had clothed himself in a grim assumption of kindliness, a rough heartiness of word and manner, which most people took to be the genuine warmth of nature, making its way through the thick and inflexible hide of a manly character.†   (source)
  • Historians who live in democratic ages, then, not only deny that the few have any power of acting upon the destiny of a people, but they deprive the people themselves of the power of modifying their own condition, and they subject them either to an inflexible Providence, or to some blind necessity.†   (source)
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