"Section XI: Miscellaneous Phrases" (pp415-453) from Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1917) by Grenville Kleiser (1868-1953).
A - A bewildering labyrinth of facts
- A blank absence of interest or sympathy
- A bloodless diplomatist
- A breach of confidence
- A brilliant and paradoxical talker
- A burning sense of shame and horror
- A century of disillusionment
- A certain catholicity of taste
- A cheap and coarse cynicism
- A civilizing agency of conspicuous value
- A cleanness and probity of life
- A commendable restraint
- A condescending and patronizing spirit
- A confused and troublesome time
- A conscientious anxiety to do the right thing
- A conspicuous and crowning service
- A constant source of surprise and delight
- A contemptible species of mockery
- A convenient makeshift
- A copious torrent of pleasantry
- A course of arrogant obstinacy
- A crumb of consolation
- A crystallized embodiment of the age
- A cynical and selfish hedonist
- A dangerous varnish of refinement
- A dead theological dogma
- A decorous and well-intentioned person
- A deep and most impressive solemnity
- A deep and strange suggestiveness
- A deep authentic impression of disinterestedness
- A dereliction of duty
- A disaster of the first magnitude
- A distorted and pessimistic view of life
- A dogmatic and self-righteous spirit
- A duel of brains
- A dull collocation of words
- A fastidious sense of fitness
- A fatal moral hollowness
- A feeling of lofty remoteness
- A feminine excess of inconsequence
- A final and irrevocable settlement
- A firmness tempered by the most scrupulous courtesy
- A fitting interval for penitence
- A flippant rejoinder
- A flood of external impressions
- A flourish of rhetoric
- A fund of curious information
- A furtive groping after knowledge
- A gambler's desperate chance
- A ghastly mixture of defiance and conceit
- A glaring example of rapacity
- A graceful nonentity
- A great and many-sided personality
- A great capacity for generous indignation
- A great source of confusion
- A gross piece of stupidity
- A habit of riding a theory too hard
- A habit of rigorous definition
- A happy and compensating experience
- A haughty self-assertion of equality
- A hideous absurdity
- A hideous orgy of massacre and outrage
- A high pitch of eloquence
- A homelike and festive aspect
- A hopeless enigma
- A hotbed of disturbance
- A hushed rustle of applause testified to a widespread approbation
- A keenly receptive and intensely sensitive temperament
- A kind of fantastic patchwork
- A kind of surly reluctance
- A laudable stimulus
- A law of retributive justice
- A less revolutionary innovation
- A life of studious contemplation
- A limpidity and lucidity of style
- A lingering tinge of admiration
- A lively sense of what is dishonorable
- A long accumulating store of discontent and unrest
- A long tangle of unavoidable detail
- A look threatening and peremptory
- A many-sided and far-reaching enthusiasm
- A marvelous sharpener of the faculties
- A melancholy preponderance of mischief
- A memory-haunting phrase
- A mercenary marriage
- A mere conjectural estimate
- A microscopic care in the search of words
- A misconception which is singularly prevalent
- A mixture of malignancy and madness
- A modicum of truth
- A monstrous travesty
- A mood of hard skepticism
- A more than ordinary share of baseness and depravity
- A most laudable zeal
- A most repulsive and incomprehensible idiom
- A most unseasonable piece of impertinence
- A multitude of groundless alarms
- A murderous tenacity about trifles
- A mysterious and an intractable pestilence
- A mysterious and inscrutable power
- A narrow and superficial survey
- A nature somewhat frivolous and irresolute
- A needlessly offensive manner
- A nimble interchange of uninteresting gossip
- A noble and puissant nation
- A novel and perplexing course
- A numerous company
- A painful and disconcerting deformity
- A partial disenchantment
- A passage of extraordinary daring
- A patchwork of compromises
- A permanent and habitual state of mind
- A pernicious and growing tendency
- A perversion of judgment
- A phantom of the brain
- A piece of grotesque stupidity
- A pleasant flow of appropriate language
- A pompous failure
- A potential menace to life
- A powerful and persuasive orator
- A prevalent characteristic of her nature
- A prey to the tongue of the public
- A pristine vigor of style
- A profusion of compliments
- A proposition inherently vicious
- A puerile illusion
- A quenchless thirst for expression
- A rage akin to frenzy
- A rare precision of insight
- A rather desperate procedure
- A reckless fashion
- A recrudescence of superstition
- A relish for the sublime
- A reversion to the boldest paganism
- A rigid avoidance of extravagance and excess
- A ripple of applause
- A restraining and conservative force
- A robust and consistent application
- A sacred and indissoluble union
- A sane philosophy of life
- A secluded dreamer of dreams
- A secret and wistful charm
- A sense of deepening discouragement
- A sense of indescribable reverence
- A series of brief and irritating hopes
- A settled conviction of success
- A sharp difference of opinion
- A sharp pang of regretful surprise
- A shrewd eye to the main chance
- A signal deed of justice
- A skeptical suspension of judgment
- A slight and superficial tribute
- A slowly subsiding frenzy
- A snare and a delusion
- A somewhat complicated and abstruse calculation
- A sordid and detestable motive
- A sort of incredulous stupefaction
- A source of unfailing delight and wonder
- A species of moral usurpation
- A spirit inimical to learning
- A spirit of complacent pessimism
- A startling and unfortunate digression
- A state of scarcely veiled insurrection
- A state of urgent necessity
- A stern decree of fate
- A stern foe of snobbishness
- A storm of public indignation
- A strange mixture of carelessness, generosity, and caprice
- A strangely perverse and poverty stricken imagination
- A strong assumption of superiority
- A subjugated and sullen population
- A sudden revulsion
- A supposed ground of affinity
- A synonym for retrogression
- A taunting accusation of falsehood
- A tedious and needless drudgery
- A temper which brooked no resistance
- A temporary expedient
- A tender tone of remonstrance
- A theme of endless meditation
- A thing of moods and moments
- A thoroughly sincere and unaffected effort
- A thousand mangled delusions
- A tissue of dull excuses
- A tone of exaggerated solicitude
- A touch of exquisite pathos
- A trace of obvious sarcasm
- A transcript of the common conscience
- A trifle prim and puritanic
- A truth begirt with fire
- A unique and overwhelming charm
- A vague aversion
- A variety of conflicting and profound emotions
- A variety of enfeebling amendments
- A vast multitude of facts
- A vastly extended vision of opportunity
- A vehement and direct attack
- A very elusive and delicate thought
- A very formidable problem
- A vigilant reserve
- A violent and base calumniator
- A voice of matchless compass and eloquence
- A warmth of seemingly generous indignations
- A wealth of resource that seemed inexhaustible
- A welcome release from besetting difficulties
- A whole catalog of disastrous blunders
- A whole whirlpool of various emotions
- Abounding bodily vigor
- Above and beyond and before all else
- Absurd and inconsequential career
- Abundant and congenial employment
- Accidental rather than intentional
- Accustomed to ascribe to chance
- Acquired sentiments of propriety
- Activities of the discursive intellect
- Actuated by an unduly anxious desire
- Acute sensibility coupled with quickness of intellect
- Adhere too tenaciously to forms and modes
- Admirable mastery of technique
- Admit the soft impeachment
- Admitted with a childlike cheerfulness
- Advance by leaps and bounds
- Advancing to dignity and honor
- Adventitious aids to memory
- Affectation and superfluous ornament
- Aggravated to an unspeakable degree
- Agitated and perplexed by a dozen cross-currents of conflicting tendency
- Agreeable and humanizing intercourse
- Aided by strong mental endowments
- Airy swiftness of treatment
- Alien to the purpose
- All sorts of petty tyrannies
- All the resources of a burnished rhetoric
- Allied by taste and circumstances
- Allied with a marked imperiousness
- Almost incredible obtuseness
- Altogether monstrous and unnatural
- Always observant and discriminating
- Amaze and confound the imagination
- Amiable and indulgent hostess
- Amid many and pressing avocations
- Amid the homeliest details of daily life
- Amid the rush and roar of life
- Ample scope for the exercise of his astonishing gifts
- An abandoned and exaggerated grief
- An accidental encounter
- An act of folly amounting to wickedness
- An afternoon of painfully constrained behavior
- An agreeable image of serene dignity
- An air of artificial constraint
- An air of round-eyed profundity
- An alarmed sense of strange responsibilities
- An almost excessive exactness
- An almost sepulchral regularity and seclusion
- An ample and imposing structure
- An apostle of unworldly ardor
- An appreciable menace
- An ardent and gifted youth
- An arid dictum
- An artful and malignant enemy
- An assumption entirely gratuitous
- An assumption which proved erroneous
- An atmosphere of sunny gaiety
- An attitude of passive impartiality
- An authoritative and conclusive inquiry
- An egregious assumption
- An elaborate assumption of indifference
- An endless field for discussion
- An enervating and emasculating form of indulgence
- An ennobling and invigorating influence
- An entirely negligible quantity
- An essentially grotesque and commonplace thing
- An eternal and imperishable example
- An exalted and chimerical sense of honor
- An excess of unadulterated praise
- An excessive refinement of feeling
- An expression at once confident and appealing
- An extensive and populous country
- An habitual steadiness and coolness of reflection
- An honest and unquestioning pride
- An icy indifference
- An idle and unworthy action
- An ill-assorted vocabulary
- An immeasurable advantage
- An imminent and overmastering peril
- An imperturbable demeanor and steadiness of mind
- An implacable foe
- An inborn and irresistible impulse
- An incongruous spectacle
- An incredible mental agility
- An indefinable taint of priggishness
- An indescribable frankness and simplicity of character
- An indolent surrender to mere sensuous experience
- An indomitable and unselfish soul
- An ineradicable love of fun and mystification
- An inevitable factor of human conduct
- An inexhaustible copiousness and readiness of speech
- An insatiable appetite for trifles
- An insatiable voracity
- An inscrutable mystery
- An intentional breach of politeness
- An interchange of civilities
- An intolerable deal of guesswork
- An involuntary gesture of remonstrance
- An irrelevant bit of magniloquence
- An irrepressible and impassioned hopefulness
- An irritating and dangerous treatment
- An itching propensity for argument
- An object of indestructible interest
- An obnoxious member of society
- An ominous lull and silence
- An open and violent rupture
- An outburst of impassioned eloquence
- An unaccountable feeling of antipathy
- An unbecoming vehemence
- An undisciplined state of feeling
- An unerring sense of humor
- An unparalleled and almost miraculous growth
- An unparalleled atrocity
- An unpatriotic and ignoble act
- An unreasoning form of coercion
- An utterly vile and detestable spirit
- And now I address myself to my task
- And the like
- Announced in a tone of pious satisfaction
- Another thought importuned him
- Anticipated with lively expectation
- Apparent rather than real
- Appeal to a tardy justice
- Appreciably above the level of mediocrity
- Arbitrary assumption of power
- Ardently and enthusiastically convinced
- Argued with immense force and feeling
- Arrayed with scrupulous neatness
- Arrogance and untutored haughtiness
- As an impartial bystander
- As belated as they are fallacious
- As by a secret of freemasonry
- As odious as it is absurd
- As ridiculous as it was unnecessary
- As we scan the vague unknown
- Assailed by poignant doubts
- Assume a menacing attitude
- Assumed almost heroic proportions
- At once epigrammatic and arresting
- At once misleading and infelicitous
- At the mercy of small prejudices
- Attained by rigorous self-restraint
- Attended by insuperable difficulties
- Averted by some happy stroke of fortune
- Await the sentence of impartial posterity
- Awaited with feverish anxiety
B - Bandied to and fro
- Based on a fundamental error
- Beguile the tedium of the journey
- Bemoaning and bewailing his sad fortune
- Beset with external dangers
- Betrayed into deplorable error
- Bewildering multiplication of details
- Beyond the dreams of avarice
- Blended with courage and devotion
- Blind leaders of the blind
- Blunt the finer sensibilities
- Blustering desire for publicity
- Bound up with impossibilities and absurdities
- Breathed an almost exaggerated humility
- Bred in the tepid reticence of propriety
- Brief ventures of kindliness
- Brilliant display of ingenious argument
- Bring odium upon the individual
- Brisk directness of speech
- Brutal recognition of failure
- Bursts of unpremeditated frankness
- But delusions and phantasmagoria
- But that is beside the mark
- But this is a digression
- By a curious perversity of fate
- By a happy turn of thinking
- By a whimsical diversion
- By common consent
- By means of crafty insinuations
- By no means inconsolable
- By temperament incompatible
- By the common judgment of the thinking world
- By the sheer centripetal force of sympathy
- By virtue of a common understanding
- By way of rejoinder
C - Calculated to create disgust
- Calm strength and constancy
- Capable of a severe scientific treatment
- Capacity for urbanity and moderation
- Carried into port by fair winds
- Caught unawares by a base impulse
- Ceaseless tramp of humanity
- Censured for his negligence
- Championing the cause of religious education
- Chastened and refined by experience
- Checked by the voice of authority
- Cherished the amiable illusion
- Cherishing a huge fallacy
- Childishly inaccurate and absurd
- Chivalrous loyalty and high forbearance
- Clever and captivating eloquence
- Coarse and glittering ostentation
- Coherent and continuous trend of thought
- Commended by perfect suavity
- Common ground of agreement
- Complicated and infinitely embittered
- Conceded from a sense of justice
- Conceived with imperfect knowledge
- Concentrated and implacable resolve
- Conditions of unspeakable humiliation
- Conducive to well-being and efficiency
- Confused rumblings presaging a different epoch
- Constrained by the sober exercise of judgment
- Consumed by a demon of activity
- Continuous and stubborn disregard
- Contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment
- Couched in terms of feigned devotion
- Credulous and emotionally extravagant
- Creed of incredulity and derision
- Criticized with unsparing vigor
- Crude undigested masses of suggestion
- Cruel and baseless calumnies
- Cynically repudiate all obligations
D - Daily usages and modes of thinking
- Dangerously near snobbery
- Darkly insinuating what may possibly happen
- Dazzled by their novelty and brilliance
- Debased by common use
- Deep essentials of moral grandeur
- Deeply engrossed in congenial work
- Deeply moved as well as keenly stung
- Deeply rooted in the heart of humanity
- Defiant of analysis and rule
- Degenerate into comparative feebleness
- Degenerated into deadness and formality
- Degrading and debasing curiosity
- Deliberate and cautious reflection
- Delicacy of perception and quick tact
- Delude many minds into acquiescence
- Dense to the point of stupidity
- Descanting on them cursorily
- Devices generally held to be discreditable
- Devious and perilous ways
- Devoid of hysteria and extravagance
- Dexterous modes of concealment
- Dictated by an overweening partiality
- Differ in degree only and not in kind
- Difficult and abstruse questions
- Diffidence overwhelmed him
- Diffusing beneficent results
- Dignified by deliberation and privacy
- Dimly implying some sort of jest
- Discreditable and insincere support
- Disdaining the guidance of reason
- Disenchanting effect of time and experience
- Disfigured by glaring faults
- Disguised in sentimental frippery
- Dispel all anxious concern
- Displayed enormous power and splendor
- Distinguish themselves by their eccentricities
- Distracted by contending desires
- Diversity of mind and temperament
- Divested of all personal feelings
- Dogged and shameless beyond all precedent
- Dominated by no prevailing taste or fashion
- Doomed by inexorable fate
- Doomed to impermanence and transiency
- Draw back in distrust and misgiving
- Dreaded and detested rival
- Driven towards disaffection and violence
- Due to historical perspective
- Dull and trite commonplaces
- Dwindled to alarmingly small dimensions
E - Easy-going to the point of lethargy
- Elementary principles of right and wrong
- Embittered and fanatical agitation
- Encrusted with pedantry and prejudice
- Endless and intricate technicalities
- Endowed with undreamed-of powers
- Enforced by coercive measures
- Enormities of crime and anomalies of law
- Entangled in theological controversy
- Entirely futile and negligible
- Erroneous assumptions and sophistries
- Espoused with extraordinary ardor
- Essentially one-sided and incomplete
- Eternally fruitful and stimulating
- Evidently malicious and adroit
- Evinces a hardened conscience and an insensibility to shame
- Exact and resolute allegiance
- Examples of terrific and explosive energy
- Exasperating to the last degree
- Excruciating cruelty and injustice
- Exposed to damaging criticism
- Exposing his arrogance and folly to merited contempt
- Expressions of unrestrained grief
- Exquisite lucidity of statement
- Extraordinarily subtle and penetrating analysis
- Exuberant rush of words
F - Facile and fertile literary brains
- Faithfully and religiously eschewed
- Fallen into the convenient oblivion of the waste-basket
- Fanatical and dangerous excesses
- Far off and incredibly remote
- Fastidious correctness of form
- Fate had turned and twisted a thousand ways
- Fed by many currents from the long stream of human experience
- Feigning a virtuous indignation
- Fertility of argumentative resource
- Fictitious and adventitious aid
- Finely touched to the fine issues
- Fit to stand the gaze of millions
- Fits and starts of generosity
- Fixed convictions of mankind
- Flouted as unpractical
- Foolish and inflexible superstition
- Fostering and preserving order
- Free from all controversial pettifogging
- Freighted with the most precious cargoes
- Frequently recurring forms of awkwardness
- Fresh and unsuspected loveliness
- From the standpoint of expediency and effectiveness
- Full and tuneful diction
- Full of ardent affection and gratitude
- Full of presentiments of some evil
- Full of singular freshness, insight and power
- Full of speculation and a deep restrained excitement
- Fumble and stumble in helpless incapacity
G - Gain the applause of future ages
- Generous to a pathetic and touching degree
- Give vent to his indignation
- Giving an ear to a little neighborly gossip
- Glances and smiles of tacit contempt
- Gnawing at the vitals of society
- Grace and gentleness of manner
- Graceful succession of sentences
- Gratuitous and arbitrary meddling
- Greeted with unalloyed satisfaction
- Grooves of intellectual habit
- Growing sense of bewilderment and dismay
- Guilty and baffled antagonists
H - Habits of unintelligent routine
- Habitual self-possession and self-respect
- Happy and gracious willingness
- Hard-souled and joyously joyous
- Haunted by blank misgivings
- He affected neither pomp nor grandeur
- He became more blandly garrulous
- He declined the proffered hospitality
- He dropped into an eloquent silence
- He eludes analysis and baffles description
- He glanced at her indulgently
- He had the habit of self-engrossed silences
- He harbored his misgivings in silence
- He poured bitter and biting ridicule on his discomfited opponents
- He spoke with sledgehammer directness
- He suffers nothing to draw him aside
- He took his courage in both hands
- He turned on me a glance of stored intelligence
- He was disheveled and untidy
- He was inexhaustibly voluble
- Heavily freighted with erudition
- Heights of serene contemplation
- Her voice had a wooden resonance and a ghost of a lisp
- Hidebound in official pedantry
- High and undiscouraged hope
- High-handed indifference to all restraint
- His chin had too vanishing an aspect
- His first zeal was flagging
- His general attitude suggested an idea that he had an oration for you
- His gestures and his gait were untidy
- His mood was one of pure exaltation
- His plea was irresistible
- His tone verged on the ironical
- His work was ludicrously perfunctory
- Hopelessly belated in its appearance
I - I adjured him
- I am not without a lurking suspicion
- I bemoaned my unlucky fate
- I could almost allege it as a supreme example
- I have somewhat overshot the mark
- I lost myself in a reverie of gratitude
- I made bold to retort
- I must hazard the story
- I was extremely perplexed
- I will permit myself the liberty of saying
- I would fain believe
- Illuminate with sinister effect
- Immediate and effectual steps
- Immense capacity for ceaseless progress
- Immunity from criticism and control
- Impartial and exacting judgment
- Impatience of despotic influence
- Impelled by strong conviction
- Imperiled in a restless age
- Imperious in its demands
- Impotent outbreaks of unreasoning rage
- Impromptu parades of noisy patriotism
- In a diversity of application
- In a fever of apprehension
- In a frenzy of fussy excitement
- In a frowning abstraction
- In a great and fruitful way
- In a high degree culpable
- In a kind of confused astonishment
- In a most commendable fashion
- In a most impressive vein
- In a position of undisputed supremacy
- In a rapture of imagined ecstasy
- In a secret and surreptitious way
- In a spirit of friendliness and conciliation
- In a state of mulish reluctance
- In a state of nervous exacerbation
- In a state of virtuous complacency
- In a tone of uneasy interrogation
- In a transport of ambitious vanity
- In a whirlwind of feeling and memory
- In accents embarrassed and hesitating
- In alliance with steady clearness of intellect
- In amazed ejaculation
- In an eminent and unique sense
- In an eminent degree
- In deference to a unanimous sentiment
- In extenuation of the past
- In high good humor
- In his customary sententious fashion
- In its most odious and intolerable shape
- In language terse yet familiar
- In moments of the most imminent peril
- In quite incredible confusion
- In seasons of difficulty and trial
- In spite of plausible arguments
- In terms of imperishable beauty
- In the dim procession of years
- In the highest conceivable degree
- In the local phrase
- In the nature of things
- In the ordinarily accepted sense
- In the realm of conjecture
- In the scheme of things
- In the tone of one who moralizes
- In the twinkling of an eye
- In the world of letters
- In tones of genuine admiration
- Incapable of flashy make-believe
- Incited by a lust for gain
- Incomparable lucidity and penetrativeness
- Inconceivable clumsiness of organization
- Indulge a train of gentle recollection
- Indulging a sickly and nauseating petulance
- Ineffably dreary and unpicturesque
- Infected with a feverish dissatisfaction
- Infuse a wholesome terror
- Inimical to true and determined principle
- Inimitable grace and felicity
- Injudicious and inelegant ostentation
- Innumerable and incessant creations
- Inordinate greed and love of wealth
- Insatiably greedy of recognition
- Insensibility to moral perspective and proportion
- Insolent and riotous excess
- Inspired by a vague malevolence
- Inspirited by approval and applause
- Instances might be multiplied indefinitely
- Instantly alive to the slightest breach of decorum
- Insufferable violence to the feelings
- Intense and stubborn dogmatism
- Intense sensitiveness to injustice
- Intercourse with polished society
- Intervals of respite and repose
- Inveigh against established customs
- Invested with a partial authority
- Inveterate forces of opposition
- Invincible jealousy and hate
- Involuntary thrill of gratified vanity
- Involved in profound uncertainty
- Involving ourselves in embarrassments
- Inward appraisal and self-renouncement
- Irregulated and desultory education
- Irrelevant to the main issue
- Irresistibly impelled by conscience
- Irritable bitterness and angry suspicion
- It assumes the shape of malignity
- It betrays a great want of prudence and discernment
- It defies description
- It dissipates every doubt and scruple
- It enslaves the imagination
- It extorted from him expressions of irritability
- It gives one a little grip at the throat
- It has been stigmatized as irrelevant
- It has more than passing interest
- It has seldom been surpassed
- It imposes no constraint
- It is a capital blunder
- It is a common error among ignorant people
- It is a consoling reflection
- It is a mark of great instability
- It is a staggering thought
- It is always something vicious
- It is an odd jealousy
- It is an intolerable idea
- It is impossible to resist acknowledging this
- It is little more than a platitude
- It is not consistent with elevated and dignified character
- It is not wholly insignificant
- It is notoriously easy to exaggerate
- It is the common consent of men
- It is unnecessary to multiply instances
- It makes life insupportable
- It must be a matter of conjecture
- It occasions suspicion and discontent
- It runs counter to all established customs
- It was a matter of notoriety
- It wears a ragged and dangerous front
- It would be a fruitless and unthankful task
- It would be superfluous to say
- It would not seem an improbable conclusion
- Its dominating and inspiring influence
J - Jealous and formidable foes
- Justifiable in certain exigencies
K - Keen power of calculation and unhesitating audacity
- Kindle the flames of genuine oratory
- Knotty and subtle disquisitions
L - Labored and far-fetched elocution
- Laid down in a most unflinching and vigorous fashion
- Lamentable instances of extravagance
- Lash themselves into fury
- Lax theories and corresponding practises
- Lay hold of the affections
- Leaden mood of dulness
- Lend a critical ear
- Lest the requirements of courtesy be disregarded
- Links in the chain of reasoning
- Little less than scandalous
- Lofty and distinguished simplicity
- Long-sighted continuity of thought and plan
- Looking at the matter by and large
- Looming large and ugly in the public view
- Loose and otiose statement
- Lost in indolent content
- Lovely beyond all words
- Lucidity and argumentative vigor
- Lulled into a sense of false satisfaction
M - Maddened by a jealous hate
- Maintained with ingenuity and vigor
- Manifestly harsh and barbarous
- Marvelous copiousness of illustration
- Marvelously suggestive and inspiring
- Men of profound erudition
- Mere effects of negligence
- Microscopic analysis of character
- Mingled distrust and fear
- Ministering to mere pleasure and indulgence
- Minutely and rationally exposing their imperfections
- Morbid and subjective brooding
- More or less severe and prolonged
- Moved to unaccustomed tears
- My worst suspicions were confirmed
- Mysterious and invincible darkness
N - Naked vigor of resolution
- Naturally prone to believe
- Necessity thus imposed by prudence
- Nerveless and faithless folly
- No more than brief palliatives or mitigations
- Noble and sublime patience
- Noisy torrent of talk
- Not averse to a little gossip
- Not so much polished as varnished
- Noted for their quixotic love of adventure
- Nothing could be more captious or unfair
- Nothing remained but a graceful acquiescence
- Notoriously distracted by internecine jealousies
O - Objects of general censure
- Obscured beneath the rubbish of the age
- Obsessed with an overweening pride
- Obstacles that are difficult but not insuperable
- Obviously at variance with facts
- Occasioned by direct moral turpitude
- Oddly amenable to the proposed innovations
- Often employed promiscuously
- Ominous and swift days
- Omitting all compliments and commonplaces
- On a noble and commanding scale
- On sure ground of fact
- On the edge of great irritability
- On the horns of a dilemma
- One of life's ironical adjustments
- One of the foreseen and inevitable results
- One tissue of rashness, folly, ingratitude, and injustice
- Openly flouted and disavowed
- Oppressed by some vague dread
- Organs of party rage and popular frenzy
- Our opinions were diametrically opposed
- Our vaunted civilization
- Outward mark of obeisance and humiliation
- Overcome by an access of misery
- Overshadowed by a fretful anxiety
- Overwhelmed with reproach and popular indignation
P - Painful and lamentable indifference
- Palpably and unmistakably commonplace
- Parading an exception to prove a rule
- Paralyzed by infirmity of purpose
- Paralyzing doubts and scruples
- Paramount obligation and righteousness
- Partial and fragmentary evidence
- Passionately addicted to pleasure
- Patently inimical to liberty
- Patience under continual provocation
- Peculiarly liable to misinterpretation
- Peddling and pitiful compromises
- Pelting one another with catchwords
- Perfectly illustrated and exemplified
- Perpetually excite our curiosity
- Pierced to the quick
- Pitiful shifts of policy
- Plainly dictated by a lofty purpose
- Pleading the exigencies of strategical interest
- Plunged into tumultuous preoccupation
- Pointed out with triumphant malice
- Polished beauty of diction
- Political storm and stress.
- Position of titular command
- Preached with a fierce unction
- Precipitate and arbitrary changes
- Predict the gloomiest consequences
- Pregnant with a lesson of the deepest import
- Presented with matchless vigor and courage
- Princely generosity of praise
- Prodigious and portentous events
- Protracted to a vexatious length
- Proud schemes for aggrandizement
- Provocative of bitter hostility
- Pruned of their excrescences and grotesque extremes
- Purged of glaringly offensive features
- Pursued to a vicious extent
Q - Questioned and tested in the crucible of experience
- Quickened into a stabbing suspicion
- Quickness to conceive and courage to execute
- Quite destitute of resources
- Quixotically generous about money
R - Radiantly and transparently happy
- Railed at the world
- Rare candor and flexibility of mind
- Rare fidelity of purpose and achievement
- Rarely brought to pass
- Reeling headlong in luxury and sensuality
- Regarded with sincere abhorrence
- Regulated by the fixed rules of good-breeding
- Religious rights and ceremonies
- Reluctant to appear in so equivocal a character
- Render null and void
- Rent by internal contentions
- Repugnant alike to reason and conscience
- Resigned to growing infirmities
- Resist a common adversary
- Resting on some collateral circumstance
- Rhetorical and ambitious diction
- Rich and exuberant complexities
- Rigid and exact boundaries
- Rooted in immeasurable error and falsity
- Roused to tumultuous activity
- Rude and blind criticism
S - Sadly counterbalanced by numerous faults
- Said with epigrammatic point
- Salutary in the extreme
- Salutary tonic of a free current of public criticism
- Sanity and quietness of soul
- Scorned as an impracticable theory
- Scornful of petty calculations
- Screen themselves from punishment
- Scrupulous and chivalrous loyalty
- See with eagle glance through conventionalisms
- Seem to savor of paradox
- Seize the auspicious moment
- Self-centered anxiety and preoccupation
- Self-command born of varied intercourse
- Self-interest of the most compelling character
- Selfish and uselessly recondite
- Selfishness pampered by abundance
- Senses of marvelous acuteness
- Sensible diminution of our comfort
- Sensitive and apprehensive temperament
- Sentimental wailings for the past
- Serve the innocent purposes of life
- Set down with meticulous care
- Shames us out of our nonsense
- Sharp outbursts of hatred and bitterness
- Sharp restrictions of duty and opportunity
- Sharply and definitely conceived
- She had lost her way in a labyrinth of conjecture
- She took refuge in a passionate exaggeration of her own insufficiency
- Sheer midsummer madness
- Silly displays of cheap animosity
- Simple and obvious to a plain understanding
- Sinister and fatal augury
- Skulking beneath a high-sounding benevolence
- Slack-minded skimming of newspapers
- Slavish doctrines of sectarianism
- Slow and resistless forces of conviction
- Smug respectability and self-content
- Snatch some advantage
- Socialized and exacting studies
- Some very undignified disclosures
- Something essentially inexpressible
- Something stifling and over-perfumed
- Spinning a network of falsehoods
- Spiritual and moral significance
- Staring in helpless bewilderment
- Stealthily escaping observation
- Stern determination to inflict summary justice
- Stigmatized as moral cowards
- Stimulated to profitable industry
- Stopped as if on the verge of profundities
- Strange frankness of cynical brutality
- Strange streak of melancholy
- Strangled by a snare of words
- Strenuous and conscientious endeavor
- Stretched out in dreary monotony
- Strict and unalloyed veracity
- Struck incessantly and remorselessly
- Stupendous and awe-inspiring spectacle
- Subject to the vicissitudes of fortune
- Subjected to the grossest cruelties
- Subordination to the common weal
- Subservient to the ends of religion
- Sudden and inexplicable changes of mood
- Suddenly and imperatively summoned
- Suddenly swelled to unprecedented magnitude
- Sufficient to repel vulgar curiosity
- Suggestive sagacity and penetration
- Suit the means to the end
- Sullen and widespread discontent
- Superior in strength and prowess
- Supported by a splendid fearlessness
- Supremely and undeniably great
- Susceptible to every impulse and stimulus
- Sustained dignity and mellifluous precision
- Swamping every aspiration and ambition
- Swift and vehement outbursts of feeling
T - Take root in the heart
- Take vengeance upon arrogant self-assertion
- Taken in their totality
- Tamed and wonted to a settled existence
- Tempered by the emotional warmth of high moral ideals
- That way madness lies
- The abysmal depths of despair
- The accumulated bitterness of failure
- The agonies of conscious failure
- The air was full of the cry and clamor
- The animadversions of critics
- The applause was unbounded
- The best proof of its timeliness and salutariness
- The bewildered and tumultuous world
- The blackest abyss of despair
- The blemishes of an extraordinary reputation
- The bluntness of a provincial
- The bogey of bad luck
- The bounding pulse of youth
- The brunt of life
- The capacity for refined pursuits
- The charming omniscience of youth
- The cloak of cowardice
- The collective life of humanity
- The combined dictates of reason and experience
- The companion of a noble and elevated spirit
- The complaining gate swung open
- The complex phenomena of life
- The consequence of an agitated mind
- The consequence of ignorance and childish assumption
- The constant pressure of anxieties
- The creature and tool of a party
- The critical eyes of posterity
- The dead and dusty past
- The delimitation is sufficiently definite
- The dictates of plain reason
- The disjointed babble of the chronicler
- The dull derision of the world
- The dullest and most vacant minds
- The dumb forces of brute nature
- The dupe of some imposture
- The eager pretentiousness of youth
- The ebb and flow of events
- The everlasting deluge of books
- The evil was irremediable
- The exchange of harmless amenities
- The exertion of an inherent power
- The expression was keenly intellectual
- The facile conjectures of ignorant onlookers
- The facts took him by the throat
- The fitful swerving of passion
- The flabbiness of our culture
- The flaccid moods of prose
- The flame of discord raged with redoubled fury
- The flattest and most obvious truisms
- The flippant insolence of a decadent skepticism
- The foe of excess and immoderation
- The fog of prejudice and ill-feeling
- The frustration of their dearest hopes
- The garb of civilization
- The general infusion of wit
- The gift of prophecy
- The golden years of youth and maturity
- The gratification of ambition
- The grim reality of defeat
- The hall-mark of a healthy humanity
- The handmaid of tyranny
- The hint of tranquillity and self-poise
- The hints of an imaginable alliance
- The hobgoblin of little minds
- The holiest and most ennobling sensations of the soul
- The hollowest of hollow shams
- The homely virtue of practical utility
- The hubbub and turmoil of the great world
- The huge and thoughtful night
- The hurly-burly of events
- The idea was utterly hateful and repugnant
- The idle of all hobbledehoys
- The ignoble exploitation of public interests
- The imminent fatality awaiting him
- The impulse of prejudice or caprice
- The incorrigibility of perverse human nature
- The incursions of a venomous rabble
- The indulgence of an overweening self-conceit
- The inevitable climax and culmination
- The inference is inescapable
- The infirmity and fallibility of human nature
- The inflexible serenity of the wheeling sun
- The ingenuities of legal verbiage
- The inmost recesses of the human heart
- The insipidity of indifference
- The insolence of power
- The irony of circumstances
- The jaded weariness of overstrained living
- The jargon of well-handled and voice-worn phrases
- The jostling and ugliness of life
- The lawyer's habit of circumspection and delay
- The long-delayed hour of retribution
- The lowest grade of precarious mendacity
- The makeshifts of mediocrity
- The malarious air of after-dinner gossip
- The mazes of conflicting testimony
- The mean and frivolous affections of the idle
- The menacing shadow of want
- The mere fruit of his distempered imagination
- The mere reversal of the wheel of fortune
- The merest smattering of knowledge
- The meticulous preciosity of the lawyer and the logician
- The most absurd elementary questions
- The most amazing impudence
- The most exacting and exciting business
- The most fallacious of all fallacies
- The most implacable logic
- The most preposterous pride
- The multitudinous tongue of the people
- The outcome of unerring observation
- The outraged conscience of mankind
- The overpowering force of circumstances and necessity
- The overweening exercise of power
- The panacea for the evils of society
- The panorama of history
- The pernicious doctrines of skeptics
- The perpetrator of clumsy witticisms
- The precarious tenure of fame
- The precursor of violence
- The pretty and delicate game of talk
- The primitive instinct of self-preservation
- The property of little minds
- The prophecies of visionaries and enthusiasts
- The proprieties of etiquette
- The purse-proud inflation of the moneyed man
- The question was disconcertingly frank
- The ravening wolves of brute instinct
- The remark was sternly uncompromising
- The result of caprice
- The rigor of the law
- The sanction and authority of a great name
- The severest shocks of adverse fate
- The sharp and vehement assertion of authority
- The sinister influence of unprincipled men
- The speaker drew an indignant breath
- The springs of human action
- The staple of conversation
- The stillness of finality
- The stings of self-reproach
- The straightforward path of inexorable logic
- The strong hand of executive authority
- The sum and fruit of experience
- The sum total of her impressions was negative
- The summit of excellence
- The supernatural prescience of prophecy
- The sweet indulgence of good-nature
- The sycophants of the rich
- The taint of fretful ingratitude
- The talk flowed
- The target for ill-informed criticism
- The tears welled up and flowed abundantly
- The tediousness of inactivity
- The tendency to evade implicit obligations
- The ties of a common cause
- The tranquil aspects of society
- The tribute of affectionate applause
- The ultimate verdict of mankind
- The unbroken habit of a lifetime
- The unimpeachable correctness of his demeanor
- The unlicensed indulgence of curiosity
- The unsophisticated period of youth
- The utmost excitement and agitation
- The vanishing thoughtlessness of youth
- The vanity and conceit of insular self-satisfaction
- The very texture of man's soul and life
- The victim of an increasing irritability
- The victorious assertion of personality
- The virtue of taciturnity
- The voice was sharp and peremptory
- The want of serious and sustained thinking
- The widest compass of human life
- The wonderful pageant of consciousness
- The words stabbed him
- Their authenticity may be greatly questioned
- Their indignation waxed fast and furious
- Themes of perennial interest
- There was a blank silence
- There was no sense of diminution
- They affected the tone of an impartial observer
- They rent the air with shouts and acclamations
- Thoughts which mock at human life
- Through ever-widening circles of devastation
- Through the distortions of prejudice
- Thwarted by seeming insuperable obstacles
- Time was dissolving the circle of his friends
- Times of unexampled difficulty
- Tinseled over with a gaudy embellishment of words
- To a practised eye
- To be sedulously avoided
- To prosecute a scheme of personal ambition
- To state the case is to prove it
- Too preposterous for belief
- Too puerile to notice
- Too sanguine a forecast
- Torn asunder by eternal strife
- Totally detached from all factions
- Touched with a sort of reverential gratitude
- Transcend the bounds of human credulity
- Transitory in its nature
- Transparent and ridiculous self-importance
- Treasured up with a timid and niggardly thrift
- Treated the idea with lofty scorn
- Tremendous exploits and thrilling escapades
- True incentives to knowledge
U - Unamiable and envious attributes
- Unbounded devotion and indulgence
- Uncharted oceans of thought
- Unconquerable fidelity to duty
- Under all conceivable circumstances
- Under the sway of arbitrary opinions
- Undertaken under propitious circumstances
- Uneasy sense of impending change
- Unequaled simplicity and directness of purpose
- Unexceptional in point of breeding
- Unexpected obstacles and inextricable difficulties
- Unfailing and miraculous foresight
- Unfeigned astonishment and indignation
- Unfounded and incredible calumnies
- Unhampered by binding alliances
- Universal in their signification
- Unjust and unrighteous persecution
- Unreasoning and unquestioning attachment
- Unrivaled beauty and excellence
- Unrivaled gift of succinct and trenchant speech
- Unsparing industry and attention
- Unspeakably alluring and satisfying
- Unsurpassed in force and fitness
- Unswerving and unselfish fidelity
- Untiring enunciation of platitudes and fallacies
- Unutterably trivial and paltry
- Unwavering and unquestioning approbation
- Unworthy and ungenerous treatment
- Upbraid ourselves with folly
- Urgent warning and admonition
- Utterly and essentially irreverent
V - Vast and vague aspirations
- Vastly complex and far-reaching problems
- Vehemently and indignantly repudiated
- Venerable and dignified conservatism
- Versatile and essentially original
- Versed in the arts of exciting tumult and sedition
- Viewed in its general tenor and substance
- Vigorous and well compacted
- Violating all decency
- Violent and unforeseen vicissitudes
- Vitiated by intolerance and shortsightedness
- Vivid even to oppressiveness
- Voracious and insatiable appetite
- Vulgar eagerness for place
W - Warnings too pregnant to be disregarded
- Warped by personal pretensions and self-consequence
- We may parenthetically note
- We must profoundly revere it
- Weigh the merits and demerits
- Welcomed at first with skeptical contempt
- Well-concerted and well-timed stratagems
- Whirled into rapid and ceaseless motion
- Wholesale friction and discontent
- Wholly devoid of public interest
- Widely divergent social traits
- Wield an unequaled and paramount authority
- Wiser counsels prevailed
- Withal decidedly handsome
- Written in indelible characters upon his heart
Y - Yield to urgent representations
Z - Zealous in the cause he affected to serve