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Discouragement   /dɪskˈərɪdʒmənt/   Listen
Discouragement

noun
1.
The feeling of despair in the face of obstacles.  Synonyms: disheartenment, dismay.
2.
The expression of opposition and disapproval.
3.
The act of discouraging.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Discouragement" Quotes from Famous Books



... I came here, sought work, and found it; and found more than work—I found your friend. When I first met him he was unhappy and friendless. You know why better than I do. I watched him, and saw his gallant struggle against poverty and discouragement and perhaps unkindness. I found in him the first congenial companion I had met since she died. I shared his studies, and—and the rest you know. But now," said he, as once more I was about to speak, "you will wonder ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... after him, finding as he went on that the eastern bend of Africa, which men had followed so confidently since 1445, the year of the rounding of Cape Verde, now ended with a sharp turn to the south. It was a great disappointment. But in spite of this discouragement, at the very same time two of the foremost of the Portuguese pilots, Martin Fernandez and Alvaro Esteeves, passed the whole of the Guinea Coast, the Bights of Benin and of Biafra, and crossed the Equator, into a new Heaven and a new Earth, on the edge of which the caravels ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... would not occupy much more time than family prayers ordinarily do, the attendance might be secured of many who, at present, put aside the whole question of going to church on week-days as impracticable. Supposing it could be proved that such a provision would work to the discouragement of family prayer, it would plainly be wrong to advocate it; no priesthood is more sacred than that which comes with fatherhood. But we must face the fact that in our modern American life family prayer, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... every day for a month or six weeks at a time, and hardly ever a whole fortnight passed without an acute attack that has sent me to bed or at least left me to drag through the day with intense bodily suffering and mental discouragement. ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... spring tide, raised the water on the bar to thirty feet. The French fleet got under way, and worked up to windward to a point fair for crossing the bar. Then D'Estaing's heart failed him under the discouragement of the pilots; he gave up the attack and stood away to ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... intellectual of the Indians; Monequassum, the first schoolmaster at Natick, among them. An Indian College, which had been established at Cambridge, failed from the deaths of some scholars and the discouragement of others, and had to be turned into a printing house, and the energetic and indefatigable Eliot did the best he could by giving courses of lectures in logic and theology to candidates for the ministry at Natick, and even printed an "Indian logick primer." It was a wonderful feat, considering ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... English people and Lord Rosebery has not exaggerated when he has said that the debt was felt deeply in the mind of every Englishman, however little they might talk of it at the time and when the opportunity arrived with what eagerness, in spite of any possible discouragement—with what eagerness the opportunity was seized. [Cheers.] It was a campaign—the campaign which your gallant guest has won—it was a campaign marked by circumstances which have seldom marked a campaign ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... hulk to turn over with them every moment, a heavy sea broke on board, deluged the store-rooms and spoiled the best part of the remaining provisions. It seems the hatch had not been properly secured. This instance of neglect is characteristic of utter discouragement. Falk tried to inspire some energy into his captain, but failed. From that time he retired more into himself, always trying to do his utmost in the situation. It grew worse. Gale succeeded gale, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... "According to other people, first we were too young to have sense; and now we're too old." He took out his worn old pouch, plugged some shag into his pipe, and struck a match under the mantelpiece. He sighed, with deep discouragement. ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... trying to do. Are they trying to serve the country, or are they trying to serve something smaller than the country? Are they trying to put hope into the hearts of the men who work and toil every day, or are they trying to plant discouragement and despair in those hearts? And why do they cry that everything is wrong and yet do nothing to set it right? If they love America and anything is wrong amongst us, it is their business to put their hand with ours to the task of setting it right. When the facts are known and ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... knowledge what they do, like puppets, dancing and swinging their arms, while far behind resides the force that works the wires. All wonder bestowed upon them is, most certainly, foolish wonder. But there is no ground for discouragement, or for any but good hopes, although ignorance and pretension stand in high places, and vainly babble concerning things beautiful and profound. This uproar comes only from the troubling of the stream—the foam and roar will not continue always; the smooth plain lies below, along which it shall ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... confidence was shaken. And besides, at such a time it cost something to confide in people! Every day one learned of some denunciation of thoughts and intimate conversations by a patriotic spy whose zeal the government honored and stimulated. So it was that these young people, through discouragement, through disdain, through prudence, through a stoical sense of their solitude in thought, gave themselves very little indeed the one to ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland

... continued, "I am constantly impressed with the courage and persistence of the Mormon colony; they have good, comfortable houses here that have been built with the hardest labor amidst floods and drought and all sorts of discouragement. It is one of the most beautiful valleys I have seen in Arizona and has a fine climate the year round; but these first settlers deserve a special place in history by the way they have turned the wilderness into good farms ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... experiences of life," she continued, clearing her throat. "The endless cycle of birth and death has passed on its way through me. I've known poverty, defeat, humiliation, doubt, grief, discouragement, despair. I've had illness and death; I've borne children only to lose them again. I've worked hard and many times I've had to work alone, but I've had love, though all I have left of it ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... moment of profound discouragement which succeeds to prolonged effort; when, the labor which has become a habit having ceased, we miss the sustaining sense of its companionship, and stand, with a feeling of strangeness and embarrassment, before the abrupt and naked result. As regards ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... of God. We should then find the work important because it is God's work and not because we are associated with it. We should also find it less easy to be discouraged because we should not understand our failure to be the failure of God. Discouragement is but one of the aspects of egotism, ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... no common place of meeting for those who cultivated the fine arts, Taft's studio became, naturally, our center of esthetic exchange. Painting and sculpture were not greatly encouraged anywhere in the West, but Lorado and his brave colleagues, hardy frontiersmen of art, laughed in the face of all discouragement. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... murdered the widow Lerouge, he cried: 'I am lost.' Yet neither of them were guilty; but both of them, the viscount and the valet, equal before the terror of a possible mistake of justice, and running over in their thoughts the charges which would be brought against them, had a moment of overwhelming discouragement." ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... and grappled with it, and been crucified and worshipped by it, He might have been a Redeemer for the silent, stately, ancient world that was before He came, but He would have failed to be a Redeemer for this modern world—a world where the main inspiration and the main discouragement is the crowd, where every great problem and every great hope is one that deals with crowds. It is a world where, from the first day a man looks forth to move, he finds his feet and hands held by crowds. The sun rises over crowds for him, and sets over ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... boast to the contrary. He had to be in London every other night, and there were tales current of intrigues against him which had their sources from very lofty regions. But in Chippenden he threw off London, just as lightly as in London he discarded Chippenden. No symptom of personal discouragement, or of fatigue, was betrayed in his face. I spoke once of that paragraph purporting to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... there to create an uproar, its deliberations being carried on under menaces of death.—That's why, as the night passes, the equilibrium between the two assemblages, one legal the other illegal, facing each other like the two sides of a scale, disappears. Lassitude, fear, discouragement, desertion, increase on one side, while numbers, audacity, force and usurpation increase on the other. At length, the latter wrests from the former all the acts it needs to start the insurrection and render defense impossible. About six o'clock in the morning ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of the secret woes, that rend many a worthy heart concealed behind a smiling countenance. The husband is perhaps stern and unrelenting—and will, in no case, yield to the wishes of his companion. Discouragement and anger may perhaps at times take possession of the heart. In such a case, instead of treating her kindly, he rouses into a passion himself, and a private contention ensues. This is a wretched practice, for instead of extinguishing the flame, it adds fuel to the fire, and ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... read remains forever; nor even today is the Pharisee gone with his invidious temptations. You are to-day obeying a greater than Caesar. You are meeting the material obligations of a day of discouragement—and for ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... grass the moorland provided; high up we saw forest fires, making the earth black and desolate; ruins almost everywhere recalled to one's mind the image of a past prosperity, which now were replaced by traces of misery, exterior influences which seemed to breed upon the traveler a deep discouragement. I came across some women mock-weeping for the dead: at their elbow two girls were washing clothes, and when little children, catching sight of me, ran to their mothers, the women stopped their hulla-baloo, had a good stare at me, exchanged a few words of mutual inquiry, and ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... it necessary to rush out thus single handed and ease your front. Every man killed is a discouragement, which holds the enemy back ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... Porbus met, the latter went to see Master Frenhofer. The old man had fallen a victim to one of those profound and spontaneous fits of discouragement that are caused, according to medical logicians, by indigestion, flatulence, fever, or enlargement of the spleen; or, if you take the opinion of the Spiritualists, by the imperfections of our mortal nature. The good man had simply overworked himself in putting the finishing ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac

... lines, i.e. to write down two-, three-, or four-part exercises in dictation, to transpose at sight, to extemporize without hesitation at the piano, &c. The feeling of working against time, of examinations to be passed, of discouragement at apparently slow progress, has possibly produced a state of mental indigestion, and the only cure for this is Time, the ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home

... some acid after taking the dose. This was not his first experience of the kind; but he had met the other trials with the high courage of a light heart and a free mind. It was only within the last two days that he had been weighed down by discouragement, by heaviness of heart, and depression of mind. He was so weary and absorbed now in disheartened thought, that he did not hear Toby's approach, and he was startled when Father Orin appeared in the open door. He greeted him with a warmly outstretched hand, but did not say that he was glad ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... southward, we sweep the dim blue distance for Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair and discouragement was reared in even such a scene ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... them come so few in numbers, or ill armed and supplied, undisciplined or insubordinate, as to cause any danger of confusion, discouragement, or desertion, in parts so remote as these, as this would be the ruin of the expedition; or they would go about it in such a way as to preclude success, and leave the Chinese our declared enemies, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... she was. Her limbs ached from their cramped position and a pain was gnawing at her, which meant hunger. In spite of the heaters in the car a persistent chilliness had come over her, and all at once she was seized by an immense discouragement. She felt that she was now being borne away to some terrible place. Those people called it Roaring River. Now that she thought of it the very name represented something that was gruesome and panicky. But then she lay back and reflected that its flood would be cleaner and its bed a better place ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... that sort of sunshiny nature which easily shifts to shadow, like the atmosphere of an April day. Cheerfulness held sway with her, except occasionally, when her domestic cares grew too overwhelming; but her spirits rebounded quickly from discouragement. ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... be feared that this handful of men might also become a prey to discouragement, and might surrender their chief to an enemy who had received all fugitives with kindness. The Greek insurgents dreaded such an event, which would have turned all Kursheed's army, hitherto detained before the castle, of Janina loose upon themselves. Therefore they hastened to send to their former ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... penniless, and must look about for some way of supporting themselves. At first they hoped to be able to get something to do in Thorndale, so that they might keep their home. This proved impossible. After much discouragement and disappointment Stephen had secured a position in the lumber mill at Lessing, and Alexina was promised a place in a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... who had fleeced poor Russian Peter. When a farmer once got into the habit of going to Cutter, it was like gambling or the lottery; in an hour of discouragement he went back. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... usual. When she liked herself everybody liked her, but when she was on bad terms with herself everybody else seemed ready to join in the stern disapproval. Papa was always ready to lend a helping hand at such times, but papa was far away. Nothing was so pleasant as usual that morning, and a fog of discouragement seemed to shut out all the sunshine in Betty Leicester's heart. She did not often get low-spirited, but for that hour all the excitement of coming to Tideshead and being liked and befriended by her old friends had vanished and left only a miserable hopelessness ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... of Sweden have necessarily undergone a great change. The death of the Crown Prince has completed the disasters of the nation, and such is its present state of weakness and discouragement, that I cannot consider the Swedes as having any longer a shadow of independence. Their exposed local situation, will prevent their taking any offensive measures of hostility against us; the futility of any effort of the sort prevents its ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... me." I will, I will, I will, oh this blest inflamed will for heaven! What is it like? If a man be willing, then any argument shall be a matter of encouragement; but if unwilling, then any argument shall give discouragement; this is seen both in saints and sinners; in them that are the children of God, and also those that are the children ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... chill into Christ's heart, and how keenly he felt it is traceable in the curt and stern brushing aside of the man's request. The very form of addressing him puts him at a distance. 'Man' is about as frigid as can be. Our Lord knew the discouragement of seeing that His words never came near some of His hearers, and had no power to turn their thoughts even for a minute from low objects. 'What do I care about being confessed before the angels, or about the Holy Spirit ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... cramped rooms, dark and stuffy, the tenant becomes the absolute owner of his home in a little over eight years. I looked in upon a score of them. The rooms were large by comparison, and airy; oil-painted, clean. The hopeless disorder, the discouragement of the slum, were nowhere. The children were stout and rosy. They played under the trees, safe from the shop till the school gives up its claim to them. Superintendent Sabsovich sees to it that it is not too early. He is himself a school trustee, elected after a fight on the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... go immediately to work. But if one is going to be an opera-singer some day and capture the world with one's voice, there is nothing to do but to study, study, sing, practise, even though one's throat be parched, one's head a great ache, and one's heart a nest of discouragement and sadness at what seems the uselessness of it all. Annette had now a new incentive to work; the fisherman had once praised her voice when she hummed a barcarole on the sands, and he had insisted that there was power in its rich notes. Though the fisherman had showed no cause why he should ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar

... mighty fleet of the Spaniards (which themselues termed in all places inuincible) such as sayled not vpon the Ocean see many hundreth yeeres before, in the yeere 1588 vanished into smoake; to the great confusion and discouragement of the authors thereof. In regard of which her Maiesties happy successe all her neighbours and friends congratulated with her, and many verses were penned to the honour of her Maiesty by learned men, whereof some which came to our hands ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... pessimists. If you are unfortunate enough to be the son or daughter, husband or wife of one, put cotton (either real or spiritual) in your ears, and shut out the poison words of discouragement ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... he would not have understood as a discouragement from searching with all care and earnestness after the means of making long Telescopes, or of facilitating the working thereof; but only as an Advertisement to those, who light upon the Theory of any Engine, not to expose it presently as possible ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... admitted, engendered a feeling of discouragement. We had two days earlier tasted the sausage of the country when served up in a first-class hotel as garnish to a dish of spinach. It is apparently made of pieces of gristle, and when liberated from the leather case that enshrines it, crumbles like ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy

... from 1850 to 1865, which has been under consideration in this chapter, was one of the greatest trial and discouragement to the Association. Its funds reached their lowest ebb, a missionary secretary could not be maintained, a layman performed the necessary office duties, and no considerable aggressive work along missionary lines was ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... in French waters on which Napoleon laid so much stress. The success of the British counter-stroke is well known. Villeneuve, having been roughly handled by Calder, put into Ferrol, and finally, a prey to discouragement, made off for Cadiz, thus upsetting Napoleon's scheme for the invasion of England. In due course Nelson returned to England for a brief time of rest at "dear, dear Merton," and then set off on his last cruise. Before his departure he had an interview with Pitt at Downing Street—the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... black veil of the morning, and closed her eyes. Her attitude by its sad unresistingness appealed to Lucy as it had done once before. And it was borne in upon her that what she saw was not mere physical fatigue, but a deep discouragement of mind and heart. As to the true sources of it Lucy could only guess. She guessed at any rate that they were somehow connected with Mr. Manisty and his book; and she was indignant again—she hardly knew why. The situation suggested to her a great ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the fact that the present tariff in some cases imposes a higher duty upon the raw material imported than upon the article manufactured from it, the consequence of which is that the duty operates to the encouragement of the foreigner and the discouragement ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... horrors of famine had worn out the courage of the inhabitants; even the soldiers were yielding to discouragement. "Before he will surrender," said they, "the general will make us eat his boots." For a long time the garrison had lived on unwholesome bread made with starch, upon linseed and cocoa, which scarcely sufficed to keep the soldiers alive; ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... medium of thought and emotion that kept the isolated settlements from utter spiritual stagnation. They were men of great physical and moral endurance, absolutely devoted to their work, which they pursued in the face of every hardship and discouragement. Their circuits were frequently so great in extent that they were forced to be constantly on the route; what reading they did was done in the saddle. They received perhaps fifty dollars from the missionary fund and half as much more from their congregations, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... shore the hollow footing of horses and the clash of arms. Checking his immediate followers, he passed forward a step or two alone, even setting foot upon the down; and here he made sure he could detect the shape of men and horses moving. A strong discouragement assailed him. If their enemies were really on the watch, if they had beleagured the shoreward end of the pier, he and Lord Foxham were taken in a posture of very poor defence, the sea behind, the men jostled in the dark upon a narrow causeway. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... held its first mass meeting on Wednesday evening of that week and cheered and sang and whooped things up with a fine frenzy. The discouragement of the Chambers game was quite forgotten. Andy Miller, in a short speech, soberly predicted a victory over Claflin, and the audience yelled until the roof seemed to shake. Coach Robey gave a resume of the ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... Bergson is right this would go far to explain the suspicion which, in spite of the prestige of philosophy, still half unconsciously colours the feeling of the "plain man" for the "intellectual," and which even haunts the philosopher himself, in moments of discouragement, the suspicion that the whole thing is trivial, a dispute about words of no real importance or dignity. If Bergson is right this suspicion is, in many cases, all too well founded: the discussion of pseudo-problems is not worth while. But then ...
— The Misuse of Mind • Karin Stephen

... it in the deserts or the mountains until in physique he was hard as hickory, and in spirit wellnigh as elastic. Never until this recent experience in the Apache Mohave country had he shown symptom of discouragement. Now it was the more noticeable because coupled, it would seem, with distrust—distrust of him who had been for two years past an inseparable guide and even comrade, 'Tonio, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... people would far sooner look impressive than be wise. The appearance of a thing sometimes pleases them far more than the thing itself. Besides, to give advice is a rather pleasant proceeding, and those who habitually indulge in it seem incapable of discouragement. They will inform the "rolling stone" that if he continues his unresisting methods he will gather no moss, but the rolling stone usually continues to roll merrily onward. They will protest to the ignorant that "to be good is to be happy," but very few of them will go ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... of the original manuscript were lost in the mail. This, at first, presented itself as a discouragement, but we at once remembered that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord, consequently we concluded that the Lord wanted some truth brought out that was not contained in the first writings; so we set to our task of reproducing the lost pages ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... The first word of discouragement was brought by Ingham, who returned from Frederica on April 10th, with a message from Charles Wesley begging his brother to come to his relief. He told a woeful story of persecution by the settlers, and injustice from Oglethorpe to Charles Wesley, all undeserved, as Oglethorpe freely admitted when ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries

... man who scrubbed the lobby floor in the early morning. This was disappointing, as its presence would have settled the whole question. When, these efforts all exhausted, the two detectives faced each other again in the small room given up to their use, Mr. Gryce showed his discouragement. To be certain of a fact you cannot prove has not the same alluring quality for the old that it has for the young. Sweetwater watched him in some concern, then with the persistence which was one of his strong points, ventured finally ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... I had the space to picture carefully all the rebuffs, the cold treatment, and the discouragement that met our young hero on his daily wanderings, seeking for some honest labor—anything that would furnish him with the means to buy bread. But as I should not feel justified in extending this story to such a length, I must content myself with a few glimpses that will show the heroic struggle ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey

... day Washington received the commander's reply to Governor Dinwiddie's letter, and therefore was ready to return. The snow was deep, the weather stormy, and the horses exhausted, so that the homeward journey was undertaken with much discouragement. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... got sick. It was pure discouragement as much as anything, I think, and she missed Rosy's milk,—she used to half live on it. After she was sick she missed it more, there were so few things she could eat,—and not many of those ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... hundred and thirty-five feet, the passage being seven feet high and seven wide. Whenever he was wearied the "mediums" that he consulted would tell him to make cuttings to the right or left, and for every fresh discouragement they found fresh work. For thirty years this task was carried on, both father and son dying without gaining any practical result, other than the discovery of an ancient scabbard in a rift. The heiress of the house of Marble alone reaped benefit from their labors, for-resuming on a ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... long moment of utter discouragement. There was so much he had to know before he could lead the Corps in clearing up this mess. There had been so many mentions of a "main plot" that he knew this illegal mining and slavery was but a small part of what was ... what ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... may be that you would find yourself no happier with Art than with Science. You might even fall into deeper discouragement; for in Science every onward step is at least certain gain, but in Art every step is groping, and success is only another form of effort. Art, in so far as it is more divine, is more unattainable, more evanescent, more unsubstantial. It needs as much patience ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... of this sort of military eloquence than on the present occasion. On both sides there was much discouragement, and a general reluctance to begin the fight. The Peloponnesians were cowed by their recent defeat, and dreaded the naval skill of the Athenians, which seemed to them almost supernatural; and Phormio's men shrank from an encounter with such enormous odds. Accordingly the Peloponnesian ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... immense muscles of the young man who was to be his rebellious pupil, the jaws of the ugly bulldog, and the heartless giggle of the girl, gave Ralph a delightful sense of having precipitated himself into a den of wild beasts. Faint with weariness and discouragement, and shivering with fear, he ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... perhaps not at all, because the war's cost would not have grown nearly so rapidly. All surplus income above a certain line would have been taken for the time being, but with the promise to repay half the amount taken, so that it should not be made a disadvantage to be rich, and no discouragement to accumulation would have been brought about. By this means the whole of the nation's buying power among the richer classes would have been concentrated upon the war, with the result that the private extravagance, which is still disgracing us in the fourth year of the war, ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... them over. If M. Linders had won it was a little fete for both—calculations as to how it should be spent, where they should go the next day, what new toy, or frock, or trinket should be bought; if he had lost, there would be a moment of discouragement perhaps, and then Madelon ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a Dictionary of the English Language, which, while it was employed in the cultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected; suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into wild exuberance; resigned to the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... attention to methods of execution is trivial compared to the evils resulting from a careless or inefficient practice. The modes in which, with every great painter, realization falls short of conception are necessarily so many and so grievous, that he can ill afford to undergo the additional discouragement caused by uncertain methods and bad materials. Not only so, but even the choice of subjects, the amount of completion attempted, nay, even the modes of conception and measure of truth are in no small degree involved in the great question of materials. ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... ascendancy of the French in Europe as the 1st of June had created that of England on the ocean. They began the offensive, and retained it for twenty years. Yet the defeat of Fleurus, after such varying fortunes and so much alternate success does not explain the sudden discouragement and collapse of the allies. One of the great powers was about to abandon the alliance. Prussia had agreed in the spring to accept an English subsidy. For, L300,000 down, and L150,000 a month, a force of fifty to sixty thousand Prussians was to be employed in a manner to be agreed upon ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... that the reason most people don't get on better with their work is just because they don't care for it enough. You have to love a thing to do much with it. Take it in any kind of scientific work; the work is hard, there is detail, drudgery, and discouragement. You're going to lose heart and grip unless you have that enthusiasm for the thing as a whole. You must see it big, and have that—well, call it fanaticism, if you want to—a willingness to give yourself up to it, at any rate. The reason these fellows ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... civilization, is a trial also of our democracy. We may hope that it is an old-world war and an old-men's war, repugnant to the genius of our newer life. The statements of some of our public men and the contents of some of our newspapers can not be read without discouragement. But it is also true that there has perhaps not appeared a cartoon in any American newspaper tending to glorify war, and no legislation has so far been enacted in preparation for war. There is good ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... inaccessible by the lianas interwoven across all openings, and the prickly plants which oppose a barrier to the naturalist,—the continual anxiety and fear inspired by serpents also;—on the othelr hand, the disheartening necessity of having to work alone, and the discouragement of being unable to communicate one's ideas or discoveries to persons having similar tastes. And finally, it must be remembered that these discouragements and dangers are never mitigated by the least hope of personal consideration, or by the pleasure of emulation,—since ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... Thou workest, all discouragements vanish; when Thou art away, anything is a discouragement. Blessed be God for such a day—one of a thousand! Oh! why not ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... Carlos—a night of painful reflections. Bereft of his property—in the midst of hostile Indians, who might change their minds, return, and massacre him and his party—many hundred miles from home, or from any settlement of whites—a wide desert to be traversed—the further discouragement that there was no object for his going home, now that he was stripped of all his trading-stock—perhaps to be laughed at on his return—no prospect of satisfaction or indemnity, for he well knew that his government would send out no expedition ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... scene had not lost its charm. He loved this hour when the men washed up at the pump. There were enticing sounds from the cook house and enticing odors in the air. Sometimes it seemed as though it almost made up for a day's failure and discouragement. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... no use sending for him, after all," he reflected in black discouragement. He was not used to such treatment nor did he think that a man should surround himself with so much ceremony that he could not hear a plea for help. "He is just what Cousin Eleanor's father would be," was his disgusted verdict. "I was a fool to hope for ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... Jerry found a cake far inside the field, away from the road, showing that powerful had been the arm that had thrown it there, and how impossible it would be to make a thorough search, Kurt almost succumbed to discouragement. Still, he kept up a frenzied hunting and inspired the laborers to ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... burial. The Swiss, by capitulation, are exempted from this despotism, and so are the Scots, in consequence of an ancient alliance between the two nations. The same droit d'aubaine is exacted by some of the princes in Germany: but it is a great discouragement to commerce, and prejudices every country where it is exercised, to ten times the value of what it brings into the coffers of ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... discouragement. . . . Let us own it to none until we have found our hearts again. I see now that even that hint of it in my sermon was a momentary lapse of loyalty. Meanwhile I clutch on this proposal of yours. It will give us all what we most want—a ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... perhaps more that may follow] is on the road; and that Schmettau must defend himself to the utmost." Let us hope this Second Missive may counteract the too despondent First, which we read above, should that have produced discouragement in Schmettau! [Second Letter is given in Schmettau's Leben, pp. 436, 437.]—D'Argens does run to Wolfenbuttel; stays there till September 9th. Nothing more from Friedrich till 4th September, when matters are well ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... position, that the higher brute animals have comparatively little instinct and no intelligence, is a heavy blow and great discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and monkeys. Stripped of their all, and left to shift for themselves as they can in this hard world, their pursuit and seeming attainment of knowledge under such peculiar difficulties is interesting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Gentlemen, that I have contemplated the relinquishment of my seat in the Senate for the residue of the term, now two years, for which I was chosen. This resolution was not taken from disgust or discouragement, although some things have certainly happened which might excite both those feelings. But in popular governments, men must not suffer themselves to be permanently disgusted by occasional exhibitions of political harlequinism, or deeply discouraged, although their ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... the King's love for her should cool. She knew very well that they said in the Court that with the King it was only possession and then satiety. And she knew very well that when Norfolk's eyes searched her face it was for signs of dismay and of discouragement. And when Norfolk had said that he himself had placed the banners, the tents, the pavilions and carpets that made gay all that grim terrace of the air, he was essaying to make her think that the King was abandoning the task of doing her honour. This ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... to agriculture, of which all wise nations have been so tender, the desolation made in the country by engrossing graziers, and the great yearly importation of corn from England, are lamentable instances under what discouragement it lies. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... too readily in hope; but when they made their inquiries, and found the same answer meeting them here which they had received in other places, they could not avoid feeling a fresh pang of disappointment and discouragement. ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... especial manner, making that use of hopes and fears, as his two chief rudders, with the one to check the career of their confidence at any time, with the other to raise them up and cheer them when under any discouragement, plainly showed by this, that rhetoric, or the art of speaking, is, in Plato's language, the government of the souls of men, and that her chief business is to address the affections and passions, which are as it were the strings ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... continued at Stocks, during a quiet summer. Then with late September came fatigue and discouragement. It was imperative to find some stimulus, some complete change of scene both for the tale and its writer. Was it much browsing in Saint-Simon that suggested to me Versailles? I cannot remember. At any rate by the beginning of October we were settled in an apartment on the edge of the park and a stone's ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... most agreeable to her; her will is mine; for her my heart is wax to be moulded as she pleases but enduring as marble to retain whatever impression she shall make upon it. If you believe me I shall fear no discouragement from any other quarter, but if you doubt me, I shall despond. My name is——; my father's I have already given you; he lives in such a house in such a street and you may inquire about him and me of the neighbours, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... negotiation. Unhappily, M. d'Ivoy, in command of the Huguenot garrison, was not proof against the seductive offers made him. Disregarding the remonstrances of his companions in arms, who pointed to the fact that the enemy had from day to day, through discouragement or from sheer exhaustion, relaxed their assaults, he consented (on the thirty-first of August) to surrender Bourges to the army that had so long thundered at its gates. D'Ivoy returned to Orleans, but Conde, accusing him of open perfidy, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... Sickness and discouragement were not enough to keep down his boyish gaiety, which he sometimes manifested by teasing his womenfolk. One of his favourite methods of doing this was to station himself on a chair in front of ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... Jesus Christ on the cross thrills, at times, through my whole being. If I strive to concentrate all my thoughts in the one thought of the Divine Presence, all my senses in an act of submission to the Divine Will, I derive only pain and discouragement from it. I feel like the beast of burden which falls under its load, and which, at the first cut of the whip, makes an effort to rise, and falls again; at a second blow, at a third, or a fourth, it only shivers, and does not attempt to rise. ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... so silent, rose. At this hour it was her master's habit to scratch paper. She, who seldom scratched anything, because it was not delicate, felt dimly that this was what he should be doing. She held up a slim foot and touched his knee. Receiving no discouragement, she delicately sprang into his lap, and, forgetting for once her modesty, placed her arms on his chest, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... last, after a few acts of weakness, of treachery, of culpable self-indulgence, the survey of our past life can bring discouragement only, whereas we have great need that our past should inspire and sustain us. For therein alone do we truly know what we are; it is only our past that can come to us, in our moments of doubt, and say: "Since you were ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... of Glennard's aspirations the encouragement of a clever woman stood for the symbol of all success. Later, when he had begun to feel his way, to gain a foothold, he would not need such support; but it served to carry him lightly and easily over what is often a period of insecurity and discouragement. ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton

... and Poughkeepsie. It was raining furiously, and my horse, already weary with long travel, gave unmistakable signs of discouragement. I was, therefore, greatly relieved when, in the most desolate part of the road, I espied rising before me the dim outlines of a house, and was correspondingly disappointed when, upon riding forward, I perceived that it was but a deserted ruin I was approaching, whose fallen chimneys and broken ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green

... everything; it accomplished and finished nothing; its great men opened the road of the future to France; but they died without having brought their work well through, without foreseeing that it was going to be completed. The Reformation itself did not escape this misappreciation and discouragement of its age; and nowhere do they crop out in a more striking manner than in Montaigne. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Rabelais is a satirist and a cynic, he is no sceptic; there is felt circulating through ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... very still to facilitate the work of the artist. But, presently, Clara shook her head in discouragement. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... impelled by contradictory forces. Some dragged at his head and others at his feet in different directions, making him revolve like the hands of a clock. Even his thoughts were working double. "It is useless to resist," Discouragement was murmuring in his brain, while his other half was affirming desperately, "I do not want to ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... collapse we begin our life anew, but on the old conditions; and the attempt ends as usual in the repetition—in the circumstances the inevitable repetition—of the old disaster. Not that at times we do not obtain glimpses of the true state of the case. After seasons of much discouragement, with the sore sense upon us of our abject feebleness, we do confer with ourselves, insisting for the thousandth time, "My soul, wait thou only upon God." But the lesson is soon forgotten. The strength ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... the expedition. In the peculiar circumstances of his first and exceptionally daring adventure the nature of his crew became of great and even of vital importance. It is certain, however, that Columbus himself obviously suffered no permanent discouragement on account of the men of his first crew, for he subsequently advocated the transportation of criminals to the Indies, and, further, urged that any person having committed a crime (with the exception of those of heresy, lese majeste, and treason) ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... did much to rouse the garrison from this state of discouragement. She glided from post to post, from tower to tower of the old gray fortress, as a gleam of light passes over a clouded landscape, and touching its various points in succession, calls them out to beauty and effect. Sorrow and fear sometimes make sufferers eloquent. She addressed the various ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... the crevice until he came to the stone wall. He knew about the same wall, but he was working on a certain theory. He was like the Captain Kidd treasure-seekers—the discouragement of others did not in any way discourage him, and we will here say that a similar persistence in any walk of life, as a rule, leads to ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)

... set the world to rights," he said. "Alas! that is only a phrase, but you will help us to let in the light. Remember," he went on, "that there may be moments of discouragement. Much of the material we have to use, the people we have to influence, the way we have to travel, may seem sordid, but the light is shining there all the time, Tallente. We are not ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... you can easily understand that these things do not at all give you any idea of other forms of material injury that arise from crime and disturbance, in the loss of employment and the discouragement of capital, the injury to trade, and the multiplied consequences of all kinds detrimental to the community that arise from insecurity to personal property and life. And to all those evils we have to add another, and perhaps ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... first fifteen or twenty months are wearisome, I readily confess. Then comes discouragement; after that, habit; and then one grows resigned to one's fetters from ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Tembarom made his rush to catch the "L" Joseph Hutchinson was passing through one of his periodical fits of infuriated discouragement. Little Ann knew they would occur every two or three days, and she did not wonder at them. Also she knew that if she merely sat still and listened as she sewed, she would be doing exactly what her mother would have done and what her father would find a sort of irritated comfort ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... were, out of Tom's self-confidence, turning his moral courage limp and helpless for the nonce, bringing insensibly to his mind the familiar refrain of "Not for Joseph"? What was there that bade him man himself against this discouragement, as true bravery mans itself against the sensation of fear? and why should he be less worthy of approbation than other spirits who venture on "enterprises of great pith and moment" with beating hearts indeed, but with unflinching courage and ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... truth. This man you have been talking to has been following me, or keeping track of me, ever since I left the penitentiary. I have seen him twice, and I took him to be a traveling salesman—as he doubtless intended I should. You can see how it was designed to work out. With a sufficient amount of discouragement it was reasonable to assume that the prison bird would finally yield to the inevitable; become a criminal in fact and get himself locked up again out of ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... the clipping from a Rouen paper you showed me, commenting generously upon the scholarship of the 'Herald.' But for fifteen years I have tried to improve the art feeling in Plattville, and I may say that I have worked in the face of no small discouragement. In fact," (there was a slight quaver in Fisbee's voice), "I cannot remember that I ever received the slightest word or token of encouragement till you came, Mr. Harkless. Since then I have labored with refreshed energy; still, I cannot claim ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... Mr. Converse's discouragement of such hopes would have been even more emphatic had he ever dreamed that this apostle whom he had sent out into the field was coddling the audacious hope that Mr. Converse himself by some miracle might be put ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... her intense excitement had passed away, succeeded by distress, discouragement, and perhaps perplexity, but that last she did not express to him. She leaned against the wall as she listened to him with ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... she learned that Harrison Miller was coming home, and that David was being brought back. She saw that telegram from Mr. Miller, and read into it failure and discouragement, and something more ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... an hour, an hour—still Paul sat staring into the velvet dark and wrestling with bitter discouragement and homesickness. ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... feel some curiosity as to its future. Mrs. Eddy's followers are by no means the only people who are trying to meet, by suggestive treatment, nervous diseases and the many functional disorders which result from overwork, worry, and discouragement. The foremost neurologists of all countries are employing more and more this suggestive method which is the essential reality in Christian Science healing. The followers of the "New Thought" school apply this principle in their own way, and the hundreds of unaffiliated "mind curists" ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... seen on the second day of fighting on the dykes opposite Arcola, which was, on the whole, favourable to the smaller veteran force. On the third day Bonaparte employed a skilful ruse to add to the discouragement of his foes. He posted a small body of horsemen behind a spinney near the Austrian flank, with orders to sound their trumpets as if for a great cavalry charge. Alarmed by the noise and by the appearance of French troops from the side of Legnago and behind Arcola, the demoralized ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... Walling, has given us the best account of that journey through Cornwall,[180] and his explanation of why Borrow did not write the Cornish book that he caused to be advertised in a fly-leaf of The Romany Rye, by the discouragement arising out of the dire failure of that book, may be accepted.[181] Borrow would have made a beautiful book upon Cornwall. Even the title, Penquite and Pentyre; or, The Head of the Forest and the Headland, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... this chapter of discouragement may be given a letter from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who wrote from a detached position, having been prevented by illness from standing both in 1885 ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... of it, yet, notwithstanding Buck had made up his mind that whatever happened he would make himself "suit," still he met with a serious discouragement the very next morning, when his unwilling ears overheard a conversation between the surgeon and the stableman. The ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... natives, and to attempt such a thing was altogether madness, I journeyed on to Tripoli, where I entered with all my soul and might into the undertaking. But as in Tunis so in Tripoli, I heard the birds of evil-omen uttering the same mournful notes of discouragement:—"I should never reach Ghadames, no one else had done so, or no one else had gone and returned. I should perish by the hand of banditti, or sink under the burning heat. I was not the man; it required a frame of iron. Enthusiasm was very well in its way, but it required a man who was expert ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... smooth. Whatsoever splashing had been done by the horses of the outlaws there had been abundant time for it to evaporate, therefore the command could not thus far have gained very rapidly on the pursued. But Drummond felt no discouragement. Up to this point the way had been smooth and sufficiently hard to make wheeling an easy matter. The wagons had been lugged along at brisk trot, the attending cavaliers riding at lively lope. Now, however, there would be no likelihood ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... suffer as long, as patiently for her? It is even easier to die for a good cause, in some hour of high enthusiasm, when all that is noblest in us can be roused to one great venture, than to live for it amid wearing years of discouragement ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... experiment; discouragement, hope, effort and final success—this is the history of many an invention; a history in which excitement, competition, danger, despair and persistence figure. This merely suggests the circumstances which draw the daring Boy Inventors ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond

... of necessity, as she was bound in any case to cede it at the conclusion of the war; but as the secret of the treaty had been well kept, the step caused great surprise, and in Italy, where the public mind had leapt from profound discouragement to buoyant hope, the impression was one of embarrassment and mortification. Italy was distinctly precluded by her engagement with Prussia from accepting Napoleon's invitation to conclude a separate peace. Meanwhile, Austria gained by the move, as ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... the moment's discouragement already conquered and his face set determinedly. "Give orders to Hazlett and Hand to despatch foraging parties at dawn, to seize all cattle, pigs, corn, wheat, or flour they may find, save enough ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... that Senor Torres is look with favor upon your suit. Of course"—he checked Kirk's hasty words—"it is not completely settle, by no means; the young lady is but partly won. However"—he winked one black eye reassuringly— "as friend of the family I bid you not to permit discouragement and despair." ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... remember General Washington." "Yaas, Boss," replied Uncle Mose, "I used to 'member Gen'l Washington, but sence I jined de church I done forgot." Not having joined Uncle Mose's church, my memory has not experienced the ecclesiastical discouragement that befell him. I humbly trust, however, it needs no chastening, and aver that I do not go for my facts to my imagination. I am now in foreign parts dealing with personages of especial dignity and splendour and must establish ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... its violence is the cause of its weakening. The soul has only one degree of force, and exhausted by the constraint that effort cost it, it abandons itself to lassitude. By and by, the knowledge of its weakness throws it into discouragement. A woman of that disposition bears the first shock of a redoubtable enemy with courage, but, the danger better understood, she fears a second attack. A woman, persuaded that she has done everything possible to defend herself against an ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... candor, absolute purity of soul, and sincerity of heart are the only things worthy of homage: the rest is conventionality." She wrote to a friend, "Never try to suppress a generous impulse, or to crowd out a genuine feeling: despair or discouragement is the only fruit of dry reasoning, unenlightened by the heart." In the following sentence she betrays, by the law of opposites, the deepest charm of such a nature as her own; namely, a thoroughly sincere and fluent ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger



Words linked to "Discouragement" :   encouragement, disapproval, determent, intimidation, deterrence, discourage, despair, dissuasion



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