Sir, if the audience will be contented with a battle or two, instead of all the raree-fine shows exhibited to them in what they call entertainments ---- ❋ Henry Fielding (1730)
Nothing makes me sadder than to see the life that such people live, -- to see for instance how pathetic are the things they call their entertainments; and when one knows himself that life is a magic potion, to be drank with rapture and awe, -- that every instance of it ought to be a hymn of rejoicing, and the whole of it rich and full of power, like some majestic symphony. ❋ Upton Sinclair (1923)
Doctor Terhune and I claimed the privilege of convalescent and custodian, in declining to accept invitations to evening functions, thus securing opportunity for what we loved far better than the gayest of "entertainments" - long, quiet hours spent in our sitting-room "under the evening lamp," ❋ Unknown (1910)
It will be remembered that during the Puritan, joyless reign of dunderheadedness the playhouses were closed; but Cromwell, who loved music and gave State concerts, licensed Davenant to give "entertainments" -- plays in which plot, acting, and everything else were neglected in favour of songs, dances, and such spectacles as the genius and machinery of the stage managers enabled them to devise. ❋ John F. Runciman (1891)
On a more sedate note, John Stenton led the clerks of the Windsor College in the singing of ballads before Mary and her household on Christmas Day. 56 For the next year, 1523, the scale of Christmas entertainments is suggested by the bloated entry for foodstuffs and table linen for the month of December in the accounts, for example, the household consumed six pounds of pepper in December as compared to the more usual £1 per month. ❋ Unknown (2008)
Our so-called entertainments are what stand in for our current events (quotes left out for obviousness). ❋ Unknown (2008)
Or was it the truth that he feared being dragged into the vortex? ... of learning to care, he, too, whether or no his name topped subscription-lists; whether his entertainments were the most sumptuous, his wife the best-dressed woman in her set? ❋ Unknown (2003)
I'm sorry, madam, that it is not more in our power to divert you; I could wish, indeed, that our entertainments were a little more polite, or your taste a little less refined. ❋ George Farquhar (N/A)
Carefully introduce wherever you can the direct teachings of the Gospel, and then your entertainments will be the power of God unto salvation. ❋ Agnes Rush Burr (N/A)
It was a matter of common fame that his entertainments were the cause of more envy and heartburning in the fashionable sisterhood than any other events of the season. ❋ Irving Bacheller (1904)
She could talk Latin and any other tongue, and was a miracle of genius - but the entertainments are the best part of the business. ❋ Unknown (1892)
Englishmen over thirty more or less sympathise, it is the only sound defence of many of our so-called entertainments that they are virtually daughter-shows -- genteel auctions, without which a sufficiently brisk trade in matrimony could not possibly be carried on. ❋ Lucia Gilbert [Commentator] Calhoun (1860)
Garden gnomes may not bring Graham Greene instantly to mind, but Greene's distinction between his more serious works and those he called "entertainments" may be useful all the same. ❋ Joe Morgenstern (2011)
He edited crime fiction at Dell Books in the 1950s and wrote "entertainments," detective novels, now cult favorites, including "Epitaph for a Tramp" and "Epitaph for a Dead Beat." ad_icon ❋ Unknown (2010)
Television Delivers People - This video is purported as "a seminal work in the now well-established critique of popular media as an instrument of social control that asserts itself subtly on the populace through 'entertainments', for the benefit of those in power-the corporations that maintain and profit from the status quo." ❋ Unknown (2009)
To support himself, he relied on his acquired knowledge of the conventions of crime fiction to concoct three of what he calls "entertainments" that were originally published by his first employer, Dell. ❋ Bill Crider (2007)
Few commentators in any democracy appreciate the power of "entertainments" until there's a censorship clash, yet the freedom and rebellious drive to create fiction is one heartbeat of a healthy democracy. ❋ Unknown (2009)
Maybe the Swedish Academy couldn't bring itself to bestow its honors on a writer who had once divided his own work into two categories: serious writing and "entertainments" (which were, in fact, first-rate yarns of crime and intrigue). ❋ Unknown (2008)
They hold "entertainments" nightly, and periodically, last minute substitutions have to be made, which just seems surreal. ❋ Tanita Davis (2008)
