Ambition was already awake within him; but it needed Sprudell's sneers to sting his pride, Sprudell's ingratitude and arrogant assumption of success in whatever it pleased him to undertake, to arouse in Bruce that stubborn, dogged, half-sullen obstinacy which his father had called mulishness but which the farmer's wife with her surer woman's intuition had recognized as one of the traits which make for achievement. ❋ Caroline Lockhart (1916)
"You've got a kind of mulishness, and you've got gall, and when things are goin 'your way you'll take long chances, but they ain't the traits that gives a person the sand to stand out in the open with their head up and let the storms whip thunder out of them without a whimper." ❋ Caroline Lockhart (1916)
Yes, Uncle Abel was always grasping the wrong end of things, and sticking to it with that human mulishness which is often stronger, and more often wearies and breaks down the opposition than an intelligent man's arguments. ❋ Henry Lawson (1894)
It had been a pet mule in a family of children until Collins's keen eyes rested on it; and it had known only love and kindness and much laughter for its foolish mulishness. ❋ Unknown (2010)
Even some of the state's Democrats are protesting the Administration's mulishness. ❋ Unknown (2011)
To demonstrate Britain's enduring mulishness, Pryor points to the fact that by the 6th century AD it boasted no big towns. ❋ Unknown (2010)
But even I, in my mulishness, even I have brushed up against that thing, at times. ❋ Elizabeth Gilbert (2009)
What is the percentage for mulishness that the Obama Campaign needs to factor into a strategy for winning electoral votes? ❋ Unknown (2008)
Calling the vice president's sudden ability to love "mystifying" but a possible medical breakthrough that could aid other Americans who suffer from acute mulishness and generalized misanthropy, Dr. Jonathan Samuel Reiner, Cheney's cardiologist, said in a press conference at George Washington University Hospital that the vice president exhibited a series of unexpected side effects almost immediately after regaining consciousness following his surgery. ❋ William Harryman (2007)
But I was not to be put off, which is something I never completely understand about myself: the streak of mulishness that asserts itself at inopportune moments. ❋ Le Carre, John, 1931- (2006)
They have not picked up the general mood – a mood of sullen resentment, an Anglo-Saxon mulishness which says "a pox on all your parties". ❋ Richard (2004)
It was very easy to see who the boy's parents were; the sweetness of the mother's temper was mingled with the mulishness of the father's. ❋ Lackey, Mercedes (2004)
It is all very ill-advised: Althea is strong-willed to the point of mulishness, they have this disowned Trader's son at the helm and some foreigner providing money. ❋ Hobb, Robin (1999)
He scowled at the wall screen, which with its usual mulishness was refusing to do what he wanted. ❋ DIANE DUANE (1983)
Virtuosos can be [surprisingly] mulish if their [methods] are criticized. ❋ Possessedwillz (2022)
