Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases by Grenville Kleiser (my reading book .txt) 📖

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 [limpidity = transparent clearity; easily intelligible]

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 [peremptory = ending all debate or action]

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 [puissant = with power, might]

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 [puerile = immature; childish]

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
                          [recrudescence = recurrence of a pathological
                           symptoms after a period of improvement]

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 [abstruse = difficult to understand]

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 [calumniator = makes malicious or knowingly false statements]

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 [adventitious = Not inherent; added extrinsically]

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 [imperious = arrogantly overbearing]

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 [egregious = outrageously reprehensible]

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 [chimerical = highly improbable]

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 [priggishness = exaggerated propriety]

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 [magniloquence = extravagant in speech]

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 [importuned = insistent or repeated requests]

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 [epigrammatic = terse and witty]

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