Literary notes about unstable (AI summary)
The term "unstable" captivates a diverse range of meanings in literature, serving as a descriptor for both tangible and abstract states that resist permanence or balance. Authors employ it to characterize the fickle nature of human emotions and temperaments—from the unpredictable passions and wavering minds in personal relationships ([1], [2]) to the disorderly behavior of political bodies or social groups ([3], [4]). It is also used to denote physical imbalance or transitory conditions, as seen in discussions of geological formations, precarious structures, or even a person’s gait ([5], [6], [7]). In this way, "unstable" becomes a versatile metaphor reflecting life's inherent flux, uncertainty, and ever-changing dynamics ([8], [9]).
- But who is there in the world that can boast of having fathomed or understood the wavering mind and unstable nature of a woman?
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - He thought he saw in her drooping eye, her unstable glance, her wavering manner, the symptoms of a budding passion.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser - In another point of view, great injury results from an unstable government.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison - Among the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria, Hungary and Transylvania were the most unstable, and the most difficult to retain.
— from The History of the Thirty Years' War by Friedrich Schiller - It is in unstable equilibrium, and it is cut by long northwest faults into narrow blocks which are in turn traversed by many minor dislocations.
— from The Wonder Book of Volcanoes and Earthquakes by Edwin J. (Edwin James) Houston - Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks to which I clung.
— from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells - All his weight was on one foot, and he was in a state of unstable equilibrium.
— from White Fang by Jack London - One day, bethought this monkey wise To make the whole a sacrifice To Neptune on his throne unstable.
— from Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Jean de La Fontaine - Its unstable color would change with tremendous speed as the animal grew irritated, passing successively from bluish gray to reddish brown.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne
