"Actuate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soon after I arrived here, I felt satisfied that the conflicts of party in the colony would ere long assume a new character. I perceived that the hostility to the proprietary interests, which was supposed to actuate certain classes of persons who had much influence with the peasantry, was on the decline. Should a state of quiescence prove incompatible with the maintenance of their hold on their flocks, analogy led me to anticipate that the Established Church would, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... natural to the soul of man, and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections. Let these influencing powers actuate, by the permission or disposal of Providence, from selfish or social views, yet in time the mysterious will of Heaven is unfolded, and we behold our conduct, from whatsoever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs of Heaven. Thus we behold Kentucky, lately a howling wilderness, ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... themselves, always endeavouring to raise some new desire, that they may have something to pursue, to rekindle some hope which they know will be disappointed, changing one amusement for another which a few months will make equally insipid, or sinking into languor and disease for want of something to actuate their bodies or exhilarate ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... husband, solemnly, "you are hopeless—positively, undeniably, hopeless. I do not object to your failing to see the humor in the situation, for you are a woman; but that you should not be curious as to the motives which actuate Uncle Simon, that you should be unmoved by a burning desire to know why this staunch old servant who has for so many years pictured hell each Sunday to his fellow-servants should wish a vacation—that I can ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... gradually moulder away, as well by the incessant operation of a partisan warfare, as by defection to their adversaries, whom her troops would be led to combat only with regret. They would not enter into a war of this description with the same animosity and desire of vengeance that might actuate their leaders. They would behold in their opponents, Britons, or the descendants of Britons, placed in hostile array against them unwillingly, and not from any ancient and inveterate spirit of hatred and rivality, but from constrained resistance ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... which exist for illustrating the social condition of the people at the period to which they belong. Executed, as they must be, at moments the most solemn displaying, as we cannot but believe they do, the real feelings which actuate the testators; and having for their object the distribution of existing property, and that of every possible variety of description, it is obvious that they alike call for investigation, and are calculated to repay any labour that may be bestowed upon them. It is therefore, perhaps, somewhat ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... that the matrices may be properly engaged and disengaged by the pawls. For these reasons, and to secure easy and uniform action of the parts, the mechanism shown in Figs. 5 and 6 is introduced between the finger-keys and escapements. The vertical rods C, which actuate the escapements, are guided in the main frame, and each is urged downward by a spring c. Each rod C terminates directly over one end of a rising and falling yoke-bar c2, turning on a pivot c3 at the opposite ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... to actuate the members should be the Kingdom of Heaven within the soul, which should be made the burden of all sermons, explaining how it is to be ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... was entirely fitted by the latter firm, is 37 feet long and 7 feet beam. She draws 2'6" of water when carrying 40 persons, for whom there is ample sitting accommodation. There are 64 cells in this boat. These are placed as ballast under the floor, and actuate a pair of motors and a screw coupled direct to the armature shaft running at 700 revolutions a minute. We crossed the English Channel with this boat in September of last year, leaving Dover at 10:40 in the morning, arriving at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... themselves; and that if this country could, consistently with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby preserve peace, it was bound to do so by motives of policy, interest, and every other consideration that ought to actuate a people situated as we are, already deeply in debt, and in a convalescent state from the struggle we have ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... course of years it is all sure to be; for no instrument is so liable to damage as the fiddle, and you never know into what studio your beloved one may go, or by whom it will be criticised. And apart from this latter consideration, pride in your own work and love of truth ought, and I hope will, actuate to noble effort; but mind, do not overrate what is done, in your pride of heart, for those into whose hands it will come later will assuredly ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... hold up the labor unions as offering a model for the spirit which should actuate us or the methods we should follow—because their class-consciousness and the resulting conduct are sometimes extreme and often shortsighted, I would urge upon business men to cultivate and demonstrate but a little of that cohesion and discipline and ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn
... recording drum. This should have been successful but for the difficulty of making good mechanical connection between the recorder and the pulley. Backlash caused an unreliable record, and this arrangement had to be abandoned. The motion of the wire was then made to actuate the recorder through a hinged lever, and this arrangement holds, but days and even weeks have been lost in grappling the difficulties of adjustment between the limits of the tide and those of the recording ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... drive): (1) agent, agitate, agile, act, actor, actuate, exact, enact, reaction, counteract, transact, mitigate, navigate, prodigal, assay, essay; (2) agenda, pedagogue, synagogue, actuary, redact, castigate, litigation, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the other vices which stained their conduct, discovered their secret intentions. Their anxiety for enriching themselves, their vanity, the authority which they exercised over the poor Indians, are the motives which actuate them, and not the love of God or the propagating of ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... enough as a corrective in the days of hired advocates, and a bench sometimes venal, and often with a tenure that made it dependent, but is needless now. No conceivable motive but justice could actuate our judges." ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... men, so as to induce them to remain peaceable spectators of enjoyments beyond their attainment, except that unaffected benevolence which shall continually actuate the heart to communicate all the happiness it has the power to bestow. This only can so temper oppression as to render gradual and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... I do not doubt that a liberal and generous spirit will actuate Congress in all that concerns her interests and prosperity, and that she will never have cause to regret that she has united her "lone star" ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... and he left in hideous isolation to suffer eternal torments. I guess from my own experience that other children have had similar fancies. He adds, however, a characteristic remark. 'It seemed to me then, as it seems now, that no stronger motive, no motive anything like so strong, can be applied to actuate any human creature toward any line of conduct. To compare the love of God or anything else is to my mind simply childish.' He refers to Mill's famous passage about going to hell rather than worship a bad God, and asks what Mill would ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... however, is well worth reading by those who wish to learn something of the motives which originally led the Southern States into rebellion, and still actuate them in their obstinate resistance. To any one familiar with the history of the last thirty years, it would almost seem that Mr. Pollard's object had been to expose the futility of the pretences set up by the originators of Secession, so utterly does he fail ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... the thing," said Captain Shirley, talking to us but watching the moving light intently, "briefly, is that I use the Hertzian waves to actuate relays on the Z99. That is, I send a child with a message, the grown man, through the relay, so to speak, does the work. So, you see, I can sit up here and send my little David out anywhere to strike down a ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... right willingly helped me did nothing more than our plain duty in such a case; and though I fully appreciate the motives which actuate Mrs. — and yourself and friends, and would gladly accept any trifle as a memento of my poor friend (I call him so, for we really struck up a great friendship in our twelve hours' acquaintance), I could not with any comfort use the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... Canadians have unquestionably shewn a great willingness upon this occasion to be trained, and, I make not the least doubt, would oppose with vigour any invasion of the Americans—but how far the same sentiments would actuate them were a French force to join, I will not undertake to say; at any rate, I feel that every consideration of prudence and policy ought to determine me to keep in Quebec a sufficient force to secure its safety; the number of troops that could therefore be safely detached would ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... taken from Icelandic saga, the other from American Indian tradition, shew clearly the oneness which the uncultivated mind believes to exist between the soul of man and the soul of beast. The same sentiments actuate both man and brute, and if their actions are unlike, it is because of the difference in their formation. The soul within is identical, but the external accidents of body ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the Lesser Asia, amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy. [10] The fierce contests of the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds, and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct, insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs of Christianity with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... this poem the record of his own experience. This has doubtless been the practice of many distinguished authors of fiction whose names will readily occur to the reader. Indeed, as we are never cognizant of the real motives which actuate others, it follows that nowhere can the secret springs of human action be studied to such advantage as within our own breasts. Thus romance is sometimes but the reflection of the writer's own individuality, and he adopts the counsel ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... which lie beneath the satirical crust of his irony. He is primarily a satirist, dealing as he says with the vices of the human mind and the subterfuges of human self-deception. He lays bare "the sentiments and the movements of men, exposing the principles which actuate their malice and their frailty"; he aims at showing that such is the native evil implanted in their souls that "no one should any longer be surprised at the thousands of vicious or frivolous actions with ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... intimately. I grant you that the idea was brilliantly carried out; but everything favoured it. As for the essential idea, I do not place it, as regards ingenuity, in the same class with, for example, the idea of utilizing the force of recoil in a discharged firearm to actuate the mechanism of ejecting and reloading. I do, however, admit, as I did at the outset, that in respect of details the case had unusual features. It developed a high ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... the seventeenth century witnessed a higher order of travellers, who, from such a mixture of motives as might actuate either a pilgrim or an antiquary, undertook the perilous tour of the Holy Land. Among these, one of the most distinguished was George Sandys, who commenced his peregrinations in the year 1610. He was succeeded by Doubdan, Cheron, Thevenot, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... distress, and as a mark of their gratitude, offered—as far as they could—themselves for subjects of our king, and made their request to his Sicilian Majesty; but both Sir William Hamilton and myself, knowing that no views of individual aggrandizement actuate the breast of our gracious sovereign, have invariably refused every offer of that nature: but, in the present situation of his Sicilian Majesty, and by his desire, his colours and the British flag fly together, to mark that Great Britain protects ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... than balanced by the respectable Scotch, who emigrate occasionally upon the same principles which actuate the respectable portion of the English emigrants, and by the hardy Highlanders already settled in various parts of the colony, whose proverbial loyalty is proof against the arts ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... belongs properly to Plants, but is transferred also to the Plasticall power in Animalls, I enlarge it to all magnetick power whatsoever that doth immediately rule and actuate any body. For all magnetick power is founded in Physis, and in reference to her, this world is but one great Plant, (one logos spermatikos giving it shape and corporeall life) as in reference to Psyche, one ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... their birth or station,—so grandly proven in those terrible days of general sickness and death at New Plymouth,—to be certain that with them, under all circumstances, it was noblesse oblige, and that no self-seeking would actuate them here. It should be remembered that the MAY-FLOWER was primarily a passenger transport, her passengers being her principal freight and occupying the most of the ship, the heavier cargo being chiefly confined to the "hold." As in that day the passenger traffic was, of course, ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... the request which she lacked the courage, seeing that she is timid, expressly to urge, that Miss Clavering might again be permitted to visit her. Miss Clavering has answered as might be expected from the propinquity of the relationship; but she has perhaps the same fears of offending you that actuate her sister. But now, since the worthy clergyman who had undertaken my parochial duties has found the air insalubrious, and prays me not to enforce the engagement by which we had exchanged our several charges for the space of a calendar year, I am reluctantly compelled to return home,—my ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Australia ordinarily acting under the influence of no worse motives or passions than usually actuate man in a civilised state, we ought in fairness to suppose that sufficient provocative for retaliation has been given in those few instances of revenge, which, our imperfect knowledge of the circumstances attending ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the same commercial interest in this respect as Great Britain, with the added motive that partition would give her nothing at all in China; while Japan feels the most strongly of all for she has both the reasons that actuate the United States and also the vital one of self-preservation. The Hon. Chester Holcombe says that several years ago, in an interview with an influential member of the Japanese Cabinet in Tokio, the conversation turned upon the aggressions of European ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... the experiments under the direction of Dr. Whitehouse and Mr. Bright which I witnessed this morning—in which the induction-coils and receiving-magnets, as modified by these gentlemen, were made to actuate one of my recording instruments —have most satisfactorily resolved all doubts of the practicability as well as practicality of operating the Telegraph ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of the Convention that nominated him having been accomplished—and under no obligations, especially of a partisan character, to adopt or promote the partisan purposes relative to reconstruction or otherwise, that came to actuate the Republican party. ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... with regard to the atrocities of British soldiers contained in that letter are a tissue of falsehoods, and constitute an unfounded calumny which it would be difficult to parallel in the annals of warfare. It is difficult to conceive the motives that actuate the writer, but that they have been violent enough to make him absolutely reckless as to ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... retrospection of which I hoped would have enlivened Oakwood, oh, what does it present? A dreary waste of life, varied only by remorse. Had my career been yours, you would perhaps have looked on it differently; but I cannot. Oh, Annie, once more, I beseech, let not such principles actuate your future conduct; they are wrong, they will load to misery here, and what preparation are ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... pale as death, and much excited; "you must not go until you have satisfied me on a point of life and death to both of us. Your conduct is a mystery. I cannot explain it. I know not what are the motives which actuate you. These are known to yourself. Let them be so. But I have a question to ask, and you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... in magnificence on the Quirinal,—one of the most profligate of the literary men of antiquity. We possess but a small portion of his works, but the fragments which have come down to us show peculiar merit. He sought to penetrate the human heart, and to reveal the secret motives which actuate the conduct of men. The style of Sallust is brilliant, but his art is always apparent; he is clear and lively, but rhetorical. Like Voltaire, who inaugurated modern history, Sallust thought more of style than of accuracy as to facts. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... divinities who rule the empires of night and day—the moon and the sun; afterwards there took part in this work of explanation the five planets which we call Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Mercury, or rather the five gods who actuate them, and who have controlled their course from the moment of creation—Merodach, Ishtar, Ninib, Nergal, and Nebo. The planets seemed to traverse the heavens in every direction, to cross their own and each other's paths, and to approach the fixed stars or ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... us to our Head; Nourish us, in Christ, and feed; Let us daily growth receive, More and more in Jesus live. Move, and actuate, and guide; Divers gifts to each divide: Placed according to thy will, Let us all ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... unknown depths. He saw in Annie Walton earthly happiness certainly, and his best prospect of heaven. What wonder then that his heart lay at her feet in entire consecration? Apart from the peculiar fascination that she herself had for him, he had motives for loving her that actuate but few. If she had saved him from physical death it would have been a little thing in comparison, but he shuddered to think of the precipice from which she ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... species of judging which is here forbidden; judging the characters of men, especially such as profess Godliness, and appear to act sincerely; pretending to determine their moral state, before the motives which actuate them are disclosed. This is judging before the time, and without evidence on which to ground a judgment; which the wise man observes to be folly and a shame ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... example; a leather hat, the rims of caps, in short, anything that contained any animal matter at all, were gnawed and sucked with the utmost avidity. Never shall I forget the scene. We were no longer human — the impulses and instincts of brute beasts seemed to actuate ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... subject further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... the home (to show my inconsistency in regard to generalizing) is the place where prejudice is born, nourished, and grown to its fullest proportions. The child born and reared in a home is exposed to the contagion of whatever silliness and prejudice actuate the lives and dominate the thought and feeling of its parents. And the quirks and twists to which it is exposed affect its life either positively or negatively, for it either accepts their prejudices or develops counter-prejudices against them. To cite a familiar case; it is traditional that ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... embarrassing position," quickly retorted the former, with an offended air. "But should I wish to do so, I should hardly be deterred from it by either of the considerations you have just named, I think. And, indeed, if the mercenary and ambitious motives, which you would have actuate me, were alone to be my guide in such a step, I could see but little temptation for the sacrifice in the honors and wealth which are so much to depend on a triumph that, for all your boasts, I believe will never be accomplished; while the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... it had to be done, and, therefore, we stooped, and grasping the clothes as best we might, we dragged the body into the chasm we had prepared for its reception. Glad were we then to be enabled to throw the earth upon it and to stamp upon it with such vehemence as might well be supposed to actuate men deeply anxious to put out of sight some dangerous ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... in connection with the career of Paul. Endowed with brilliant talents, learned, living at the time and place, he must have been able to form a reliable opinion. And yet, while all the motives that commonly actuate men loudmouthed consistency, fame, wealth, pride, pleasure, the rooted force of inveterate prejudices all were beckoning to him from the temples and palaces of the Pharisaic establishment, he spurned the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Pearce had a scale at his end of the table, and he was always measuring and weighing out gold-dust. The value of the gold appeared to be fifteen dollars to the ounce, but the real value of money did not actuate the gamblers. They spilled the dust on the table and ground as if it were as common as sand. Still there did not seem to be any great quantity of gold in sight. Evidently these were not profitable times for the bandits. More than once Joan heard them speak of a gold ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... of course did mischief; but Mr Melmotte and his manager were not foolish enough to allow it to actuate them in any way. He had thrown his bread upon the waters, assisting St Fabricius with one hand and the Protestant curates with the other, and must leave the results to take care of themselves. If the Protestants chose ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... accounted tyrannical, and it is considered an abuse of sovereignty and a usurpation of the rights of subjects to seek to prescribe what shall be accepted as true, or rejected as false, or what opinions should actuate men in their worship of God. All these questions fall within a man's natural right, which he cannot abdicate even with his ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... feelings which actuate the directors and shareholders of different railways at these half-yearly gatherings. Doubtless some directors go to the place of meeting with the feelings of men who go to execution, and the shareholders go with the feelings of executioners, if not worse; ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... these decried 'private' motives, which actuate all men—these universal natural instincts, which impel men yet more intensely, by the concentration of the larger sensibility, and the faculty of the nobler nature of their species, to seek their own private good,—even in these forces, which, unenlightened and uncounterbalanced, tend in ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... you practically unlimited power, wherever you may go. It will not enquire into your motives, nor yet your means, so long as these lead to success. But private vengeance or patriotism, whatever may actuate you, we here in France demand you deliver into our hands the man who is known in two countries as the Scarlet Pimpernel! We want him alive if possible, or dead if it must be so, and we want as many of his henchmen as ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a more powerful device than a swinging needle, and better able to actuate a mechanism. It became the foundation of the recording instrument of Samuel Morse, the father of the telegraph in America. The Morse, or, rather, Morse and Vail instrument, actually marks the signals in "dots" and "dashes" on a ribbon of moving paper. Figure 49 represents the Morse instrument, in ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... flush of an August morning about a week after the departure of the hypnotic marvel and his companions, a mutual impulse seemed to actuate Selectman Sproul and Hiram Look at a moment surprisingly simultaneous. They started out their back doors, took the path leading over the hill between their farms, and met under the poplars at a point almost exactly half-way. It would be difficult to state which ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... which seemed to contemplate the same object with regard to the United States. These political maneuvers furnished additional motives for doubting the sincerity of the English cabinet. Whatever views might actuate the court of St. James on this subject, the resolution of the American government to make no ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... superior to her. After a while another thought came upon her with unexpected force. Christa's motive for taking to the religious life was only self-interest; her own motive was the same; and was not that the motive which she really supposed hitherto to actuate all religious people? Had she not, for instance, been fully convinced that self-interest was the sum and substance of Bart Toyner's religion? Now between Bart Toyner and Christa and herself she felt that a great gulf ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... they lived in, descended to the lowest. Yet, as both their excellencies are infinitely more numerous than their deficiencies, so both their characters will devolve to latest posterity, not as models of perfection, yet glorious examples of those amazing powers that actuate the human soul." ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... property are rare in Japan, which is owing to the high-spirited and honourable feelings that actuate all classes of the community; but from the feudal nature of the government, the small value attached to life, and the deadly weapons constantly carried, by the military classes, who are notoriously proud and revengeful, crimes against ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... of our brave ancestors who brought about the Revolution, and may a similar spirit actuate their descendants. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... present. He shows us the slopes of the Grampians alive with the Highland host, some on foot, some in chariots, armed with claymore, dirk, and targe as in later ages. He puts into the mouth of the leader, Galgacus, an eloquent summary of the motives which did really actuate them, and he reports the exhortation to close the fifty years of British warfare with a glorious victory which Agricola, no doubt, actually addressed to his soldiers. He paints for us the wild charge of the clans, the varying fortunes of the conflict (which at one point was so doubtful that ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... and points by the employment of electric and pneumatic auxiliaries. The same is true of organs and organists. The touch of the keys has been greatly lightened by making the keys open air-valves or complete electric circuits which actuate the mechanism for pulling down the pallets. The stops, pedals, and couplers also employ "power." Not only are the performer's muscles spared a lot of heavy work when compressed air and electricity aid him, but he is able ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... which you are assembled, and which in defining your powers designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me to substitute in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... by which he closes his admirable Natural History of Religions: "We may conclude, therefore, that in all nations the first ideas of religion arose not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human mind." A century before him Hobbes had written in his terse way: "The natural seed of religion lies in these four things: the fear of spirits, ignorance of secondary causes, the conciliation of those we fear, and the assumption of accidents for omens."[81-1] ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... wish, and it was to spend his whole life with me; you parted us knowing that he could never love another woman as he loved me, knowing that you were destroying his life, even as you have destroyed mine. Did love for your son actuate ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... usage gave it a permanency which it was not easy to disturb. No definite principles guided the course of its formation, or fixed its present state. It was dominated first and last by circumstances and ideas which philosophy did not actuate. Its history is mainly objective. Uncritical at its commencement, it was equally so in the two centuries which ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... my design, and I Remain a pinch'd thing] [Revisal: The sense, I think, is, He hath now discovered my design, and I am treated as a mere child's baby, a thing pinched out of clouts, a puppet for them to move and actuate as they please.] This sense is possible, but many other meanings might serve ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... correctness of conduct, and is not directly concerned with the processes by which we come to act correctly.[10] On the contrary, merely correct action may be ethically worthless, and conduct obtains its moral value from the motives or intentions which actuate and determine it. Ethics cannot, therefore, ignore the psychological processes of feeling, desiring and willing of the acting subject. It is indeed true that in ordinary life men are frequently judged to be good or bad, ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... first ideas of religion arose, not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human mind ... in order to carry men's attention beyond the present course of things, or lead them into any inference concerning invisible intelligent power, they must be actuated by some passion which prompts their thought and reflection, some motive which urges their first inquiry. ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... was the point where they were always sure to find a ready market for their females, receiving as payment in exchange from the Turks, fire-arms, ammunition and gold. But at last the Russians, assuming a virtue that did not actuate them, stormed and took the fort, ostensibly to put a stop to this trade, as opposed to the principles it involved, but in reality to stop the supplies that enabled the brave mountaineers to ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... sex-mating and which does surround a union that is pure and perfect. In this innate desire to share with the one and only possible mate, the intimate secrets of love, there is nothing of shame or apology—sentiments which alas, actuate the so-called "modest" man or woman ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... are the result merely of education and habit. It seems to be a part of heroism, among the polished nations of it, to sacrifice the virtuous fair one, whenever an opportunity offers, and thence it is concluded that the same principles actuate those of the new world. It is egregiously absurd to judge all of all countries by one. In Spain, Portugal and Italy, jealousy reigns; in France, England, and Holland, suspicion; in the West and East Indies, lust; in New England, superstition. ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... which is self-contradictory, etc. Meanwhile each of us actually is his own other to that extent, livingly knowing how to perform the trick which logic tells us can't be done. My thoughts animate and actuate this very body which you see and hear, and thereby influence your thoughts. The dynamic current somehow does get from me to you, however numerous the intermediary conductors may have to be. Distinctions may be insulators ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... foaming Bass or glistening Hochheimer are used until their edge gives way, to the great contentment of true untutored dandies. The Bond Street man is at one end of the scale, the uncompromising heathen barber at the other; but the same principles actuate both. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... they do not put him much out of his way; it was this sort of liking that Saville had for Godolphin. Besides, there was yet another reason for attachment, which might at first seem too delicate to actuate the refined voluptuary; but examined closely, the delicacy vanished. Saville had loved, at least had offered his hand to—Godolphin's mother (she was supposed an heiress!) He thought he had just missed ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perceived that the ruling motives of my conduct, in my early childhood, towards my parents, were those of love and fear. Indeed these are the two great principles that actuate the holy inhabitants of heaven towards their Maker, whether they be ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... They may either appear in impression to the actual feeling, or only in idea, as at present when I mention them. It is evident the influence of these upon our actions is far from being equal. Impressions always actuate the soul, and that in the highest degree; but it is not every idea which has the same effect. Nature has proceeded with caution in this came, and seems to have carefully avoided the inconveniences of two extremes. Did impressions alone influence the ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... say is, you yet recollect (do you not, Lord Alfred?) enough of my nature, to know That these pledges of what was perhaps long ago A foolish affection, I do not recall From those motives of prudence which actuate all Or most women when their love ceases. Indeed, If you have such a doubt, to dispel it I need But remind you that ten years these letters have rested Unreclaim'd in your hands." A reproach seem'd suggested By these words. To meet it, Lord Alfred look'd up (His gaze had been fix'd on ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... returning it. A lesson like this never can be forgotten. I ground my teeth whilst I was receiving it—I clenched my hands, and looked wildly round for something to destroy. I was in training to become a little tiger. From what I then experienced, I can easily conceive the feelings that actuate, and can half forgive the crowned monsters who have revelled in blood, and relished the inflicting of torture; as pandering to their worst passions in infancy resolves them into a terrible instrument of cruelty, the control of which rests ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... is as essential, at least, as that of the legs, for an expressive attitude: and both receive their justness from the nature of the passions they are meant to express. The passions are the springs which must actuate the machine, while a close observation of nature furnishes the art of giving to those motions the grace of ease and expertness. Any thing that, on the stage especially, has the air of being forced, or improper, cannot fail of having a bad effect. A frivolous, affected ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... impulses of Washington at the age of twenty-two, and such continued to actuate him throughout life. We have put the latter part of the quotation in italics, as applicable to the motives which in after life carried him into ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which actuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to me consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the air and the woods with their melodious notes. Thus doth benignant Heaven lighten the heavy pressure of toilful industry! O Creator! all that I see are the effects of thy power! thou art the soul of nature and doth actuate every part! the stated periods and glittering appearance of yon orbs, and the unquenched fires of the revolving sun, proceed from thy hands, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... motive that can actuate an Authour in the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as the person to whom the following ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... last chance you'll have, for tomorrow the idealizator of van Manderpootz goes into the Bacon head of Isaak there. I shall shift the oscillators so that the psychons, instead of becoming light quanta, emerge as an electron flow—a current which will actuate Isaak's vocal apparatus and come out as speech." He paused musingly. "Van Manderpootz will hear the voice of the ideal. Of course Isaak can return only what psychons he receives from the brain of the operator, but just ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... another year, and to lead us on to assist in the glorious work of extirpating our enemies, towards which so considerable advances have been already made. In you we place the most implicit confidence. Your presence only will cause a steady firmness and vigor to actuate in every breast, despising the greatest dangers, and thinking light of toils and hardships, while led on by the man we know ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... of Australia. The attempt has frequently been made to induce them to assimilate their ways to those of the whites, but, with very rare exceptions, with the same result; nor, when we analyze the feelings that actuate their return to savage life, need we feel surprised. The endearments of home, wretched as that home may be; the ties of kindred; the love of country; the force of early training, and old associations; all imbue the breast of the ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... Governor of Oude, had died from wounds inflicted by a rebel shell many weeks before, and lay buried in the stronghold for whose safe keeping he had continued to provide in the hour and article of death. His spirit, however, seemed yet to actuate the survivors. Havelock's march had been one succession of victories won against enormous odds, and half miraculous; but even he could work no miracle, and his troops might merely have shared a tragic fate with the long-tried defenders of Lucknow, ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... his country had engaged him in several plots to restore that prince, and with him, tyranny and idolatry, poverty and slavery."[35] Upon the odious principle of always seeking out for the lowest and the most selfish motive that can actuate the conduct of men,—a principle which is thought by weak and bad minds to display knowledge of the world, but which, in fact, more often betrays ignorance,—another part of his conduct was misjudged. The reluctance of the Duke of Hamilton, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... become enemies to those who were once most dear. For nature has made no men in the world either friends or opponents to one another, but it is the actions of men in every case which, either by the similarity of the motives which actuate them unite them in alliance, or by the difference set them in hostility to each other, making them friends or enemies as the case may be. That, therefore, we are fighting against men who are outlaws and enemies of the state, you must now be convinced; and now ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... see what Europeans believe; what are the motives which actuate them; what they propose to themselves in disseminating their influence and establishing their dominion; what the real, openly-avowed purposes of the leaders are in the vast scheme which embraces the whole earth; what becomes of foreign races as ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... would have a certain number of teeth or projections on its upper face, and as it was passed through a gap in the circuit the teeth would make or break the current. At the other end of the line the currents thus transmitted would excite the electro-magnet, actuate the pencil, and draw a zig-zag line on the paper, every angle being a distinct signal, and the groups of signals representing a word ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... the place of the roller to find the amount of motion of the rod; a lever actuating a plunger in a vertical line, to find how much a given amount of motion of the long arm will actuate the plunger 226 ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... Schuyler concerning him: his "zeal is unquestionable."[178] Writing to General McDougall, May 23, 1777, Washington says: "I wish every officer in the army could appeal to His own heart and find the same principles of conduct, that I am persuaded actuate you."[179] The same writing to Thomas Jefferson, August 1, 1786, lamented the brave "soldier and disinterested patriot," and exclaimed, "Thus some of the ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... that I have not had more to say of the wonder excited in my mind by the number and character of the great mechanical inventions and applications unknown in my day, which contribute to the material fabric and actuate the mechanism of your civilization. For example, although this was very far from being my first air trip, I do not think that I have before referred to a sort of experience which, to a representative of the last century, must naturally have been nothing less than ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... admitted slavery to be a great evil, unjust and indefensible in principle, and only to be vindicated by the stern necessity which was imposed upon us. Thus stimulated by every motive and passion which ordinarily actuate human beings—not as to a criminal enterprise, but as to something generous and heroic—what has been the result? A few imbecile and uncombined plots—in every instance detected before they broke out into ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... welfare of your people I sincerely believe. It remains for you, beneficiaries of its sacrifices, to adopt a course of action which will manifest your good intentions and show to the world the principles which actuate your proceedings. ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... utmost length of the earth's diameter, they are carried about with more swiftness than those whom nature has placed nearer to the poles; and therefore, as it becomes a wise man to struggle with the inconveniencies of his country, whenever celerity and acuteness are requisite, we must actuate our languor by taking a few turns round the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Douglas on the 4th, and could not but recount the mercies of God in my safe return. They have followed me through many a perilous, and trying scene of life; and I would that a sense of a continual protecting Providence in the mercy of Redemption, may ever actuate me in whatsoever things may tend to the promotion of the happiness, and of the best interests of my fellow men, in the journeyings of my life, through a ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... strikes the mind with generous impressions; this is the pleasure that arises from music. Another kind of bodily pleasure is that which results from an undisturbed and vigorous constitution of body, when life and active spirits seem to actuate every part. This lively health, when entirely free from all mixture of pain, of itself gives an inward pleasure, independent of all external objects of delight; and though this pleasure does not so powerfully affect us, nor ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... development the economic motives that actuate men remain essentially the same. All men seek to get as much net service from material wealth as they can. The more wealth they have, other things remaining the same, the better off they are, and the more personal sacrifice they are compelled to undergo in the ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... asked, what motives can actuate a man who has so little regard for the comfort of his fellow-beings, so little respect for their wants and necessities, and so distorted a notion of the beneficence of his Creator. I reply, an envious, heartless, ill- conditioned dislike to seeing those whom fortune has ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... understand me. Do you suppose for an instant that I am robbing these people here in Newport merely for the vulgar purpose of acquiring money? If you do you have a woful misconception of the purposes which actuate an artist." ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... of bad comrades. Now he heard of worse than these. If that which he now heard was true, there had been dishonour. But Sir Harry was a man who wanted ample evidence before he allowed his judgment to actuate his conduct, and in this case the evidence was far from ample. He did not stint his hospitality to the future baronet, but he failed to repeat that promise of a future welcome which had already been given, and which had been thankfully accepted. But a man knows that such ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... then, the poseuse that they said? Had she really no hear in our love? Was it only a pretty drama she was playing, and were those generous motives, those lofty principles which seemed to actuate her, the poetical qualities of the play, the graces of her pose? I cannot believe it. I believe that she was truly what she seemed, for she had been that even before she met me. I believe that she was pure and lofty in soul as she appeared; but that her life was warped to such ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... openwork tube a group of nine forces held the field of force rigidly in place in its axis; at the lower extremity were mounted seats for two operators and the control panels necessary for the operation of the intricate system of forces and motors which would actuate and control that gigantic projector. Immense hour and declination circles could be read by optical systems from the operators' seats—circles fully forty feet in diameter, graduated with incredible delicacy and accuracy into decimal fractions of seconds ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... say what may actuate my Lady, but if Amyas Belamour be the man I knew, and as the child's own letters paint him, he is not like to lend himself to any ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for the rheostats, W W', their object is to correct variations in the selenium's resistance and to balance the resistances of the two corresponding circuits. The magnet, A, will be combined with a registering apparatus so as to directly or indirectly actuate the printing lever. The entire first part of this apparatus, which is very sensitive, may be easily protected from all external influence by placing it in a box, and, if need be, in a room distant from the one ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... from Lord Clarendon, which I did yesterday morning, and which I now return to you. It is admirably written, and does dear Mary the greatest credit; she puts it on the right ground, viz. that of the Protestant feeling which should always actuate our family, and to this we now must keep. It effectually closes, however, the door to all Catholic proposals—whether from Kings or ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Or perhaps in Pastoral most; since the Coolness and Sedateness of Pastoral is very apt to sate and tire the Reader, if he dwell's long on one Action; and we can bear a longer Description of a Battle than of two Shepherd's sitting together; because the first fill's and actuate's the Mind the most; and where it is so much employ'd, it cannot so easily ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... differentes, et independens les uns des autres." Bossu du Poem. Epiq. Liv. II. ch. 2. It is true indeed, that Tragedy is rather an address to the passions than to the imagination of mankind. To the latter however we must refer all those finer strokes of poetic painting, which actuate so forcibly the affections and the heart. We may, in short, easily conceive the importance of a warm imagination to the Dramatic Poet, by reflecting upon the coldness and indifference with which we peruse those pieces, which are not enlivened ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... character, which in some degree defeats the effect. Medea talks too much: her human feelings and superhuman power are not sufficiently blended. Taking into consideration the different impulses which actuate Medea and Lady Macbeth, as love, jealousy, and revenge on the one side, and ambition on the other, we expect to find more of female nature in the first than in the last: and yet the contrary is the fact: at least, my own impression as far as a woman may judge of ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... was delighted with the closeness of the reasoning. To do him justice, it was not a selfish triumph that he desired; he would personally lose nothing by defeat, or at least what he might lose did not actuate him; but neither was it love of justice which made him so anxious, nor even mainly solicitude for his father-in-law. He was fighting a part of a never-ending battle against a never-conquered foe—that of the church against ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... magisterial gravity, as if he had been handling some profound point of divinity. He made a learned distinction of the several sorts of appetites; of that a man has before he begins to eat, and of those after the second and third service; the means simply to satisfy the first, and then to raise and actuate the other two; the ordering of the sauces, first in general, and then proceeded to the qualities of the ingredients and their effects; the differences of salads according to their seasons, those which ought to be served ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... philosophy and by religion. We feel, according to the ardent expression of the poet, that we shall not wholly die; but from hence we vainly and weakly argue, that the same scenes, the same passions, shall delight and actuate the disembodied spirit, which affected it while in its tenement of clay. Hence the popular belief, that the soul haunts the spot where the murdered body is interred; that its appearances are directed to bring down vengeance on its murderers; or that, having left its terrestrial ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... The battery used in operating the main line. It is usually applied to telegraphy. Its function is then to supply current for working relays, which in turn actuate the ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone |
