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Attainable   Listen
adjective
Attainable  adj.  
1.
Capable of being attained or reached by efforts of the mind or body; capable of being compassed or accomplished by efforts directed to the object. "The highest pitch of perfection attainable in this life."
2.
Obtainable. (Obs.) "General Howe would not permit the purchase of those articles (clothes and blankets) in Philadelphia, and they were not attainable in the country."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Attainable" Quotes from Famous Books



... are even more numerous than the private gardens, land not always having been attainable. Of course these buildings vary in size and magnificence, according to the rank and fortune of those who caused them to be constructed, but the very smallest are usually of greater dimensions than our largest town-houses, and infinitely better disposed; though we have a finish ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... are, here and there, in the Academy pictures, passages in which Turner has translated the unattainable intensity of one tone of color, into the attainable pitch of a higher one: the golden green for instance, of intense sunshine on verdure, into pure yellow, because he knows it to be impossible, with any mixture of blue whatsoever, to give faithfully its relative intensity of light, and Turner always will have his light and shade right, whatever it ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... to publish a manual on the Art of Carving. Instruction in this art cannot be given at a lecture with any profit to my pupils or satisfaction to myself. One cannot learn by simply seeing a person carve a few times. As much as any other art, it requires study; and success is not attainable without much practice. There are certain rules which should be thoroughly understood; if followed faithfully in daily practice, they will help more than ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln

... disappears so, in the other world, the celestials with Indra as their chief, forsake him who hath lost his righteousness.' Ashtaka said, 'I am extremely anxious to know how in the other world men can lose virtue. Tell me also, O king, what regions are attainable by what courses of action. Thou art acquainted, I know, with the acts and sayings ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... of consequence; he must be a man of ton; or he was an atom, a nonentity, a very worm, and no man. No lawyer at Gray's Inn, no galley slave at the oar, ever worked so hard at his task as Sir Lionel Garrett at his. Ton, to a single man, is a thing attainable enough. Sir Lionel was just gaining the envied distinction, when he saw, courted, and ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... homes of England, and we, who are the representatives and guardians of those homes, when the grand question of war is before us, should know at least that we have a case—that success is probable—and that an object is attainable, which may be commensurate with the cost ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.' This is the leading thought in the Timaeus, just as the IDEA of Good is the leading thought of the Republic, the one expression describing the personal, the other the impersonal Good or God, differing in form rather than in substance, ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... schedule all the existing presentation or annotated copies of books in our own and other literatures, but we shall here make an effort to offer a general view of what is intended, and what may in some instances become attainable ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... on the walk. When he has acquired the necessary information respecting dealing, he can commence letter-writing for shares. This is effected at the expense of a penny only for postage, pen and ink being always attainable, either in the tavern-parlour or coffee-house he frequents. When a new company comes out, and is advertised, he immediately calls for a form of application, fills it up, and dispatches it, with the moderate request to be allotted one hundred or two hundred ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... good work there ever since. Mr. Chalmers was a very valuable missionary, and his labours among the Quop and Merdang Dyaks bore much fruit in after years; but he also fell ill from the climate, and the food which was attainable up country. In 1860, he also made up his mind to follow Mr. Glover to Australia. There are no doubt many difficulties for Englishmen living in Sarawak jungles. Some become acclimatized to them, others cannot bear the low diet, the loneliness, the apathy and indifference of ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... attendance of the policeman ceased at length to give us much annoyance. But I saw everything through an unpleasant medium, and heartily wished myself out of a region where the government of pure force seems the only one attainable. At the end of a fortnight, we received back our papers, with many apologies for their detention, and for the scrutiny to which we had been exposed; which, however, it too truly appeared, had been brought upon us by that ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... to recognise the obvious inequalities of intelligence and morality, and thereby reduces the teaching of the highly developed to the level attainable by the least evolved, sacrificing the higher to the lower in a way that injures both—had no place in the virile common sense of the early Christians. S. Clement of Alexandria says quite bluntly, after alluding to the Mysteries: "Even now I fear, as it is said, 'to cast ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... life all things are attainable—nothing need we lose for want of trying. For whence does everything come? From the plainest of mankind. A man may not be BORN in the rank of a general, but at least he may attain to that position. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... craft whereon I abode hauling out into the entrance basin, and anchoring there in the swells of the fairway; and forthwith she and her consorts took in wood and water, cured meat and fish ashore, and refitted in all needful ways, with all speed attainable. ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... looked into, and its different bearings examined. No one can assert that, if this intended mode of approach be not effected, anything will be taken away that is actually possessed. The wrong, if any, must lie in the unwarrantable obstruction of an attainable benefit. First, then, let us consider the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... eloquent through illustration. Let us look discursively about the city of New York at various periods of her career since the opening of the present century. I shall assume that a map of the city is everywhere attainable, and that the reader has a general acquaintance with the physical and political ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... relation to the motions of planets, satellites, or other solar bodies? On the present conception of the Aether such a result is an absolute impossibility. With the theory of the Aether, however, to be submitted to the reader in this work, the result is possible and attainable. If, therefore, such a result is philosophically proved, as I submit will be done, then we shall have greater evidence still that the theory so propounded is a more perfect theory than the one at ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... are born to the throne; no one, not of the reigning family, can ever occupy it, and no one even of that family can, by any means but the course of hereditary succession, attain it. All other dignities and social advantages are open to the whole male sex: many indeed are only attainable by wealth, but wealth may be striven for by any one, and is actually obtained by many men of the very humblest origin. The difficulties, to the majority, are indeed insuperable without the aid of fortunate accidents; but no male human being is under any legal ban: neither law ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... admit that this cannot be accomplished by roaming at large over the whole visible superficies, but only by confining attention to selected areas of limited extent, and recording and describing every object visible thereon, under various conditions of illumination, with the greatest accuracy attainable. This plan was suggested and inaugurated nearly thirty years ago by Mr. Birt, under the patronage of the British Association; but as he proposed to deal with the entire disc in this way, the magnitude and ambitious character of the scheme soon damped the ardour of those who at first supported ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger

... speech is hushed. Compared with current Continental humor, our characteristic American humor is peculiarly reverent. The purity of woman and the reality of religion are not considered topics for jocosity. Cleanness of body and of mind are held by our young men to be not only desirable but attainable virtues. There is among us, in comparison with France or Germany, a defective reverence for the State as such; and a positive irreverence towards the laws of the Commonwealth, and towards the occupants of high political positions. Mayor, Judge, Governor, Senator, or even President, ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... accuse the protectionists in Congress of being absolutely and always Sisyphists. Very certainly they are not such in their personal transactions; very certainly each of them will procure for himself by barter, what by direct production would be attainable only at a higher price. But I maintain that they are Sisyphists when they prevent the country from acting upon the ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... is mixed with other essential oils it greatly adds to their richness, and gives a sweetness to spice oils attainable by no other means, and such compounds are much used in the most highly scented soaps. Mixed with rectified spirit in the proportions of about four ounces of bergamot to a gallon, it forms what is called "extract of bergamot," and in this state is used for the handkerchief. ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... authorities that neither similarity of mineral composition, nor of physical character, nor even direct continuity of stratum, are 'absolute' proofs of the synchronism of even approximated sedimentary strata: while, for distant deposits, there seems to be no kind of physical evidence attainable of a nature competent to decide whether such deposits were formed simultaneously, or whether they possess any given difference of antiquity. To return to an example already given: All competent authorities will probably assent to the proposition that physical ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley

... well-connected Irish family, born in Ireland, in or near Coleraine, we believe, and a major in the Enniskillen Dragoons,) sought a residence for her family in Edinburgh, where education and good society are attainable to persons of moderate fortunes, if they are "well-born;" but the extraordinary artistic skill of her son Robert required a wider field, and she brought her children to London sooner than she had intended, that his promising talents might be cultivated. We ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various

... pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.'—Johnson continued. 'Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labour[1170]; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... innate worthlessness of which he must early have recognised—success of any high description would be simply impossible. But this did not absolve him from attempting the only noble means by which success could, under any circumstances, be attainable. Let us, however, remember that his concessions to his pupil were mainly in matters which he regarded as indifferent—or, at the worst, as discreditable—rather than as criminal; and that his mistake probably arose ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... Arabic authors. In philosophy, as in medicine, he had studied the teachings of the various schools of thought, and did not bind himself to any sect in particular. He disagreed with the Sceptics in their belief that no such thing as certainty was attainable, and it was his custom in cases of extreme difficulty to suspend his judgment; for instance, in reference to the nature of the soul, he wrote that he had not been able to come ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... allowed three weeks' time in which to procure his witnesses; but the Commissioner ruled that the proceeding was a summary ex-parte one, and that the defendant had no right to any testimony. Of course we were forced into trial, and after allowing secondary proof where the highest was attainable, and permitting hearsay evidence and mere rumor, the Commissioner granted his certificate for the removal of the adjudged fugitive. We again brought the case before Judge Wallace, on habeas corpus, ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... bitter insult; where the heavy toil, denounced on man for his transgression, in the same sentence as death, is in vain implored as the greatest privilege; or thought of in despair, as a blessing too great to be attainable; and when the reply of the artisan to an unwitting admonition, that even amidst his work he might have some freedom for useful thinking, may be, "Thinking! I have no work to confine my thinking; I may, for that, employ it all on ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... well it may work. It's the old story of the automobile "bug" over again. The man who starts in with a modest $1,000 automobile invariably progresses by easy stages to the $4,000 or $5,000 class. The natural tendency is to want the biggest and best attainable within the financial reach ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... it: "In vain will you remind him that the perfect, the absolute, are rarely attainable in this world; that, even to the sublimest will, no more is possible than an approach to perfection.... His glorious unwisdom makes it impossible to ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... for trade what dominance is in politics. It prevents that solution for many of the delicate problems of international life which cooperation through trade might otherwise afford. Exchange of goods and services by voluntary trade accomplishes what once seemed attainable only by conquest or slavery. If Germany or Japan or Italy needs iron or coal; if England needs wheat, or if the United States sugar, it is possible, or should be possible, to obtain these without owning the country in which are the mines, grain, and sugar cane. The United States needs Canada's ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts

... also the mood of rest. Better than the calm of achieved indifference (if that, indeed, is possible to man); better than the ecstasy which contemns the travail of earth in contemplation of bliss to come. But, by no effort attainable. An influence of the unknown powers; a peace that falleth upon the soul ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... whereof (as it has perhaps too often happened) we have not any notions at all. If we can find out how far the understanding can extend its view; how far it has faculties to attain certainty; and in what cases it can only judge and guess, we may learn to content ourselves with what is attainable by ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... yet another style of crossing which when practicable, may, it is believed, be made a means to the highest degree of improvement attainable, and especially in the breeding of horses. The word "breed" is often used with varying signification. In order to be understood, let me premise that I use it here simply to designate a class of animals possessing a good degree of uniformity growing out of the ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... this we can raise a structure of classification. We recognise such generalities as pleasure, pain, love, anger, through the property of mental or intellectual discrimination that accompanies in our mind the fact of emotion. A certain degree of precision is attainable by this mode of mental comparison and analysis; the farther we can carry such precision the better; but that is no reason why it should stand alone to the neglect of the corporeal embodiments through which one mind reveals itself to others. The companionship of inward feeling with bodily ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... a novelist are not easily attainable. To combine incident, character, and romance in a uniform whole, to alternate telling dramatic situation with effects of poetry and suggestion, to breathe into the entire conception a profound wisdom, construct it with absolute unity, and ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh

... colours of architecture are those of natural stone, and I would fain see them taken advantage of to the full. Every variety is here, from pale yellow to purple passing through orange, red and brown, entirely at your command; nearly every kind of green and grey also is attainable, and with these and with pure white what harmony might you not achieve. Of stained and variegated stone the quantity is unlimited, the kinds innumerable. Were brighter colours required, let glass, and gold protected ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... degrees of exhaustion, for the purpose of enabling the experimenter to produce a definite exhaustion with facility; also if its maximum rate is known and the minimum rate of leakage, it becomes possible to calculate the highest vacuum attainable with the instrument. Examples are given in the tables below; the total capacity was about ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... Supreme Being, and from the metaphysical account of evil, rests on too narrow a base either to cover the facts, or to be a true solace to any man who thinks and observes. He ought to have gone on, if it had only been possible in those times, to persuade his readers that there is no solace attainable, except that of an energetic fortitude, and that we do best to go into life not in a softly lined silken robe, but with a sharp sword and armour thrice tempered. As between himself and Rousseau, he saw much the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... review not only the old, but add the new record of the historical progress of women to date, to learn not only the various achievements now being accomplished by the women of the world in all phases of life at the present time, but ascertain the objective height now sought or thought to be attainable for ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... same returning phenomena, engage in the same worn out exercises, or lounge idly in the unchangeable conditions which bear no stimulant which they have not exhausted. Thousands of years pass. They have drunk every attainable spring of knowledge dry. Not a prize stirs a pulse. All pleasures, permutated till ingenuity is baffled, disgust them. No terror startles them. No possible experiment remains untried; nor is there any unsounded fortune left. No dim marvels and ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... and not at another, which of them is it? And there were no mask if there ought not to be a face. Neither is politeness at all inconsistent with thorough familiarity. I will go farther and say, that no true, or certainly no profound familiarity is attainable without it. The soul will not come forth to be roughly used. And where truth reigns familiarity only makes the manners strike deeper root in the being, and take a larger ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... invite to self-surrender and seclusion. The softest music breathes from a full orchestra. Gold is everywhere, in slugs, doubloons, and heaps of nuggets. Gold reigns here. Silver is a meaner metal hardly attainable. Bank notes are a flimsy possibility of the future. Piles of yellow sovereigns and the coinage of every land load the tables. Sallow, glittering-eyed croupiers sweep in, with affected nonchalance, this easy-gained ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... Tennessee in which his father had been known, and where he himself had passed some very pleasant years of his own life. With economy, a moderate talent, and habits of industry, he was well aware that, in those regions, the means of life are with little difficulty attainable by those who are worthy and will adventure. Let us now return to the wayfarer, whom we have left in that wildest region of the then little-settled state of Georgia—doubly wild as forming the debatable land between the savage and the civilized—partaking of the ferocity of the one ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... Hosanna and the Psalm. So the Hebrew and the Greek would have carried all humanity forward and upward. But, alas! the government of the world presumes war as an eternal condition; wherefore, over Mind and above God, the Roman has enthroned his Caesar, the absorbent of all attainable power, the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... human mind to think of their immediate emancipation, a measure which at the present moment would be injurious both to them and to the colonies. He and those who acted with him were satisfied with having gained an object which was safely attainable." ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... rooms at Abbie's boarding-house; one contained his bed and the other was fitted up as his study. They were on the second floor of the house, and attainable through two turns in the lower entry, a winding flight of narrow stairs, and an uncertain, darkly erratic ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... after careful inquiry appears in present circumstances and considering all the objects desired to be the best attainable, develops such a difference in the estimation of investors between bonds made payable in coin and those specifically made payable in gold in favor of the latter as is represented by three-fourths of a cent in annual interest. In the agreement just concluded the annual saving ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... secure Protestants, who, abusing the description of old given of faith, say that it implies an assured knowledge in the person who believes of the love of God in Christ to him in particular: this assurance is no doubt attainable, and many believers do comfortably enjoy the same, as our divines prove unanswerably against the Popish doctors who maintain the necessity of perpetual doubting, and miscall comfortable assurance the Protestant's presumption. But notwithstanding that comfortable ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... direction; for she had undertaken, under some singular impulse of mistaken enthusiasm, to make what she called "an honest woman" of the celebrated dancer, Fanny Ellsler, and to introduce her into London society,—neither of them very attainable results, even for as valiant and enterprising a person as Mrs. Grote. When first I heard of this strange undertaking I was, in common with most of her friends, much surprised at it; nor was it until some years after the entire failure of this quixotic experiment, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... of the American Proudhonians finds, however, but little sympathy amongst the working masses. Those who profess it—they are chiefly "intellectuals''—soon realize that the individualization they so highly praise is not attainable by individual efforts, and either abandon the ranks of the Anarchists, and are driven into the Liberal individualism of the classical economists, or they retire into a sort of Epicurean a-moralism, or super-man-theory, similar to that ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... afterwards, turn as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole business, is the fact (for repeated experiment has convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening in question is visible from no other attainable point of view than that afforded by the narrow ledge on the ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... always the case; and even in human affairs in general, the need of acting is seldom so urgent that a false belief to act on is better than no belief at all. Law courts, indeed, have to decide on the best evidence attainable for the moment, because a judge's duty is to make law as well as to ascertain it, and (as a learned judge once said to me) few cases are worth spending much time over: the great thing is to have them decided on any acceptable principle, and got out of the way. But in our dealings with objective ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... eugenic effect is not without a dysgenic after-effect. The very fact that recognition is attainable by all, means that democracy leads to social ambition; and social ambition leads to smaller families. This influence is manifested mainly in the women, whose desire to climb the social ladder is increased by ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... attainable?"—queried Villiers. "Men, and specially poets, often hanker after what is not ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... with the religion and literature of India appeared to be attainable through no other medium than a knowledge of the Sanscrit; and he therefore applied himself without delay to the acquisition of that language. It was not long before he found that his health would oblige him to some restriction in the intended ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... he knew others would if they found him out—was moving smoothly. Still very, very deep down his self-confidence was underlaid with quicksand. But Herron was adroit and convincing to the degree attainable only by those who deceive themselves before trying to deceive others; and James' cupidity and conceit were enormous. He ended by persuading himself that his house, directed and protected by his invincible self, could carry with ease the burden of both loads. Indeed, the Great Lakes ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... the histological scheme of Gerlach, according to which the mass of the white substance of the brain is a mesh-work of intercellular fibrils, a proximal idea seemed attainable of the way in which the ganglionic activities are correlated, and, through association, built up, so to speak, into the higher mental processes. Such a conception accorded beautifully with the ideas of the associationists, who had now become dominant in psychology. But one standing puzzle ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... not required of him, that he should have the names of even the seventy families of plants at his finger-ends, though that is not beyond the reach of most people. Some summation of the facts, some adroit generalisation, if such be attainable, is enough for him. The man of science is, as it were, a workman employed in rearing up a structure for the man of the world to look at or live in. The latter has no more necessary concern with the processes of investigation and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various

... pursuers stand at gaze, knowing neither where the ways of escape wind among the steeps, nor where the bog has firmness to sustain them: besides that, mountaineers have an agility in climbing and descending distinct from strength or courage, and attainable only by use. ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... made the days pass so swiftly. The daily drives in the low, comfortable carriage soon began to tell favorably on her health, and she did not find it at all hard to enter into the amusements planned for her benefit; but among all the pleasures that were attainable, one alone stood out above all others, one that neither Elsie nor Dexie ever cared to miss, ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... inconvenience than advantage to a man's self, and often with extreme misery and unhappiness? Whence, then, I say, is all this absurdity and contradiction? Is it really the result of consideration in mankind, how they may become most easy to themselves, most free from care, and enjoy the chief happiness attainable in this world? Or is it not manifestly owing either to this, that they have not cool and reasonable concern enough for themselves to consider wherein their chief happiness in the present life consists; or else, if ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... child said this she threw her little arms round her father, and kissed his large, weather-beaten visage all over—eyes, mouth, nose, chin, whiskers, and, in fact, every attainable spot. She did it so vigorously, too, that an observer would have been justified in expecting that her soft, delicate cheeks would be lacerated by the rough contact; but they were not. The result was a heightening of the colour, nothing more. Having concluded this operation, ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... remains, as among the Athenians whose altar St. Paul found (Acts xvii. 23), an "Unknown God," or rather unknown power, probably associated with the heavens above, whose interference may produce results not attainable through inferior spiritual agencies. One of the difficulties in reaching any knowledge of the real belief of the people is that they are usually examined by leading questions, and are apt to reply affirmatively to whatever the querist puts to them. Their thoughts on these dark subjects are ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... thoughts as 'here we are riding, she and I'. 'Fail I alone in words and deeds? Why, all men strive, and who succeeds?' Careers, even careers called 'successful', pass in review—statesmen, poets, sculptors, musicians—each fails in his ideal, for ideals are not attainable in this life of incompletions. But faith gains something for a man. He has loved this woman. That is something gained. If this life gave all, what were there to look forward to? 'Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.' Again,—and this ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... greys, was eminently unromantic. He had a steely colourlessness, and a steely pliability, and a steely strength. Endowed beyond most men with the capacity of foresight, he was endowed as very few men have ever been with that staying-power which makes the fruit of foresight attainable. His views were long, and his patience was even longer. He progressed imperceptibly; he constantly withdrew; the art of giving way he practised with the refinement of a virtuoso. But, though the steel recoiled ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... in slightly different terms, I believe that the conflict will greatly further the development of what perhaps may be called 'public socialism,' and I mean by that the highest attainable organization of whole peoples for the production of commodities, the furtherance of enterprise, and the promotion of ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... the name of the informant, in order that those who use the collection may know exactly what it is that they are handling. In all such matters, absolute accuracy, absolute literalness, wherever attainable, is surely the one thing necessary. Not all the charm of diction, not all the ingenious theories in the world, can for a moment be set in the balance against rigid exactness, even if some of the concomitants of rigid ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain

... cases the flowers are formed parallel to the surface of freezing. They are formed when the sun shines upon the ice of every lake; sometimes in myriads, and so small as to require a magnifying glass to see them. They are always attainable, but their beauty is often marred by internal defects of the ice. Every one portion of the same piece of ice may show them exquisitely, while a second ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... or mischievous existence in sighings and tremblings, spectral fears, uncharitable feelings and bitter denunciations! Such are thy doings, oh! religion! Or, rather, such are thy doings, oh! man! While standing in a world so rich in sources of enjoyment, so stored with objects of real inquiry and attainable knowledge, yet shutting thine eyes, and, worse, thine heart, to the tangible things and sentient creatures around thee, and winging thy diseased imagination beyond the light of the sun which gladdens thy world, and contemplation of the objects which are here to expand thy mind and quicken the pulses ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... the project of a partition may at first blind the eyes of the confederacy, or however each of them may hope to outwit the other in the progress or in the end, the embarrassments that will arise are insurmountable. But even were the object attainable, it would not be of such general advantage to the parties as the neutrality of France, which costs them nothing, and to obtain which they would formerly have ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... never admit that healthy human life into the discussion at all, except suddenly and accidentally at odd moments; and then they only ask whether that healthy human life is suited to our streets and trades. Perfection may be attainable or unattainable as an end. It may or may not be possible to talk of imperfection as a means to perfection. But surely it passes toleration to talk of perfection as a means to imperfection. The New Jerusalem ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... imitation, not forsaking the Godlike movement through its own unmanliness, but unflinchingly looking to the super-essential and powerful-making power, and becoming a powerlike image of this, as far as is attainable....The appellation of the Holy Authorities... denotes the beautiful and unconfused good order, with regard to Divine receptions, and the discipline of the super-mundane and intellectual authority... conducted ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

... acts of prowess, stirred up Patroclus and nine others to single combat with Hector. For the exhortation that adds deed to word and example and proper emulation is animating and moving and stimulating, and with its impulse and resolution inspires hope that the things we aim at are attainable and not impossible. That is why in the choruses at Lacedaemon the ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... every apple on the tree the moment the owner's back was turned. When Gray said "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," he forgot that it is godlike to be wise; and since nobody wants bliss particularly, or could stand more than a very brief taste of it if it were attainable, and since everybody, by the deepest law of the Life Force, desires to be godlike, it is stupid, and indeed blasphemous and despairing, to hope that the thirst for knowledge will either diminish or consent to be subordinated to any other ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... letter must be sent to Rome, backed by strong interest, so as to make it appear that the ceremony at Montpipeau, irregular, and between a Huguenot and Catholic, had been a defiance of the Papal decree, and must therefore be nullified. This would probably be attainable, though he did not feel absolutely secure of it. Pending this, Eustacie must be secluded in a convent; and, while still believing herself a widow, must immediately on the arrival of the decree and dispensation, be forced into the marriage with Narcisse before she heard of Berenger's ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of Mr. Fox's continued illness two negotiators, one of whom, Lord Holland, was a near relative of his, were appointed to confer with the American envoys, and to frame an agreement, if attainable. The first formal meeting was on August 27, the second on September 1.[159] As the satisfactory arrangement of the impressment difficulty was a sine qua non to the ratification of any treaty, and to the repeal of the Non-Importation Act, this American requirement was necessarily ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... concentrated thought in steadily following out a preconceived plan cannot fail to be a tremendous contrast to the smallness and pettiness of the majority—a contrast so great that it is mentally and spiritually a glimpse of the world of new possibilities attainable when once the feverish clinging to the ideals of the totem post is abandoned. This vast nave, reminiscent in many ways of Winchester, but far more satisfying, is generally bathed in a cool, greenish light, and is, in reality, a magnificent ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home

... Bluebell's modicum of sherry had to be tossed off at once in a tumbler, for the glasses were dancing a hornpipe on the table, plates required a restraining hand, and their contents to be conveyed to the mouth with as much accuracy of aim as was attainable. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... should depend on them? The natural desire of consideration from our fellow creatures is as strong in a woman as in a man; but society has so ordered things that public consideration is, in all ordinary cases, only attainable by her through the consideration of her husband or of her male relations, while her private consideration is forfeited by making herself individually prominent, or appearing in any other character than that of an appendage to men. Whoever is ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... and are about to receive, the highest honors attainable by young men in our country. You have won these honors by hard work and patient endurance, and you are thus prepared to prize them highly. Unless thus fairly won, honors, like ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... circulation, advocates with great emphasis the theory that parties contemplating marriage should in all cases select for partners individuals as nearly like themselves as possible. Exact duplicates would, in his opinion, make the most perfect union attainable. To make his theory practicable, he is obliged to fall back upon phrenology; and directs that a man seeking a wife, or a woman seeking a husband, should obtain a phrenological chart of his head and then ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... harmonic and melodic resources which have that variety and freedom of interaction which can be organized into true works of art and can give the ancient mechanical devices themselves a genuine artistic character attainable by no other means. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... whose prosperity is derived from operations based upon a state of insecurity. Powerful as these interests are, there is no reason why they should be permitted to stand in the way of the realization of a better condition of affairs, should that prove attainable. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... Conwell to place the opportunity of education before every one, that even his servants must go to school! He is not one of those who can see needs that are far away but not those that are right at home. His belief in education, and in the highest attainable education, is profound, and it is not only on account of the abstract pleasure and value of education, but its power of increasing actual earning power and thus making a worker of more value to both himself and ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... find a pleasanter traveling party one that shook off more readily the artificial restraints of Puritanic strictness, and took the world with good-natured allowance. Money was plenty for every attainable luxury, and there seemed to be no doubt that its supply would continue, and that fortunes were about to be made without a great deal of toil. Even Philip soon caught the prevailing spirit; Barry did not need any inoculation, he always talked in six figures. It was as ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... employ none but select workmen, in each respective line of work; to procure such select workmen and retain them by offering wages slightly over the ordinary standard; to work them at the highest pace and pressure attainable with such a picked body; and to discharge them on the first appearance of aging or of failing powers. In the rules of the management was also included the negative proviso that the concern assumed no responsibility for the subsequent fortunes of discharged workmen, in ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... same restrictions which appeared to us to be unnecessary. They, on their part, could not help admitting that the dash and "devil-may-care" spirit shown by our men often accomplished results not otherwise attainable but from the emulation of which they were barred by "traditions." The discipline of the one and the discipline of the other are based on two entirely different modes of life; the former carefully trained to rely on and obey implicitly the orders of any superior officer, while ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... wisdom and courage to say to herself, and to them all, "This can not be;" to put aside the cup of attainable happiness, which might never have proved real happiness, because ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... its limitations, and resolved to make an orchestra of a feeble key-board. But Thalberg instinctively apprehended the character of the instrument, and respected its limitations as well as its powers, and knew that its utmost resource was attainable by skilled motion rather than by brute force. Therefore he played with his hands, and not with his knees and his body. But the force of his fingers was magical, and the volume of sound that followed was as great as ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... tortured to death, he went on with a few companions towards the forum, crying out to all who wished the preservation of the state, to follow him as the vindicator and author of their liberty. He could prevail on none to join him; for they saw no prospect of any attainable advantage, and much less any sufficiently powerful support. While he exclaimed in this manner, the Lacedaemonians surrounded him and his party, and put them to death. Many others were afterwards seized, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... sumptuousness of the furniture; the "atmosphere" in which the fortunate owner of landed estates (a rich man before he was born) lives and moves easily and without friction; the habit of mind which never descends to calculate the petty workaday gains of existence; the leisure; the higher education attainable at a much earlier age; and lastly, the aristocratic tradition that makes of him a social force, for which his opponents, by dint of study and a strong will and tenacity of vocation, are scarcely a match-all these things should contribute to form a lofty spirit in a man, possessed of such ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... self-governing city, the aim was to make the economic boundaries coincide as nearly as possible with the political boundaries. Except for the trade in a few articles of comparative luxury this aim was at that time nearly attainable. The peasantry surrounding a fortified town and enjoying its protection were compelled to trade there. Down to our own time it has seemed to statesmen expedient to forbid or discourage trade that might nourish the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... with a branch that doubles the attainable height. The bustling crowd hastily scrambles up it, reaches the tip of the topmost twigs and thence sends out threads that attach themselves to every surrounding object. These form so many suspension-bridges; and my beasties nimbly run along ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... was only Mr. Strafford's decided opinion that to do so would be hurtful to Lucia and useless to Christian, which withheld her. Clearly the one thing which he, unused to any restraint, needed and longed for, was liberty; and even that, if it were attainable, he seemed already too weak to enjoy. His ideas and powers of recollection were growing still weaker with every week of imprisonment, but nothing could be done—nothing but wait, with dreary patience, for the time ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... forth and turn into Crooked lane, where the entrance was. It gave him a sense that she had her part in this squalor, which was not altogether distressful in that it also localised her in the warm, living, habitable world, and helped to make her thinkable and attainable. Then he went to his room at the club and found there a note from Miss Howe, written apparently to forgive him in advance, to say that she had not expected him. "Friendly creature!" he said as he turned out the lamp, and smiled in ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... teach us, while in the flesh, not to attempt to break through present limitations, not to seek to know more than has been made known of the unseen and invisible, but to keep the inquiries of our minds and the action of society within the bounds of knowledge now attainable, and extend our curious researches and speculations only as far as we can here have solid ground ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... expose its corruptions; reform the ministry; expose its errors; go back to the simplicity of Christ; return to the order of the ancient Church; pay no regard to prevailing sentiments, or to established customs; begin anew. Resolve on perfection; it is attainable; be content with nothing less. Assert your rights. Be true. Prove all things; hold fast to what is good, but cast away whatever you find to be evil. Call no one master but Christ; and what Christ requires, ask no one but yourself. Be true to your own ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... believe in obedience, but have little faith in a higher life as attainable here. Hence a Unitarian congregation usually consists of intelligent, virtuous, well-meaning people, but destitute of enthusiasm, and with little confidence in the new birth ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... suggestion of every passion; whose apprehensions for Emily had acquired strength by the mere mention of them, and became every instant more powerful, as his mind brooded over them—with Valancourt no second conquest was attainable. He thought he saw in the clearest light, and love assisted the fear, that this journey to Italy would involve Emily in misery; he determined, therefore, to persevere in opposing it, and in conjuring her to bestow upon him the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... perfectly at home. Caste runs from the peerage all down the social scale. The bulk of the land has been engrossed by wealthy families, and the comfort and dignity of freehold proprietorship are rarely attainable by any but the rich. Everything down to the railway carriages, is regulated by aristocracy; street cars cannot run because they would interfere with carriages, a city cannot be drained because a park is in the way. The labourer has to bear a heavy load of taxation, laid on by the class ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... still is a little independent Principality; about the size of Huntingdonshire, but with woods instead of bogs;—revenue of it, at this day, is 60,000 pounds, was perhaps not 20, or even 10,000 in Leopold's first time. It lies some fourscore miles southwest of Berlin, attainable by post-horses in a day. Leopold, as his Father had done, stood by Prussia as if wholly native to it. Leopold's Mother was Sister of that fine Louisa, the Great Elector's first Wife; his Sister is wedded to the Margraf of Schwedt, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... having named Publius Cornelius dictator, he himself being appointed by him as master of the horse, served as an instance to those who considered his case and that of his colleagues, how much more attainable public favour and honour sometimes were to those who evinced no desire for them. The war was in no respect a memorable one. The enemy were beaten at Antium in one, and that an easy battle; the victorious army laid waste the Volscian territory; ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... rivals, or others. It may be possible that the instances above referred to were cases in which the dose was not sufficient to kill the victim, but was enough to disable him temporarily. Strychnia is the only substance attainable by them that could produce such symptoms, and then only when given in an exceedingly small dose. It is also alleged by almost every one acquainted with the Ojibwa that they do possess poisons, and that they employ them when occasion demands ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... to France, and that country alone supplied all the rest of the world with the limited quantities which the high cost permitted to be consumed. An embroidered collar, thirty-five years ago, was an article of luxury only attainable by the rich, while the far greater part either dispensed with it altogether, or contented themselves with one of plain muslin or cheap net. Soon after that period, the rudiments of the manufacture began to be established at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various

... Vladivostock squadron to book, and which his later success had by no means effaced; accordingly, he signalled the squadron to increase speed to eighteen knots, which was supposed to be the maximum attainable by the Asama and ourselves, although the others were capable of an extra knot. This inferiority of speed on our part had always been rather a sore point with me, and I had had many a talk with Carmichael, the Yakumo's ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... that the morning would prove more favourable for our seeing the land, the only advantage now to be derived from our visit, since the fishing place was not attainable, it was decided to pass the night on one of the rocky islands. The Esquimaux having brought no provisions with them, I distributed our four days' allowance of meat in equal proportions to the whole party, who afterward lay down to sleep on the rocks, having merely a piece ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... discovered, that the doctrine which I endeavored to reach had been already conceived and passed upon by a not very eminent scientist in one of the Western States. But at that time absorption in the search for attainable truth was necessary to my welfare; and, with very brief intervals for rest and refreshment, I continued my pursuit until the afternoon-hour ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of proposition 79 of the "Syllabus." The press can no more be free to publish anything whatsoever, however offensive it may be, than persons are free to perform such acts as necessarily subject them, even in states where there is the greatest attainable degree of liberty, to condemnation and punishment. If every organized community possesses, as it certainly does possess, the right so to stigmatize an offending citizen, and that without any violation ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... worked for the masses. Canon Kingsley, as he would admit to-day, was before his time, and in aiding the Chartist movement made a fatal mistake. Canon Kingsley, as shown in Alton Locke, endeavoured to raise the masses to heights attainable only by men of education and men of thought, and to-day the recoil of that pernicious ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... different teachers or writers. At the present time, therefore, originality consists only in the classification of the principles into a systematic, progressive whole, and in arranging a simpler and more practical method of applying them, thus making the desired results much more quickly attainable. ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown

... Prim were in a state of ecstasy; a fulness of satisfaction which at the moment left nothing to be wished for. It was not the same in the two. Mrs. Coles feeling herself for the time bien place and foreseeing varieties of social and other delights attainable in such circumstances; but Prim was happy in being with Dane again. They had plenty to talk about all the evening; for there was much to tell about things in the Hollow, and Arthur's reports, and Prim's ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... confronts the question, "Are my dearest faith and love and hope based on reality?" To face that question, and face it through; to yield to no despondency, however dark the answer; to hold sometimes the best attainable answer, whether of affirmation or denial, as only provisional, and wait for further light, whether it come now or in a remote future, whether it come to him or to some other,—this measures the greatness of the ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... in gold have been paid for the carriage by wagon of a single set of amalgamating-apparatus from Virginia City to Reese, a distance of two hundred miles. The price of the commonest necessaries at the Reese-River mines has reached the highest point of the old California markets in '49,—and no attainable means of transport have been adequate to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... them, nor Odin's self, I think, was a bit of truer human stuff;—I confess his value to me, in these sad times, is rare and great. Considering the usual Histrionic, Papin's-Digester, Truculent-Charlatan and other species of "Kings," alone attainable for the sunk flunky populations of an Era given up to Mammon and the worship of its own belly, what would not such a population give for a Friedrich Wilhelm, to guide it on the road BACK from Orcus a little? "Would give," I have written; but alas, it ought to have been "SHOULD give." What THEY ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... drive her stupidity away by a very long ride. Groom and horses were always at her service, as a part of Mrs. Lyddell's justice to her, and off she set, in search of breezes, to the highest and furthest downs, by her attainable. On she went, cantering fast, feeling her power over her spirited pony, letting the summer sun shine full on her face, and the wind, when she had ridden where she could meet it, stream in a soft ripple round her head, like the waves of the summer tide. ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... description, barren and unprofitable. With the exception of the Recif du Naturaliste which lies about five leagues to the north of the Cape of that name there seems to be no danger in the vicinity of the bay. The small inlet of Port Leschenault is only the embouchure of a salt-marsh; it is scarcely attainable even by boats; for there appears to be only three feet water on the bar, and over and within it not more than fifteen feet. The French found no fresh water in any part of Geographe Bay. From Port Leschenault to Cape Peron the coast is low and sandy but inland ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... for the grudgings of his heart, because God hath not given him more talents. And sure I am, though this submission make no great noise in the world; yet really this is one of the highest degrees of grace attainable here, and such an ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, as is in the sight of God of great price. So that whoever hath attained to this, have the very grace they seem to want, and more. Yet, lest this should be abused, let me add a word or two of caution, to qualify ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... remarkable that the most favorable conditions required in the erection of an extensive Powder manufactory, were all met at this location, and nowhere else attainable. ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains

... twenty years ago. There is a perfect greed for our tracts, and the friends say they do more missionary work than we ourselves. If our suffrage advocates only would go into the new settlements at the very beginning, they could mould public sentiment, but they wait until the comforts of life are attainable and then find the ground occupied ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... forty dogs, all spotted, start on their mad career. It is a beautiful sight, with the red-coated huntsmen following, and it looks as if the real fox would be attainable after a time, instead of the farce of an anise-seed bag which now serves to make the ghost of a scent. The low, soft hat is a favorite with our young riders, but there is this to say for the hard hat, it does break a fall. Many a fair forehead has ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... to say that all the evidence in our possession or attainable, with regard to the history of the earth and of animal and vegetable life on its surface, is circumstantial evidence. The sciences of geology, palaeontology, and, to a certain extent, biology are sciences of observation, and but few of their conclusions can be reached or tested by ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... only college, and it was a great event for a young man to go from Hartford to Harvard, but this Timothy Edwards did, and he took all attainable honors, graduating in 1661, taking the degrees of A.B. and A.M. the same day, "an uncommon mark of respect paid extraordinary proficiency in learning." This brilliant graduate of Harvard was soon settled over the church at East Windsor, Conn., ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship

... Ebionites, Gnostics and Manicheans, who positively taught that marriage is sinful. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, holds that matrimony is not only a lawful state, for those who are called to embrace it, but that it is also a Sacrament, and that the highest degree of holiness is attainable in conjugal life. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... It is said that even wolves do not eat one another. The Mantis is not so scrupulous; she will eat her fellows when her favourite quarry, the cricket, is attainable and abundant. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... of the modern telegraph, and the influence of this fluid, according to Mejnour, extended to the remotest past,—that is to say, whenever and wheresoever man had thought. Thus, if the doctrine were true, all human knowledge became attainable through a medium established between the brain of the individual inquirer and all the farthest and obscurest regions in the universe of ideas. Glyndon was surprised to find Mejnour attached to the abstruse mysteries which ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the blest assurance of this Heavenly home, she knew this assurance was attainable, and on earth she enjoyed it, and now she is reaping the rich reward, and its innumerable and unutterable advantages. In her dying hour she could triumphantly exclaim, with Simeon in the temple, "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles

... o'clock in the morning, and I had to walk home, not a vehicle being attainable. I did not know my way to my headquarters, and I had no friend to go with me, but I fastened on a stray gentleman, who proved to be an ex-member of the House, and who accompanied me to 17 Dover Street, where I sought my bed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Latimer Clark, described in the Journal of the Photographic Society, appears to me the best adapted. It consists of a modification of the old parallel ruler arrangement on which the camera is placed; but one of the sides has an adjustment, so that within certain limits any degree of convergence is attainable. Now in the case of the pictures alluded to by MR. H. WILKINSON in Vol. viii., p. 181., it is probable they were taken by a camera placed in two positions parallel to one another, and it is quite clear that only a portion of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various

... tied to the trees, were endeavouring to satisfy their hunger by gnawing at the leaves and twigs. Even this miserable pasture was scarce attainable, on account of the bitts which the animals still had in their mouths, and which were heard constantly clanking between their teeth. The eight insurgents had seated themselves in the centre of the glade; and with their carbines resting ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... the topic on which he had ventured to argue with Satan, who in rage and retaliation had whisked him away. But there was a class of citizens in Colbury who hearkened with elated sentiments to this story of the burning spring. A company of capitalists was promptly organized, every inch of attainable land on the mountain was quietly bought, and machinery for boring for oil was already at the spring when the news was brought to Selwyn by Hanway, who, not having seen the young stranger for the past week or so, feared he was ill. The flakes of the first snow of the season were whirling past the ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... repeated charge that Daylight had gone insane. It was the unanimous conviction among business men that no sane man could possibly behave in such fashion. On the other hand, neither his prolonged steady drinking nor his affair with Dede became public, so the only conclusion attainable was that the wild financier from Alaska had gone lunatic. And Daylight had grinned and confirmed the suspicion by refusing to see ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... hinder an alliance between Spain and France, especially one in favour of the Queen of Scots. And certainly nothing had stood the English policy in Scotland in such stead as the good understanding with France. But much more seemed attainable if France and England were united for ever. They would then be able to compel the King of Spain to conclude a peace with the Netherlands which would secure them their liberties; and, if he did not observe it, they would ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... Innes" that he becomes deeply concerned with beauty of subject or beauty of background, or, except at haphazard, possessed of any mastery of style. "Evelyn Innes" is very well written,—in spots,—but "The Lake" is of a wholeness of good tissue that is attainable only through an art that has labored long and earnestly to achieve beauty. Had Mr. Moore never recaptured his ancestral tradition, had he remained the writer that Paris and London had made him, he had never written so finely as ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... from which, since the Renaissance, the world has been gradually emerging, into that temper of constructive and fruitful scepticism which constitutes the scientific outlook. I believe the scientific outlook to be immeasurably important to the human race. If a more just economic system were only attainable by closing men's minds against free inquiry, and plunging them back into the intellectual prison of the middle ages, I should consider the price too high. It cannot be denied that, over any short ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell

... could have any independent life when its trade had to be carried on by a constantly decreasing tonnage; when, too, it could go to sea at all only by furtive evasion, and when it had to take cargo at risks so great that they could not be covered either by insurance or by any attainable profits. The Atlantic being barred by this Great Blockade, and the Pacific being inaccessible, the only practical way left open to American trade was through the British lines by land or sea. Some American seamen shipped in British vessels. Some American ships sailed under British ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood

... not probable, though it may be possible. The extreme range of 10 miles for heavy guns cannot be obtained from shipboard, and as an elevation of only 15 deg. or 16 deg. can be given, not over 5 to 6 miles range is attainable. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various

... seen before, yet heard of, nevertheless; for it was my folly in youth (and whether I am any wiser now is more than I take upon me to say, but it was my folly then) to be in quest of certain kinds of secret knowledge, which the fathers of science thought attainable. Now, in several quarters, amongst people with whom my pursuits brought me in contact, I heard of a certain recipe which had been lost for a generation or two, but which, if it could be recovered, would prove ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... concrete instance the English blockade, to his desire for mediation. Regarded from his point of view, this new ordering of his plans was based on an entirely correct political train of thought. The President gave first place to the attainable, with a view to taking up later what was for the time being unattainable. In view of the fact that we could bring no pressure to bear to change Mr. Wilson's point of view, it only remained for us to exploit his plans as far as possible in the ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... though desires are the strongest evidence of truth, yet there is also desire for illusions, as there is a waking demand for things attainable, and a demand in dreams for things fantastic and unreal. Every analogy increasingly persuades us, and so does the whole scheme of things as we learn it, that, with our passing, there shall also pass speech and comfortable fires and fields and the voices of our children, ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... in their desperate work. Small in size, of no battery-force except against boat attacks, loaded with combustibles and powder, success in the use of them under an enemy's guns required not only imperturbable coolness and nerve, but the utmost attainable immunity from the attention of the enemy. This could be secured only by a heavy and sustained fire from their own fleet. With the Norfolk, Namur, Marlborough, and Dorsetshire in close line, as they should have been, and heavily engaged, a fire-ship ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... state is found so modified that it is consistent with the infinite, untrammelled development of the individual, intellectually and morally, and thus not only life is saved, but spiritual, free life is attainable for each ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... rich tones: "The Ideal is subjective to the Real. The exercise of apperception gives a distinctiveness to idiocracy, which is, however, subject to the limits of ME. You are an admirer of the Beautiful, sir. You wish your boots blacked. The Beautiful is attainable ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... I can only desire him to consider whether the acquirement of so great a power as that of pictorial expression of thought be not worth some toil; or whether it is likely, in the natural order of matters in this working world, that so great a gift should be attainable by those who will give no ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... cadavre, fastidious touch; but Mr. Shorthouse, speaking strictly, as to temper and tempo is a trifle more rugged; and never a shadow of suspense suffered he to stir a hand's breadth, that is, rest 'twixt poetic certainty and doubt, lest the ultimate end should all-attainable be or not. For freedom from this, and other literary ambiguity, yet never manifesting anxiety of freeing himself in prose from its insidious and arbitrary restraint, I attribute his tragical, subtle, gentle power of "connection," liaison; ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater

... being the everlasting law of human existence, the essential work of the political economist is to determine what are in reality useful or life-giving things, and by what degrees and kinds of labour they are attainable and distributable. This investigation divides itself under three great heads;—the studies, namely, of the phenomena, first, of WEALTH; secondly, of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... to suppose that as yet he had any doubts about his own religion. We gather, indeed, from his writings that he had already passed through severe mental conflicts. Although the conviction still stood fast in his mind that the blessedness of life was attainable only in the favor of God, yet his efforts to reach this coveted position by the observance of the law had not satisfied him. On the contrary, the more he strove to keep the law the more active became the motions of sin within ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... I told him that if he would secure me an invitation from the Maharaja I would be only too pleased to do so. Gwalior was a place on my itinerary anyway; to go there as a guest would secure me many advantages not attainable by the ordinary tourist. My friend said he would see the Maharaja at once and have my visit arranged for. A few days afterwards I received advice that it had been done, so on arrival at Gwalior I was met by one of the State carriages and conveyed to the Guest House, formerly ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... describes the various struggles through which three brothers passed, beset as they were by devils large and small, until they reached the ideal state of existence which he believes to be the only happy one attainable ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... portion of my countrymen here take the same slothful and prejudiced view as the English, and, after many years' sojourn, betray entire ignorance of Italian literature and Italian life beyond what is attainable in a month's passage through the thoroughfares. However, they did show, this time, a becoming spirit, and erected the American Eagle where its cry ought to be heard from afar. Crawford, here in Rome, has had ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... conviction that the happiest and noblest life attainable by men and women is jeopardized by reliance upon a superhuman, cosmic being for guidance and help. I know, of course, that God has been defined in various terms. I do not choose among them. For it seems to me indisputable that those who turn to God, however God be defined, do so because, ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... soon be obtainable by all admirers of the great master. Two distinguished French photographers, the brothers MM. Bisson, have succeeded in obtaining, by means of this wonderful art, copies of a fidelity attainable by no other process: so that the wondrous lights, shades, half-tones, and chiaro-obscuro, for which Rembrandt is so remarkable, are preserved in all their original beauty. The plates will be accompanied by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various

... life, the tendency of the system was to exalt the human element, by proposing a model of beauty, strength, and wisdom, in all their combinations, so elevated that the effort to attain them required a continual upward strain. It made divinity attainable; and thus it effectually directed the thought ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley



Words linked to "Attainable" :   come-at-able, attainableness, possible, attain, attainability



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