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Constrain   Listen
verb
Constrain  v. t.  (past & past part. constrained; pres. part. constraining)  
1.
To secure by bonds; to chain; to bond or confine; to hold tightly; to constringe. "He binds in chains The drowsy prophet, and his limbs constrains." "When winter frosts constrain the fields with cold."
2.
To bring into a narrow compass; to compress. "How the strait stays the slender waist constrain."
3.
To hold back by force; to restrain; to repress. "My sire in caves constrains the winds."
4.
To compel; to force; to necessitate; to oblige. "The love of Christ constraineth us." "I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar."
5.
To violate; to ravish. (Obs.)
6.
To produce in such a manner as to give an unnatural effect; as, a constrained voice.
Synonyms: To compel; force; drive; impel; urge; press.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Constrain" Quotes from Famous Books



... hereafter from sin! And but if [except] we enforce us to do this wilfully and in convenient time, the LORD (if He will not utterly destroy and cast us away!) will, in divers manners, move tyrants against us, for to constrain us violently for to do penance, which we would not do wilfully. And, trust! that this doing is a special grace of the LORD, and a great ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... regard to the bases of negotiation begun with that Government looking to a convention of naturalization between the United States and Roumania, certain considerations were set forth for the Minister's guidance concerning the character of the emigration from that country, the causes which constrain it, and the consequences so far as they adversely ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf

... private upon individuals, and sometimes in their public assemblies, were met, on the other hand, by laments and protestations of distress and helplessness; entreaties, that, reunited as they just were, after a sort of shipwreck, naked and destitute, they would not constrain them to patch up the pieces of a ruined and shattered city, when they had another at hand ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... that the former is determined by its nature to act in a certain way, and cannot act otherwise: the latter may act in more ways than one. Still, as we have seen, the nature even of a free agent is not indifferent to all manner of action. It requires, though it does not constrain, the agent to act in certain definite ways, the ways of moral goodness. Acting otherwise, as he may do, the free agent gainsays his own nature, taken as a whole, a thing that a necessary agent can nowise ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... out if the disciples' urgency had not detained Him. Jesus forces His company on no man. He 'would have gone further' if they had not said 'Abide with us.' He will leave us if we do not keep Him. But He delights to be held by beseeching hands, and our wishes 'constrain' Him. Happy are they who, having felt the sweetness of walking with Him on the weary road, seek Him to bless their leisure and to add a more blissful depth ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... belongs to history; and never in these memoirs have I introduced details upon gallantry except such as were necessary to the proper comprehension of important or interesting matters to which they related. Madame la Duchesse de Berry would constrain herself in nothing; she was indignant that people would dare to speak of what she did not take the trouble to hide from them; and nevertheless she was grieved to death that her ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... to imagine that you can succeed by sports and sleep. Sin is indeed taken away by faith, but you have still the flesh which is impulsive and inconsiderate; therefore take good care, that ye overcome it. By strong effort must it be; you are to constrain and subdue lust, and the greater your faith is, the greater will the conflict be. Therefore you should be prepared and armed, and should contend therewith without intermission. For they will assault you in multitudes, and would ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... company. The government is expected to continue calling for private sector growth to lessen the kingdom's dependence on oil and increase employment opportunities for the swelling Saudi population. Shortages of water and rapid population growth will constrain government efforts to increase self-sufficiency in ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners' (1 Tim. 1, 9), for the righteous man of himself does everything that the law demands, and more; but the unrighteous do nothing right, and they therefore need the law to teach, constrain, and compel them to do right. A good tree requires no instruction or law that it may bring forth good fruit, but its nature causes it to bear fruit after its kind. Thus are all Christians so fashioned through the Spirit and faith that they do right ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... hereditary rights which perpetuated the tenure of property in the hands of certain individuals or certain bodies. When men living in a democratic state of society are enlightened, they readily discover that they are confined and fixed within no limits which constrain them to take up with their present fortune. They all therefore conceive the idea of increasing it; if they are free, they all attempt it, but all do not succeed in the same manner. The legislature, it is true, no longer grants ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... exclaimed hastily, so as to prevent the other from speaking, "constrain this thirst for justice that consumes you!—Yes, my children!" he continued, turning to his auditory, "in consequence of this feeling of security, which I have now cause to regret, I placed in the hands of the unfortunate Countess,"—here ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... the thought of her dear native land, to which she was approaching after an absence of twenty years, and a longing desire to see her son George, her parents, and the friends of her youth, would draw down her ascending soul, and constrain her to say, 'I am in a strait betwixt two; the will of ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... deepened his liking to a far stronger feeling. He cursed the unkindly Fates, and told himself that his only course was to fly; that the more he saw of her, the more painful would that flight be. But he could by no means constrain himself to forego the delight of her presence; and, though he never let a word of his love escape his lips, his eyes and the tones of his voice told her of it ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... write in this case, as true as Heaven and Hell are preordained, and proposed as Rewards of good and evil to the Elect and Reprobate. Now I write not only with my hands, but my Mind, Will and heart constrain me to it: Those who are highly conceited, illuminated, and world-wise, hate, envy, scandalize, defame and persecute this Mystery to the utmost Rind, or innermost Kernel, which hath its beginning out of the Center; but I know assuredly, there will come ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus

... fond of almost morbidly exalted states of mind, and ready at any moment to veer completely round from calm and profound meditation to a state of violence and uproar. In his case there were no hereditary or family influences at work to constrain him to the sedulous study of one particular art. Painting, versifying, acting, and music were just as much within his reach as the learning and the career of a scholar; and the superficial inquirer into this stage of his life might even conclude ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... as Jefferson Davis and Wilberforce. The British sympathizers, who had determined to "hold to the one," were reduced to the logical necessity of "despising the other." It was a surprising spectacle. The dogmas and traditions of half a century snapped like threads, when it became their office to constrain a penchant. Ethnologists and politicians were equally ready to find out that the negro was fit for nothing but enforced servitude. Parsons, marchionesses, and maiden aunts received simultaneous enlightenment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... to remember—he hoped it was all only his drunken fancy, for what could have been the fate of the child subject to the freaks of his imbecile folly! He was reassured to hear no rumors of a lost child, and yet so definite were the images of his recollection that they must needs constrain his credulity. ...
— Who Crosses Storm Mountain? - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... account according as need might be, provided it were not against their own honor or against their king or lawful prince; 4, that they would not injure any one maliciously, or take what was another's, but would rather do battle with those who did so; 5, that greed, pay, gain, or profit should never constrain them to do any deed, but only glory and virtue; 6, that they would fight for the good and advantage of the common weal; 7, that they would be bound by and obey the orders of their generals and captains who had a right to command them; 8, that they would guard the honor, rank, and order of their ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... and seneschal, And pastime both of hawk and hound, and all That appertains to noble maintenance. Yea, and he brought me to a goodly house; But since our fortune swerved from sun to shade, And all thro' that young traitor, cruel need Constrain'd us, but a better time has come; So clothe yourself in this, that better fits Our mended fortunes and a Prince's bride: For tho' ye won the prize of fairest fair, And tho' I heard him call you fairest fair, Let never maiden think, however fair, She is not fairer in new clothes ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... any festal circumstance: And fitly fashion oar and boat, A palace or an armour coat. None more availed than he to raise The strong, suffumigating blaze, Or knot the wizard leaf: none more, Upon the untrodden windward shore Of the isle, beside the beating main, To cure the sickly and constrain, With muttered words and waving rods, The gibbering and the whistling gods. But he, though thus with hand and head He ruled, commanded, charmed, and led, And thus in virtue and in might Towered to contemporary sight— Still in fraternal faith and love, Remained below to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the subsequent oppressive measures of the crown officers justified their conduct. The Clerk of Rowan county (Thomas Frohock) was allowed to charge fifteen dollars for a marriage license. The effect of this official extortion was such as to constrain some of the inhabitants on the head-waters of the Yadkin river to "take a short cut," as it was termed in uniting their conjugal ties for "better or for worse," ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... convince, all men out of England and Scandinavia that his claim to the English crown was just and holy, and that it was a good work to help him to assert it in arms. He persuaded his own subjects; he certainly did not constrain them. He persuaded some foreign princes to give him actual help, some to join his muster in person; he persuaded all to help him so far as not to hinder their subjects from joining him as volunteers. And ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... mutinous masons and Irish hodmen, up to the idle Nell-Gwyn Defenders, to blustering redtape Officials, foolish unarchitectural Bishops. All these things and persons are there not for Christopher's sake and his Cathedral's; they are there for their own sake mainly! Christopher will have to conquer and constrain all these,—if he be able. All these are against him. Equitable Nature herself, who carries her mathematics and architectonics not on the face of her, but deep in the hidden heart of her,—Nature herself is but partially for him; will be wholly against him, if he constrain her not! ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... son; you need say no more," exclaimed Monipodio at this point of the discourse. "The words you have just uttered suffice to convince, oblige, persuade, and constrain me at once to admit you both to full brotherhood, and dispense with your passing ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... not when ye come? But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost necessities in our being, these ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... hawk, from fist that flies, Her falconer doth constrain Sometimes to range the ground about To find her out again; And if by sight, or sound of bell, His falcon he may see, Wo ho! he cries, with cheerful voice— The gladdest man ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... stimulus to good works. The forgiveness of our sins, the having been made forever the children of God, the having before us the Father's house as our home;—these blessings ought to be sufficient motives to constrain us in love and gratitude to serve God abundantly all the days of our life, and cheerfully also to give up, as he may call for it, that with which he has intrusted us of the things of this world. But whilst this is the case, the Lord nevertheless holds out to ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... father (all respect, Love, fear, and reverence cast off) but as A wicked man I thus expostulate with you. Why have you done that which I dare not speak, And in the action changed the humble shape Of my obedience, to rebellious rage And insolent pride? and with shut eyes constrain'd me, I must not see, nor, if I saw it, shun it. In my wrongs nature suffers, and looks backward, And mankind trembles to see me pursue What beasts would fly from. For when I advance This sword as I must do, against your ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... Quoth the Tither to him, "Pay me that which thou owest me;" and quoth he, "Have patience with me till to-morrow, for I owe the hire of a house, and I will sell another load of fuel and pay thee two days' tithe." But he refused him this and the Shaykh said to him, "An thou constrain him unto this, thou wilt compel him quit thy country, because he is a stranger here and hath no domicile; and if he remove on account of one dirham, thou wilt forfeit of him three hundred and sixty dirhams a year.[FN378] Thus wilt thou lose the mickle in keeping ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... eye on Cleomenes, and, after a brief pause, saluted the Equals and withdrew. "Sparta," he muttered as he regained his chamber, "Sparta, thou refusest to be great; but greatness is necessary to thy son. Ah, their iron laws would constrain my soul! but it shall wear them as a warrior wears his armour and adapts it to his body. Thou shalt be queen of all Hellas despite thyself, thine Ephors, and thy laws. Then only will ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... inhabitants of the world in all their conceivable relations to each other. Most other writers in this way are either simple moralists, or simple lawyers, or even sometimes simple theologists. As for him, a citizen of all nations, he cares less what duty requires of us than what means may constrain us to do it; about the metaphysical perfection of laws, than about what man is capable of; about laws which have been made, than about those which ought to have been made; about the laws of a particular people, than about those of all peoples. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... which she was aware that he had no intention of being drawn, she avenged herself upon him for having presumed to show attentions to another while she honored him with her intimate friendship. It was not so much the nature of the punishment which pleased her as the fact that she was able to constrain him to her will. She found an ungenerous satisfaction in proving to herself that it lay within her power to do with him what she would; and if this conclusion did not inevitably follow from the premises, her ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... a friar of Baku, a sage of pre-eminent wisdom, through his saying to me: 'With nothing at all ought a man to fetter his soul. Neither with bond-service, nor with property, nor with womankind, nor with any other concession to the temptations of this world ought he to constrain its action. Rather ought he to live alone, and to love none but Christ. Only this is true. Only this will be for ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... went into the open country and meeting Pierre and Jean Bernard, uncle and nephew, one aged forty-five and the other ten, seized on them both, and putting a pistol into the hands of the child, forced him to shoot his uncle. In the meantime the boy's father had come up, and him they tried to constrain to shoot his son; but finding that no threats had any effect, they ended by killing both, one by the sword, the other by ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the beautiful Louise, after the regular hour of worship. Only the elect and consecrated would remain behind to take part in the deeper mysteries, and be witness to the incantation by which the astrologist Pfannenschmidt would constrain his majesty the devil to appear. No woman was allowed to be present at this holy ordinance, and each one of the consecrated had sworn a solemn oath not to betray an act of ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... this woman; cause the dagger to fall from her hand; constrain her to open this door, which separates you from her; and that not by ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... wide or scant) To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate: For I hate, yet love, thee so, That, whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be A constrain'd hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from a ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... justify a severance of the Union, especially in a time of war. The manifest defects of the Constitution were not incurable; yet the infractions of the Constitution by the National Government had been so deliberate, dangerous, and palpable as to put the liberties of the people in jeopardy and to constrain the several States to interpose their authority to protect their citizens. The legislatures of the several States were advised to adopt measures to protect their citizens against such unconstitutional acts of Congress as conscription and to concert ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... facing each other on the staircase for three-quarters of an hour, almost intermingled, one silent and the other excited, turbulent, and active, with all the ardor and lack of discipline peculiar to a popular gathering, each insurgent striving apart, and in his own way, to corrupt, intimidate, or constrain the Swiss Guards. Granier, of Marseilles, at the head of the staircase, holds two of them at arms' length, trying in a friendly manner to draw them down.[2691] At the foot of the staircase the crowd is shouting and threatening; lighter men, armed with ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... to masts and sails also; but for speed the rowing galleys are the best, for unless a brisk wind were blowing, the mast and sails would but check her progress when the oars were out, and at any rate constrain her to travel only before the wind. I know your weakness about the slaves, Gervaise; but as we could neither build our fortifications nor row our galleys without them, I cannot go as far as you do in the matter, though I own that I am sometimes sorry for ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... place where his energies can most serve the enterprise. I can assure you that your colleagues will be most acceptable to you; one of them, whom you cannot mistake, peculiarly so. The part which circumstances constrain us to propose to you, is the secretaryship of the navy. These circumstances cannot be explained by letter. Republicanism is so rare in those parts which possess nautical skill, that I cannot find it allied there to the other qualifications. Though you are not nautical ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... remain to us a means of retaining our place here; but it would constrain us to be guilty of baseness; and, be the consequences to us what they may, neither I nor my wife wish to purchase our bread ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... lest he should betray himself, but making a pretended angry expostulation, he drew his sword. All at once the lady threw herself at his feet, crying, "My lord! my lord!" To-no-Chiujio could scarcely constrain himself from laughing. She was a woman of about fifty seven, but her excitement was more like that of a girl ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... have no mind," said he, "to turn back, having, by the grace of God, come so far. Say you that I should do well to wait for those who have been separated from us? That I would gladly do, for it grieves me much that they lose, so far, their share in this great enterprise. But two reasons constrain me to do otherwise. First, it would put the infidel in great heart if they should see me so delay to make trial of them; and, second, there is here no harbour or safe anchorage where I might wait. Nay, my lords, it is my purpose to attack the enemy without delay, for the Lord our God can save ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... when I urged it still more strongly, and attempted to constrain her by force to return, she solemnly protested that she couldn't possibly remain with you, while Pamphilus was absent. Probably each has his own failing; I am naturally of an indulgent disposition; I can ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... food and beverage processing, accounts for 18% of GDP and 15% of employment. Economic losses because of guerrilla sabotage total more than $2 billion since 1979. The costs of maintaining a large military seriously constrain the government's efforts to provide essential social services. Nevertheless, growth in national output during the period 1990-92 exceeded growth in population for the first time since 1987. National product: GDP - ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... ways to endeavour to suit your taste, and I am sure my table did not want for variety: but all my remonstrances have had no effect, and you persist in your sullen abstemiousness. I have said nothing, because I would not constrain you, and should be sorry that any thing I now say should make you uneasy; but tell me, Ameeneh, I conjure you, are not the meats served up at my table better than the flesh ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... Lee," said the Earl, holding up his hand. "Thou art too hasty. The lad shall have his will in this matter, and thou and no one shall constrain him. Methinks, also, thou dost not understand him. Speak from thy heart, Myles; why art ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... I may seize (katalabo) that promised crown with a view to which[2] I was actually (kai) seized by Christ Jesus, when in His mercy He as it were laid violent hands upon me, to pluck me from ruin, and to constrain me into His salvation and His service. Yes, "I press on" to "seize" that crown, with the animating thought that it was on purpose that I might "seize" it that the Lord "seized" me; and that so every stage in the upward ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule

... you constrain me. I will come. Yes, I confess I am glad to be 'constrained.' Sometimes, dear, we require to be compelled to do as we like; or, in other words, our consciences require just excuses for yielding certain points to our inclinations. I have been secretly wishing to be with you all the evening. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... spirit, zealously intent on remedying the flagrant evil, would be instantly rejected as a contradiction. Such an enlightened and philanthropic spirit prevailing widely among the individuals of the nation would carry its impulse into the government in one manner or another. It would either constrain the administrators of the state to act in conformity, or ultimately displace them in favor of better men. Even if, short of such a general activity of the respectable and locally influential members of society, a large proportion of them had vigorously prosecuted such ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... But it did not constrain him to any unworthy action. The temptation that passed through his mind when he looked from the balcony on the carriage that was to convey Elgar, did not return—or only as a bitter desire, impossible of realization. Distant from Naples he must ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... child needs to stretch and to move his limbs so as to draw them out of the torpor in which, rolled into a ball, they have so long remained. We do stretch his limbs, it is true, but we prevent him from moving them. We even constrain his head into a baby's cap. It seems as if we were afraid he might appear to be alive. The inaction, the constraint in which we keep his limbs, cannot fail to interfere with the circulation of the blood ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... Napoleon's nieces, and of an incorporation of the still unconquered Russian provinces on the Baltic, Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, with Prussia. All was, however, empty show. Napoleon hoped by the rapidity of his successes to constrain the emperor of Russia to conclude not only peace, but a still closer alliance with France, in which case it was as far from his intention to concede the above-mentioned provinces to Prussia as ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... herself. It scarcely comforted her in her sorrows to learn that the son of the Infante of Fortune was sick even to death; but never, either in presence of her mother or of any one else, did she show any sign of grief. So strongly did she constrain herself, that her tears, driven perforce back into her heart, caused so great a loss of blood from the nose that her life was endangered; and, that she might be restored to health, she was given in marriage to one whom ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... Majesty and Parliament to understand that by fire and sword to constrain princes and peoples to receive that one true religion of the Gospel is wholly against the mind and merciful law of Christ." "Persecution is a work well pleasing to all false prophets and bishops, but it is contrary to the mind of Christ, who came not to ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... quite done with my linen and my housekeeper, Sir, I'm ready to accompany you under protest, as I've already said, wherever you design to convey my mangled person. I charge you, Sir, with the safety of my papers and my other property which you constrain me to abandon in this house; and I think you'll rue this night's work to the latest hour ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... same time we inevitably feel that there is something wanting. What power could such a discussion really have to constrain an ordinary man to right action? The constraint, such as it is, seems purely an intellectual process, and this is indeed noticeable in the Stoic ethics of all periods. No Stoic brought his doctrine nearer to a religious system than Epictetus; yet ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... parade dagger to cross blades with my good sword," laughed Malfalconnet. "Ere you drew your rapier, I think your lust for murder would have fled. So let us leave our blades in their sheaths and permit my curiosity, to ask just one more question: What consideration induces you, Sir Knight, to constrain yourself to discreet peaceableness toward me, who, Heaven knows, excited your ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Conclusions from innocent Glances, short Whispers, or pretty familiar Railleries with fashionable Men, that these Fair ones are not as rigid as Vestals. It is certain, say these goodest Creatures very well, that Virtue does not consist in constrain'd Behaviour and wry Faces, that must be allow'd; but there is a Decency in the Aspect and Manner of Ladies contracted from an Habit of Virtue, and from general Reflections that regard a modest Conduct, all which may be understood, tho' they cannot be described. A young Woman of this sort ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... their complex forms, can find their legitimate place in a scheme of love. And there is nothing more admirable in his attitude, or more inspiring in his teaching, than the manly frankness with which he endeavours to confront the manifold miseries of human life, and to constrain them to yield, as their ultimate meaning and reality, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... from experience about what I propose," said the Captain, turning away. "Come, lads, I have no wish to constrain you, I merely give one ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... forced repentance of invalid mutineers and disbanded thieves you can hope for no resource. Government itself, which ought to constrain the more bold and dexterous of these robbers, is their accomplice. Its arms, its treasures, its all are in their hands. Judicature, which above all things should awe them, is their creature and their instrument. Nothing seems to me to render your internal ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... danger. Some fancy that the life of a deaconess, or of any one similarly set apart, must be much more free from temptation than that of any ordinary person. "I think," she wrote, "every one is as much called on as a deaconess is to work for Him who first loved us; but if this does not constrain us as Christians, neither will it as deaconesses, and certainly the 'Anstalt' (Institution) is a world in which the Martha-spirit may be found as well as in the outer world. There are many most deeply taught Christians here, many whose faces shine, but I should say, comparing my home ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... not want to leave—that she was on a visit to New York to see her friends—afterward wished to return to her three children whom she left in Virginia, from whom it would be HARD to separate her. Furthermore, he diligently tried to constrain her to say that she did not want to be interfered with—that she wanted to go with him—that she was on a visit to New York—had children in the South, etc.; but the woman's desire to be free was altogether ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... willing to abide by this judgment, the Consuls made an outcry and said to Donato: "Why dost thou, after undertaking to make this work at a smaller price, value it higher when made by the hand of another, and constrain us to give him more for it than he himself demands? For thou knowest, even as we do also, that from thy hands it would have come out much better." Donato answered, laughing: "This good man is not my equal in the art, and endures much more fatigue than I do in working; wherefore, if ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari

... of our wants and condition in Kansas, they responded that they considered it "political," and they had resolved that their house should not be used for political lectures!.... In all the localities visited by me, I found the masses of the people with such convictions as will constrain them to treat slavery in the United States as a moral evil, and to patronize only such societies as assume toward it a similar position. It is asked: What have we to do with slavery? I reply: We, as ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... younger sister (Mrs. Cone) recently said: "When we saw the three carriages driving down the lane it seemed more like a funeral than anything else." Silent were those who drove away. Silent, silent as they could constrain themselves to be, were mother and sisters as they stood by the windows and got their last look of the procession as it wound down the road. To go to a foreign land in those days signified to those who went, lifelong exile,—to those who tarried, lifelong ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... set Their sails to sea, and merrily ploughed the main, With brazen beaks, when Juno, harbouring yet Within her breast the ever-rankling pain, Mused thus: "Must I then from the work refrain, Nor keep this Trojan from the Latin throne, Baffled, forsooth, because the Fates constrain? Could Pallas burn the Grecian fleet, and drown Their crews, for one man's crime, Oileus' ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... themselves, are they fools?—are they blind hunters after happiness? Ah, what lot can well be more glorious than theirs! Oh, my father, I am young; I feel a power in myself which is not a common one—my heart throbs for a freer and more beautiful life! Desire not that I should constrain my own nature: desire not that I should compress my beautiful talents into a sphere which has ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... resistance is a constant waste of intellectual power. The early enunciation of so pure a system of morality, and one so intelligible to the simple as well as profound to the wise, was of great value to the world; but, experience being once systematised and codified, if higher principles do not constrain us, society may safely be left to see morals sufficiently observed. It is true that, notwithstanding its fluctuating rules, morality has hitherto assumed the character of a Divine institution, but its sway has not, in consequence, been ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels

... insulate it from near term balance-of-payments problems. Exports fell 5% in 1998 mainly because of the fall in Asian currencies relative to the rupee. Energy, telecommunications, and transportation bottlenecks continue to constrain growth. A series of weak coalition governments have lacked the political strength to push reforms forward to address these and other problems. Indian think tanks project GDP growth of about 4.5% in 1999. Inflation will remain ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... made mention of me, and were particularly interesting to me; I was sure in this instance there was nothing to constrain the frankness of those who had written them. It is an advantage which few people can boast having enjoyed to the ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... scheme. I have just seen my daughter, and from the few words which we have had together, I find that her dislike to the match is invincible, and in fact, she has obtained my promise never again to allude to it. If I were willing to constrain the feelings of my child, you yourself would not permit it. So here let us forget that we ever hoped for, ever calculated on a plan in which both our hearts were ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... influence and intrigue, these institutions received on deposit the savings of the Russian peasant, merchant, landowner, and official, which finally mounted up to several hundreds of millions. With this money they were enabled to control the markets and constrain Russian institutions and individuals ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... constrain'd to think that these Spectators rude, Poor in estate, of manners base, men of the multitude, Have souls which never yet have ris'n, and therefore prostrate lie? No, no, this cannot be—Men ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... devour: this mixture of stupidity on one side, and cunning on the other: the stale hypocrisy of the courtiers throwing a veil over the arrogance of the master: all inspired me with an insurmountable disgust. It was necessary however to constrain one's feelings, and during these solemnities you were exposed to meet with official congratulations, which at other times it was more ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... a chaplain on board. They endeavored to gain his consent, and assured him that he should want for nothing, and his only work would be, to make punch and say prayers. Depraved, however, as these men were, they did not choose to constrain him to go, but displayed their civility further, by permitting him to carry along with him whatever he called his own. After several cruises, they now went into a convenient harbor at Old Calabar, where they cleaned, refitted, divided their booty, and for a considerable time caroused, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... they witnessed marvels beyond those which happened to any other nation; but we wish to emphasize that Moses desired to admonish the Hebrews in such a manner, and with such reasonings as would appeal most forcibly to their childish understanding, and constrain them to worship the Deity. (10) Further, we wished to show that the Hebrews did not surpass other nations in knowledge, or in piety, but evidently in some attribute different from these; or (to speak like the Scriptures, according to their understanding), that the Hebrews were not chosen ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza

... to vomit be constrain'd, avoyd from company: So shall it better be excus'd, if not through ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... a compact, but a jest. I was full of good- will towards you. My conscience does not constrain me to do more than to wish you every happiness both as regards ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... choose nor wish to choose? and yet I still must strive to win thee and constrain: For thee I hung upon the cross in pain, How then can I forget? 20 If thou as yet dost neither love, nor hate, Nor choose, nor wish,—resign thyself, be still Till I infuse love, hatred, longing, will.— ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... I find Love to be the most perfect and absolute liberty. Nothing can move Love, but Love; nothing touch Love, but Love; nor nothing constrain Love, but Love. It is free from all things; itself only gives laws to itself, and those laws are the laws of Liberty; for nothing acts more freely than Love, because it always acts from itself, and is moved by itself, by which prerogatives Love ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... United States was still opposing any attempt on the part of the supporters of the war to constrain him to approve of the introduction of Negroes into the army. But the Secretary of War, the Hon. Simon Cameron, had sent an order to Brig.-Gen. T. W. Sherman, directing him to accept the services of all loyal persons who ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... that angling does not take precedence of all other sports with me, with the humiliating confession that I am not above bucktail spinners, worms and sinkers, minnow tails and white grubs—this and these constrain me to ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... procured their sustenance by begging, in order to support their sedition. At this Archclaus was aftrighted, and privately sent a tribune, with his cohort of soldiers, upon them, before the disease should spread over the whole multitude, and gave orders that they should constrain those that began the tumult, by force, to be quiet. At these the whole multitude were irritated, and threw stones at many of the soldiers, and killed them; but the tribune fled away wounded, and ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... for they had got but a short distance off when a number of warriors from the camp, uttering loud shouts, galloped up, evidently expecting to indulge in the plunder of the fort. The young chief, no longer able to constrain the rage he felt at his disappointment, turning round, made gestures significant of his intended vengeance; then, putting spurs to his horse, he galloped off beyond range of any rifle-shot which he might well have expected would ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston

... Adolphus and Pauline looked at one another. To be sure, they had done their best in order to excite in the breast of Elizabeth such love of country as was worthy of their child, and such curiosity about locality as would constrain her to cherish some reverent regard for the place of their birth, the home of their youthful love; but never had they imagined the possibility of her projecting a pilgrimage in that direction, except under their guidance. They could hardly imagine it now. Often they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... occasionally use force to make him do what they want."[141] In fact the ritual of the mound with its red image of the snake combines the principles of religion and magic. So far as the rite is intended to please and propitiate the mythical beast, it is religious; so far as it is intended to constrain him, it is magical. The two principles are contradictory and the attempt to combine them is illogical; but the savage is heedless, or rather totally unaware, of the contradiction and illogicality: all that concerns ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... had left the hotel at noon that day as free as air, and he slept well that night, with no sense of the forces that were to constrain his life. And yet the events of the day had started the growth of a dozen tendrils, which were destined to grow, and reach out, and seize and hold him with ties ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... fallen! Not in eternal prison! No! hell with fire of pain Melteth apart its chain; Heaven doth once more constrain: It hath arisen! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... willingly," he told Joyce, "if the soldiers confirm all that you have promised me. You will exact from me nothing that offends my conscience or my honour." "It is not our maxim," replied the cornet, "to constrain the conscience of any one, still less that of our king." After a first burst of terror at the news, the Parliament fell furiously on Cromwell, who had relinquished his command and quitted the army before ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... account, and said: "The Dutch who pillage those kingdoms, and are rebels to their king, are rather the robbers and pirates, and not the Spaniards, who are good men; with them we trade in Manila, and they do not constrain us except by many very good works." Upon seeing that, the viceroy of the maritime provinces sent the said mandarin to the new port which we had occupied in the island of Hermosa, to examine and investigate what ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... from him dated at London. "When I succeed," he said, "I will come back to you. I have given up politics and taken to literature. Literature is the only career in which my brain can reach its full development: all others compress and constrain me. I shall seek in the Old World for the recognition which the New did not yield me." All this was Greek to his mother and her sons, but they knew that it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... by Nabonidos? The scribes who assisted the kings of the second Babylonian empire in their archaeological researches had perhaps insufficient reasons for placing the date of these kings so far back in the misty past: should evidence of a serious character A constrain us to attribute to them a later origin, we ought not to be surprised. In the mean time our best course is to accept the opinion of the Chaldaeans, and to leave Sargon and Naramsin in the century assigned to them by Nabonidos, although from this point ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... with no simple and recognised duty of his epoch. Of marriage in particular, of the bond so formed, of the obligations incurred, of the debt men owe to their children, he conceived in a truly antique spirit: not to blame others, but to constrain himself. It was not to blame, I repeat, that he held these views; for others, he could make a large allowance; and yet he tacitly expected of his friends and his wife a high standard of behaviour. Nor was it always easy to wear the ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... none of these adversities constrain us to call upon God's Name and to trust Him, yet were sin alone more than sufficient to train and to urge us on in this work. For sin has hemmed us in with three strong, mighty armies. The first is our own flesh, the second the world, the third the evil ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther

... my meditations bring me back to that point; or, I should rather say, to Him. I came here praying that in some way I might do something for Him. The summer has gone, and I am grieved that I have not been, from its beginning to its end, so like Him, so full of Him, as to constrain everybody I met to love Him too. Isn't there such power in a holy life, and have not some lived such a life? I hardly know whether to rejoice most in my love for Him, or to mourn over my meagre love; ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... lover false thee, shun the parting bane * Nor to forgetfulness thy thoughts constrain: Be patient; thou shalt bury all thy foes; * Allah ne'er falseth man ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... your majesty that occasions may sometimes exist, on which official considerations would constrain the chief of a nation to be silent and passive in relation even to objects which affect his sensibility and claim his interposition as a man. Finding myself precisely in this situation at present, I take the liberty of writing this private letter to your ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... and the respect with which I always view the affairs of your Lordship, and my obligations, constrain me to represent affectionately to your Lordship, on the present occasion, the great danger that is being incurred in maintaining the provisor in his office, in hatred of him who represents to us the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... O neuer aske, how I came to this place, What cannot strong necessity finde out? Rather bemoane my miserable case, Constrain'd to wander this wide world about: With wild Silvanus and his woody crue, In Forrests I, at liberty and free, Liu'd in such pleasure as the world ne'r knew, Nor any rightly can conceiue but we. 60 This iocond life we many a day enioy'd, Till this last ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton

... mim!' cried Miggs, 'can I constrain my feelings in these here once agin united moments! Ho Mr Warsen, here's blessedness among relations, sir! Here's forgivenesses of ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... dead, my life would doe me little good, And well he thought he could endure the smart Of death, and yet he could not harme his heart: For why his hand being guiltlesse of the deed, Deny'd to make his harmelesse heart to bleed, And like a trembling executioner, Constrain'd to slay a guiltelesse prisoner, His hand retired still, further backe and further, As lothing to enact ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... merchant, "I entreat you in the name of all this noble company, that you constrain us not to lay perjury to our souls by swearing to a thing which we have neither seen nor heard. Show us, at least, some portrait of this lady, though it be no bigger than a grain of wheat, that our scruples may be satisfied. For so strongly are we disposed in favor of the fair dame, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... buildings of various uses and kinds were constructed. Though this soil of the country was rich, it could be utilized only by the unceasing co-ordinate efforts of a whole population constrained and directed. To direct and constrain was the task of the priests ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... majority which claims to be the sole organ of reason. Its own determination is, therefore, the only limit to this action. In juxtaposition to it, and under its immediate control, is the representative of the executive power, whose duty it is to constrain the refractory to submit by superior force. The only symptom of weakness lies in certain details of the action of the Government. The American republics have no standing armies to intimidate a discontented minority; but as no minority has as yet been reduced ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... wide stretches of rolling grassland. To the eastward and westward of the great valley rise the sentinel peaks of the two enclosing mountain ranges; and across the shut-in area the river plunges from pool to pool, twisting and turning as the craggy and densely forested lesser heights constrain it. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... treasure have great advantages over the rest, if they once constrain them to a defensive war, where they are driven once a year or oftener to cast lots for their own garments; and from all such shall all trades and intercourse be taken away, to the general loss and impoverishment of the kingdom and commonweal ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh

... thou?" Began the rev'rend sage; "Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, Or youthful pleasure's rage? Or haply, prest with cares and woes, Too soon thou hast began To wander forth, with me to mourn The ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... "apart from interpolations." Even the most cautious and conservative scholars usually admit that the facts constrain them to believe in the presence of interpolations: e.g., xi. 9b and xii. la are almost universally regarded in this light. The difficulties occasioned by the book are chiefly three. (1) Its fragmentary character. Ch. x.; e.g., looks ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... In the endeavor to constrain the people to a settled condition, instill the principles of Christianity in all the affairs of life, and promote peace and harmony between man and man, regardless of race, the Negro pulpit is doing a work which is ever adding new stones to the grand building of race progress and ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... perceiving that this confidential conversation had produced an effect altogether different from that which she expected, said,—"My dear child, I do not wish to constrain you; think over it at leisure, but conceal your affection from Paul. It is better not to let a man know that the heart of his mistress ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... iniquitous character of Spanish rule in the colonies, and had war for these reasons been declared, the objective of our operations might have been differently chosen for strategic reasons; for our leading object in such case would not have been to help Cuba, but to constrain Spain, and to compel her to such terms as we might demand. It would have been open, for instance, to urge that Puerto Rico, being between five and six hundred miles from the eastern end of Cuba and nearly double that distance from ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... were attainable it might be well to constrain men to accept it. But the lords of this world are fallible men; and though as units they ought to be and perhaps are better than those others who have fewer advantages, they are much more likely as units to go astray in opinion than the bodies of men whom they would seek to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... banner of love over souls, so that thou canst not look upon him as held forth, but faith will bow thy neck to take on his yoke, because it sees it is lined with the love of Christ, and then this love that lines the yoke, shed abroad in the heart, will constrain to a bearing of it; but, 3d, When the spirit is willing, there remains yet much weakness; love kindled in the heart conquers the mind into a compliance with his will, and a complacency in his commands, but its greatest strength is often ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... my wounded heart Hope, alas, to heal; Seeking, to allay its smart, Things that cannot feel. Better should my pain Bitterly complain, Crying shrill, To thee who dost constrain My spirit ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Henrique's Life, seemed a little to revive her; but the Severity of Antonio's Fate was no Way obliging to her, since she could not but retain the Memory of his Love and Constancy; which added to her Afflictions, and heightned her Distemper, insomuch that Richardo was constrain'd to leave her under the Care of the good Lady Abbess, and to the diligent Attendance of Eleonora, not daring to hazard her Life in a Removal to his own House. All their Care and Diligence was however ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... God. You have said many times that you have pity on me; and now I have pity on you, who have pronounced the words I AM CONSTRAINED! It is not spoken like a king, sire; it is what you, and those who constrain you, the Guisards and all your people, can never effect upon me, for I know how to die." {14} Palissy did indeed die shortly after, a martyr, though not at the stake. He died in the Bastille, after enduring about a year's imprisonment,— there peacefully terminating ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... did they imitate a virtuous action by one of our fathers, who performed it in order to preach to them by deeds as well as words, that he might at once constrain them and render good deeds easier for them; and, by the grace of our Lord, he succeeded in his purpose. Those people are fastidious to such an extreme that they are annoyed and disgusted by any object ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... did I perceive that I was performing good service to the cause of Christy that I wrote to my brother that I would perish rather than fail in my enterprise. I shall not boast of what I have done, but the wonderful mercy I have received will constrain me to follow out the work in spite of the veto of ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... a system as that of the Confederacy. He held that all initiative upon basal matters should remain with the separate States, that the function of the general Government was to administer, not to create conditions, and that the proper power to constrain the State Legislatures was the flexible, extra-legal power of ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... render the observance of justice the immediate interest of some particular persons, and its violation their more remote. These persons, then, are not only induced to observe those rules in their own conduct, but also to constrain others to a like regularity, and inforce the dictates of equity through the whole society. And if it be necessary, they may also interest others more immediately in the execution of justice, and create a number of officers, civil and military, to assist ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... me alone!" exclaimed the latter in a brutal tone, "you know very well that she cannot give us up. Am I more happy than she is? We have her cash, I have no need to constrain myself." ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... with the wise and judicious. Though he may swim against the stream of general opinion, he can never turn the stream of general opinion to run with him. Though he may talk contrary to others, he cannot persuade or constrain others to talk as he does. He may dissent in judgment from them, but he cannot bring them over to coincide with him; and it is a good thing for society that it is so. As he talks without wisdom and charity, so he talks ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... not know that the man who might supplant him would be as satisfactory; but the correct principle, I think, is that all our friends should have absolute freedom of choice among our friends. My wish, therefore, is that you will do just as you think fit with your own suffrage in the case, and not constrain any of your subordinates to [do] other than [as] he thinks fit with his. This is precisely the rule I inculcated and adhered to on my part, when a certain other nomination, now recently made, was being ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... no intention of doing anything. I wanted to run to the Governor-general: he forbade it. I wanted to give information to the police; he forbade that too, and got very angry. He says, "She's free." He says, "I don't want to constrain her." He has even gone to work, to his office. But he looks more dead than alive. He loved her terribly....Oh, oh, ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... Bello, trusting for some opportunity to occur to aid him either in the accomplishment of his aims or in the gaining of some further information. Having thus delivered himself, he invited any who dared to do so to volunteer for the expedition, telling them plainly that he would constrain no man to go against his will, for that at best it was a desperate enterprise, possessing only the recommendation that in its achievement the few who undertook it would gain great renown, and perhaps a very ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... marsh and grasshopper warblers, from wagtails, meadow-pipits, reed-buntings, larks, and all the small-bird population of those parts, till he came to the sea-bank, called by the natives "sea-wall." This was a high, grass-bearded bank designed to constrain the waters of the estuary, and there, in a hole, curtained by a dandelion and guarded by the stiff spears of the coarse marram ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... the voice in railing tones. "Man then will do well to constrain himself; he may steal, rob, kill his father, and violate his daughter; the price is the same; provided he repent at the ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... of any wickedness they intend to commit with care. They do not feel themselves strong enough to seize the opportunity as it passes, to take possession of it by fair means or foul, and to constrain it to serve them. Deep scoundrels disdain preliminary combinations. They start from their villainies alone, merely arming themselves all round, prepared to avail themselves of various chances which may ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... Spanish court inviting her to share it with him. But the princess, wedded to the memory of her early love, declined the proposals, notwithstanding they were strongly seconded by the wishes of her parents, who, however, were unwilling to constrain their daughter's inclinations on so delicate a point, trusting perhaps to the effects of time, and the perseverance of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... red as fire, "Gramercy for your rede," said she, "What, is yon a woman's part? Constrain a man to be hers by force? That is men's way of wooing, not ours. Say I were so ill a woman as ye think me, I should set myself to beguile him, not to law him;" and she departed, crimson ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... of society would be vastly promoted if everyone felt himself under an irresistible obligation to assist his neighbour whenever he could do so with little or no inconvenience to himself, or, consequently, if external force were always at hand to constrain anyone so to assist who was unwilling to do so of ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... clever fellow who could befool you into embarking with a south wind blowing. That sounds all very well, you think, only I may get you on board during a calm. Granted, but I shall be on board my one ship, and you on board another hundred at least, and how am I to constrain you to voyage with me against your will, or by what cajolery shall I carry you off? But I will imagine you so far befooled and bewitched by me, that I have got you to the Phasis; we proceed to disembark on ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... counsell held by wisdom, prudence, love and patience. Here also the imaginations of incapableness or want of monies must be conquered; for to constrain a son to that he hath no mind to, is the ready way to dull his genious, and perhaps bring him to what is worser, to wit, running after whores or Gaming. And to teach him how to live upon his yearly means, the tools are too damn'd costly. So that now the Parents have true experience ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... abrogating, to the utmost degree, wise rules under the heavens, the people will, at length, be able to take part in deliberation. By putting to confusion the musical scale, and destroying fifes and lutes, by deafening the ears of the blind Kuang, then, at last, will the human race in the world constrain his sense of hearing. By extinguishing literary compositions, by dispersing the five colours and by sticking the eyes of Li Chu, then, at length, mankind under the whole sky, will restrain the perception of his eyes. By destroying and eliminating the hooks and lines, by discarding ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... than in his sacred works. In the earlier imaginative subjects the vivifying glow of Giorgionesque poetry moulds, colours, and expands the genius of Titian, but so naturally as neither to obliterate nor to constrain it. Indeed, even in the late time of our master—checking an unveiled sensuousness which sometimes approaches dangerously near to a downright sensuality—the influence of the master and companion who vanished ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips

... broken his voice before; he found himself to his own amazement on the verge of loud, undignified, childish weeping. He was weeping passionately and noisily; he was over the edge of it, and it was too late to snatch himself back. The shame which could not constrain him, overcame him. A preposterous upward gesture of the hands expressed his despair. And abruptly this unhappy man of letters turned from her and fled, the most grief-routed of creatures, whooping and sobbing along a narrow ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... a little courage. Did you not say that fortune awaits us? And have we not now the wherewithal to constrain fortune? Burgundy, then, to... to toast 'Les ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... them. But this none can easily understand. Now by what bodies mutually touch each other, by the same they press, thrust, and crush each other. Now that this should be done or take place in things that are incorporeal, is impossible and not so much as to be imagined. But yet this they would constrain us to conceive. For if a sphere touch a plane by a point, it is manifest that it may be also drawn over the plane upon a point; and if the superficies of it is painted with vermilion, it will imprint a red line ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... the world. Christianity, rightly understood, renders even the body of a good man sacred and precious, through the indwelling of the Infinite. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels," and the poor, dying tenement of flesh is hallowed as "A vase of earth, a trembling clod, Constrain'd to hold the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... no such power, Mr. Thwaite. A young person such as Lady Anna Lovel is and must be under the control of her natural guardian. She is so altogether. Her mother could not,—and would not,—constrain her to any marriage; but has quite sufficient power over her to prevent any marriage. Lady Anna has never for a moment supposed that she could become your wife since she learned what were the feelings of her mother and her family." The Serjeant certainly did not keep his promise of being ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... vindicate and bring to light the Augustan age of Christianity in England," adding that it is the secret also of the great writer's appreciation of the higher Teutonic literature. His sombre rather than consolatory sense of "God in History," his belief in the mission of righteousness to constrain unrighteousness, and his Stoic view that good and evil are absolute opposites, are his links with the Puritans, whom he habitually exalts in ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... has been received, stating that public considerations of a high character constrain you "to say that my resignation its Secretary of War ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... not sufficient for you to be reserved: his conduct even calls for your resentment; and should he again, as will doubtless be his endeavour, contrive to solicit your favour in private, let your disdain and displeasure be so marked, as to constrain a change in his behaviour. Though, indeed, should his visit be repeated while you remain at the Grove, Lady Howard must pardon me ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... him, with frank humility and frank affection, that you ask his pardon for the injury that you had done him. Say no more than that. If it shall still please him to consider that the engagement between you is at an end, such an acknowledgment from you will in no way constrain him to violate that resolve. But if he relent—and I know that this other "if" will be the true one—the first train that runs will bring him back to you; and he, who I am sure is now wretched, will again be happy; ah! happier than he has been for ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... vain to think that Afghanistan will be long independent even in name. It is between hammer and anvil, or, to use a still more expressive metaphor, between the devil and the deep sea. Bound to us by no traditions, by no strong political influences such as might have been used to constrain them, the Afghan tribes, mercenary and perfidious to a proverb, an aggregate of tribes—not a nation,—will lose no time, when the moment occurs, in siding with the great power which promises most lavishly, or which can lay strongest hold ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough

... Segismund! You know not—cannot know—happily wanting The sad experience on which knowledge grows, How the too early consciousness of power Spoils the best blood; nor whether for your long Constrain'd disheritance (which, but for me, Remember, and for my relenting love Bursting the bond of fate, had been eternal) You have not now a full indemnity; Wearing the blossom of your youth unspent In the voluptuous sunshine of a court, That often, by too early blossoming, Too soon deflowers ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... before the God of truth, faithfully desiring of him that truth in the inward parts which alone can enable us to walk according to that which we have attained. May the God of peace give you his peace; may the love of Christ constrain you; may the gift of the Holy ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... sleep, troubled by dreams which, whether they be pleasant or bitter, equally lack roots in the permanent realities to which we shall wake some day. But if we hold by Jesus Christ, who died for us, and let His love constrain us, His Cross quicken us, and the might of His great sacrifice touch us, and the blood of sprinkling be applied to our eyeballs as an eye-salve, that we may see, we shall wake from our opiate sleep—though ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... these decisive measures, he hoped to reduce the adherents of Gonzalo Pizarro to such straits, by depriving them of every possible succour and refreshment, after the fatigues of a long and painful march, encumbered with baggage and artillery, as might constrain them to disband their army, when they might find the whole way between Lima and Truxillo reduced to a desert entirely devoid of provisions. The viceroy considered himself under the necessity of employing these strong measures, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... mortal is there who is free. For either he is the slave of money or of fortune; or the populace of the city or the dictates of the law constrain him to adopt manners not accordant with his natural inclinations. But since thou fearest, and payest too much regard to the multitude, I will liberate thee from this fear. For consent with me, if I meditate vengeance against the murderer ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides



Words linked to "Constrain" :   restrain, bridle, trammel, confine, restrict, clog, curb, cumber, bound, tighten, tighten up, throttle, limit



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