"Potent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where ocean's verge Meets the blue sky, a whitening speck is seen, That nears and nears—her canvass spreads to heav'n; Fair blows the wind, and roaring through the waves, On comes the Demon ship, in which he sails To farthest Ind—but this adventure needs A sacrifice more potent—human marrow Scoop'd from the spine, and burnt to the dark power Whom he must serve. 'Tis said that he who wears His magic cap, invisible may walk, And none so lynx-eyed as detect his presence, In the most peopled city—yet beware, Let him not, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... perhaps it would be more accurate to say, that contributed to its solidity and success—the many investments, industrial, political, benevolent, reformatory, ecclesiastical, that had made the name of Weightman well known and potent in city, church, and state, demanded much attention and careful steering, in order that each might produce the desired result. There were board meetings of corporations and hospitals, conferences in Wall Street and at Albany, consultations and committee meetings ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... and experienced actors a wandering life offered potent attractions. Apart from its liberty and adventure, its defiance of social convention and restraint, ambition had space to stir, and vanity could be abundantly indulged in the itinerant theatre. Dekker speaks of the bad presumptuous players, who out of a desire to "wear the best jerkin," and ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... to smile; And now from Bonarroti caught A nobler Form; and now it sought Of colour fair the magic spell, And trac'd her to the Friar's[6] cell. No foolish pride, no narrow rule Enslav'd his soul; from every School, Whatever fair, whatever grand, His pencil, like a potent wand, Transfusing, bade his canvass grace. Progressive thus, with giant pace. And energy no toil could tame, He climb'd the rugged mount of Fame: And soon had reach'd the summit bold, When Death, who there delights to hold His fatal watch, with ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... increase of wealth and honour to his native country, whose fame and interest were then united to those of Britain. After many dreams of success and many conflicts betwixt prudence and ambition, he resolved on putting his scheme in practice; the potent witchery possessed his brain, and all the persuasive powers of reason shrunk before ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... against the impulse,—had indeed mastered it for several hours,—but the sight of the vivid blush, the eager joy in the sweet young face when Blakely's new "striker" handed in a note addressed to Miss Angela Wren, proved far too potent a factor in the undoing of that magnanimous resolve. The girl fled with her prize, instanter, to her room, and thither, as she did not reappear, the aunt betook herself within the hour. The note itself was neither long nor effusive—merely a bright, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the concrete factors, there enter into this question certain psychological elements of a somewhat subtle character, but sufficiently definite and potent to be plainly discernible to those who are experienced in dealing with business affairs and with men ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn
... for an old and had scarcely touched their inner life, began to display before the eyes of their astonished conquerors the material comfort and the spiritual charm which, in the case of the contact of a potent but narrow civilisation with one that is superbly elastic and strong in the very elegance of its physical debility, can always turn defeat into victory. But the student who begins his investigation of the new Roman ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... these "projects" is as follows: A young woman goes down into the cellar, or into a dark room, with a mirror in her hand, and looking in it, sees the face of her future husband peering at her through the darkness,—the mirror being, for the time, as potent as the famous Cambuscan glass of which Chaucer discourses. A neighbor of mine, in speaking of this conjuration, adduces a case in point. One of her schoolmates made the experiment and saw the face of a strange man in the glass; and many years afterwards ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... can be perceived at work in all the imperial activities of the European peoples during the last four centuries. The first, and perhaps the most potent, has been the spirit of national pride, seeking to express itself in the establishment of its dominion over less highly organised peoples. In the exultation which follows the achievement of national unity each of the ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... freedom, they have always been loyal to the Stars and Stripes, that no school-house has been opened for them that has not been filled, that the 2,000,000 ballots that they have the right to cast are as potent for weal or woe as an equal number cast by the wisest and most influential men in America. I know that wherever Negro life touches the life of the nation it helps or it hinders, that wherever the life ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... a very potent and trustworthy witness as to this being the proper view of the incident; for I understand that, almost immediately after the scene, a good-natured Liberal said to Mr. Chamberlain that he must confess that the use ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... the farmer, had seen her, of course it became Lord George's duty to pay her his compliments in person. At first he visited her in company with his wife and Lady Sarah, and the conversation was very stiff. Lady Sarah was potent enough to quell even Mrs. Houghton. But later in the afternoon Lord George came back again, his wife being in the room, and then there was a little more ease. "You can't think how it grieves me," she said, "to bring all this trouble upon ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... left the restaurant; but, somehow, when they went out together, she made no objection to his accompanying her in the direction of Halverton Street, the reason being that she felt wholly at home with him; he seemed so potent to protect her; he was so concerned for her happiness and well-being. She revelled in the unaccustomed security ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... style, and for balancing of ideas, but strength comes of finding a main line and holding to it. No man can read a book with sympathetic understanding without taking from it something that makes him more complex and more potent. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Deliverances from great Misfortunes. A Small-coalman, [1] by waking of one of these distressed Gentlemen, saved him from ten Years Imprisonment. An honest Watchman bidding aloud Good-morrow to another, freed him from the Malice of many potent Enemies, and brought all their Designs against him to nothing. A certain Valetudinarian confesses he has often been cured of a sore Throat by the Hoarseness of a Carman, and relieved from a Fit of the Gout by the Sound of old Shoes. A noisy ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... landowners of Great Britain, for example, are organized in the most formidable manner against the general interests of the community, and constantly subordinate the interests of the common-weal to their conception of justice to their class; the big railways are equally potent, and so are the legal profession and the brewers. But to-day these political interventions of great organized services athwart the path of statesmanship are sustained by enormous financial resources. The State employes under ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... do this—he will stay your unconsciously suicidal hand. If your machinery is out of order, he will tell you so, and do what is necessary to repair it. He will comfort and reassure you, too, and administer to the mind a medicine as potent as powder or liquid. But you will get no false sympathy from him. If you have nothing the matter with you, yet think you have, your doctor will take you by the collar of your coat, stand you on your feet, and bid you be a man. So don't dose yourself. Be a faithful guardian ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... too absurd for consideration, when we remember that through spiritual ascendency 67:21 our Lord and Master healed the sick, raised the dead, and commanded even the winds and waves to obey him. Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other 67:24 ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... utter madness are generally the finest and strongest, and what else does Nature care about? But for the young couple? . . . Gradually the roseate clouds lift, the intoxicating fumes are wafted away—the rapture subsides, and each awakes from the effects of the most potent drug in the universe to find a very ordinary young person at their side—and around them a chain which men ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... the summer term Maggie and Hammond were married, and her little world at St. Benet's had to get on without the presence which had always exerted the influence of a strong personality and which had been potent both for good ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the highest creation of which man is capable, is to will the will of the Father. That has in it an element of the purely creative, and then is man likest God. But simply to do what we ought, is an altogether higher, diviner, more potent, more creative thing, than to write the grandest poem, paint the most beautiful picture, carve the mightiest statue, build the most worshiping temple, dream out the most enchanting commotion of melody and harmony. ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... ordering of the refreshments failed, as had been foreseen, to share in the approval conferred on the arrangement of the rooms. The first impression was unfavorable. Lady Loring, however, knew enough of human nature to leave results to two potent allies—experience and time. ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... causes full of evil, and fearfully potent to work apostasy and ruin in the West. Men come here, not to plead the cause of a suffering and dying Saviour; not to give to the people a more pure and self-denying morality, and a higher civilization; ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... hours. When the grand trunk is completed, through trains from the capital will reach Canton in three days. Set this over against the three months' sea voyage of former times (a voyage made only once a year), or against the ten days now required for the trip by steamer! What a potent factor is the railroad in the progress of ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... Harrison visited Hull-House that I was much disappointed to find that the Positivists had not made their ardor for humanity a more potent factor in the English social movement, as I was surprised during a visit from John Morley to find that he, representing perhaps the type of man whom political life seemed to have pulled away from the ideals of his youth, had yet been such ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... the people—they cannot act with that directness and system that a corporation can. No individual will take it upon himself to go to the Capitol at his own expense, to watch the representatives of the people, and to lobby against the potent influences of the corporation. But corporations have the money, and it is to their interest to expend it to secure the passage of partial laws." [Footnote: Ohio Convention Debates, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... robbed by that wretchedly false Irishman whom he had trusted with all the confidence of a candid nature and an open heart! He had been most treacherously misused! Treachery was no adequate word for the injury inflicted on him. The more potent is a man, the less accustomed to endure injustice, and the more his power to inflict it,—the greater is the sting and the greater the astonishment when he himself is made to suffer. Newspaper editors sport daily with the ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... them, but he told them on the day before, with a sigh, that domestic duties were too strong for him. Lady Nidderdale,—or if not Lady Nidderdale herself, then Lady Nidderdale's mother,—was so far potent over the young nobleman as to induce him to confine his Derby jovialities to the Derby Day. Another guest had also been expected, the reason for whose non-appearance must be explained somewhat at length. Lord Gerald Palliser, the Duke's second son, was at this ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... influence in the parish. And as Laurence's plans and hopes and ambitions unfolded before her, she threw this potent influence, with all it implied, in the scale of the young lawyer's favor. They began their work at the bottom, as all great movements should begin. What struck me with astonishment was that so many quiet women seemed to be ready and waiting, as ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... of the priesthood comes not only from Protestants and satirists, but from popes and councils and canonized saints, and that it bulks large in medieval literature. Nevertheless, it is both a priori probable and to some extent historically verifiable that the evil was more noisy, not more potent, than the good. But though the corruptions of the church were not a main cause of the Protestant secession, they furnished good excuses for attack; the Reformers were scandalized by the divergence of the practice and the pretensions ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... perturbation impossible to describe for a long time after reading them. I suppose the great genius touched in me the spirit of our time, which, chit as I was, was common to us both; and the mere fact of my being un enfant du siecle rendered me liable to the infection of the potent, proud, desponding bitterness of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... for I have the highest opinion of him. You see, sir, I am acquainted with the circumstances. I believe," Dr. Middleton half turned to the ladies, "we must, until your potent inducements, Mr. Dale, have been joined to my instances, and we overcome what feminine scruples there may be, treat the circumstances as not generally public. Our Strephon may be chargeable with shyness. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... chanted as they entered that city, 2 is a regular war-song. The old cathedral trembled when it heard these novel sounds. The very rooks flew from their nests in the towers. That hymn, the Marseillaise of the Reformation, has preserved to this day its potent spell over ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... water of the earth, although forming at no time more than a very small fraction of the hidden fluid, is an exceedingly potent geological agent, doing work which, though unseen, yet affords the very foundations on which rest the life alike of land and sea. When this water enters the earth, though it is purified of all mineral materials, it has ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... England in the fifteenth century. Chivalry was not yet dead, ideals were still cherished, the feudal system still obtained, Gothic architecture had not yet said its last word, Englishmen were papal to the backbone, and religion was a potent factor in their live, in spite of much that was harsh, crude, and violent. "Herein," said Caxton, "may be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, sin. Do after the good, and leave the evil, and it shall ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... in every dusky Northwold lane or alley, where she always found or made a welcome for herself. The kindly counsel and ready hand were more potent than far ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at least L4,000.[19] But Fletcher was not the only corrupt official. In his interesting work on the times,[20] George W. Schuyler presents what is an undoubtedly accurate description of how Robert Livingston, progenitor of a rich and potent family which for generations exercised a profound influence in politics and other public affairs, contrived to get together an estate which soon ranked as the second largest in New York state and as one of ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... meet the attentions of this well-equipped and watchful enemy? We had a few seven-pound guns capable of hurling walnuts that cracked thousands of yards short of the Boer positions; and a Maxim or two, respected by the enemy, but easily steered clear of. Of what avail were these against the potent engines of destruction on the other side? And as for men; with great difficulty, and by dint of much pressure, the authorities had been persuaded to send us five hundred (of the North Lancashire Regiment, and Royal Engineers) under command of Colonel Kekewich (who constituted himself ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... actual voice that rang in his ears. The young woman's very obvious beauty, he thought, had nothing to do with the matter. It seemed to him that her eyes called him. Just that. Something strange and very potent seemed to take sudden and almost tangible hold upon him—a charm, a spell, a magic—something unprecedented, new to his experience. He could not take his eyes from hers, and he ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Yet were remaining some of ancient race, And ancient arts were now their sole delight: With Time's first sickle they had marked the hour When at their incantation would the Moon Start back, and shuddering shed blue blasted light. The rifted rays they gathered, and immersed In potent portion of that wondrous wave, Which, hearing rescued Israel, stood erect, And led her armies through his crystal gates. Hither (none shared her way, her counsel none) Hied the Masarian Dalica: 'twas ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... though that poison may be strong, The source of fury, violence, and wrong, Potent thy patience to subdue, It dare not the respect to ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... know it because of anything that has been told to me in words," replied the Onondaga, "but O, Dagaeoga, the mind, which is often more potent than eye or ear, as I have told you so many times, is now warning me. We know that our people farther south have been in disagreement. The governors of the provinces have not acted together. Everyone ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... support myself when introduced to the Princesses. The first day of my reading in the inner apartment of Madame Victoire I found it impossible to pronounce more than two sentences; my heart palpitated, my voice faltered, and my sight failed. How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which ought to surround sovereigns! Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... bishops almost as emissaries of the devil. Herein in fact lay the primary, some have thought the deepest and most potent cause of the Revolution, since kings and the bishops of London incessantly sought to establish Anglicanism in Massachusetts, and English politicians deemed it outrageous that conformists should be denied any of that colony's privileges. For some time, under William and Mary's charter, ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... economic position, health, education, and all other phases of life of the family are the most potent influences both in the life of its ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... and poems. In this part of the house, too, there is a parlor, fragrant with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a noggin of whisky is here quaffed to the memory of the bard, who profest to draw so much inspiration from that potent liquor. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... have hope in humanity to watch, under the reign of his successor, the gradual but triumphant resurrection of the spirit over which the sepulchre had so long been sealed. From the handbreadth of territory called the province of Holland rises a power which wages eighty years' warfare with the most potent empire upon earth, and which, during the progress of the struggle, becoming itself a mighty state, and binding about its own slender form a zone of the richest possessions of earth, from pole to tropic, finally dictates its decrees ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... saw the Spanish coast sinking down on the horizon he could shake himself free from his troubles, and feel that once more he was in a situation of which he was master. He first touched at Porto Santo, where, if the story of his residence there be true, there must have been potent memories for him in the sight of the long white beach and the plantations, with the Governor's house beyond. He stayed there only a few hours and then crossed over to Madeira, anchoring in the Bay of Funchal, where he took in wood and water. As it was really ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... mind, Colonel Fennister spelled the word with an upper case P, and put the word in italics. It was, to him, a more potent word than any other ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in the end to the personal influence that is always most potent in dealing with these problems. We had a gang start up once when my boys were of that age, out in the village on Long Island where we lived. It had its headquarters in our barn, where it planned divers raids that aimed at killing the cat and other like ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... home or the sailor at sea, With nausea, scurvy, or canker maybe, 'Tis never in language to overexalt The potent preservative virtue of salt— A crystal commodity wholesome and good, A cure for disease, ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... than ten minutes the messengers of the chiefs were scampering off at full speed in different directions with orders! So potent was the power of this vigorous treatment that within the short time ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... all the best traditions of Indian life. It takes the place of the banyan tree in the heat of the day, the village well, and the meeting place for the men in the cool of the evening. Even beyond all hopes it has proved a potent factor for unity, harmony, and peace in a time of unrest. It draws the British officers and the Indian men closer together, and the Indian secretaries have served time and again as the mediators between the two, who could ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... around that a foreign potent-ate had been arrested with his whole harem for conduct unbecoming to a potent-ate, and so when we got to the jail dad had to be rescued from his wives, and they were driven into a side street by the police, and dad was ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... however, interruptions to their work more potent than plain spring fever:—Professor Edwin Green and Kent Brown had reached Paris the day before, intending to surprise their friends, and had been themselves both surprised and disappointed to find the apartment ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... Eladio Victoria, as provisional president. The latter was a senator from Santiago province, and had at one time been a member of Caceres' cabinet, but he was not regarded as of presidential calibre and his selection provoked general surprise and indignation. General Victoria's army was a potent argument; it withered the ambition of other aspirants to the presidency, and Senator Victoria was elected provisional president and entered upon office December 6, 1911. In the following February the usual form of public election was gone through and on February ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... over her suddenly in the afternoon that she must see Cairy, must drink again the peculiar and potent draught which he alone of men seemed to be able to offer her. So she had written the note and made the excuse. She would not have given up the Hillyers altogether. They were important to Percy just now, and ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... asked questions which Weary felt bound to answer; everyone knew Patsy, who was almost as much a part of Dry Lake scenery as was Old Dock, and it was gratifying to a Flying-U man to see the sympathy in their faces. But Patsy needed something more potent than sympathy, and the ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... hope that by this time Madame de Mortsmart has completely recovered. I agree with his Majesty that, in doctoring, you have not had much experience; still, friendship acts betimes as a most potent talisman, and the heart of the Abbess is of those that in absence pines, but which in the presence ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... cottages until its price was greatly reduced in 1816. After Cobbett's death in 1835, it ceased to appear. Still the ice was broken, and, as the educated public recovered from the panic caused by the French revolution, the newspaper press became a potent and independent rival ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... principal establishment of his tribe, in sullen silence; for the desire of revenge, which had been so fearfully awakened, seemed now to be slumbering, if it were not entirely quelled by the agency of some mysterious and potent feeling. He rolled his eyes gloomily, from the apparently abstracted countenance of his artful companion, to those of the captives, whose fate only awaited his judgment, since the band which had that morning ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... and enterprise from the United States is a potent factor in assisting the development of the resources of Mexico and in building up the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the effects, and felt the whole extent of the power of sensibility; she had too much prudence, however, at once to wear out the excitability of a husband's heart; she knew that the influence of tears, potent as it is, might in time cease to be irresistible, unless aided by the magic of smiles; she knew the power of contrast even in charms; she believed the poets, who certainly understand these things, and who assure us that the very ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... mother. It was natural that their conversation should turn to Alaric and Harry. Alaric, with his happy prospects, was soon dismissed; but Mrs. Woodward continued to sing the praises of him who, had she been potent with the magi of the Civil Service, would now be the lion ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... Ages was more conducive to the prosperity of a town than the reputation of having a holy man within its borders, or the possession of the miracle-working relics of a saint. Just as St. Elizabeth made Marburg so St. Sebaldus proved a very potent attraction to Nuremberg. As early as 1070 and 1080 we hear of pilgrimages to Nuremberg in honor ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... boards, the old garret and all its associations are among the "long, long thoughts." I sometimes doubt whether the modern conveniences we are so fond of proclaiming are really an equivalent to the rising generation for this happiest of playrooms, this storehouse of heirlooms, this silent but potent tie, that binds us to the life, the labor, and the love of ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... leads him to a more intimate and a more intelligent acquaintance with the author's emotions, thoughts, style and purposes as expressed in his works. He reads Thoreau's Journal, and notes uncomprehendingly, the potent sway of nature over the heart and life of the man. It requires the keen vision and the genius of the artist to give him a realization of the mesmeric influence ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... contributed to it, seeing that, at the age of seventy years, he might fear to suffer the lofty motions of his mind to be cramped and his wonted lustre obscured. What strange metamorphoses do I see age every day make in many of my acquaintance! 'Tis a potent malady, and that naturally and imperceptibly steals into us; a vast provision of study and great precaution are required to evade the imperfections it loads us with, or at least to weaken their progress. I find that, notwithstanding all my entrenchments, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... death; penury and disrespect take nothing away. Incontinently my thought moves like a slow-paced hearse with sable nodding plumes. Two rustic lovers, whispering between the darkening hedges, is as potent to project my mind into the tender passion as if I had seen Romeo touch the cheek of Juliet in the moon-light garden. Seeing a curly-headed child asleep in the sunshine before a cottage door is sufficient excuse for a discourse on childhood; ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... instinctive impulse, if it be in any way more beneficial to a species than some other or opposed instinct, would be rendered the more potent of the two through natural selection; for the individuals which had it most strongly developed would survive in larger numbers. Whether this is the case with the migratory in comparison with the maternal ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... God? what, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? Most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong, stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and bringing age upon the proud, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... ground, and discussed with an appetite that would astonish the puny gourmands of the cities. But above all, and to give a bacchanalian grace to this truly masculine repast, the captain produced his mellifluous keg of home-brewed nectar, which had been so potent over the senses of the veteran of Hudson's Bay. Potations, pottle deep, again went round; never did beverage excite greater glee, or meet with more rapturous commendation. The parties were fast advancing to that happy state which would have insured ample cause for the next day's repentance; ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... more wholesome life. In children and young people, however, very handsome noses are to be seen in Persia. The sense of odour is not very keen in either sex; in fact, it is probably the dullest of all Persian senses, which is not unfortunate for them in a country where potent smells abound. In experimenting upon healthy specimens, it was found that only comparatively strong odours could be detected by them, nor could they distinguish the difference between two different scents, when they did succeed ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... what is loosely called the spirit of the time. In most ethical movements the two kinds of influence will be found co-operating, though the latter is almost entirely absent in some cases. The incoherence of popular opinions about morality is a potent stimulus to reflexion, and may of itself give rise to systematic ethical enquiry. This is more particularly the case when a change of social conditions, or contact with alien modes of life, force into light the inadequacy of the conventional morality. In such a case the new ethical reflexion ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... His presence brought a strange peace and calm over her soul. His influence was more potent over her than that of Langhetti. In this strange company he seemed to her to be the centre and ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... position of greatly increased dignity and influence. Whilst all were agreed that the times demanded the appointment of the ablest member of presbytery as moderator, none, perhaps, foresaw the danger of adding permanently to the prerogatives of so potent a chairman. It was never anticipated that the day would come when the new law would be regarded as any other than a human contrivance; and when the bishops and their adherents would contend that the presbyters, under no circumstances whatever, had a right ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... The Brotherhood's honor untouchable Is touch'd thereby. We build our labyrinth Of sacred words and potent spells, and all The deep-involved horrors of our craft— Its entrance hedg'd about with dreadful oaths, And every step in thridding it made dank By dripping terror and out-seeping awe, Shall it be said ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... hath already learned to eat much of our flesh, but also for the special assistance and protection of the Father of lights, in this great Work unto which we are now called, and wherein we already finde many and potent adversaries: that seeing the plummet is now in the hands of our Zerubbabels, all mountaines may become plains, and they may bring forth the capstone of the Lords House with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it: and ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... with dance-going bachelors to interrogate a partner whom they feel a wish to meet again as to the locales of her coming dance-engagements, and thereupon, through the medium of some friend of that potent and wonderful class, the Know-everybodys, to manage somehow to procure for themselves cards of invitation to the houses and parties indicated, whosoever ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... character of demand.—Perfection of routine-work is the special faculty of machine-production. Where there is a steady demand for the same class of goods, machinery can be profitably applied. Where fashion fluctuates, or the individual taste of the consumer is a potent factor, machinery cannot so readily undertake the work. In the textile industries there are many departments which machinery has not successfully invaded. Much lace-making, embroidery, certain finer weaving is still done by human power, with or without the aid of complex ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... or seven mad engines were sitting up on end, like monster rabbits on a bank, pawing the air and screaming out their hearts in the wild delirium of unlimited power and ungovernable fury. Still, although they moved a little, the sleepers did not awake—so potent is the force of habit! However, it did not last long. The red lights removed their ban, the white lights said "Come on," the monster rabbits gave a final snort of satisfaction and went away—each with ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... at the same time, shelved in his new rank, powerless, and regarded as a nobody in the state where hitherto he had been a potent signior—mastered in every action by the secret tribunal, and presiding nominally in councils where his opinion was of little consequence—is evident. And a man so well acquainted, and so long, with all the proceedings of the state, who had seen consummated ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... or whatsoever else is dearest to the Morning Muse.' Yet he could not wholly escape the recluse's malady. He confesses that he sometimes craves 'that stimulation which every capricious, languid, and languescent study needs.' Carlyle's potent concentration stirs his envy. The work of the garden and the orchard he found very fascinating, eating up days and weeks; 'nay, a brave scholar should shun it like gambling, and take refuge in cities and ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... admiration for your virtue from all Hellas, you must strive to do some good to Hellas; do you wish earth to yield her fruits to you abundantly, to earth must you pay your court; do you seek to amass riches from your flocks and herds, on them must you bestow your labour; or is it your ambition to be potent as a warrior, able to save your friends and to subdue your foes, then must you learn the arts of war from those who have the knowledge, and practise their application in the field when learned; or would you e'en be powerful ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... madam, but the strength of your lady ship's liquor is a little too potent for the constitution of ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... all together, almost on tiptoe. If we had been wearing hats I am sure that we should have taken them off. How, with such trifling means at her command, she could have left behind in that tiny chamber so potent an impression of daintiness and comfort I cannot tell. But there it was. Her little bed, with its spotless counterpane, was hung with pink muslin. There was a lace spread upon her toilet-table, on which her little oddments of silver made a brave show. Only one thing seemed out of place, a worn ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dominion. That of Artemis, or that of Pan, is more comparable. Artemis is certainly ruler of the spirits of the air and water, of the hills and shores of the sea, and to some extent her power overlaps that of Pan who is potent in nearly all land solitudes. But really the two lord-ships can be exactly discriminated. They never conflict. The legions of Artemis are all female, though on earth men as well as women worship her; the ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... Genius of the Dale I conjure you! by our holy Prophet I command you! by the darkness of this murky night I entreat you! and by the blood of a Caliph, shed by this weak arm, I allure you, most potent Muloch, to appear! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... and panegyrist of the House of Este, which has one common ancestor with the House of HANOVER; and in reviewing his life it is not easy to forbear a wish that he had lived in a happier time, when he might, among the descendants of that illustrious family, have found a more liberal and potent patronage. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the cliff was, of course, fairly clear, but how he had come over in Reuben Goldstein's cart, all the way from Calais, without being sighted by the various patrols on duty was impossible of explanation. It really seemed as if some potent Fate watched over that daring Scarlet Pimpernel, and his astute enemy almost felt a superstitious shudder pass through him, as he looked round at the towering cliffs, and the loneliness of this ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... profile cut clear against the carriage window, her diamonds quivering in the light that flashed by them from the street. For a space the sense of unreality that had pervaded his first entrance into Chilcote's life touched him again, then another and more potent feeling rose to quell it. Almost involuntarily as he looked at ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... and their addiction to using them, are unfortunately notorious traits in the character of the rural population. Amongst these preparations, the one which above all others excites the utmost dread, from the number of murders attributed to its agency, is the potent kabara-tel—a term which Europeans sometimes corrupt into cobra-tel, implying that the venom is obtained from the hooded-snake; whereas it professes to be extracted from the "kabara-goy[a]." Such is the bad renown of this formidable poison, that an individual suspected of having it in ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... and law-abiding specimen—his high standing at Bethany proving a very strong card. He was also the head of a powerful secret society, or 'tong,' and wielded a tremendous influence in the Washington settlement, so his countrymen dared not betray him. There was another, and in its way an equally potent reason why the Chinaman played so well the role of convert. He had fallen desperately in love with Miss Cragiemuir, and to the unconscious girl his antics were puzzling, to say the least. He annoyed her, too, with presents—trifles which she could not well refuse ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... tongues, as from some hundred-headed monster, shot out incessantly, and licking the air a moment, were gone forever. Occasionally this thick, cloudy veil concealed all but the spars of the enemy from sight, and then the tall masts seemed rising, by some potent spell, out of nothing; occasionally the terrific explosions would rend and tear asunder the curtain, and, for an instant, the black hulls would loom out threateningly, and then disappear. The roar of three hundred guns shook ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... the steps of error had begun there came a unanimous consent as to the right course of future duty. "We were led and helped," says Allen, "to a clear agreement amongst ourselves, not any dissenting, That it was the duty of our day, with the forces we had, to go out and fight against those potent enemies which that year in all places appeared against us...; and we were also enabled then, after serious seeking His face, to come to a very clear and joint resolution, on many grounds at large there debated amongst us, That it was our duty, if ever the Lord brought us back ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... cities are but sad, and too painfully recall the circumstances of freedom and breezy nature that are not there. But still the pomp of glorious summer, and the presence, 'not to be put by,' of the everlasting light, that is either always present, or always dawning—these potent elements impregnate the very city life, and the dim reflex of nature which is found at the bottom of well-like streets, with more solemn powers to move and to soothe in summer. I struck upon the prison gates, the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... cruelty of William of Noellet in refusing to allow corn to be imported from the Papal States in Tuscany in time of famine, the harshness and lack of tact in the policy of Gregory toward his unsatisfactory children, were all forces potent to destroy among the rebels any strong sense of committing a religious crime in their opposition to the Church. Catherine stands as mediator between the two parties. Not for a moment condoning the sin of a rebellion heinous indeed in her eyes, she yet does ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... her. She bent her head gravely and went out, followed by the others, and he was alone again. But it was very different now. The spasms of pain came back now and then, but there was rest between them, for there was a potent anodyne in the balsam with which Nella had soaked the first dressing. Of all possible hurts, the pain from burning is the most acute and lasting, and the wise little woman, who sometimes seemed so foolish, had done all ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... rather than in spectacular effect. If one desires to be so stirred by a poem of Nature wrought in the happily commingled graces of picturesque rocks, glimpsed distances, foliage, color, shifting lights and shadows, and failing water, that the tears almost come into his eyes so potent is the charm exerted, he need not go away from America to enjoy such an experience. The Rainbow Fall, in Watkins Glen (N.Y.), on the Erie railway, is an example. It would recede into pitiable insignificance if the callous ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... are, it must be weakness; it must be something which neither you nor I ought to approve. All the good, or rather all the opportunities of doing good which mortal or immortal being can enjoy do I wish you! Oh that I had prayers potent enough to draw down blessings on you!—Love you?—Yes!—The very idea bursts into passion. [The tears, Louisa, were streaming down my cheeks.] Why should you doubt of all the affection which virtue can bestow? Do you not deserve it?—Oh yes!—Love ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... in the public forum. Women shared that fireside sifting of political principles and passed on the findings of that scrutiny in letters to their friends, newspaper articles, and every form of written word. How widespread was this potent, though not spectacular force, is revealed in the collections of women's letters, articles, songs, dramas, and satirical "skits" on English rule that have come down to us. In this search into the reasons of government, some women began to take thought about laws that excluded ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... "Rescuing the Czar" is offered in extenuation of this doubtful charge against the entire Russian race. For nothing is better calculated to sanctify a martyrdom and make a race abhorred than a belief in its injustice. Nothing is more potent to dissolve a race and scatter its suspected members from the altar of their fathers than the fable of their unrepentant hostility to the cry of Mercy from the sacrificial Ikon. Nothing so quickly exposes their abandoned fields to the tramp of ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... magnificence—all the prepositions pressed into his service. His wildest hopes exceeded, and almost nothing left to wish. Blown up with the pride and importance of the moment, and some little oblivious from the potent porter—he had paid and sallied forth, and marched a mile upon his way, full of golden fancies, a rich luxurious lord as he was—when all on a sudden the hallucination crossed his dull pellucid mind, that he had left the store behind him! O, pungent terror!—O, most ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... The world comes to us first with its fascinations and delights. She comes to us next with her frowns and tortures. Behind her is her prince. But since he has been cast out by a stronger than himself, and exists only on sufferance, his most potent bribes and lures, his most violent onsets, his most unscrupulous suggestions, must collapse. Believer, meet him as a discredited and fallen foe. He can have no power at all over thee. The Cross bruised his head. Thou hast no need to fear judgment. It awaits ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... opinion, if you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual-emancipation message of last March, the war would now be substantially ended. And the plan therein proposed is yet one of the most potent and swift means of ending it. Let the States which are in rebellion see definitely and certainly that in no event will the States you represent ever join their proposed confederacy, and they cannot much longer maintain the contest. But you cannot divest them of their hope to ultimately have ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... reason the people had grown so well affected towards us. But there was another reason, perhaps, not less potent. From the extensive operations we were now about to undertake, they saw that we meant war in earnest; and the belief had become general, that a large "annexation" was to follow; that perhaps the whole valley of the Rio Grande would become American territory. It was but human nature ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... on that account," he rejoined tranquilly, and at the same time dropping his hand on to hers as it rested on the taffrail. The act—an instinctive one—was a dumb protest against the movement she had made to withdraw. And as such Lilith read it; more potent in its impulsiveness than any words could have been. "Listen!" he went on. "I suppose there is a sort of imp of scepticism sitting ever upon one shoulder, and that is what you saw. Something in my thoughts suggested a droll contrast, that was all. So far from boring me, you have afforded ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... his intention may have been, it was thwarted by the visitation of a power more potent than all the hosts of the King. Nature, herself, frowned upon him and his schemes and swept them all to ruin in the rush of angry waters. The rain that began the day Sir Aymer De Lacy made his forced ride from Sheffield to ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... train of serious-faced gentry entered, and as unceremoniously took seats. Mr. Smooth being put down number one, took a seat beside the missus. After a blessing had been dispensed, the conversation turned on politics and potatoes. A potent-looking individual, who sat not far down the table, said the Union was known by its magistracy, which being an established fact, should make it incumbent that no chief of this great and growing nation leave the federal chair unmarked ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... spectators who witnessed his brilliant ability as a right-wing forward, but not forgotten by the members of the old Q.P., Fraser, "though dead, yet speaketh." I question very much if any forward of that time among the mediaeval class of players, so to speak, exercised such a potent influence over the spectators, and no style of play was more followed by the younger dribblers than that of Fraser. A son of the manse, he was a highly cultured young fellow, and loved football so devotedly that no amount of hard training was ever shirked by him when under probation ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... Washburne should be indignant I can well understand; but although I do not personally know either Lopez de Arosemana, or Aquaviva, Charge d'Affaires of Monaco, I can understand Count Bismarck not being absolutely satisfied with the assurance of these potent signors that nothing except official despatches should pass under their seal. That the Prince of Monaco should be debarred for a few months from receiving communications from his representative in Paris, may perhaps be unpleasant to him, but must be a matter of the ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... nearly the idea of value in exchange. Further research will here have to be made, with the idea of "impotent need," inasmuch as, from a high ethical, national-dietetical point of view, the question is asked whether, to what extent, and how, "impotent need" may be made a potent one. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... understand and so use. One believes it to be a sort of instinct atrophied by disuse in a complexer civilization. I remember very well when I came first upon a wet meadow of yerba mansa, not knowing its name or use. It looked potent; the cool, shiny leaves, the succulent, pink stems and fruity bloom. A little touch, a hint, a word, and I should have known what use to put them to. So I felt, unwilling to leave it until we had come to an understanding. ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... the outcome of intellectual qualities. It depends on a falsetto voice and the use of a recognized number of catchwords. "Dee-ee-ar me, dee-ee-ar me;" "Just so-a, just so-a;" "Im-phm!" "D'ye tell me that?" "Wonderful, serr, wonderful;" "Ah, well, may-ay-be, may-ay-be"—these be words of potent irony when uttered with a certain birr. Long practice had made Gourlay an adept in their use. He never spoke to those he despised or disliked without "the birr." Not that he was voluble of speech; he wasn't clever enough for ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... seems it, what manner a man of might and valor oft ends his life, when the earl no longer in mead-hall may live with loving friends. So Beowulf, when that barrow's warden he sought, and the struggle; himself knew not in what wise he should wend from the world at last. For {40c} princes potent, who placed the gold, with a curse to doomsday covered it deep, so that marked with sin the man should be, hedged with horrors, in hell-bonds fast, racked with plagues, who should rob their hoard. Yet no greed for ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... violence towards the patriarch of Aquileia and three other bishops whom he dragged to Ravenna. His successor was Romanus who held office till 597. In the same year, 589, Authari was married at Pavia to Theodelinda, who was to be so potent an instrument in the conversion of the Lombards and therefore in the salvation of Italy. And in the following year, 590, pope Pelagius II. died, and Gregory the Great was chosen ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... thee for our patron, co-equal in praise —Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the aegis and spear! Also ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer, Now, henceforth and forever,—O latest to whom I upraise Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock! Present to help, potent to ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... work possessed by the brain are abnormally developed in them. The heredity of these powers has not, I believe, been as yet especially studied. It is strange that more attention has not been given until recently to unconscious brain-work, because it is by far the most potent factor in mental operations. Few people, when in rapid conversation, have the slightest idea of the particular form which a sentence will assume into which they have hurriedly plunged, yet through the guidance of unconscious cerebration it develops itself grammatically ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster
... always be found groups of loquacious Breton and Norman sailors in red caps and sashes, voyageurs and canoemen from the far West in half Indian costume, drinking Gascon wine and Norman cider, or the still more potent liquors filled with the fires of the Antilles. The Batture kindled into life on the arrival of the fleet from home, and in the evenings of summer, as the sun set behind the Cote a Bonhomme, the natural magnetism of companionship drew the lasses of Quebec down to the beach, where, amid old refrains ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... always been called upon for effective weapons in the warfare, and that he should have been the supreme authority in such questions for many an age in the Latin or Western Church. His sounds are as clear to-day, and his arguments are as convincing and potent. The student and the dialectician and the theologian can ill afford to be unfamiliar with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... resuscitation by his sorceries, a body whose limbs had recently quivered with existence, and whose throat had but just uttered the last note of agony. Such a subject even the powerful Erictho was compelled to select, as alone capable of being reanimated even by "her" potent magic— ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... string was all I could command; and yet my primitive apparatus was very successful, for the fish also were primitive, affording me ample sport and taking the bait with extraordinary eagerness. My occupation attracted the attention of a few peasants who gathered round me, and stood wondering what potent charm attached to the string could entice the fish from their native element. I endeavoured to explain the marvel, but was utterly unsuccessful; indeed, the peasants did not accept my explanation, which they evidently considered as a fabrication ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... quotation; and we may be left helpless in the middle of one of Pope's couplets, a white film gathering before our eyes, and our kind friends charitably trying to cover our disgrace by a feeble round of applause. Amis lecteurs, this is a painful topic. It is possible that we too, we, the 'potent, grave, and reverend' editor, may have suffered these things, and drunk as deep as any of the cup of shameful failure. Let us dwell no longer on so delicate ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... instances of the interference of governments with men's hair, the most extraordinary, not only for its daring, but for its success, is that of Peter the Great, in 1705. By this time fashion had condemned the beard in every other country in Europe, and with a voice more potent than popes or emperors, had banished it from civilised society. But this only made the Russians cling more fondly to their ancient ornament, as a mark to distinguish them from foreigners, whom they hated. Peter, however, resolved that they should be shaven. If he had been a man deeply read in history, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... drew her hand away. "That is why we all admire you so. But even you, most potent Charles, couldn't satisfy a woman who was wanting—some ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... rushing, impetuously to the cock-pit, where the prize of pleasure was hotly in dispute and clustering to a point there, I soon received the dear relief of nature from these over-violent strains and provocations of it; harmonizing with which, my gallant spouted into me such a potent overflow of the balsamic injection, as softened and unedged all those irritating stings of a new species of titillation, which I had been so intolerably maddened with, and restored the ferment of my senses to some ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... solely by the desire to escape from the social conditions that environed her friends, she would now have smothered it and stamped on it. But the call from Charleston that had come across the water to her was an influence far more potent than that. That call from the country where her mother had been born and where her mother's people had always lived had more in it than the voices ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... in the ground, where it is left for the space of several years. On the birth of a child it is customary to bury a botija full of chicha, which, on the marriage of the same child, is opened and drunk. This chicha has a very agreeable flavor, but is so exceedingly potent, that a single glass of it is sufficient to intoxicate a practised chicha-drinker, or, as they say in the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... something in it and there may not," the Doctor said; "but, at any rate, Bathurst, he ought to be a potent ally. There doesn't seem any limit to his powers, and he might, for aught one knows, be able to convey you away as ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... against the strokes of fate. Still it may be urged that these men, in their leisure hours, laugh, sing, play, and live without care for the past as well as for the future. Will you then deny that they are happier than we? Man is such a pitiable and variable creature, and habits have such a potent sway over him, that in the most disastrous situations he always finds some posture that gives him ease, something that consoles him, and, by comparison with past suffering, appears to him well-being and happiness; but if to laugh, sing, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... gold-encircled brow And kingly gait, for ever; such a spell In his severe looks, such a majesty As drew of old the people after him, In Agrigentum and Olympia, When his star reign'd, before his banishment, Is potent still on me in his decline. But oh! Pausanias, he is changed of late; There is a settled trouble in his air Admits no momentary brightening now, And when he comes among his friends at feasts, 'Tis as an orphan among prosperous boys. Thou know'st of old he ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... languorous and forbidding, indifferent and sensuous. Against these rude gipsies the refined grace and Goyaesque elegance of La Argentina stand forth in high relief, La Argentina, in whose hands the castanets become as potent an instrument for our pleasure as the violin does in the fingers of Jascha Heifetz. Bilbao, too, with his thundering heels and his tauromachian gestures, bewilders our highly magnetized senses. When, in the dance, he pursues, without ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... part of true greatness to treat such slanders with contempt. But Napoleon felt that such false charges were exasperating nations, were paving the way to deluge Europe again in war, and that causes tending to such woes were too potent to ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... of Japanese history at this stage, a word must be said about a family of nobles (sukune) who, from the days of Nintoku, exercised potent sway in the councils of State. It will have been observed that, in the annals of the Emperor Keiko's reign, prominence is given to an official designated Takenouchi-no-Sukune, who thereafter seems to have served sovereign after sovereign until his death in the year 368, when he must have ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... where the road lay seemed to pierce their very bones, and they were heartily glad to draw up, by twelve o'clock, at the door of the parsonage and be set before a blazing fire, and revived with sundry mugs of foaming and steaming flip, made potent with a touch of old peach brandy; for in those ancient days, even in parsonages, the hot poker knew its office and sideboards were not ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... notwithstanding this journey was taken with my concurrence and consent, that I was perfectly easy when they were gone, for my affection for them all would work up imaginary fears too potent for my reason to dispel, and which at first sat with no easy pressure upon my mind. This my pretty babies at home perceiving, used all the little winning arts they could to divert and keep up my spirits; and from day to day, by taking them abroad with me, and playing with and amusing them at home, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... hide from me the source and the issue. For what is a life but a flame that bursts off the surface of darkness, and tapers into the darkness again? But the death that issues differs from the death that was the source. At least, I shall enrich death with a potent shadow, if I ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... the principles—which for that matter were anything but novel—which it sought to propagate, nor in the institutions which it sought to found. The people cares very little for institutions and even less for doctrines. That the Revolution was potent indeed, that it made France accept the violence, the murders, the ruin and the horror of a frightful civil war, that finally it defended itself victoriously against a Europe in arms, was due to the fact that it had founded not a new system of ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... of God, patroness of sailors, occupying the position and attributes already belonging to the world-wide goddess; and the Divine Teacher, the Man of Sorrows, became transformed into the entirely different figure of the Potent Child. Isis and Horus still ruled the affections and worship of Europe ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... hair, dark hazel eyes, and rather large, handsome features, full of intelligence, but a little hard, and not a little regnant—as such features must be, except after prolonged influence of a heart potent in self-subjugation. As to her social expression, it was a mingling of the gentlewoman of education, and the farmer's daughter supreme over the household and its share in ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... in the phial? What could it do? These were questions she asked herself, and longing to try the effect, she ventured at last to pour forth a few drops and taste it. It was like a potent distillation, and she became instantly sensible of a strange bewildering excitement. Presently her brain reeled, and she laughed wildly. Never before had she felt so light and buoyant, and wings seemed scarcely wanting to enable her to fly. An idea occurred to her. The wondrous liquid ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... himself one of the most conspicuous and unpopular of these by the office he held under the king, and no reason could I discover why he should not reap the punishment he fitly deserved. But this morning a potent one was furnished me, for I received a letter from General Washington, speaking in high terms of Mr. Meredith, and expressing a hope that we will not push his punishment to the extreme of the law. It is the first time his Excellency ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... drinking-saloons whose hundred doors he had to pass daily did not tempt him, did not cause his firm steps to pause nor linger. His sorrow and shame for the past and his solemn promises and hopes for the future were potent enough to save him from all such allurements. For him their doors stood open in vain. The path of danger lay in another direction. He would have to be taken unawares. If betrayed at all, it must be, so to speak, in the house of ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... Gluck, so potent in shaping the tastes and methods of the more serious French composers, asserted itself from the beginning in the work of Gounod, and no modern composer has been so brilliant and effective a disciple in carrying out the formulas of that great master. More free, flexible, and melodious ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... sin. Truly that were to take away the lesser evil, that the greater may remain; that were to deliver from one misery, that we may be more involved in that which is the greatest of all miseries. Nay, certainly if Christ be a Redeemer, he must redeem us from our most potent and accursed enemy,—sin; he must take away the root, the fountain of all misery,—sin; that which conceived in its womb all pains, sorrows, sicknesses, death and hell. You have the great end of redemption expressed, Luke i. 74, 75, "That we, being delivered from all ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... field as the arbiter of continental destinies. This was the famous "Thirty Years' War," the greatest and most ferocious religious war known in history. Into it Sweden was drawn and the hand of Gustavus was potent in saving the Protestant cause from destruction. The final event in his career, in which he fell covered with glory on the fatal field of Lutzen, is dealt with in the German "Historical Tales." We shall here describe ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... the scale. Well, if we do, we shall have to demonstrate a swiftness of preparation and a power in the field which will astonish the world, and when it is all over the world will want to know how this potent Democracy of ours came about. The one name—Lincoln—with the background of your story, especially the background, for the trouble with all the biographies is a lack of background—will be the best answer we could give I think. Of course there ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... had converted the people of India to the truth; and after the eremitic life originated in Egypt many in India adopted it. But a potent pagan King arose, by name ABENNER, who persecuted the Christians and especially the ascetics. After this King had long been childless, a son, greatly desired, is born to him, a boy of matchless beauty. The King greatly rejoices, gives the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... principal causes of their humiliation lies in the perverted interpretation of their religious traditions, that ... the Talmud demoralized and continues to demoralize their co-religionists. But nowhere is the influence of the Talmud so potent as among us (in Russia) and in the Kingdom of Poland. [1] This influence can be counteracted only by enlightenment, and the Government can do no better than to act in the spirit that animates the handful of the best among them.... The re-education of the learned ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... except upon compulsion. Had not she also made a request to him, and had not he refused it? It was his prerogative, undoubtedly, to command; but in that matter of requests she had a right to expect that her voice should be as potent as his own. She wrote a line, therefore, to Alice before she went to bed, begging her cousin to come to her early on the following day, so that they might go out together, and then afterwards dine ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... young Ladies. Some were even heard expressing disappointment with the novel arrangement, and Mona, who seemed as utterly at a loss to account for it as the rest, became rather piqued at Minnie's serene imperturbability under her most potent thrusts, and was fain to exercise her wit on some more vulnerable object. Minnie kept closely to her work during lesson time, and even during the pauses between classes was observed to sit quite still, attentively contemplating the ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... end to a Quixotic, very touching, most remarkable life. Would he now immaturely fall a victim to an enticing face and the cares of a household? Would he be able to sustain his character? One thing was certain. He could never again expect to exercise precisely the same potent influence as he had in the past, over his earth-bound, self-indulgent friends. Self-indulgent people always exacted unusual privations from those who would seek to move them—and Robert's call was clearly to materialists rather than ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... a Catholic, and differed from us in every way. But I never blamed Alec after I saw her. It wasn't that she was so very pretty. She was slight and dark and ivory-coloured. But she was very graceful, and there was a charm about her, master—a mighty and potent charm. The women couldn't understand it. They wondered at Alec's infatuation for her. I never did. I—I loved her, too, master, before I had known her a day. Nobody ever knew it. Mercedes never dreamed of it. But it's lasted me all my life. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... it. Were it not that this feeling is so general an English judge and English counsellors would almost be forced to subject themselves in such cases to the close custody which jurymen are called upon to endure. But, as a rule, good taste and good feeling are as potent as locks and walls. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... apparent to them, there seemed to be a sudden, sufficient reason for keeping up the forms of life; and even the waiters at hotels showed the more alacrity in doing away with crumbs and creases and dregs with struggling flies in them. This potent charm, added to the fact that she was the eldest daughter, toward whom her mamma had always been in an apologetic state of mind for the evils brought on her by a step-father, may seem so full a reason for Gwendolen's domestic empire, that to look for any other would be to ask ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... city of dreams and mysteries,—a city of the living and the dead. And this is Rome,—weird, wonderful, ancient, mighty Rome,—mighty once by physical force and grandeur, mightier now in physical decadence and weakness by the spell of a potent moral enchantment. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... confessed affection can make them, while I am left in solitude. Heigho! love may perhaps excuse the rashness of an elopement from one's friend, but I am sure nothing but the presence of the man we love can support it. Ha! what do I see! Ferdinand, as I live! How could he gain admission? By potent gold, I suppose, as Antonio did. How eager and disturbed he seems! He shall not know me as yet. ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... master of arts or sciences? Has not the very caftan-Jew from the Carpathians published his poetry and his philosophy, gallantly championing "The Master of the Name" against a Darwinian world? Heine had figured the Jew as a dog, that at the advent of the Princess Sabbath is changed back to a man. More potent than the Princess, the Congress has shown the Jew's manhood to the world. That old painter, whose famous Dance of Death drew for centuries the curious to Bale, could not picture the Jew save as the gaberdined miser, only ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... from its harbor annually, which, however, is closed by ice three months in the year, though that of Hammerfest, situated a thousand miles further north on the same coast, is never frozen, owing to the genial influence of the Gulf Stream,—an agent so potent as to modify the temperature of the entire coast of ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... linguistic method. Failing the precedent set by such already existing types of vocalic alternation as sing—sang—sung, it is highly doubtful if the detailed conditions that brought about the evolution of forms like teeth and geese from tooth and goose would have been potent enough to allow the native linguistic feeling to win through to an acceptance of these new types of plural formation as psychologically possible. This feeling for form as such, freely expanding along predetermined lines and ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir |
