"Weaken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... both. I won't say,' added he, after a pause, 'I'd not rather see you a leader in our ranks than a Parliament man. I was bred a doctor, Mr. Kearney, and I must take an illustration from my own art. To make a man susceptible of certain remedies, you are often obliged to reduce his strength and weaken his constitution. So it is here. To bring Ireland into a condition to be bettered by Repeal, you must crush the Church and smash the bitter Protestants. The Whigs will do these for us, but we must help them. Do ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... said on'y iv th' dead. As long as George was a lithograph iv himsilf in a saloon window he was all r-right. Whin people saw he cud set in a city hall hack without flowers growin' in it an' they cud look at him without smoked glasses they begin to weaken in their devotion. 'Twud've been th' same, almost, if he'd married a Presbyteeryan an' hadn't deeded his house to his wife. 'Dewey don't look much like a hero,' says wan man. 'I shud say not,' says another. 'He looks like annybody else.' 'He ain't a hero,' says another. ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... and precious statue is packed should be tossed aside. Swiftly youth goes on toward maturity, age toward old age, and the scythe awaits all. But sickness and trouble can do nothing more than dim the eye, dull the ear, weaken the hand. Dying and death avail not for injuring reason, affection, or hope, ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... in such good time that Ivy wouldn't know the difference. Well, sir, I came to the first pitfall—and, lo and behold! something had been and taken the bait and got away with it without so much as putting a foot through the wattling. I'd woven it too strong. So I thought I'd just weaken it up a little—it wouldn't take five minutes. I tried it with my foot—very gingerly. Yes, it was too strong—much too strong. I put more weight into that foot—and bang, smash, crash—bump! There I was at the bottom of the pit, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... greatly improved and sometimes perfected by simply providing proper drainage for it. It is not sufficient to have ditches on each side of the road; for if the water stands in them it is liable to make the road muddy and to weaken its substratum. The ditches themselves should be thoroughly drained, and all the water which accumulates in them should be carried into the natural watercourses of the country, or at any rate beyond the limits ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... ignorance; and even in civilized nations, where education is free, the multitude have but a rude acquaintance with the elements of knowledge. Their ability to read and write hardly serves intellectual and moral ends; and such learning as they possess seems only to weaken their power to admire and love what is best ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... real influence of stimulants and narcotics upon the brain? Do they give increased strength, greater lucidity of mind and more continuous power? Do they weaken and cloud the intellect, and lessen that capacity for enduring a prolonged strain of mental exertion which is one of the first requisites of the intellectual life? Would a man who is about to enter upon the consideration of problems, ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... was that Sheridan would be able to carry Five Forks, get on the enemy's right flank and rear, and force them to weaken their centre to protect their right so that an assault in the centre might be successfully made. General Wright's corps had been designated to make this assault, which I intended to order as soon as information reached ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of the place, disinterested and honest to the core, contrived to steer a middle course between not doing anything to weaken these ideas and not compromising themselves. These worthy men were my first spiritual guides, and I have them to thank for whatever may be good in me. Their every word was my law, and I had so much respect for them that I never thought to doubt anything they told me until I was sixteen years of ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... ought not to be used after the fortieth year." I have, then, long exceeded the limits of permission, but I comfort myself, that all the enemies of tea cannot be in the right. If tea be a desiccative, according to Paulli, it cannot weaken the fibres, as our author imagines; if it be emetick, it must constringe the stomach, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... front and go down when most was expected of them. You will see in the morning the crowd repent of its enthusiasm of the night before. You will find cowards where you expected heroes and see the best condemned to the suffering and penury that weaken the bravest. Your heart will ache and your stomach will hunger and your body will be bent and your head gray and then you may think that the world is not moving and that you have wasted your life and that none ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... so, but as he grows stronger these ideas will weaken, and you, his sister—and you—Ah, men are sometimes very weak, but to whom should they come for forgiveness when weak and repentant, if not ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... last yellow butterfly of the year, as with tattered and battered wings it vainly seeks for a final sip of sweets! The fallen petals and the hard seeds are black and odourless, the drops of sap are hardened. Little by little the wings weaken, the tiny feet clutch convulsively at a dried weed stalk, and the four golden wings drift quietly down among the yellow leaves, soon to merge into the dark mould beneath. As the butterfly dies, a stiffened Katydid scratches a last requiem on his wing covers—"katy-didn't—katy-did—kate—y"—and ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... when the legacy is paid, replace the money which I have taken? I know that many would act thus. But how does it work, when we thus anticipate God, by going our own way? We bring, in many instances, guilt on our conscience; but if not, we certainly weaken faith, instead of increasing it; and each time we work thus a deliverance of our own, we find it more and more difficult to trust in God, till at last we give way entirely to our natural fallen reason, and unbelief ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... ask thou at thy pleasure; those fair nymphs with their chariots, with their musical instruments; the like of them are not to be gained by men. I will give them to thee, but do not ask the question regarding death." Naciketas replied, "All those enjoyments are of to-morrow and they only weaken the senses. All life is short, with thee the dance and song. Man cannot be satisfied with wealth, we could obtain wealth, as long as we did not reach you we live only as long as thou pleasest. The boon which I choose I have said." Yama said, "One ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... walk, and he was keeping pace with her. "Jackson," he proceeded, "was a man of absolute courage. He took the woman he wanted—defied public opinion to do it—and it only made him the more popular. I had always intended to strengthen myself by marrying. If I married you I'd weaken myself politically, while if I married some Western girl, some daughter of the people, I'd ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Corsica was quite uneventful. Fearing lest by giving way to love of family, and sitting and talking with them in the luxuriously appointed parlor below-stairs, he should imbibe too strong a love for comfort and ease, and thus weaken his soldierly instincts, as well as break in upon that taciturnity which, as we have seen, was the keynote of his character, he had set apart for himself a small room on the attic floor, where he spent most of his time undisturbed, and at the same time made Joseph somewhat ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... Turkish side was the German General Liman von Sanders, the former chief of the military mission at Constantinople. The bulk of the expeditionary force, which numbered altogether about a hundred and twenty thousand men, were, therefore, men whose presence in the east did not weaken the Allied strength in ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... and confirmed, by the exercise on her part of a just and equable, but firm and absolute, authority. This must always be true so long as a feeling of respect for the object of affection tends to strengthen, and not to weaken, the sentiment of love. The mother who does not govern her children is bringing them up not to love her, but ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... the idea of fugue as understood by the great masters of the 16th century who matured it. In the musical articles in this Encyclopaedia we shall therefore speak of writing "in fugue" as we would speak of a poet writing in verse, rather than weaken our descriptions by the orthodox epithet ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... measure of woe to the Jews of Poland as to the Jews of Western Europe. But the Polish Jews were prepared to accept the questionable gift from the hands of history. They had mounted that eminence of spiritual stability on which suffering loses the power to weaken its victim, but, on the contrary, endues him with strength. More than ever they shrank into their shell. They shut themselves up more completely in their inner world, and became morally dulled against ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... Do you retain most accurately what you see? Can you reproduce either exactly or in correct substance what you read to yourself without any supporting aids to stimulate your memory? If you have this kind of mind develop it along that line. Do not weaken its power by letting it lean on any supports at all. If you find you can do without them, do not get into the habit of taking notes. If you can remember to do everything you should do during a trip downtown don't make a list of the items before you go. If you can retain ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... from Brant, when his home was on the upper Mohawk, and knew him well. Nothing has ever been said to show that Herkimer lacked courage. But he was vain enough to think that a few words from him might weaken Brant's steadfast loyalty. Furthermore, like too many frontiersmen of his day, he held the Indian race in little esteem and, as we shall see, he did not scruple to treat them with the basest kind of treachery. ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... If I weaken and submit he is happy as the day is long. If he gets it roached up on both sides that will make me look like a horizontal-bar performer, which is his idea of manly beauty. Or if he gets it roached up on one side only there is still ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... vision of external aid from man or circumstance to one who felt herself mastered. Victor could make her treacherous to her wishes, in revolt against them, though the heart protested. His first conquest of her was in her blood, to weaken a spirit of resistance. For the precedent of submission is a charm upon the faint-hearted through love: it unwinds, unwills them. Nataly resolved fixedly, that there must be a day for speaking; and she had her moral sustainment in the resolve; she had also a tormenting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... three general lines. The whole is resolvable into three elements,—personalities, politics, and principles. There were the attacks which each made upon the other's record; the efforts which each made to weaken the other's position before the people; and the contrary views which ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... concerns became insolvent (Oct. 1892), and the Liberator depositors and shareholders were defrauded of every penny of their investments. Many of them suffered great distress from the loss of their savings, and some were absolutely ruined. The result was to weaken confidence in building societies generally, and this was very marked in the rapid decline of the amount of the capital of the incorporated building societies. From its highest point (nearly 54 millions) reached in 1887, it fell to below 43 millions ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... woman—a heartless mother, a false wife? She never loved her dear little boy, who used to fly here and tell me of her cruelty to him. She never came into a family but she strove to bring misery with her and to weaken the most sacred affections with her wicked flattery and falsehoods. She has deceived her husband, as she has deceived everybody; her soul is black with vanity, worldliness, and all sorts of crime. I tremble when I touch her. I keep my children ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... childhood, ought to extend through a man's whole life and ennoble it. This is the teaching of "Tintern Abbey," in which the best part of our life is shown to be the result of natural influences. According to Wordsworth, society and the crowded unnatural life of cities tend to weaken and pervert humanity; and a return to natural and simple living is the only ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... over the misty Blue Ridge after Boone and Harrod to this old St. Louis of the French, their enemies, whose fur traders and missionaries had long followed the veins of the vast western wilderness. And now, on to the structure builded by these two, comes Germany to be welded, to strengthen or to weaken. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... from General Lee was that the enemy was collecting in strong force at Fredericksburg. "For this purpose," he wrote, "they must weaken other points, and now is the time to concentrate on any that may be exposed within our reach." He then suggested that, if Banks was too strong in numbers and position, Jackson and Ewell combined should move on Warrenton, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... all feel bad, but none of us must weaken," blustered Big Josh. "And while we are discussing family matters, how about this talk about that pretty Miss Judith ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... are prepared to aid them at the first opportunity that shall offer to strike an effective blow, well knew that the victorious Republicans had neither the will nor the power to injure Southern property or to weaken the protection it enjoyed under the Constitution. Their hostility to the Union is purely gratuitous, or springs from motives ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... strenuous efforts to drive our troops from the position we had gained, but without success. The contest lasted for two hours. Corse, a brave and efficient commander, was badly wounded in this assault. Sherman now threatened both Bragg's flank and his stores, and made it necessary for him to weaken other points of his line to strengthen his right. From the position I occupied I could see column after column of Bragg's forces moving against Sherman. Every Confederate gun that could be brought to bear upon the Union forces was concentrated ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... usually called his "Retractation," have been warmly disputed. On the one hand, it has been declared that the monks forged the retractation. and procured its insertion among the works of the man who had done so much to expose their abuses and ignorance, and to weaken their hold on popular credulity: on the other hand, Chaucer himself at the close of his life, is said to have greatly lamented the ribaldry and the attacks on the clergy which marked especially "The Canterbury Tales," and to have drawn up a formal retractation ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... not allow himself to stop and think about his father waiting for his return. He knew that would only rouse his emotions and weaken his courage. He began to feel his way carefully along the wall. It reached farther than he had ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is not always an original condition, for, under certain circumstances, it may be acquired. A person, for instance, meets with some circumstance in his life which tends to weaken his confidence in human nature. He accordingly shuns mankind, by shutting himself up in his own house and refusing to have any intercourse with the inhabitants of the place in which he resides. In carrying out his purpose ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... weak, and that they became weak although they were eating their full ration or more than their full ration of food, save for a few days when they went short on the way down the Beardmore Glacier. The first man to weaken was the biggest and heaviest man in the expedition: "the man whom we ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Princes is no doubt difficult in these times, but it would be much less so if they would behave honourably and straightforwardly, giving the people gradually those privileges which would satisfy all the reasonable and well-intentioned, and would weaken the power of the Red Republicans; instead of that, reaction and a return to all the tyranny and oppression is the cry and the principle—and all papers and books are being seized and prohibited, as in the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... was English without a flaw. In all his dealings he was uniquely honorable and upright. He paid and he made others pay. His word was his bond. He was not charitable in the sense of indiscriminate giving. "To give something for nothing is to weaken the giver," was one of his favorite sayings. That this attitude protected a miserly spirit, it is easy to say, but it is not wholly true. In his later years he carried with him a book containing a record of his possessions. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... our Government will be preserved upon the principles of the Constitution inherited from our fathers. It follows, therefore, that in admitting to the ballot box a new class of voters not qualified for the exercise of the elective franchise we weaken our system of government instead of adding to its strength ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... weaken, but define them. When I preach that sermon I spoke of the other day, I shall have to lay down some principles not fully recognized in some ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... She needed enlightenment on many points. He had already communicated some of his views on dress, for example; and he had readjusted her notions on the preparation of salads. He gave her, pretty constantly, corrective glances through, or over, his eyeglasses,—for his sight had begun to weaken early, as his father had foreseen,—and he meant that such glances should count. She required to be edited; well, the new manuscript was worth his pains, and would be highly creditable ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... your boat's crew waiting for you, even if they stayed a little away from the shore, was rank disrespect. He knew you would take it so. He knew it would weaken your authority with the crew. An' he expects you'll call him down for it. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... Tigris.[105] The Swedish Premier, by an enigmatic speech in which the doctrine of neutrality at all costs was ostentatiously repudiated, aroused suspicion of an intention on the part of his Government to join the Teutons in order to weaken the Slav neighbour, and to this apprehension colour was imparted by the tardy announcement that since the outbreak of the war Sweden had increased her army from 360,000 to 500,000 men. In the United ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the assailants of the occupants of B——, must be semi-maniacs. The terror is sometimes brought about by two people operating; one producing a terrifying effect, the other intensifying the terror. In attempting to weaken a person to whom speech has been made intelligible at a distance, a sensation would be transferred after the speech, so that he might believe it affected him, and cease jeering at and despising the operator. A man with some knowledge ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... result? No longer will the strength and life-value of each generation increase. On the contrary, it will diminish. There is the Nemesis of your slave philosophy. Your society of slaves—of, by, and for, slaves—must inevitably weaken and go to pieces as the life which composes it weakens and goes ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the burden of other people's sufferings. It is well to feel and realise them, and the gift of sympathy is a beautiful thing, but our own individualism is also a sacred gift. It is not for us to weaken or destroy it by encouraging a superabundant sympathy for others. We each have our place in the world, whether we owe it to fate or our own efforts, and it is our duty to make the best of it. Our own happiness, indeed, is a present charge upon ourselves for the ultimate benefit of others. A happy ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I shall show you that, on many occasions, he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even sixpences, to her little boy; and I shall prove to you, by a witness whose testimony it will be impossible for my learned friend to weaken or controvert, that on one occasion he patted the boy on the head, and, after inquiring whether he had won any "ALLEY TORS" or "COMMONEYS" lately (both of which I understand to be a particular species of marbles much prized by the youth of this ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Uddushunamir, or I will shut thee up in the great prison—the mud of the drains of the city shall be thy food—the gutters of the town shall be thy drink—the shadow of the walls shall be thy abode—the thresholds shall be thy habitation—confinement and isolation shall weaken thy strength.'"* She is obliged to obey, notwithstanding; she calls her messenger Namtar and commands him to make all the preparations for resuscitating the goddess. It was necessary to break the threshold of the palace in order to get at the spring, and its waters would have ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... separate denominational schools, to have them supported by the taxes of Roman Catholic ratepayers and by provincial grants. So far as the education of Protestant children was concerned Mr. Brown's advocacy was successful. He opposed denominational schools because he feared they would weaken or destroy the general system of free education for all. Under the agreement which was finally arrived at, this fear was not realized. In his speech on confederation he admitted that the sectarian system, carried ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... the material did all it promised. These cases were 1 foot square and 15 1/2 inches high. They had only a little round opening on the top, closed with an aluminium lid, which fitted exactly like the lid of a milk-can. Large lids weaken the cases, and I had therefore chosen this form. We did not have to throw off the lashing of the case to get the lid off, and this is a very great advantage; we could always get at it. A case with a large lid, covered ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... of war for the political and moral development of mankind has been criticized by large sections of the modern civilized world in a way which threatens to weaken the defensive powers of States by undermining the warlike spirit of the people. Such ideas are widely disseminated in Germany, and whole strata of our nation seem to have lost that ideal enthusiasm which ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... masterful clearness, upland behind upland in the twilight like to some heavenly choir arising rank on rank to call a drunkard from his gambling-hell. No volume of traffic can drown the sound of it, no lure of London can weaken its appeal. Having heard it one's fancy is gone, and evermore departed, to some coloured pebble agleam in a rural brook, and all that London can offer is swept from one's mind like some ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... that they had not told simply from heedlessness and want of initiative. He would have flogged the whole lot soundly, but he wanted them fresh for the morrow's work. Cutting down their rations would but weaken them, and as for threatening to dock their pay, such a threat has no effect ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... had done nothing to forfeit their confidence, and everything, by his wise and conservative course, to win their approval. And it was their duty to their party to uphold him, for internal dissensions in this great crisis would weaken their forces and play them into the hands of the Democrats. Therefore, Senator North and others, who had strenuously and consistently opposed war from any cause, until it became evident that the President had been elbowed into the position ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... however, the Emperor had put the matter too strongly and an explanation of some kind was forthcoming. If so, it must be looked for among the secret archives of the Foreign Office. It was at once suggested that the Emperor made the revelation expressly to weaken, if not destroy, the Entente. One can conceive Bismarck doing such a thing; but it is more in keeping with the Emperor's character, and with the indiscreet character of the entire interview, to suppose it to be a proof of deplorable candour ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... consent to endow her with a small portion of their patrimony, to render completely eligible. The cause was that of her happiness and the happiness of him on whom she had bestowed her heart. It behooved her, therefore, to call forth all her energies in defence of it, to weaken her brother's influence on the minds of her parents, or to win him to be her advocate. When I reflect upon her mental powers, and the advantages which should seem to flow from the circumstance of pleading in the character ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... only in this single instance, but in many others of the same nature and tendency, whereby it manifestly appears that this assembly, for some years last past, have attempted, by unwarrantable practices, to weaken, if not cast off, the obedience they owe to the crown, and the dependence which all colonies ought to have ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... and perfected by obedience. There are many who suppose that real strength of will is secured by giving it free play. But we really weaken it in that way. Obedience to a reasonable law is a source of moral strength and power. Obedience is not weakness bowing to strength, but is rather submission to an authority whose claims are already admitted. If a man is royal when he rules over nature, and yet more royal when ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... the boy from his mother. Such terrible revenge as that was beyond him, his whole nature would have revolted against it. He had spoken with passion, urged by her contempt into a desire to show her where his power lay, without any intention of actually using it. He meant perhaps to weaken her intolerable defiance, and show her where a hole in her armor lay. He was not prepared for the ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... Charlemagne. But Conrad's rule was weak, and during his short reign of seven years civil war continued, part of the time with Henry the Fowler, son of Duke Otto [who died in 912], owing to Conrad's attempt to separate Thuringia from Saxony in order to weaken Henry's ducal power. The empire also was again invaded by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... upon private interviews and his powers of persuasion to induce the Italians to abandon their extravagant claim. I am sure that he will not be able to do it. On the contrary, his conversations will strengthen rather than weaken Italian determination. He ought to tell them now that he will not consent to have Fiume given to Italy. It would cause anger and bitterness, but nothing to compare with the resentment which will be aroused if the uncertainty is permitted to go on much longer. I ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... friction when questions were raised affecting expenditure, accompanied by protests, even in those cases in which these questions were manifestly of a legitimate character. The result was discouraging, and in the opinion of Mr Main had done much to weaken financial control and to defeat the purpose of the order. It is unnecessary to detail the various changes that have been made by the institution of dockyard expense accounts in the department of the controller, and by various ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... them free and to put the Visconti in prison; but shortly afterwards he released them, and, having gone to Rome, in order to disturb Italy with less difficulty, he made Piero della Corvara anti-pope, by whose influence, and the power of the Visconti, he designed to weaken the opposite faction in Tuscany and Lombardy. But Castruccio died, and his death caused the failure of the emperor's purpose; for Pisa and Lucca rebelled. The Pisans sent Piero della Corvara a prisoner to the pope in France, and the emperor, despairing of the affairs of Italy, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Soldiers." KING: "I look upon this day as the fairest of my life; for it will become the epoch of uniting Two Houses which have been enemies too long, and whose mutual interests require that they should strengthen, not weaken one another." KAISER: "For Austria there is no Silesia farther." [Preuss, v. 23; OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 25, 26.] Talk, it appears, lasted ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that we should examine the chances and changes which each man is likely to meet in marriage, and which may weaken him in that struggle from which our champion ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... labouring under the same delusion. Slavery is a bitter and a poisonous draught. We have but one consolation under it, that a Nation may dash the cup to the ground when she pleases. Do not imagine that by taking from its bitterness you weaken its deadly quality; no, by rendering it more palatable you contribute to its power of destruction. We submit without repining to the chastisements of Providence, aware that we are creatures, that opposition is vain and remonstrance ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Shelley or Keats as from the savage fury of Swift, watch with a prophet's indignation the heedless waste of faculty and opportunity, the triumph of paltry motive and paltry aim, as if we were the flies of a summer noon, which do more than any active malignity to distort the noble lines, and to weaken or to frustrate the strong and healthy parts, of human nature. For practical purposes all these complaints of man are of as little avail as Johnson found the complaint that of the globe so large a space should ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... violent passion, say they, instead of distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and make us consider their influence on self either by their pain or pleasure. To attempt a farther proof of this were to weaken its evidence; since no proof can be derived from any fact, of which we are so intimately conscious; nor is there any thing, of which we can be certain, if we doubt ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... secluded, have, nevertheless, been producing seed without imported pollen while their showy sisters slept. But the later blooms, by attracting insects, set cross-fertilized seed to counteract any evil tendencies that might weaken the species if it depended upon self-fertilization only. When the European Venus' looking-glass used to be cultivated in gardens here, our grandmothers tell us it was altogether too prolific, crowding out of existence its less fruitful, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... think of them. When life resolves itself into a struggle for a bare existence, it makes for cowardice and selfishness. In time the strongest characters deteriorate with inferior associates and only small interests to occupy their minds. Wills weaken, standards lower unconsciously, ideals grow misty or vanish. Youth, enthusiasm, hope, die together. Ambition turns to bitterness or stolid resignation. Suspicion, meanness, cruelty, are the natural offspring of small intelligences ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... is somewhat similarly situated, and so is labor in transportation. In these, and in some other fields, new men do not weaken the position of strikers unless they are brought to the places where the strikers have been working; and that exposes them to assault. It is in the making of portable goods for a general market that the new and independent shop manned by non-union ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... an equal part of nitrogen on a planet where the air is rare? Air is not a chemical compound, but a simple mixture. When a stronger, more life-giving atmosphere is needed, let there be less of the diluting gas. The nitrogen is of no known use, except to weaken the oxygen." ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... agility. His exertions must have been to him something terrible, for they required every ounce of his strength at the greatest speed. I could, of course, take it much easier, and every instant I expected to feel him weaken beneath my hands; but apparently he was as vigorous as ever. He was in excellent training. At last, however, I managed to jerk him whirling past me, to throw his feet from under him, and to drop him beneath me. As he fell he twisted, and by a sheer ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... MacCarthy, Ormond to Thaddeus O'Brien, who had fought under him at Moanmore, and leaving the remainder to the O'Brien, who had only two short years before competed with him for the sovereignty. By these subdivisions the politic monarch expected to weaken to a great degree the power of the rival families of Meath and Munster. It was an arbitrary policy which could originate only on the field of battle, and could be enforced only by the sanction of victory. Thorlogh O'Brien, once King ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... it had been written, she put all her own affairs out of her mind and set herself with heart and soul, by day and by night, to the duty before her. She suffered no shadow of the bygone to darken her calm strong face or to weaken the hands and heart from which so much was now expected. And she continually told herself not to doubt in these dark days the mercy of the Eternal, taking hope and comfort, as she went about her duties, from a few words Janet had said, even while ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... power in the arm of Indhlovu. He strikes, and lo! as a falling tree sweeps a passage through the forest, so would he sweep us away. Let him weaken; let hunger fasten on his vitals, and fear ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... knowledge of his country's political dishonesty does not depress the true patriot. He is content to think that his ideals are as lofty as their realisation is remote, and that the triumph of graft is as nothing compared with a noble sentiment. The result is that the Americans refuse to weaken their national prestige by the advertised cannibalism which is so popular in England. They are for their country, right or wrong. They do not understand the anti-patriot argument, which was born of the ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... letter, for him was uncanny. His first feeling, wonder, was succeeded by anger. Did Shepard really think that he could influence him in such a way, that he could plant in his mind a thought that would spread to others of his age and rank and weaken the cause for which he fought? It was a singular idea, but Shepard ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... will; but he refused, would not listen, hid his eyes with his hand so that the pleading of her face would not weaken him. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... gross inhumanity of the proceeding, there is the indisputable fact that the compulsory teaching of children whose bodies have not been properly nourished tends to weaken the intellect. If these children were subjected to a process of cramming such as is usual in the higher schools, their minds would undoubtedly break down altogether. As it is, the comparatively mild method ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... exercise. But Martha, being lazy and self-indulgent and not imaginative enough to foresee to what a pass a few years more of lounging and stuffing would bring her, regarded exercise as unladylike and dieting as unhealthful. She would not weaken her system by taking less than was demanded by "nature's infallible guide, the healthy appetite." She would not give up the venerable and aristocratic tradition that a lady ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... clumsy section of a pair. Look at each in turn. Mark the one tunnel that leads upward to the nest, mark the two galleries that surround it, mark that they wind in a spiral, and are not joined by shafts at intervals. That would so weaken the surroundings as to leave the nest an easy prey to scratching weasel. Why is the spiral made? To cheat inquiry; a dozen tunnels join it from the run; from it are a dozen exits to the surrounding field. One tunnel only leads into the nest. Only the moles know that one. Alone I did ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... missing necklace, so that there might be no unfair advantage between them. Merrington had received the information with the imperviable dogmatism of the official mind, strong in the belief in its own infallibility, resentful of advice or suggestion as an attempt to weaken its dignity. It seemed to Colwyn that not only had Merrington's ruffled dignity led his judgment astray in an attempt to fit the discovery of the missing necklace into his own theory of the case, but it had caused him to commit a grave mistake in putting ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... the solitary dissociation of America from the history and the achievements of the Old World, the melancholy absence of monuments of past greatness and worth,—these and many other circumstances peculiar to our position all serve to weaken the general interest in what are called classical studies, and to direct the attention of the most ambitious and active minds far too exclusively to the pursuits of science. And when to these circumstances peculiar ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... it—it produces more excitement, and puts the intellect in a better frame for study. The obligation to silence, though it may give the master more ease, imposes a new moral duty upon the chil—the sense of which must necessarily weaken his application. Let the boy speak aloud, if he pleases—that is, to a certain pitch; let his blood circulate; let the natural secretions take place, and the physical effluvia be thrown off by a free exercise of ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... but without success, Colenso, Potgieter's Drift, and Trickhardt's Drift. He now informed White that he intended to make another attempt, but Lord Roberts advised him to postpone it until his own advance should draw off the Free Staters and weaken the barrier on ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... Bonaparte were the leaders of this party, and Paoli knew too well the energy and the intellectual superiority of Napoleon not to dread his influence. Him, above all things, him and his family, must he render harmless, so as to weaken and to intimidate the French party. He sent agents to Ajaccio, to arrest the whole Bonaparte family, and at the same time his troops approached the town to occupy it and make the French commissioners prisoners. ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... an element of pathos enters into the peroration, it is a mistake to allow the voice to weaken. If it takes a lower note, it must make up in strength and intensity what it loses in height. Anything else is ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... degree that it has the tenor timbre; and in proportion as the high notes of the male voice result from artificial training instead of from natural capacity, the boy-soprano timbre will creep in and weaken the tenor quality in falsetto. Some basses and low baritones can be trained to reach the high notes of the male vocal compass in falsetto, but as natural facility to produce these notes is lacking in such voices and their production is due wholly to artifice, the reversion to the boy quality of voice ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... season, Fitful, gloomy, piercing cold; Passion weaken'd, yields to reason, Man feels then himself grown old; His senses one by one have fled, His very soul seems ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... and thinking to weaken his case, said, hastily, "I very nearly kept it from you, I said often to myself 'I won't ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... always lookin' for to get a chance to onload advice on some one. Prob'ly I was meant to be a grandma an' got mixed in the shuffle. Well, boy, don't weaken. When in doubt, ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... I shall never forgive mysel, if my wicked words to-night are any stumbling-block in your path. See how the Lord has put coals of fire on my head! O Mary, don't let my being an unbelieving Thomas weaken your faith. Wait patiently on the Lord, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the cottage with Belinda, apprehensive that the talkative old dame might weaken the effect of her good sense and experience by ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... any industrial or pecuniary advantages from his scientific discoveries. "I would not leave anything to a man of action or industrial enterprise," he said to a friend with whom he was discussing the project of his will; "the sudden acquisition of a fortune would probably only damp the energy and weaken the spirit of enterprise of such a man. I want to aid the dreamer, the scientific enthusiast, who forgets everything in the ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... urgent reason at the time, they were deprived of? If such means can with any probability be shown, from circumstances, rather to add strength to our mixed ecclesiastical and secular Constitution than to weaken it, surely they are means infinitely to be preferred to penalties, incapacities, and proscriptions, continued from generation to generation. They are perfectly consistent with the other parts of the coronation oath, in which the king swears to maintain "the laws of God and the true profession ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ever will grow old, 'cause love is—love is—some way MY love is like the starlight itself; an' the starlight don't scorch an' weaken an' pester like the sun; it soothes an' softens an' lifts a man up where it's ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... was quite resolved, did not waver an instant in my purpose, but my head was dizzy, and I had a sickly sensation about the heart. Determined that the physical shrinking from death should not have time to weaken my moral determination, I hastily opened my waistcoat, felt for the pulsations of my heart, placed the muzzle of a pistol where they were strongest, steadying it on that spot with my left hand. Then I looked straight before me ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... in disputes, nor the adverse chances that held him half his life in debt and necessitous straits, and kept him all his life long a vagrant, constantly upon the road—the man in whom none of these things could weaken a marvellous assiduity to learn and help others to learn. He it was who had most kinship with Duerer among the artists then alive; for Duerer is very eminent among them for this temper of docility. It is interesting to see how he once turned ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... made without design. If she did, she would not credit your statement. If you patiently explained to her the theory of carding-machines, spinning-jennies, and power-looms, would her reception of your explanation weaken her conviction that the cloth was the result of design? It is certain that she would believe in design as firmly as before, and that this belief would be attended by a higher conception and reverent admiration of a wisdom, skill, and power greatly beyond anything ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... spies working with foreign gold amongst the outcasts and scum of Theos. It was not the choice of the people. It was the word of sedition, of cunning bribery, the vile underhand efforts of foreign politicians seeking to weaken by treachery a country they dared not, small though it is, provoke ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... greater personal trouble. Perhaps she loved Billy none the less, but her love was changing into something less proud, less confident, less trusting; it was becoming shot through with pity—with the pity that is parent to contempt. Her own loyalty was threatening to weaken, and she shuddered and shrank from the contempt she could ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... many cities and internal dissensions in the leagues of cities helped to weaken the towns as guarantors of the trade of their citizens. As a result of these political influences, before the fifteenth century was over the distribution of commerce was much changed and municipal control was distinctly weakened. The Italian and the German cities became ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... three, go!"—off they started like a flash. The Missouri horse took the lead for the first quarter of a mile; at the half-mile, however, he began to weaken. The Missourians shouted themselves hoarse in urging their horse, but all to no avail. The Little Gray passed him and continued to leave him farther and farther behind, easily ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... any house or any person from becoming dangerously powerful. Nobles, in order to qualify for office, had to join a guild; and as the nobles, or grandi, were more frequently on the Ghibeline side, this would yet further weaken that party. ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... this parable", he exclaimed, making use of Babylonian symbolism, "against the king of Babylon and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!... How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend unto heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... was this development which formed the waist. The slightest artificial compression of the waist destroyed the line of beauty. Therefore, the grown woman should never wear stays, and, since they tended to weaken the muscles of the back, the aged and weak should not adopt them. A waist really too large was less ungraceful than a waist too small. Dress was designed partly for warmth and partly for adornment. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... looked at her. "You have a man's equity," I said. "You are determined to give me my chance. Well, I will take it,—and remember that you gave it to me. But, would you have me in any way weaken my purpose, mademoiselle?" ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... not to take advantage of the girl's devotion and not to make use of her to direct his confederates. There is, in fact, a certain lack of decision apparent in the acts of the gang. But he loves her also, his scruples weaken and, as Mlle. de Saint-Veran refuses to be touched by a love that offends her, as she relaxes her visits when they become less necessary, as she ceases them entirely on the day when he is cured—desperate, maddened ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... otherwise. In truth, Meryl perplexed them both in those first few days, for she was so calm and quiet and self-contained they both felt a little dumb before her. It was as if, having finally made up her mind, she was determined to avoid all paths that might weaken her and take her stand alone. She was far more quiet and composed than either her father or Diana. These did not say much, but they showed perhaps the more. Henry Pym's hair whitened perceptibly, as if from some stern mental trouble, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... and that decision is stamped with immortality, and from it there is no appeal. If we impress the sinner with the idea that he is not punished and rewarded here, but that the whole is to be settled in the future world, then we, in the same proportion, weaken the force of virtue and strengthen the cause of vice. And this is one obvious reason, why men continue in sin, as long as they dare, expecting at some future day to repent and escape all punishment. They go on from day to day, and from year to year, with ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... retailed, we shall soon be convinced that it is a custom, pretty prevalent amongst dealers, to weaken this liquor considerably with water, and to sweeten it with sugar. This fraud may readily be detected by evaporating a quantity of the liquor in a table-spoon over a candle, to dryness; the sugar will thus be rendered obvious, in the ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... the dominion of the Caesars. At the beginning of our era Hellenism had not yet conquered the uplands of Anatolia,[2] nor central Syria, nor the divisions of Egypt. Annexation to the empire might retard and in certain regions weaken the power of expansion of Greek civilization, {22} but it could not substitute Latin culture for it[3] except around the camps of the legions guarding the frontier, and in a very few colonies. It especially benefitted the individuality of each region. The native religions retained ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... heat by hugging the leeward side of the trunk, but it became evident that the tree would soon be in a blaze, and unless they jumped and ran within the next minute or two they would be surrounded by fire. They hoped that the Grizzly would weaken first, but he showed no signs of an intention to leave. When the flames began crawling up the windward side of the tree and the ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... Even at Christmas, 1597, Shakespeare's passion has reached the height of a sex-duel. Miss Fitton has tortured him so that he delights in calling her names to her face in public when the play would have led one to expect ingratiating or complimentary courtesies. It does not weaken this argument to admit that the general audience would not ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... the following and found it an efficient remedy. I have tried it on my own eyes and those of others. Take bolus muna 1 ounce, white vitrol 1 ounce, alum half ounce, with one pint clear rain water: shake it well before using. If too strong, weaken ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... not done by fair means, it will surely do itself by foul. The continual struggle of competition, not only in the tailors' trade, but in every one which is not, like the navigator's or engineer's, at a premium from its novel and extraordinary demand, will weaken and undermine more and more the masters, who are already many of them speculating on borrowed capital, while it will depress the workmen to a point at which life will become utterly intolerable; increasing education will serve only to make them the more ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... for his manifold crimes. One only remains, the present Duke of Gloucester, and I do consider that this branch of heresy should be removed, even in preference to his parent, whose conduct is such as to assist our cause, and whose death may weaken the animosity of his Catholic Majesty, whose hostility is well known to be personal. I have neither men nor money to offer to you, but I have means, I trust, soon to accomplish this point, and I dedicate my ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... smeared with soot for fun nor these women hurrying away nor the burned ruins of Moscow. All that he now witnessed scarcely made an impression on him—as if his soul, making ready for a hard struggle, refused to receive impressions that might weaken it. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... murmur, "What a pity!"—"How much to be regretted!"'—"I would rather have him for a son than any man on earth!" and other similar expressions. Of course, these involuntary disclosures did not weaken my regard ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... originality of the Hebrew moral law,(235) and pointed out the supposed defectiveness of the Hebrew polity; comparing unfavourably the type of the Hebrew lawgiver as seen in Moses, and of the king as seen in David, with the great heroes of Greek history.(236) The Hebrew prophecy he tried to weaken by putting it in comparison with oracles. In estimating the character of Christ, he depreciated the importance of his miracles;(237) and noticing the different tone of the fourth Gospel from those of the Synoptists, he ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... and that of my lover; but consider, that my resolution was the consequence of a moment of excitation, and that the course which I adopted was the conclusion of a long, wasting, sickening state of uncertainty, the effect of which was to weaken the nerves which were once highly strung with love of my country, as I thought; but in reality, alas! with fond and anxious feelings ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... time on their contests comparable to that given by athletes to their sports, no undergraduate can make himself acquainted with the vast fields of economics and governmental theory covered by such subjects. To write an argument of twelve hundred words on such a subject will weaken rather than strengthen the respect ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... the store on which the artist has to draw. Purely abstract forms are beyond the reach of the artist at present; they are too indefinite for him. To limit himself to the purely indefinite would be to rob himself of possibilities, to exclude the human element and therefore to weaken his power of expression. ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... position to render it impossible to attribute the end of the sufferer to suicide. The clothes, too, exhibited proofs of a struggle, for they were torn and soiled, but nothing had been taken away. A little gold was found in the pockets, and though in no great plenty still enough to weaken the first impression that there had also been ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... not upon any consideration weaken one single effort in behalf of these poor creatures, but we cannot disguise the fact that but few of this class are saved. Women who enter the downward path ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... the bill under consideration should become a law it would be regarded as a retrogression from the financial intentions indicated by our recent repeal of the provision forcing silver-bullion purchases; that it would weaken, if it did not destroy, returning faith and confidence in our sound financial tendencies, and that as a consequence our progress to renewed business health would be unfortunately checked and a return to our recent distressing plight ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... their babies, they had never had a chance of helping any one but myself:—How were they to grow? But again, Why should they grow? In seeking to improve their conditions, might I not do them harm, and only harm? To enlarge their minds after the notions of my world—might it not be to distort and weaken them? Their fear of growth as a possible start for gianthood ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... she not an incessant trouble to your Legislature, and the source of increased expense to your people, already over-taxed? Is not your legislation all at fault in what it has hitherto done for that country? The people of Ulster say that we shall weaken the Union. It has been one of the misfortunes of the legislation of this House that there has been no honest attempt to make a union with the whole people of Ireland up to this time. We have had a union with Ulster, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... tail off; fall away, waste, wear; wane, ebb, decline; descend &c 306; subside; melt away, die away; retire into the shade, hide its diminished head, fall to a low ebb, run low, languish, decay, crumble. bate, abate, dequantitate^; discount; depreciate; extenuate, lower, weaken, attenuate, fritter away; mitigate &c (moderate) 174; dwarf, throw into the shade; reduce &c 195; shorten &c 201; subtract &c 38. Adj. unincreased^ &c 35; decreased &c v.; decreasing &c v.; on the wane &c n.. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Parliament discussed a measure to set the slaves in the colonies free with a view to weaken their masters' ardor for freedom. In Rhode Island slaves were, by law, set free on condition that they enlisted in the army ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... health and spirits, with every prospect of a long and prosperous career at Damascus for her husband and herself. Now, almost without warning, they had come home with their prospects shattered and their career broken. Nevertheless these untoward circumstances served in no way to weaken her energies; on the contrary, they seemed to ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... are both in evil case," replied Priscilla sadly. "Neither of them has stomach for such food as is at hand, and so they weaken daily. John Alden shot some little birds yesterday, and I made broth of them, but, saving that, my mother has taken no meat ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... secular purposes. Caesar's own view is that this refusal to allow the inditing of their sacred books was due to two causes: first, the fear lest the secrets of the Order should thus leak out, and, secondly, the dread lest reading should weaken memory, "as, in fact, it generally does." Even so, amongst the Brahmans there are, to this day, many who can not only repeat from end to end the gigantic mass of Vedic literature, but who know by heart ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... pianist himself, but produced a set of compositions that had the effect of raising the art to the highest pitch of perfection; he was a zealous Catholic, and took holy orders, but this did not damp his ardour or weaken his power as a musician; he spent the greater part of his life at Weimar, but he practised his art far and wide, and his last visit to England in 1886, the year on which he died, created quite a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... and render a Man conspicuous enough, tho' there may be no distinguishing Splendor about him to dazzle the Beholders Eyes. But if he attempts any Thing beyond his Strength, he is sure to lose the Lustre which he had, if he does not also weaken his Capacity, and impair his Genius into the Bargain. So just in all Cases is ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... a government may find it necessary to use force against its own subjects in order to crush out factions which would weaken the authority of the throne and the national strength; but that it should murder its citizens to compel them to say their prayers in French or Latin, or to recognize the supremacy of a foreign pontiff, is difficult ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... He represents himself in his letters and verses to have led just the life at Pisa which was most agreeable to former governments of Italy,—a life of sensual gayety, abounding in the small excitements which turn the thought from the real interests of the time, and weaken at once the moral and intellectual fiber. But how far a man can be credited to his own disgrace is one of the unsettled questions: the repentant and the unrepentant are so apt to over-accuse themselves. It is very wisely conjectured by some of Giusti's biographers that he did not waste ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... state: "Whereas we are fully convinced that there is a decided doctrinal difference in our synod; and whereas there in reality already exists a disunion, instead of union, in the synod; and whereas strife and contention tend to destroy confidence, and to weaken our hands and retard our progress; and whereas we are liable at any time, by an accidental majority of votes against our doctrinal position, to have a change forced upon us; and whereas it is our highest duty to maintain and preserve unmutilated our confession of faith, both in ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... the liberties of Europe that ever have been framed," was really only the third of a series. The second compact was in 1743. The object of these successive agreements was one and the same: to maintain and extend the possessions of the Bourbons in Europe and outside Europe, and to weaken and divide the supposed enemies of Bourbon supremacy. England was directly aimed at as one of the foremost of those enemies. In the compact of 1733 the King of France and the King of Spain pledged themselves to the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... struggle the attack was repulsed, while as gallant a resistance at the other end of the line held Eugene in check. It was the centre however, where the French believed themselves to be unassailable, and which this belief had led them to weaken by drawing troops to their wings, that had been chosen by Marlborough from the first for the chief point of attack. By making an artificial road across the morass which covered it, he was at last enabled to throw his eight thousand horsemen on the mass of the French cavalry, which ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... acquire the knowledge of a single truth! What an inexhaustible power!—what an immeasurable experience it is! We are made absolutely stronger by it; we receive more life with it,—a new and imperishable fibre of being. Fortune cannot pluck it from us, age cannot weaken it, death cannot set limits to it. And now, with the fulness of this one experience as a test, just consider our whole mortal experience as filled up with such revelations of truth. Suppose we improve all our opportunities; into what boundless life ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... I do, Mr. Hickman. You say you came not with any intention to affront me. I take freedom, and I give it. I should be very loth, I repeat, to say any thing that may weaken Miss Harlowe in the good opinion of the only friend ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... picture-gallery. But what is thus admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) natural beauties: no amount of excess in sublime mountain outline or the graces of cultivated lowland can do anything, it is supposed, to weaken or degrade the palate. We are not at all sure, however, that moderation, and a regimen tolerably austere, even in scenery, are not healthful and strengthening to the taste; and that the best school for a lover of nature is not to be found in one of those countries where there is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... impossible to pronounce an initial vowel without a slight, and to many hardly perceptible, initial noise, the coup de la glotte, I had appealed to musicians who know how difficult it is, in playing on the flute or on the violin, to weaken or to avoid certain noises (Ansatz) arising from the first impulses imparted to the air, before it can produce really musical sensations. Professor Whitney, in quoting this paragraph, leaves out the sentence ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... counts—bunt, swat or foul tip. The moment bat and ball come in contact the batsman starts for first base. There are five men on a side. Lots of fun. Avoid remaining in fresh water too long as it has a tendency to weaken vitality. ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... ago convinced himself that the case he had worked up against Hazel Rath did not admit of the slightest possibility of doubt; and, like all obstinate men, he adhered to his convictions with additional strength in the face of anything tending to weaken them. As he recovered from his surprise at the private detective's piece of news, he listened to his account of the opening of the jewel-case with the wary air of one seeking a loop-hole in an unexpected obstacle. Before Colwyn had finished he had found it in the belief that Hazel Rath, ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... the frenzy lasted. I was nearly exhausted. My efforts to avoid her mad rushes, the terrible tension of my nervous system produced by the spectacle of such exquisite and prolonged suffering, were weakening me beyond what I should have thought it possible an hour before for anything to weaken me. In fact, I felt my strength leaving me. A terror such as I had never yet felt was taking possession of my mind. I sickened at the sight before me, and at the thought of agonies yet to come. 'My ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray
... offerings consist of the productions of the Earth and the butter produced by the cow. The deities, therefore, are said to be chiefly supported by the Earth and the Cow. The Asuras, by afflicting the Earth and killing kine, used to weaken the deities. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... perhaps, into foreign countries; a proceeding which naturally tends to weaken their nursery, prejudice in favour of the Religion in which they were bred, and by removing them from all means of public worship, to relax their practical habits of Religion. They return home, and ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... the good Bishop witnessed with grief and indignation, and set himself zealously to reform. This was the publishing of romances, or novels, which, as then written, could only poison the minds of their readers, inflame their passions, and weaken their sense of right and wrong. He pondered the matter, and having made up his mind that it would be absolutely useless to endeavour to hinder their being read, as this would only increase the obstinacy and perversity of those who took pleasure in them, he decided on adopting another ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... and has cried, 'There was wheat, and wheat alone;' and so religious men have hindered the very cause for which they fancied that they were fighting; and have gained nothing by disobeying God's command, save to weaken their own moral influence, to increase the divisions of the Church, and to put a fresh stumbling-block in the path of the ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... great indignation amongst some of his brethren, does not wish it to be understood that he has the least tendency to become an Episcopalian himself. In short, he hinted to me himself that were such an idea to become prevalent it would materially weaken his influence with many followers. "It is to improve my own church, not to join yours," were his words, or to that effect. In carrying out this idea he has a hit in his "Reformation of the Church of Scotland" against Episcopalians, and ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... struck terror to the hearts of the French, and the public mind was being gradually prepared by the Press to receive the depressing tidings of its capture with dignified calm. The occupation of the capital, it was argued, would not essentially weaken the military strength of the Republic. For the army would still be intact, and that was the essential point. Here, for the first time, one notes the almost invincible force of the antiquated opinions to which ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... they must have money to buy them. So work for money has taken the place of fighting. Again, in some ways the Europeans, enforcing peace and making many quick ways of travel, such as good roads and bridges, have helped to weaken the power of the chiefs. Nobody likes changes to come, and the old people are always sorry when their children begin new customs; but on the whole it is good for Africans that other nations came to their country, because ...
— People of Africa • Edith A. How
... to have in mind. However complicated the composition may seem superficially, you may treat it simply. You will control it by not considering any part as of any importance in itself, but only as it helps the whole; and you may strengthen or weaken that part as you need to. Don't cut the thing up too much. Let a half a dozen objects count as one in the whole. Mass things, simplify the masses, and make the elements of the masses hold as only parts of ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst |
