"Act" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you to choose, Mary. Don't be angry. I am bound to tell you what I think. You can, of course, act as you please; but I think that you ought to listen to me. He cannot go back from his engagement without laying himself open ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... and with Krylenko. The excitement of the internal struggle was over. It had been bitterly fought within the party, and both Krylenko of the Revolutionary Tribunal and Peters of the Extraordinary Commission were there merely to witness the official act that would define their new position. Peters talked of his failure to get away for some shooting; Krylenko jeered at me for having refused to believe in the Lockhart conspiracy. Neither showed any traces of the bitter struggle waged within ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... hundred Romans were beheaded in one day in the Lateran fields: but the Clergymen at the intercession of the Pope were pardoned, and banished into France. And thus the title of Roman Emperor, which had hitherto been in the Greek Emperors, was by this act transferred in the West to the ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... my arm, and it is done. On the other hand, feeling or emotion lies the farthest from this centre of will, depends least of all on my own choice, and in it I am most passive. But the sphere of intellect is intermediate. I am more free when I think than when I feel; less free than when I act. In the domain of will, I act upon external things; in the domain of feeling, I am acted upon by external things; in the domain of intellect, I neither act nor am acted upon, but I see them. In all thinking, in proportion as it is pure thought, both will and ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... without incurring suspicion is sufficiently clever to answer any direct questioning satisfactorily. No. If Tochatti is the culprit—mind you I only say if—she must be caught with guile, made to commit herself somehow, or be taken red-handed in the act——" He broke off suddenly; and the other two looked at him ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Rowe, springing up in horrified indignation. "Do you know that any girl detected in the act of copying must instantly ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... at all for me, Johnny, when I ask you to come back and do what dad is willing to have you do, you'd do it. I don't see how you can be stubborn enough to refuse such a perfectly wonderful offer. You wouldn't, if you cared a snap about me. You act just ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... cleanse themselves from the impropriety of this act the soldiers had a grand washing of clothes on the following day, and the day after that they arrived ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... necessary, through a clean cloth or chamois, if there is any dirt in it. The cooling water should also be clean, and in winter a non-freezing preparation should be added to it. Do not change the carburetor setting whenever the engine does not act properly. First look over the ignition system and spark plug for trouble, and also make sure that the carburetor is receiving fuel. If possible, overhaul the engine once a year to clean out the carbon, tighten bearings and flywheel, remove leaky ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... joints, square, broad thumb-nails, and sturdy limbs, which mark a constitution made to use in rough out-door work. He had the never-failing predilection for showy switch-tailed horses that step high, and sidle about, and act as if they were going to do something fearful the next minute, in the face of awed and admiring multitudes gathered at mighty musters or imposing cattle-shows. He had no objection, either, to holding the reins in a wagon behind ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... I shall repeat what you tell me," she broke out almost scornfully. "The doctor and my father are quite capable of taking care of themselves. They don't want me to act ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... gotten, she returns to Virginia at the end of ten months or thereabouts."[126] It was in the early autumn of 1618,[127] that Capt. Edward (a son of William) Brewster was sent into banishment by Capt. Argall; and this, we think, was one of the last, if not the last official act of that arbitrary governor. It was certainly before this that the ship "Treasurer," manned "with the ablest men in the colony," sailed for "the Spanish dominions in the Western hemisphere." Under date of June 15, 1618, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... and mix'd, both form and substance, forth To perfect being started, like three darts Shot from a bow three-corded. And as ray In crystal, glass, and amber, shines entire, E'en at the moment of its issuing; thus Did, from th' eternal Sovran, beam entire His threefold operation, at one act Produc'd coeval. Yet in order each Created his due station knew: those highest, Who pure intelligence were made: mere power The lowest: in the midst, bound with strict league, Intelligence and power, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... swung the boat from the ship and left me hanging over the water. The Cossack, unmindful of things below, was backing steadily toward my head. I could not think of the Russian phrase for the occasion and was in some dilemma how to act. I shouted 'Look out' with such emphasis that the man understood me and halted with his heavy boots about two inches above my face. Clinging to the side ropes and watching my opportunity, I jumped at the right moment and happily hit the boat. The Cossack jumped into the lap of a sailor ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... receiving your proclamation," wrote Governor Andrew of Massachusetts to President Lincoln on May 3, 1861, "we took up the war, and have carried on our part of it, in the spirit in which we believe the Administration and the American people intend to act, namely, as if there were not an inch of red tape in the world." He had received a telegram for troops from Washington on Monday, April 15; at nine o'clock the next Sunday he said: "All the regiments demanded from Massachusetts ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... an innocent man would act; innocent of the murder, that is, but resolved to conceal his whereabouts of Tuesday night, ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... this time had reached the other side of the field, was in the act of entering a barn-like building which evidently at some time had formed a portion of a farm. As the distant figure, opening one of the big ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... plundering incapacity, are doomed, in their bankruptcy, to be the mark of bitter taunts from growling creditors and insolent pity from a gossiping public. Much has been said about the pleasures of a good conscience; and among these I reckon the act of that man who, having wickedly lent certain moneys to a casual acquaintance, was in the end called upon to advance a sum which transcended his honest means, with a dark hint, that, if the money was refused, there was but one thing for the casual acquaintance to do,—that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... and fruitful diffusion of light, we have scarcely any men of superiority, because every single man represents the whole education of his age. We are surrounded by living encyclopaedias who walk about, think, act and wish to be immortalized. Hence the frightful catastrophes of climbing ambitions and insensate passions. We feel the want of other worlds; there are more hives needed to receive the swarms, and especially are we in ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... carefully studied during the next few weeks, so that, as soon as the new forces are fit for action, plans may be ready to meet any eventuality that may be then deemed expedient, either from a political point of view, or to enable our forces to act with the best advantage in concert with the troops of other nations throwing in their ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... important factors in treatment is absolute quiet. This may be obtained by placing a sick horse in a box stall, away from other animals and extraneous noises and sheltered from excessive light and drafts of air. Anodynes, belladonna, hyoscyamus, and opium act as antipyretics simply by quieting the nervous system. As an irritant exists in the blood in most cases of fever, any remedy which will favor the excretion of foreign elements from it will diminish ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... should be judged by us now in reference to the judgment that was formed of it then. In an age in which it was considered wise and fitting to destroy the nobles of a barbarous community which had defended itself, and to sell all others as slaves, so that the perpetrator simply recorded the act he had done as though necessary, can it have been a base thing to kill a tyrant? Was it considered base by other Romans of the day? Was that plea ever made even by Caesar's friends, or was it not acknowledged by them all that "Brutus was an honorable man," even when they had collected ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... Toradjas are on a head-hunting expedition and have entered the enemy's country, they may not eat any fruits which the foe has planted nor any animal which he has reared until they have first committed an act of hostility, as by burning a house or killing a man. They think that if they broke this rule they would receive something of the soul or spiritual essence of the enemy into themselves, which would destroy the mystic ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... anything like that," and Tom's voice was more sober than the occasion seemed to warrant. "It was one of our new machines, and it didn't act just right. No great damage was done, though. How do you find business, Mr. Nestor, since the war spirit has grown stronger?" asked Tom, and it seemed to both Mary and her father that the young inventor deliberately changed ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... in rare instances, subscribed by persons other than farmers, it is usually invested less as a commercial speculation than as an act of friendship on the part of the investor, who in no case exercises more control ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... fur-trimmed coat and this she would make me remove as I went on to the platform, and hold over her arm until I was ready to resume it. It was fearfully heavy for her and she liked it to be heavy for her. That act of servitude was in essence a towering self-assertion. I would glance sideways while some chairman floundered through his introduction and see the clear blue eye with which she regarded the audience, which ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Austin," she said at last. "I cannot forget—and I never will forget—that it's to you I owe it that I am sitting here this moment. Tell me what moved you to act as you did this morning. I may not share your belief, but I will not ridicule it. Of that ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... asked his mother, stopping in the act of pouring out a steaming cup of tea. "Come an' get some supper; you'll feel better directly. It ain't so bad but what it might ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... which upset our reason; unheard-of circumstances, which could make one doubt of one's self. I say that every thing accuses me, that every thing overwhelms me, that every thing turns against me. I say, that if I were in M. Galpin's place, and if he were in mine, I should act just ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... Excellency has quite recovered?" he said, as he led her to a chair and set a cushion for her feet; and he performed the little act with a courtesy which was as genuine as strange in Derrick, who, like most men of his class, was not given to knightly attentions; but, every time he had seen this proud and sorrowful woman, some tender chord had been touched in his heart ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... Majesty; I could not consent did she possess the treasures of the whole earth. I have made my choice, which, as an honest man, I must not break." The Empress said, "Your unhappiness is your own work. Act as you think proper; I have done." Here my audience ended. I was not actually affianced at that time to my present wife, but love ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... believed to be an act of justice warranted by the Constitution, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God!" President Lincoln's draft of the paper ended with the word "mankind," and the words, "and the gracious ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... was persistent and started for Zgorzelice. On the road he moaned a little, but he continued to give Zbyszko advice; he told him how to act in Zgorzelice, and especially recommended him to be obedient and humble in the presence of their mighty relative, who never ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of course it could not be expected to act quite as well when there was a fire, as when there was not a fire; but in the former case he thought it would be of equal service whether the top were up ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... and birth royal place certain families above the common body of freemen (landed or not); and for a commoner to pretend to a king's daughter is an act of presumption, and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... species and over nature itself, is due to the working of these two factors. At starting he was physically less strong than many other creatures, and if he fought with others of his own kind, other animal species did the same. He was ahead of them by his reason, and reason acted, and must act, through the concert of thinking beings. This concert is not merely, or even mainly, an attachment among those living at the same time to co-operate for some common end; it is with man a conscious sequence of one generation on another. Sometimes the movement ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... "No act of a man's life requires more practical common sense than the naming of his book. If he would make a grocer's sign or an invoice of a cellar of goods or a city directory, he uses no metaphors; his pen does not hesitate for the plainest word. He must make himself understood by common ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... father or abhorrence of his murder that Hamlet is thus dilatory, but it is more to his taste to indulge his imagination in reflecting upon the enormity of the crime and refining on his schemes of vengeance, than to put them into immediate practice. His ruling passion is to think, not to act: and any vague pretence that flatters this propensity instantly diverts him from his ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... a member voluntarily should divulge the nature of his vote and of his motives, it is still exceedingly questionable whether the lodge should take any notice of the act, because by so doing the independence of the ballot might be impaired. It is through a similar mode of reasoning that the Constitution of the United States provides, that the members of Congress shall not be questioned, in any other place, for any speech or debate in either House. As in this ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... rising from her seat. "But I see it's no use to talk any more, now. Perhaps since you know that there's a window in you, and me lookin' in, you'll try and keep th' inside o' your house in better order. Whether I'll act accordin' to my knowledge or not, depends on how things turns out, and so sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... body, a bleeding heart, and weeping eyes. She had been so happy—on the very brink of paradise; and now she was deserted. Her pillow was wet every night. She cried in her very sleep; and when she woke in the morning her body was always quivering; and in the very act of waking came a horror, and an instinctive reluctance to face the light that was to bring another day ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... though flushed and eager, exhibited no sign of passion. He seemed to act like a good-humored man who had been foolishly assaulted by a headstrong boy, and who meant to keep him in play until ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... latter does not make such long journeys, and does not venture so far out to sea; but he is a master in the art of flying, and he is an unconscionable thief. He follows dolphins and other fishes of prey to appropriate their catch, and forces other birds to relinquish their food when they are in the act of swallowing it. When fishermen are out drawing up their nets, he skims so low over the boat that he may be stunned with an oar, and he is so attracted by bright and gaudy colours that he will shoot ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... — N. odor, smell, odorament|, scent, effluvium; emanation, exhalation; fume, essence, trail, nidor|, redolence. sense of smell; scent; act of smelling &c. v.; olfaction, olfactories[obs3]. [pleasant odor] fragrance &c. 400. odorant. [animal with acute sense of smell] bloodhound, hound. [smell detected by a hound] spoor. V. have an ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... aware that Disraeli had applied for office to Peel. He shows sometimes an indifference to dry details, as when he makes Gladstone dissolve Parliament in 1873 immediately after his defeat on the Irish University Bill, and represents Russia as having by her own act repealed the Black Sea Clauses in the Treaty of Paris. Startling too is his assertion that the Parliament of 1868 did nothing for England or Scotland, on account of its absorption in Irish affairs. But he was not writing a formal ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... triumphs, if an epigram was mistaken for a genuine copy from some old marble, or if it was so good that all Italy learned it by heart, as happened in the case of some of Bembo's. When the Venetian government paid Sannazaro 600 ducats for a eulogy in three distichs, no one thought it an act of generous prodigality. The epigram was prized for what it was, in truth, to all the educated classes of that age—the concentrated essence of fame. Nor, on the other hand, was any man then so powerful as to be above the reach of a satirical epigram, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... safe from observation he followed, noting with increased pleasure the rapidity with which they covered the required distance. Clearly Miss Christie was already nervous lest she have not sufficient time remaining in which to properly dress for her act, and there would be no exchange of confidences on the outward journey. Hawley left her, as Keith anticipated, at the stage entrance, the lady hastening within. Her escort strolled leisurely back to the front of the house, and finally, ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... thinker. Hear one other, Mazzini: "What we have to do is not to establish a new order of things by violence. An order of things so established is always tyrannical even when it is better than the old." Let us bear this in mind when there is an act of aggression on either side of the Boyne. There will not be wanting on the other side a cry for retaliation and "a lesson." We shall receive every provocation to give up and acknowledge ancient bitterness, ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... besides paying a long visit in the hotel parlor, and seeing to the dispatch of Dick's answer to his mother, also called, under permission, at the home of Lieutenant Topham, of the tactical department. Prescott had decided to ask that officer to act as his counsel at ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... he enjoyed alternately all the Pleasures of an agreeable private Man and a great and powerful Monarch: He gave himself, with his Companion, the Name of the merry Tyrant; for he punished his Courtiers for their Insolence and Folly, not by any Act of Publick Disfavour, but by humorously practising upon their Imaginations. If he observed a Man untractable to his Inferiors, he would find an Opportunity to take some favourable Notice of him, and render him insupportable. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... strange one, Pest of earth, at once depart thou, Ere I go to seek thy mother, Seek thy very aged mother. 160 If I told it to thy mother, Told the aged one the story, Great would be thy mother's trouble, Great the aged woman's sorrow, That her son should work such evil, And her child should act so basely. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... analyze your affections; it is my duty to take care of her welfare.""My dear friend," he cried, his face aglow with impatient enthusiasm —"my dear friend" and he suddenly lifted her hand to his lips, "I have but one anxiety in the whole matter: will you cease to be my friend if I act in opposition to your wishes?" "Should I cease to be your friend because you had made a mistake? It is not to me you are unkind," she answered, quickly withdrawing her hand. Spots of the palest rose appeared on her cheeks, and she bent over and picked up ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... thought of Harald Harfager, the king," I said. "He was Thorwald's friend, as you told us. He will act as your guardian." ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... has been committed the magistrate who investigates the case knows [excepting in the case of a released convict who commits murder in jail] that there are not more than five persons to whom he can attribute the act. He starts from this premise a series of conjectures. The husband should reason like the judge; there are only three people in society whom he can suspect when seeking the lover ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... "liberty." Moreover, he had held back his whole chafing and stamping tribe from a precipice of disaster, and had secured valuable recognition of their office-holding capacities from that really good governor and princely Irishman whose one act of summary vengeance upon a few insurgent office-coveters has branded him in history as Cruel O'Reilly. But the experience of those days turned Numa gray, and withal he was not satisfied with their outcome. In the midst of the struggle he had weakened in one manly resolve—against his ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... JEWS.—The Jews were still laboring under all the disabilities which had now been removed from Protestant dissenters and Catholics. In 1845 an act was passed by Parliament which so changed the oath required for admission to corporate offices—the oath contained the words "on the faith of a Christian"—as to ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... to hurry you," Alicia glanced at the watch on her wrist, "but unless you and Herbert want to miss half the first act you had better be off. Stephen and I will have our coffee comfortably in the drawing-room and find what excuses ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... no one could have made me believe that you would stand back and let the man, to whom you owed so great a debt, lie so long in such misery, and be condemned to such a death for the act that saved you. I could never ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... unlucky speech. The act, that seemed so small and natural a thing to him, the woman's heart measured more correctly. Something rose in her throat; she tried to laugh instead of crying, and so she did both, and went into a violent fit of hysterics that showed how thoroughly her nature had been stirred to its ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... room, with a locked and bolted door between her and the outer world. Lonely and miserable though she was, she had at least the sense of shelter. Pride, too, sustained her, for, looking back to the night they met, months ago, she could remember no word nor act, or even a look of hers that ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... thoughts I often think As I stand gazing down In act upon the cressy brink To strip and ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... there—like that—the way you act with the dog," she added, pointing to the long, slender hand that rested on the dog's sleek head near him. "It's funny how dogs and cats know the insides of folks better than other folks do, isn't it? Say, I'm going to hold your head," she ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... did, as he was bound to do, show respect for the religion of the country; and he found it necessary to act more like a Mussulman than a Catholic. A wise conqueror supports his triumphs by protecting and even elevating the religion of the conquered people. Bonaparte's principle was, as he himself has often told me, to look upon religions as the work of men, but to respect them everywhere ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... friends of the Lahore Battery lost so many men that they were having difficulty in maintaining an effective fire until two of our machine-gun squads volunteered to act as ammunition carriers, which they did for several hours, ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... infamous treason you have all committed against your king and lord. Yes, I tell you, you are infamous rebels and traitors, and you think I, Captain Ulrich von Hohenberg, a soldier who took the oath of allegiance to his king, could act so dishonorably and meanly as to join the rebels! No, never! Never will the daughter of the rebel Anthony Wallner become my wife! Kill me now if you want to do so. You may take my life, but you ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... wanted to tell them about his wife, but couldn't. He finally narrowed it down to an assertion that he was light-headed from entertaining friends, had found the safe open, and having gone so far as to take the money out, had accidentally closed it. This act he regretted very much. He was sorry he had put them to so much trouble. He would undo what he could by sending the money back—the major portion of it. The remainder he would pay up as soon as he could. Was there any ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... strong, carpenter's horse in the shed, to act as a fulcrum, and a seasoned bar of hickory as a lever. There was never an old farm yet that didn't have a useful heap of junk, and Hiram had already scratched over Uncle Jeptha's collection ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... ancestress was a woman whom Saint Jerome would have loved as he loved Paula and Marcella, one who needed only a pen illustrious and saintly enough to do her justice." Hearing of her last illness, he made a journey of six hundred miles, to be with her, and lavished on her every winning word and act that filial love and reverence could suggest; and, after all was over, he pronounced on her a funeral address, which will always rank with the highest trophies of his genius. No other words can be so fitting as his own to ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... lightened by his subsequently coming on his wife in the act of unpacking a hamper, which contained half a ham, a stone jar of butter, some home-made loaves of bread, a bag of vegetables and a plum pudding. "Good God! does the woman think we can't give her enough to eat?" he asked testily. He had all the poor Irishman's ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Teen-agers don't know why they squeal and swoon when their current fetish sways and croons. Yet everybody else is squealing, so they squeal too. Maybe that great comedian, Jimmy Durante, has the answer: "Everybody wants to get into the act." I am convinced that a certain percentage of UFO reports come from people who see flying saucers ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... this," said Sally, punching in the centre of one, and finding a hideous cross-bar. Either Mrs. Iggulden's nephew must saw it out, and tighten up the sacking from end to end, or she must get a Christian bed. Poor Prosy! Whereon Mrs. Iggulden explained that her nephew had by an act of self-sacrifice surrendered this bed as a luxury for lodgers in the season, having himself a strong congenital love of bisection. He hadn't slept nigh so sound two months past, and the crossbar ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... soldiers. They often said they would not march, unless Laetus would lead them. The responsibility for this murder, for which he had no clear reason save jealousy, he fastened upon the soldiers, making it appear that they had ventured upon the act contrary to his will. ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... that was hard, and you were always his true advocate. I had tried to tell you of my resolution, but you would never hear me; you would never understand me. The time was drawing near for his return. I felt that I must act, before the daily intercourse between us was renewed. I knew that one great pang, undergone at that time, would save a lengthened agony to all of us. I knew that if I went away then, that end must follow which HAS followed, and which has made us both so happy, Grace! ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... this self-examination to-night troubled itself with no thought of wrongs committed, with no desire to repay, but only with that supreme act of folly, to which the sleeping lad in the room near by was the surest witness. What would the threats of such a pauper as Paul Boriskoff have mattered if the man had stood alone against him? A ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... loaves placed in an oven move sometimes on a horizontal plane; a phenomenon that has given occasion, in Europe, to the popular prejudice of enchanted ovens. The piedras de los ojos, introduced into the eye, act like the small pearls, and different round grains employed by the American savages to increase the flowing of tears. These explanations were little to the taste of the inhabitants of Araya. Nature has the appearance of greatness to man in proportion as she is veiled in mystery; ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... "to act this once contrary to your inclinations." He then writ a short note to Mrs. Atkinson, and dispatched it away immediately; which when he had done, Amelia said, "I shall be glad of Mrs. Atkinson's company to breakfast; but yet I wish you would oblige me in refusing this money. Take ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... by the first conveyance thence; as I say, they are probably in Boston about this time. The Proof-sheet was one of the forty-seven such which the new French Revolution is to consist of: with this, as with a correct sample, you were to act upon some Boston Bookseller, and make a bargain for me,—or at least report that none was to be made. A bad bargain will content me now, my hopes are ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the decrees of the emperors, of the senate, and of time. Of the Christian hierarchy, the bishops of Rome were commonly the most prudent and least fanatic; nor can any positive charge be opposed to the meritorious act of saving or converting the majestic structure of the Pantheon. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... thinks the doe law is "a just one." R.L. Frost, of Windham County, judicially concludes that "the law allowing does to be killed should remain in force one or two seasons more." C.S Parker, of Orleans County, says his county is not overstocked with deer, and he favors a special act for his county, to ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... always. Let us marry at once, or, at least, as soon as possible. Then, since we shall have thrown in our lots for good and always, we shall achieve together what we have been unable to do separately. My spirit shall act on yours, and one day your genius shall fashion the great masterpiece of my life. As soon as we are married we shall take a theatre and I shall put on the most suitable play I can find. As I have already told you, I have given up those idle dreams of a vast theatre of my own, in ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... an old friend," said Helen. "I was but a child when I went away. I wish you still to be a friend, Arthur; but you must not act ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... the sum of —— dollars to the 'American Missionary Association,' incorporated by act of the Legislature of the State of New York." The will should ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various
... the act of doing this gracefully, when the vision was abruptly ended by the entrance of her elder daughter. Edna was by no means bad-looking, in spite of her light eyelashes and eyebrows, and the fact that the pince-nez she wore compressed her small nose in an ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... College, beneath the library, are grated windows, through which many of the students have occasionally, after the gates were locked, taken the liberty of passing, without an exeat, in rather a novel style. A certain Cantab was in the act of drawing himself through the bars, and being more than an ordinary mortal's bulk, he stuck fast. One of the fellows of the college passing, stepped up to the student and asked him ironically, "If he should assist him?"—"Thank you," ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... command be given every man in Mo would go forth against Samory's accursed hordes," Goliba declared with emphasis, removing the mouthpiece of his long pipe from his lips. "But how dost thou intend now to act?" he asked Omar. "Remember thou art banished until the Naya's death. Let us hope that Zomara will not spare her long to tyrannize over our land and to plot against thy life," he added in a ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... how you come short of it in your actions, whether the highest Tyrant, by that way of arbitrary government, and that you have sought for to introduce, and that you have sought to put, you were putting upon the people? Whether that was not as high an Act of Tyranny as any of your predecessors were guilty of, nay, ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... fellow of some ten hardy well-buffeted years had sat down for the moment without a companion. He had thrown upon the bench beside him his sun-faded, rain-faded, shapeless cap, uncovering much bronzed hair; and as though by this simple act he had cleared the way for business, he thrust one capable-looking hand deep into one of his pockets. The fingers closed upon what they found there, like the meshes of a deep-sea net filled with its catch, and were slowly drawn to the surface. The catch consisted of one-cent and five-cent pieces, ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... knock away one of the supports of the future, and Arthur Agar even in his grief was conscious of the impending necessity of having to act for himself ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... operations of the press-gang, it was difficult for such prisoners to bring evidence of the nature of their former occupations, especially when none had leisure to listen to such evidence, or were willing to believe it if they did listen, or would act upon it for the release of the captive if they had by possibility both listened and believed. Men were kidnapped, literally disappeared, and nothing was ever heard of them again. The street of a busy town ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... mythical personages that I might return you the value of your marvelous information. If I dared think, however, that it would be in any way acceptable, I could offer you the diversion of a restaurant dinner-party for that night. The Duchess of Castleford has kindly offered to act as hostess for me and we are all going on ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the reluctance with which the National Government took up this idea of employing negroes as soldiers; a resolution, we may add, to which they were only finally compelled by General Hunter's disbandment of his original regiment, and the storm of public indignation which followed that act. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... in his act; he knows that he can beat into music even the crashing discords that fill his ears; he knows too that he has a music of his own which they ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... a Sanitary Commission for the City of New York was defeated in the last State Legislature, some of its provisions were engrafted on a bill passed on the nineteenth of April, amending a previous "Act to establish a Metropolitan Police District, and to provide for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... measure of corruption, although he may be bought for a slave by those who know how to turn his faculties and his labour to profit; and although, when kept under proper restraints, his neighbourhood may be convenient or useful; yet is certainly unfit to act on the footing of a liberal combination or concert with his fellow creatures: his mind is not addicted to friendship or confidence; he is not willing to act for the preservation of others, nor deserves that any other should hazard his own ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... for the most part, like ostrich-eggs; the giver never knows what is hatched out of them. But once in a thousand times they act as curses are said to,—come home to roost. Give them often enough, until it gets to be a mechanical business, and, some day or other, you will get caught warranting somebody's ice not to melt in any climate, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... acquaintance with him, when that month and he returned." And when the month and he did return, the good King was never absent from his Sermons, and would usually say, "I carry my ears to hear other preachers; but I carry my conscience to hear Mr. Sanderson, and to act accordingly." And this ought not to be concealed from posterity, that the King thought what he spake; for he took him to be his adviser, in that quiet part of his life, and he proved to be his comforter in those days of his affliction, when he apprehended ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... intellectual and practical machinery, and let it run free; and the service it will do you will be twice as good. Who are the scholars who get "rattled" in the recitation-room? Those who think of the possibilities of failure and feel the great importance of the act. Who are those who do recite well? Often those who are most indifferent. Their ideas reel themselves out of their memory of their own accord. Why do we hear the complaint so often that social life in New England is either less rich and expressive ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... interest is necessary to develop the diversity upon which unity depends. Let the bare statement suffice. It must come to every careful observer and clear thinker with the authority of a self-evident proposition. Unity and individual freedom are necessary to each other; they act and react, and one implies the other. They go hand in hand; and national unity cannot be violated and broken, without, at the same time, necessitating despotism, and curtailing the individual in the exercise of his legitimate rights. Unity and liberty are mutually dependent and forever ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... (G-10): note - also known as the Paris Club; includes the wealthiest members of the IMF who provide most of the money to be loaned and act as the informal steering committee; name persists in spite of the addition of Switzerland on ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... as to her looks the passage was dark. Lady Selina thought her a very handsome but very gauche young woman. Still, gauche or no, she had thrown over Aldous Raeburn and thirty thousand a year; an act which, as Lady Selina admitted, put you out ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... beyond all others, and he excelled in all exercises of strength and dexterity. But what enhanced so much the charm of these accomplishments, was the delightful modesty which enabled him to avoid offence in either act or word to others, for he was deferential to the great men, modest with his equals, and courteous to his inferiors. These gifts made him beloved, not only by all the Guinigi family, but by all ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... this body that school and church are so inextricably interwoven with each other that if you plant a school it will develop into a church, and if the church comes it will eventually and inevitably re-act, and in a most blessed way in spiritual and often in material resources upon the school. We give largely to the school because there is a home beneath it and a church ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... of August the Press was filled with reports concerning the murder and ill treatment of Germans in Belgium, before any act of war had taken place. No doubt a justified fear for the mighty, brutal neighbour existed in the popular imagination, and fear may be the father of ill-considered deeds. Nevertheless, there is no proof that mob law ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... inventions, the one of the other? Nay, further, we see some of the philosophers which were least divine, and most immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of the soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of man could act and perform without the organs of the body, they thought might remain after death, which were only those of the understanding and not of the affection; so immortal and incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem unto them to be. But we, that know by divine revelation that not only the understanding ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... fashionable neighbourhood, and had herself selected the furniture—which was not yet paid for. She had insisted gently but firmly upon his going to the best tailors. The little expeditions in which he had been permitted to act as her escort, the luncheons and dinners at restaurants, although they were not many, were expensive. Yes, Rice was right. To be near Emily de Reuss was to live within a maze of fascination, but the end to it could only be the end of the others. Already he was in debt, a trifle behind with his work—a ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... a twofold creation of the world and a double process of development (an esoteric and an exoteric revelation) of God himself. The creation of the ideal world, as a free act of love, is a non-deducible fact; the theogonic process, on the contrary, is a necessary event by which God becomes a unity returning from division to itself, and so a living God. The eternal self-generation ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... has set down no detail that has not come under his direct observation (although it is not to be denied that here or there he may, perchance, have misunderstood an involved allusion or failed to grasp the inner significance of an act), so that Impartiality necessarily sways his brush, and ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... could have done differently under the circumstances. But if I caused you any pain, I'm very sorry; oh, yes, very sorry indeed. But I was not precipitate, and I know I did right. At least I TRIED to act for the best. ...
— The Parlor-Car • William D. Howells
... don't. Why should I? I let the dead past bury its dead, as Longfellow says, and act in the living present. That reminds me, we ought to be at work. I have a proposal to make. We won't hunt in couples, but separate, and each will try to bring home something to help the common ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... Sir Francis Drake had led his men near enough to Panama to behold the distant sea from the top of a high tree. But he had contented himself with waylaying and plundering a mule-train laden with treasure, and in 1670 it seemed the act of madness for a horde of freebooters to attack the city itself. Yet this was what the daring Morgan ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... were still in authority, I should not hesitate a moment to grant your request; for, even if I should commit an error of judgment, I am perfectly certain he would overlook it, and applaud the humane impulse that prompted the act; but General Banks might be less indulgent, and make very serious trouble with me for taking a step he would perhaps regard ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... the old world, and of Sodom, were in fashion, if anything happened to molest those that were for the customs of the present times, I laboured to make them quiet again, and to cause them to act without molestation. ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... horrified at the uncalled-for act, and springing at the white-aproned figure, she caught her by the shoulder, and shook her till her teeth rattled. Lottie doubled up like a jack-knife and buried her sharp teeth in the brown hand gripping ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... time of Lord Metcalfe, Papineau, Nelson, and other rebels long in exile, had been allowed to return to Canada either by virtue of special pardons granted by the Crown under the great seal, or by the issue of writs of nolle prosequi. The signal result of the Amnesty Act passed in 1849 by the Canadian legislature, in accordance with the recommendation in the speech from the throne, was the return of William Lyon Mackenzie, who had led an obscure and wretched life in the United States ever since his flight from Upper Canada in 1837, and had gained an experience ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... of revolving in this vain circle of questions. The fact was that, in their particular case, Amherst had not risen above prejudice and emotion; that, though her act was one to which his intellectual sanction was given, he had turned from her with instinctive repugnance, had dishonoured her by the most wounding suspicions. The tie between them was forever stained ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... consternation so general, do not fear, the more need is there that you and I do fear them. Wherefore, when you vote on the fate of Publius Lentulus and the rest, hold this assured, that you are voting also on the fate of Catiline's army, on the fate of the whole conspiracy. With the more energy you act, the more will their courage fail them. If they shall see you falter but a little, all at once they will fall on fiercely. Be far from believing that our ancestors raised this republic from a small state ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... tracked With struggle and sorrow and vengeful act 'Gainst Puritan, pagan, and priest. Where wolf and panther and serpent ceased, Man added the horrors your dark ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... equally guilty, Boetius reports himself to have said. There is no good reason to doubt his truthfulness in any of these matters; but he does not tell the whole truth, except in a sentence he lets slip later. Theodoric's act was no outbreak of barbarian suspicion and ferocity. Boetius and the whole Senate were really guilty of holding an utterly untenable political position, which no sovereign on earth would endure: they wished to make the Emperor at Constantinople ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... countries. The commission reported, and upon the basis of the report, a further temporary commercial agreement was entered into by the two countries, pursuant to which, in the exercise of the authority conferred upon the President by the third section of the tariff act of July 24, 1897, I extended the reduced tariff rates provided for in that section to champagne and all other sparkling wines, and pursuant to which the German conventional or minimum tariff rates were extended to about 96 1/2 per cent of all the exports from the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... there last night," said Horace, not a little mystified at the story, but trying to elucidate some fact sufficiently plain to act upon. ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... childhood, as he had known her cousins, but their love dated from their meetings beside the sickbed of his mother, over whom he had watched with unstinted devotion for weary months. She had been very fond of the young girl, and her last earthly act was to place Hope's hand in Philip's. Long before this final consecration, Hope had won his heart more thoroughly, he fancied, than any woman he had ever seen. The secret of this crowning charm was, ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to know, I only suppose—what Ferrand really cares for is doing things differently from other people? If you were to load him with a character and give him money on condition that he acted as we all act, do you ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the enthusiastic critics of Scandinavia, yet they call for indulgence. The fact is that Lady Inger is a brilliant piece of romantic extravagance, which is extremely interesting in illuminating the evolution of Ibsen's genius, and particularly as showing him in the act of emancipating himself from Danish traditions, but which has little positive value ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... had confessed it frankly, I should as frankly have forgiven you. But I am sorry to say that you have attempted to conceal your fault by falsehood. And do you know what that falsehood has done? It has converted the act, that I should have construed as mere trespass, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... his heart he knew what true love for her and a true regard for his own honour alike demanded. But he did not mean that, because he saw this and was resolved to act on it, the Count should escape castigation. Before he went, before he left behind him what was dearest in life, and again took his way alone, unfriended, solitary (penniless too, if he had happened to remember this), ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... me some familiarity with deeds and abstracts. My tutor was a pure conveyancer; so I saw nothing of equity drafting. I worked very hard with him, however, but I was incapable of being taught and he of teaching.' The year 1852 was memorable for the Act which altered the old system of special pleading. 'The new system was by no means a bad one.... I never learnt it, at least not properly, and while I ought to have been learning, I was still under the spell of an unpractical frame of mind which inclined me to generalities and vagueness, and ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me a pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavour to act towards it more in the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to me that I could not even bring myself to hear him in Lohengrin. I therefore let the matter sink into oblivion, and concentrated myself exclusively on getting into touch with the Meistersinger again. I first set to work on the instrumentation of the completed portion of the first act, of which I had only arranged detached fragments as yet. But as summer approached, the old anxiety as to my future subsistence began to pervade all my thoughts and sensations in the present. It was clear that, if I were to fulfil all my responsibilities, particularly with regard to Minna, I should ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... you from your marriage-tie, madame; and, should you brave my displeasure, and attempt to leave me, I would follow you to St. Cyr, and drag you from the altar, were you in the very act ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... arbitrary enough, and made with great formality. "The wardens," say the ordinances, "every quarter, once, or oftener, if need be, shall search in London, Southwark, and Westminster, that all the goldsmiths there dwelling work true gold and silver, according to the Act of Parliament, and shall also make due search ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... There was, however, a new spice of adventure lurking in this possible peril that was not altogether displeasing, and by the time the meal was at an end something like a plan of campaign had been formed. The hunters would not wait to be attacked and then act in self-defense, possibly at a disadvantage. They would be constantly on the lookout for the Woongas, and if a fresh trail or a camp was found they would ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... deemsters in imitation of the practice of the Druids. The line of the Stanleys lasted more than three hundred years. Their rule was good for the island. They gave the tenants security of tenure, and the landowners an act of settlement. They lifted the material condition of our people, gave us the enjoyment of our venerable laws, and ratified our patriarchal Constitution. Honour to the Stanleys of the Manx dynasty! They have left a good ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... I've no wish to win that character. Fashionable society seems to me like the sea, as restless and unreasoning, always on the go, and yet never going anywhere. I know lots of girls who go here and there and do this and that with the monotony with which the waves roll in and out. Half the time they act contrary to their wishes and feelings, but they imagine it the thing to do, and they do it till they are tired and bored half ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe |
