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Build upon   /bɪld əpˈɑn/   Listen
Build upon

verb
1.
Be based on; of theories and claims, for example.  Synonyms: build on, repose on, rest on.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Build upon" Quotes from Famous Books



... we will have to do. We must select a site for our camp,—or town, you may well say,—and we must build upon it without delay. That is to be our first step. Details will come later. There are over six hundred of us here. We represent a fair-sized village. We have mechanics, carpenters, farmers, surveyors, masons,—and merchants, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... Elizabeth, who had kneeled before the queen and had tenderly put her arms around her—" no, Antoinette, do not say that your son has no hope and no future. Build upon God, hope that the undertaking which we are to-morrow to execute will lead to a fortunate result, that we shall flee from here, that we shall be free, that we shall be able to reach England. Oh, yes, let us ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... New Jersey was a mixed one, judged by the very distinct religious differences of colonial times, yet racially it was thoroughly Anglo-Saxon and a good stock to build upon. At the time of the Revolution in 1776 the people numbered only about 120,000, indicating a slow growth; but when the first census of the United States was taken, in ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... nobility to give the tone, there is no harmony in the production of art. Never, on the other hand, has architecture discovered so many economical ways of imitating the real and the solid, or displayed more resources, more talent, in distributing them. Propose to an architect to build upon the garden at the back of an old mansion, and he will run you up a little Louvre overloaded with ornament. He will manage to get in a courtyard, stables, and if you care for it, a garden. Inside the house he will accommodate a quantity of little ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac

... development, and considerable self-help could be secured in that way. You do not say whether you know anything about farming. Farming is a very complicated business and a basic knowledge derived from experience is a proper foundation to build upon in the light of the fuller application ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... an example from your old tutor. Erase from your mind everything that he imprinted there. Do not build your castle upon the shifting sand. And look well ahead, and be sure of your ground, before you build upon the charming creature who is ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen

... another help to us to understand the parable of the wall. He says that we are building the wall of our salvation on the cornerstone of Christ, and he goes on to say, "Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... do not mean to exclude or deny it; for it is, as I have just said, bound up with the same conception from which the "argument from adaptability" is drawn. I only mean that I do not need to build upon it as on a prior conception; that I can put it aside. Indeed, of these two off-shoots, theism is less near to the common root, as will ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... of the middle. This idea, a happy one, in our opinion, regrettable for those who only see architectural beauty in geometrical regularity, is not fortuitous; it has a reason wholly Florentine. In order to obtain perfect symmetry, it would have been necessary to build upon the detested soil of the Ghibelline house, rebellious and proscribed by the Uberti; something that the Guelph faction, then all-powerful, were not willing to allow the architect, Arnolfo di Lapo, to do. Learned men contest the truth of this tradition; we will not discuss here the value ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... trees and shrubs, well-nigh choked with undergrowth, which extended for some distance from the park wall backward along the road-side toward Vanves. Whoever owned that stretch of land had seemingly not thought it worth while to cultivate it or to build upon it or even to clear ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... a very hoping People, there was not much here to build upon. Yet what did they not build! The fact that the King has spoken, that he has voluntarily come to speak, how inexpressibly encouraging! Did not the glance of his royal countenance, like concentrated sunbeams, kindle all hearts in an august Assembly; nay thereby in an inflammable enthusiastic France? ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... made with many dear and valued Friends in the neighborhood of London has, I hope, been a little strength to me in the best things. It is truly pleasant to be treated with such genuine kindness; but it is nothing for the soul to build upon,—we must look for a more sure foundation than the favor of the great ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... him, "Hear what thou must do after baptism. Thou must abstain from all sin, and every evil affection, and build upon the foundation of the Catholick Faith the practice of the virtues; for faith without works is dead, as also are works without faith. For, saith the Apostle, 'Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.' Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... supposed that a system of things like this can drop to pieces of its own accord, like the old Republic of Venice," said the colonel. "But when the last vestige of commercial society is gone, then we can begin to build anew; and we shall build upon the central idea, not of the false liberty you now worship, but of responsibility— responsibility. The enlightened, the moneyed, the cultivated class shall be responsible to the central authority—emperor, duke, president; the name ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... milestone in Mark's religious life. It discovered in him a hidden treasure of humility, and it taught him to build upon the rock of human nature. He divined the true meaning of Our Lord's words to St. Peter: Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. John was the disciple whom ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... great degree). Prudence is indeed the duty which we owe to ourselves; and if we will be so much our own enemies as to neglect it, we are not to wonder if the world is deficient in discharging their duty to us; for when a man lays the foundation of his own ruin, others will, I am afraid, be too apt to build upon it. You say, however, you have seen your errors, and will reform them. I firmly believe you, my dear child; and therefore, from this moment, you shall never be reminded of them by me. Remember them only yourself so far as for the future to teach you the better to avoid them; but still remember, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... life for such a consummation. But I tell you that Jesus Christ has pointed out the only means by which this unity can be maintained, viz: the recognition of Peter and his successors as the Head of the Church. Build upon this foundation and you will not erect a tower of Babel, nor build upon sand. If all Christian sects were united with the centre of unity, then the scattered hosts of Christendom would form an army which atheism ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... not a soul looking through them; at such a time it was good to fold one's hands in prayer and reflect that we were still all together, and that not one of us had been taken away, but God had preserved us from all calamity. Our hope was weak, for there was no foundation for it to build upon, but our faith ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... reflect, to see, as it were, if I could find something left in me to take hold of, to build upon, to begin over again, perhaps, by going back to the old associations. I could think of no better place, and I knew that my father would, be going away after a few weeks, and that I should be lone, yet with an atmosphere back of me,—my old atmosphere. That was why I went to church the first Sunday, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... cannot go so far back upon ourselves as to undermine our own foundations; if we try to do we topple over, and lose that very reason about which we vainly try to reason. If we let the foundations be, we know well enough that they are there, and we can build upon them in all security. We cannot, then, define reason nor crib, cabin and confine it within a thus-far-shalt-thou-go-and-no- further. Who can define heat or cold, or night or day? Yet, so long as we hold fast by ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... to come over to France—at once. Can you get away, without alarming your sister, or letting her, really, know anything about it? It is the merest, barest chance, but I think there is just a chance, that a man who is now in hospital here may be poor George Sarratt—only don't build upon it yet, please. The case was sent on here from one of the hospitals near the Belgian frontier about a month ago, in order that a famous nerve-specialist, who has joined us here for a time, might give his ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Harvard at the psychological moment. Harvard had passed through many distressing years playing for the football supremacy. He found something to build upon, because, although the game at Cambridge was in the doldrums, there had been keen and ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... and insignia? It had used them both in a very real manner, and pretended to stand by them now! But this poor Napoleon mistook; he believed too much in the dupeability of men; saw no fact deeper in man than hunger and this. He was mistaken. Like a man that should build upon cloud; his house and he falls down in confused wreck, and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... pack ice farther north than expected, and it's impossible to interpret the fact. One hopes that we shall not have anything heavy, but I'm afraid there's not much to build upon. 10 P.M.—We have made good progress throughout the day, but the ice streams thicken as we advance, and on either side of us the pack now appears in considerable fields. We still pass quantities of bergs, perhaps nearly one-half the number tabular, but the ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... boldly eliminates God; it does not deceive many. The mind revolts at the idea of spontaneous generation; in all the researches of the ages no scientist has found a single instance of life that was not begotten by life. The materialist has nothing but imagination to build upon; he cannot hope ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... build upon," he said; "the little plant has no strength. It is not a case of failing health, but of utter want of vitality from the very beginning. If our mountain air can work a miracle, we may see her restored; if ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri

... architect who was called upon to erect a building in England upon the long-lease system, so common with Anglican proprietors, but quite new to our Scottish friend. When he found the proposal was to build upon the tenure of 999 years, he quietly suggested, "Culd ye no mak it a thousand? 999 years'll ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... profession, of ambition, of love, of home—he had never wholly lost hold of a sustaining hope, and now it would seem that this long-abiding faith was at last to be rewarded. Yet he realized, as he fronted the facts, how very little he really had to build upon,—the fragmentary declaration of Slavin, wrung from him in a moment of terror; an idle boast made to Brant by the surprised scout; a second's glimpse at a scarred hand,—little enough, indeed, yet by far the most clearly marked trail he had ever struck in all his vain endeavor ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... on the worship and practice of morality as exemplified in the lives and teachings of the wise men who have gone before, and who, as he conceived, have made the world what it is, and have left it to posterity to build upon the same basis; while he lived he was held in greater and greater honour by multitudes of disciples, till on his death he became an object of worship, and even his descendants came to be regarded as a kind of sacred caste; he flourished ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... start with, he was NOT utterly and completely a coward, or the influences would have had nothing to work upon. He was not afraid of a cow, though perhaps of a bull: not afraid of a woman, but afraid of a man. There was something to build upon. There was a SEED. No seed, no plant. Did he make that seed himself, or was it born in him? It was no merit of HIS that the seed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... roam from flower to flower, over as varied a garden as the imagination can well conceive. There have been brave workers before us in the field, and we shall build upon good foundations. We hope to be catholic in our selections; we shall prune away only the superfluous; we shall condense anecdotes only where we think we can make them pithier and racier. We will neglect no fact that is interesting, and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... we had never seen a cheque for forty dollars before, so much did we rejoice over this one, and so many hopes of future emolument did we build upon it. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... too late—when we have been caught in its fatal snares, and then in the darkness and misery that will surround us, we will feel how foolish we have been, and our cries of despair and distress will be echoed back to our own ears in sounds of mockery and scorn. Let us not build upon that "something else" that is always buried in the to-morrows, for we are losing the present ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... found these conversations an outlet somehow for emotions in himself he could not manage—a scaffolding that provided outlines for his awakening dreams to build upon. He found relief. For Minks, with his delightful tact, asked no awkward questions. He referred neither to the defunct Scheme, nor mentioned the new one that held 'a beauty of the stars.' ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... my beloved, how is it possible that these, after having rejected the sure foundation, can ever build upon it, that it may become the ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... would be found not to arise from the constitution, but from the failures of the officers in whose hands it was. This he did seem to give good ear to; but did give me of myself very good words, which pleased me well, though I shall not build upon them any thing. Thence home; and after dinner by water with Tom down to Greenwich, he reading to me all the way, coming and going, my collections out of the Duke of York's old manuscript of the Navy, which I have bound up, and do please me mightily. At Greenwich I come to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... about worthless and vain works, as are followers of the papacy and of all false worship. No doubt such error has its rise in the principle that we are to do good and avoid evil. The principle fundamentally is true, and accepted by all men; but when it comes to the theories we build upon it, the speculations as to how it is to be put into practice, there is disagreement. Only the Word of God can show how ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... unhappy Latins build upon another stead The bale-fires numberless of tale: but of their warriors dead, A many bodies there they dig into the earth adown, And bear them into neighbouring lands, or back into the town: The rest, a mighty heap of death piled up confusedly, Untold, unhonoured, there they burn: then that wide-lying ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... manage themselves, they are immoderate and extravagant; and fall into sharp sicknesses. This is an emblem of their minds; at first they have no principles laid down within them as a foundation for the intellect to build upon: they have no discriminating convictions, and no grasp of consequences. And therefore they talk at random, if they talk much, and cannot help being flippant, or what is emphatically called "young." They are merely dazzled ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... branch that an apple-tree, standing near a dwelling, held out over the highway. The structure was barely ten feet above the middle of the road, and would just escape a passing load of hay. It was made conspicuous by the use of a large fragment of newspaper in its foundation,—an unsafe material to build upon in most cases. Whatever else the press may guard, this particular newspaper did not guard this nest from harm. It saw the egg and probably the chick, but not the fledgeling. A murderous deed was committed ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... traced, or imagined, a secret air of deference towards the desolate Sister Madeline, which, as it was not countenanced at all by their present relations to each other, left people at liberty to build upon it a ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... nation could have vaulted to the final stage of the simple alphabetical writing without tracing the devious and difficult way of the pictograph and the syllabary. It is possible, however, for a cultivated nation to build upon the shoulders of its neighbors, and, profiting by the experience of others, to make sudden leaps upward and onward. And this is seemingly what happened in the final development of the art of writing. For while ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... Livres is sufficiently small to make it probable that the reality is not very far different from the calculated temperature; but the other two caves are comparatively so far off, that the temperature and elevation of Geneva are not very safe data to build upon. ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... time Reid regarded himself as the disciple of Berkeley, but the consequences which Hume deduced from the principles laid down by the former led Reid to feel that he must build upon some wholly different foundation. He came to the conclusion that the line of philosophers from Descartes to Hume had made one capital error in assuming "that nothing is perceived but what is in the mind that ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... Fig. 5, shows cross-sections of the "body" of the mesilla on which A stands, along the lines indicated. The surface of A was therefore very irregular and difficult to build upon for people who could not remove and fit ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier

... this is still more the case in an age not yet enlightened by the clear light of history. The chroniclers, especially Boece, have much doubt thrown upon them by more serious historians, who quote them and build upon them nevertheless, having really no better evidence to go upon. The report of these witnesses is that James had been warned by witches, in whom he believed, and by one Andrew the Fleming, an astrologer, that his chief danger arose from his own family, and that "the lion should ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... himself; a vague hope that she might fill the void which a lifetime of longing had expressed. A tremendous opportunity now presented. Already the foundation had been well laid—but not by earthly hands. His task was to build upon it; and, as he did so, to learn himself. He had never before realized more than faintly the awful power for good or evil which a parent wields over a child. He had no more than the slightest conception of the mighty problem of child-education. And now Carmen herself had ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... our Lord Jesus Christ was essential to the salvation of the world. Suppose Judas, at the judgment day, should build upon this fact in extenuation of his dreadful crime. What would be the decision of the assembled universe? Yea, what was the condemnation passed upon him by the Illustrious Sufferer? 'Wo to that man by ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... to a piece of iron upon the beam, without chains, or perpendicular guides, or untowardly frictions, arch-heads, or other pieces of clumsiness.... I have only tried it in a slight model yet, so cannot build upon it, though I think it a very probable thing to succeed, and one of the most ingenious simple pieces ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson

... perched in his fog-bound eyrie, staring along the unseen gorge? He tells himself that had she been what he believed her, he might have been elsewhere than where he finds himself. There had been but a surface ash upon the seeming ruin of a life. There was something still to build upon, but she must needs destroy what was left. There was wholesome blood in the veins of the man who aspired to rebuild, and it was she who poisoned ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... power of human imagination when, excited, it creates phantoms and visions, peopling the bottomless and ever silent emptiness with them. It is sad to admit that there are people, however, who believe in ghosts and build upon this belief nonsensical theories about certain relations between the world of the living and the enigmatic land inhabited by the dead. I understand that the human ear and eye can be deceived—but how can the great and lucid human mind fall into ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... at sea without chart or compass. When a man or woman loses their self-respect, they are moral wrecks. "WANDERING STARS." There is nothing left to build upon. It is from this cause that thousands commit suicide, both men, women, and girls. It is the continual gnawings of the conscience over the secret sins and crimes they have not the moral courage to confess. Like the hidden spark of fire in a bale of cotton, ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn

... Callonby too, about to join the ministry—well, all the better to have one's father-in-law in power—promotion is so cursed slow now a-days. And lastly, the sly allusion to the commissions—the mechancete of introducing her name to interest me. With such materials as these to build upon, frail as they may seem to others, I found no difficulty in regarding myself as the dear friend of the family, and the acknowledged ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... dragon, and trampled him under foot. The destruction of the Anaconda, in his hands, would be a smaller undertaking. Assuming for our people a hope not less rational than that of the people of Nineveh, we may reasonably build upon the guardianship and protection of God, through his angels, "a great city of sixty thousand souls," which has been for so long a season the subject of his care. These notes will supply the adequate illustrations for the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... to rest upon, he becomes a reed, which no man will vouchsafe to lean upon. Like a floating island, when we come next day to seek it, it is carried from the place we left it in, and, instead of earth to build upon, we find nothing ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston

... built solely on a speculation concerning the Mississippi. He added the East India trade; he added the African trade; he added the farms of all the farmed revenue of France. All these together unquestionably could not support the structure which the public enthusiasm, not he, chose to build upon these bases. But these were, however, in comparison, generous delusions. They supposed, and they aimed at, an increase of the commerce of France. They opened to it the whole range of the two hemispheres. They did not think of feeding France from its own substance. A grand ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... applied to Arduin for leave to build upon the Monte Pirchiriano. Arduin was then holding his court at Avigliana, a small town near S. Ambrogio, even now singularly little altered, and full of mediaeval remains; he not only gave his consent, but volunteered to sell a site to the monastery, so ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... now, to me, extraordinarily delicate. Are we to let the mistakes in this flattering cable slide, and build upon its promises, or, are we to pull whoever believes these figures out of their fool's paradise? Well, I feel we must have it out and although deeply grateful for the nice words and for the splendid effort actually being made, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1840), to give it its full and original title, comes next in order of time, and perhaps of abiding value. It is a book rather difficult for us now to estimate after more than half a century, for so very much has been done in the interval to build upon these foundations, to enlarge our knowledge of these very heroes, and the estimates of Carlyle in the first half of this century are for the most part so completely the commonplaces of the English-speaking world at the close of the century, that when we open the Heroes again ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... and still may have, a censorship of the press—an indulgent one; it can afford to be so through the sedative virtue of the standing army of the country, and that of the Germanic League to back the executive in case of commotion. No sound-minded Englishman will build upon the short-lived experience of the kingdom of the Netherlands. In Flanders a benighted Papacy prevails, which defeated the attempts of the king to enlighten the people by education; and I am well assured that the Protestant portion of Holland ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... gentle, with the protective gentleness of the stone that will not fail you when you lean on it. One felt sure of Mother Bridget, as one feels sure of the solid rock to build upon. She looked at me with keen, half-quizzical eyes. ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... others, and that this spirit often takes the form of material gifts. We can also lead them a step higher and show them that this spirit of kindness can do more than provide material things; so that the old nursery tale has laid a beautiful foundation which need never be pulled up: we can build upon it and add to ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... minds of your audience. Thus, the reader is assumed to be unacquainted with what you have to say at the beginning of a work, and hence you must use simple language to initiate him into your lines of thought. Afterwards you may build upon this foundation what you can. It follows that if you are to speak of some outrageous crime, you should not inveigh against it with a comparable violence of diction until your audience has achieved such a notion of the crime as will not be at odds ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole

... Roman cement of tradition, and that stately and splendid structures may be reared on such a foundation. But to see one laying a platform over heretical quicksands, thirty or forty or fifty years deep, and then beginning to build upon it, is a sorry sight. A new convert from the reformed to the ancient faith may be very strong in the arms, but he will always have weak legs and shaky knees. He may use his hands well, and hit hard with his fists, but he will never stand on his legs in the way the man does ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... been dispossessed in favor of the real owner,—myself,—but that course would be a protracted one. Following the usual custom of the locality, I paid a certain sum to the jumper to yield up peaceably HIS possession of the land, and began to build upon it. It might be reasonably supposed that the question was settled. But it was not. The house was nearly finished when, one morning, I was called out of my editorial sanctum by a pallid painter, looking even more white-leaded than usual, who informed me that my house was ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... masses do not compose organic bodies. So a pond may very well be full of fish or of other organic bodies, although it is not itself an animal or organic body, but only a mass that contains them. Thus I had endeavoured to build upon such foundations, established in a conclusive manner, a complete body of the main articles of knowledge that reason pure and simple can impart to us, a body whereof all the parts were properly connected and capable of meeting the most important difficulties of the ancients and the ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... profoundest revelation of the moral fixedness and self- control of God so long as we hold to the scriptural representation. It is to be regretted that many theological theories break away from the Scripture basis and build upon assumptions which are artificial, not to say unmoral: or, rather, in their striving after system they get away from the atmosphere of moral suggestiveness with which the Gospels and Epistles surround the cross. That God will do his part ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell

... Bevagna. We might hazard a conjecture that the Lombards, when they ruled the Duchy of Spoleto, following their usual policy of opposing new military centres to the ancient Roman municipia, encouraged Fulginium at the expense of her two neighbours. But of this there is no certainty to build upon. All that can be affirmed with accuracy is that in the Middle Ages, while Spello and Bevagna declined into the inferiority of dependent burghs, Foligno grew in power and became the chief commune of this part of Umbria. It was famous during the last centuries ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... the presence of that power by whose accursed machinations I was destined to fall. You are startled at this declaration. It is one to which you have been little accustomed. Perhaps you regard it merely as an effusion of frenzy. I know what I am saying. I do not build upon conjectures and surmises. I care not, indeed, for your doubts. Your conclusion may be fashioned at your pleasure. Would to Heaven that my belief were groundless, and that I had no reason to believe my intellects to have been perverted by ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... Master's voice more in unison with their own hearts' experience, and views of new covenant provision and gospel motives: except in the Baptist congregations, the gospel is much mutilated here, and kept out of sight even by the few who are supposed to build upon it. ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... most of them. As we rode from camp to camp the General made the time most agreeable and profitable to me, by delivering a very able lecture on military affairs; laying down what he denominated a simple and sure foundation for the beginner to build upon. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... with England without the knowledge and consent of the other. All the rest was full and free reciprocation in the future, and the assurance of efficient aid in the present; no ambiguities, no doubtful expressions, no debatable ground for interpretation to build upon and weave the mazes of her subtile web,—but clear, distinct, and definite, a mutual specification of mutual duties and mutual rights. Equal could not have treated more firmly with equal than this new power, as yet unrecognized in the congress of nations, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... James Loper, the town granted him ten acres of land in some convenient situation, and liberty for the commonage of three cows, twenty sheep and one horse, with necessary wood and water for his use, on condition that he should follow the trade of whaling for two years, build upon his land, ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay

... could hardly have hoped, therefore, in the present age, when every source of ghost and goblin story is ransacked, that the origin of the tale would escape discovery. In fact, I had considered popular traditions of the kind as fair foundations for authors of fiction to build upon, and made use of the one in question accordingly, I am not disposed to contest the matter, however, and indeed consider myself so completely overpaid by the public for my trivial performances, that I am content to submit to any deduction, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... in the words "fed up" a sign that our tenacity is giving out, he reads it wrong; grim will be the disillusionment of any hopes he may build upon his misreading, and even grimmer the anger of those whom he ...
— Fragments From France • Captain Bruce Bairnsfather

... worker in her special line of work is looking back at it from the place where things show truest, and she says, "God help us all! What is the good done by any such work as mine? 'If any man build upon this foundation . . . wood, hay, stubble. . . . If any man's work shall be burned he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire!' An infinitude of pains and labour, and all to disappear like the stubble and ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... credit to, credence to; see, realize; assume, receive; set down for, take for; have it, take it; consider, esteem, presume. count upon, depend upon, calculate upon, pin one's faith upon, reckon upon, lean upon, build upon, rely upon, rest upon; lay one's account for; make sure of. make oneself easy about, on that score; take on trust, take on credit; take for granted, take for gospel; allow some weight to, attach some weight to. know, know for ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... inroads of the barbarians, and, instead of a Roman knight, appointed as governor of it a man of consular rank. The ruins of houses which had been burnt down long before, being a great desight to the city, he gave leave to any one who would, to take possession of the void ground and build upon it, if the proprietors should hesitate to perform the work themselves. He resolved upon rebuilding the Capitol, and was the foremost to put his hand to clearing the ground of the rubbish, and removed some of it upon his own shoulder. And he undertook, likewise, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... joint owners of the farm, to grant them a portion of the land, and the site where now the Monastery is builded, and the owners thereof did freely grant their request and gave them the land for the Brothers to dwell in. When they had obtained the power to build upon the spot pointed out to them aforetime by Master Gerard, they set in order a small house, at the bottom of the mountain, that had been given to them by a certain matron, and some labourers assisted them in this work. This house was builded of logs and earth, but was only roofed ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis

... our former theory will not do, for here are deeper and broader foundations to build upon. We discover that Lady Macbeth was an unbeliever morally, and so found it necessary to keep down all imagination, which is the upheaving of that inward world whose very being she would have annihilated. Yet out of this world ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... the idea you have just advanced I shall have to begin and lay a new foundation to build upon, for you have swept away many ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... the eternal conquest of right. And let me say here to those women who not only hang back from this encounter but who throw obstacles in the way of true reform and progress, that the shallow ground upon which they stand is within the belt of the moral earthquake, and that what they build upon ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... what of those who are sprung from the same seed, suckled at the same breast, reared in the same home, loved by the same parents, the same mother, the same father? [15] What the gods have given to be the seal of brotherhood do not make of none effect yourselves. But build upon it: make it the foundation for other loving deeds, and thus the love between you shall never be overcome. The man who takes thought for his brother cares for his own self. For who but a brother can win glory from a brother's greatness? Who can be honoured as a brother can through ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... a man's teaching comes of his followers, such as having never touched the foundation he has laid, build upon it wood, hay, and stubble, fit only to be burnt. Therefore, if only to avoid his worst foes, his admirers, a man should avoid system. The more correct a system the worse will it be misunderstood; its professed ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... some name, which might have been the lost name, but as Mr. Emblem changed it the next moment, and forgot it again the moment after, it was doubtful; certainly not much to build upon. ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... news of the oppressor's death was spread abroad, the people came in throngs to thank the King, who had delivered them; but he bade them rather give thanks to Heaven. Then, having distributed among them the treasure his knights had not needed, and having commanded Sir Howel to build upon the hill which the giant had haunted a chapel in honor of St. Michael, he returned to his army, and led it into the country of Champagne, where he pitched his camp in ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... to the Brass Castle; but that being quite out of the question, he read it again and again. It is wonderful how often a man will spell over and over the same commonplace syllables, if they happen to touch a subject vitally concerning himself, and what theories and speculations he will build upon the accidental turn of a phrase, or the careless dash of ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... I say the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants.... There is no safe certaintie but of Scripture only, for any considering man to build upon. This therefore, and this only I have reason to beleeve; this I will professe; according to this I will live, and for this I will not only willingly, but even gladly loose my life, though I should be ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... refuse, and yet I cannot think it wise to build upon a chance so slight. Once let her have you, and both are made unhappy, if the hope fail. No, Maurice, it is better to be generous, and leave her free to make her own happiness elsewhere. Annon loves her, she is heart-whole, and will soon learn to love him, if you are silent. My poor ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard

... together, they scattered wildly over the vast domain. Don Charles, the Spanish governor, gave Colonel Boone eight thousand acres of land on the north side of the Missouri river. By the law of the province he was bound to build upon some part of this land a house within the year, and also to obtain a confirmation of the grant from the representative of the Spanish crown, then residing in New Orleans. Both of these precautions the simple-minded man ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... at a vast expense, is neglected by another, who thinks he has a more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture; and he suffering it to fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge. But among the Utopians, all things are so regulated that men very seldom build upon a new piece of ground; and are not only very quick in repairing their houses, but show their foresight in preventing their decay: so that their buildings are preserved very long, with but little labour; and thus the builders to whom that ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... to be seen; but now he had his revenge and was all sunshine. He thought the state of the ice in the Kara Sea would be favorable; some Samoyedes had said so, who had been seal-hunting near the eastern entrance of the Strait a day or two previously. This was not very much to build upon, certainly, but still sufficient to make us regret that we had not got there before. Then we spoke of the Urania, of which no one, of course, had seen anything. No ship had put in there for some time, except the sealing sloop we had ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... ran up its veins like life in the veins of a man, and the frond that had already lived and died became a gleaming spirit, and then it too fell in ashes among the ash. Then Young Gerard took a handful of twigs and branches, and began to build upon the ash a castle of many sorts of wood, and the child helped him, laying hazel on his beech and fir upon his oak; and often before their turret was quite reared a spark would catch at the dry fringes of the fir, or the brown oakleaves, and ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... most of the Indian villages of Florida. The natives always endeavoured to build upon high ground, not least to erect the house of their cacique, or chief, upon an eminence. As the country was very level and high places seldom to be found, they constructed artificial mounds of earth, capable of containing from ten to twenty houses; there resided the chief, his family, and attendants. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... toward the toilet artifices they both employed so lavishly. The old lady's beauty was even more than Isabelle's assisted by art, for her snowy-white hair was a wig, her teeth not her own, and her eyebrows quite openly manufactured without one single natural hair to build upon. But it pleased her generation to regard these facts as sacred, and to assume that the secrets of the boudoir were unsuspected. Even Nina never saw so much as a powder puff in her grandmother's dressing room, and ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to overlean A finger even. And, though I have grown serene And strong ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... sufficiently fresh to exclude the worms, and at the same time a current strong enough to prevent stagnation. A bay perfectly secure from the N.W. and other dangerous winds, a gradual rise of ground consisting of a fine dry gravel to build upon; in short, every natural advantage. This was the original situation designed for the town; but the proprietor was concerned in a wharf in this neighbourhood, and fearing the new town would injure his business, positively refused his consent ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... raged at "Slim" had Bruce been so furious, but there was little time to indulge his temper for there was now an extra boat to build upon which he must trust ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... Jersey-made curios—stopped and went on again along the rim of The King's Basin, through San Antonio Pass to the great cities on the western edge of the continent. But the town on the banks of the Colorado, in an almost rainless land, had little to build upon. Still on the street mingled the old-timers from desert, mountain and plain; from prospecting trip, mine or ranch; the adventurer, the promoter, the Indian, the Mexican, the frontier ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... a believer in laissez faire. Now he began to consider whether legislation might not be the remedy for poverty. Out of this serious attention to the needs of the farmer other organizations were to arise and to build upon the foundations laid by ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson

... foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin

... Dr. Haywood has bought a lot on the hill, and is to build upon it. Has spoken to me about it. Have drawn the plan, and shall make ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... which, I say, of these two is the clearer and first known, I leave to any one to determine, it not being material to my present occasion. That which I have here to do, is to inquire, whether, if it be the readiest way to knowledge to begin with general maxims, and build upon them, it be yet a safe way to take the PRINCIPLES which are laid down in any other science as unquestionable truths; and so receive them without examination, and adhere to them, without suffering them to be doubted ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... ground, and cover the earth with fruit and flowers. It is pleasant to be able to fish and hunt, and trap the game. Yes, if they were all here, we would build us a nice log-house, and clear up these bushes on the flat near the lake. This 'Elfin Knowe,' as you call it, Kate, would be a nice spot to build upon. See these glorious old oaks; not one should be cut down, and we would have a boat and a canoe, and voyage across to yonder islands. Would it not be charming, ma belle?" and Catharine, smiling at the picture drawn so eloquently, would enter ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... word and deed, (19)in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit; so that from Jerusalem, and around as far as to Illyricum, I have fully preached the good news of Christ; (20)being emulous so to preach the good news, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another's foundation; (21)but ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... desolate island we were returning to. The shell-fish, which was the only subsistence that island had hitherto afforded in any measure, was exhausted; and the Indians had shewn themselves so little affected by the common incitements of compassion, that we had no hopes to build upon any impressions of that sort in them. They had already refused to barter their dogs with us, for want of a valuable commodity on our side; so that it is wonderful we did not give ourselves up to despondency, and lay aside all farther attempts; but we were supported ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... the neighborhood caves were filled to overflowing with increasing population, and generations of peace had wrought a confidence which had not existed when the pioneers had sought safety in caves, these people ventured to move out of cliffs and to build upon the tops of the mesa. Whether all the cave-dwellers were descended from the original pilgrims or whether others had joined them afterward is not known, but it seems evident that the separate communities had found some common bond, ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... been at the Brook Kerith. My camel-driver did not say, Joseph answered, and Jesus pointed to the ledge that the Essenes must have chosen for a dwelling: it cannot be else, he said; there is no other ledge large enough to build upon in the ravine; and behind the ledge thou seest up yonder is the large cave whither the ravens came to feed Elijah. If the brethren are anywhere they are on that ledge, in that cave, and he asked Joseph if his eyes ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... content to waive the testimony of Papias as precarious, and that of Justin Martyr as too fragmentary to be decisive. Let us frankly admit that the citation of Vincentius a Thibari at the viith Carthaginian Council is sufficiently inexact to make it unsafe to build upon it. The "Acta Pilati" and the "Apostolical Constitutions," since their date is somewhat doubtful, shall be claimed for the ivth century only, and not for the iiird. And now, how will the evidence stand for the last Twelve ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... languages; but on etymological comparisons I would be understood to lay little stress, for reasons which will be assigned in the sixth chapter. The similitude of a religious ceremony is much stronger ground to build upon; and the coincidence is sufficiently remarkable, that the manner practised by the Sumatrans in taking a solemn oath should exactly agree with the same ceremony which is used in giving a solemn pledge among the common people of China, namely, by wringing off the head of a cock. Captain Mackintosh ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... word," sais I, "as I always do. I seconded the motion, but I gave them a dose of common sense, as a foundation to build upon. I told them niggers must be prepared for liberty, and when they were sufficiently instructed to receive and appreciate the blessing, they must have elementary knowledge, furst in religion, and then in the useful arts, before a college should ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... see what is in your mind; but nothing can happen in time to influence the finding of the jury. You must not build upon that. But all hope is not lost yet, Mary. We will not give up ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... What course to take, or which way to resolve. My brain (methinks) is like an hour-glass, And my imaginations like the sands Run dribbling forth to fill the mouth of time, Still changed with turning in the ventricle. What were I best to do? it shall be so. Nay, I dare build upon ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... will nevertheless be, perhaps, more satisfactory to draw all our proofs from Scripture; we are there plainly told that each Apostle chose his particular method (Rom. xv: 20): "Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation." (51) If all the Apostles had adopted the same method of teaching, and had all built up the Christian religion on the same foundation, Paul would have had no reason to call the work of a ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza

... "The Sceptics had attacked both perception and reason. They had shown that perception is after all based upon appearance, and appearance is not a certainty; and they showed that reason is unable to distinguish between appearance and certainty, since it had nothing but phenomena to build upon, and since there is no criterion to apply to reason itself." Then they proclaimed philosophy a failure, and without foundation. But Zeno, taking a stand on common-sense, fought for morality, as did Buddha before him, and long after him Reid ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... We must build upon the broad foundation of man's life, and not upon any special faculty. The merely literary man is often the most pitiful of men,—able, it may be, to do little else than complain that his merits are not recognized. Let it not be imagined then that ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding



Words linked to "Build upon" :   hinge upon, ride, hinge on, devolve on, repose on, turn on, depend on, owe, rest on, depend upon, build on



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