"Contriver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to escape. "Ready, ready," said one behind, "here he is, looking out for an opportunity to break through your palace, and unless you take care, he will have some notable contrivance to baulk you." Said the Contriver, "call him, I beseech you, master Impeacher of his Brother, alias Searcher of Faults, alias Framer of Complaints." "Ready, ready, this is he," said a litigious pettifogger, for every one knew the name of the ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... inundated by the contents of a bucket of water, which one of his companions had suspended over the door, and managed to overturn on the head of Nicholas. Furious at this unexpected douche, he flew at its unlucky contriver, and gave him a hearty beating. There were three other lads in the studio; they all attacked Nicholas, who, however, proved more than their match, overthrowing two of his assailants, and obliging the third ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... Aristides, or Themistocles, or Philip, or Alexander; but read the praises of our own fellow-countrymen, of the heroes of your own family. You will not find any one praised on the ground of having been a cunning contriver, or procurer, of pleasure. The eulogies on their monuments signify no such thing; like this one which is at one of our gates, "In whose favour many nations unanimously agree that he was the noblest man of the nation." Do we think that many nations ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... Dexterous contriver, he undoubtedly is. Lady Cowry has it from Sir Meeson Corby, who had it from the poor dowager, that Lord Fleetwood has installed the man in his house and sits at the opposite end of his table; fished him up ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... doubt accountable for having made it susceptible to pain; but this may have been a necessary condition of its susceptibility to pleasure; a supposition which avails nothing on the theory of an omnipotent Creator, but is an extremely probable one in the case of a Contriver working under the limitation of inexorable laws and ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... the contested premises and thence infer the matter in dispute. Insidiously to employ the words contrivance, design and adaptation, before these circumstances are apparent in the universe, thence justly inferring a contriver, is a popular sophism against which it behoves us to ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... made the contracts, was a Massachusetts man. His profits were used largely in affecting elections in Massachusetts. The Treasury officials who were in fault, whether through carelessness or corruption, were Massachusetts men, and the arch contriver of the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... in Koran (xxxviii. 11) because he tortured men by fastening them to four stakes driven into the ground. Sale translates "the contriver of the stakes" and adds, "Some understand the word figuratively, of the firm establishment of Pharaoh's kingdom, because the Arabs fix their tents with stakes; but they may possibly intend that prince's obstinacy and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... kitchen to the dining-room was through a suite of sleeping apartments; and the staircase, apparently cut out of the wall, had a beautiful little break-neck corner, which seemed made to prevent any one who once ascended from ever descending alive. Certainly the contriver of Woodford Cottage must have had some slight twist of the brain, which caused the building to partake ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... that satisfaction should he made—We turned our thoughts to find out the chief persons concerned; (for a man will sometimes employ another to commit a crime he does not chuse to be guilty of himself) —We found the Acorn Whistler was the chief contriver and promoter of the mischief—We agreed that he was the man that ought to suffer—Some of his relations, who are here present, then said he deserved death, and voted for it—Accordingly he was put to death—He was a very great warrior, and had many friends and relations ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... detain you for a few moments longer, to tell you that the scheme was carried into execution, and fully answered the hopes of the generous contriver. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Reduce the grandest type of man hitherto known to an abstract statement of his qualities and efforts, and he appears in dangerous company: say that, like Copernicus and Galileo, he was immovably convinced in the face of hissing incredulity; but so is the contriver of perpetual motion. We cannot fairly try the spirits by this sort of test. If we want to avoid giving the dose of hemlock or the sentence of banishment in the wrong case, nothing will do but a capacity to understand the subject-matter on which the immovable man is convinced, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... and from what I had seen I supposed the navvy was now dead. If that were the case it would be time for me to go; but I knew that so long as a man trusts himself to the current of Circumstance, reaching out for and rejecting nothing that comes his way, no harm can overtake him. It is the contriver, the schemer, who is caught by the Law, and never the philosopher. I knew that when the play was played, Destiny herself would move me on from the corpse; and I felt ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... thrust. Here is the old wooden house, which recalls the first settlers; there the fair red-brick of a later period. And everywhere is the diversity which comes of growth, and which proves that time is a better contriver of effects than ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... room as had entered;" and that meanly as these "drolls" might be thought of in later times, they were acted by the best comedians "then and now in being." Especially he applauds the actor, author, and contriver of the majority of the farces—"the incomparable Robert Cox." Isaac Disraeli gives him credit for preserving alive, as it were by stealth, the suppressed spirit of the drama. That he was a very natural actor, or ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... interest of seeing the woman hunt the man down. She may do it by blandishment, like Rosalind, or by stratagem, like Mariana; but in every case the relation between the woman and the man is the same: she is the pursuer and contriver, he the pursued and disposed of. When she is baffled, like Ophelia, she goes mad and commits suicide; and the man goes straight from her funeral to a fencing match. No doubt Nature, with very young creatures, may save the woman the trouble of scheming: Prospero knows that he has ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... tom, he was more like an insane tiger than a cat. He flew at the gate over which he used to jump, and clawed and bit it to matchwood, and after spitting in fury at the blazing hoop, sprang at the unhappy Quast as if he had been the contriver of the indignities to which he was being subjected. These tales of feline backsliding I used to hear from Lola, and when I asked her why she devoted her energies to the unproductive education of the uninspiring animals, ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... a chief and who asked the proxies of the absent. Are we then to believe that this bold spirit, this far-seeing mind, this astute, inventive, and politic Ignatius, born to rule other minds, and able always to subjugate his own will; that this contriver of a despotism, after having carried the principle of unconditional obedience, after having won the consent of his companions to the proposal that their master should be their master for life—are we to believe that he had never imagined it as probable (much less wished) that the choice of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... theology, philosophy holds itself free to criticize; they are for it problems. The teleological arguments of the older theologians have had to be left behind. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made," no doubt, but not perfectly, and the arguments in favour of an intelligent contriver (cf. The Bridgewater Treatises) which showed the greatest plausibility, were made meaningless by Darwin's work. Further, Evoluton knows no break. We cannot believe in the doctrines of the "fall" or in "original sin," for Evolution means a progress from lower to higher forms. ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... reasons, to assume an alias and nom de guerre, under which they acquired their notoriety: the only wonder was, that he should prove to be that person whose agency in the abduction of Edith would, of all other men in the world, go furthest to sustain the belief of Braxley being the principal contriver of the outrage. ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... of proceeding, they had one aim in common; and recognizing great merit in each other, coupled with a power of mutual assistance, they agreed to act in concert. Sir Francis was as cautious and timid as Sir Giles was daring and inflexible: the one being the best contriver of a scheme, and the other the fittest to carry it out. Sir Francis trembled at his own devices and their possible consequences: Sir Giles adopted his schemes, if promising, and laughed at the difficulties and dangers that beset them. The one was the head; the other ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... the arm of this Automaton, in order to renew its MOVING FORCE, but this, you will observe, has no relation to its guiding FORCE or power of direction, which makes the great merit of this machine. In general I am of opinion, that the contriver influences the direction of almost every stroke played by the Automaton, although, as I have said, I have sometimes seen him leave it to itself for many moves together; which, in my opinion, is the most-difficult circumstance of all ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... my army coat!—Throw it over me! [Nurse gets the coat and puts it over him.] Ah, my rough lion skin that, you wanted to take away from me! Omphale! Omphale! You cunning woman, champion of peace and contriver of man's disarmament. Wake, Hercules, before they take your club away from you! You would wile our armor from us too, and make believe that it is nothing but glittering finery. No, it was iron, let me tell you, before it ever ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... woman, weak of will, And strive to sway me: but my heart is stout, Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you, Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame, Even as ye list,—I reck not of your words. Lo! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain, My husband once—and him this hand of mine, A right contriver, fashioned for his death. ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... had lost, and redeemest the sloth of thy spirit by mighty valour. Come now, let us rout the rest, and let none escape the peril which all alike deserve. Let the crime come home to the culprit; let the sin return and crush its contriver. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... dimensions, and fix it in its place. The dial had been serenely numbering the hours through the busy years that had elapsed since that humble dwelling had been his home; during which the Killingworth locomotive had become a great working power, and its contriver had established the railway system, which was now rapidly becoming extended in ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... say when the Sheriff came to be substituted in the place of the Ealdorman: some authors think King Alfred the contriver of this regulation. It might have arisen from the nature of the thing itself. As several persons of consequence enough to obtain by their interest or power the place of alderman were not sufficiently qualified to perform the duty of the office, they contented themselves ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... at the same tyme knowne to be as greate enimyes to Presbitery (the establishment wherof was the sole end of this Covenant) as they were to the Kinge or the Church, and he who contributed most to it, and who in truth was the Principle contriver of it, and the man by whome the Committee in Scotlande was intirely and stupidly governed, S'r Harry Vane, the younger, was not afterwards knowne to abhorr the Covenant and the Presbiterians [more] then he was at that ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... art; I would not be left destitute, I must secure some money. Alas! to what loathsome shifts must I be driven? Yet a whole life of falsehood was otherwise my portion: and when remorse at being the contriver of any cheat made me shrink from my design I was irresistably led back and confirmed in it by the visit of some aunt or cousin, who would tell me that death was the end of all men. And then say ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... is every thing. What an admirable contriver did I think myself till now! Even for this scheme among the rest! But how pitifully foolish does it now appear to me!—Scratch out, erase, never to be read, every part of my preceding letters, where I have boastingly mentioned it. And never presume to rally me upon the cursed subject: ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... with experiments upon mind, or experiments for producing effects through the medium of voluntary acts of others, making it necessary that the contriver should take into consideration the laws of mind in forming his plans. To illustrate this by rather a childish case: I once knew a boy who was employed by his father to remove all the loose small stones, which, ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... be acquainted with this gentleman while I was at Leipsic. It pleased him exceedingly to have been the contriver of so fine a structure as the Conclusions of Leipsic, and he was glad to be entertained on that subject. I had the relation from his own mouth, when, but very modestly, he told me he thought 'twas an inspiration darted on a sudden into his thoughts, when the Duke of Saxony ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe |
