"Ennoble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... human aim—to cheer, console, purify, or ennoble the life of the people. Without this aim literature has never sent an arrow close ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... really won't!" she went on soothingly, for now he was rather more ruffled than she. "But I did want and long to ennoble some man to high aims; and when I saw you, and knew you wanted to be my comrade, I—shall I confess it?—thought that man might be you. But you take so much tradition on trust that I don't ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... that happy body of men who not only see what is perceived by the mass of their fellows, but are enabled to look through those chains of action which, when comprehended, serve to rationalize and ennoble all that the senses of man, aided by the instruments which he has devised, tell ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... large name. We others do not call our inductions and deductions and reductions by any name at all. They show for themselves, what they are, and we can with tranquil confidence leave the world to ennoble them with a ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow.] into which he was seduced by the example of his comrades. It is extremely probable, that the poetical fame which in the progress of his career he afterwards acquired, greatly contributed to ennoble the stage, and to bring the player's profession into better repute. Even at a very early age he endeavoured to distinguish himself as a poet in other walks than those of the stage, as is proved by his juvenile poems of Adonis and Lucrece. He quickly rose to be a sharer ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... regardless of temporary gains, whether of money or praise, fixing his attention solely upon what is intrinsically interesting and permanent, and finding his happiness in an entire devotion of himself to such pursuits as shall most ennoble human nature. We have not yet seen enough of this in modern times; and never was there a period in society when such examples were likely to do more good than at present. The industry and love of truth which distinguish Sir Joshua's mind ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... only since the introduction of Christianity, which derives all evil as well as good from within, he has come to be regarded less as an external than an internal reality, and is identified with the ascendency in the human heart of passions native to it, which when subject ennoble it, but when supreme debase it. He is properly the spirit that deceives man, and decoys him to his eternal ruin from truth ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... existence. The only pleasure. Her love did not deserve any other name. In that ardent, despotic, restless spirit there had never been a question of tenderness. She was completely ignorant of the delicious, poetic thoughts that ennoble a passion and make it pardonable. Her life had been passed in insane excitement, tormented by the idea of being happy at all costs. She had lived for the last seven years under the sway of her licentious, insatiable passion. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... crowned hero craving for a new world, it becomes blind to all else. Moral death falls on it; and any sin looks sweet that takes it nearer to its goal. It is a passion that generates at once all the loftiest and all the vilest things, which between them ennoble and corrupt the world—even as heat generates at once the harvest and the maggot, the purpling vine and the lice that devour it. It is a passion without which the world would decay in darkness, as it would do without heat, yet to which, as to heat, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... turned up. And she still believed, quite calmly, that she was Good Queen Bess. Malone had been knighted by her during the course of the investigation. This new honor had come to him through the mail; apparently she had decided to ennoble some of her friends ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... as a festival, my hearer? I can tell you why you may. If you will receive it, the angel's message is to you personally; unto you is born a Saviour who will forgive your past sin, and shield you from its consequences,—who will ennoble your future life, and sustain and comfort you under the inevitable sorrow and suffering awaiting,—and who will receive you into an eternal and a happy home at the end of your brief sojourn here. May not ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... of catching slaves was regarded as one of the lowest grades of scoundrelism. Now, great pains are taken by our gentlemen of property and standing to ennoble it; and men of eminence in the legal profession are stooping to take the wages of iniquity, and lending themselves to consign to the horrors of American slavery men whom they know to be innocent of crime. Nay, we have seen in New York a committee of gentlemen actually raising money by voluntary ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... turn to her prose. There she shows strength of character and goodness of heart. One aim, never lost sight of, is perceptible through all, and gives unity to the whole; this is a fervent desire to ennoble human life; consequently her works will long have influence, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... are the true life-blood of the country to which they belong. They elevate and uphold it, fortify and ennoble it, and shed a glory over it by the example of life and character which they have bequeathed. "The names and memories of great men," says an able writer, "are the dowry of a nation. Widowhood, overthrow, desertion, even slavery cannot take away from her this sacred inheritance ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... contracted, when there is within his reach the life that is full and complete—the Larger Life? Why will he be content with the pleasures of the body and the joys of the mind when he can have added to them the delights of the spirit? How can he delay acceptance of Christ's offer to ennoble that which he has, and to add to it the things that are highest and best and most enduring? This is the life that Christ brought to light when He came that men might have life and have ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... just into the law of justice, and to insist that God shall adopt that as His law; to measure off something with our own little tape-line, and call it God's love of justice. Continually we seek to ennoble our own ignoble love of revenge and retaliation, by ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the measure of the man, and determines the quality of his influence. He was the average clubman plus genius and a style. And, if there is any truth in the theory that it is the function of art not to degrade but to ennoble—not to dishearten but to encourage—not to deal with things ugly and paltry and mean but with great things and beautiful and lofty—then, it is argued, his example is one to depreciate and ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... humble, and the earthly-minded heavenly. It draws all who truly receive it, by a gradual but certain process, into a likeness to Christ, which is the sum of all goodness. In proportion also as the principles of the gospel gain ground in any community, they ennoble it, purify it, and inspire it with the spirit of truth and justice. Very imperfectly is our country pervaded by this good leaven. Yet it is this, small as is its measure, which makes the difference between the state of society here at home and in India or China. Many thousands who do not personally ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... hand, something had been done to teach the devotees of Xanthos toleration and a spirit of alms. The Bishop now turned his attention towards Melanthos more particularly what could he do to ennoble the aims and methods of his clients? He had made a journey to England and back not long before the blessing of the transepts. He regretted leaving his flock at the time. Yet certain observations he had made just ere he started gave him much food for thought on the voyage. And ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... childhood comes to the surface, and you see what the boy is meant to be always. Look at the jerkiness of the conceited man. Look at the quiet fluency of motion in the modest man. Look how anger itself which forgets self, which is unhating and righteous, will elevate the carriage and ennoble ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... past; on the good, honest advice that Vesta Philbrook had given him. Blood was blood, after all. If the source of it was base, it was too much to hope that a little removal, a little dilution, would ennoble it. She had lived there all her life the associate of thieves and rascals; her way of looking on men and property must naturally be that of the depredator, ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... the home-silence; they mould the young life and stamp their impress upon it. How important then that all such objects should be chosen, not only as treasures of artistic beauty, but for their power to elevate and ennoble character. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in that air she had strengthened the delicate health of her childhood. Her elastic step—her eyes full of sweetness and light—her bloom, at once soft and luxuriant—all spoke of the vital powers fit to sustain a mind of such exquisite mould, and the emotions of a heart that, once aroused, could ennoble the passions of the South with the purity and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... troubles that occupied every sleeping and waking thought of Hankinson Judson Terwilliger. His mind was now set upon the hardest problem it had ever had to cope with, that problem being how to so ennoble the spectre cook of Bangletop that she might outrank the ancestors of his landlord in the other world—the shady world, he called it. The living cook had been induced to remain partly by threats and partly by promises ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... with tragic dignity. Let no man venture to lay hand on Shakespeare's works thinking to improve anything essential: he will be sure to punish himself. The bad is radically odious, and to endeavor in any manner to ennoble it, is to violate the laws of propriety. Hence, in my opinion, Dante, and even Tasso, have been much more successful in their portraiture of demons ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... of the average teacher. It takes time to accomplish changes in a conservative community, and the new education will be successful only as the new teacher becomes a comparative fixture. To build oneself into the life of a rural community as does the physician, and to ennoble it with new ideas and higher ideals, is a missionary service that can hardly be surpassed at the ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... biography show that beautiful women, if true, gentle, and unselfish, have great power with their own sex, and almost unbounded influence over men. Your power, therefore, is subtle, penetrating, and reaches the inner life, the very warp and woof of character. If a beautiful statue can ennoble and refine, a beautiful woman can accomplish infinitely more. She can be a constant inspiration, a suggestion of the perfect life beyond and an earnest of it. All power brings responsibility, even that which a man achieves or buys; but surely, if one receives ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... profession was ostensibly established; who would speak truth in the Courts of Law, the House of Legislature, and the salons of Society; who would write—not for empty praise but from conviction—and follow art simply and purely to ennoble the mind, not pander to the lust of the eye and the greed of gold. Show me such men and such a nation, and I will acknowledge there Christianity has found its seat and fulfilled the purpose ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... praised me infinitely. My glorious future, he said, was to carry a princess to England and sit among the, highest there, the husband of a lady peerless in beauty and in birth, who, in addition to what she was able to do for me by way of elevation in my country, could ennoble in her own territory. I had the option of being the father of English nobles or of German princes; so forth. I did not like the strain; yet I clung to him. I was compelled to ask whether he had news of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... regard to the far more important and real things—viz. elevation and purity of heart and mind. You are in the period of life to which fair dreams of the future are natural. It is, as the prophet tells us, for 'the young man' to 'see visions,' and to ennoble his life thereafter by turning them into realities. Generous and noble ideas ought to belong to youth. But you are also in the period when there is a keen joy in mere living, and when some desires, which get weaker as years go on, are very strong, and may ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... surprise with which we see the hero drift sidelong, and practically quite untempted, into every description of misconduct and dishonour. In each, we miss the personal poetry, the enchanted atmosphere, that rainbow work of fancy that clothes what is naked and seems to ennoble what is base; in each, life falls dead like dough, instead of soaring away like a balloon into the colours of the sunset; each is true, each inconceivable; for no man lives in external truth, among salts and acids, but in the warm, phantasmagoric chamber of his brain, with the painted ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do you good," said Janet; "it would ennoble your character. Not that it needs it," she added hastily. "And I could write another story about that quaint old man who paid the musicians to go away, and who made us all laugh ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... these things are small in comparison to the greater points of character by which he seemed to me to be distinguished. In all he said or did, he showed himself to be inspired by that chivalry of heart and mind which must truly ennoble him who possesses it, and without which one cannot ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... is it that my heart rejoices at it when my prudence should take alarm? Another mystery, which I do not undertake to explain. All that I know is, that she is poor, and that if I had a crown I should wish to ennoble it by placing it upon ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... that fly Yoked to Cytherea's car; Not the wings that lift so high, And convey her son so far, Are so lovely, sweet, and fair, Or do more ennoble love, Are so choicely matched a pair, Or with more ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... these, to a profusion of undiscovered beauty, and to a peculiar grandeur not to be attained by the egoist. Leconte's temperament leads him to subjects which are already instinct with tragedy and thus in his hands assume this grandeur without effort. The power of sheer style to ennoble is better seen in Sully Prudhomme's tours de force of philosophic poetry—when he unfolds his ideas upon 'Justice' or 'Happiness', for instance, under the form of a debate where masterly resources of phrase and image are compelled ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... fell—but, falling, kept the highest seat, And in her loveliness, her pomp of woe, Where now she dwells, withdrawn into the wild, Still o'er the mind maintains, from age to age, Its empire undiminish'd. There, as though Grandeur attracted grandeur, are beheld All things that strike, ennoble; from the depths Of Egypt, from the classic fields of Greece— Her groves, her temples—all things that inspire Wonder, delight! Who would not say the forms. Most perfect most divine, had by consent Flock'd thither to abide eternally Within those silent ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... son 775 Of Copreus custom'd messenger of King Eurystheus to the might of Hercules. From such a sire inglorious had arisen A son far worthier, with all virtue graced, Swift-footed, valiant, and by none excell'd 780 In wisdom of the Mycenaean name; Yet all but served to ennoble Hector more. For Periphetes, with a backward step Retiring, on his buckler's border trod, Which swept his heels; so check'd, he fell supine, 785 And dreadful rang the helmet on his brows. Him Hector quick noticing, to his side Hasted, and, planting in his breast ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... have to learn from our immortal forefathers, the Greeks; and how far better than we did they solve their problem! Their type was not ours, but how much better did they revere, cultivate and ennoble the man they knew! Beside them we are barbarians in a thousand ways, as in education, eloquence, public life, poetry, and the like. If the number of its accomplished men be the measure of a civilization, ours is far below theirs. We have not ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... art that the world has ever seen. Maude Adams reaches thousands; Mary Pickford reaches millions. It is clear that Mr. Lindsay wishes that the limitless influence of the moving picture may be used to elevate and ennoble America; for here is the greatest force ever known through which his gospel may be preached—the ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... something more than a simple expedient. The whole nation had their eyes upon them. An unlimited confidence in their integrity, and the universal veneration for their persons, which closely bordered on idolatry, would ennoble the cause which they might make their own and ruin that which they should abandon. Their share in the administration of the state, though it were nothing more than nominal, kept the opposite party in check; while they attended the senate violent measures were avoided ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... decision controls his worth and destiny. For it is not to be supposed that play with all its virtue, its nourish and exercise of nascent powers, and its happy emancipation into broader and richer living can adequately motivate and permanently ennoble the energies of youth. Until some vocational interest dawns, education is received rather than sought and will-power is latent or but intermittently exercised. Play has a great orbit, but every true parent and educator seeks to know the axis of a ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... disposition developed rather than the intellectual after his work; anything that touches his feelings is good, and puts new life into him; therefore I want modern pictures, if possible, of that class which would ennoble and refine by their subjects. I should like prints of all times, engravings of all times; those would interest him with their variety of means and subject; and natural history of three kinds, namely, shells, birds, and plants; not ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... heirs male of Bartholomew. Only in the event of the extinction of the male line, direct or collateral, is it to descend to the females of the family; and those into whose hands it may fall are never to diminish it, but always to increase and ennoble it by all means possible. The head of the house is to sign himself "The Admiral." A tenth of the annual income is to be set aside yearly for distribution among the poor relations of the house. A chapel is founded and endowed for the saying of masses. Beatrix Enriquez is left to the care of ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... within her and without, show all the vanity, weakness, and folly generally, of which he had at first believed her capable, but who, by prayer and effort, daily achieved victories over herself. In addition, she had manifested the most beautiful and God-like trait that can ennoble human character—the desire to save and sweeten others' lives. To have been lectured and talked to on the subject of religion in any conventional way by one outside of his sympathies would have been as repulsive as ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... than gold is a conscience clear, Though toiling for bread in a humble sphere; Doubly blest is content and health Untried by the lusts and the cares of wealth. Lowly living and lofty thought Adorn and ennoble the poor man's cot; For mind and morals in nature's plan Are the genuine tests of ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... seems to me, an honour from the gods, a grace divine, is shed about the path of him the hero-ruler. (12) Not only does command itself ennoble manhood, but we gaze on him with other eyes and find the fair within him yet more fair who is to-day a prince and was but yesterday a private citizen. (13) Again, it is a prouder satisfaction doubtless to hold debate with those who are preferred ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... contrary, always uses his drapery to conceal or disguise the forms of the body, and exhibit mental emotion; but both use it to enhance the life, either of the body or soul; Donatello and Michael Angelo, no less than the sculptors of Gothic chivalry, ennoble armor in the same way; but base sculptors carve drapery and armor for the sake of their folds and picturesqueness only, and forget the body beneath. The rule is so stern, that all delight in mere incidental beauty, which painting often triumphs in, is wholly ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... Romola's best support under that supreme woman's sorrow had slipped away from her. The vision of any great purpose, any end of existence which could ennoble endurance and exalt the common deeds of a dusty life with divine ardours, was utterly eclipsed for her now by the sense of a confusion in human things which made all effort a mere dragging at tangled threads; all fellowship, either for resistance or advocacy, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... more in relation to his strength than it costs ourselves. But if, in the inscrutable providence of the Almighty, this generation is disappointed in its lofty aspirations for the race, if we have not virtue enough to ennoble our whole people, and make it a nation of sovereigns, we shall at least hold in undying honor those who vindicated the insulted majesty of the Republic, and struck at her assailants so long as a drum-beat summoned them to the ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... live again. I do not wish to make the past assume a superiority over the present; but I think a contemplation of mediaeval art would often open a new avenue of thought and lead to many a pleasing and profitable discovery; I would too add the efforts of my feeble pen to elevate and ennoble the fond pursuit of my leisure hours. I would say one word to vindicate the lover of old musty writings, and the explorer of rude antiquities, from the charge of unprofitableness, and to protect him from the sneer of ridicule. For whilst some see ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... these difficult days when, forced to mark time, she herself seemed at loose ends. Visiting the Academy of Design, she studied "in silent reverential awe," the marble face of Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci, and declared, "Making that cold marble breathe and pulsate, Harriet Hosmer has done more to ennoble and elevate woman than she could possibly have done by mere words...." Of Rosa Bonheur, the first woman to venture into the field of animal painting, she said, "Her work not only surpasses anything ever done by a woman, but is a bold and successful ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... acted during the whole period of the revolution, but that the standard of sentiment has not been lowered in those productions which have been designed expressly for the French stage during that period, and that the dignity of ancient virtue, and the elevation of natural feeling, still ennoble the tone ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... stretches forth its beneficent hand to give employment to a million workers, and food to a million homes. It pervades every mart of trade; it loads trains and ships with the commerce of nations; and it helps to amplify and ennoble civilization. ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... was prepossessing in the highest degree, displaying as it did every requisite of mind and body that can ennoble and dignify manly beauty. He stood at the summit of his prime, his form erect and symmetrical, though somewhat stouter than is usually to be found in men of his race. His bearing was graceful, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... exile, he endures What does he not? from lusts opposed in vain, And self-reproaching conscience. He foresees The fatal issue to his health, fame, peace, Fortune, and dignity; the loss of all That can ennoble man, and make frail life, Short as it is, supportable. Still worse, Far worse than all the plagues with which his sins Infect his happiest moments, he forebodes Ages of hopeless misery; future death, And death still future; not a hasty stroke, Like that which sends him to the ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... churches of Antwerp and the neighboring villages. Hardly a statue or picture escaped destruction. Fortunately, the illustrious artist, whose labors were destined in the next generation to enrich and ennoble the city, Rubens, most profound of colorists, most dramatic—of artists; whose profuse tropical genius seemed to flower the more luxuriantly, as if the destruction wrought by brutal hands were to be compensated ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... looked ever at Shafton when he looked elsewhere, and were dropped at once when they encountered his, that she was irresistible! In fine, the affectionate delicacy of her whole demeanour, joined to the promptitude and boldness she had so lately evinced, tended to ennoble the services she ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... instead of detecting the money-changer and driving him out of the temple, took him for a sentimental and chivalrous lover, and, helped by its only half-discarded doctrine of celibacy, gave virginity a heavenly value to ennoble its commercial pretensions. In short, Mammon, always mighty, put the Church in his pocket, where he keeps it to this day, in spite of the occasional saints and martyrs who contrive from time to time to get their heads and souls free to ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... forcibly; and if they once bestow an epithet upon a person, it will descend to his race and posterity; he will bear it about with him, in service, in retreat, in Petersburg, and to the ends of the earth; and use what cunning he will, ennoble his career as he will thereafter, nothing is of the slightest use; that nickname will caw of itself at the top of its crow's voice, and will show clearly whence the bird has flown. A pointed epithet once uttered ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... indeed be some recompense for the miseries, the humiliations, the heart-sickening disgusts which I have endured in my profession, if, by its exercise, I had awakened a spirit of poetry whose influence would elevate, ennoble, and adorn our ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... way towards providing one of the perhaps untasted dishes on the dessert table. The choicest masterpieces of the human mind—the works of human genius that through the long course of centuries have done most to ennoble, console, brighten, and direct the lives of men, might all be purchased—I do not say by the cost of a lady's necklace, but by that of one or two of the little stones of which it is composed. Compare the relish with which the tired pedestrian eats his bread and cheese ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... mind, That for his cause you quite forgot my own— Could you suppose that I had thrown aside All woman's weaknesses, that you could dare Make me his angel, and confide alone In virtue for his armor? You forget What risks this heart must run, when we ennoble Passion with such a beauteous name ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... answered. "I anticipated it when you were in New York, and most sincerely do I congratulate you on the possession of so excellent and noble a heart. Prize it, dear Margaret, and make yourself worthy of all it can, of all it will impart, to ennoble and exalt ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... name was Fritzing; plain Herr Fritzing originally, but gradually by various stages at last arrived at the dignity and sonorousness of Herr Geheimarchivrath Fritzing. The Grand Duke indeed had proposed to ennoble him after he had successfully taught Priscilla English grammar, but Fritzing, whose spirit dwelt among the Greeks, could not be brought to see any desirability in such a step. Priscilla called him Fritzi when her lady-in-waiting dozed; dearest ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... all the learning of your philosophers and mathematicians can I never confer on any people the precious customs of the days of old. When we look back on what has been done by the would-be wise men of antiquity to ennoble the moral state of man, I will not speak of the mad ceremonial of the burlesque festivals invented by the revolutionists of 1793. They were but scenes of disorder and frenzy. Imagine, however, the purest and most solemn ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... better things, if from particular inclination, or from the taste of the time and place he lives in, or from necessity, or from failure in the highest attempts, he is obliged to descend lower; he will bring into the lower sphere of art a grandeur of composition and character that will raise and ennoble his works ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... best when life is in its fullest. We have not to wait till movement is slow and color is dull. We are not tempted to make a vacancy and call it piety; but when man's life is so full that it tempts him daily to self-consciousness and pride, then let him open it wide to the consciousness of God and ennoble it with the full dignity of that humility whose first condition is the presence of God in the soul that He ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... that several deputies protested against the decree. "The Jews," said the Abbe Maury, "have traversed seventeen centuries without mingling with other nations. They have never done anything but trade with money, they have been the scourge of agricultural provinces, not one of them has known how to ennoble his hands by guiding the plough." And he went on to point out that the Jews "must not be persecuted, they must be protected as individuals and not as Frenchmen, since they cannot be citizens.... Whatever you do, they will always ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... upon these men and their leader, but it is not by ridicule that they can be conquered. It is not by contemptuous utterances or by untrue reports that they can be overcome. It is not by belittling them that we can raise ourselves in the eyes of the men of to-day or ennoble ourselves upon the pages of history. It would be conduct more in accordance with the traditions of a great nation if we gave them credit for the virtues they possess ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... their own bosoms, and consider the generous seeds which are there planted, that might, if rightly cultivated, ennoble their lives, and make their virtue venerable to futurity; how can they, without tears, reflect on the universal degeneracy from that public spirit, which ought to be the first and principal motive of all their actions? In the Grecian and Roman nations, they were wise enough ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... name down to posterity. consecrate; dedicate to, devote to; enshrine, inscribe, blazon, lionize, blow the trumpet, crown with laurel. confer honor on, reflect honor on &c v.; shed a luster on; redound.to one's honor, ennoble. give honor to, do honor to, pay honor to, render honor to; honor, accredit, pay regard to, dignify, glorify; sing praises to &c (approve) 931; lock up to; exalt, aggrandize, elevate, nobilitate [Lat.]. Adj. distinguished, distingue [Fr.], noted; of note &c n.; honored ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... again with a leap, overflowing upon her fine skin. Understanding now came to her, with crushing force. Her knight made for her a pretty summary of an episode that was past. There was to come no coronation of words to ennoble these caresses: Mr. Canning, at parting, desired to thank her for her sweetness. And this was the high moment toward which she had been dancing on the fleece-pink of clouds ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... become sternness. Nature gave me a despotic disposition. I have had, and have still, many times the greatest difficulty to control it; but with God's help I shall succeed! My Elise, we will improve ever. On the children's account, in order to make them happy, we will endeavour to ennoble our own nature." ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... level down the higher classes instead of elevating the inferior. Liberty and equality then govern by their negative side, instead of exercising the positive and beneficent influence they should have, to develop all forces to their utmost, to ennoble the mind, to give more elasticity to the soul and greater vigor to thought, to give birth to those varied forms and to that moral energy, which should bring us nearer to final equality in the bosom ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... feed my conceit of my own talents. How infinitely more glorious to find my work-field and my prize, not in dead forms and colours, or ink-and-paper theories, but in a living, immortal, human spirit! I will study no more, except the human heart, and only that to purify and ennoble it.' ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... nearly sure; She read some French romances here and there, Although her mode of speaking was not pure; For native Spanish she had no great care, At least her conversation was obscure; Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem, As if she deemed that mystery would ennoble 'em. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... expressing, and picturing language.... With it, however low its origin, one could reconstruct a people or a society." Its principal, not only, means, are metaphor and allegory. It lends itself equally to methods that degrade or ennoble existing words, but with a very marked preference for the worse ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... than a leopard's skin, it is but developed or dwarfed. The influences of the war will have as many little forms as there are soldiers, and to attempt precision of summary is clearly vain. It is something of a truism to suggest that the war will ennoble and make more serious those who before the war took a noble and serious view of life; and that on those who took life callously it will have a callousing effect. The problem is rather to discover what effect, if any, will be made on that medium material which ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... the modern state if it is to get the best result from the citizens born into it, and that is the need of honours and privileges to reward and enhance services and exceptional personal qualities and so to stir and ennoble that emulation which is, under proper direction, the most useful to the constructive statesman of all human motives. In the United States titles are prohibited by the constitution, in Great Britain they go by prescription. But it is possible ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... flagged toward the one whose marvelously fair features had first caught his attention and now promised to be links in a chain of causes that might produce effects little anticipated. He had virtually abandoned the project of seeking to ennoble and harmonize these features that suggested new possibilities of beauty to almost every glance, for the reason that he not only believed there was no mind to be awakened, but also because he had been led to think the ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the leading principles of the revolution was the entire overthrow of all titles of distinction. Every man, high or low, was to be addressed simply as Citizen . Napoleon wished to introduce a system of rewards which should stimulate to heroic deeds, and which should ennoble those who had deserved well of humanity. Innumerable foreigners of distinction had thronged France since the peace. He had observed with what eagerness the populace had followed these foreigners, gazing with delight upon their gay decorations The court-yard of the Tuileries was ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... and trembling. The sorceress then, slowly turning, faced seaward. Her arms assumed the well-known beseeching attitude, the serpent bracelet glittering fiercely in the sun. Her voice changed, became softer. "Yet they are my people!" she continued, "and the last of our race. Ennoble them, great Gods! quicken their hearts and spare them!" Looking outward with the rapt look of a prophetess in whom, though torn with tempests of fanaticism and of passion, human and superhuman, no thought was mean, no sentiment ignoble, she poured out this her ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... with footmen, and the hackmen of Niagara would spare the tourist. It is only a human mind that can instruct a human mind. There is a man in Cincinnati, of small stature, and living in a small house of a street not easy to find, who is doing more to raise, inform, and ennoble Cincinnati than all her lovely hills and dales. It is the truly Reverend A. D. MAYO, minister of the Unitarian Church of the Redeemer. His walls are not wainscoted, and there is about his house no umbrageous park nor verdant lawn. It has only pleased Heaven, so far, to endow him with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... Eminence are friends; the one has a daughter who is said to be very wealthy and whom he, with fond ambition, desires to see wedded to a man who can give her an illustrious name; the other possesses a nephew whom he can ennoble by the highest title that a man may bear who is not a prince of the blood,—and borne indeed by few who are not,—and whom he desires to see contract an alliance that will bring him enough of riches to enable him to bear his title with becoming dignity." I glanced at Mademoiselle, ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... therefore, if society affected to class people according to their merits; for, as it is, no one need be ashamed of an obscurity which proves nothing against him. We have the satisfaction of perceiving everywhere traces of skill and power, proving irrefragably that there are among us men 'who ennoble nearly every walk of life, and would have ennobled any.' A similar tone appears in the short life of his father, written in the following year. True success in life, he says, is not measured by general reputation. Sir James Stephen's ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... to be the highest bulwark of slavery. Its votaries understood its strength and weakness. Independent, well- paid free labor and industries (46) would ennoble the men of toil, bring wealth and power, build up populous towns and cities, and consequently overwhelm, politically and otherwise, the institution of slavery, or draw into successful social competition with plantation life wealthy inhabitants who knew not ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... depraved public taste as Hester does. I should use my talent, as I have often told her, for the highest ends, not for the lowest. It would be my aim," Mr. Gresley's voice rose sonorously, "to raise my readers, to educate them, to place a high ideal before them, to ennoble them." ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... Manual will already have put the reader in possession of the main principles and ideas of Epictetus; with the mental and physical philosophy of the schools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his aim to be a moral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men and touch their hearts. He neither plagiarised nor invented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical reality. All that remains for us to do is to choose from the Discourses some of his most characteristic views, and the modes by which he ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... the sweet and noble simplicity of the young chatelaine in giving her orders. If an air of distinction seems hereditary in some families it is surely because the exercise of the duties conferred by the possession of wealth has a natural tendency to ennoble the whole character ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... of the want of time, if they are not conscious of a want of power, or of desire to ennoble and enjoy it. Perhaps you are a man of genius yourself, gentle reader, and though not absolutely, like Sir Walter, a witch, warlock, or wizard, still a poet—a maker—a creator. Think, then, how many hours on hours you have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... dispute respecting the intellectual powers of the two sexes, and the consequent style of education suitable to each. Happily, the truth on this subject may be fully spoken, without obliging me to exalt the father at the expense of the mother, or ennoble man by denying the essential equality of woman. It is among the things settled by experience, that, equal or not equal in talents, woman, the moment she escapes from the despotism of brute force, and is suffered to unfold and exercise ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... he wrote ‘Merlin and the Gleam.’ From his boyhood he had felt the magic of Merlin—that spirit of poetry—which bade him know his power and follow throughout his work a pure and high ideal, with a simple and single devotedness and a desire to ennoble the life of the world, and which helped him through doubts and difficulties to ‘endure as seeing ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... chiefly sought to make clear the possibility of a positive morality on the basis of nakedness, beauty, and sexual influence, regarded as dynamic forces which, when suppressed, make for corruption and when wisely used serve to inspire and ennoble life. He worked out his thoughts on this matter in MSS., written from about 1870 to his death two years later, which, never having been prepared for publication, remain in a fragmentary state and have ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... of those delicate critical distinctions which are sometimes supposed peculiar to modern writers. The piece has for its title La Deffense et Illustration de la langue Francoyse; and its problem is how to illustrate or ennoble the French language, to give ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... youthful and inexhaustible fancy of Homer which lights up the sublime images of a heroic age and moulds them into forms of surpassing beauty. The poetry of Hesiod appears struggling to emerge out of the narrow bounds of common life, which he strives to ennoble and to render more endurable. It is purely didactic, and its object is to disseminate knowledge, by which life may be improved, or to diffuse certain religious notions as to the influence of a superior destiny. His poem entitled "Works and Days" is so entirely occupied with the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... of nature's peace suddenly showed him to himself. A man engaged in a struggle beyond his power!—committed to one of those tasks that rend and fever the human spirit even while they ennoble it! He had talked boldly to Stephen and the Bishop of "war"—"inevitable" and "necessary war." At the same time there was no one who would suffer from war more than he. The mere daily practice of Christianity, as a man's life-work, is a daily training ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... no man. Labor is honorable, because the products of labor feed and clothe the world, and thus conduce to the welfare and happiness of mankind. Coerced labor is better than no labor. Coercion itself does not necessarily degrade man; rather may it ennoble and elevate, when it is exercised to summon the barbarian to the lessons of civilization. Coercion degrades not the man whom it compels to do right; it only exposes that degradation which is the result of doing ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... pent in between the Danish frontier and the sea. Here, surrounded by overpowering numbers, without food, without ammunition, he capitulated on the 7th of November, after his courage and resolution had done everything that could ennoble both general and soldiers in the midst of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... claim that the Scriptures contain a sufficient guide to moral duty and religious truth was exorbitantly stretched to include the last details of church organization and worship, and the minute direction of political and other secular affairs. In many a case the Scriptures thus applied did highly ennoble the polity and legislation of the Puritans.[113:1] In other cases, not a few, the Scriptures, perverted from their true purpose and wrested by a vicious and conceited exegesis, were brought into collision with the law written on the heart. The Bible was used to contradict the moral sense. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... continued, enthusiastically; "and, if I mistake not, the Agamemnon will be an epoch in your life. You will find that all these studies will serve to ennoble your art, and you will be able to put mind into your work, and not merely form and colour. Do you know, I feel so well that I believe I shall not only live to finish Andrea del Sarto, but also to smoke ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... temperateness, and in pitying love of human nature, in the instinctive hope of helping it to know and redeem itself. His quality was philosophy, his style forgiveness. And for this temperate and logical and laconic work—giving nothing to the world for its mere enjoyment, but going beyond all that to ennoble each reader by his perfect renunciation of artistic claptrap and artistic license—for this aim he needed a mental method that could entirely command itself, and, when necessary, weigh and gauge with the laborious fidelity of a coal-surveyor, before the account was rendered with pen and ink ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... engaged our sympathy, or procured the distinction of our presence in arms. We were the heaven-born disseminators of freedom throughout Europe; the sworn enemies of kingly domination; and the missionaries of a political creed, which was not alone to ennoble mankind, but to render its condition ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... I mention these things, so mal-a-propos, as it may seem!—Only, let me tell thee, as an instance (among many that might be given from the same evening's conversation) of this fine woman's superiority in those talents which ennoble nature, and dignify her sex—evidenced not only to each of us, as we offended, but to the flippant Partington, and the grosser, but egregiously hypocritical Sinclair, in the correcting eye, the discouraging blush, in which was mixed as much displeasure as modesty, and sometimes, as the occasion ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... impatient with the hesitation of the imbecile, and fiercely indignant against half-heartedness and disloyalty. Whatever faults, therefore, his enemies may allege, these will all fade away in the splendor with which coming ages will ennoble the greatest of war ministers in the nineteenth century. He will be remembered as "one who never thought of self, and who held the helm in sunshine and in storm with the same ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... will suffice: "I believe that in Florence there are many noble and poor families with whom it would be a charity to form connections. If there were no dower, there would also be no arrogance. Pay no heed should people say you want to ennoble yourself, since it is notorious that we are ancient citizens of Florence, and as noble ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... discipline without murmuring. I never allowed an impure or improper word to be spoken in his hearing. I was careful that all his surroundings, and the men with whom he came in contact, should conduce to one end—to ennoble his nature, to set lofty ideals before him, to give him a love of truth and a horror of lies, to make him simple and natural in manner, as in word and deed. His natural aptitude had made his other studies easy to ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... love they do not reciprocate, but, in nine cases out of ten, the woman has, half consciously, done much to excite. In this case, she shall not be held guiltless, either as to the unhappiness or injury of the lover. Pure love, inspired by a worthy object, must ennoble and bless, whether mutual or not; but that which is excited by coquettish attraction of any grade of refinement, must cause bitterness and doubt, as to the reality of human goodness, so soon as the flush of passion is over. And, that you may avoid ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Meane time, God grants that I haue need of you. Our Brother is imprison'd by your meanes, My selfe disgrac'd, and the Nobilitie Held in contempt, while great Promotions Are daily giuen to ennoble those That scarse some two dayes since were ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... brought about by the opponents of religion, by materialistic doctrines, but is owing to the development of the religious sentiment itself. Instead of tending to an abrogation of that sentiment, it may be expected to ennoble its emotional manifestations ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... discord. It is intended for the entireness of our sanctification: "the very God of peace sanctify you wholly." Brethren, we dwell upon that expression "wholly." There is this difference between Christianity and every other system: Christianity proposes to ennoble the whole man; every other system subordinates parts to parts. Christianity does not despise the intellect, but it does not exalt the intellect in a one-sided way: it only dwells with emphasis on the third and highest part of man—his spiritual affections; and these it maintains ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... here? To adorn anguish, and ennoble death, And make infirmity A patient victory, And crown life's baseness with a glorious wreath, That fades not on thy bier, But fits, immortal soul! thy triumph still, In that bright world where ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... then, that I have sought to raise and ennoble the civilization of my country, that I have furthered commerce and industry, promoted shipping, given an asylum within the state to thousands of religious refugees from France—for this, that now, as the price for the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... is established on a pleasant eminence, in full view of his mansion, and it makes a fine ornament to the place; while he finds it a pleasant sight indeed, to see talented young men, and accomplished young women, going forth from Fabens' Academy, to improve society, and ennoble their own life with learning, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... in its history. The Italian language yields to every shade of gaiety with a facility which only requires a light inflection of the voice and a little difference of termination in order to increase or diminish, ennoble or travesty, the sense of words. It is particularly graceful in the mouth of children[28]. The innocence of this age and the natural malice of the language, form an exquisite contrast. In truth, it may be said, ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... conspicuously evinced. Ferdinand, like the rest of his race, was passionately fond of field sports, and cared for nothing else. His queen had all the vices of the house of Austria, with little to mitigate, and nothing to ennoble them—provided she could have her pleasures, and the king his sports, they cared not in what manner the revenue was raised or administered. Of course a system of favouritism existed at court, and the vilest ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... we will say, in the case of a lady of inferior rank—or even birth, the King of these parts can, on her marriage with a nobleman—blank it all!—ennoble her father and mother, and their fathers and mothers, though they've been dead, or as good as ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... tread them under foot. I became sour and cynic from shame, and affected to despise the politeness which I knew not how to practice. This austerity, conformable to my new principles, I must confess, seemed to ennoble itself in my mind; it assumed in my eyes the form of the intrepidity of virtue, and I dare assert it to be upon this noble basis, that it supported itself longer and better than could have been expected from anything so contrary to my nature. Yet, not withstanding, I ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... offered a start there awakens, sooner or later, the desire to share in the stores of knowledge which human intelligence has won, in the insight into the working of the forces of nature, which it has acquired and applied to industry, in the arts which ennoble and support human action; in short to participate in the spiritual treasures which are, as it were, the birthright of those born under a luckier star. This desire, which opens to the diligent the way to material prosperity and inner contentment, seems for society as ...
— The Condition and Tendencies of Technical Education in Germany • Arthur Henry Chamberlain
... from golden calves and such folly," he said. "We are likely enough to have our waters of Marah. But it seems to me the best way to ennoble labor, give it its true dignity, and show the possibilities for the workmen, is concerted action. As matters stand now, few poor men can ever acquire sufficient capital to start any business; and perhaps this is not best when we consider ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... England itself. The majority of the English clergy denounced the proposition, and some even declared its author a madman; but Mr. Gladstone pursued his chosen way with energy and directness. In one of those elevated speeches with which he was accustomed to ennoble debate, he laid the details of his plan open to the Commons. The Irish Church was to be disestablished and disendowed, its bishops were to lose their seats in Parliament, and it was to become a free and independent ecclesiastical body, like the Presbyterian, Wesleyan, or Catholic ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... have finished my —of true love never did run smooth Course of empire Courtesy, I am the very pink of Counterfeit presentment Coward, thou slave —upon instinct Cowards die many times —, what can ennoble Crabtree, and old iron rang Creator, remember thy Creature not too bright Credulity, ye who listen with Crime, within thee, undivulged —, it was worse than a Critics, not trust in Critical, nothing if not Criticising elves Cross, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... do long for honours, but it is that I may ask her to share and ennoble them." In fine, I loved as other men loved—and I fancied a perfection in her, and vowed an emulation in myself, which it was reserved for Time to ratify ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... new blue sky. These singular perfections seemed to increase in Harcourt's mind the exasperating sense of injury inflicted upon him by 'Lige's exposures. With a daughter so incomparably gifted,—a matchless creation that was enough in herself to ennoble that fortune which his own skill and genius had lifted from the muddy tules of Tasajara where this 'Lige had left it,—that SHE should be subjected to this annoyance seemed an infamy that Providence could not allow! What was his mere venial transgression ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... among the yellow beards; and the bouncing, laughing, round-breasted girls arrange their ribbons and their vows," Mr. Allen is remembering Theocritus, the Pervigilium Veneris, and the silver ages of literature no less than his own state and his own day. He uses local color habitually to ennoble it, and but for his extravagant taste for sweetness he might have achieved pastorals ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... Gospel had as yet never been proclaimed there. The name of Jesus had never been heard in that wild north-land, and so as none of the blessedness of religion had entered into the hearts of the people, so none of its sweet, losing, elevating influences had begun to ennoble and bless their lives and improve their habits. So he pondered over what he witnessed and heard, and was thankful when the day's hunting was over, and Memotas would talk to him as they sat there on their robes around the fire, often for hours at a time. From him he learned how it was that they ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... humanity to the level of the barn-yard," this is merely a catch-phrase intended to arouse prejudice and to obscure the facts. The reader may judge for himself whether the eugenic program will degrade mankind to the level of the brutes, or whether it will ennoble it, beautify it, ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... losing our enthusiasms. Let us ever glory in something, and strive to retain our admiration for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and beautify our ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... they seemed a different race of creatures from the girls whose lives were spent in dress, gossip, pleasure, or ennui. They were girls still, full of spirits fun, and youth; but below the light-heartedness each cherished a purpose, which seemed to ennoble her womanhood, to give her a certain power, a sustaining satisfaction, a daily stimulus, that led her on to daily effort, and in time to some success in circumstance or character, which was worth all the patience, hope, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott |
