"Nil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this nonsensical hot-gospelling rant, Alderman and Sheriff STUART KNILL was elected Lord Mayor, while BEAUFOY MOORE was, so to speak, no MOORE, and, in fact, very much against his will and wish, was reduced to NIL. WILLY-KNILLY he had to cave in. Mr. Punch congratulates the Lord Mayor Elect, but still more does he congratulate the City Fathers on rising above paltry sectarianism, so utterly unworthy of time, place, and persons, and for standing up, in true English fashion, for freedom ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... of the matter is, Mr. Rattar, that, as you yourself said, the direct evidence is practically nil, and one is forced to go a good deal by one's judgment of the people ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... themselves were slightly fuddled. We nudged each other and pricked up our ears, for we had already canvassed the question of security, surrounded as we were by ruffians who looked quite ready to dispose of babes in the wood. They discussed our 'portable property' which was nil; one decided, while the other believed, that we must have money in our pockets. The first remarked that, whether or no, we were unarmed; the other wasn't so sure about that - it wasn't likely we'd come there to be skinned ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... elsewhere, but none, as he finally decided, likely to be useful to him at the present moment. For the amount of money that he required was large—larger, indeed, than he cared to verify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer, almost nil. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... submerguntur. Scille enim atque Caribdi merito asi[mi]latur, uelim periculositate perfecta tristique [-teque MSS.] nautis malum ibi subministratur. Ad hoc eurippum ipsi peruenientes, repentino ceperunt in eum delabi cursu; quumque nil preter mortem [Quumque uelut propter mortem R2] sperantes, et quia iam quasi tetris essent abyssi faucibus deuorandi, tunc sanctus Columba prefati pulueris de tumba beati Kerani assumpti aliquid assumens, mare in ipsum immisit. Res mira ac nimium stupenda tunc accidit; dicto [uicto MSS.] namque ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... have of the permanent and supreme value of his work. He simply accepts the position as he finds it. "Here am I," he may have said to himself, "with a brain teeming with art work of a high and lasting kind; my resources are nil, and if the world, or at least the friends who believe in me, wish me to do my allotted task, they must free me from the sordid anxieties of existence." The words, here placed in quotation marks, do not actually occur in any of the letters, but they ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... him who in one sense described it best; that is, with most force and eloquence wherever he really did comprehend it. This was Lucan, who has nowhere exhibited more brilliant rhetoric, nor wandered more from the truth, than in the contrasted portraits of Caesar and Pompey. The famous line, "Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum," is a fine feature of the real character, finely expressed. But, if it had been Lucan's purpose (as possibly, with a view to Pompey's benefit, in some respects it was) ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... wilderness which they were to traverse in after years in private cars. The history of Napoleon Bonaparte has not a Sunday-school moral, but we can trace therein the results of industry after the future emperor got started. Industry, and the motto "nil desperandum" lived up to, and the watchword "thorough," and a torch of unsuspected genius, and "l'audace, toujours l'audace," and a man may go ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... appear that I, the visitor, am manipulating Mersey to speak the thoughts I wished to communicate, the facts are almost the opposite. My control over either Mersey's body or mind is practically nil. ...
— The Inhabited • Richard Wilson
... and an allegorical interpretation of the device, "Fert tacitus, vivit, vincit divinus amator," as a Mark; Guillaume Julian, or Julien, had "Amitie" as his sign, and a personification of this (Typus Amiciti) as his Mark, with the motto "Nil Deus hac nobis majus concessit in usus"; Abel L'Angelier (and his widow after his death) adopted the sacrifice of Abel as the subject of his Sign and Mark, with the motto "Sacrum pinque dabo nec macrum sacrificabo"; and the motto of both ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... Malvaceae are adapted for cross-fertilisation, he asks, "An id aliquid in recessu habeat, quod hujuscemodi flores nunquam proprio suo pulvere, sed semper eo aliarum suae speciei impregnentur, merito quaeritur? Certe natura nil facit frustra." Herbert 'Amaryllidaceae, with a Treatise on Cross-bred Vegetables' 1837.) But none of these distinguished observers appear to have been sufficiently impressed with the truth and generality of the law, so as to insist on it and impress their beliefs ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... will utterly destroy it. The clause stipulates that there must be a majority of all the legal voters; and as there are hundreds who cannot be induced to go to the polls, you can easily see, if this amendment carries, it will make the Act as good as nil. Maltby could not have been elected had it not been for the help he received from the association, and he will do anything to retain their good will; for it is only by their favor he can ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... According to an analysis of the hymns contained in the most widely used American hymnals down to 1880 the average number of hymns of purely American origin was not quite one in seven; the proportion would be a little larger now. And the number of Methodist poets is almost nil, in spite of the fact that the compiler is a Methodist and the volume is issued from the official Methodist Publishing House. But if we thought that this would be any barrier to its wide circulation in Methodist homes we should be deeply ashamed for our church. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... news, Philibert!" replied the Governor in at one of despondency. "It needs the wisdom of Solon to legislate for this land, and a Hercules to cleanse its Augean stables of official corruption. But my influence at Court is nil—you know that, Philibert!" ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... would, after all, have been nil, had not the following few remarks been made one day ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... reply. "Lady Helena is always talking to me about cultivating what she calls 'elegant repose.' Poor, dear grandmamma! Her perfect idea of good manners seems to me to be a simple absence—in society, at least—of all emotion and all feeling. I, for one, do not admire the nil ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the womb with his knife. If large portions of an organ,—the lung, a kidney, parts of the liver, or the brain itself,—may be lost by accident, and the patient still live, the physician is taught the lesson of nil desperandum, and that if possible to arrest disease of these organs before their total destruction, the prognosis and treatment thereby acquire new and ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... at the bottom of a hole to put one's finger in, looking like a mere spot in the middle of a great white panel; to accumulate so much patient and delicate workmanship on almost imperceptible accessories, and all to produce an effect which is absolutely nil, an effect of the most ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... uncomfortable; Colbert had preceded him in the government, and Louvois, whom he believed himself to have trained, had surpassed him in knowledge of affairs as well as aptitude for work; Chamillard was the first, the only one of his ministers whom the king had ever loved. "His capacity was nil," says St. Simon, who had very friendly feelings towards Chamillard, "and he believed that he knew everything and of every sort; this was the more pitiable in that it had got into his head with his promotions, and was less presumption than stupidity, and still less vanity, of which he ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... prognosis is favorable as to ultimate cure, the duration of the treatment varying with the number of strictures, the tightness, and the extent of the fibrous tissue-changes in the esophageal wall. Mortality from the endoscopic procedure is almost nil, and if gastrostomy is done early in the tightly stenosed cases, ultimate cure may be confidently expected ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... purpose—it was hard, we repeat, when hostilities did at last break out in America, that his energies should have been so cramped by the passive attitude of his superior. Remembering, however, the maxim, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, the editor has refrained from transcribing aught reflecting on the memory of that superior when he could do so consistently with truth, although he feels acutely that the death of Sir Isaac Brock—hastened as he ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... sight of. A report of his death was put into circulation, and a loyal journal published in Kilkenny—the native town of the young rebel, who in this instance played his first trick on the government—referred to his supposed decease in terms which showed that the rule de mortuis nil nisi bonum found acceptance with the editor. The following are the words of the obituary notice which appeared in the Kilkenny Moderator on or about ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... me, I know not; but the famous "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" always appeared to me to savour more of female weakness than of manly reason. He that has too much feeling to speak ill of the dead, who, if they cannot defend themselves, are, at least, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... DE MAYIS Notarius Veneciarum hoc exemplum exemplari anno ab incarnatione domini nostri Jesu Christi Millesimo trecentesimo quinquagesimo quinto mensis Julii die septimo, intrante indictione octava, Rivoalti, nil addens nec minuens quod sentenciam mutet vel sensum tollat, complevi ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... blow, doctor, but nil desperandum was my motto, so I went to work at my crucible again, with redoubled energy, and made an ingot nearly every second day. I determined this time to put them in some secure place myself; but the very first day I set my apparatus ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Plenipotentiary for Naples. His Ministers accordingly received orders to correspond with me upon all business connected with his government and his subjects. The relations between Hamburg and Naples were nearly nil, and my new office made no ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... mortuis nil nisi bonum." When For me this end has come and I am dead, And the little voluble, chattering daws of men Peck at me curiously, let it then be said By some one brave enough to speak the truth: Here lies a great soul ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... the "Safeties" still improve, And their riders develope more skill; And it's oh! for the records of yesterday! To-morrow they'll all be nil! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... bellam and restoring order in the launch we found that the casualties were nil, and proceeded to compare notes. Brown, it appeared, had joined the Naval Division, been to Antwerp, Gallipoli and France, and then been transferred for gunnery duties to the rivers of Mesopotamia, and was now Lieut. R.N.V.R. in the Dalhousie stationed at Basra. His ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... and ship, and taking a note of the sampan's number, with the time of his leaving the wharf. Nothing perfunctory about the job either. Let but these precautions be omitted, and the chances that the passenger (if he have aught of value about him) will ever arrive at his destination are almost nil. ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... were, too, good times, when the troopers would trek across the Delta to the Barrage du Nil, a pleasant spot where the Nile divides into its delta streams and canals. Here they would bivouac for the night beneath shady plantations of lebbak trees in beautiful gardens. In the daytime they swam their horses in the river. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... the Romans, Consiliis armisque sua moderamina summa Arbitrio tractare suo: nil juris in hac re Pontifici summo, modicum concedere regi Suadebat populo. Sic laesa stultus utraque Majestate, reum geminae se fecerat aulae. Nor is the poetry of Gunther different ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... 376. neutrality; quietism, vegetation. V. be insensible &c adj.; have a rhinoceros hide; show insensibility &c n.; not mind, not care, not be affected by; have no desire for &c 866; have no interest in, feel no interest in, take no interest in; nil admirari [Lat.]; not care a straw for &c (unimportance) 643; disregard &c (neglect) 460; set at naught &c (make light of) 483; turn a deaf ear to &c (inattention) 458; vegetate. render insensible, render callous; blunt, obtund^, numb, benumb, paralyze, deaden, hebetate^, stun, stupefy; brutify^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... feather-weight, they may make long days' journeys; but their value, as animals of transport, is almost nothing. Again, on the other hand, if we load them with an excessive weight, they will soon come to a standstill; and in this case, as in the first, their value as beasts of transport is almost nil. What then, is that moderate load by which we shall obtain the largest amount of "useful effect"? this is a problem which many of the ablest engineers and philosophers have endeavoured to solve; and the formulae—partly based on theory and partly ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... all these systems in their later developments, is their cosmopolitanism. Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem alien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in any of them. And the reason of this is not far to seek. We have seen already (p. 82) how the chaos of sophistic doctrine ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... their skin tanned like the ancient parchments of an olim; whose complexion is burnt brown by the sun and whose neck is wrinkled like that of a turkey; who are covered with rags; whose voice is hoarse; whose intelligence is nil; who think of nothing but the bread box, and who are incessantly bowed in toil towards the ground; who dig; who harrow; who make hay, glean, gather in the harvest, knead the bread and strip hemp; who, huddled among ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... is full of what Edmond Holmes calls the desire to ask the teacher or person in authority for his credentials. And if these are not entirely satisfactory, the influence he can hope to wield will be nil. ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... "De mortuis nil nisi bonum," said he. His air was grave, his blue eyes solemn, and the Abbot had little cause to suspect the closeness with which that pair of eyes was watching him. He coloured faintly at the implied rebuke, but he inclined his head as if ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... look at the man who had throned himself in every heart. Not one of that immense crowd doubted the final triumph of his country in her arduous conflict, for everyone saw, or thought he saw, in Washington, her guardian angel, commissioned by Heaven to insure her that triumph. 'Nil desperandum' ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... prisco natus ab Inacho, Nil interest, an pauper, et infima De gente sub divo moreris, Victima nil miserantis ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... very strange bird, such as had never before built his nest at Oxford. I was very young, but I looked even younger than I was, and my knowledge of the manners of society, particularly of English society, was really nil. Few people knew what I was working at. Some had a kind of vague impression that I had discovered a very old religion, older than the Jewish and the Christian, which contained the key to many of the mysteries that had puzzled the ancient, nay, even the modern ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... millions who were swayed By those who dwelt upon this hill, And who in humble awe obeyed The dictates of their sovereign will,— Are they self-conscious beings still, Or are their minds and bodies ... Nil? ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... dissected, there is no religion, just as in the child's drum, when cut open, there is—nothing. Yet, we may reflect, on the battle-field from a drum proceeds a great and glorious sound, inspiring men to noble deeds. Whereas ex nihilo nil fit: from nothing naturally nothing comes. If, however, something does come, it is not from nothing that it comes. Amongst the most primitive savages known to us, men are united to their totems, as Frazer admits, by 'certain intimate ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... retinet salsis infausta Valachria terris, Oceanus tumidis quam vagus ambit aquis. Nulla ubi vox avium, pelagi strepit undique murmur, Coelum etiam larga desuper urget aqua. Flat Boreas, dubiusque Notus, flat frigidus Eurus, Felices Zephyri nil ubi juris habent. Proque tuis ubi carminibus, Philomena canora, Turpis in obscoena ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... Ducis de Schonberg ad Bubindam occisi A.D. 1690. Decanus et Capitulum maximopere etiam atque etiam petierunt, ut haeredes Ducis, monumentum in memoriam parentis erigendum curarent. Sed postquam per epistolas, per amicos, diu ac saepe orando nil profecere, hunc demum lapidem statuerunt; saltem ut scias hospes ubinam terrarum ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... plague you, I fear, with verse;—for my own part I will conclude, with Martial, 'nil recitabo tibi;' and surely the last inducement is not the least. Ponder on my proposition, and believe me, my dear Moore, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... battle. This is certainly not so, and he may not have been present at all; at least Col. Stewart, who was there and was acquainted with every one of note in the army, asserts positively that there was no such man along; nor has any other American account ever mentioned him. His military knowledge was nil, as may be gathered from his remark, made when the defeats of Braddock and Grant were still recent, that British regulars with the bayonet were best fitted to ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the first salvos from the German guns were nil. The range finders on the Emden had evidently not calculated properly. The water leaped into white sprays ahead of the Sydney, indicating that the Emden's ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... De mortuis nil nisi bonum; but, while fully acknowledging the force of the remark, as also the great scientific attainments and love for natural history which distinguished the illustrious traveller, I cannot allow anyone who reads his entertaining works to be misled ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... I had now travelled in almost every way, but I had not yet tried an excursion on a camel. I therefore made inquiry as to the distance, danger, and expense of a journey to Suez on the Red Sea. The distance was a thirty-six hours' journey, the danger was said to be nil, and the expense they estimated ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... feminine witchery. Intuition strong, logic weak, and the two qualities so balanced as to produce an indefinable charm; will-power large, but docility equal, if a man is clever enough to know how to manage her; knowledge of facts absolutely nil, but she is exquisitely intelligent in spite of it. She has a way of evading, escaping, eluding, and then gives you an intoxicating hint of sudden and complete surrender. She is divinely innocent, but roguishness saves her from insipidity. Her looks? She looks as you would imagine ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... they could not be American craft but must be British ships in disguise. General Armstrong, writing from Paris, warned the Secretary of State not to expect that the embargo would do more than keep the United States at peace with the belligerents. As a coercive measure, its effect was nil. "Here it is not felt, and in ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... to render "Caesar's things" to foreign Caesars, demand such total bankruptcy that we must needs repudiate the just debts of home creditors, whose chimneys smoke just beyond the fence that divides us? De mortuis nil nisi bonum is a traditional and sacred duty to departed workers; but does it exhaust human charity, or require contemptuous crusade against equally honest, living toilers? Are antiquity and foreign birthplace imperatively essential factors in the award of praise for even faithful and noble ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... what's in fashion. A juicy pear or ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way. Gravediggers in Hamlet. Shows the profound knowledge of the human heart. Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral. Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of surrender and suicide is exemplified by Avicenna and his followers when they declared that that which is true in theology may be false in philosophy, and vice versa; and by Sanchez in his famous defence of the thesis "Quod nil scitur." ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... city situated on the banks of the Nile, which is Pison or Al-Nil[183]. The number of Jewish inhabitants is about 7,000. Two large synagogues are there, one belonging to the men of the land of Israel and one belonging to the men of the land of Babylon. The synagogue of the men of the land of Israel is ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... ashes. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. The directors are meeting now to elect his successor. Only one name has been mentioned. There's only one editor we'll hear of for the paper. Won't you come ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... neither father nor mother, the commandments of God, nor those of the Church, neither laws divine or human: their member knows no doctrine, understands no heresies, and cannot be blamed; it is innocent of all, and always on the laugh; its understanding is nil; and for this reason do I hold ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... servo." "Meruit quo crimine servus Supplicium? Quis testis adest? Quis detulit? Audi Nulla umquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa est" "O demens, ita servus homo est? Nil fecerit, esto Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas." —Juvenal, Sat., ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... that young scamp Mercury says that we do nothing, and leave all the duties of Olympus to him. Will you believe it, he actually says that our influence on earth is dropping down to nil. ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... in North Armenia, again appears in connection with the Nile; while again the name "Nile" has wandered back to the confines of Persia, and one of the Euphrates branches is still called "Shatt-en-nil." The ancients, indeed, had very curious ideas about the Nile. Its real sources being so long undiscovered—no Speke or Grant having appeared—imagination ran wild on the subject. Not only so, but it is remarkable that the name Cush should have acquired both a Persian ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... presently to turn the whole madder industry upside down, these more sophisticated persons were able to benefit at leisure by the ingenious processes discovered by Fabre, so that the practical result of so much assiduity, so much patient research, was absolutely nil, and he found himself ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... Egypt" was a silver-paved road, leading to adventure. The masts of native boats lying along the river bank were etched in black lines crowding one over another, on the lightly washed-in background of blue. Near by, the great Kasr-el-Nil bridge gleamed with colour and life like a rainbow "come alive"; and the Enchantress Isis looked as gay and inviting as a houseboat en fete for Henley regatta. She was smaller than the most modern ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... idly past the museum, crossed the street, and walked up Kasr El Nil past the Modern Art Museum and the Automobile Club. Scotty took a pair of sunglasses from his pocket. They were of the silvered one-way mirror type that cuts down light transmission much as a neutral-density filter does ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... how far these different kinds of restraint operate upon the community as a whole in the prevention of deliberate crime. Clearly the fear of pecuniary loss through actions brought to judgment in the civil courts is practically nil. Most persons who set out to commit crime have no bank account, the absence of one being generally what leads them into ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... and dropped into the ocean; her fires were put out; her engines were attacked with sledges until they were little better than so much junk, and to make the slender chances of pursuit that remained to her entirely nil every ounce of coal upon her was shoveled into the Pacific. Her extra masts and spare sails followed the way of the coal and the rudder, so that when Skipper Simms and First Officer Ward left her with their own men that had been aboard ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... us forget Pyrrhic victory, Parthian dart, and Homeric laughter; quos deus vult and nil de mortuis; Sturm und Drang; masterly inactivity, unctuous rectitude, mute inglorious Miltons, and damned good-natured friends; the sword of Damocles, the thin edge of the wedge, the long arm of coincidence, and the soul of goodness in things evil; Hobson's ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... is generally secondary to some other condition, its treatment cannot be positively outlined. Furthermore, it is often a terminal condition, and in such instances the results of treatment are of necessity nil. The most frequent terminal cause is nephritis; other terminal causes are pulmonary tuberculosis, adjacent abscesses, cancer or ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... permission to see this set of papers, and the signing and counter-signing I had to go through before I could see that set of papers, and the extent of circumlocution and idiocy I had to encounter in a general way before I could complete my investigation. The result was nil; and after working like a galley-slave I found myself no better off than before I began my search. Your extracts from Matthew's letters put me on a new track. I concluded therefrom that there had been a marriage, and that the said ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... so destitute of all talent (excepting that of low intrigue), as was Cardinal Dubois, being thus fortunate. His intellect was of the most ordinary kind; his knowledge the most common-place; his capacity nil; his exterior that of a ferret, of a pedant; his conversation disagreeable, broken, always uncertain; his falsehood written upon his forehead; his habits too measureless to be hidden; his fits of impetuosity resembling fits of madness; his head incapable of containing ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... paternal, maternal, fraternal; sororal[obs3]; friendly &c. 888. Adv. with a good intention, with the best intentions. Int. Godspeed! much good may it do! Phr. "act a charity sometimes" [Lamb]; "a tender heart, a will inflexible" [Longfellow]; de mortuis nil nisi bonum [Lat: say only good things about the dead, don't speak ill of the dead]; "kind words are more than coronets" [Tennyson]; quando amigo pide no hay manana[Lat]; "the social smile, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... dead, and "de mortibus nil desperandum!" as Rapaud once said—and for saying which he received a "twisted pinch" from ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the 24th of July, the Russian Government sought to prevail upon Great Britain to proclaim its complete solidarity with Russia and France, and on the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg pointing out that "direct British interests in Servia were nil, and a war on behalf of that country would never be sanctioned by British public opinion," the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs replied that "we must not forget that the general European question was involved, the Servian question being but a part ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... mimicry incomparably finer than any professional's I knew of. This, with his gestures, stood him instead of speech. A certain haughty English woman whose elaborate hats in an island where women were hatless, or wore simple, native weaves, were noted atrocities, and whose chin was almost nil, kept the carriage and me waiting for breakfast while she primped in her lodging. The Dummy uttered one of his abortive sounds, much like that of an angry puma, contorted his face, and put his hand above his head, so that I had a very ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... on a well-designed gas valve operating mechanism is practically nil; and even if there was wear, the effect would be to cause the valve to open a trifle later and close sooner than it would otherwise, i.e., it would remain open a shorter time during each charging stroke. This in turn (other conditions remaining the same) would give ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... they occupy an important place both in the elaborate religious ceremonies and in the daily life of the Navaho. They are the sweat houses, called in the Navaho language co'tce, a term probably derived from qaco'tsil, "sweat" and [)i]nc[)i]nil'tce, the manner in which fire is prepared for heating the stones placed in it when it is used. The structure is designed to hold only one person at a time, and he must crawl in and squat on his heels with his knees drawn up to ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... several wards, in Pleas and Memoranda, Roll A I, memb. ix. The compiler of the "Annales Paulini" (Chron. Edward I and II, i. 333), gives the number of the City contingent as 100 men, adding feelingly "sed proh pudor! nil boni ibi facientes ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... this act be foregone how shall we proceed? Thou knowest well all evidence that can be obtained anent every one implicated with that 'bosom serpent, Mary,' should be gotten wil or nil." ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... by Day and Night, The Doctrine of the Stagirite, Proving it fixed beyond Dispute, In Ways that none could well refute; For if by Chance 'twas urged that Men O'er-stepped the Limit now and then, He'd show unanswerably still Either that all they did was "Nil," Or else 'twas marked by Indication Of grievous mental Degradation: Nay—he could even trace, they say, That ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... especially in the Latin countries, where class barriers are more formidable, the situation differs materially, and to the disadvantage of the girl. If she makes an overture, it is an invitation to disaster; her hope of lawful marriage by such means is almost nil. In consequence, the prudent and decent girl avoids such overtures, and they must be made by third parties or by the man himself. This is the explanation of the fact that a Frenchman, say, is habitually enterprising in ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... marrd husb can shro 1st flr suite, beaut furn, pri bth rm, sth asp, telephne, mo 'bus psses dr, ex cellar kept. Mrs. Bland, "Nil Desperandum," Muswell Hill, N. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... musical box, anything rather than a living tongue. To a later race of stylists, who have gone as far as Samoa and beyond in the quest of exotic perfumery, Borrow would have said simply, in the words of old Montaigne, "To smell, though well, is to stink,"—"Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere." Borrow, in fact, by a right instinct went back to the straightforward manner of Swift and Defoe, Smollett and Cobbett, whose vigorous prose he specially admired; and he found his choice ill appreciated by critics whose sense of style demanded that a clear glass window should be studded ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... beerhouse. They were celebrating something or another, were jingling their money, discussing future earnings, and laughing uproariously. One table was especially absorbed in its noisy gaiety. There sat the celebrated town-rowdy Nil Krasavtsev with three of his friends. They drank, and sang hooligan songs, then paid their bill and went out. One could hear their ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... Boer horse (a plump one) was triumphantly captured and preserved for dissection. The men shortly afterwards returned to town, having learnt all that they wanted to learn, and inflicted more damage than they had hoped to inflict. They were bombarded on the journey home, but their casualities were nil. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... forense quasi com[oe]dia; Hic advocatus maximas partes agit Laudatus undique a procuratoribus, Labore vocis redditus ditissimus; Cui brevia nil forensis et quaestus valent Silenter ille spectat, at pro praemio Fruitur quietus ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... which the cipher disclosures materially increased, grew into threatening proportions after Kelly's dissatisfaction had settled into a relentless feud. This condition made Tilden's chances of carrying the State uncertain if not absolutely nil, and encouraged his critics to magnify his weaknesses until the belief generally obtained that serious, perhaps fatal opposition would array itself at the State convention on April 20. Statements as to Tilden's ill-health likewise found currency. When not displaying evidence of unimpaired ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... humorist—which is only another way of saying that he is a master psychologist with the added gift of humour—because he looked upon himself always as a complete and well-rounded repository of universally human characteristics. Humanus sum; et nil humanum mihi alienum est —this might well have served for his motto. It was his conviction that the American possessed no unique and peculiar human characteristics differentiating him from the rest of the world. In the same way, ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... He sent it to Caesar, having been bold enough to say in it whatever occurred to him should be said in Cato's praise. We may imagine that, had it not pleased him to be generous—had he not been governed by that feeling of "De mortuis nil nisi bonum," which is now common to us all—he might have said much that was not good. Cato had endeavored to live up to the austerest rules of the Stoics—a mode of living altogether antagonistic to Cicero's views. ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... some small distance, all he saw within This strange saloon, much fitted for inspiring Marvel and praise; for both or none things win; And I must say, I ne'er could see the very Great happiness of the 'Nil Admirari.' ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Velles dicere, nec tacere posses. Verum nescioquid febriculosi Scorti diligis: hoc pudet fateri. 5 Nam te non viduas iacere noctes Nequiquam tacitum cubile clamat Sertis ac Syrio fragrans olivo, Pulvinusque peraeque et hic et ille Attritus, tremulique quassa lecti 10 Argutatio inambulatioque. Nam nil stupra valet, nihil, tacere. Cur? non tam latera ecfututa pandas, Nei tu quid facias ineptiarum. Quare quidquid habes boni malique, 15 Dic nobis. volo te ac tuos amores Ad caelum ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... even, than the danger of coming to the planetoid, or the danger of waiting nineteen days for the coming of the supply ship. If the ones who remained within suspected anything—anything at all!—then his chances of coming out of this alive were practically nil. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... write on, my good cousin Craiglethorpe," pursued Lady Geraldine, "and nil the little note-book, which will soon turn to a ponderous quarto. I shall have a copy, bound in morocco, no doubt, from the author, if I behave myself prettily; and I will earn it, by supplying valuable information. You shall ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... cum sedebit Quidquid latet apparebit Nil inultum remanebit: Item, Rex tremend majestatis Qui salvandos salvas gratis Salva ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... or a regular sales check, special care must be exercised, as one cannot afford to exhaust the patience of customers by exhibiting a lack of knowledge. Every check in a check book should be accounted for: a spoiled check should be marked "Nil" or "Void," be signed by one in authority and sent to the cashier. Quantity, goods and prices should always be written plainly, all blanks properly filled out, plain, neat writing, and particularly good figures. Salespeople are ...
— How Department Stores Are Carried On • W. B. Phillips
... "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" is a principle of conduct dating back to Him who of old declared burial of the dead a corporal work of mercy. It is the mark, neither of the Christian individual nor nation, to disrespect a body nor desecrate its resting ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... the reduced loading, and making preparations for leaving this fatal camp. The rain continued to fall heavily throughout the day, which could not under the circumstances, have increased the cheerfulness of the party. The Leader, however, closes the entry in his Diary with "Nil Desperandum" merely marking the day of the week in parenthesis as ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... the air of a man who had money in both pockets, "I shall soon be in better chambers than these." The harmless bravado drew a reply from Johnson which touched the chord of proper pride. "Nay, sir," said he, "never mind that. Nil te quaesiveris extra," implying that his reputation rendered him independent of outward show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith could he have kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind, and squared his ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... sickening with the fumes of chloroform. They fairly sent my head a-reeling, but their effect upon the burglar seemed to have been nil. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... despatch-runner from Koodoosvaal got through the enemy's lines last night with some letters and this paper. No, no word of the Relief. His verbal news was practically nil. He goes out at midnight with some cipher messages. And, if you will let me have your reply to the advertisement with the returned paper by eleven at latest, I will see that it is sent." The rather peremptory tone softened—became persuasive; "You must build ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... merchant himself went bankrupt with a debt of $686,000 to the bank of which he was a director, the people of that village, some four hundred and eleven souls in all, owed his firm $64,000, an asset returned as value nil. The whole thing seemed a nightmare to any one who ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... men discovered a fire had been started in a mysterious way, which they succeeded in putting out. Only for prompt work it would have at least disabled the bomber so that its usefulness for the present would be nil." ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... the banterer; "the Chevalier first, and if he leaves anything worth fighting, I; as for you, my poet, your chances are nil." ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the currents change with the ebb and flood. At the precise moment of the turn of the tide the undercurrent is supposed to be nil, and the diver must take advantage of this moment to perform his task. Another difficulty arises from the sand being shifted by the currents, and settling on the prominent parts of a wreck; it often envelops them to such a degree that the ship ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... named Francois Tonsard, commends himself to the attention of philosophers by the manner in which he had solved the problem of an idle life and a busy life, so as to make the idleness profitable, and occupation nil. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... last new rush in Western Australia or Queensland, or perhaps buried in the worked-out ground of Tambaroora, Married Man's Creek, or Araluen; and by-and-by the memory of some half-forgotten reef or lead or Last Chance, Nil Desperandum, or Brown Snake claim would take their thoughts far back and away from the dusty patch of sods and struggling sprouts called the crop, or the few discouraged, half-dead slips which comprised the orchard. ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... likely to want again. Another writer of "problem stories" was Artsybashev. His notorious Sanin (1907) is very typical of a certain phase of Russian life. It has acquired a somewhat unaccountable popularity among the budding English intelligentsia. From the literary point of view its value is nil. Artsybashev and Andreyev were very second-rate writers; they had no knowledge of their art and their taste was deplorably bad and crude, but at least they were in a way, sincere, and gave expression to the genuine vacuum ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... the draft executives report that the amount of willful delinquency or desertion has been almost nil. Several describe the strenuous efforts of the Negroes to comply with the regulations, when the requirements were explained to them, many registrants travelling long distances to report in person to the ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... all, Ivan soon discovered that, in winter, regimental duties were practically nil. Half the privates of his regiment had been dismissed to their native villages. The rest, though nominally in barracks, and paraded once or twice a month (very badly), were wont to eke out their half-pay (supposed to be whole, but actually shared with two lofty administrators whose names ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... had every reason to be satisfied with her progress and to congratulate herself upon the judgment she had displayed in continuing to raise sheep for their fleece when the price of wool was nil, practically, and every discouraged grower in the state, including the astute Neifkins, was putting in "black-faces" that were better for mutton. Now a protective administration was advancing the price of wool, and when she sold she would ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... running water. Who does not know it and feel it? The railroad builder fearlessly throws his bank across the wide bog or lake, or the sea itself, but the tiniest nil of running water he treats with great respect, studies its wish and its way and gives it all it seems to ask. The thirst-parched traveller in the poisonous alkali deserts holds back in deadly fear from the sedgy ponds till he finds one down whose centre is a thin, clear ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... reading these papers you like and respect more the person you have admired so much already. And so with regard to Macaulay's style there may be faults of course—what critic can't point them out? But for the nonce we are not talking about faults: we want to say nil nisi bonum. Well—take at hazard any three pages of the "Essays" or "History;"—and, glimmering below the stream of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reader, see one, two, three, a half-score ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the individual family change from generation to generation, the complexion of the local group is liable to be completely changed; though in practice the changes in one direction are no doubt counterbalanced by changes in the other, so that the net result may be nil, when the original differences were small. But we cannot suppose that the group was often evenly balanced; and a change in the rule of descent would in that case have important results for the local group and in any case for the ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... cote de la France, ou le sol de plusieurs contrees est compose des debris que les rivieres y ont deposes[6]; une partie de l'Egypte, selon Herodote, a ete pareillement formee des matieres que le Nil y a apportees; Aristotle la nomme l'ouvrage du fleuve: c'est pourquoi les Ethiopiens se vantoient que l'Egypte leur etoit redevable de son origine. Les habitans de Pyrenees pourroient dire la meme chose de presque toutes les contrees situees ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... of your present state, or possible proceedings. I am ashamed that this breaking of the long ice should be a letter of business. There is none circum praecordia nostra I swear by the honesty of pedantry, that wil I nil I pushes me upon scraps of Latin. We are yours cordially: ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... I won't do it; it will be done by a clerk at twenty-five shillings a week.' And, all this time, mind you, no disposition to soften all this official peculation by civility; no misgiving that the next wave of civilization may sweep nil these go-betweens and leeches out of the path of progress; no, the deputy-vice-go-betweens all scowled, as well as swindled: they broke my heart so, often I sat down in their antechambers and the scalding tears ran down my cheeks, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... knew; and two or three veteran missionaries had come into contact with it and had grieved over their helplessness to do anything. One of these had written a pamphlet on the subject twenty years before our Nursery work began. He sent it to me with a sorrowful word written across it, "Result? Nil." But we do not often meet our civilian friends, for they are busy, and so are we; and the few missionaries whose inspiring sympathy helped us through those earlier years were in places far from us, and so were all the Reformers. ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... of Nippur's present desolation is to be traced to the change in the bed of the Euphrates, which now lies far to the west. But in antiquity the stream flowed through the centre of the city, along the dry bed of the Shatt en-Nil, which divides the mounds into an eastern and a western group. The latter covers the remains of the city proper and was occupied in part by the great business-houses and bazaars. Here more than thirty thousand contracts and accounts, dating from the fourth millennium to the fifth century ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... dock-people had generously charged me "nil" for dues. I had letters for France from the highest authorities to pass the Rob Roy as an article entered for the Paris "Exhibition;" and when the douane and police functionaries came in proper state at Boulogne to appraise her value, and to fill up the numerous forms, certificates, schedules, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... fully represented the true Greek spirit when he sang, "All things are good in life" ([Greek: panta gar esthla bio]). The Roman pagan, Juvenal, gave a fairly satisfactory answer to the question, "Nil ergo optabunt homines?" whilst the Christian holds out hopes of that compensation in the next world for the afflictions of the present, which the sombre and despondent Russian philosopher, determined that we shall not find enjoyment in either ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... much did their gratitude need an object to expend itself upon. One thing above all the rest heightened the respect, nay almost the veneration, of Danglars for Cavalcanti. The latter, faithful to the principle of Horace, nil admirari, had contented himself with showing his knowledge by declaring in what lake the best lampreys were caught. Then he had eaten some without saying a word more; Danglars, therefore, concluded that such luxuries were common at the table of the illustrious descendant ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... traversing those straits made dangerous by the Scylla of Conventionality, and the Charybdis of License. The labour his writing cost him was enormous. "I shall never again make so great a sacrifice for the younger generation," he says in a letter, "I am amazed to note how insignificant, how almost nil is the effect produced, in comparison to the cost, in vitality to me. Or perhaps it is I who am in error. Perhaps one must have reached middle age, or the Indian Summer of life, must have seen much, heard much, felt and produced much and been much in solitude to receive in reading ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... the months of October and November, 1914, for either belligerent were practically nil. From Belfort in the south to Arras in the north the advance or retreat in any given section was but a matter of yards; a ridge, a farm, a hill, or other choice gun position, the farther bank of a rivulet or stream or canal occupied or captured—here ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... of outdoor existence possible for too many inhabitants of the British Isles. But a walk without an object, unless in the most lovely and novel of scenery, is a poor exercise; and as a recreation, utterly nil. I never knew two young lads go out for a "constitutional," who did not, if they were commonplace youths, gossip the whole way about things better left unspoken; or, if they were clever ones, fall on arguing and brainsbeating on politics or metaphysics ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... Bristol's seeking me there; and, eager as I was to give them substance, found them but airy—ultimately was forced to admit them to be nil. ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... cecidit sub crimine; quisnam Delator? quibus judiciis; quo teste probavit? Nil horum; verbosa et grandis epistola venit A Capreis. Bene habet; nul ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... village, searched every tepee, and questioned the inhabitants down to the very children. The result was nil. The Indians one and all denied that Imbrie had come back up the river. Stonor was convinced that they were lying. He said nothing of what had happened down at the falls, though the young Kakisa, Ahteeah, displayed no little curiosity ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... essentially necessary to form a party of some sort, if the trip is to be carried out in the spring; for although, as we shall endeavour to show later, the scenery is then at its best, still, since it is not the season, only one or two hotels are open in each resort, and society is "nil." ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough |
