"Precious stone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the left shoulder of a crocodile, as also of a chameleon, without prejudice be it spoken to the credit which is due to the opinion of old Democritus; and likewise of the stone of the Bactrians, called Eumetrides, and of the Ammonian horn; for so by the Aethiopians is termed a certain precious stone, coloured like gold, and in the fashion, shape, form, and proportion of a ram's horn, as the horn of Jupiter Ammon is reported to have been: they over and above assuredly affirming that the dreams of those who carry it ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden—demi-paradise—.... This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in a silver sea,.... This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of Royal Kings... This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, Dear for her ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... innate strength and nobility in Mrs. Allen's character it might have developed now into something worthy of respect under this sharp attrition of trouble, however perverted before. But where a precious stone will take lustre a pumice stone will crumble. There is a multitude of natures so weak to begin with that they need tonic treatment all through life. What must such become under the influence of enervating luxury, flattery, and uncurbed ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping, he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it with his tongue,—it was salt! And thus, by his own action, he had tasted salt beneath the prince's roof,—in Eastern parlance, had accepted his hospitality, become his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... statue in France, we were preparing slowly for the pedestal. You cannot hurry constructions of this kind; they must have time to settle. We long ago prepared the stones for that pedestal, and we first secured the services of the most useful, most precious stone of all—the Pasha from Egypt. [Laughter.] We felt that his services in Egypt had particularly fitted him for this task. There is a popular belief in this country, which I have never once heard contradicted, that he took a prominent part in laying the foundations of the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... scratching for food for himself and his hens, found a precious stone and exclaimed: "If your owner had found thee, and not I, he would have taken thee up, and have set thee in thy first estate; but I have found thee for no purpose. I would rather have one barleycorn than all the ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... his tail is white; With little ears and tawny head, No steed like him was ever bred. The good archbishop spurs a-field, And smites Abyme upon the shield, His emir's shield, so thickly sown With many a gem and precious stone, Amethyst and topaz, crystals bright, And red carbuncles flashing light: The shield is shivered by the blow; No longer worth a doit, I trow; Stark dead the emir lies below. 'Ha! bravely struck!' the Frenchmen yell: 'Our bishop guards the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... put one finger on his side the scale; for he was as good a man as myself, or nearly so. Now, brother, had I but bent a finger in favour of the Rommany chal, the plastramengro would never have come alive out of the lane; but I did not, for I thought to myself fair play is a precious stone; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... lost from out its meagre store A bright and precious stone; Heaven could not be so rich before, But ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... trickles between barren mountains a subterranean rill, which can only by chance be reached, for only occasionally the earth gapes, and he who would descend must do it with precipitation, ere the earth closes again. All that is gathered under the ground there is gem and precious stone. The brook pours into another river, and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood obtain thence abundance of precious stones. Yet they never venture to sell them without having first offered them to us for our private use: should we decline them, they are at liberty ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Wondership glided through the air, the professor, in viewing the villages, farms, green pastures, and stretches of woodland, regretfully shook his head as the thought occurred to him that he was missing many a precious stone. He looked over to Jack with the idea of suggesting a descent, but he saw the boy inventor patiently adjusting the tuning knob, and waited, realizing how anxious Jack was ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... of Egypt and Syria into Ind. In this land is found gold wonderfully red, like thin and small roots, and that gold is the best that is in the world. Herein is also a hill called Bena, where is found a precious stone, called smaragd. ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... water, of hillside and plain, of crystal cliffs and flame-winged birds; of the Pearl among her white peers; of the Apocalyptic Jerusalem, discovered to the poet, it may be, as a goodly Gothic city, though its walls are built of precious stone, and its towers rise from ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... for in these markets they sell things that in our parts are sold by professional hucksters.[547] There were craftsmen, also, working in their streets, so that you saw made there golden jewels and gewgaws, and you will find all kinds of rubies and diamonds and pearls, with every other kind of precious stone for sale. There also were to be seen sellers of cloths, and these were without number as that is a thing so many want, they being of cotton. There were also to be seen grass and straw in infinite abundance. I do not ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... the same group has a much longer passage, which bulges out into two small rounded antechambers. These tombs have been excavated and yielded some pottery vases, together with objects of copper and beads of a peculiar precious stone called callais. All the finds made in the megalithic remains of Spain and Portugal point to the period of transition from the age of ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... cannot overpower the noise of the drum, and the fragrance of ambergris is overcome by fetid garlic. The ignorant fellow was proud of his loud voice, because he had impudently confounded the man of understanding. If a jewel falls in the mud it is still the same precious stone,[20] and if dust flies up to the sky it retains its original baseness. A capacity without education is deplorable, and education without capacity is thrown away. Sugar obtains not its value from the cane, but from its innate quality. Musk has fragrance of itself, and not ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... maitre[Fr]; masterpiece, chef d'ouvre[Fr], prime, flower, cream, elite, pick, A1, nonesuch, nonpareil, creme de la creme, flower of the flock, cock of the roost, salt of the earth; champion; prodigy. tidbit; gem, gem of the first water; bijou, precious stone, jewel, pearl, diamond, ruby, brilliant, treasure; good thing; rara avis[Lat], one in a thousand. beneficence &c. 906; good man &c. 948. V. be beneficial &c. Adj.; produce good, do good &c. 618; profit &c. (be of use) 644; benefit; confer a benefit &c. 618. be the making of, do ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... you the rare gift I brought thy sister," and from a leather case taken from inside his cloak Zador drew a delicately wrought anklet of gold set thick with shining green chalcedony. From it hung bangles, like bits of fine gold lace, carrying, each in the center, a precious stone of changing color. At sight of it Martha gave an exclamation of delight, and Lazarus and Joel looked at it with interest. "My betrothal gift to Mary," Zador Ben Amon said with undisguised admiration as he turned it about and shook it so that the tinkling of the ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... rejected of men, whereon ye must be built by faith. This is now wonderful in our eyes, as the prophet says; it seems strange to us, and where the Spirit does not teach it, it is utterly incomprehensible. Therefore he says, in God's eyes the stone is elect, and an extremely precious stone; it is of great importance also that it takes away death, satisfies for sin, and rescues from hell, besides that it ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... precious stone is the question which, at the onset, rises in the mind, and this question, simple as it seems, is one by no means easy to answer, since what may be considered precious at one time, may cease ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... and getting up, demanded of my brother who was sleeping close to me what he had done with that diamond. The demand was made with such force that for about three days all in the house chaffed me about the fatal loss of precious stone, much to my humiliation. Maybe this noise which I heard was but a dream, although I was sure it was real. I was wondering thus in the middle of the corridor, when at the further end where it was moonlit, a roar was raised, coming from about thirty or forty throats, "One, two, three,—Whee-ee!" ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... Christ's fixing the number of His disciples, some have found a fancied one in the twelve precious stones of Aaron's breastplate. The most precious stone would represent John, the chosen one of the Great High Priest. In his own vision of the new Jerusalem "the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones." "And ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... his eldest son by Fulvia was slain, because his schoolmaster Theodorus did betray him unto the soldiers, who strake off his head. And the villain took a precious stone of great value from his neck, the which he did sew in his girdle, and afterwards denied that he had it: but it was found about him, and so Caesar trussed him up for it. For Cleopatra's children, they were very honourably kept, with their governors and train that waited on them. But for ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... precious jewel was safe in any house, in any quarter of the globe, which they occupied together. Under these alarming circumstances, he had determined to place his Diamond in the keeping of another person. That person was not expected to run any risk. He might deposit the precious stone in any place especially guarded and set apart—like a banker's or jeweller's strong-room—for the safe custody of valuables of high price. His main personal responsibility in the matter was to be of the passive kind. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... it glows a bright flame color with green lights round the margin. Turned a little more it shows violet and silver. Other shades mingle with these, all coming and going as light and position vary. A fine opal is a wonderfully brilliant precious stone. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... said the alligator, looking at the ruby, "I swallowed that one day when I was drinking." And he gave the ruby to the man, saying, "In return for your kindness I will give you this ruby. It is a very precious stone." (In old days every Raja possessed such a ruby; now very few Rajas, if any, have one.) The poor man thanked the alligator, put the ruby into his cloth, and went on his way till he came to the camel, who ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... is a precious stone, the first in rank of all the gems, and valued for its beautiful lustre; it is the hardest of all stones, as well as the most valuable. The most esteemed are colorless. A diamond in its natural state as it comes out of the mine, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... change; and on this occasion I spent a much longer time looking at it, admiring the marvellous beauty of its form, which seemed so greatly to exceed that of all other flowers. It had thick petals, and at first gave me the idea of an artificial flower, cut by a divinely inspired artist from some unknown precious stone, of the size of a large orange and whiter than milk, and yet, in spite of its opacity, with a crystalline lustre on the surface. Next day I went again, scarcely hoping to find it still unwithered; it was fresh as if ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... in the sunsets, in the aurora borealis, and in other sky-effects of great magnitude have deeply impressed the poet. If his descriptions are to be accepted at their face-value, the melodies of light rendered in the precious stone, in the ice-crystal, and in the iridescence of bird-plumage please his finer sensibilities. If he is sincere, mobile light is a ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... a fine, vigorous little lad it was, like a little rosy-cheeked angel; his little hands and neck were regularly wrinkled everywhere from very plumpness, his mouth was hardly larger than a strawberry, but his sparkling eyes, than which no precious stone was ever of a purer azure, were all the larger by contrast, and whenever he drooped them the long lashes lay conspicuous on his chubby cheeks. He did not cry, he was quite serious, just as if he knew that it would be a great shame to be weak now, and when Squire John, in his rapture, ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... and the Bellini, seem never for a moment to have been tempted even to lose sight of the scope of their art in its strictness, or to forget that painting must be, before all things decorative, a thing for the eye; a space of colour on the wall, only more dexterously blent than the marking of its precious stone or the chance interchange of sun and shade upon it—this, to begin and end with—whatever higher matter of thought, or poetry, or religious reverie might play its part therein, between. At last, with final mastery of all the technical secrets of ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... carpet of azure, covered with flowers in their natural colors, intermingled with stars of gold and silver. The roof of this wondrous hall was of fretted gold, and from the centre hung a lamp formed of an enormous precious stone, which shed forth rays of many-colored hues. At the upper end of the apartment was a chair of state, over which fell a drapery of azure velvet, embroidered with pearls in beautiful devices. But how shall I describe to you the lady who sat in ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... Granatus, a precious stone so called, because it is like the kernels of a pomegranate, an imperfect kind of ruby, it comes from Calecut; [4145]"if hung about the neck, or taken in drink, it much resisteth sorrow, and recreates the heart." The same properties I find ascribed to the hyacinth and topaz. [4146]They allay anger, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... wandered into many details that will have but slender interest for the reader, whose eyes perhaps may never have followed a flight of bees; or who may have regarded them only with the passing interest with which we are all of us apt to regard the flower, the bird or the precious stone, asking of these no more than a slight superficial assurance, and forgetting that the most trivial secret of the non-human object we behold in nature connects more closely perhaps with the profound enigma of our origin and our end, than the secret of those of our passions that we study ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... strictness. The dignitaries of the Church wore their most sumptuous robes. The Nobles glittered with silk and gold lace; jeweled clasps fastened plumes of feathers in their hats; orders glittered on their breasts; and many a precious stone sparkled in the hilts of their swords. The representatives of the Commons were allowed neither feathers, nor embroidery, nor swords; but were forced to content themselves with plain black cloaks, and an unadorned homeliness of attire, which seemed as if intended to exclude all idea of their being ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... this little world, This precious stone, set in the silver sea That serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... wall thereof, an hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. The building of the wall was of jasper; but the city itself was pure gold, and like unto pure glass; and the foundations of the wall were adorned with every precious stone. The twelve gates were twelve pearls; and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass (21:1, 2, ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... presence. It unfolds into the numberless flowers of spring. It waves in the branches of the trees and the green blades of grass. It haunts the depths of the earth and the sea, and gleams from the hues of the shell and the precious stone. And not only these minute objects, but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and setting sun—all overflow with beauty. The universe is its temple; and those men who are alive to it cannot lift their eyes without feeling themselves ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... was created by the arrival of this magnificent diamond. "The mountain of light," as its eastern designation means, was valued at two millions sterling, and was the most costly precious stone in the world. A certain Brazilian gem in the crown of Portugal was alone admitted to be a rival. Its discovery was made in the mines of Golconda, and passed into possession of the Mogul emperors from the king of that country. From ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... sticks a pin in his choker, you may be sure it has not a head as big as a potatoe, and is not a sort of Siamese Twin pin, connected by a bit of chain, or an imitation precious stone, or Mosaic gold concern. If he wears studs, they are plain, and have cost not less at the least than five guineas the set. Neither does he ever make a High Sheriff of himself, with chains dangling over the front of his waistcoat, or little pistols, seals, or trinketry appearing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... shadows, a soft carpet of pine-needles through which the faint furrow of the trail runs as over velvet. And then, last of all, in a wide opening, clear as though chopped and plowed by some back-woodsman, a park of grass, fresh grass, green as a precious stone. ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... enabled them to change their shapes when they pleased, and to move about on the earth or in the air. They dwelt in the land of Jinnestan, in the mountains of Kaf. These mountains were supposed to go round the earth like a ring; they were thousands of miles in height, and they were made of the precious stone called chrysolite, which is of a green colour, and this colour, so the Persian poets say, is reflected in the green which we sometimes see in the sky at sunset. In this land of Jinnestan there are many cities. The Peris have for ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... ingenuities which an imitation of Italian models suggested to him; but it cannot be forgotten that Saint-Gelais brought the sonnet from Italy into French poetry. The school of Marot, ambitious in little things, affected much the blason, which celebrates an eyebrow, a lip, a bosom, a jewel, a flower, a precious stone; lyrical inspiration was slender, but clearness and grace were worth attaining, and the conception of poetry as a fine art served to lead the way towards ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... be she described for me! Her palfrey was a dapple-gray,[5] Swilk[6] one ne saw I never none; As does the sun on summer's day, That fair lady herself she shone. 20 Her saddle it was of roelle-bone[7]; Full seemly was that sight to see! Stiffly set with precious stone And compast all with crapotee[8]— Stones of Orient great plenty; 25 Her hair about her head it hang; She rode over that longe lea; A while she blew, another she sang. Her girths of noble silk they were; The buckles ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... inward on an invisible hinge and there before her was an opening just large enough for her hand. Her fingers closed on something round and hard like a marble, which in the moonlight shone with little bright flashes and crinkles of gold and blue and rose. Hortense knew it was some precious stone. ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... a precious stone,' rejoined his brother; 'more precious, I take it, than all the diamonds in the world. Is ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... great distances, in ships of small tonnage, and for the most part dependent for speed on the oar rather than the sail. The labor and cost of carriage are just as great, whether they import common or precious stone, and therefore the natural tendency would always be to make each shipload as valuable as possible. But in proportion to the preciousness of the stone, is the limitation of its possible supply; limitation not determined merely by cost, but by the physical conditions ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin |
