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Quicken   /kwˈɪkən/   Listen
Quicken

verb
(past & past part. quickened; pres. part. quickening)
1.
Move faster.  Synonyms: accelerate, speed, speed up.
2.
Make keen or more acute.  Synonym: whet.
3.
Give life or energy to.  Synonym: invigorate.
4.
Show signs of life.
5.
Give new life or energy to.  Synonyms: animate, reanimate, recreate, renovate, repair, revive, revivify, vivify.  "This will renovate my spirits" , "This treatment repaired my health"



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"Quicken" Quotes from Famous Books



... telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken, and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet; but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... admitted to the art critic that the book is defective according to the rules of the modern French romance; that Mrs. Stowe was possessed by her subject, and let her fervid interest in it be felt; that she had a definite purpose. That purpose was to quicken the sense of responsibility of the North by showing the real character of slavery, and to touch the South by showing that the inevitable wrong of it lay in the system rather than in those involved in it. Abundant material was in her ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... still, with Desiree's body in my arms, and waited for him. My sensations were not unpleasant. I could actually feel the blood quicken in my veins. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... quicken the measure; quicker went the words; quicker beat the drum; and suddenly one of the women sprang into the open space in front of the Fetish. Round and round she went, keeping ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... at the entrance. But, with the minister's appearance in the chamber, the agony of the deluded sufferer seemed to quicken, as if the sight of him who was the herald of mercy only added fresh fuel to his torments. Marian was fain to depart; her ears almost stunned with the cries and howlings of the demoniac. She withdrew in great agitation, her knees almost sinking under their burden. Hardly ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... previously determined to quit Oxford, and this new goad did but quicken my departure. My preparations were soon made; and from some vague, and to myself undefined ideas, partly of expedition, and partly of letting the president, the college, and the whole university see that I, Hugh Trevor, was no ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... cause of Education, In the search for simple Truth, In the proud Confederation Which ennobles striving youth, Let each heart's best pulses quicken, Patriotic souls up-leap, Till, mind-freighted, sails the fabric Like ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... there without conscious thoughts, without sense of the lapse of time, in a deep and grave amazement that seemed to suspend life rather than quicken it. "This was what had to be, then ... this was what had to be," he kept repeating to himself, as if he hung in the clutch of doom. What he had dreamed of had been so different that there was a mortal ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... frequently feels faint or actually faints away; she is often giddy, or sick, or nervous, and in some instances even hysterically; although, in rare cases, some women do not even know the precise time when they quicken. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... never passed a more enjoyable time than those two months of travel. The air was clear, bright, and exhilarating; the long days spent in the saddle, and the excitement of the chase, seemed to quicken his pulse and to fill him with a new feeling of strength and life. His appetite was prodigious, and he enjoyed the roughly cooked meals round the blazing fire of an evening, as he had never enjoyed food before. The country was, it is true, for the most part monotonous, with its long low undulations, ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... simplicity; as well as to be ignorant of the right thereof, is want of conscience. Secrecy in suits, is a great mean of obtaining; for voicing them to be in forwardness, may discourage some kind of suitors, but doth quicken and awake others. But timing of the suit is the principal. Timing, I say, not only in respect of the person that should grant it, but in respect of those, which are like to cross it. Let a man, in the choice of his mean, rather choose the fittest mean, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... altar was not devoted to maintaining a perpetual fire, it was kindled when necessary with small twigs previously barked and purified, and was subsequently fed with precious woods, preferably cypress or laurel;* care was taken not to quicken the flame by blowing, for the human breath would have desecrated the fire by merely passing over it; death was the punishment for any one who voluntarily committed such a heinous sacrilege. The recognised offering consisted ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... and managed to restrain the dying boy, who was endeavouring to throw himself out of his bed, whilst Spilett, taking his arm, felt his pulse gradually quicken. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... he commenced in a leisurely way as he bent a little more over the side to get a better hold of the net; but, what he saw, as the trawl lifted out of the sea, made him quicken his speech, and he exclaimed in a much louder tone— "Take care, missy, and look out, you boys! There's a shark in the trawl-net, and ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... conscience with sin, as long as he carried the memory of what he had seen in the solitary night on the uplands of Bethel? The direct result of the vision is the same command as Abraham received, 'Walk before Me, and be thou perfect.' Realise My presence, and let that kill the motions of sin, and quicken ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... of lover who ever in love-longing wones! And tell them I'm pledged to yearning and pawned to pine * And the might of my passion all passion of lovers unthrones. Their sympathies haply shall breathe in a Breeze like thee * And quicken forthright this framework ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... cold: he had to fetch Captain Scottie's pea-jacket to wear at the wheel. On the long spilling crests, that crumbled and spread running layers of froth in their hurry shoreward, the Pomerania rode home. She knew her landfall and seemed to quicken. Steadily swinging on the jade-green surges, she buried her nose almost to the hawse-pipes, then lifted until her streaming forefoot gleamed out of ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... a Christian tongue. She wore a Christian dress. Her heart answered to the same emotions that quicken or deaden the beat of other breasts. She had tears to shed, hopes to excite, passions to burn, desires to gratify. Nature had denied her none of the faculties that give beauty, and grace and dignity and sweetness to another. ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... breath of Autumn's being— . . . Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one, Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... Constitution, and they owe no responsibility to any human power but their constituents. By holding the representative responsible only to the people, and exempting him from all other influences, we elevate the character of the constituent and quicken his sense of responsibility to his country. It is under these circumstances only that the elector can feel that in the choice of the lawmaker he is himself truly a component part of the sovereign power of the nation. With equal care we should study to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... thy servant hath forced herself to do in writing this writ were an aidance to her, despite her despair of thee, because of her knowledge of thee that thou wilt fail to answer. Do thou fulfil her desire, my lord, of a sight of thee from the porch, as thou passest in the street, wherewith thou wilt quicken the dead soul in her. Or, far better for her still than this, do thou write her a letter with thine own hand (Allah endow it with all excellence!), and appoint it in requital of the intimacy that was between us in the nights of time past, whereof thou must preserve ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... appreciate. It is the art of story-telling. The visitors go from picture to picture and they read the stories. As for landscapes, figures, portraits, or slabs, they pass them by. What they love is a picture of life in action, a picture that tells a story and quicken their pulses. You may observe this in every picture gallery—even at the Grosvenor and the Royal Academy—even among the classes who are supposed to know something of Art: for one who studies a portrait by ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... on the limited nature of the earthly existence—the limited horizon which reduces man to the condition of the lizard pent up in a chamber in the rock—the destined shattering of the prison wall which will quicken the stagnant sense to the impressions of a hitherto unknown world—the spiritual hunger with which the saints, content in their earthly prison, still ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... had to quicken my steps to keep pace with him. He called my attention to an interesting feature of this world-renowned place, and told me much of their strange history. He knew the city literally ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... instructive narrative of a visit to this "Wonder of Wonders," from the pen of a gentleman, who, without professing to have explored ALL that is curious or beautiful or sublime in its vast recesses, has yet seen every thing that has been seen by others, and has described enough to quicken and enlighten the curiosity of those ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt

... with so many daughters of earth, and his worshipping love of Emilia, is a spurious Platonism. Plato would have said that to seek the Idea of Beauty in Emilia Viviani was a retrogressive step. All that she could do, would be to quicken the soul's sense of beauty, to stir it from its lethargy, and to make it divine the eternal reality of beauty in the supersensual world of thought. This Shelley had already acknowledged in the "Hymn;" and this he emphasizes in these words:—"The error consists in seeking ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... like the hissing of snakes, and twanging the strings of their large bows. And then they observed a cloud of dust raised by the hoofs of the steeds belonging to Jayadratha's army. And they also saw Dhaumya in the midst of the ravisher's infantry, exhorting Bhima to quicken his steps. Then those princes (the sons of Pandu) with hearts undepressed, bade him be of good cheer and said unto him, 'Do thou return cheerfully!'—And then they rushed towards that host with great ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Christian Art in Rome. Yet its effect is insignificant, compared with that of the vast collection of Greek sculptures to be found within its walls. Instinctively, as the vague yearnings and prophecies of youth lift him in whom they quicken away from youth's ordinary purposes and associations, his thought turns to that far city where are gathered the achievements of those who were indeed the gods of Hellas. To be there, and to demand from those eloquent lips the secret of the golden ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... blighted areas—with maximum use of private capital. It is equally essential that we use public funds to assist families of low income who could not otherwise enjoy adequate housing, and that we quicken our rate of progress ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... all her work, even when it is most stimulating with its altruism. Though in theory not a pessimist, yet a sense of pain and sorrow grows out of the touch of each of her books. In this she missed one of the highest uses of literature, to quicken new hopes and to awaken nobler purposes. There is a tone of joy and exultation in the power life confers, an instinctive sense of might to conquer the world, in the best writing. To make men think, to move men to action, to confer finer feelings and motives, is the power ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... however, when he saw the emperor so truly contrite and broken-hearted, he gave him leave to come in again; and there the first thing Theodosius did was to fall down on his face, weeping bitterly, and crying out in David's words, "My soul cleaveth to the dust, quicken Thou me according to Thy word!" He lay thus humbly through all the service; nor did he once wear his crown and purple robes till after several months of patient penitence he was admitted to the blessed Feast of Pardon. He made a decree that no sentence of death should be ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... been well examined on the preceding day, they now left them and went on in the direction towards where the gun had been picked up. This brought them direct to the furze bottom, where the dogs appeared to quicken their movements, and when the keepers came up with them again, they found them lying down by the frozen and stiffened corpse of ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... to be very quiet and courageous about," was my husband's none too tranquillizing beginning. And I could feel my pulse quicken. ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... was heard, and a little dust whiffed up on the road beside them. Pah! pah! another puff of dust, and splinters flew from a tree just beyond them. Aquila twitched his ears and stretched his long neck, and they felt the stride quicken under them. The road rushed by; they were half-way to ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards

... enact a comprehensive tax overhaul. Reforms in the more politically sensitive areas of structural reform and land privatization are still lagging. Outside institutions - particularly the IMF - have encouraged Ukraine to quicken the pace and scope of reforms and have threatened to withdraw financial support. GDP in 2000 showed strong export-based growth of 6% - the first growth since independence - and industrial production grew 12.9%. As the capacity for further export-based ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Reading {etheloponia tis}, or if {philoponia}, transl. "just as some strange delight in labour may quicken in the heart of many an individual soldier." ...
— The Economist • Xenophon

... finish what you have begun. There is concerted action between the atomic mind of infinite substance and the mind of man, "and as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, so has he given the son the power to quicken ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... he was; and the distress, That still a little did my breathing quicken, My going to him hindered ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... him that he see Rome and its Emperor. Paul has seen with the spirit's eye what we have seen since in history,—that he is to be the living link by which the electric fire of life should pass first from religious Asia to quicken this dead, brutish Europe. He knows that he is God's messenger to bear this mystery of life eternal from the one land to the other, and to unfold it there. And to-day has made real, in fact, this his inward confidence. To-day has put the seal of fact on that vision of his, years since, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... here and there, and Vienna counselled measures mildly repressive,—'conciliating,' it was her pleasure to call them. Her recent commands with respect to turbulent Venice were the subject of criticism among the circle outside the Piazza Gaffe. An enforced inactivity of the military legs will quicken the military wits, it would appear, for some of the younger officers spoke hotly as to their notion of the method of ruling Venezia. One had bidden his Herr General to 'look here,' while he stretched forth his hand and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... "use a liquor more wholesome than pleasant, they call coffee; made by a black Seed boyld in water, which turnes it almost into the same colour, but doth very little alter the taste of the water [!], notwithstanding it is very good to help Digestion, to quicken the Spirits and to ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... was pacing up and down the asphalt walk as he had paced the passage last night. He did not quicken his steps when he saw me, but walked towards me slowly, with the gait of a man who has a load on ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... little interest in the distribution of patronage, or in questions of party politics that quicken local strife, but he insisted upon a fair recognition of his friends, and to adjust their differences Seward arranged an evening conference to which the President was invited. At this meeting the discussion took a broad ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... and the profit will be theirs, and we shall have nothing. And they went out after him, great and little, leaving the gates open and shouting as they went; and there was not left in the town a man who could bear arms. And when my Cid saw them coming he gave orders to quicken their speed, as if he was in fear, and would not let his people turn till the Moors were far enough from the town. But when he saw that there was a good distance between them and the gates, then he bade his banner turn, and spurred towards them, crying, Lay on, knights, by God's mercy the spoil ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... deserve the name of a Church. It was simply a branch of the Civil Service of the State. But Wesley and his brother, and Whitefield and the rest, fully believed at first that they could do something to quicken the Church into a real, a beneficent, and a religions activity. Most of them had for a long time a positive horror of open-air preaching and of the co-operation of lay preachers. Most of them for a long time clung to all the traditional forms and even formulas amid ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... follow, thou may'st guess, Thou then wilt be secure of the success; Yet be not always on affairs intent, But let thy thoughts be easy, and unbent: When our minds' eyes are disengaged and free, They clearer, farther, and distinctly see; They quicken sloth, perplexities untie, Make roughness smooth, and hardness mollify; And though our hands from labour are released, Yet our minds find (even when we sleep) no rest. Search not to find how other men ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... century ended, the Samoan, Hawaiian, and Venezuelan episodes had done much to quicken a national consciousness in the people of the United States and at the same time to break down their sense of isolation from the rest of the world. Commerce and trade were also important factors in overcoming this traditional isolation. Not only was ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... Church, with its disproportionate wealth and its selfish, incompetent, and often degraded officials, could not but be a growing offence to the developing intelligence of the nation; and to quicken this feeling there were minor grievances which were an ancient ground of complaint on the part of the laity against their spiritual advisers. On every important event of his life the poor man was harassed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... water; but the man is born in ignorance of his element, and feels out blind at first, disorganized by sin in the blood,—his spirit-insight dulled and crossed by his sensations. Presently we feel it quicken in the dark sometimes; then mark, be reverent, be obedient,— for those dumb motions of imperfect life are oracles of vital Deity attesting the Hereafter. Let who says 'The soul's a clean white paper', ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... exhilaration—the soldier's exhilaration—quicken the beat of his pulse. He did not ask himself why he was here; he knew why. A delightful flower had sprung up in his heart, and fate had nipped it. Whither this new adventure would lead him he cared not. From now on life for him must be renewed by continual change and excitement. Since no one depended ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... immediately, she consented to accompany her forthwith. After a slight delay, fresh horses were procured, and the two ladies and their attendants renewed their journey, with strong injunctions to the driver to quicken their rate of travelling as much as possible, and promises of reward in case ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... John Evelyn in his Acetaria, "Mustard, especially in young seedling plants, is of incomparable effect to quicken and revive the spirits, strengthening the memory, expelling heaviness, preventing the vertiginous palsy, and a laudable cephalic, besides being an approved antiscorbutic." He tells further that the Italians, in making ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... motionless to us, it is because they are so remote, their secular movements being only manifested on the celestial sphere by imperceptible displacements. But in reality these suns are in perpetual commotion in the abysses of the Heavens, which they quicken with an extraordinary animation. ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... only virtue it can ever possess will be in signs of antiquity. All that in this world enlarges the sphere of affection or imagination is to be reverenced, and all those circumstances enlarge it which strengthen our memory or quicken our conception of the dead; hence it is no light sin to destroy anything that is old, more especially because, even with the aid of all obtainable records of the past, we, the living, occupy a space of too large importance and interest in our own eyes; we look upon the world too much as our own, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... up her wire and carried it to the forge, and then she fanned the coals a little to quicken ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... strange opinion may be confirmed by many reasons borrowed out of your schoole of Philosophy. For the natarall Philosophers doe teach, That it is common to all forcible flames to be quenched with dry things, and nourished with moiste: whereupon, euen blacksmithes, by sprinckling on of water, vse to quicken and strengthen their fire. For (say they) when fire is more vehement, it is stirred vp by colde, and nourished by moisture, both which qualities doe concurre in water. Item, water is wont to kindle skorching fires: because the moisture it selfe, which ariseth, doth proue more ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... possible that music might execute that feat, promptly and neatly, once, and might leave you out, were it produced suddenly and unexpectedly by "dot leetle Sherman bad," and it is undoubtedly true that, were you a rider, music would exhilarate you, quicken your motions, stimulate your nerves, and assist you as it assists a soldier when marching. It is also true that it will aid even you somewhat, by indicating on what step you should rise, so that your motions will not alternate with those of your ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... of fire," his omniscience, by which he searches the reins and hearts, and sees the end from the beginning; "his feet like unto fine brass," the stability of his appointments and the excellency of his providential dispensations,—"his voice," the irresistible energy of his word to quicken, terrify or destroy at his pleasure. (John v. 25, Heb. xii. 26.) "The sharp two-edged sword" will represent his awful justice against the impenitent who resist his righteous authority. "With the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." (Is. xi. 4; Luke xix. 27.) "His countenance as the ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... reality to the mind; but as yet the Affections do not warm towards it, and so it dies in the second stage of existence. Yet, again, we listen to the voice of the preacher, and his words abide in the soul until they quicken our Affections, and as we muse the fire burns. Then are our eyes lightened to perceive how all that we have heard may become realized in life; and warmed by the heavenly flame that has descended upon our altar, our souls kindle with charity, and we go forth to realize ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler

... and danced Down the rocky ledges, All the summer long, Past the flowered sedges, Under the green rafters, With their leafy laughters, Murmuring your song: Strangely still and tranced, All your singing ended, Wizardly suspended, Icily adream; When the new buds thicken, Can this crystal quicken, Now so strangely sleeping, Once more go a-leaping Down the rocky ledges, All the summer long, ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne

... little craft stands half-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the excited ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... him, cautious, concerned, the young man suddenly hurried down the street. He wanted no more parley with this loud-voiced avenging maiden. His fear came back upon him in double force, and he was seen to glance at his watch and quicken his pace almost to a run as though a forgotten engagement had suddenly come to mind. Miranda, scowling, stood and watched him disappear around the corner, then she turned back and began to pick raspberries with a diligence that would have astonished her grandmother had she not been ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... is the opening for suggestion—in connection with the various forms of imagination which enter into Literature; with poetry, and fiction, which, as Goethe saw, is really a form of poetry. And a quite legitimate opening. For to use it is to quicken the intellectual process itself, and to induce a larger number of minds to take ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... addresses should be made, setting forth the great advantage of a free library to every family. Its value to educate the people, to furnish entertainment that will go far to supplant idleness and intemperance, to help on the work of the public schools, and to elevate the taste, improve the morals, quicken the intellect and employ the leisure hours of all, should ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... easily acquired; in youth the incentives to it are strong, from ambition and from duty, from emulation and hope, from all the prospects which the beginning of life affords. If, dead to these calls, you already languish in slothful inaction, what will be able to quicken the more sluggish current of advancing years? Industry is not only the instrument of improvement, but the foundation of pleasure. Nothing is so opposite to the true enjoyment of life as the relaxed and ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... scholars were hurried through their lessons without stopping at trifles; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy had a smart application now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside without being put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... these ignorant men should be Blind and deprived of judgment, is God's doom; Who makes them loathe the light of poetry, That envious Death may wholly them consume. Besides that Song can quicken and set free Him that is prisoned in the darkness tomb, Though foul his name, if Cirrha him befriend. Its savour myrrh and spikenard ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... mean time Gutierre de Cardenas, one of the household of the princess, [56] and Alfonso de Palencia, the faithful chronicler of these events, were despatched into Aragon in order to quicken Ferdinand's operations, during the auspicious interval afforded by the absence of Henry in Andalusia. On arriving at the frontier town of Osma, they were dismayed to find that the bishop of that place, together with the duke of Medina Celi, on whose active co-operation they had relied ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... come down out of heaven on that bright March morning when he told us so softly and plaintively that, if we pleased, spring had come?" Who is there in reading this matchless description of the bluebird that does not feel the retreat of winter, that does not feel his pulse quicken with the promise of approaching spring, that does not feel that the bird did, indeed, come down out of heaven, the heaven of hope and promise, even though the skies are still bleak, and the winds still cold? Who, indeed, except those prosaic beings who are blind and ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... and naturall than that of Gaza, who will make question? Those are but harsh, thornie, and unpleasant precepts; vaine, idle and immaterial words, on which small hold may be taken; wherein is nothing to quicken the minde. In this the spirit findeth substance to bide and feed upon. A fruit without all comparison much better, and that will soone be ripe. It is a thing worthy consideration, to see what state things are brought unto in this our age; and how Philosophie, even ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... when she saw The youth's companions trembling, and himself With eyes cast down, with visage as of death, Thus spake the witch: "Forbid your craven souls These fears to cherish: soon returning life This frame shall quicken, and in tones which reach Even the timorous ear shall speak the man. If I have power the Stygian lakes to show, The bank that sounds with fire, the fury band, And giants lettered, and the hound that shakes Bristling with heads of snakes his triple head, What fear ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... the schools of preceptors who must resort to the same models of language whenever they bid their pupils rival the prose of Macaulay and Prescott, or emulate the verse of Tennyson and Longfellow? Now, it seems to me that nothing can more quicken the sense of that relationship which a language in common creates, than the presence and voice of a writer equally honored and beloved in the old world and in the new; and I cannot but think that where-ever our American kinsfolk welcome that presence, or hang ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... ignorant hopes that were Broken to our blind prayer: For pain, death, sorrow, sent Unto our chastisement: For all loss of seeming good, Quicken ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... foot by foot Wildfire was gaining on the King. Slone studied the level forest floor sliding toward him. He lost his hope—then regained it again, and then he spurred the horse. Wildfire hated that as he hated Slone. But apparently he did not quicken his strides. And Slone could not tell if he lengthened them. He was not running near his limit but, after the nature of such a horse, left to choose his gait, running slowly, but rising ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... have fancied that there was some truth in Ike's declaration about old Basket or Bonyparty, as he called him, for certainly he seemed to quicken his pace as we drew nearer; and so it was that, as we turned into the busy market, and the horse made its way to one particular spot at the south-east corner, Ike triumphantly pointed to the church ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... back again upon him, and, for a moment, he seemed well-nigh lost. But his heart was sound, and there was One who was faithful holding him up: so he grasped his good staff tighter than ever, though its roughness had come out again and sorely pricked his hand; but this seemed only to quicken his steps; and when he had gone on a little while thus firmly, as he looked into his book he saw written on its open page, "I will make darkness light before thee." {76} And as he read them, the words seemed to be fulfilled, for he stepped ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce

... contained the seeds of growth within itself, even to the shedding of many of its present dogmas. If the dogmas fall quietly in their maturity, the precious seed of truth (which will be found in the heart of every dogma that has been able to take living hold upon the world's imagination) will quicken and spring up in its own time: strike at the fruit too soon and ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... occupied the little public room, in which straw was laid down for me to sleep on at night. I found recreation in daily ascents of the Wostrai, the highest peak in the neighbourhood, and so keenly did the fantastic solitude quicken my youthful spirit, that I clambered about the ruins of the Schreckenstein the whole of one moonlit night, wrapped only in a blanket, in order myself to provide the ghost that was lacking, and delighted myself with the hope ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... the blood that falls in righteous cause, Each crimson drop shall nourish snowy flowers And quicken golden grain, bright sheaves of good, That under happier ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley

... notwithstanding all obstructions: but the images in the comparison are so ill-sorted, and the effect so obscurely expressed, that I cannot but think something omitted that connected the last sentence with the former. It is well knovn that the players often shorten speeches to quicken the representation; and it may be suspected, that they sometimes performed their amputations with more haste than judgment, (see ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... he said, after a little interval of tobacco-charmed silence, "one of the things I am most anxious to see is a real railroad wreck. Suppose you quicken up a little and let us have our dead time at the scene of this disaster you ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... perfect perception of the proper use of hospitality, he accosted this witness (a staring, open-mouthed countryman), with suitable professions of friendliness, and carrying him into an adjacent tavern, set him down before a bottle of wine. As soon as the sack had begun to quicken his guest's circulation, the crafty fellow hastened into court with the intelligence that the witness, whom he had left drinking in a room not two hundred yards distant, was in a fit and lying at death's door. The court being asked to wait, the impudent rascal ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... remain the Nice Boy. That's why I like you. You're as refreshing and innocuous as a lettuce salad, and you may glare as much as you like. I hope you'll never be spoilt. Come on. We shall be late for dinner." And she made him quicken his ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... given critics more trouble, in the way of definition, than that between Imagination and Fancy. Fancy, it is held, is given to beguile and quicken the temporal part of our nature; Imagination to incite and support ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Montgomery, Nashville, St. Louis, Vicksburg, New Orleans, and Jacksonville, and very shortly afterward assistant commissioners were designated for those posts of duty. They were required to possess themselves, as soon as practicable, with the duties incident to their offices, to quicken in every way they could and to direct the industry of the freedmen. Notice was given that the relief establishments which had been created by law under the operations of the War Department should be discontinued as soon as they could be consistently with the comfort and proper ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... saw the exemplar of the religious life in its more ecstatic manifestations, but her special influence on him belongs to a later date. In accordance with the family rule he regularly attended church, but the homilies to which he listened were not of a nature to quicken his religious feelings, while the doctrinal instruction he received at home he has himself described as "nothing but a dry kind of morality." Against one article of the creed taught him—the doctrine of original and ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... through the streets, your heart all me; Till you gain the world beyond the town. Then — I fade from your heart, quietly; And your fleet steps quicken. The strong down Smiles you welcome there; the woods that love you Close lovely and conquering ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke

... overcome evil,—life will destroy death. Life from the Lord and in the Lord, though small at first as to the number of persons whom it animates, will increase until it fill the world. It will absorb surrounding death, and in absorbing quicken it. He that sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new" ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... Now awful beauty puts on all its arms; The fair each moment rises in her charms, 140 Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace, And calls forth all the wonders of her face; Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. The busy Sylphs surround their darling care, These set the head, and those divide the hair, Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown: And Betty's praised ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... will surely quicken soon or late, The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate; So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom, Or in this world, or in the world to come: Sing, voice of Spring! Till I too blossom and rejoice ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... that it was necessary to do something to quicken his popularity with the people, and that nothing was more effectual than a successful inroad. The Moors loved the stirring call to arms and a wild foray among the mountains, and delighted more in a hasty spoil, wrested with hard fighting from the Christians, than in all the steady ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... worth the price of some animalism. Still more perniciously it might induce one to believe that a man may have a deep sense of religion side by side with an unbridled sensuality, and that one whose life is morally infamous may yet be able to quicken the moral ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... had been expected; but now I quite enjoyed going in this mixed train, since I could the better observe the country than in the swifter Express. As I drew near the end of my journey, my pulses began to quicken with ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... from the Dauphin's crest thy sword struck fire, It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire Of bold-faced victory. Then leaden age, Quicken'd with youthful spleen and warlike rage, Beat down Alencon, Orleans, Burgundy, And from the pride of Gallia rescued thee. The ireful bastard Orleans, that drew blood From thee, my boy, and had the maidenhood Of thy first fight, I soon encountered, And interchanging ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... to scholar and teacher. The selections have been made with great care, and give evidence of refined taste, and, while perfectly adapted for practice in rhetorical reading, are admirably calculated to quicken the moral perceptions and awaken the finer sensibilities of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... evident that the secretary carried himself with some haughtiness as a ruler of the navy, and that this was resented by some. An amusing instance will be found in the Parliamentary Debates. On May 11th, 1678, the King's verbal message to quicken the supply was brought in by Mr. Secretary Williamson, when Pepys spoke ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... surrender. The aim of Shakespeare is simply to picture life as he sees it, but even to appreciate the picture men must enter into sympathy with the painter. The Scriptures aim not merely to paint life, but to quicken and reproduce life. How much more, then, is needed a surrender of the will before there can be adequate appreciation of the Scriptures? If the Scriptures are the results primarily of will-activities, how can they finally be mastered except by minds ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell

... morning in April—one of those genial growing days that expand the leaf-bud on the trees, and quicken the throbs of the human heart. Lenore went with hat and parasol out into the farm-yard, and walked through the cow-houses. The horned creatures looked full at her with their large eyes, and raised their broad damp noses, some of them lowing in expectation ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... blind Check'd her hand, and changed her mind Just when she had exactly wrought A finish'd pattern without fault? Could she flag, or could she tire, Or lack'd she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health, and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry That babe or mother, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... often enough herself. It was the only means she knew of asserting her authority; for she had no intention of ever being the object of her daughter's contempt. She was harsh to the point of brutality, so that the girl's heart was wont to quicken apprehensively whenever she heard her step. She scolded, she punished, she coerced. But from an outsider, the bare thought of a snub was unendurable, and the possibility that Dinah might by any means ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... the child understands and can reproduce in substance the definition of desert? Far from it! That definition is as dry and barren as the desert itself; it tends to deaden rather than quicken. The pupil must go far beyond the mere cold understanding and reproduction of a topic. He must see the thing talked about, as though in its presence; he must not only see this vividly, but he must enter into its spirit, or feel it; he must experience or live it. Otherwise ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... whatever kind be his greatness, has among his friends those who officiously or insidiously quicken his attention to offences, heighten his disgust, and stimulate his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... whisper low Some of the little spirits that bat-like clung And clustered round the opening. "Lo," they said, While gazed the watch upon those glowing balls, "These are like moons eclipsed; but let them lie Red on the moss, and sear its dewy spires, Until our lord give leave to draw the web, And quicken reverence by his presence dread, For he will know and call to them by name, And they will change. At present he is sick, And wills that none disturb him." So they lay, And there was silence, for the forest tribes Came never near that cave. Wiser than men, They fled the serpent hiss that ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... powerful persecutor, as he still regarded him, and they walked together towards the hotel. The young refugee was nervous and uneasy, and watched with the utmost diligence for an opportunity to slip away. As they were crossing a street, a hack, approaching rapidly, caused Mr. Grant to quicken his pace in order to avoid being run over. Noddy, burdened with the weight of the carpet-bag, did not keep up with him, and he was obliged to fall back to escape ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... pregnant in meaning, so rich in noble deeds, so full of that spiritual vitality which serves to quicken life in others; it bore witness to so many principles which we can only fully understand when we see them in action: it presented so many real pictures of dauntless courage and of Christian heroism, that we welcome gratefully the attempt to reproduce it which has resulted in the ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare

... silk hose, with a taper descent to ankles as fine as a lady's, and insteps bright with large silver buckles. Yet that which surpassed all the beauty of the clothes was the vigor of the man inside them, who seemed to quicken and invigorate the whole, even to the right sleeve, doubled up from the want of any arm inside it. But the loss of the right arm, and the right eye also, seemed to be of no account to the former owner, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... lifeless. Take the rude Indian and educate him, and he is still an Indian. He must be quickened by the breath of the Almighty before he will live. It is religion alone which can lead him to the truest manhood, which will quicken his slumbering intellectual faculties and prevent him from being an easy prey to the selfishness and sinfulness of men. Let us support this society in its grand work, by our money, our sympathy and our prayers. Let us join in the fight, and by-and-by we will share in the triumph. ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various

... in silence and alone for two heavy hours. She heard bell after bell rung, which summoned the monks to their prayers or to their meals. And many a passing footstep made her cheeks flush and her pulse quicken, as she said to herself, "Now, I shall hear about my son;" and she repeated over to herself all the questions that she would ask and the messages she would send, in case the stranger really knew her Hans; when at last the door of the ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick

... our faithful servants with high honours, hoping thereby to quicken the slothful into emulation, when they ask themselves why, under such an impartial rule, they too ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... pieces of oatcake in her hand, which she received with a loving smile; and they set out at a walking pace, which Andrew made no attempt to quicken. ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald

... the tunes which Guadimel composed with such success are still sung to the praise of God. I can bear witness to the forcible manner in which these strains, rising to heaven from the lips of parents, children and domestics, quicken piety, and stir up the best affections of the heart towards God and man. I have seen and felt the effect produced by them in the humble dwelling of the village pastor, where none but human voices swelled the notes; and in the chateau, where the harp and the organ have mingled their fine sounds ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various

... order that I'm going to fill. We may as well quicken up a bit now. You understand, Castellan is looking after the guns, and his sub., Mackenzie is communicating orders to my Chief Engineer, who ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... will not give his glory to Baal. It was needed, to arrest the nation in the fearful mechanical tendency it was assuming, whereby it was near denying the most holy and vital principles of its being; and it was needed, to warm and quicken the almost dead patriotism of the masses, and to educate them anew in the high and pure sentiments they had suffered to be forgotten, and, in forgetting which, many another ration has gone to irretrievable ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Musicke to mine ears, Haven to my Shipwracke, balme to my wounds, Sunne-beames which on me comfortably shine When Clouds of death are covering me; (so gold, As I by thee, by fire is purified; So showres quicken the Spring; so rough Seas Bring Marriners home, giving them gaines and ease); Imprisonment, gyves, famine, buffetings, The Gibbet and the Racke; Flint stones, the Cushions On which I kneele; a heape of Thornes and Briers, The Pillow to my head; a nasty prison, Able to kill mankinde even with the ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... ambassadors at Genoa, Venice, and Rome, in stirring up the great Italian confederacy, which eventually broke the power of King Charles; and his representations had tended, as much as any other cause, to alarm the jealousy of Sforza, to fix the vacillating politics of Alexander, and to quicken the cautious and dilatory movements of Venice. He had shown equal vigor in action; and contributed mainly to the success of the war by his operations on the side of Roussillon, and still more in Calabria. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... influence, the stepping-stones of his ambition; and the languid beauty, who had formerly seemed ready to "die of a rose," was seen to become the heroine of an insurrection. The vivid interest in affairs which was thus excited in woman must obviously have tended to quicken her intellect, and give it a practical application; and the very sorrows—the heart-pangs and regrets which are inseparable from a life of passion—deepened her nature by the questioning of self and destiny which they occasioned, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... heart; a hand upon the door, a step behind me, and I should have rolled over dead at their feet. So it will be if even now they are waiting for me outside; but, if not, I know where to go, where already it is broad daylight, where the wide open space will quicken and enhance every ray, and the broad river multiply the sun by a million facets of living fire. It is not the light that will fail me, there; and as I have served others, so also will I serve myself, and it may be with better fortune than they ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... the boys scurried along. More than once they had to quicken their pace to what Matty called a "dog-trot." This happened especially when the "signs" ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas

... gentleman! He has grown very earthly, of late, else he would not desire such a thing. And a strong desire it must be to make him feel it desirable. For my part, I only wish for something that, for a short time, may clear my eyes, so that I may see little Pansie's beauty, and quicken my ears, that I may hear her sweet voice, and give me nerve, while God keeps me here, that I may live longer to earn bread for dear Pansie. She provided for, I would gladly lie down yonder with Bessie and our children. Ah! the vanity of desiring lengthened days!—There!—I ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... court of Vienna. In the beginning of June, mareschal de Lorges passed the Rhine at Philipsburgh, in order to give battle to the imperialists encamped at Halibron. The prince of Baden, who was not yet joined by the Saxons, Hessians, nor by the troops of Munster and Paderborn, dispatched couriers to quicken the march of these auxiliaries, and advanced to Eppingen, where he proposed to wait till they should come up; but on the fifteenth, receiving undoubted intelligence that the enemy were in motion towards ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... eyes rose, with that odd questioning look. Maggie thought she perceived something else there too. She gathered her forces quietly in silence an instant or two, feeling her heart quicken like the pulse of a moving engine. Then she sprang to ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... occurring, yet, viewed with reference to the long periods of a nation's life, it is an immense revolution almost instantly effected. We are perhaps already one half prepared adequately to use our tremendous advantage. New disasters may be providentially requisite to quicken our education in the right direction; more punishment for our complicity in the crimes of the South; new incentives to a more perfect love of justice as a people; but every indication points to the early achievement of these substantial victories over ourselves, while, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... rowers to quicken their pace, and in little over an hour they were alongside the hull. As soon as the vessels were close enough for those on the poop of the galley to look down on to the deck of the other craft, it was seen ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... man reached the loneliest portion of the road, he naturally put spurs to his mule as if to quicken that decorous pace which the obedient animal had acquired through long experience of its master's habits. The locality had an unfavorable reputation. Sailors— deserters from whale-ships—had been seen lurking about ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... to his son, as he lay in the parched weariness of his last illness, "give me a great thought, that I may quicken myself ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou



Words linked to "Quicken" :   energise, deepen, intensify, brisk, stir, quickener, come to, excite, arouse, perk up, brisk up, vivify, brisken, move, stimulate, brace, energize, decelerate, resuscitate



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