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Reform   /rəfˈɔrm/  /rɪfˈɔrm/   Listen
Reform

verb
1.
Make changes for improvement in order to remove abuse and injustices.
2.
Bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one.  Synonyms: reclaim, rectify, regenerate.  "Reform your conduct"
3.
Produce by cracking.
4.
Break up the molecules of.
5.
Improve by alteration or correction of errors or defects and put into a better condition.
6.
Change for the better.  Synonyms: see the light, straighten out.  "The habitual cheater finally saw the light"



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"Reform" Quotes from Famous Books



... that Field put this new paragraph on the wire just about the time that Bok's actual engagement was announced. Field was now deeply contrite, and sincerely promised Bok and his fiancee to reform. "I'm through, you mooning, spooning calf, you," he wrote Bok, and his friend believed him, only to receive a telegram the next day from Mrs. Field warning him that "Gene is planning a series of telephonic conversations ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... seventy, and canes his grand-child (a lad of fifty) for keeping late hours. I called on old S—g a morning or two ago: he is ninety-three. I found him reading his newspaper, and inveighing against the outcry for Reform and short Parliaments—declaring that, rather than be forced down into Cheshire to vote oftener than once in every six or seven years, he, for his part, would sell his franchise for a straw. 'Twas ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various

... the convict should, for his own sake, have the indeterminate sentence applied to him upon conviction of his first penal offense. He is much more likely to reform then than he would be after he had had a term in the State prison and was again convicted, and the chance of his reformation would be lessened by each subsequent experience of this kind. The great object of the indeterminate sentence, so far as the security ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger

... is as undeniable as that between Luther's doctrines and the great social uprising in Germany a century and a half afterwards. When, upon the declaration of the Papal Schism, Wyclif abandoned all hope of a reform of the Church from within, and, defying the injunctions of foe and friend alike, entered upon a course of theological opposition, the popular influence of his followers must have tended to spread a theory admitting of very easy application ad hominem—the theory, namely, that the tenure of all ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... well illustrated by the conditions of our 'S.E.' homophones: and that something better should win the first place, I hold to be the most desirable of possible events. But perhaps our 'S.E.' is not yet so far committed to the process of decay as to be incapable of reform, and the machinery that we use for penetration may be used as well for organizing a reform and for enforcing it. There is as much fashion as inevitable law in our 'P.S.P.' or 'S.E.' talk, and if the fashion for a better, that is a ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... such fools!" he said aloud with conviction. What amused him most was Topolski's proposed reform of the theater which he unceremoniously termed an idiocy. Cabinski knew the public well and knew ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... only reform your manners, Alfred, you would find friends enough, from the Creator, who only requires of you that 'you cease to do evil and learn to do well,' down to the humblest of his creatures—down to that poor boy whom you so heartlessly insulted ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... of great men arise to save and revive and reform religion in every critical epoch. Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Ezra, Judas Maccabeus come upon the stage, one after the other, perform their several parts with singular aptitude, and prepare the way for the next ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... believe to be God's design in raising up the preachers called Methodists? Not to form any new sect, but to reform the nation, particularly the church; and to spread scriptural holiness over the land." (Large Minutes of Conference, 1744-89, Qu. 3.) In the same, Qu. 45, we have this answer: "We are not seceders, nor do we bear ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various

... understand but we were a theatre-going people in the sense that it is the highest fashion to be seen at the play; and yet we are sensible that it is not so, and that the Boston which makes itself known in civilization—in letters, politics, reform—goes as little to ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... no lengthy consideration. He did not "reform" the opera form—the opera form of Mozart and Weber needed no reforming—he simply developed it. He did reform operatic performances by insisting on precision and intelligence in place of slovenliness and stupidity, on enthusiasm ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... of merely to propose a remedy. To a man of his intensity and singleness, there is no question but that this survey was melancholy in the extreme. His dissatisfaction is proved by the eagerness with which he threw himself into the cause of reform; and what would have discouraged another braced Yoshida for his task. As he professed the theory of arms, it was firstly the defences of Japan that occupied his mind. The external feebleness of that country was then illustrated by the manners of overriding ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in conduct and morality through the king only behaving in a proper way. Cruel punishments are scarcely needed to reform the world. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... I am afraid it would put us all out sadly. Only fancy her 'having a mission,' and trying to reform me!" ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... his early and late activities brings out the singleness of the central purpose moving through his life. His first fight, in 1888, for Ballot Reform was made that the will of the people of the State might be honestly interpreted; later, in Tacoma, Washington, he sided with his printers, against his interest as owner, in their fight to maintain union wages; once more in San Francisco, he took, without a retaining fee, the case of the blackmailed ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... afternoon and evening Andrew Sevier sat at an editorial desk down at the office of the reform journal and pumped hot shot through their flimsy though plausible arguments. His blood was up and his pen more than a match for any in the state, so he often sat most of the night writing, reviewing and meeting issue after issue. The editor-in-chief, whose heart ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... had been profoundly impressed by the noble labors of Elizabeth Fry in the prisons of England. It was this woman's hand that pointed out the way for Fliedner in Germany. The prisons in his own land had remained untouched by any spirit of reform. The convicts were crowded together in small, filthy cells, and often in damp cellars without light or air; boys, who had thoughtlessly committed some trifling misdemeanor, with gray-headed, corrupt sinners; young girls ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... came to the attention of the department as the result of a reform I have inaugurated. When I went in office I found that many of the death certificates were faulty, and in the course of our investigations we ran across one that seemed to be most vaguely worded. I don't know yet whether it was ignorance—or something worse. But it started ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... administration from the revolution of 1789 to the revolution of 1848. Dr. Schaeffner exhibits in this volume no admiration for the various attempts to re-create the State according to abstract theories; he goes altogether for moderate progress, gradual reform, and keeping up the relation between ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... principles of right reason to use it aright, and preserve them from being seduced to their hurt by that which affords them so much delight. For neither did Lycurgus, the valiant son of Dryas (as Homer calls him) ("Iliad," vi. 130.) act like a man of sound reason in the course which he took to reform his people that were much inclined to drunkenness, by travelling up and down to destroy all the vines in the country; whereas he should have ordered that every vine should have a well of water near it, that (as Plato saith) the drunken deity might be reduced to temperance by a sober one. For ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... the necessary afflatus to write his books of science and travel. Upon Hyson he would have attempted the Iliad, upon Bohea he would undertake to square the circle, discover perpetual motion, or reform the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... Knapp. "He confessed some of his rascality to Mr. Knapp, but pleaded that he was anxious to reform. Mr. Knapp agreed to help him, but made the condition that he should take another name, and should never allow the relationship to be known. Mr. Lane—I can not call him by his true name—was ready ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... and flung into the Molendinar burn, and the auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the flaes are kaimed aff her, and a' body was alike pleased. And I hae heard wise folk say, that if the same had been done in ilka kirk in Scotland, the Reform wad just hae been as pure as it is e'en now, and we wad hae mair Christian-like kirks; for I hae been sae lang in England, that naething will drived out o' my head, that the dog-kennel at Osbaldistone Hall is better than mony a house ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Mr. Ripley was a persevering friend and patron of the State Reform School at West Meriden. He had long sustained the office of Trustee for the County of Hartford, and was at the time of his death, the Chairman of that body, and a prominent member of its Executive Committee. His frequent visits ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... his thigh when the blow fell there, the dominant faction only makes laws to protect itself against an adversary who is, or is thought to be, already in the field, or it introduces a hurried, ill-digested reform under the pressure of ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... paper had done what a terrier could not do. The machine at one period of its career had been enlarged, and the neat seaming of the metal was an ecstasy to the eye of a good workman. Long ago, it was known, this machine had printed a Reform newspaper at Stockport. Now, after thus participating in the violent politics of an age heroic and unhappy, it had been put to printing small posters of auctions and tea-meetings. Its movement was double: first that of a handle to bring the bed under the platen, and second, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... the so-called "White Slave Traffic." There is always a certain sociological interest in the public utterances of an Archbishop of Canterbury. He is a great State official who automatically registers the level of the public opinion of the respectable classes. The futility for deterrence or reform of the lash or other physical torture as applied to adults has long been a commonplace of historical criminology, and Collas, the standard historian of flagellation, pointing out that the lash can at best only breed the virtues of slavery, declares that "the history of flagellation is that of a ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... and coddling to keep it alive, but thrived far better on Spartan severity and simplicity; hence, it took two centuries of gradual and most tardy softening and modifying of character to prepare the Puritan mind for so advanced a reform and luxury as proper warmth in ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... Evangel had been translated into Arabic; moreover travel and converse with his Jewish and Christian friends and companions must have convinced the Meccan Apostle that Christianity was calling as loudly for reform as Judaism had done. [FN319] An exaggerated Trinitarianism or rather Tritheism, a "Fourth Person" and Saint-worship had virtually dethroned the Deity; whilst Mariolatry had made the faith a religio muliebris, and superstition had ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... be thoroughly cleansed; he visits the marketplace, examines the quality of the bread at the bakers' stalls, and the meat at the butchers'. He tests the accuracy of the weights and scales; fines and imprisons the impostors, and institutes a complete reform, concluding his sanitary and philanthropic arrangements by the ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... you, Lauderdale, none of these unmitigated rascals were half so bad as I am. Think of me at my worst, a scoundrel of the deepest dye, and you will about hit the mark. My dear little, pretty little Rose is not much better; but she is such a sweet little sinner, that—in short, I don't want her to reform. I am in a state of indescribable beatitude, of course—only two days wedded—and immersed in the joys of la lune de miel. Forsyth—you know Forsyth, of "Ours"—was my aider and abettor, accompanied by ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... darkness,—a monastic cell, an inquisitorial dungeon, where no ray could pierce. She was the bulwark of the Church, against whose adamantine front the wrath of innovation beat in vain. In every country of Europe the party of freedom and reform was the national party, the party of reaction and absolutism was the Spanish party, leaning on Spain, looking to her for help. Above all, it was so in France; and while within her bounds there was a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... and pursuers caused the enemy to fire high to avoid killing their own men. In fact, on that occasion the Union soldier nearest the enemy was in the safest position. Without awaiting further orders or stopping to reform, on our troops went to the second line of works; over that and on for the crest—thus effectually carrying out my orders of the 18th for the battle and of the 24th (*17) ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... course; the same parrot-cry! And it may be for years, and it be for ever, before reform is introduced. The probability is, that the present unsatisfactory condition of affairs may exist at St. Martin's-le-Grand ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various

... problems of our time. His appeal is to honest intelligence in whatever concerns human welfare. He has done much to humanize theology and stimulate popular interest in modern scholarship. Moreover, in the region of industrial, social, and civic reform he stands out conspicuously as a bold champion of the Golden Rule in its application to every-day activities; and though sometimes charged with being a dreamer, he shows that the sky (to use his own figure) is less remote than is ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... worth mentioning; what was really too exacerbating to be borne was the folly and vileness of the Whigs. 'King Jog,' the 'Bogey,' 'Mother Cole,' and the rest of them—they were either knaves or imbeciles. Lord Grey was an exception; but then Lord Grey, besides passing the Reform Bill, presented Mr. Creevey with the Treasurership of the Ordnance, and in fact was altogether ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... down the ages as part of "the sacred deposit of the faith" until Watson, the most prolific writer of the evangelical reform in the eighteenth century and the standard theologian of the evangelical party, declared: "We have no reason at all to believe that the animal had a serpentine form in any mode or degree until its transformation; that he was then degraded to a reptile ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... shall be left," she retorted; and in the thirty-five minutes they had at the station before their train started she outlined a scheme of social reform which she meant to put in force as soon as people began to gather in summer force at ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... reform the jail. The mockery, and roguery, and Vicar's perseverance, while a practised hand is picking his pocket—are admirably represented. "I therefore read them a portion of the service, with a loud unaffected voice, and found my audience perfectly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... revolt among those of Leyte, and reclaim certain outlaws and bandits. The Spaniards also receive their ministrations, especially in Manila; the fathers adjust dissensions and family quarrels, and reform several dissolute persons. The college at Manila prospers, and enlarges its curriculum. The labors of the Jesuits effect certain important changes in social conditions among the natives. Usury, unjust enslavement, and polygamy are greatly lessened, and sometimes entirely ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... Corruption of Brahmanism The Brahmanical caste Character of the Brahmans Rise of Buddhism Gautama Experiences of Gautama Travels of Buddha His religious system Spread of his doctrine Buddhism a reaction against Brahmanism Nirvana Gloominess of Buddhism Buddhism as a reform of morals Sayings of Siddartha His rules Failure of Buddhism ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... home range, which is Upper Milk River. But it was cussed lonesome with all the old bunch gone; so I sold my outfit and quit cow-punching for good. I wonder if the puncher lives that didn't sell his saddle and bed, and reform at least once in ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower

... My governor has stopped supplies, and has vowed by his beard not to advance another shilling, or pay a debt, till I reform. As a preliminary step toward it, he insists upon a wife, and I am trying to choose one for I am deeper ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... against the Pietists that they wrote but little. Writing was not their mission. It was theirs to act, to reform the practical life and faith of the people, not to waste all their strength in a war of books. They wrote what they needed to carry out their lofty aim; and this was, perhaps, sufficient. They did lack profundity of thought; but, let it be remembered that their work was restorative, not ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... with plans for the reform or abolition of the general property tax are proposals for the reform of land taxation. A primary aim of these proposals, some of which suggest elements of the single tax doctrine, is to secure a more correct assessment of land values. ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... continued to repeat the old arguments, and there were many who insisted upon the belief as absolutely necessary to ordinary orthodoxy; but it is evident that it had become a mere conventionality, that men only believed that they believed it, and now a reform seemed possible in the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... be found in reform in the education of our youth, whereby the utmost respect for the law and for those by whom it is administered shall be inculcated as the groundwork of all patriotism and national progress, while at the same time cultivating a loftier appreciation of the blessings of social ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... these was—and a good one in suitable cases—that if you got hold of a boy who thought too much of himself, the best thing was to stamp upon him upon every possible occasion, and so help him to reform his ways. No doubt it saved a great deal of trouble to give this rule a universal application, and it was often successful. Every now and then, however, the ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... repetition of his former arguments, of which experience had proved the insufficiency. She was aware that, if before marriage his resolution and constancy had not been able to support the trial, it would be folly or madness to marry him with the vague hope that she might reform his character. She therefore continued steady to her resolution; and as she found that Vivian's disappointment was greater than she had expected, she immediately withdrew from his mother's house. The ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... falling into profligate factions. I have seen this before; but the worst symptom now is the change in the (p. 300) manners of the people. The continuance of the present Administration ... will open wide all the flood-gates of corruption. Will a change produce reform? Pause and ponder! Slavery, the Indians, the public lands, the collection and disbursement of public money, the tariff, and foreign affairs:—what ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... may, and should, reprove when official duty or his neighbor's case requires; it serves to reform the subject. To quote Solomon again (Prov 27, 6): "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are profuse [deceitful]." Reproofs and stripes prompted by love and a faithful heart are beneficial. On the other hand, an enemy may use fair and flattering words when he has ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... Cain Rather Mixed Rather Flashy Idea, A Ramblings Real Estate of Woman, The Religious Amusements Remonstrance, A Religion of Temperance Receipe to be Tested Reform in Juvenile Literature Rejuvenated France Right and Left Robins, The Romaunt of the Oyster Rose by any other Name, A Roar from Niagara, A Romance of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various

... I—er—I thought you might give me another chance. Oh, that's what I want, another chance! You know how my father has reformed. I want to reform, too. I want to go away somewhere ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield

... into their new positions. In this state of public feeling demagogues were not slow to see their advantage. They fanned the flames of discontent and jealousy till they broke out in Mr. Berry's 'platform,' the bursting-up of the landed estates, reform amounting to revolution, protection ad absurdum, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... over your cattle with your faithful dogs and the stars for company, you're going to be improved. (You'll sure stand a lot of it, too!) A woman's relief club back East has felt the burden of your no-accountness and general orneriness, and has sent one of its leading members out here to reform yuh. You're going to be hazed into a Cowboys' Mutual Improvement and Social Society, and quit smoking cigarettes and cussing your hosses and laying over Rusty's bar when yuh ride into town; and for pleasure and recreation you're going to read Tennyson's poems, and when yuh get caught out in ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... the Simple Life I think you would admit if you saw us at our meals. I find that food really matters very little. Our cook is of the jungle jungly. Autolycus is disgusted with him, and does his best to reform him. Chota-hazri I have alone, as Boggley is away inspecting before seven o'clock. I emerge from my tent and find a table before Boggley's tent with a cloth on it,—not particularly clean,—a loaf of bread (our bread is made in jail: a chuprassi goes to fetch ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... and moral reform wrought in the Five Points reminds me of another good man whom the people of this city and our whole country cannot revere too highly as a public benefactor. I allude to Mr. Anthony Comstock, the indefatigable Secretary ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... Reference Works; General Literature; Scientific, Philosophical, Liberal, Progressive and Reform Books. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various

... nothing but a recess in the wall with a door to it. It cannot be more than five feet wide and eight feet long, with an open loophole to the wind. If a man were here for forty days and then pardoned his life would be worth very little. A bitter eyrie from which to watch the city one had risked all to reform. What thoughts must have been his in that trap! What reviews of policy! What illuminations as to ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... she must spend another night in the bed led her to active measures of reform. With disgustful desperation, she emptied the room and swept it as with fire and sword. Her change of mind, from the passive to the active state, relieved and stimulated her, and she hurried from one needed reform to another. She drew others into ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... England and New France. The one was the offspring of a triumphant government; the other, of an oppressed and fugitive people: the one, an unflinching champion of the Roman Catholic reaction; the other, a vanguard of the Reform. Each followed its natural laws of growth, and each came to its natural result. Vitalized by the principles of its foundation, the Puritan commonwealth grew apace. New England was preeminently the land of material ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... "Canzone di un Piagnone sul bruciamento delle Vanita." Savonarola himself was an artist and musician in early life, the love of the beautiful was strong within him, only he would have it go hand in hand with the good and true. His dominant spirit was that of reform; as he tried to regenerate mind, morals, literature, and state government, so he would reform art, and fling over it the spiritual light ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)

... century of the empire there is observable a growing sentiment of humanity towards the bondsman. Imperial edicts take away from the master the right to kill his slave, or to sell him to the trader in gladiators, or even to treat him with any undue severity. This marks the beginning of a slow reform which in the course of ten or twelve centuries resulted in the complete abolition of slavery in ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... you to lay perjury upon your souls; for as good a Spanish soul as is possessed by any of you declares, that you may now, in due conformity to your oaths, reconsider, and, where advisable, reform your Constitution.' Do we not know what constructions have been put in this country, on the coronation oath, as to its operation on what is called the Catholic Question? Will any man say that it has been ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... survived to the present day by virtue of the astonishing faculty of conservation which India seems to possess. Buddhism failed in all its approaches toward the West. Druidism remained a form exclusively national, and without universal capacity. The Greek attempts at reform, Orpheism, the Mysteries, did not suffice to give a solid aliment to the soul. Persia alone succeeded in making a dogmatic religion, almost Monotheistic, and skilfully organized; but it is very possible that this organization itself was but an imitation, or borrowed. At all events, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... spirit of monopoly and of a restrictive policy was in force until about 1815. So far as relates to the evils of the colonial system, then, the two were not very unlike. But into the field of administrative reform and the grant of autonomous powers to her colonies, Spain never has entered. The abuses of the early part of the century characterize also its later years. Discrimination against the native-born, even of the purest Spanish stock; officials who ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... for fornication. JOHNSON. 'It is right, Sir. Infamy is attached to the crime, by universal opinion, as soon as it is known. I would not be the man who would discover it, if I alone knew it, for a woman may reform; nor would I commend a parson who divulges a woman's first offence; but being once divulged, it ought to be infamous. Consider, of what importance to society the chastity of women is. Upon that all the property in the world depends[582]. We hang a thief ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... from office to office, always descending in respectability, because always violating my promises not to drink. Occasionally I would make a desperate effort to reform, gathering about me every element of strength which I could possibly command, and for a while I would be successful, but just as hope would begin to light up my darkened path and my friends begin to feel a new-born confidence in me, an infernal and terrible desire would take ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... became possessed with a rage. She desired to convert some one, to recover some estray, to reform ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... and Plataea, where he did his duty. (M3) But his disposition called him elsewhere, and put him upon entering into another course, where no less glory was to be acquired; and where he was soon without any competitors. As a superior genius, he took upon him to reform, or rather to create tragedy anew; of which he has, in consequence, been always acknowledged the inventor and father. Father Brumoi, in a dissertation which abounds with wit and good sense, explains the manner in which AEschylus conceived the true idea of tragedy from Homer's epic poems. ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... that is fair. And more especially put down open, shameless, and brutal bribery and corruption, for its very coarseness is, in itself, an additional crime. But no reform is efficacious that does not come from within; and when refined men wage war against vulgar vices, let them look sharply to their own. I do not say, that by taking thought they will be able to do entirely away with the seductive influence of a bow, or a dinner, or a kind action; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various

... delicate, and any other Order than the Jesuits might have hesitated to tackle a reform which meant losing a very ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... visit was to a factory of handloom silk-weavers, where 180 hands, half of them women, are employed. These new industrial openings for respectable employment for women and girls are very important, and tend in the direction of a much-needed social reform. The striped silk fabrics produced ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... Hindoos are allowed to marry as many wives as they like without undertaking the responsibility of protecting them, and where little girls marry at a most tender age and sacrifice all prospects of healthy physical and mental development, it will take centuries before any solid and extensive reform is achieved." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... not discover the heretical tendencies of his wife Renee until 1554, when he placed her in a convent. The noble princess remained true to the Reformation. As the Inquisition stamped out the reform movement in Ferrara while her son was reigning duke, she returned to France, where she lived with the Huguenots in her Castle of Montargis, dying in 1575. It is worthy of note that the Duke of Guise was ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... had been missed from his accustomed haunts for some time now, and it was whispered that he had been sent to a reform school by his father, who wielded considerable power in political circles, but could not expect to keep his lawless boy from arrest if he continued to defy the authorities as he ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie

... also argues that reform must come "from above and not from below," and that "the movement for regeneration can come from above and ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... drinking, gambling, and smoking. Deceit and perjury are no longer looked upon as crimes by them; they do not ignore the scandal such vices bring upon them; but while each individually exclaims against the corruption of manners, none reform themselves." ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... them with a civilization considerable but peculiar, detest that which in the language of the West would be called reform. The entire Mohammedan world detests it. The multitudes of colored men who swarm in the great continent of Africa detest it, and it is detested by that large part of mankind which we are accustomed to leave on one side as barbarous or savage. The millions upon millions ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... until I washed my face.) Then, when King Harry died—and it was none too soon for this poor realm—came the goodly days of our young Josiah King Edward, which were the true reforming of the Church; that which went afore were rather playing at reform. Men's passions were too much mixed up with it. But after the blue sky returned the tempest. Ay me, those five years of Queen Mary, what they be to look back on! Howbeit, matters were worser in the shires and down south than up hither. ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... a sounder and safer financier than Mr. Gladstone; honoured as the Chancellor of the Exchequer who first redeemed the financial reputation of the Whigs from the discredit that had clung to the party of retrenchment and reform for a whole generation. Of the small minority who know him as the founder of the English school of historical sceptics, how many have heard of his multifarious literary and political works, or his shrewd, genial, two-edged, criticisms on public and social life? ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... men worked. Lent began, not on Ash Wednesday, but on the Monday following. We have no clearer account of the Culdee peculiarities that St Margaret reformed. The hereditary tenure of benefices by lay protectors she did not reform, but she restored the ruined cells of Iona, and established hospitia for pilgrims. She was decidedly unpopular with her Celtic subjects, who now made a struggle ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... movement party, and the countenance he has from time to time given to measures of a decidedly liberal cast, he never was, and is still as far from being, a Democrat. Throughout his career he has been a consistent Liberal: always advocating such measures of reform as were calculated to remove abuses, while they in no way affected the stability and integrity of the institutions of the country. While, on the one hand, he has declared his most unequivocal opposition to the ballot and universal suffrage, on the other he has advocated popular ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... was moved a hundred yards nearer the wheat-field. Here it became entangled in the ebb of a charge—the brigade which had rushed by coming back, piecemeal, broken and driven by an iron flail. It would reform and charge again, but now there was confusion. All the field was confused, dismal and dreadful, beneath the orange-tinted smoke. The smoke rolled and billowed, a curtain of strange texture, now parting, now closing, and when it parted disclosing immemorial Death ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... the human mind; to suppress is bad. We must reform and transform. Certain faculties in man are directed towards the Unknown; thought, revery, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. What is conscience? It is the compass of the Unknown. Thought, revery, prayer,—these are great and mysterious radiations. Let us ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... that I don't mince matters. I take our Doctor as I find him, rough and allopathic; but I am sure he might be improved in the course of two or three generations. We may leave this, however, to Nature and the Army Medical Department. Reform is not my business. I have no proposals to offer that will accelerate the progress of the Doctor towards a ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... enjoyed a more extended fame, and laid its foundations so deep, that years and changing fashions have not sufficed to eradicate it. This phrase was "Flare up!" and it is, even now, a colloquialism in common use. It took its rise in the time of the Reform riots, when Bristol was nearly half burned by the infuriated populace. The flames were said to have flared up in the devoted city. Whether there was any thing peculiarly captivating in the sound, or in the idea of these ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... the Russian nobility and lived on an immense estate in Ukraine, surrounded only by illiterate peasants. It was another beautiful case of mismating: a man of forty who had gone the pace marrying a girl of seventeen to educate her and reform himself. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... set his face against any such deliberate compromise between Mammon and lofty ideals it was superfluous to affirm. He stood for a vast and beneficent reform and by exhorting the world to embody it in institutions awakened in some people—in the masses were already stirring—thoughts and feelings that might long have remained dormant. But beyond this he did not go. His tendencies, or, say, rather velleities—for they proved to be hardly more—were ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the fate of all freedom; it will not be introduced into our laws until after it has taken possession of our minds. But if it be true that a reform must be generally understood, in order that it may be solidly established, it follows that nothing can retard it so much as that which misleads public opinion; and what is more likely to mislead it than those writings which seem to favor freedom by ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... as well as of its ethical value, has hitherto so little pervaded the educated classes, this is due chiefly to the defects of our school training. It is true that in the course of the last few decades an infinite deal has been spoken and written about school reform and the principles of education; but of any real progress there is as yet but little trace. Here also reigns the physical law of inertia; here also—and more especially in German schools—the scholasticism ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel

... their ancestors, in accordance with the promise which the princes of the country were accustomed to make.[321] Fortunately a small minority was found to offer a request of an entirely opposite tenor; and Jeanne d'Albret, with her characteristic firmness, declared in reply "that she would reform religion in her country, whoever might oppose." So much discontent did this decision provoke that there was danger ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... him; you shot him in pure wantonness. But you killed Doubler for money. You would have killed my father had I not been there to prevent you. Perhaps you can't help killing people. You have my sympathy on that account, and I hope that in time you will do better—will reform. But ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... purchasing for the National Gallery the portrait of himself, which Sir Joshua presented to his native town of Plympton as his substitute, having been elected mayor of the town—an honour that was according to the expectation of the electors thus repaid. The Municipal Reform brought into office in the town of Plympton, as elsewhere, a set of men who neither valued art nor the fame of their eminent townsman. Men who would convert the very mace of office into cash, could not be expected to keep a portrait; so it was sold by auction, and for a mere trifle. It was offered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... girl to tell her the wrong things he has done. I was wild, too, when I was a youngster. There was a girl I thought enough of to tell. She wasn't your kind, honey. It came near sending me to the devil for good. You know better. No girl ought to be fool enough to hitch up with a man to reform him. But if he has already taken a brace and straightened the kinks ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... events. The vast majority of those who followed his public career had but a scanty acquaintance with the resources of his sagacity and foresight. He spoke to the people on a few subjects only. The wisdom of Free Trade; the necessity of Parliamentary Reform; the dangerous tendency of those laws which favour the accumulation of land in few hands; the urgent need for a system of national education; the mischief of the mere military spirit; the prudence ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... yet you will make money out of a company for reforming the people of Megalia, making them civilized, Christian—a thing that is not at all possible—ever, in any way. Tell me, my friend, could you not start a company to develop, reform, improve Corinne and me. Believe me, it would ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... Boniface VIII. to take place at the conclusion of each century, might be renewed at the end of each fifty years; and having issued a decree for the establishment of it, the Romans, in acknowledgment of the benefit, consented that he should send four cardinals to reform the government of the city, and appoint senators according to his own pleasure. The pope again declared Louis of Tarento, king, and in gratitude for the benefit, Queen Joan gave Avignon, her inheritance, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... scornfully. "A fine home this has been for me—snapped at, found fault with, treated like a charity pauper. Do your duty, Mr. Wagner. But I warn you that no law can send me to the reform school. This woman is not my legal guardian. She is not rightfully even a relative. I have friends in Fairview, I tell you, and they won't see me wronged. I wonder what my poor dead father would say to you for ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness

... Christ. Shelley's notes to Queen Mab were my creed, as his poetry and Whitman's furnished me my Bible. Through them I would reform the world! ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... advocate had the advantage, too, of a commanding presence. He was tall and moulded in almost herculean form, and he had eyes which were often compared with those of Robert Burns—the light of genius was in them. There is a full-length picture of him in the Reform Club, London, which enables one to understand how stately and imposing his presence ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... to put its hand as a whole to any great political or social movement before it was strong enough to control the forces which it evoked. Hence her shrinking from all idea of this Society plunging, as a Society, into political work or social reform. Not that individuals of the Society might not do it, not that members of it might not use their best thought and energy in order to bring forward and strengthen any movement which was really for ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... convict population is one of arrant cowardice; not unfrequently some become desperate, and quite indifferent as to life, yet a plan requiring cool or continued courage is seldom put into execution. The worst feature in the whole case is that although there exists what may be called a legal reform, and comparatively little is committed which the law can touch, yet that any moral reform should take place appears to be quite out of the question. I was assured by well-informed people that a man who should try to improve, could not while living with other assigned servants;—his ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... great-uncles fought in the most intolerant fashion at Inkerman—he was specially mentioned in dispatches, I believe—and their great-grandfather smashed all his Whig neighbours' hot houses when the great Reform Bill was passed. Still, as you say, they are at an impressionable age. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... for all debts due to them, had been so complicated by various oppressive laws, that at one time the East India Company had threatened to stop all business. Lord Amherst, however, accomplished nothing in the direction of reform. From the date of his landing at Tientsin, he was persistently told that unless he agreed to perform the kotow, he could not possibly be permitted to an audience. It was probably his equally persistent refusal to do so—a ceremonial which had been excused by ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... shows both the benevolence of the king and the exceeding poverty, at that time, of the peasantry of France. Sully, in speaking of the corruption which had prevailed and of the measures of reform ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... procedure are a masterly exposition of the principles of the Constitution and of the government established by it; of the duty of the citizen to understand the Constitution and to conform his conduct to its requirements; and of the right of the people to reform or to amend the Constitution in order to make representative government more effective and responsive to their present and future needs. The addresses on law and its administration state how legal procedure should be modified and simplified ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... to make a Quaker swear," quoth he, still laughing. "No, no, Kit never listens to me—why, he would never listen even to my father, until the gout and the Catholic Relief Bill, and last of all, the Reform Bill, broke him down, and softened ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... stronghold. Carera, the honest and faithful, therefore proposes to become virtuous. He has, doubtless, of late experienced certain qualms of conscience respecting the trade he is at present engaged in, and he has made up his mind to abandon it. He has also resolved to reform his friend Giuseppe; and, in order that the reformation of that estimable person may be made thoroughly effectual, he has undertaken—for a consideration, most probably a share of the plunder—to point out to us, the captain-general's deputies, the various rocks, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... given: led thereunto by uncertain report only; which his Majesty truly acknowledged for the author of all lies. "Blame no man," saith Siracides, "before thou have inquired the matter: understand first, and then reform righteously. 'Rumor, res sine teste, sine judice, maligna, fallax'; Rumor is without witness, without judge, malicious and deceivable." This vanity of vulgar opinion it was, that gave St. Augustine argument to affirm, that he feared the praise of good men, and detested ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... assure his alliance on both sides." "He trusts to bring about that his Majesty the French king and he shall become and remain in good, fast, and sure alliance together; and so ensuring that they three (the Pope, Francis, and Charles V.) shall be able to reform and set good order in the rest of Christendom. But whether his Unhappiness's—I mean his Holiness's—intention, is set for the welfare and utility of Christendom, or for his own insincerity and singular purpose, I remit that to God and to them that know more of ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... onslaught upon the octopus, and I am happy to say that things are going as well as the most ardent muck-raker on the most active fifteen-cent reform magazine could wish. The suit has been put on the calendar for trial in Massachusetts, and in New York State the Superintendent of Insurance is causing more trouble than we ourselves could possibly have ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... unanimously elected their Abbot. The financial affairs of the establishment had been greatly neglected, the walls of the building were falling into ruin, and everything was in disorder. Trithemius, by his good management and regularity, introduced a reform in every branch of expenditure. The monastery was repaired, and a yearly surplus, instead of a deficiency, rewarded him for his pains. He did not like to see the monks idle, or occupied solely between prayers for their business, and chess ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... Whites, seeing that the increase of the Blacks, as correctly represented in the "Bow of Ulysses," is just as rapid as the diminution of the White population. And therefore, Mr. Froude's "Danger-to-the-Whites" cry in support of his anti-reform manifesto would not appear, after all, to be quite so justifiable ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... of attack, a Highland cap upon a sword, and in an instant a deadly fire was poured upon the unsuspecting enemy. Volley after volley succeeded, strewing the ground with the dead and dying. The Spaniards sprang to their feet in confusion and panic. Some of their officers attempted to reform their broken ranks, but in vain; all discipline was gone, orders were unheard, safety alone was sought. In a minute more, with a Highland shout, the platoon burst upon them with levelled bayonet and gleaming claymore, and they fled like panic-stricken deer; some to the marsh, where ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... landed estates at an easy rate. Others took refuge there from the frowns of fortune and the rigour of unmerciful creditors. Youth reduced to misery by giddy passion and excess embarked for the new settlement, where they found leisure to reform, and where necessity taught them the unknown virtues of prudence and temperance. Restless spirits, fond of roving abroad, found also the means of gratifying their humours, and abundance of scope for enterprise and adventure. It cannot be deemed wonderful if many of them were disappointed, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... a time, while great digging was done farther back at Bapaume and the next line of defense. Successive weeks of bad weather and our own tragic losses checked the impetus of the British and French driving power, and the Germans were able to reorganize and reform. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... he afterwards affects melancholy, from pure satisfaction of heart, and professes reform, because it is the farthest thing in the world from his thoughts. He has no qualms of conscience, and therefore would as soon talk of them as of anything else when ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... power in England the new government turned its attention to the navy, which had languished under the Stuarts. A great reform was accomplished in the bettering of the living conditions for the seamen. Their pay was increased, their share of prize money enlarged, and their food improved. At the same time, during the years 1648-51, the number of ships of the fleet was practically doubled, and the new vessels were the product ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... Books, Nor thought your Wit less fatal than your Looks. Read, proud Usurper, read with conscious Shame, Pathetic Behn, or Mauley's greater Name; Forget their Sex, and own when Haywood writ, She clos'd the fair Triumvirate of Wit; Born to delight as to reform the Age, She paints Example thro' the shining Page; Satiric Precept warms the moral Tale, And Causticks burn where the mild Balsam fails; [sic] A Task reserv'd for her, to whom 'tis given, To stand ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... error of supposing that the actors were trying to represent human beings. I looked round on my first-night audience with a kind of wonder, discovered—as all new Dramatic Critics do—that it rested with me to reform the Drama, and, after a supper choked with emotion, went off to the office to write a column, piebald with "new paragraphs" (as all my stuff is—it fills out so) and purple with indignation. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... Philosophers, of course, stoutly advocated a policy of "no surrender"; but one or two of us, I happened to know, would have been unfeignedly glad to hear that Tempest had squared matters with his pride, and left himself free to take our reform in hand. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... already tried to introduce a reform. He had learned his new ideas about education, not from the Brethren, but at the University of Herborn. He had studied there the theories of Wolfgang Ratich; he had tried to carry out these theories in the Brethren's schools at Prerau and Fulneck; and now at Lissa, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... by my zeal. And when I represented the duties of our function, and the like, and protested my disinterestedness, he coldly said, I was very good; but was a young man, and knew little of the world. And though it was a thing to be lamented, yet when he and I should set about to reform mankind in this respect, we should have enough upon our hands; for, he said, it was too common and fashionable a case to be withstood by a private clergyman or two: and then he uttered some reflections upon the conduct of the present fathers of the church, in ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... to us of small moment, are two of his colleagues; tough old babbling Luckner, also of small moment for us, will probably be the third. Marquis de Bouille is a determined Loyalist; not indeed disinclined to moderate reform, but resolute against immoderate. A man long suspect to Patriotism; who has more than once given the august Assembly trouble; who would not, for example, take the National Oath, as he was bound to do, but always put it off on this or the other pretext, till an autograph of Majesty ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... tries to interfere with their cherished notions; but there were others, few though they were, who had the good sense and honesty to own that the young deputy was right, and to join with him in trying to reform the ways of the men in ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn

... to have thy Mind enlighten'd. Zadig, begg'd Leave to speak. I am somewhat diffident of myself, 'tis true; but may I presume, Sir, to beg the Solution of one Scruple? Would it not have been better to have chastiz'd the Lad, and by that Means reform'd him, than to have cut him off thus unprepar'd in a Moment. Jesrad, replied, had he been virtuous, and had he liv'd, 'twas his Fate not only to be murder'd himself, but his Wife, whom he would afterwards have married, and the little Infant, that was to have ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... and smuggling. Taxation was the third "grievance," wholly influenced in Fletcher's mind by the other two. The pamphlet was sent to every Member of Parliament, being intended to show them the necessity for Social Reform. ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen



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