"Unfixed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ptolemy to Boethius the body of all known knowledge had been arranged in a digest or series of pandects; and along with the legal codification of Justinian it had been handed to the Christian Church as the heritage of the ancient world. The attitude of the Church to that heritage was for long unfixed and uncertain. The logic, and still more the metaphysics, of Aristotle were not the most comfortable of neighbours to the new body of Christian revelation committed to the Church's keeping. In the hand ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... seeming modest sense, that Mr. Vernon had much that must prepossess in his favour; that in addition to his own advantages he had one, the highest in her eyes,—her uncle's sanction and approval. But—and she hesitated with becoming and natural diffidence—were not his habits unfixed and roving? So it was said; she knew not herself,—she would trust her happiness to her uncle. But if so, and if Mr. Vernon were really disposed to change, would it not be prudent to try him,—try him where there was temptation, not in the repose of Laughton, but amidst his own haunts of London? ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... crooked councils fit; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfixed in principles and place; In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace: A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pygmy-body to decay, And o'er informed the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity; Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high He sought the storms; ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... communion-table." On examining the old communion-tables, the movability of the slab from the frame-work is of such frequent occurrence as to corroborate the supposition that some esoteric meaning was attached to its unfixed state, which meaning has ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... had forty English seamen and a hundred invalid soldiers on board, who could all be depended upon. The guns were loaded and shotted, and the invalid soldiers were mustered; muskets and ammunition handed up; the bayonets fixed, unfixed again; and then they were ordered to remain on the booms with their accoutrements on and their muskets by their sides. The officers still kept their glasses on the lugger, until at last the fog came down and we ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... is one of the many subjects we discuss, rocking and pacing the kitchen to the howling of the wind. We have confessed that our experience is very small, and our opinions still unfixed in the matter, so it is unlikely that I shall settle it to my own, or anybody's satisfaction, in the ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... which I can give or can withhold, not for the stern music of my legion's tramp, or for the light that flows from my bright Star of Fortune; but for myself, for the sake of Antony, the rough captain, grown old in camps? Ay, for the sake of Antony the reveller, the frail, the unfixed of purpose, but who yet never did desert a friend, or rob a poor man, or take an enemy unawares? Say, canst thou love me, Egypt? Oh! if thou wilt, why, I am more happy than though I sat to-night in the Capitol at Rome crowned ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... Scio. Yes, I'm told Some ancients like my rusty lay, As Grandpa Noah loved the old Red-sandstone march of Jubal's day I used to carol like the birds, But time my wits has quite unfixed, Et quoad verba,—for my words,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... usually buy their ink in penny bottles. Now, this envelope is addressed with Draper's dichroic ink—a superior office ink, sold only in large bottles—and the red ink in which the note is written is an unfixed, scarlet ink, such as is used by draughtsmen, and has been used, as you can see, in a stylographic pen. But the most interesting thing about this letter is the design drawn at the top. In an artistic ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... by Merlin's calculation, Was under Venus, Mercury, and Mars; His mind with all their attributes was mixed, And, like those planets, wandering and unfixed. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nature itself as the living energy of an intelligence of the same kind as though vaster in scope than the human. Partly through the influence of mythology, the Greek mind became early possessed with the conception of nature as living, thinking, almost speaking to the mind of man. This unfixed poetical prepossession, reduced to an abstract form, petrified into an idea, is the force which gives unity of aim to Greek philosophy. Little by little, it works out the substance of the Hegelian formula: "Whatever is, is according to reason: whatever is according to reason, that is." Experience, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... caused by internal convulsions, which suddenly modified the unsettled features of the terrestrial surface. Here, an intumescence which was to become a mountain, there, an abyss which was to be filled with an ocean or a sea. There, whole forests sunk through the earth's crust, below the unfixed strata, either until they found a resting-place, such as the primitive bed of granitic rock, or, settling together in a heap, ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... Apparently random flashing streaks on the face of 3278-9 terminals while a new symbol set is being downloaded. This hardware bug was left deliberately unfixed, as some genius within IBM suggested it would let the user know that 'something is happening'. That, it certainly does. Later microprocessor-driven IBM color graphics displays were actually *programmed* to produce green lightning! 2. [proposed] Any bug perverted into an alleged feature by ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... of the special dangers of the time—an unfixed, unsettled faith, leading men to question, and argue, and doubt, when they should believe; and next, a restless desire for something new and exciting in religion. And, besides these, there are special ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... No, you are unfixed. You are a candidate for trouble. You are going to rattle. Father and mother can be great and you ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... Michelangelo is always pressing forward from the outward beauty—il bel del fuor che agli occhi piace—to apprehend the unseen beauty; trascenda nella forma universale—that abstract form of beauty, about which the Platonists reason. And this gives the impression in him of something flitting and unfixed, of the houseless and complaining spirit, almost clairvoyant through the frail and yielding flesh. He accounts for love at first sight by a previous state of existence—la dove ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore; Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, Quick as her eyes and as unfixed as those; Favours to none, to all she smiles extends, Oft she rejects, but never once offends. Bright as the sun her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. Yet graceful ease, and ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... approaching him, crawling on hands and knees, very slowly, pausing for an instant at each still figure. It made Macgregor think of a big dog searching for its master—only it wore a helmet. Macgregor, setting his teeth, drew his rifle between his knees and unfixed the bayonet. ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... leave that unfixed? May I ask for you at the Cohens' any evening after your hour at the book-shop? There is no objection, I suppose, to their knowing that you and ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... nor does anybody. That is where the somewhat sombre fun begins. I cannot even tell you for certain whether it is the name of a forest or a town or a hill. I can only say that in any case it is of the kind that floats and is unfixed. If it is a forest, it is one of those forests that march with a million legs, like the walking trees that were the doom of Macbeth. If it is a town, it is one of those towns that vanish, like a city of tents. If it is a hill, it is a flying hill, like the mountain ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... for Elizabeth, since she could not give any explanation of her proceedings which would clear her in the eyes of her employers. Nicholas Clere, like many other people of prejudiced minds and fixed opinions, had a mind totally unfixed in the one matter of religion. His religion was whatever he found it to his worldly advantage to be. During King Edward's reign, it was polite and fashionable to be a Protestant; now, under Queen Mary, the only ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... vocabulary of nature. They grew more and more chary of human speech, and listening posts talked with the trenches by pulls on a fishing-reel. They never sheathed their claws, and working-parties wore their equipment as though it were the integument of nature. Bayonets were never unfixed unless the moon were very bright. At night they scraped out their earths like a badger, and, like the badger's, those earths were exceeding clean. The men were numbered off by threes from the flank, and one in three watched for two hours while the other two worked, repairing parapets, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... himself lived to be editor of the paper and died in harness, and was said most truly. Punch was more congenial to him, and no doubt more generous, than Fraser. There was still something of the literary Bohemian about him, but not as it had been before. He was still unfixed, looking out for some higher career, not altogether satisfied to be no more than one of an anonymous band of brothers, even though the brothers were the brothers of Punch. We can only imagine what were his thoughts as to himself and that other man, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... Madam, that it is impossible to found morality on notions that are so unfixed and so contrary to all our natural ideas of virtue. By virtue, we ought to understand the habitual dispositions to do whatever will procure us the happiness of ourselves and our species. By virtue, religion understands only that which may contribute to render us favorable to a hidden God, ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... carriages (one partly destroyed by explosion), one platform-cart, one hundred and forty-four cartridge-liners fixed to shot, sixteen cartridges unfixed, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... one he had the right to demand two kinds of labour. The first was field work: every year each man was bound to do a fixed amount of ploughing on the domain land (as it was called later on), and also to give what was called a corvee, that is to say, an unfixed amount of ploughing, which the steward could demand every week when it was needed; the distinction corresponds to the distinction between week work and boon work in the later Middle Ages. The second kind of labour which every owner of a farm had to do on the monks' land ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... distasteful to him. After all, it ought to be wished that Mountjoy should become the elder son,—even Mountjoy, the incurable gambler. It was terrible to Mr. Grey that the old, fixed arrangement should be unfixed, and certainly there was nothing in the character of Augustus to reconcile ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... dream that, at that age of the world, men would suffer one of the most far-reaching of all our social problems, whatever be the right or wrong social solution, to be in the slightest degree affected by a Greek word or two of utterly disputable and unfixed significance. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... in the bodies of their citizens, proper and stout men, who, if they come to fight pro aris et focis, for religion, liberty, wives and children, and estates, for their all, are full of courage; not like mercenary, unfixed, unfaithful men, whose trade is in blood, and ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... bath face down, and one under, instead of on top of another. The tray should be occasionally rocked. With a fresh bath prints will fix in ten minutes, but where many prints are made at one time it will be well to use a second fixing bath. The emulsion of an unfixed print will appear a yellowish tinge in the unfixed portions when examined by transmitted light; but this is not an easy or certain test. It is better to make absolutely certain of thorough fixing by continued immersion, occasional rocking and, where many prints are ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... sailor's rude eulogy,— "Well, poor George is gone! His cruise is up soon! He knew his work, and did his duty, and was a good shipmate.'' Then usually follows some allusion to another world, for sailors are almost all believers, in their way; though their notions and opinions are unfixed and at loose ends. They say, "God won't be hard upon the poor fellow,'' and seldom get beyond the common phrase which seems to imply that their sufferings and hard treatment here will be passed to their credit ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... acknowledge, that I looked upon the coming conflict with a strange sense of mingled alarm and rejoicing. For the latter feeling, perhaps I ought to make some apology; but I was young, ardent, and ambitious. My place in life was unfixed; standing in that unhappy middle position, in which stands a man of birth too high to suffer his adoption of the humbler means of existence, and yet of resources too inadequate to sustain him without action—nay, bold and indefatigable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... and Cecilia had yet written no answer; the evening came, and her resolution was still unfixed. Delvile, at length, was again announced; and though she dreaded trusting herself to his entreaties, the necessity of hastening some decision deterred her from refusing to ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Unfixed as Catherine's general notions were of a what a man ought to be, she could not entirely repress a doubt of Mr. John Thorpe's being altogether completely agreeable. A tattler and a swaggerer, having elicited, as he thought, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... ordinarily remained in London till the beginning or middle of July, because the people with whom she lived were in the habit of doing so;—but as soon as ever she had fixed the date of her departure, that day to her was a day of release. On this occasion the day had been fixed,—and it was unfixed, and changed, and postponed, because it was manifest to Lady Milborough that she could do good by remaining for another fortnight. When she made the offer she said nothing of her previous arrangements. "Lady Rowley, let her come ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... experiments with dramatic art, availing himself of some new device for effect. Hence some of his works seem to have stopt short half way between studies and finished productions; there is a trace of something unfixed and unfinished in his whole mental formation. Corneille and Racine, within the limits which they set themselves, are much more perfect; they are altogether that which they are, and we have no glimpses in their works of any supposed higher object beyond them. Voltaire's pretensions are ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... young, besides, it was explained that his destination in India was unfixed. On going home it had been a kind of promise that one of the twin brothers should have an appointment in the civil service, the other should enter the bank of Kendal and Kendal, and the survivor was unconsciously suspended between these alternatives, while the doubt served as a convenient protection ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mysterious; conjecture was baffled, and meditation was useless. Her opinions were unfixed, and her heart was miserable; she could only be steady in believing Delvile as unhappy as herself, and only find consolation in believing him, also, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... we regard as the grand regulator of the blood's flow; and it is admirably situated for measuring out a regular portion of blood at every contraction. John Bell, believing in the Harveian theory, said, "It is awful to think of the unfixed position of the heart;" and Dr. Arnott declared that "the heart, the heart alone, is the ragged anomaly in the laws of fitness in mechanics." The heart was now seen to have a right position; for it should swing ...
— Theory of Circulation by Respiration - Synopsis of its Principles and History • Emma Willard
... allusion to the quick succession of revolutions in religion, breeding a political indifference in the mass of men to religion itself, the enormous increase of the royal power in consequence of the humiliation of the nobility and the clergy—the transference of the papal authority to the crown,—the unfixed state of Elizabeth's own opinions, whose inclinations were as popish as her interests were protestant—the controversial extravagance and practical imbecility of her successor—will help to explain the ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... disbanded; its many irresponsibles, held previously in check by military discipline, now indulged their bent for lawlessness, unstinted. Everything was confusion. Gold-dust was the legal tender, but its value was unfixed. The government accepted it at $10 per ounce, with the privilege ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... become a rebel, and perhaps live to find himself in a jail. And then what could he do of good? He preached and preached, but nothing came of it. Would not the land of the starry west suit better such a heart and such a mind as his? But he wouldn't stir while his fate was as yet unfixed in reference to Polly Neefit. Strikes were dear to him, and oratory, and the noisy applauses of the Cheshire Cheese; but nothing was so dear to him as Polly Neefit. He went about the world with a great burden lying on his chest, and that burden ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... or laying down, the bayonet is fixed and unfixed in the most expeditious and convenient manner and the piece ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... of the first conversation, it will be seen that Lord Byron expressly disclaimed being one of those infidels "who deny the Scriptures, and wish to remain in unbelief." On the contrary, he professed himself "desirous to believe; as he experienced no happiness in having his religious opinions so unfixed." He was unable, however, he added, "to understand the Scriptures. Those who conscientiously believed them he could always respect, and was always disposed to trust in them more than in others; but he had met with so many whose conduct differed ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... become acquainted with its contents. Both these objects, if fairly well carried out, are salutary. Though the critic may not be a profound judge himself; though not unfrequently he be a young man making his first literary attempts, with tastes and judgment still unfixed, yet he probably has a conscience in the matter, and would not have been selected for that work had he not shown some aptitude for it. Though he may be not the best possible guide to the undiscerning, he will be better than no guide ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... poetical contributions from Tennyson and Arthur Hallam, and also for containing the review by the latter of Tennyson's first volume of poems, published in 1830. The beautiful stanzas of Hood's appear here, as far as I have discovered, for the first time. The date of their composition remains unfixed. Hood's son was under the impression that they were written on the death of one of his father's sisters, but supplied no evidence ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... and absolve my vow! 'Tis more than Mahomet himself can do!— The word, which I have given, shall stand like fate; Not like the king's, that weather-cock of state. He stands so high, with so unfixed a mind, Two factions turn him with each blast of wind: But now, he shall not veer! my word is past; I'll take his heart by the roots, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... me look back for a few moments and see where I stood last year this time (an incomprehensible length), and where I now stand. Then my path was dim, unfixed, unsettled. Then I was not so disentangled from the body and its desires as, I hope in God, I now am. In all I feel a consciousness that since then I have spiritually grown—been transformed. For my present I cannot speak. For my future, it seems ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... young, unespoused, Charoba want persuasions! and a queen!" "O Dalica!" the shuddering maid exclaimed, "Could I encounter that fierce, frightful man? Could I speak? no, nor sigh!" "And canst thou reign?" Cried Dalica; "yield empire or comply." Unfixed though seeming fixed, her eyes downcast, The wonted buzz and bustle of the court From far through sculptured galleries met her ear; Then lifting up her head, the evening sun Poured a fresh splendour on her burnished throne— The fair Charoba, the young queen, complied. But Gebir when he ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... more material religion of the many, and accompanying it, through the course of its history, as its ethereal, less palpable, life-giving soul, and, as always happens, seeking the quiet, and not too anxious to make itself felt by others. With some unfixed, though real, place in the general scheme of Greek religion, this phase of the worship of Dionysus had its special development in the Orphic literature and mysteries. Obscure as are those followers of the mystical Orpheus, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Catherine was in the habit of judging for herself, and unfixed as were her general notions of what men ought to be, she could not entirely repress a doubt, while she bore with the effusions of his endless conceit, of his being altogether completely agreeable. It was a bold surmise, for he was Isabella's ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and once or twice ordered parties to advance to begin to skirmish, but upon better advice altered his mind, and indeed it was the wisest counsel to defer the fighting at that time. The Parliament generals were as unfixed in their resolutions, on the other side, as the king; sometimes they sent out parties, and then called them back again. One strong party of near 3000 men marched off towards Acton, with orders to amuse us on that side, but were countermanded. ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... first to damn mankind! Nature took care to dress you up for sin; Adorned, without; unfinished left, within. Hence, by no judgment you your loves direct; Talk much, ne'er think, and still the wrong affect. So much self-love in your composure's mixed, That love to others still remains unfixed: Greatness, and noise, and shew, are your delight; Yet wise men love you, in their own despite: And finding in their native wit no ease, Are forced to put ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... only relations, and her husband had none. Still to be under the constant yoke of an overpowering woman with unfixed opinions seems to be an unmitigated evil for her and her boys; and no one's feelings need be hurt by her fixing herself near some public school for her sons' education. However, she is settled for this year, and at the end ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge |
