"Weakness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... critic never passed from his own mind into Shakespeare's; and it may still be traced even in so fine a critic as Coleridge, as when he dwarfs the sublime struggle of Hamlet into the image of his own unhappy weakness. Hazlitt by no means escaped its influence. Only the third of that great trio, Lamb, appears almost always to have rendered the conception of ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... Rollins or the neighbors, they hurried away, the boys keeping in a cluster around the farmer. If any of the scouts began to feel twinges in the muscles of their legs, already hard pushed, they valiantly fought against betraying the weakness. Besides, the excitement acted as a tonic upon them, and seemed to lend them additional powers of endurance, just as it does in foot races where the strain ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Samson Agonistes, so in the stories of Mr. Conrad we are confronted with the curious paradox that some deathless quality in the dying hero forbids us utterly to despair. Mr. Hardy has written the tragedy of man's weakness; Mr. Conrad has written the tragedy of man's strength "with courage never to submit or yield." Though Mr. Conrad possesses the tragic sense in a degree that puts him among the great poets, and above any of his living rivals, however, the mass of his work cannot be called tragic. ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... facts and experiences, hoping they may increase an aspiration for the active doing, instead of saying what ought to be done, with excusing self for want of ability, when it is to be found in Him who is saying, "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is perfect in weakness." ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... my dear Barnet? Mutayto nominy—you know what I mean. You are the boy, and your barnetcy is the dressing-gownd. You dress yourself out finer than other chaps and they all begin to sault and hustle you; it's human nature, Barnet. You show weakness, think of your dear ma, mayhap, and begin to cry: it's all over with you; the whole school is at you—upper boys and under, big and little; the dirtiest little fag in the place will pipe out blaggerd names at you, and takes his pewny tug at ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... no one ventured to blame a system invented by mediocrity to please minds of its own calibre. The Restoration, like the Polish revolution, proved to nations as to princes the true value of a Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is wanting. The last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the Restoration was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries employed the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies, and let loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the unintelligent ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... be made to serve as burden-carriers, and they doubtless would be continued to be used for saddle purposes in one way or another but for the wide use of the horse, a creature very much better adapted for carrying weight. The cloven foot of the bulls and buffaloes gives a weakness to the extremities which will quickly lead to disease in case they are forced to carry heavy loads such as the horse or ass may ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... his addiction to alcohol Mr. Gavel had a weakness, it was the equally British one of worshipping a title. Flattered by the honest baronet's invitation, he had met it almost more than half-way; and had dispatched six of his shabbiest horses to Birmingham ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to tears now; fearful that he might be caught in a moment of weakness, he fled to the barn and helped Pablo hitch a team of draft horses to an old spring wagon. Pablo's customary taciturnity and primitive stoicism had again descended upon him like a protecting garment; his madness had passed and he moved around the team briskly and efficiently. Parker ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... clearer investigation to rest upon a totally insecure foundation."[75] "It is not natural science itself which leads to naturalism, for, indeed, no natural science could arise if reality exhausted itself in the measurements of naturalism; but it is rather the weakness of the conviction of the spiritual life; it is the failure of certitude in regard to the presence of a spiritual existence; it is the unclearness concerning the inner conditions of all mental and spiritual activity which a shallow and popular ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... before I was out—in my mother's time—there was a man named Mallory who was tried for murder, the murder of a friend, who everyone knew was his rival. Well, he got off, but only after a long trial, and only by a little weakness in the chain of evidence, which even his friends at the time thought providential. He went abroad for a long time. Then he came into a title and returned to England. He was obliged to take up his position, and people were willing enough to forget the past. He opened ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... some reason he had haunted her thoughts more than she could explain. This was partly due to the fact that he was so much talked of at the fortress and so idolized by his soldiers. He was said to be without fear, or any human weakness, but after today Mildred ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... not," said General Belch; "but there may be some breakers ahead. If we lose the Grant it won't be the first cause or man that has been betrayed by the bottle. Condor, let me fill your glass. It is clear that if our dear friend Newt has a weakness it is the bottle; and if our enemies at Washington, who want to head off this Grant, have a strength, it is finding out an adversary's soft spot. We may find in this case that it's dangerous playing with edged tools. But I've great faith ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... haughty revellers, in evening dress and opera capes, appear among the humbler voyagers. For a time they stay on their dignity: sit bravely upright and talk with apparent intelligence. Then the drowsy poison of that stifled atmosphere overcomes them, too, and they fall into the weakness of their brethren. They turn over the opposing seat, elevate their nobler shins, and droop languid heads over the ticklish plush chair-back. Strange aliens lie spread over the seats. Nowhere will you see so many faces of curious foreign carving. It seems as though many desperate exiles, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... presence. And, mind! don't stop on the way; go straight through: you'll find the trains fit in. I won't add, 'Keep your mouth shut'; you'll do that; unless"—he nodded significantly at the empty glass—"you take too much of that. That's rather a weakness of yours, Lord Heyton: master it, or it'll master you. Now, there's no time to lose. I'll order a brougham for you. Come, pull yourself together. Man!"—his disgust, impatience broke out, for the first time—"try to think what you're running away from! ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... vows and then asks that he may be absolved from his vow by the priest or other ecclesiastical authority. His mouth—that is, his spoken promise—leads him into sin, if he does not fulfil it (comp. Deut. xxiii, 21, 22). He asks release from his promise on the ground that it is a sin of weakness. The 'angel' is best understood as the priest (messenger), as in Malachi ii.7. Such a wriggling out of a vow will bring God's anger; for the 'voice' which promised what the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a woman—a young girl especially. It means the breaking of old ties, the beginning of a new life, the setting out into an unknown world on a voyage from which there can be no return. In her weakness and her helplessness she leaves one dependency for another, the shelter of a father for the shelter of a husband. What does she bring to the man she marries? Herself, everything she is, everything she can be, to be made or marred by him, and never, never, never to be the same to any other ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... performed by a handful of cavalry. To the distinguished Alexander of Parma, who improvised so striking and complete a victory out of a fortuitous circumstance, belonged the whole credit of the day, for his quick eye detected a passing weakness of the enemy, and turned it to terrible account with the promptness which comes from genius alone. A whole army was overthrown. Everything belonging to the enemy fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Thirty-four standards, many ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fated to incur such unmerited odium? He savagely laved his face and neck. The fresh cool water was delightful at first, but it caused his injured nail to throb dreadfully. When he drew near to the fire he experienced an unaccountable sensation of weakness. Could it be possible that he was going to faint? It was too absurd. He sank to the ground. Trees, rocks, and sand-strewn earth indulged in a mad dance. Iris's voice sounded weak and indistinct. It seemed to travel in waves from a great distance. He tried ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... are all prepared to admire; but while we do this, how often we are tempted to declare it an impossible thing to live up to a high standard. God, recognising the weakness of human nature, sent His only-begotten Son to reveal the Father, and show us a life of goodness in human form. He has further descended to our weakness by permitting us from time to time to see in our midst living examples of how Christians can follow out the principles of Christ. ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... But Moliere has a weakness, too, for the bourgeois, and he has made M. Jourdain immortally delightful. There is not a really cruel touch in the whole character; we laugh at him so freely because Moliere lets us laugh with such kindliness. M. Jourdain has a robust joy in life; ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... despair, in moist eyes and trembling hands. It was impossible to leave her alone at such a time. . . . Then had come the farewell. "God be with you, my son! Do your duty, but be prudent." Not a tear nor a sign of weakness. All her family had advised her not to accompany her son to the railway station, so his sister had gone with him. And upon returning home, Marguerite had found her mother rigid in her arm chair, with a set ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... certain sort of self-reproach in all this. I feel it is a weakness perhaps, but I feel that we are all of us too hard on these organ fellows—for, after all, are they not, in a certain sense, the type and embodiment of our age? Is not repetition, reiteration, our boldest characteristic? Is there, I ask, such a "Grind" in the world ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... patient, X., 23 years of age, belongs to a family which he himself describes as nervous. His mother, who is anaemic, has long suffered from almost periodical attacks of excitement, weakness, syncope and palpitation. A brother of the mother died in a lunatic asylum, and several other brothers complain much of their nerves. The mother's sisters are very good-natured, but liable to break out in furious passions; this they inherit from their father. There appears to be no nervous ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... not,' said Manston absently. 'But I am going to set about it.' He hesitated, as if ashamed of some weakness he was about to betray. 'My object in calling was to ask if you had heard any tidings from Budmouth of my—Cytherea. You used to speak of her as one you ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... your piece," said Marilla, who would have scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any poetry stuff. "I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways. You've grown up now and you're ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... he was encouraged in this, and that a self-indulgent man is only too liable to have the nicety of his sensitiveness spoiled. Certainly, he had a kind heart and good principles. He would lend any man money, or give any man help,—even to the extent of weakness and imprudence. This was one reason why he died no better off,—and one reason why his friends have so much exerted themselves to pay a tribute to his memory in the shape of an addition to the provision he had made for his family. The quickness of feeling which belonged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... made few campaigns." There are mistakes and mistakes; errors of judgment, such as the most capable man makes in the course of a life, and errors of conduct which demonstrate essential unfitness for office. Of the latter class was that of Admiral Byng, when he retired from Minorca; a weakness not unparalleled in later times, but which, whatever the indulgence accorded to the offender, is a military sin that should for itself receive no condonement of judgment. As instances of the former, both Nelson and Napoleon admitted, to quote the latter's ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... have it no more. And what is it when we have it? Decidedly a confession of inferiority! That is, the desire to be distinguished is an acknowledgement of insufficiency. But I have still the craving for my dearest friends to think well of me. A weakness? Call it so. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... America was given by the Criterion Independent Theatre of New York on November 18, 1897, Mr. E. J. Henley playing Borkman, Mr. John Blair Erhart, Miss Maude Banks Gunhild, and Miss Ann Warrington Ella. For some reason, which I can only conjecture to be the weakness of the the third act, the play seems nowhere to have taken a very ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... girls read little stories to her. This she viewed as a surprising accomplishment, as she could only spell her way along, not being able to read well enough to enjoy it. So in one way or another they entertained her, making her forget her weakness. ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... truth of the German atrocities, have appealed to education. We knew that Tacitus said, nearly two thousand years ago, that "the German treats women with cruelty, tortures his enemies, and associates kindness with weakness." But nineteen centuries of education have not changed the German one whit. The mere catalogue of the crimes committed by German officers and soldiers and set forth in more than twenty volumes of proofs destroys the ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... about it. The thing had been done, she considered, in an underhand manner; and Lady Maulevrier, who had begun by strenuously opposing the match, had been talked over in a way that proved the latent weakness of that great lady's character. Secondly, Miss Mueller, having herself for some reason missed such joys as are involved in being wooed and won, was disposed to look sourly upon all love affairs, and to take a despondent view of ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... audience of the Russia Embassadors; which [took place] after long waiting and fear of the falling of the gallery (it being so full, and part of it being parted from the rest, for nobody to come up merely from the weakness thereof): and very handsome it was. After they were come in, I went down and got through the croude almost as high as the King and the Embassadors, where I saw all the presents, being rich furs, hawks, carpets, cloths ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of this weakness. Many fatherly precepts to correct such passionate tendency had been uttered. However, this deliberate, cold-blooded man had found his son's hasty temper of service, and in emergency did not hesitate to fan its ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... some act of their ministry; every chapel into which a new convert had been admitted was to be pulled down, and the pastor was to be banished. It was found necessary to set a guard at the doors of the places of worship to drive away the poor wretches who repented of a moment's weakness; the number of "places of exercise," as the phrase then was, received a gradual reduction; "a single minister had the charge of six, eight, and ten thousand persons," says Elias Benoit, author of the Histoire de l'Edit de Nantes, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... only to look at you," she added, a little wistfully, "to be sure there is something—something vital in Christianity, if we could only get at it, something that does not depend upon what we have been led to believe is indispensable. George, and men like him, can only show the weakness in the old supports. I don't mean that they aren't doing the world a service in revealing errors, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... threaten a charge. To meet this Colonel Broadwood sent one of his squadrons from the centre to join those under Captain Baring, so that at about a quarter to ten the reconnoitring force was formed with four squadrons towards the desert, two with the guns, and two towards the river. The weakness of the river flank of the troops encouraged the Dervish horse lurking in the scrub to make a bold attempt to capture the guns. The movement was shrewd and daring, but the cavalry commander met it with ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... will come back willingly. When you did want me, I was quite happy to come; there was no merit in it. I think you must be afraid, that, now you are getting well, I may be troublesome to you; but I should not have been, indeed. I should have come no longer than your weakness and confinement lasted. You owe me nothing; but it is right that you should deal as justly by me as if I was a lady—even the very lady that you love; and if you suspect me of meanly making much of the little I ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... justice to a living one. I cannot but condemn the dubious policy which she adopted, as unjust to my father, and highly perilous to herself and me.—But peace be with her ashes! her actions were guided by the heart rather than the head; and shall her daughter, who inherits all her weakness, be the first to withdraw the veil ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... he is on dangerous ground morally. For good morals must finally become habits, so ingrained in us that the right decision comes largely without effort and without struggle. Otherwise the strain is too great, and defeat will occasionally come; and defeat means weakness and at last disaster, after the spirit has tired of the constant conflict. And so on in a hundred lines. Good habits are more to be coveted than individual victories in special cases, much as these are to be desired. For good habits mean victories ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... might be said that a person died for want of medical advice: though this would not be likely to be said, unless the person was already understood to be ill, and in order to indicate that this negative circumstance was what made the illness fatal, and not the weakness of his constitution, or the original virulence of the disease. It might be said that a person was drowned because he could not swim; the positive condition, namely, that he fell into the water, being already implied in the word drowned. And here let me remark, that his falling ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... bare simplicity of my menu, had it been previously disclosed, would doubtless have disappointed more than one of my dinner-giving patronesses; but each item had been perfected to an extent never achieved by them. Their weakness had ever been to serve a profusion of neutral dishes, pleasing enough to the eye, but unedifying except as a spectacle. I mean to say, as food it was noncommittal; it ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... a deplorable commonplace, and, on the physician applying a stethoscope and begging her to attempt some verse, she could give us nothing better than a sonnet upon the expansion of the Empire. Her weakness was such that she could do no more than awake, and that feebly, while she professed herself totally unable to arise, to expand, to soar, to haunt, or to perform any of those exercises which ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... I said (station-masters have a weakness for tie-pins), "and a watch and a cigarette case. I shall be happy to lend you any ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... of October Jackson himself reached the rendezvous. He was still a mere wreck, thin as a shadow, tottering with weakness, and needing to be lifted bodily to his horse. His arm was closely bound and in a sling. His wounds were so sensitive that the least jar or wrench gave him agony. His stomach was in such a state that he was in danger of dying from starvation. Several times during ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... pitied," proceeded Valentine. "That isn't all"—he sighed again—"I was born with a bad French accent, and without a single tooth in my head, or, out of it, while such was my weakness, that it took two strong men, both masters of arts, to drag me through the rudiments of the ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... parlor when Mr. Carnegie and Bessie Fairfax stopped at the gate. He came out with flushed brow and ruffled hair to keep Bessie company and hold the doctor's horse while he went up stairs with Mr. Moxon to visit his wife. That room where she lay in pain often, in weakness always, was a mean, poorly-furnished room, with a window in the thatch, and just a glimpse of heaven beyond, but that glimpse was all reflected in the blessedness of her peaceful face. Mr. Moxon's threadbare coat hung loosely ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... where the people are as dumb as cattle and are capable only of the emotion of awe and need professional gentlemen to excite it, and to feed upon their substance. Here the people have their moments of weakness, but mostly they are pretty level-headed. They judge men by what they do, not by what they look like. The professional gentleman is first an object of curiosity and then an object of scorn. He's not for ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... you find here a Prince of less Fortitude and Vertue than your self, charge his Miscarriages on Love: a Weakness of that Nature you will easily excuse, (being so great a Friend to the Fair;) though possibly, he gave a Proof of it too Fatal to his Honour. Had I been to have form'd his Character, perhaps I had made him something more worthy of the Honour of your Protection: ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... Maya's good nature for weakness. For now something unusual happened to the little bee. Suddenly her depression passed and gave way, not to alarm or timidity, but to a calm courage. She straightened up, lifted her lovely, transparent wings, uttered ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... named Jar, who was condemned to twelve years' hard labour, came out with consumption contracted through the rigour of his imprisonment. Many others were reduced to such weakness through starvation that they had to be carried out of ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... form, produces an impression, of deep refinement. The whole monu- ment is a proof of exquisitely careful study; but I am not sure that this impression on the part of the spec- tator is altogether a happy one. It explains much of its great beauty, and it also explains, perhaps, a little of a certain weakness. That word, however, is scarcely in place; I only mean that M. Dubois has made a vi- sible effort, which has been most fruitful. Simplicity is not always strength, and our complicated modern genius contains treasures of intention. This ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... rest grumbling over the weakness of women in these days, to which even his sturdy lass now succumbed; but Barbara threw herself on her knees beside the bed in her room, buried her face in the pillows, and sobbed aloud. Another feeling, however, soon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Colonel Fougas. "But gold has no attractions for my eyes. Wealth engenders weakness. Me, to languish in the sluggish idleness of Sybaris!—to enervate my senses on a bed of roses! Never! The smell of powder is dearer to me than all the perfumes of Arabia. Life would have no charm or zest for me, if I had to give up the inspiriting ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... were the men passing by, at whose coming Zeus' oracle had declared to him that he should have joy of his food. And he rose from his couch, like a lifeless dream, bowed over his staff, and crept to the door on his withered feet, feeling the walls; and as he moved, his limbs trembled for weakness and age; and his parched skin was caked with dirt, and naught but the skill held his bones together. And he came forth from the hall with wearied knees and sat on the threshold of the courtyard; and a dark stupor covered him, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... Through her thin blouse he could feel her blood burning against his breast. He felt his senses going, a painful weakness seemed to stifle him, as if only a violent movement could give him breath. Feverishly he clenched his left hand, that was round her waist; with his right beneath her chin he ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... such a monstrous abstraction we are asked to give up the full rich world of sense, with all it means to us. It is surely not an intellectual weakness to say: "Tell us what you will of existence above and beyond that which is known to us; but do not deny some measure of ultimate Reality to that which falls within our ken. Leave us not alone with the Absolute of the orthodox mystic, or we perish of inanity! Clearly the elan vital—the ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... the feelings of others that he never expressed the anguish he felt, and seldom gave vent to the indignation roused by the persecutions he underwent; while the course of deep unexpressed passion, and the sense of injury, engendered the desire to embody themselves in forms defecated of all the weakness and evil which ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... the young man. "You've suited—God knows what!—your pride, your despair, your resentment." As he looked at her, the secret history of her weakness seemed to become plain to him, and he felt a mighty rage against the man who had taken a base advantage of it. "Gertrude!" he cried, "I entreat you to go back. It's not for my sake,—I'll give you up,—I'll ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... it is, we still preserve our dignity, our precedence, the priority of our position, but this arises from the former reputation of the government, which has now continued fifty years; and whenever we come to the proof, or they discover our weakness we shall lose it. If you were to say, the justice of our cause ought to augment our influence and diminish theirs I answer, that this justice requires to be perceived and believed by others as well as by ourselves, but this is not the case; for the justice of our ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... answered. "I'm his cousin," he went on, with another glance at the still figure. "And, my conscience, I never thought to find him like this! I never heard of any weakness on his part—I always thought him a particularly ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... the fleeting censure of aristocratic friends he left in the lurch the simple barbarian maiden who loved him with ardent passion, it was no evidence of resolute strength of soul, but of pitiful, reprehensible weakness. No, no! He must take the nocturnal voyage in order not to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... conceived when he created them. In this picture, the idea that most impressed me was, the representation of that more refined and subtle torture of martyrdom which consists in the incertitude and weakness of an individual against whom is arrayed the whole weight of the religious community. If against the martyr only the worldly and dissolute stood arrayed, he could bear it; but when the church, claiming ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... live under a ban for your sake. Miss Oliphant has lost her money. You say that you spent some time in her room; the purse was on her bureau. Miss Oliphant is rich, she is also generous; she says openly that she does not intend to investigate the matter. No doubt, if you confess your weakness and return the money, she will forgive you and not report this disgraceful ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... passive that I was no more aware of the pain than was I aware of the floor beneath me or the walls around me. Never was a man in better mental and spiritual condition for such an experiment. Of course, this was largely due to my extreme weakness. But there was more to it. I had long schooled myself to be oblivious to pain. I had neither doubts nor fears. All the content of my mind seemed to be an absolute faith in the over-lordship of the mind. This passivity was ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Semyonitch as he was called even in his mistress's house, to which he often went and invariably on Sundays after mass—would have been excellent in all respects—if he had not had one weakness which has been the ruin of many men on earth, and was in the end the ruin of him, too—a weakness for the fair sex. Akim's susceptibility was extreme, his heart could never resist a woman's glance: he melted before it like the first snow of autumn in the ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... DEAR ARMAND—You are a dangerous advocate when you plead against Monsieur de Villeroy. I need to exaggerate your talents to diminish my weakness. You had, in my heart, a judge, interested in your gaining your cause. Come to-morrow to plead again, and I will give you ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... principle do we plunder the coasts of Africa, and bring away its wretched inhabitants as slaves than that, by which the greater fish swallows up the lesser. Superior power seems only to produce superior brutality; and that weakness and imbecility, which ought to engage our protection, and interest the feelings of social benevolence in behalf of the defenceless, seems only to provoke us to acts of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... by water to St. James's (having by the way shown Symson Sir W. Coventry's chimney-pieces, in order to the making me one;) and there, after the Duke of York was ready, he called me to his closet; and there I did long and largely show him the weakness of our office, and did give him advice to call us to account for our duties; which he did take mighty well, and desired me to draw up what I would have him write to the office. I did lay open the whole failings of the office, and how it was ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... gratitude to a Divine Providence that had supported us in sickness, and guided us through all dangers. There had been moments of hopelessness and despair; days of misery, when the future had appeared dark and fatal; but we had been strengthened in our weakness, and led, when apparently lost, by an unseen hand. I felt no triumph, but with a feeling of calm contentment and satisfaction we floated down the Nile. My great joy was in the meeting that I contemplated with Speke in England, ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... a joint is seldom as strong as it was formerly, although for all practical purposes the limb may be as useful as ever. Some degree of stiffness, of limited movement, or of muscular weakness, and occasional arthritic changes and a liability to re-dislocation, are the commonest sequelae. Prolonged immobilisation is liable to lead to stiffness by permitting of the formation of adhesions; while too early movement tends to produce a laxity of the ligaments which ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... city which has not been much better told by graver travellers. I, with them, could see (perhaps it was the preaching of the politicians that warned me of the fact) that we are looking on at the last days of an empire; and heard many stories of weakness, disorder, and oppression. I even saw a Turkish lady drive up to Sultan Achmet's mosque IN A BROUGHAM. Is not that a subject to moralise upon? And might one not draw endless conclusions from it, that the knell of the Turkish dominion is rung; ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with sex-relationship in the effort to put "love" on the throne, but experience shows that in all the intimate relationships of life some stay from without the individual desire is needed to restrain from impulsive change and lessen frictional expression of temperamental weakness. On reason and a sense of obligation are based all successful human arrangements, and ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... changed colour when she looked at it. It must have reminded her of some unhung scoundrel she's met with in the course of her career, and she took it out of me. She knows I like to suffer for my friends. That's my great weakness. I hope you'll make a better ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... hand, and then closed his eyes again, from weakness. We were now nearly abreast of the two batteries on the points, the guns of which had been trained so as to bear upon our boats that were towing out the brig. The first shot went through the bottom of the launch, and sank her; fortunately, all ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... Cushin. The success of this ignorant and notorious quack, who managed for a series of years to extract a magnificent income of some L10,000 or L12,000 per annum by trading on the credulity of his fellow-creatures, forms a curious commentary on the weakness of contemporary "society." It is said that he commenced life as a house-painter, and afterwards acquired some slight knowledge of art in the humble capacity of colour grinder to Sir Thomas Lawrence, and while colouring ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... soul's immortality is rather a natural feeling, an adjunct of self-consciousness, than a dogma belonging to any particular age or country. It gives eternity to man's nature, and reconciles its seeming anomalies and contradictions; it makes him strong in weakness and perfectable in imperfection; and it alone gives an adequate object for his hopes and energies, and value and dignity to his pursuits. It is concurrent with the belief in an infinite, eternal Spirit, since it is chiefly through consciousness of the dignity of the mind within us, that we learn ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... afternoon of the flower-show Juliet scarcely left Vera Fielding's side. During those five days Vera lay at the point of death, and though her husband was constantly with her it was to Juliet that she clung through all the terrible phases of weakness, breathlessness, and pain that she passed. Through the dark nights—though a trained nurse was in attendance—it was Juliet's hand that held her up, Juliet's low calm voice that reassured her in the Valley of the Shadow through which she wandered. Often too spent for ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... the Rhine into Germany. Access to the sea down the Scheldt was closed by the fleets of the Sea Beggars, and the commerce and industry of the first commercial port of western Europe passed to Amsterdam and Middelburg. Meanwhile there had been no signs of weakness or of yielding on the part of the sturdy burghers of Holland and Zeeland. On the fatal July 10, 1584, the Estates of Holland were in session at Delft. They at once took energetic action under the able leadership of Paul Buys, Advocate of Holland, and John ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... a glass will do me good. Where did you get it?" I asked, thinking it strange the Colonel should leave his brandy-bottle within reach of the negroes, who have an universal weakness for spirits. ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... great in the greatest way; and he also knew that his own gift was second to none. But would she link her lot with his? He yearned for some assurance. He had no ambition whatever for himself, but he would have toiled to succeed for her. It was his weakness to require someone to work for as he was working for the Boy; a purely personal ambition seemed to him a vexing, vain, and insufficient motive for action. All selfless people suffer from indolence when only their ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Bruce's abstract of the Abyssinian chronicles, the royal line was superseded in the 10th century by Falasha Jews, then by other Christian families, and three centuries of weakness and disorder succeeded. In 1268, according to Bruce's chronology, Icon Amlac of the House of Solomon, which had continued to rule in Shoa, regained the empire, and was followed by seven other princes whose reigns come down to 1312. The history of this period is very obscure, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Templars became a menace to Church and Society, 815-l. Templars concealed themselves under the name of Brethren Masons, 816-m. Templars, dead long ago, haunt the Vatican and disturb the Papacy, 814-l. Templars' decay due to inherent weakness, haughty ambition, ignorance, 819-m. Templars disappeared at once and their wealth confiscated, 821-u. Templars' dogma connected with Oriental philosophy by symbols used, 235-m. Templars encouraged new worship, promising liberty of conscience, 818-l. Templars initiated in the mysterious ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the sunshine and the finest days, as that which has conquered and prevailed, commends itself to us by its very antiquity and apparent solidity and necessity. Our weakness needs it, and our strength uses it. We cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it. If there were but one erect and solid standing tree in the woods, all creatures would go to rub against it and make sure of their footing. During the many ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Mr. Vine," he said, "that you are developing an insular weakness. You are forgetting to be candid, and you are ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hails Kandinsky, as a visual musician. The methods and ideas of each rival are so different that the title cannot be accorded to both. In his book, Kandinsky states his opinion of Cubism and its fatal weakness, and history goes to support his contention. The origin of Cubism in Cezanne, in a structural art that owes its very existence to matter, makes its claim to pure emotionalism seem untenable. Emotions are not composed of strata and conflicting pressures. Once abandon reality and the ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... said Mary French. "But wait till he seems to you a great strong archangel—an archangel with only the weakness of dabbling his wings in the dirt—and you will withhold from him nothing, no one, that may be of use to him. If he wants to put me by for a while, it is his will. You cannot take my place. I ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... misfortune, and would hardly show his face to any one; for it is a peculiarity of weak natures that they feel their strength, not in their own self-respect, but always wish to show how much they can really do by some visible achievement. Misfortune they regard as evidence of their own weakness, and if they cannot ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... city mobs is a thing peculiar to no time or place. Rural Southern lynch law in that period, however, was in large part a special product of the sparseness of population and the resulting weakness of legal machinery, for as Olmsted justly remarked in the middle 'fifties, the whole South was virtually still in a frontier condition.[42] In post bellum decades, on the other hand, an increase of racial antipathy has offset the effect of the densification of ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... brothers have lent me money—assisted my return;—for their own ends, it is true: but the seeming obligation gives them real power. These Northern swordsmen would cut my throat if the Great Captain bade them. He counts on my supposed weakness. I know him of old. I suspect—nay I read, his projects; but I cannot prove them. Without proof, I cannot desert Palestrina in order to accuse and seize him. Thou art shrewd, thoughtful, acute;—couldst thou go to Rome?—watch day and night ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... where he was interested neither his eye nor his language had any weakness; but, as a rule, he is not interested either in nature or, if the truth be told, in Cynthia, but wholly in himself. He ranks among the most learned of the Augustan poets; but, for want of the rigorous training and self-criticism in ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... his sight, that, to this day, he knows not it is there. Indeed, I have, since, heartily repented that I read any of the book to him, for I found it a much more awkward thing than I had expected : my voice quite faltered when I began it, which, however, I passed off for the effect of remaining weakness of lungs; and, in short, from an invincible embarrassment, which I could not for a page together repress, the book, by my reading, lost ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... profound changes in the mind that receives them. Thus the wrong conception of self-immolation will be faithfully worked out by the unconscious—and has been too often in the past—in terms of misery, weakness, or disease. We remember how the idea of herself as a victim of love worked physical destruction in Therese de L'Enfant Jesus: and we shall never perhaps know all the havoc wrought by the once fashionable doctrines of predestination and of the total depravity of human nature. All this shows how ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... caution. He called out with a feeble, tremulous, but cheery voice, "Come in, Stunner—come in, Warrington. I knew it was you—by the—by the smoke, old boy," he said, as holding his worn hand out, and with tears at once of weakness and pleasure in his ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the army; Murat, whose courage had become proverbial; Murat, who might well have been taken by a sculptor as a model for the god of war; Murat, on one occasion, when he must have slept ill or breakfasted badly, had a moment of weakness. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... condition of a soul cast down by the knowledge of the difficulty of the operation, the amount of the labour, the vastness of the work on one side, and on the other the ignorance, want of knowledge of the way, weakness of nerves and peril of death. He has no knowledge suitable to the business, he does not know where and how to turn, no place of flight or refuge presents itself; and he sees that, from every side, the waves threaten, with frightful, fatal impetus. ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... confessed, or declared, that words failed him. This, however, may be thought to have been uttered as a mere figure of speech; and some may say, that the imperfection I speak of, is but an incident of the common weakness or ignorance of human nature; and that if a man always knew what to say to an other in order to persuade or confute, to encourage or terrify him, he would always succeed, and no insufficiency of this kind would ever be felt or imagined. This also is plausible; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... knows we struggled. We did not give in without agony. In our hopeless, staring eyes there was the anguish of the great temptation. We looked in each other's death's-head faces. We clasped skeleton hands round our rickety knees, and swayed as we tried to sit upright. Vermin crawled over us in our weakness. We were half-crazy, and ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... thoughts of those two sick officers, Captain Maryon and Lieutenant Linderwood, when I saw them, then and there. The spirit in those two gentlemen beat down their illness (and very ill I knew them to be) like Saint George beating down the Dragon. Pain and weakness, want of ease and want of rest, had no more place in their minds than fear itself. Meaning now to express for my lady to write down, exactly what I felt then and there, I felt this: "You two brave fellows that I had been so grudgeful of, I know that if you were dying you would put it ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... the Man!' cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. 'Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage—seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul—Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written. Such ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... day. She had seen that his strength steadily failed; he suffered paroxysms of pain; he lost consciousness more than once; and although he insisted to the last on acting as though he were well, his weakness increased until he could no longer sit out a game of whist, but was forced to lie on the sofa in his library where he liked to see every visitor who came to the house. He required that every thing about him should go on as usual, and not only made Esther go regularly to her work, but ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... glory into which he would enter by his enthronement at God's right hand. As Luther pointedly puts it: "Therefore do I go, he saith, where I shall be greater than I now am, that is, to the Father, and it is better that I shall pass out of this obscurity and weakness into the power and glory in which the Father is." In the light of this interpretation the meaning of our Lord's words above quoted does not seem difficult. The Paraclete was to communicate Christ to his church,—his life, his power, his riches, his glory. In his ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... feet lay a short descent to the ledge on which the cap had rested, and after that another precipice. It was not a pleasant position in which to be left alone with this strange companion, but I was helpless, and perhaps the trace of weakness and a something not altogether evil in his face, gave me some courage. Little enough it was, however, and in mere desperation I sat down on the side by the path. My companion flung himself down on the other side, with his legs dangling over the ledge, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... at their ignorance of themselves. But Plato seems to think further that he has explained the feeling of the spectator in comedy sufficiently by a theory which only applies to comedy in so far as in comedy we laugh at the conceit or weakness of others. He has certainly given a very partial explanation of the ridiculous.) Having shown how sorrow, anger, envy are feelings of a mixed nature, I will reserve the consideration of ...
— Philebus • Plato
... time before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... there is not a maudlin fibre in his whole body. He would not be the man to cry over a dead donkey whilst children are in want of bread. He would be slower than the excellent Dr. Primrose to believe in the reformation of a villain by fine phrases, and if he fell into such a weakness, his biographer would not, like Goldsmith, be inclined to sanction the error. A villain is induced to reform, indeed, by the sight of Amelia's excellence, but Fielding is careful to tell us that the change was illusory, and that the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... divine, born at Newark; was bishop of Gloucester; was author of the famous "Divine Legation of Moses," characterised by Gibbon as a "monument of the vigour and weakness of the human mind"; is a distracted waste of misapplied logic and learning; a singular friendship subsisted between the author ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... It might almost (borrowing a second title from the Index) call itself "Jeanne; ou Les Malheurs de la Vertu." The heroine is perfectly innocent, though both a femmelette and a fool. She never does any harm, nor, except through weakness and folly, deserves that any should be done to her. But she has an unwise and not blameless though affectionate and generous father, with a mother who is an invalid, and whom, after her death, the daughter ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... my earliest remembrance, to suppress a deadly and bitter hatred. This has made me secret and revengeful. I have been always tyrannically held down by the strong hand. This has driven me, in my weakness, to the resource of being false and mean. I have been stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest possessions of youth. This has caused me to be utterly wanting in I don't know what emotions, or remembrances, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... at the saddle-bow of the knight or of the bishop in armor. Passive obedience by force supports thrones and oligarchies, Spanish kings, and Venetian senates. Might, in an army wielded by tyranny, is the enormous sum total of utter weakness; and so Humanity wages war against Humanity, in despite of Humanity. So a people willingly submits to despotism, and its workmen submit to be despised, and its soldiers to be whipped; therefore it is that battles lost by a nation are ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... gratitude moved us both to tears. Her action had the intolerable pathos of a child's weakness united with a kind of delirium. To watch her feeble hands exhibiting a head-dress which I feared she would never again wear—displaying it with a pitiful smile of pride and joy—was almost more than I could bear. Her face shone with happiness as she strove to tell ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... in haste. A vertigo was upon her like that dizzy weakness of one very sick, seeking prematurely to rise from bed. She had experienced a shock from which she could rally only gradually; she looked broken. Her eyes appeared to see nothing about her but stared off into the distance ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... strength of body and strength of mind to control your Sympathy and your Knowledge. Unless you control your emotions they run over and you stand in the slop. Sympathy must not run riot, or it is valueless and tokens weakness instead of strength. In every hospital for nervous disorders are to be found many instances of this loss of control. The individual has Sympathy, but not Poise, and therefore his life is worthless to himself and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... be weak; for everyone there is a strength though it may be only a little peculiar strength or an undeveloped potentiality. The unconverted man uses his strength egotistically, emphasizes himself harshly against the man who is weak where he is strong, and hates and conceals his own weakness. The Believer, in the measure of his belief, respects and seeks to understand the different strength of others and to use his own distinctive power with and not against his fellow men, in the common service of that synthesis to ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... and precocity He adopts the profession of the law His popularity as an orator Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship Prosecution of Verres His letters to Atticus; his vanity His Praetorship; declines a province His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall His law practice; his eloquence His provincial government His return to Rome His fears in view of the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey Sides with Pompey Death of Tullia and divorce of Terentia Second marriage of Cicero Literary labors: his philosophical writings His detestation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... by his pulse; but that certainly seems to me to be stronger. I gave him a few drops of laudanum a couple of hours ago, and it seems to me he has been dozing since; at any rate his eyes have been half-closed. I think that it is extreme weakness more than anything else; he has overtaxed his strength, and is worn-out with fatigue and starvation. I shouldn't be surprised if he gets round all right with quiet and food." The opening of the tent, and the sound of voices ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... him to himself immediately; with a little gesture of impatience as if annoyed at his own weakness, he put from him these morbid memories of the past. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... but he was the first to achieve great success with it, and Arthur Sketchley, Artemus Ward, Mr. Deputy Bedford ("Robert"), and all the American humorists who have adopted the same idea, are but followers where the great Titmarsh led. Jeames's weakness became a strength in Thackeray's hands, and at one time was turned with effect upon Sir Isaac Pitman's "Spelling Reform," which was then a novel butt for the satirist. The incident has been thus gravely recorded in the pages of the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... of weakness the Persians (A.D. 590) had conquered Asia Minor. Bethlehem, Gethsemane, and Calvary were profaned; the Holy Sepulchre had been burned, and the cross carried off amid shouts of laughter. Magianism had insulted Christianity, and no miracle ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... her behavior, why it will somehow be my fault. Why do you make me responsible when you know Miss McMurtry and most of the other girls are just as opposed to having her with us as I am?" said Betty, realizing that her defense was a sign of weakness and yet feeling that Polly had somehow driven her to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... bountiful one, and sit a little amongst us and examine my wife, who has the itch, and give her something to cure it." But I got wary, and I said, "If I were to give her any medicine, she will presently die of weakness, and I shall be blamed for her death." However, I did what I could. In some of the cases I asked my maid to come and help me; but she turned away in disgust, and said, "No thank you; I have the nose of a princess, and cannot do such work." And really it was horrible, for many came to me daily ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... Bragadin, who had the weakness to believe in the occult sciences, told me one day that, for a young man of my age, he thought my learning too extensive, and that he was certain I was the possessor of some supernatural endowment. He entreated me ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Here is her weakness and her strength again: "In the love-novels all the heroines are very desperate. Isabella will not allow me to speak about lovers and heroins, and 'tis too refined for my taste." "Miss Egward's (Edgeworth's) tails are very ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... old creatures who were paralyzed when they had been dumped into the car were now apparently dying; several of the children swayed with weakness as they stood, clutching at the biscuits and sweet chocolate which we drew from our pockets. Five of them were grandchildren of one of the paralytics, three designated one of the wrinkled flour-makers by the Polish equivalent of "granny," but none ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... be an old friend of Mr. Armadale's," she said. "Does he—?" Her voice failed her, and her eyes fell before the doctor's steady scrutiny. She mastered the momentary weakness, and finished her question. "Does he, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... county where he does not meet at least a dozen gentlemen returned upon every grand jury, every one of whom have better estates than he himself has—And these not during pleasure, which last consideration, saves me the trouble of shewing the weakness of the objection ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... God appeared to Abraham, that Abraham fell on his face, feeling his utter weakness and nothingness, and then God talked with him. When a man is laid low in the dust then God can talk to him. And God said to Abraham, "I will make my covenant between Me and thee." [Footnote: Gen. xvii. 2.] A covenant is a promise made under solemn conditions, and it is God's covenant of grace which ...
— The One Great Reality • Louisa Clayton
... spoken these words than he found himself outside the cave, of which no sign was to be seen on the surface of the earth. He lost no time in making his way home, where he fainted from weakness, and afterwards told his mother of his strange adventure. They were both very bitter against the cruel magician, but this did not prevent Aladdin from sleeping soundly until late the next morning. As there was nothing for breakfast, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... the tree are not very numerous, but it has a few, white ants among the number. They seldom attack a vigorous plant; it is upon the first symptoms of weakness or decay that they commence their operations. Their nests may be dislodged from the roots of the plant by a dose of solution of pig dung, to which they have a ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... effects of this neglect result in the passing of sentences of too great severity on first offenders and the young; and of too much leniency on hardened and habitual criminals. Leniency, says Grotius, should be exercised with discernment, otherwise it is not a virtue, but a weakness and a scandal. ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... extortion and peculation, his orders were not so punctiliously obeyed, but in this disobedience there was no open opposition—no assertion of a right to pilfer and extort. As the disobedience proceeded, not from a feeling of insubordination, but merely from the weakness that official flesh is heir to, it was not regarded as very heinous. In the aristocratic circles of St. Petersburg and Moscow there was the same indifference to political questions and public affairs. All strove to have the reputation ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Endor with again the hidden laugh in her voice, 'some men have a hidden weakness for witches which conflicts with their duty,—and some ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... return, went so far as to strike Pica in punishment for her weakness. Then, unable to tolerate the thought of seeing his son the jest of the whole city, he tried to procure his expulsion from the territory of Assisi. Going to St. Damian he summoned him to leave the country. This time Francis did not try to hide. Boldly presenting himself before his ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... in the field, and fighting by the side of, and in concert with, foreign allies, he observed—'Your inquiry will never take place as a real inquiry; or, if it did, it would lead to nothing but confusion and disturbance, increased disasters, shame at home and weakness abroad; it would convey no consolation to those whom you seek to aid, but it would carry malignant joy to the hearts of the enemies of England; and, for my part, I shall ever rejoice, if this motion is carried to-night, that my own last words as a member of the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... a lie?" she cried fiercely. "Is not my whole marriage a lie? I despise myself for my weakness in yielding, and yet, God help me, what else could I do when Garvington's fair fame was in question? Think of the disgrace, had he been prosecuted by Hubert. And Hubert knows that you and I loved; ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... supplanting, though He did occasionally lose His temper with their more bigoted and narrow supporters. Especially one loves His readiness to get at the spirit of religion, sweeping aside the texts and the forms. Never had anyone such a robust common sense, or such a sympathy for weakness. It was this most wonderful and uncommon life, and not his death, which is the true centre ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... indeed, lives and moves and has its very being in the bosom of public order. On the other hand, that public order alone which cherishes the true liberty of the individual is strong in the approbation of God and in the moral sentiments of mankind. All else is weakness, and death, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... above. He had been right, overwhelmingly right, as to the felicity of his tenderness and the degree of her sensibility, but even while she felt these things sweep all others away she tasted of a sort of terror of the weakness they produced in her. It was still, for her, that she had positively something to do, and that she mustn't be weak for this, must much rather be strong. For many hours after, none the less, she ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... so many lives? Is the inmost chamber of thy soul still closed in rebellion against the precepts of the High Gods? No more of thy poor little mummeries for the deception of the ignorant! Go, and without further display of the weakness which thou hast presumptuously mistaken for strength. ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... whose feelings were as tender and as delicate as this. He did not know, but it was this in her, after all, which attracted him. He never attempted to analyse the nature of his affection. It was sufficient that there was tenderness in her eye, weakness in her manner, good nature and hope in her thoughts. He drew near this lily, which had sucked its waxen beauty and perfume from below a depth of waters which he had never penetrated, and out of ooze and mould which he could ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... Jerry Morton?" Ruth's tone was rather scandalized, for Ruth did not share Peggy's faculty for finding all kinds of people interesting, and had a not uncommon weakness for ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... sacrificed his Brother Clarence, to pave his Way to the Throne. Nor better fared it with Edward the Fifth, who, by all the Arts of Seduction and Delusion, which his unnatural Uncle and Guardian, Richard, practised on the Fears and Weakness of the Queen Dowager; was, with his Brother the Duke of York, conveyed with great Pomp to the Tower; where the bloody Tyrant, aided by the Duke of Buckingham, soon sacrificed those young, innocent and hopeful Princes to his wicked and boundless Ambition. But he soon after lost his ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... deserves to carry the buckler unto Samson; yet is all this of an easy possibility, if we con- ceive a divine concourse, or an influence from the little finger of the Almighty. It is impossible that, either in the discourse of man or in the infallible voice of God, to the weakness of our apprehensions there should not appear irregularities, contradictions, and antino- mies: myself could show a catalogue of doubts, never yet imagined nor questioned, as I know, which are not resolved at the first hearing; not fantastick queries or objections of air; for I cannot ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... obliged to you," he interrupted her quietly, still meditative. He was evidently sincere. His attitude was dignified. Many men would have been ashamed, humiliated, even though aware of innocence. But he contrived to rise above such weakness. She was glad; she admired him. And she was very glad also that he did not deign to asseverate that he had been ignorant of his half-sister's plight. Naturally he ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... matter, whether it be of God. Unhappily we are so weak that we find it easier to believe and speak evil of others, rather than good. But they that are perfect, do not give ready heed to every news-bearer, for they know man's weakness that it is prone to ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... panic. "Abundance of people," writes Mr. Maxwell, "friends as well as enemies, had made it their business to find out the number of the Prince's army, but to no purpose. Great pains had been taken to conceal its weakness."[56] ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... money is to be recovered for the Company, (as he says,) he forgets to recover it: so that the accuracy with which he begins a bribe, acribus initiis et soporosa fine, and the carelessness with which he ends it, are things that characterize, not weakness and stupidity, but fraud. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have frequently caused great distress to the young lady of your affections by your exhibition of this weakness. Exactly. There is nothing a girl dislikes or despises more than jealousy. Be a man, Arthur W. Fight against it. You may find it hard at first, but persevere. Keep a smiling face. If she seems to enjoy talking to other men, show no resentment. Be merry and bright. Believe ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... not afford to do without the stimulating effect derived from meat. I propose making a test of the two methods, but should like to hear from you in reply to the above query. Another new feature I have noticed on the new diet is a thinness of the teeth and a feeling of weakness in them generally. ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... It all looked very formidable to the Eastern youth. Thunderous clouds hung low upon the peaks, and the great crags to left and right of the notch were stern and barren. "I think I'll wait for the stage," he said, with candid weakness. "I ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... She felt very cold, even upon that August day of sunlight. But the presence of Captain Willoughby, one of the three men whom she never would forgive, helped her to command herself. She would give no exhibition of weakness before any one of the detested three, and with an effort she recovered herself when she was on the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... record his sentence. It was well known that he looked with repugnance and horror upon the sanguinary scenes with which the Revolution had been deformed, and that he had often avowed his sympathy for the hard fate of a prince whose greatest crime was weakness. His vote would unquestionably be the index of that of the whole party, and thus the life or death of the king appeared to be suspended from his lips. It was known that the very evening before, while supping with a lady who expressed much commiseration ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... forth, hither and thither on their return journeys, followed what he supposed to be Miss Tucker's route; at least, it was her route on Saturday and Sunday, and he could not suppose her to harbor caprice or any other feminine weakness. ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his Invisible King; but I hope the reader has not wholly lost the clue. Let us recapitulate. Starting from the idea that its total renunciation of metaphysics, its incuriousness as to causation, was a weakness in Mr. Wells's system, inasmuch as an eager curiosity as to these matters is an inseparable part of our intellectual outfit, we set about enquiring whether it might not be possible to abandon the notions of omnipotence, omniscience and omni-benevolence, ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... Indian leaf doth briefly burn; So doth man's strength to weakness turn The fire of youth extinguished quite, Comes age, like embers, dry and white. Think of this ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott |
