"Elan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... helpful to me than anything I can remember for a long while. And what a book I have got! A complete resignation without losing energy on one's work at hand that is what one may strive for. Energy and conviction and elan are not usually resigned to all obstacles and resignation is often lassitude. I feel resignation so necessary and at the same time I have such infinite faith in the power of 'il faut' (one must). The worst thing I am afraid of is to become tired in the way I mean. I think ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... His dark eyes sparked above his teguelmoust veil and he presented himself before Homer Crawford with the elan of a Napoleonic cavalryman before his emperor. Were red leather fil fil boots capable of producing a clicking of heels, that ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... religious ecstacy by physical expedients, such as fasts and vigils, in which case he is denounced as a Ritualist. Or he may be either a Unitarian Deist like Voltaire or Tom Paine, or the more modern sort of Anglican Theosophist to whom the Holy Ghost is the Elan Vital of Bergson, and the Father and Son are an expression of the fact that our functions and aspects are manifold, and that we are all sons and all either potential or actual parents, in which case he is strongly suspected by the straiter Salvationists of being little better than an ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... net over silver, quite the dernier cri this season, and looking radiant over her sister Lady Yolande's engagement to the Duke of Bilgewater. Richter conducted with his usual brilliance, and the new Wotan sang with great elan, although he was obviously suffering from a ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... prominent. The music surges wildly, undulating in a manner that suggests a Redskin scalp dance, the hideous, painted figures now bending low, now holding their weapons high above their heads. At length the fury of the war dance reaches an elan that exhausts it, the barbaric figure referred to in our second illustration becoming more and more prominent, then sinking lower and lower until it is nothing more than a series of thudding accents, broken by periods of silence of increasing ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... Austrian court, especially the Hungarian women, are notably beautiful and fascinating as well. It is the Magyar elan, that abandon which prompts a woman to toss her jewelled bangle to a Gypsy leader of the orchestra, when his violin moans and flashes out ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... of every creature a steady stream of energy. Scientists have not been able to decide on a descriptive term for this all-important life-force. It has been variously called "libido," "vital impulse" or "elan vital," "the spirit of life," "horme," and "creative energy." The chief business of this life-force seems to be the preservation and development of the individual and the preservation and development of the race. In the service of these two needs have grown up these habit-reactions ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... to deal effectively with three machine guns, and having used the white arm against their crews the guns were turned on to the retreating Turks and decimated their ranks. This charge was witnessed by General Shea, and I know it is his opinion that it was executed with the greatest gallantry and elan, and was worthy of the best traditions of British cavalry. The yeomanry lost about twenty-five per cent. of their number in casualties, but their action was worth the price, for they completely broke up the enemy ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... of the "Forty Thieves," had exhibited an activity and elan for which this gallant little corps was eminently distinguished; and had they been European troops, their conduct upon this occasion, against such overwhelming odds, would have covered ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... a voice went singing, a man's voice, singing a cheap and common air. Yet something in the elan of it all told he was young, ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland |
