"Actuate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which actuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to me consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... that war and of the Convention that nominated him having been accomplished—and under no obligations, especially of a partisan character, to adopt or promote the partisan purposes relative to reconstruction or otherwise, that came to actuate the Republican party. ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... nature are sometimes received with feelings as mixed as those which actuate them; and Mrs. Peniston remarked to her confidential maid that, if any of the family were to be with her at such a crisis (though for forty years she had been thought competent to see to the hanging of her own curtains), she would certainly have preferred Miss Grace to Miss Lily. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... both in the law and for political advancement, his wife shared his sacrifices. She was a plucky little woman, and in fact endowed with a more restless ambition than he. She was gifted with a rare insight into the motives that actuate mankind, and there is no doubt that much of Lincoln's success was in a measure attributable to her acuteness and the stimulus ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... most profligate of the literary men of antiquity. We possess but a small portion of his works, but the fragments which have come down to us show peculiar merit. He sought to penetrate the human heart, and to reveal the secret motives which actuate the conduct of men. The style of Sallust is brilliant, but his art is always apparent; he is clear and lively, but rhetorical. Like Voltaire, who inaugurated modern history, Sallust thought more of style than of accuracy as to facts. He was a party man, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... magnetic may be established by adding to the transmitter and two receivers a Sieur phonic call, which will actuate them powerfully, and cause them to produce a noise loud enough for a call. It would be interesting to try this telephone on a city line, and to a great distance on those telegraph lines that are provided with the Van Rysselberghe ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... colours, the noble prospect, which is alike held out to us by philosophy and by religion. We feel, according to the ardent expression of the poet, that we shall not wholly die; but from hence we vainly and weakly argue, that the same scenes, the same passions, shall delight and actuate the disembodied spirit, which affected it while in its tenement of clay. Hence the popular belief, that the soul haunts the spot where the murdered body is interred; that its appearances are directed to ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... Quakers censured these diversions from the first formation of their society, and laid down such moral principles with respect to the treatment of animals, as were subversive of their continuance. These principles continued to actuate all true Quakers, who were their successors; and they gave a proof, in their own conduct, that they were influenced by them, not only in treating the different animals under their care with tenderness, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... of the thing," said Captain Shirley, talking to us but watching the moving light intently, "briefly, is that I use the Hertzian waves to actuate relays on the Z99. That is, I send a child with a message, the grown man, through the relay, so to speak, does the work. So, you see, I can sit up here and send my little David out anywhere to strike ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... matrices may be properly engaged and disengaged by the pawls. For these reasons, and to secure easy and uniform action of the parts, the mechanism shown in Figs. 5 and 6 is introduced between the finger-keys and escapements. The vertical rods C, which actuate the escapements, are guided in the main frame, and each is urged downward by a spring c. Each rod C terminates directly over one end of a rising and falling yoke-bar c2, turning on a pivot c3 at the opposite end. Each of the yokes c2 is slotted vertically ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... quite sure that you could never have been betrayed into such a statement if you had been acquainted with the real motives which actuate the British Nation ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... are more than balanced by the respectable Scotch, who emigrate occasionally upon the same principles which actuate the respectable portion of the English emigrants, and by the hardy Highlanders already settled in various parts of the colony, whose proverbial loyalty is proof against ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... the argument on which the dispute is founded, I know little about it. Much has been said and written on both sides, but who has a judgment capacious and clear enough to decide? The great moving principles which actuate both parties are much hid from vulgar eyes, like mine; nothing but the plausible and the probable are offered ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... of Redemption; its Continual Progress; Indications of the End towards which it is tending; the End Itself the Chief Object of Interest—Great Crisis in the Church's History—Spirit that should actuate ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... Mind of any Gentleman in New York, to the Prejudice of a Man of distinguishd Merit, I can only observe, that it is totally inconsistent with those pure Principles, which you will allow me to say, have, and I trust ever will actuate Americans in the present Contest. You will excuse my saying any more to you on ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... stated or suggested, the Chinese seem to be actuated by precisely the same motives which actuate other peoples. They delight in the possession of wealth and fame, while fully alive to the transitory nature of both. They long even more for posterity, that the ancestral line may be carried on unbroken. ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... afraid you are very much in the minority, my dear," said Mrs. Livingston, smiling on Harriet. "Your forgiving spirit, however, is to be commended. It is the true spirit that should actuate a Wau-Wau Girl. In view of the previous vote, I shall have to impose a penalty that already had been agreed upon by the guardians in case the members of the camp decided upon some form of temporary punishment Therefore I sentence the six young women"—here ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... regarded by many Romish priests. He liked to have near him that which was pretty and amusing, but women generally were little more to him than children. He talked to them without putting out all his powers, and listened to them without any idea that what he should hear from them could either actuate his conduct or ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... enough to recognize in this letter a spirit quite different from that which had seemed to actuate some of the foreign aspirants for glory. And by this time they had received an informing letter from Silas Deane; so they hastened to pass a resolution (on July 31, 1777) accepting Lafayette's services and "in consideration of his zeal, illustrious ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... I was receiving it—I clenched my hands, and looked wildly round for something to destroy. I was in training to become a little tiger. From what I then experienced, I can easily conceive the feelings that actuate, and can half forgive the crowned monsters who have revelled in blood, and relished the inflicting of torture; as pandering to their worst passions in infancy resolves them into a terrible instrument of cruelty, the control of which rests not with themselves. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... moderation with which His Majesty might be disposed to view the treatment he had met with; he felt it to be unnecessary to urge preparation for any event that might arise from such a condition of things; he persuaded himself that in the great points of security and defence one mind would actuate all; he assured the country of the necessary support of regular troops should hostilities ensue, which with the "interior" force of the country would be found equal to any attack that could be made upon the province; the militia would not be unmindful ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... and devotion of all the Leyden leaders, whatever their birth or station,—so grandly proven in those terrible days of general sickness and death at New Plymouth,—to be certain that with them, under all circumstances, it was noblesse oblige, and that no self-seeking would actuate them here. It should be remembered that the MAY-FLOWER was primarily a passenger transport, her passengers being her principal freight and occupying the most of the ship, the heavier cargo being chiefly ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... provoked his impatient genius to disclaim the authority of his ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the Lesser Asia, amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy. The fierce contests of the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds, and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct, insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs of Christianity with that favorable attention which adds weight to the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... ground for believing that Pushkin likewise made this poem the record of his own experience. This has doubtless been the practice of many distinguished authors of fiction whose names will readily occur to the reader. Indeed, as we are never cognizant of the real motives which actuate others, it follows that nowhere can the secret springs of human action be studied to such advantage as within our own breasts. Thus romance is sometimes but the reflection of the writer's own individuality, and he adopts the ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... Jewish argument which Christians have to encounter is more novel, and, being confined to educated Jews, its influence is less wide, and does not actuate the stratum of Jewish life with which missionaries generally come into contact. It is based on modern rationalist speculations, and is seen in a work of Dr. Philippsohn, late rabbin at Magdeburg, Development ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... admitted slavery to be a great evil, unjust and indefensible in principle, and only to be vindicated by the stern necessity which was imposed upon us. Thus stimulated by every motive and passion which ordinarily actuate human beings—not as to a criminal enterprise, but as to something generous and heroic—what has been the result? A few imbecile and uncombined plots—in every instance detected before they broke out ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... would have a certain number of teeth or projections on its upper face, and as it was passed through a gap in the circuit the teeth would make or break the current. At the other end of the line the currents thus transmitted would excite the electro-magnet, actuate the pencil, and draw a zig-zag line on the paper, every angle being a distinct signal, and the groups of signals representing a word ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... of Australia ordinarily acting under the influence of no worse motives or passions than usually actuate man in a civilised state, we ought in fairness to suppose that sufficient provocative for retaliation has been given in those few instances of revenge, which, our imperfect knowledge of the circumstances attending them does not enable us ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... actuate the members should be the Kingdom of Heaven within the soul, which should be made the burden of all sermons, explaining how it is to be ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... prosper in the several schemes in which it is lawful for Christians to take part, but, if we fail to win the strife for eternal life, we shall have lived in vain. To make life a success, the glory of God must be the ruling motive to actuate us in all the walks of life. If we do really glorify him in our lives, success will surely crown our efforts—everlasting life will be ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... taken from Icelandic saga, the other from American Indian tradition, shew clearly the oneness which the uncultivated mind believes to exist between the soul of man and the soul of beast. The same sentiments actuate both man and brute, and if their actions are unlike, it is because of the difference in their formation. The soul within is identical, but the external accidents ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... recording drum. This should have been successful but for the difficulty of making good mechanical connection between the recorder and the pulley. Backlash caused an unreliable record, and this arrangement had to be abandoned. The motion of the wire was then made to actuate the recorder through a hinged lever, and this arrangement holds, but days and even weeks have been lost in grappling the difficulties of adjustment between the limits of the tide and those of the recording drum; then when all seemed well we found that the floe was not rising uniformly with ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... with the processes by which we come to act correctly.[10] On the contrary, merely correct action may be ethically worthless, and conduct obtains its moral value from the motives or intentions which actuate and determine it. Ethics cannot, therefore, ignore the psychological processes of feeling, desiring and willing of the acting subject. It is indeed true that in ordinary life men are frequently judged to ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... as we are in a holy league of brotherhood, I should not be doing justice to the feelings which actuate me in my relationship with yourselves, and operate amongst us all, did I deny that I almost expected you would seek a special occasion to felicitate me in the character in which we now appear. For all your kind wishes I thank you from the bottom ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV
... rule the empires of night and day—the moon and the sun; afterwards there took part in this work of explanation the five planets which we call Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Mercury, or rather the five gods who actuate them, and who have controlled their course from the moment of creation—Merodach, Ishtar, Ninib, Nergal, and Nebo. The planets seemed to traverse the heavens in every direction, to cross their own and each other's paths, and to approach the fixed stars or recede from them; and the species ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to our Head; Nourish us, in Christ, and feed; Let us daily growth receive, More and more in Jesus live. Move, and actuate, and guide; Divers gifts to each divide: Placed according to thy will, Let us ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... act of the basest treachery, killed two white men, Boot and May, who were trapping among the mountains. For this act it was impossible to discover a motive. It seemed to spring from one of those inexplicable impulses which often actuate Indians and appear no better than the mere outbreaks of native ferocity. No sooner was the murder committed than the whole tribe were in extreme consternation. They expected every day that the avenging dragoons would arrive, little ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of the Craft we are told that the three great tenets of a Mason's profession, are Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. And it is true that a Brotherly affection and kindness should govern us in all our intercourse and relations with our brethren; and a generous and liberal philanthropy actuate us in regard to all men. To relieve the distressed is peculiarly the duty of Masons—a sacred duty, not to be omitted, neglected, or coldly or inefficiently complied with. It is also most true, that Truth is a ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... financial embarrassment was the least of the difficulties of the position Catharine had assumed. The kingdom was rent with dissensions. Two religions were struggling—the one for exclusive supremacy, the other at least for toleration and recognition. Catharine had no strong religious convictions to actuate her in deciding which of the two she should embrace. Two powerful political parties were contending for the ascendency—that of the princes of the blood and of constitutional usage, and that of an ambitious family newly introduced into the kingdom, but a family which had succeeded in ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... is closed by means of a large plate of iron 6 inches thick, 10 feet in length, and 88 feet in width. The winch which maneuvers this mass is placed at E. It actuates a system of bevel wheels, keyed at F, which transmit motion to two horizontal screws (hidden under the stage) that actuate the plate, H. This latter is provided with two parallel series of five rollers each that revolve over long and strong pieces of wood covered with rails. Electric alarms ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... Plants, but is transferred also to the Plasticall power in Animalls, I enlarge it to all magnetick power whatsoever that doth immediately rule and actuate any body. For all magnetick power is founded in Physis, and in reference to her, this world is but one great Plant, (one logos spermatikos giving it shape and corporeall life) as in reference to Psyche, one happy and ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... have given too many instances, in the course of our narrative, of his childish inattention to this obvious means of advancing his interest. His schemes seemed to be of a higher though ridiculous nature, indeed I might say meaner; for revenge, rather than a desire of becoming great, appeared to actuate him from the beginning. This, however, maybe excused, if we consider that it is common to his countrymen. His father was, doubtless, a man of considerable property in Ulietea, when that island was conquered by those of Bolabola, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... function of sex-mating and which does surround a union that is pure and perfect. In this innate desire to share with the one and only possible mate, the intimate secrets of love, there is nothing of shame or apology—sentiments which alas, actuate the so-called "modest" man or ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... sometimes follow, so they frequently guide and direct the affections; and men may become more attached to the country of their principles than to the country of their birth. What I have stated here is only to mark the spirit which seems to me, though in somewhat different ways, to actuate our great party-leaders, and to trace this first pattern of a negotiation to its ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... particularly forcible in connection with the career of Paul. Endowed with brilliant talents, learned, living at the time and place, he must have been able to form a reliable opinion. And yet, while all the motives that commonly actuate men loudmouthed consistency, fame, wealth, pride, pleasure, the rooted force of inveterate prejudices all were beckoning to him from the temples and palaces of the Pharisaic establishment, he spurned the glowing visions of his ambition and dashed ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... extreme spirit of jealousy. To resist these encroachments, and to nourish this spirit, was the great object of all our public and private institutions. The zeal for liberty became predominant and excessive. In forming our confederation, this passion alone seemed to actuate us, and we appear to have had no other view than to secure ourselves from despotism. The object certainly was a valuable one, and deserved our utmost attention. But, sir, there is another object equally important, and which our enthusiasm ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... as well by the incessant operation of a partisan warfare, as by defection to their adversaries, whom her troops would be led to combat only with regret. They would not enter into a war of this description with the same animosity and desire of vengeance that might actuate their leaders. They would behold in their opponents, Britons, or the descendants of Britons, placed in hostile array against them unwillingly, and not from any ancient and inveterate spirit of hatred and rivality, but from constrained resistance to tyranny, and in vindication of their most ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... gates to us. Failing, through cowardice, these self-same things will become hostile to us. Not any place nor any friend shall protect him, whom his own arms have not protected. However, soldiers, the same necessity doth not actuate us and our enemies. We fight for our country, our liberty, our life! To them it is supererogatory to do battle for the power of a few nobles. Wherefore, fall on with the greater boldness, mindful of your own valor. We might all of us, have passed ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... humidity which lie beneath the satirical crust of his irony. He is primarily a satirist, dealing as he says with the vices of the human mind and the subterfuges of human self-deception. He lays bare "the sentiments and the movements of men, exposing the principles which actuate their malice and their frailty"; he aims at showing that such is the native evil implanted in their souls that "no one should any longer be surprised at the thousands of vicious or frivolous actions with which their lives are crowded." We note him at first as entirely devoted to these ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... of a long public career, General Cass gave evidence of the spirit which was to actuate many patriotic Democrats when the final ordeal came. It was to be regretted that he had not taken issue with his chief when his paradoxical message was read to the Cabinet, but much is to be allowed to the inertness of a man in his seventy-ninth year. Life-long placeman ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... pedants and politicians. The smoke and dust of controversy obscures her vision, and she needs all her energies to tackle the great task which confronts her. In this regard nothing is so full of promise for the future as the new sense of unity which is beginning both to animate and actuate the whole teaching profession, from the University to the Kindergarten, and has already eventuated in the formation of a Teachers Registration Council, on which all sorts and ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... disk, M, which is insulated from the other portions of the key-board, and the current then passes from the terminal C to M, and there bifurcating, one portion of it goes to the bobbins of the apparatus and thence to the earth, while the other goes to actuate the correspondence apparatus. The index-hands of the two apparatus thereupon begin their movement simultaneously, and only stop when the pressure is removed from the button and the current is consequently interrupted. H is a ratchet-wheel, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... climax has been passed. Keep your eye—your "picture eye"—on your characters as they move about and carry out the actions which you have planned to have them perform; but describe those actions, as well as the motives which actuate them, in just as few words as possible. Do not trifle with the tendency to be wordy, or even to ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... each other, will result in bringing true merit to the surface, in awakening our people to a loftier appreciation of the good and the true, thereby establishing a higher moral standard among us; that purer motives will henceforth actuate our society. The fears which are entertained by some that the present war will prove a severe shock to our civilization, are not sustained by the facts which are everywhere appearing around us. The frequent demands ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of social development the economic motives that actuate men remain essentially the same. All men seek to get as much net service from material wealth as they can. The more wealth they have, other things remaining the same, the better off they are, and the more personal ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... lived in, descended to the lowest. Yet, as both their excellencies are infinitely more numerous than their deficiencies, so both their characters will devolve to latest posterity, not as models of perfection, yet glorious examples of those amazing powers that actuate the human soul." ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... guilt is collective must not actuate me to throw mine upon the shoulders of others, but rather to take upon myself the burden of the guilt of others, the guilt of all men; not to merge and sink my guilt in the total mass of guilt, but to make this total guilt my own; not to dismiss and banish ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... reason government which attempts to control minds is accounted tyrannical, and it is considered an abuse of sovereignty and a usurpation of the rights of subjects to seek to prescribe what shall be accepted as true, or rejected as false, or what opinions should actuate men in their worship of God. All these questions fall within a man's natural right, which he cannot abdicate ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... actuate, draw, impel, induce, move, stir, compel, drive, incite, instigate, persuade, sway, dispose, excite, incline, lead, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the first ideas of religion arose, not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human mind ... in order to carry men's attention beyond the present course of things, or lead them into any inference concerning invisible intelligent power, they must be actuated by some passion which prompts their thought ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... the other. They may either appear in impression to the actual feeling, or only in idea, as at present when I mention them. It is evident the influence of these upon our actions is far from being equal. Impressions always actuate the soul, and that in the highest degree; but it is not every idea which has the same effect. Nature has proceeded with caution in this came, and seems to have carefully avoided the inconveniences of two extremes. Did ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... Lawrence, Governor of Oude, had died from wounds inflicted by a rebel shell many weeks before, and lay buried in the stronghold for whose safe keeping he had continued to provide in the hour and article of death. His spirit, however, seemed yet to actuate the survivors. Havelock's march had been one succession of victories won against enormous odds, and half miraculous; but even he could work no miracle, and his troops might merely have shared a tragic fate with the long-tried defenders ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... the distinction between right and wrong is usually very clear, but it is not so in public affairs. Even the moral aspects of political acts can seldom be rightly estimated without the exercise of a large, judicial, and comprehensive judgment, and the spirit which should actuate a statesman should be rather that of a high-minded and honourable man of the world than that of a theologian, or a lawyer, ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the two they had watched were even now stealing, tense with the weight of their daring and their crime. In a moment they would reach her, enter her, actuate machinery that was miraculous in its complex simplicity, and be gone then on the wings it gave them into the concealing ...
— The Indulgence of Negu Mah • Robert Andrew Arthur
... tendencies of thought and the economic teaching of the period were not merely negative and opposed to government regulation; they contained a positive element also. If there was to be no external control, what incentive would actuate men in their industrial existence? What force would hold economic society together? The answer was a plain one. Enlightened self-interest was the incentive, universal free competition was the force. James Anderson, in his Political Economy, ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... that which bears most resemblance to the true, the Courage of Citizenship, so named because the motives which are thought to actuate the members of a community in braving danger are the penalties and disgrace held out by the laws to cowardice, and the dignities conferred on the Brave; which is thought to be the reason why those are the bravest people ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... their odd and unaccountable habits, which they always imagine themselves to be on the point of shaking off, but which they always retain to the end; caught in the treadmill of their own maladies and eccentricities, their futile endeavours to escape serve only to actuate its mechanism, to keep in motion the clockwork of their strange, ineluctable, fatal daily round. Such as these was the water-lily, and also like one of those wretches whose peculiar torments, repeated indefinitely throughout eternity, aroused the curiosity of Dante, who would have inquired ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... re-election. This is certainly a decidedly conservative change. It will remove from the incumbent all temptation to use his office or exert the powers confided to him for any objects of personal ambition. The only incentive to that higher ambition which should move and actuate one holding such high trusts in his hands will be the good of the people, the advancement, happiness, safety, honor, and true glory of ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... book, however, is well worth reading by those who wish to learn something of the motives which originally led the Southern States into rebellion, and still actuate them in their obstinate resistance. To any one familiar with the history of the last thirty years, it would almost seem that Mr. Pollard's object had been to expose the futility of the pretences set up by the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... inform you that the executive government of Venezuela has acknowledged some claims of citizens of the United States which have for many years past been urged by our charge d'affaires at Caracas. It is hoped that the same sense of justice will actuate the Congress of that Republic in providing the means for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... the Lady of the House, (who has bred up three Sons and three Daughters, who do Honour to her Education of them) I really think the penetrating into the Motives that actuate the Persons in a private Family, of much more general use to be known, than those concerning the Management of any Kingdom or Empire whatsoever: The latter, Princes, Governors, and Politicians only can be the better for, whilst every ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... You keep going here and there to induce people as far as possible to formulate their accusations. This stupid kind of tittle-tattle is hateful to you, and you are anxious to put a stop to it as soon as possible. Am I right? Have I laid finger on the sentiments which actuate you? But you are not satisfied by turning your own brain, you want to do, or rather do, the same thing to my good Razoumikhin. Really, it is a pity to upset so good a fellow! His kindness exposes him more than anyone else to suffer contagion from ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... is a more powerful device than a swinging needle, and better able to actuate a mechanism. It became the foundation of the recording instrument of Samuel Morse, the father of the telegraph in America. The Morse, or, rather, Morse and Vail instrument, actually marks the signals in "dots" and "dashes" on a ribbon of moving paper. Figure 49 ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... engaged him in several plots to restore that prince, and with him, tyranny and idolatry, poverty and slavery."[35] Upon the odious principle of always seeking out for the lowest and the most selfish motive that can actuate the conduct of men,—a principle which is thought by weak and bad minds to display knowledge of the world, but which, in fact, more often betrays ignorance,—another part of his conduct was misjudged. The reluctance of the Duke of Hamilton, in 1704, to nominate a successor ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... were no grounds on which to found a caution, yet Grace felt full of discomfort and distrust, a feeling shared by Alison, who had never forgiven herself for her half confidence, and felt that it would be wiser to tell the rest, but was withheld by knowing that her motive would actuate her sister to a contrary course. That Colin should detach himself from her, love again, and marry, was what Ermine schooled herself to think fitting; but Alison alternated between indignant jealousy for her sister, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... separation, which Ireland does not want, and a final abandonment of constitutional methods. If another Home Rule Bill were to fail, Sinn Fein would undoubtedly redouble its strength. Its ideas are sane and sound. They are at bottom exactly the ideas which actuate every progressive and spirited community, and which in Ireland animate the Industrial Development Associations, the Co-operative movement, the thirst for technical instruction, the Gaelic League, the literary revival, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... I do not doubt that a liberal and generous spirit will actuate Congress in all that concerns her interests and prosperity, and that she will never have cause to regret that she has united her "lone star" ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... work is the duty and privilege of American women. What higher ambition could actuate their endeavors—what nobler meed of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... arms is as essential, at least, as that of the legs, for an expressive attitude: and both receive their justness from the nature of the passions they are meant to express. The passions are the springs which must actuate the machine, while a close observation of nature furnishes the art of giving to those motions the grace of ease and expertness. Any thing that, on the stage especially, has the air of being forced, or improper, cannot fail of having a bad ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... honest in the discharge of their duties, must be very imperfectly acquainted with human nature, and with the motives by which men are influenced in all quarters of the world; but we are none of us so ignorant, for we all know that the same motives actuate public servants in India as elsewhere. We have acted successfully upon this knowledge in the scale of salaries and gradation of rank assigned to European civil functionaries, and to all native functionaries employed in the judicial and revenue branches of the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the viciousness of the one, and the simplicity of the other, are the result merely of education and habit. It seems to be a part of heroism, among the polished nations of it, to sacrifice the virtuous fair one, whenever an opportunity offers, and thence it is concluded that the same principles actuate those of the new world. It is egregiously absurd to judge all of all countries by one. In Spain, Portugal and Italy, jealousy reigns; in France, England, and Holland, suspicion; in the West and East Indies, lust; in New England, superstition. These ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... crumpling the letters he held in his hand, "You know me enough," she continued, "or what I would say is, you yet recollect (do you not, Lord Alfred?) enough of my nature, to know That these pledges of what was perhaps long ago A foolish affection, I do not recall From those motives of prudence which actuate all Or most women when their love ceases. Indeed, If you have such a doubt, to dispel it I need But remind you that ten years these letters have rested Unreclaim'd in your hands." A reproach seem'd suggested By these words. ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... Mockery is far indeed from my intention." He turned again to Rotherby. "Lord Ostermore was a father to you, which he never was to me—knew not that he was. The sentiments you so beautifully expressed to Mr. Templeton are the sentiments that actuate me now, though I shall make no attempt to express them. It is not that my heart stirs much where my Lord Ostermore is concerned. And yet, for the sake of the name that is mine now, I shall leave England as I came—Mr. Justin ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... was I not more honest, or am I not less so? It would have cost my poor old uncle no pangs to accept Blanche's fortune whencesoever it came; he can't even understand, he is bitterly indignant, heart-stricken, almost, at the scruples which actuate me in refusing it. I dissatisfy everybody. A maimed, weak, imperfect wretch, it seems as if I am unequal to any fortune. I neither make myself nor any one connected with me happy. What prospect is there for this poor little ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the idea was brilliantly carried out; but everything favoured it. As for the essential idea, I do not place it, as regards ingenuity, in the same class with, for example, the idea of utilizing the force of recoil in a discharged firearm to actuate the mechanism of ejecting and reloading. I do, however, admit, as I did at the outset, that in respect of details the case had unusual features. It developed ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... said, "do you not understand me? What are we, you and I, in comparison with the eternity of royal crowns? Do you suppose me to have other designs than those that ought to actuate all royal persons who inhabit the sphere ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... interval, therefore, of about seventy years, we must place the second migration of about seventy years, we must place the second migration of the Goths from the Baltic to the Euxine; but the cause that produced it lies concealed among the various motives which actuate the conduct of unsettled barbarians. Either a pestilence or a famine, a victory or a defeat, an oracle of the gods or the eloquence of a daring leader, were sufficient to impel the Gothic arms on the milder climates of the south. Besides the influence of a martial religion, the numbers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... pieces of the receptacles that lately held foaming Bass or glistening Hochheimer are used until their edge gives way, to the great contentment of true untutored dandies. The Bond Street man is at one end of the scale, the uncompromising heathen barber at the other; but the same principles actuate both. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... useless to speculate on the cause of this proceeding, since it is impossible ever to understand, and hopeless to attempt to discover, the motives or secret springs which actuate a native Durbar; and no doubt Jung himself, who is the real manager of everything, had some good reason for the present double occupancy of the throne. It struck me that it would answer one purpose at any rate: it would show the people ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... Scriptures from the large use he makes of them in his Epistles. He seems also to have been quite well acquainted with Greek philosophy and literature. He quotes from the Greek poets, Aratus, Epimenides, and Menander. No man ever studied men and the motives which actuate them more than he. His inward life was pure (Acts 23:1; 24:16). Paul differed from Christ in that he was a man who sought the cities and drew his illustrations from them, while Christ was much in the country and drew his illustrations ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... on the 4th, and could not but recount the mercies of God in my safe return. They have followed me through many a perilous, and trying scene of life; and I would that a sense of a continual protecting Providence in the mercy of Redemption, may ever actuate me in whatsoever things may tend to the promotion of the happiness, and of the best interests of my fellow men, in the journeyings of my life, through a disordered ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... would seem, that the torpid motions of the stomach, whatever may occasion them, are a very frequent cause of continued fever with weak pulse; and that these torpid motions of the stomach do not sufficiently excite the sensorial power of association, which contributes in health to actuate the heart and arteries along with the irritation produced by the stimulus of the blood; and hence the actions of these organs are weaker. And lastly, that the accumulation of the sensorial power of association, which ought to be expended on the motions of the heart and ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... by the employment of electric and pneumatic auxiliaries. The same is true of organs and organists. The touch of the keys has been greatly lightened by making the keys open air-valves or complete electric circuits which actuate the mechanism for pulling down the pallets. The stops, pedals, and couplers also employ "power." Not only are the performer's muscles spared a lot of heavy work when compressed air and electricity aid him, but he is able to have the console, or keyboard, far away from the ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... companions in the chamber of sickness. They come, when I could sleep or read, they stay till I am weary, they force me to attend, when my mind calls for relaxation, and to speak, when my powers will hardly actuate my tongue. The amusements and consolations of languor and depression are conferred by familiar and domestick companions, which can be visited or called at will, and can, occasionally, be quitted or dismissed, who do not obstruct accommodation ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... so on? What is the good of it all, if these things do not make us 'live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world'? What is the good of the sails of a windmill going whirling round, if the machinery has been thrown out of gear, and the great stones which it ought to actuate are not revolving? What is the good of the screw of a steamer revolving, when she pitches, clean above the waves? It does nothing then to drive the vessel onwards, but will only damage the machinery. And Christian emotions and experiences which do not drive conduct are of as little ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... provocateur; lobbyist. V. induce, move; draw, draw on; bring in its train, give an impulse &c n.; to; inspire; put up to, prompt, call up; attract, beckon. stimulate &c (excite) 824; spirit up, inspirit; rouse, arouse; animate, incite, foment, provoke, instigate, set on, actuate; act upon, work upon, operate upon; encourage; pat on the back, pat on the shoulder, clap on the back, clap on the shoulder. influence, weigh with, bias, sway, incline, dispose, predispose, turn the scale, inoculate; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 'True.' We often say that one man masters, and another is mastered by pleasure and anger. 'Just so.' But no one says that one man masters, and another is mastered by ignorance. 'You are right.' All these motives actuate men and sometimes drive them in different ways. 'That is so.' Now, then, I am in a position to define the nature of just and unjust. By injustice I mean the dominion of anger and fear, pleasure and pain, envy and desire, ...
— Laws • Plato
... feet long and 7 feet beam. She draws 2'6" of water when carrying 40 persons, for whom there is ample sitting accommodation. There are 64 cells in this boat. These are placed as ballast under the floor, and actuate a pair of motors and a screw coupled direct to the armature shaft running at 700 revolutions a minute. We crossed the English Channel with this boat in September of last year, leaving Dover at 10:40 in the morning, arriving at Calais at 2:30 P.M.; stayed about ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... hardness in the manner of treating the character, which in some degree defeats the effect. Medea talks too much: her human feelings and superhuman power are not sufficiently blended. Taking into consideration the different impulses which actuate Medea and Lady Macbeth, as love, jealousy, and revenge on the one side, and ambition on the other, we expect to find more of female nature in the first than in the last: and yet the contrary is the fact: at least, my own impression as far as a woman may judge of a woman, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... other, which is self-contradictory, etc. Meanwhile each of us actually is his own other to that extent, livingly knowing how to perform the trick which logic tells us can't be done. My thoughts animate and actuate this very body which you see and hear, and thereby influence your thoughts. The dynamic current somehow does get from me to you, however numerous the intermediary conductors may have to be. Distinctions may be insulators in logic ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... you are assembled, and which in defining your powers designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me to substitute in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges that as ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... genuine thinking was a hard repellent labor. Casual impressions had a mighty force of perversion. The senses were not a medium through which the intellect could receive ideas foreign to material existence. The appetites and passions would infallibly occupy and actuate the whole man. When by these his imagination was put in activity, its gleams and meteors would be anything rather than lights of truth. His interest, according to his gross apprehension of it, would in numberless instances require, and therefore would gain, false judgments for justification ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... reproach the whigs who countenanced this measure. They branded that party with apostacy from their former principles. They observed that the very persons who in the late reigns endeavoured to abridge the prerogative, and deprive the king of that share of power which was absolutely necessary to actuate the machine of government, were now become advocates for maintaining a standing army in time of peace; nay, and impudently avowed, that their complaisance to the court in this particular was owing to their desire of excluding from all share in the administration ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Wantonness, licentiousness, avarice, and the other vices which stained their conduct, discovered their secret intentions. Their anxiety for enriching themselves, their vanity, the authority which they exercised over the poor Indians, are the motives which actuate them, and not the love of God or the propagating ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... household work, I do not see; in either case it is servitude, although the former may be preferred, as being less under control, and leaving more time at your own disposal. I consider the pride, therefore, which Miss Martineau upholds, to be false pride, which will actuate them in other points; and when we find the factory girls vying with each other in silks and laces, it becomes a query whether the passion for dress, so universal in America, may not have its effect there as well as ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... to my readers that I have not had more to say of the wonder excited in my mind by the number and character of the great mechanical inventions and applications unknown in my day, which contribute to the material fabric and actuate the mechanism of your civilization. For example, although this was very far from being my first air trip, I do not think that I have before referred to a sort of experience which, to a representative of the last century, must naturally have been nothing less than astounding. ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... generous impressions; this is the pleasure that arises from music. Another kind of bodily pleasure is that which results from an undisturbed and vigorous constitution of body, when life and active spirits seem to actuate every part. This lively health, when entirely free from all mixture of pain, of itself gives an inward pleasure, independent of all external objects of delight; and though this pleasure does not so powerfully affect us, nor act so strongly on the senses as some of ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... to engage in it, except it be the prospect of rendering effectual service to the common cause. I make this declaration, not because I conceive it necessary to you, or from an ostentatious display of those motives, which actuate my conduct, but there may be persons to whom I am not so well known as I have the honor of being to your Excellency, and who from ignorance or interest might give to the present ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... his 'minister,' but it was only with a deeper fervour to invoke 'the desert' as 'his dwelling-place.' Thus, when the Earl, who, like most practical judges of mankind, loved to apply to each individual the motives that actuate the mass, and who only unwillingly, and somewhat sceptically, assented to the exceptions, and was driven to search for peculiar clues to the eccentric instance,—finding, to his secret triumph, that Aram had admitted one intruding emotion into his boasted circle of indifference, imagined ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... investigation and inductive reasoning upon this subject, the experiments under the direction of Dr. Whitehouse and Mr. Bright which I witnessed this morning—in which the induction-coils and receiving-magnets, as modified by these gentlemen, were made to actuate one of my recording instruments —have most satisfactorily resolved all doubts of the practicability as well as practicality of operating the Telegraph ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... have unquestionably shewn a great willingness upon this occasion to be trained, and, I make not the least doubt, would oppose with vigour any invasion of the Americans—but how far the same sentiments would actuate them were a French force to join, I will not undertake to say; at any rate, I feel that every consideration of prudence and policy ought to determine me to keep in Quebec a sufficient force to secure its safety; ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... guns. The Negroes seemed to realize that here for the first time was the opportunity to show their mettle—that for the first time they were going to battle as a division. A sense of race pride seemed to stir and actuate every man. Here was a chance to show what this great body, composed of cotton-field Negroes, of stevedores, mechanics, general laborers, trades, professional men and those from all walks of civilian life who but recently had taken up the profession of arms, could do. An ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... upper, outer end of this openwork tube a group of nine forces held the field of force rigidly in place in its axis; at the lower extremity were mounted seats for two operators and the control panels necessary for the operation of the intricate system of forces and motors which would actuate and control that gigantic projector. Immense hour and declination circles could be read by optical systems from the operators' seats—circles fully forty feet in diameter, graduated with incredible delicacy and accuracy into decimal fractions of seconds of arc, and ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... said her husband, solemnly, "you are hopeless—positively, undeniably, hopeless. I do not object to your failing to see the humor in the situation, for you are a woman; but that you should not be curious as to the motives which actuate Uncle Simon, that you should be unmoved by a burning desire to know why this staunch old servant who has for so many years pictured hell each Sunday to his fellow-servants should wish a vacation—that I can ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... sure to be; for no instrument is so liable to damage as the fiddle, and you never know into what studio your beloved one may go, or by whom it will be criticised. And apart from this latter consideration, pride in your own work and love of truth ought, and I hope will, actuate to noble effort; but mind, do not overrate what is done, in your pride of heart, for those into whose hands it will come later will ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... above considerations, it is doubtful whether the pecuniary reward will often repay for the time, trouble, and expense which is usually required to produce a variety worthy of general introduction. Other motives than money must actuate. As Mr. Durand once said, when so perplexed by the difficulties and complications of his labor, and so disheartened by the results that he was inclined to throw down the burden, "There is a fascination that binds me still." In other words, he was engaged ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... store is only my fun, my device for amusing myself. We have glorious times here, I and my ten managers—my Council of Ten. They know me; I know them. They are well paid; they are artists. A trade spirit must, of course, actuate a trade concern; but above that, controlling that, is another spirit—the spirit which has made this undoubtedly the greatest shop in the world. I cannot describe it, but it exists. All my managers, and even many of the rank ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... does it present? A dreary waste of life, varied only by remorse. Had my career been yours, you would perhaps have looked on it differently; but I cannot. Oh, Annie, once more, I beseech, let not such principles actuate your future conduct; they are wrong, they will load to misery here, and what preparation ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... use them. What has thy profession to do with arms, that thou shouldst ever deign to know their use? It is not yet too late-say, shall it be pistols? You can yet choose," said Petro, touched with that spirit of honor which would sometimes actuate him. ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... droll spectator position which he had evidently chosen for himself, as though he could somehow see and enjoy all the struggles of self-interest raised by his will, with one of those curious self-delusions which so often seem to actuate the dying. Sir Tom, however, had thought it little more than a folly even at the moment when it had amused him the most. He had thought that in time Lucy would come to see how ridiculous it was, and would tacitly, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant |
