"Astound" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stood, a finger to her lips. Yet the whispers from them that have reached us, while furtive perhaps, are clear. They furnished the poets with notes that are resonant still. They lifted the drama to heights that astound. Even in the fancy balls of Aristophanes, where men were ribald and the gods were mocked, suddenly, in the midst of the orgy, laughter ceased, obscenities were hushed. Afar a hymn resounded. It was the chorus of the Initiate going ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... unintermitted sound, And thought the battled fence so frail, It waved like cobweb in the gale; Amid his senses' giddy wheel, Did he not desperate impulse feel, 705 Headlong to plunge himself below, And meet the worst his fears foreshow? Thus, Ellen, dizzy and astound, As sudden ruin yawned around, By crossing terrors wildly tossed, 710 Still for the Douglas fearing most, Could scarce the desperate thought withstand, To buy his ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... that subtle perfume about you, and looking more beautiful than I have ever seen you, except on that one occasion; do you remember?—on that first evening in the orchard at dear old Eyethorne. Look at my dress, Fan, my second best! But how much more did it astound me to hear Harold—I call Mr. Northcott by his Christian name now—addressing you as Miss Eden when he left. What does it all mean? If he had called you Mrs. Eden I might have guessed what wonderful things had ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... not sought Thee, I have not found Thee, I have not thirsted for Thee: And now cold billows of death surround me, Buffeting billows of death astound me,— Wilt Thou look upon, wilt Thou see ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... stately air which would astound you; she only calls him monsieur, and when told that she has made an error, and that she should say monseigneur, she replies with great seriousness, 'I ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... brake under them, The knights were both astound: To avoid their horses they made haste ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... a room, and they should be carefully planned to make it a perfect whole. They must be so convincingly right that one only thinks at first how restful and pleasant and charming the whole room is; the details come later. When curtains stand out and astound one, they are wrong. It is not upholstery one is trying to display, but to make a perfect background for one's furniture, one's ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... the ducal chair, And shuts the trap with noiseless, gentle care; And puts in order everything around, So that, on waking, naught should her astound. ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... manner crafts and seated on thrones. To each pyramid there is a guardian, that keeps watch over it and guards it, to all eternity, against the ravages of time and the vicissitudes of events; and indeed the marvels of these pyramids astound all who have eyes and wit. Many are the poems that describe them, thou shalt profit no great matter thereby, and among the rest, quoth one ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... movement was so quick and unexpected as almost to astound Louis. For he had been standing behind her, and she had not turned her head before making the spill. Perhaps there was a faint reflection of himself in the window. Or perhaps she had eyes in her ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... the spring of 1806. During his first visit home in June, he connected himself with his father's church. A college course means to some young men four years of frolic, or worse. To others it is an opportunity to cram knowledge, that shall by-and-by astound the round world and they that dwell therein. To one, at least, it was the time for choosing "smooth stones" for his combat with the giant adversary, whom he was brave enough to meet alone, if need be, "in the name of the ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker
... continued, produce mountains; and the washing away of the land by rains and floods, such as we see all around us, would, if continued through the long centuries, produce the valleys and gorges which so astound us. The explanation of the past is to be found in the present. But this geological history told of a history of life as well as a history of rocks. The history of the rocks has indeed been bound up ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... recollect himself, the soldiers that stood nearest killed him with their spears, looking upon his confusion and silence as a confession of his guilt: very fine, indeed! The place, the spectators, the expectation, would astound a man even though were there no object in his mind but to speak well; but WHAT when 'tis an harangue upon which his life depends?' You that happen to be of my ear, it is my style that we are speaking of, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... horse, curveting on blue rockers, would be found on this very morning. Two days before had he in an absent moment beheld a vision of this horse poised near the door of the attic; but when he ran to make report of it below, thinking to astound people by his power of insight, Clytemnestra, bidding him wait in the kitchen where she was baking, had hurried to the spot and found only some rolls of blue cambric. She had rather shamed him for giving her such a start. A few rolls of shiny ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... seem to astound Jim an' Bill none when the rattlesnake 'sassinates himse'f that a-way, an' I reckons they has this yere sooicide in view. They keeps pesterin' an' projectin' about ontil the rattlesnake is plumb defunct, an' then they emits a whirlwind ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... have the rare and weird sight of a black from Abyssinia whose splendid ebony hide has been tattooed in white. Furthermore, a young girl of scarcely fourteen summers will astound you by entering the cage of the ferocious beasts, whose terrible roarings reach you here! The programme is most interesting, and after these incomparable attractions, you will applaud the cinema in colours—the last exploit of modern science—showing the recent tour of the President ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... Arthur had left the house, "you astound me. Who are these new friends and their philosophies, Barrow and the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... and drew his hand softly over his head. 'We never can be too cautious at a certain age, and especially after influenza,' he said. 'It undermines the whole system, and in particular the nervous system; leaving the mind the prey of the most melancholy fancies. I should astound you, Mr Lawford, with the devil influenza plays.... A slight nervous shock and a chill; quite slight, I hope. A few days' rest and plenty of nourishment. There's nothing; temperature inconsiderable. All perfectly ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... make it a living thing. Once he believes in reincarnation and the suspension of natural laws, the boundless vistas of space and the limitless aeons of time are opened to him. He can perform miracles which astound the world. But if he allow his mind to inquire, for instance, why it should have been necessary for Elijah to part the waters of the Jordan with his garment in order that he and Elisha might pass over dryshod, or for Bodhidharma to stand on a reed to cross the great Yangtzu River, ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... appeared to astound Mr. Crump. He goggled through his spectacles at John, who was reminded of some ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... only weakness was a professional pride in his wonderful achievements in induction. He was ever ready to astound and charm his listeners by describing ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... purpose; and even that idea is but of the meaner sort. Hence I conclude that the productions of those great and rich souls of former times are very much beyond the utmost stretch of my imagination or my wish; their writings do not only satisfy and fill me, but they astound me, and ravish me with admiration; I judge of their beauty; I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at least as 'tis possible for me to aspire. Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice to the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... delicate tissues are most sensitive to them, were responsible for nearly the entire death-roll. These were aggravated by the errors habitually committed by those in charge of infants. These errors were a lack of cleanliness which would astound us nowadays, and a complete absence of any sort of rule concerning infant diet. The soiled napkins which were wrapped round the baby under its swaddling bands would be dried in the sun again and again, and replaced ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... Astound, breathless, thunder-struck, at this intolerable profaneness, I stood like an idiot, unable to speak or think. Hector took hold of my arm and dragged me along. I obeyed, for I was insensible, soul-less; and even when the return of thought came, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... a type of the mystery of the whole world, the tragic fact which extends far beyond the limits of tragedy. Everywhere, from the crushed rocks beneath our feet to the soul of man, we see power, intelligence, life and glory, which astound us and seem to call for our worship. And everywhere we see them perishing, devouring one another and destroying themselves, often with dreadful pain, as though they came into being for no other end. Tragedy is the typical form of this mystery, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... the fullness of their affection, believe there is no harbour, sleeping or awake, where their infants can be so secure from all possible or probable danger as in their own arms; yet we should astound our readers if we told them the statistical number of infants who, in despite of their motherly solicitude and love, are annually killed, unwittingly, by such parents themselves, and this from the persistency ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... foundations; in spreading a wholesome education among his fellows. He would, unquestionably, have been much wiser, more fortunate, if he had agreed to let his idle, unemployed guides quarrel among themselves unheeded; if he had permitted them to fathom those depths calculated to astound the mind, to amaze the intellect, without intermeddling with their irrational disputes. But it is the essence of ignorance, to attach great importance to every thing which it doth not understand. Human vanity makes the mind bear up against difficulties. ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... This is strange! Is Lanciotto's name a spell to all? I ask a simple question, and straight you Start to one side, and mutter to yourself, And laugh, and groan, and play the lunatic, In such a style that you astound me more Than all the others. It appears to me I have been singled as a common dupe By every one. What mystery is this Surrounds Count Lanciotto? If there be A single creature in the universe Who has a right to know him as he is, I am ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... startle well, but not astound The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... mountains threw, From whom as soon again, the sound Dunbalrase drew, From whose stone-trophied head, it on the Windross went, Which tow'rds the sea again, resounded it to Dent. That Brodwater, therewith within her banks astound, In sailing to the sea, told it to Egremound, Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud and long, Did mightily commend old Copland for her song. Drayton's ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... we tread its puzzling paths, shows many profiles and glimpses of wonder and loveliness; many shapes and symbols to entrance and astound. Yet it will offer us nothing more beautiful than our mother's face; no memory more dear than her encircling tenderness. The mountain tops of her love rise as high in ether as any sun-stained alp. Lakes are no deeper and ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... contracts for Loans with certain Foreign States and also the causes which have led to the non-payment of the principal moneys and interest due in respect of such loans." Its report is a very interesting document, well worth the attention of those interested in the vagaries of human folly. It will astound the reader by reason of the wickedness of the waste of good capital involved, and at the same time it is a very pleasant proof of the progress that has been made in finance during the last half century. It is almost incredible that such things should have happened so lately. It is quite ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... always been, the patriotism of their educated class has seldom had this peculiar sort of extra energy that is given by a conscience completely at rest. If that were added, they might well make such a stand as would astound the world. All their other virtues, their humour and sporting spirit and freedom from the morbidities and cruelties of fatigue, might enter into their full heritage when joined to the integrity and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... should like to punish that beggarly vagrant, that rascally herb-culler, and pitiful conjuror, as he deserves. Let him only come for once into my quarters! With all his contemptible jugglery, I would astound him! I am so enraged with the fellow, the blood runs into my head at the very ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... and the United States were definitely to cease. When every discount is made, the celebration, heartily supported by the national leaders on {250} both sides, of a century of peace between the British, Canadian, and American peoples, does exhibit, in Sir Wilfred Laurier's words, "a spectacle to astound the world ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... For myself I knew I must appear to her a weak impostor. What would there possibly be in the sea to interest Sarah Walker? For the moment I prayed for a water-spout, a shipwreck, a whale, or any marine miracle to astound her and redeem my character. I walked guiltily down the hall, holding her hand bashfully in mine. I noticed that her breast began to heave convulsively; if she cried I knew I should mingle my tears with hers. We reached the veranda in gloomy ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... astound you, but I know, Royle, that you are a man of honour and of your word, and that you will keep your promise at all hazards," was all ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... Staues both strongly riuetted with steele, At the first stroke each other they astound, That as they staggering from each other reele; The Duke of Gloster falleth to the ground: When as Alanzon round about doth wheele, Thinking to lend him his last deadly wound: In comes the King his Brothers life to saue And to this braue Duke, a ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... in death.—He, undismay'd, "His fierce design still follows: now the tree, "Tottering with numerous blows, by straining cords, "He drags to earth; and half the wood below, "Crush'd by its weight, lies prostrate. All astound, "Of her depriv'd, and at their own sad loss, "The sister Dryads, clad in sable robes, "To Ceres hasten; and for vengeance call, "On Erisichthon. To their urgent prayers "The beauteous goddess gave assent, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... as ignorant of the existence of germs and of the means of preventing the spread of disease as the woman in a small country town who used daily to astound the neighbors by the "shower of snow" she produced by shaking the bedding of her sick child out of the window. Their astonishment was soon changed to panic when that shower of snow resulted in a deadly epidemic of scarlet fever. Medical inspection of New York City's schools ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... discussions which have taken place, and the decision of yesterday, astound everybody here. The Chancellor and the Prime Minister differing and dividing on a question which the former argues as vital to the jurisprudence of the country, is what England, I believe, has never before witnessed; and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... customary to ascribe actions of this sort on the part of a bird to a desire to please and astound the mate who is supposed to look on with fervent admiration. Sometimes this may be the case, but I think more often the bird, like my nighthawk, does it to please himself. There was no mate in sight when this nighthawk did his sky coasting, nor did any appear afterward. It was after the mating ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... falling accurately into the groove for the footlights between them. He had sung The Messiah and Arminius until they were a weariness to his flesh, and Hiawatha's call to Gitche Manito, the Mighty had become second nature to his tongue. He had moments of acute longing to astound his audience with a German student song, and, upon his off nights, he fell into the vaudeville habit. Not even his Puritanism could enjoy an ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... continued, looking at my mother, 'you surprise me! You astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which it stood in need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come to my assistance in this ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... meditated. A better situation than that, however, is for the deed to be done in ignorance, and the relationship discovered afterwards, since there is nothing odious in it, and the Discovery will serve to astound us. But the best of all is the last; what we have in Cresphontes, for example, where Merope, on the point of slaying her son, recognizes him in time; in Iphigenia, where sister and brother are in a like position; and in ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... pestilence that walketh in darkness, the destruction that wasteth at noonday." It confronts us all the day; it is the spectre that ever sits beside our bed. No doubt we make mistakes about it; no doubt there are outbreaks growing out of some phases of it that astound, and shock, and stun you, as they do ourselves. But believe me, the Anglo-Saxon race has set itself, with all its power, to face it and to overcome it; to solve it in some way, and in the wisest way. Have patience and it will be solved. Time is the great solver, and time alone. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Among the earliest disciples who had time to fathom their master's thought to the very depths we find traces of this noble disdain of the marvellous; they knew too well that the perfect joy is not to astound the world with prodigies, to give sight to the blind, nor even to revive those who have been four days dead, but that it lives in the love that goes even to self-immolation. Mihi absit gloriari nisi ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... propositions astound me," said Durtal with an effort. "No: I assure you I am not at all disposed to imprison myself in such a place. I know well that at Paris I shall never come to any good. I swear to you that I am not ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... this to astound her so?" I asked myself. "Is she not merely acting a part? And even if the Mauprats are not hidden behind some wainscot listening to us, is she not sure to give them an account of everything that takes place? And yet she ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... that of Cheops, as a work of human labor, astound by their greatness. This pyramid is a pointed stone mountain; its original height was thirty five stories, or four hundred and eighty-one feet, standing on a square foundation each side of which was seven hundred and fifty-five feet. It occupied a little ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... appalled at the spectacle; as though the prophetic admonitions of the Father of our Country were forgotten, and nature, with an ominous silence, conspired to lull you into forgetfulness, the more to astound you with the wonders and the woes of ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... as a matter of course, fills and hands to him as he takes his seat, while the boatmen themselves, generally Albanians, and singularly handsome and athletic men, lay themselves down to their work with a vigor and a heartiness which would astound the ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... you astound me! Is it respectful to force one's acquaintance upon an unwilling stranger? I really don't understand you. Where is your sense of propriety, Rose? A vulgar, noisy fellow, who talks of beer and tobacco—a ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... slate the medical profession thus: 'The mind of a child, like any other expanding, growing thing, tends to depart from the norm—loves apparently to surprise its progenitors. Holding in its grasp latent tendencies of all ages, of all the race, it may at any time astound by its sudden expansion in unexpected directions, as well as by its inexplicable failure to follow ordained grooves.'" Here Britt paused again. "You can see the old chap was hard hit. He now gets evolutionary. 'We are all goats, satyrs, and serpents potentially—even from the neurologist's ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... only one to astound me," said Monsignor. "Anne, you have brought back your youth again. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend, that he had not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding night. In the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident design had been to dazzle and astound. Little attention had been paid to the decora of what is technically called keeping, or to the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered from object to object, and rested upon none—neither the grotesques of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... physicians say] jaundiced, he by degrees got confirmed dropsy, and had it not been for his robust constitution, a variety of remedies prescribed for him by the English physicians having been of no use, he would by this time be in a bad way, his physiognomy being so changed as to astound all who see him. The Emperor had sent him the remedy he used when first troubled with dropsical symptoms, on his return from the war of Metz, which remedy cured him, and should God grant that it take the same effect on the Bishop of Winchester, it will be very advantageous for England, he being ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... wife and children with a sharp murderous scimitar, it would be no wonder for thee to show thyself stubborn and squeamish. But to make a piece of work about three thousand three hundred lashes, what every poor little charity-boy gets every month—it is enough to amaze, astonish, astound the compassionate bowels of all who hear it, nay, all who come to hear it in the course of time. Turn, O miserable, hard-hearted animal, turn, I say, those timorous owl's eyes upon these of mine that are compared to radiant stars, and thou wilt see them ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... grief among the tangled pinnacles on the ridge of the hogback. He swooped downward again in a series of shallow, easy glides and began the performance all over again. It was a game for him, too. But a game in which he tried only to astound himself, with swift, dizzy miracles of ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... exchange the iron rod that rules them for a more mild and beneficial form of government. A well-disciplined European army of 50,000 men, would assuredly effect their complete conquest without much difficulty: such an army, directed by a Wellington, would perform wonders, and astound the Africans. After the conquest, an energetic, decisive, but beneficent form of government, would be necessary, to retain the country, and to 462 conquer and annihilate the repugnancy which these people entertain to our religious tenets. A ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... and the ones you acquired a week ago, you are now equipped to astound the world and awaken mankind to a realization of the wonders that may be accomplished by natural forces. See that you employ these powers wisely, in the interests of science, and do not forget your promise to exhibit your electrical marvels only ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... became aware that old Joe Patman was grimacing at her from a corner fast by in a way that might have startled her had she not been familiar with such modes of beckoning. But when she obeyed his summons, what she saw did astound her outright, for Joe was stooping low over a leathern pouch which he had drawn from a wall-cranny, and which seemed to contain marvellous depths of silver money, with here and there a golden gleam among it, as he warily stirred it up, circling a hurried forefinger. She had only the ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane |
