"Diffusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my long-continued habit of observation, those shadows appear no more black than those on our earth, when they fall on contrasting snowy surfaces. The reason for which, in the absence of a lunar atmosphere, to render light diffusive, is the brilliant reflection from snow crystals, upon all contiguous objects, which lie in an angle to receive the same, and in consequence I have often observed the forms of objects not directly illuminated by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... your person comprehends in it everything that is beautiful; your air is everything that is graceful, your look everything that is majestic, and your mind is a storehouse where every virtue and every perfection are lodged: to pass by your generosity, which is so great, so glorious, so diffusive, that like the sun it eclipses, and makes stars of all your ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... head: But, by degrees to fulness wrought, The strength of some diffusive thought Hath time and space to work and spread. The Land of ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... for reflection and sources of instruction are multiplied. The virtues we admire in our ancestors not only adorn and dignify their names, but win us to their imitation. Their prosperity and happiness spread abroad a diffusive light that reaches us, and brightens our condition. The wisdom that guided their footsteps becomes, at the same time, a lamp to our path. The observation of the errors of their course, and of the consequent disappointments and sufferings ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters. It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of ...
— The Federalist Papers
... orator may paint, in the strong colours of ridicule, "the perpetual virtual adjournment, and the unbroken sitting vacation of the Board of Trade." [Note: I can never forget the delight with which that diffusive and ingenious orator, Mr. Burke, was heard by all sides of the house, and even by those whose existence he proscribed. (Speech on the Bill of Reform, p. 72-80.) The Lords of Trade blushed at their insignificancy, and Mr. Eden's appeal to ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... sun of civilization, when this infernal practice first sprang up into existence. Before this distinguished era of refined barbarity, the sons of Africa were in possession of all the mild enjoyments of peace—all the pleasing delights of uninterrupted harmony—and all the diffusive blessings of profound tranquility. Boundless must be the punishment, which irritated providence will inflict on those whose wanton cruelty has prompted them to destroy this fair arrangement of nature—this flowery prospect of human felicity. Engulphed in the dark abyss of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... strongest light sources ever created; aggregate 500,000 candlepower sufficient to illuminate 500,000 square feet of surface; fluting of columns glazed with special diffusion glass. For elimination of shadows caused by structure, there is diffusive glass inside. The glare from the light source is not excessive; brilliancy low; daring ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... seems to be diffusive truth, and common form diffusive beauty; and, as this diffusion is always existing with us, externally and internally, it is no wonder that we should more easily perceive what is in opposition to it, evil, than what is in ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds
... The sublime dignity and self-control of his dying hours will never cease to win the admiration of mankind; yet Socrates was by no means a complete character. He died unto himself merely. He left no gospel of peace to humanity. His influence, however pure, could not, and in fact did not, become a diffusive and transforming leaven, either in his own or in any subsequent generation. The late Matthew Arnold has said, "The radical difference between Jesus and Socrates is that such a conception as Paul's (conception of faith) would, ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... no man were purity and fidelity more essential elements in the idea of real love. Again, De Quincey speaks of Shelley's "fearlessness, his gracious nature, his truth, his purity from all flesh-liness of appetite, his freedom from vanity, his diffusive love and tenderness." This testimony is worth much, the more especially when we remember that it is from the pen of Thomas de Quincey, who, while truthfully acknowledging the man, hesitates not to use polished irony, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... unconnected with birth or property. This scheme of a rota, though it enfeebles the state, considered as one solid body, and indeed wholly disables it from acting as such, gives a great, an equal, and a diffusive strength to the democratic scheme. Seven hundred and fifty people, every two years raised to the supreme power, has already produced at least fifteen hundred bold, acting politicians: a great number for even so great a country as France. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... for, at one and the same time, it furnished the motive which gave a constructive coherency and meaning to the original purpose, it threw a solemn shadow over the rank worldliness of that purpose, and it opened a diffusive tendency towards other purposes of the same nature, as yet undeveloped. The device was this: in Scotland, as in England, the total process by which a parish clergyman is created, subdivides itself into several successive acts. The initial act belongs to the patron of the benefice: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... be in the presence of the diffusive life of the plant, a life which persists in a fragment? By no means: the grub is a more delicate organic structure. There is unity between the several parts; and none of them can be jeopardized ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... neat speech, condemning the order[10] of the Governor-General, but admitting the danger of rescinding it, and recommending, therefore, that the execution of it should be suspended. Sir Edward East, in a long, diffusive harangue, likewise condemned the order, but was against suspension; Sir James Graham was against the order, but against suspension; Lord Amherst the same. The rest approved of the order altogether. John Russell gave his opinion very well. The Chancellor was prolix and confused; he hit ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... greatness by climbing up on the backs of great men, that we are to gain strength by running with the currents of life, that we can from without add any thing to the great within that constitutes man. He poured out the precious ointment of his soul upon the feet of that diffusive Jesus who suffers here in his poor and despised ones. He has taught young ambitions, too, that the way to glory is the way often-times of adhesion simply to principle, and that popularity and unpopularity are not things to be known or considered. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... sounds came from a hopeless distance. Yet there was something in the expression of the mouth, that suggested a consistent standing aloof from herself and her desires. The lines of the face could never have been drawn by mere diffusive, emotional habits. Thought had left as many traces as feeling in the firm drawing. The quality of the face was of that indefinable kind that gives to all characteristic things their peculiar power over the imagination. The more powerful the quality, the less can it be rendered ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... union, which has for its object the continuation of the species—it belongs to the mind as well as to the body. It warms, invigorates, and elevates every sentiment, every feeling; and in its highest, purest, most diffusive form unites us to God ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... Blount. A more innocent connection we do not believe ever existed. As an author, Warburton has recorded that no man ever displayed more candor or more docility to criticisms offered in a friendly spirit. Finally, we sum up all in saying, that Pope retained to the last a true and diffusive benignity; that this was the quality which survived all others, notwithstanding the bitter trial which his benignity must have stood through life, and the excitement to a spiteful reaction of feeling which was continually pressed upon him by the scorn and insult ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey |
