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Liken   Listen
verb
Liken  v. t.  (past & past part. likened; pres. part. likening)  
1.
To allege, or think, to be like; to represent as like; to compare; as, to liken life to a pilgrimage. "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock."
2.
To make or cause to be like. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Liken" Quotes from Famous Books



... I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the marketplaces, who call unto their fellows and say, 'We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and ye did not mourn.' For John came neither eating nor drinking, ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong

... compared to that of a sportsman finding the trace of his game—of a child contemplating the long sought for bird's nest—of an angler, who sees a fish quivering at the end of his line; or, if we may be allowed to liken great things to small, we would compare it to the enthusiasm of a Leverrier finding a planet at the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... passages. The whole reads more naturally as a caution against the inconsiderate use of final causes in science, and an illustration of some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their hasty assumption is apt to involve—considerations probably equivalent to those which induced Lord Bacon to liken final causes to "vestal virgins." So, if any one, it is here Bacon that "sitteth in the seat of the scornful." As to Darwin, in the section from which the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty, ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... as may be caused by the contact of the running wheels with the surface of the aerodrome. His first clearly-marked sensation, when in actual flight, will occur most likely when the pilot rises a little sharply, so as to gain altitude. Then the pupil will have a feeling one might liken to the ascent, in a motor-car, of a steep and suddenly-encountered hill; though in this case the hill is invisible, and there is no earth contact to be felt. This sensation of climbing is exhilarating; and when the pilot makes a reverse movement, descending towards the ground, the ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... the splendour, the poverty, the extreme sense of vigorous life, the discerning may find even now among the Andalusians for all the modern modes with which, as with coats of London and bonnets of Paris, they have sought to liken themselves to ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... tendencies" (perhaps better, "directive tendencies") is a term that has been much used in psychology, with the meaning that the inner tendency determines or directs behavior. Much used also are "adjustment" and "mental set", the idea here being to liken the individual to an adjustable machine which can be set for one or another sort of work. Often "preparation" or "readiness for action" is ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... mighty obliged to you, Mr Fenton!" said Jenny, really angry now. "It's right handsome of you to liken me to a withered flower. Mr Featherstone's a gentleman in a many of his ways, and that's more nor you are, and I ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... noise more like running water, or wind in the wings of birds, than anything else I could liken it to, came several ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... press; it is important and just that the readiest methods and means of instructive moral amusement should be the most esteemed and the best supported. I confess I never look into a Magazine, that I do not liken it to a large and pure reservoir of refreshing waters; derived from many streams, and prankt around its borders with the flowers and garniture of poesy; possessing qualities agreeable to every taste—the grave, the solid, the scientific, the light, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... amount of dirt and confusion that the infidels may have eaten before the coming of the sword of Islam. It were unprofitable for us to inquire into it.... Listen, O my son! There is no wisdom equal to the belief in God! He created the world, and shall we liken ourselves unto him in seeking to penetrate into the mysteries of his creation? Shall we say, Behold this star spinneth round that star, and this other star with a tail goeth and cometh in so many years? Let it go! He from whose hand it came will guide and direct it.... Thou art ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... of these stories was forgotten, and they were regarded no longer as mere poetical fancies, but as historical facts. Perhaps some real hero had indeed performed daring deeds, and had made the world around him happier and better. It was easy to liken him to Sigurd, or to some other mythical slayer of giants; and soon the deeds of both were ascribed to but one. And thus many myth-stories probably contain some historical facts blended with the ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... great discovery is the Magnetization of Light, which I should liken to the Weisshorn among ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... is in one way or another to liken the less known to what is better known; and thus every philosophy is an attempt to express—by means of sundry extensions and limitations—the universe of our experience in the terms of some totality with which we are more familiar; plainly, it is also ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... common. It was to a sterner and more severe class that he belonged—a class of which Michel de l'Hospital might be regarded as the type. Men who had little affinity with them, and bore them still less resemblance, but who could not fail to admire their excellence, were wont to liken both the great Huguenot warrior and the chancellor to that Cato whose grave demeanor and imposing dignity were a perpetual censure upon the flippancy and lax morality of his countrymen. Although not above the ordinary height of men, his appearance was dignified and ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... let me tell thee how thou mayest get a useful lesson. For an hour, dream thyself old. Realize, in thy thoughts and consciousness, that vigor and strength are subdued in thy sinews—that the color of the shroud is liken'd in thy very hairs—that all those leaping desires, luxurious hopes, beautiful aspirations, and proud confidences, of thy younger life, have long been buried (a funeral for the better part of thee) in that grave which must soon close over thy tottering limbs. Look back, then, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... her hands aloft in the air frantically. If she had trudged before, now she trotted, now she cantered; but if the cantering of the old mare was fitly likened to that of a cow, to what thing, to what manner of motion under the sun, shall we liken the cantering of Mrs. Ducklow? It was original; it was unique; it was prodigious. Now, with her frantically waving hands, and all her undulating and flapping skirts, she seemed a species of huge, unwieldy bird attempting to fly. Then she sank down into a heavy, dragging walk,—breath ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... you did. What would you liken me to?" said he with a sparkle of the eyes, which quite indisposed Diana from giving any more fuel to the fire ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... it is, I suppose, that gives to the Black Forest home its distinctive scent. It is not a scent you can liken to any one thing. It is as if you took roses and Limburger cheese and hair oil, some heather and onions, peaches and soapsuds, together with a dash of sea air and a corpse, and mixed them up together. You cannot define any particular odour, ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... PASSIONS are liken'd best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb; So, when affection yields discourse, it seems The bottom is but shallow whence they come. They that are rich in words, in words discover That they are poor in that ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... which made it impossible to move troops, and into which one could not see a dozen feet, as though they were actually behind iron bars, it will be seen how little ground there was for encouragement. I can think of no better comparison of the situation than to liken it to a fleet of ships enveloped in a dense fog endeavoring to operate against another having ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... teller and not a maker, one that trusts and loves the past; I might liken myself to ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius

... be chaste; for evermore as long as thou offrest Him this fruit green and hanging on the tree, thou mayst well be likened to a woman that is not chaste, for she loveth a man more for his goods than for himself. And see why that I liken thee thus; for it seemeth that dread of thy death and shortness of time, with hope of forgiveness of all thy recklessness, maketh thee to be in God's service so reverent as thou art. And if it so be, ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... he would have pined away and died. At Templeogue he lived at the rate of 3,000 pounds a year on an income of 1,200 pounds; at Brussels he kept open house on little or nothing for all the wandering grandees of Europe; at Florence they used to liken the cavalcade from his house to a procession from Franconi's; he found living in a castle and spending 10 pounds a day on his horses the finest fun in the world. He existed but to bewilder and dazzle, and had ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... Dr. Jarocki, the zoologist; Julius Kolberg, the engineer; and Brodowski, the painter. These and others, although to us only names, or little more, are nevertheless not without their significance. We may liken them to the supernumeraries on the stage, who, dumb as they are, help to set off and show the position of the principal figure ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... or half an hour is more Than wrangling words should stuff with barren store. Comfort may'st thou bring to her, if I may none, When all her father quickens in her son. In Cornish warfare if thou win thee praise, Thine shall men liken ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... light, thy fostering breast and hand, Mother Earth, and city chosen, and natural land; Hills that bring the strong streams forth, heights of heavenlier air, Fields aflower with winds and suns, woods with shadowing hair. But none of the nations of men shall they liken to thee, [Str. 2. Whose children true-born and the fruit of thy body are we. 1150 The rest are thy sons but in figure, in word are thy seed; We only the flower of thy travail, thy children indeed. Of thy soil hast thou fashioned our limbs, of thy waters their blood, ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... neologies, their new readings of old legends, their sense of mystical second meanings, as they refined upon themes grown too familiar, and linked, in a sophisticated age, the new to the old. In this respect, we may perhaps liken them to the mendicant orders in the Middle Ages, with their florid, romantic theology, beyond the bounds of orthodox tradition, giving so much new matter to art and poetry. They are a picturesque addition, also, to the exterior of Greek life, with [51] their white dresses, their dirges, their ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... anointed of Yahweh," as many ancient official persons (kings and priests) were inducted into office by the pouring of oil on their heads, but, as a mouthpiece and representative of the deity, he is inferior to the prophet; at best, flattery, such as that of the woman of Tekoa, might liken him to an angel.[633] The epithet el gibbor (English Bible, "mighty God"), applied to a Jewish prince, must probably be rendered 'mighty hero.'[634] The title 'gods' has been supposed to be given to men (judges) ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... you hintroduced the word 'he,' young un; hotherwise, from the looks of yer both, you seems to liken me to a monster. Yer want to know who's he? He's a boy—a full-grown human boy—something like yerself, only not so ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... am now about to notice—a matter which I hear Demosthenes will speak of—about this, by the Olympian deities, I cannot but feel a righteous indignation. He will liken my speech to the Sirens', it seems, and the legend anent their art is that those who listen to them are not charmed, but destroyed; wherefore the music of the Sirens is not in good repute. Even so he will aver that knowledge of my words and myself is a source of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... wind. These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil, Have been as piercing as the midday sun, To search the secret treasons of the world; The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood, Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres, For who liv'd king but I could dig his grave? And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow? Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood! My parks, my walks, my manors that I had, Even now forsake me, and of all my lands Is nothing left me but my body's ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... which you specialise is a narrow one, you may be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task. Take heed that you do not undertake more than you have time or opportunity to complete; or else, embarking upon a labour of Hercules you may liken yourself to Sisyphus. Mazzuchelli began 'Gli Scrittori d'Italia,' but succeeded in finishing only the first two letters of the alphabet. The temptation to leave behind us some great work by which our name will become in time a household word, is doubtless a great ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... for breakfast. He may even come, like certain tribes mentioned in the Encyclopaedia, to eat nothing else! And by that time he may have come to know Little Bethel. And if he comes to know it, he may come to like it. He will still liken it to a mushroom. But we shall be able to tell, by the way he says it, that he means that it is very good. We shall see at once that Mr. Chesterton likes mushrooms. At present, however, the stern fact remains. Mr. Chesterton does not like mushrooms. Richard Jefferies, ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... as of repulsion. The way to the West is the way also to the East; the north pole of the magnet cannot be divided from the south pole; two minus signs make a plus in Arithmetic and Algebra. Again, we may liken the successive layers of thought to the deposits of geological strata which were once fluid and are now solid, which were at one time uppermost in the series and are now hidden in the earth; or to the successive rinds or barks of trees which year by ...
— Sophist • Plato

... laugh at what the other had said as a joke about himself, just in order to banish the poor skipper's gloom. It seemed to him a sort of sacrilege towards the Nancy Bell to liken her mortal injuries to the mere temporary ones of the American; so he turned ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... the creeper's music which liken it to a wren's. I am sorry that I have myself heard it only on one occasion: then, however, so far was it from being wren-like that it might rather have been the work of one of the less proficient warblers,—a somewhat long ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... the Holy Ghost he has driven the tyrants from the city without drawing a sword; the cities and the sovereigns of Italy have submitted to his power. Why is he so arrogant and ungrateful towards the Most High? Why does he seek earthly and transitory rewards for his labors, and in his wanton speech liken himself to the Creator? Tell thy master that he can only atone for this offence by tears of penitence." In the evening the chaplain communicated this solemn rebuke to the tribune: it appalled him ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... will be called to account and indeed, were there in this world one living and abiding for ever, he would not prefer it to the next world." Q "Can the future life subsist permanently without the present?"—"He who hath no present life hath no future life; and indeed I liken this world and its folk and the goal to which they fare with certain workmen, for whom an Emir buildeth a narrow house and lodgeth them therein, commanding each of them to do a certain task and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... resolved to pass to the east of the island. He rectified the position of the Pescadores Islands, a mass of rocks which assume various shapes, reconnoitred the small island of Botol-Tabaco-Xima, where no navigator had landed, coasted Kinin Island, which forms part of the kingdom of Liken, whose inhabitants are neither Chinese nor Japanese, but appear to be of both races, and sighted Hoa-pinsu and Tiaoy-su Islands. The latter form part of the Liken Archipelago, known only through the letters ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... all his subsequent life to experience the dissatisfaction, and give way to the feelings, of a disappointed man, is evident from his Diary. I have quoted from it a few passages. The Reviewer says it "is full of penitential confessions," and seems to liken him, in this respect, to the Apostle of the Gentiles. Speaking of my having cited the Diary, as historical evidence, he says: "Such a use of the confessional, we believe, is not common with historical writers." I do not remember anything like "penitential confessions," ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... Menpes then followed in the press. One of the first articles began in this style, Menpes, of course, being an Australian: "I can only liken him to his native kangaroo—a robber by birth—born with a pocket!" "He is the claimant of lemon yellow"—a color to which Mr. Whistler deemed he had the sole right; and when he thought he had pulverized him in the press (it was soon after the Parnell Commission, ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz

... predilections, comported himself in a manner that cannot be likened to anything mortal or immortal, human or inhuman, unless it be to an insane cat, whose veins ran wild-fire instead of blood. Or perhaps we might liken him to that ingenious piece of firework called a zigzag cracker, which explodes with unexpected and repeated suddenness, changing its position in a most perplexing manner at every crack. Baptiste, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... "If I liken thy shape to the bough when green * My likeness errs and I sore mistake it; For the bough is fairest when clad the most * And thou art ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... revert to the child's simple purity, the free movement of its machinery of life, we should find ourselves in a new heaven on a new earth. We could understand for ourselves part of what the Master meant. We should know now how Jesus could liken the Kingdom of God to ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan

... become all things, whatever they please. And then if they see a person with long hair, a wild one of these hairy fellows, like the son of Xenophantes, in derision of his folly, they liken themselves to centaurs. ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... Fleece! You told me its history, and said it is the symbol of everything great and precious, of everything that can be merited and won by diligence and toil. It is very precious—I may liken it to thy love;—even so I wear ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... angels of God in disguise; His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses, His glory still gleams in their eyes; Oh, these truants from home and from heaven,— They have made me more manly and mild; And I know now how Jesus could liken The kingdom of God ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... those of a common mortal. She grew thinner, and we all fancied, taller; her complexion was white, and almost transparent, with a tender bloom on her cheek, which I can only liken to a young rose-leaf or the first faint blush of sunrise. Her eyes are still wonderfully clear and bright. It always seems to me as if they looked beyond the heaven and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... vehicle of consciousness, or an instrument of consciousness; that in which consciousness is carried about, as in a vehicle, or which consciousness uses to contact the external world, as a mechanic uses an instrument. Or, we may liken it to a vessel, in which consciousness is held, as a jar holds liquid. It is a form used by a life, and we know nothing of consciousness save as connected with such forms. The form may be of rarest, ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... Indeed, there were individuals among those we heard certain of whose notes seemed to me almost to equal in point of melody the chimes of the wood thrush; and the highest possible praise for any song-bird is to liken its song to that of the wood thrush or hermit thrush. I certainly do not think that the blackbird has received full justice in the books. I knew that he was a singer, but I really had no idea how fine a singer he was. I suppose one of his troubles has been ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... Hellas, I ween, this is fair to pay heed to covenants; but Aeetes is not such a man among men as thou sayest was Pasiphae's husband, Minos; nor can I liken myself to Ariadne; wherefore speak not of guest-love. But only do thou, when thou hast reached Iolcus, remember me, and thee even in my parents' despite, will I remember. And from far off may a rumour come to me or some messenger-bird, when thou forgettest me; or me, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... youngsters of Arthurs' nine show up well, particularly Raymond and Weir, who have springs in their feet and arms like whips. Altogether Arthurs' varsity is a strangely assorted, a wonderfully chosen group of players. We might liken them to the mechanism of a fine watch, with Ward as the mainspring, and the others with big or little parts to perform, but each dependent upon the other. Wayne's ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... wet if 'e thinks we liken listenin' to this 'ere stuff!" muttered Able Seaman McSweeny dismally. "'E talks abart 'is ruddy merchant o' Venice, but I doesn't want to 'ear nothin' abart a.... Eyetalian shopkeeper. I expec's 'e was one o' these 'ere blokes wot wheeled ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... darumme sorgen, Alse men Staerven sholde morgen, Unde leren ernst liken, Alse men ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various

... these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall

... doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... Lamb's first hypothetical ascription of these wonderful scenes to Webster, so much the most Shakespearean in gait and port and accent of all Shakespeare's liege men-at-arms, was due to a far happier and more trustworthy instinct than led him in later years to liken them rather to "the overflowing griefs and ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... I do remember as we stood in the mouldy big Circus, having sundry of the lousy population idling within, whereby I did then liken it to a venerable cheese, in which is some faint stir of maggotry, that thou didst make a memorable speech against the land, where the only vocation of a nobleman is to defile the streets and be ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... end of Fame? 'tis but to fill A certain portion of uncertain paper: Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapor: For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper," To have, when the original is dust, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... is no resemblance between the situation of prisoners in a pen, and that of soldiers in bivouac. The latter build shelters of rails or of brushwood, if they have no shelter-tents, and they are very rarely stinted in firewood. Their active life helps to preserve their vigor. To liken these to men without shelter of any kind and without fire enough to cook by, herded inside a ring-fence in winter weather, is an abuse of words. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... admit that, at the commencement of his reign, Pius IX. experienced a generous impulse. But this is a country in which good is only done by immense efforts, while evil occurs naturally. I would liken it to a waggon being drawn up a steep mountain ascent. The joint efforts of four stout bullocks are required to drag it forward: it ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... is no harm done, for the speaker is one and the listener is another. After the fashion of thy people thou hast wandered from one place to another until thou art happy and content in none. Listen, oh my son! There is no wisdom equal unto the belief in God! He created the world, and shall we liken ourselves unto Him in seeking to penetrate into the mysteries of His creation? Shall we say, Behold this star spinneth round that star, and this other star with a tail goeth and cometh in so many years! Let it go! He ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... it, were some thirty gentlemen, and two or three ladies. In the centre of these, in a desk or pulpit covered with red baize, was the presiding minister. The kind of rostrum he occupied will be very well understood, if I liken it to a boarded-up fireplace turned towards the audience, with a gentleman in a black surtout standing in the stove and leaning forward over ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... shrewdly plan Like to the feathered tribes, to gather down (Walks out): From careless wings to feather their own nests. (Francos turning to Seldonskip): I must in candor voice my perturbed thoughts Anent the strained relation which doth seem To liken to a ship with cable taut Which surging waves are threat'ning quick to snap. Twixt thee and Quezox. Thou, mine eye doth speak, Art like dry powder, ready to ignite When Quezox looseth tongue which ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... have made only the progress we have made. We have its advantages, but there are advantages to which we have not yet attained. We might liken ourselves to people who have reached the fourth or fifth step of a stairway in which there are twenty or thirty. We have climbed to a certain height, but we are far from having reached the plane to which we ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... spy, I am almost sure that I should have compassed my own destruction within the following ten days, for the next month, I believed, was the fatal one of opening courts. You will recall that it was death by drowning that impended. I liken my salvation itself to a prolonged process of drowning. Thousands of minutes of the seven hundred and ninety-eight days—and there were over one million of them, during which I had been borne down by ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... could hardly wish the result different, in him, any more than in the books of Burton and Fuller, or some other similar writers of that age—mental abodes, we might liken, after their own manner, to the little old private houses of some historic town grouped about its grand public structures, which, when they have survived at all, posterity is loth to part with. For, in their ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... not easy to keep pace with the merryman's jests; but if I follow his humour, he says to Socrates: "If the cap is to fit, you must liken me to one who quits 'assault and battery' for 'compliments (sotto voce, ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon

... them in his own home. Anywhere else, believe me, something of his essence is forfeit. 'The rose of roses' loses more or less of its beauty in any vase, and rather more than less there in a nosegay of ordinary little blossoms (to which I rather rudely liken Mrs. T—'s other friends). The supreme flower should be first seen growing from ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... undergone an entire reconstruction. We know now that life is a constant death and a renewing,—that our every-day nutrition involves millions of molecular deaths and as many millions of births,—although to liken that which is so exquisitely managed, so undisturbingly done, to the coarser phenomena of death and birth is in a ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... couch, this lovely stream I liken to the truly good man's life, Amid the heat of passions, and the glare Of wordly objects, flowing pure and bright, Shunning the gaze, yet showing where it glides By its green blessings; cheered by happy thoughts, Contentment, and the peace that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... smiles alone! The Pow'r, that bade the great sea roar—that spread the Heav'ns— That call'd the sun from darkness—deck'd that flow'r, And bade it grace this bleak and barren hill. Imagination, in her playful mood, Might liken it to a poor village maid, Lowly, but smiling in her lowliness, And dress'd so neatly, as if ev'ry day Were Sunday. And some melancholy Bard Might, idly musing, thus discourse to it:— "Daughter of Summer, who dost linger here. Decking the thistly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various

... this comparison: supposing grace given to those who are far advanced to be the same with that given to those who are but beginners, we may then liken it to a certain food of which many persons partake: they who eat a little retain the savour of it for a moment, they who eat more are nourished by it, but those who eat much receive life and strength. Now, the ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... exception of a few warm countries, where this animal grows to a large size, and is highly valued, the Jackass or Donkey is everywhere considered a stupid beast, a lazy beast, an obstinate beast, and very often a vicious beast. To liken any one to a Jackass is to use very ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... history, to discover the principle toward which its diversified phenomena converge, to state the universal laws and philosophic inferences deducible from the peculiar course of its events. If we liken history to an organic being, then the skeleton of facts is its body, and the soul is the spiritual bond that unites the facts into a whole, that conveys the meaning, the psychologic essence, of the facts. It ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... laying aside of personal needs and personal feelings, rises to the sublimity of duty, and, ministering to the wants of another with an unselfish vigilance almost perfect, earns that meed of praise from men, which from time to time persists, in grateful hyperbole, to liken her ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Isaias; "he shall gather together the lambs with his arms, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young."(1) In like manner did Jeremias, referring to the comforting advent of Christ, liken the offices which the Saviour would perform towards His people to those of shepherds towards their flocks. "I will set up pastors over them," said the Prophet, speaking in the name of Jehovah, "and they shall feed them; they shall fear no more, and they shall ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... supplies that produce the warmth and brightness of the domestic hearth; while the brilliant robe where the sun develops its heat corresponds to the grate in which the coal is consumed. With regard to the thickness of the robe, we might liken this brilliant exterior to the rind of an orange, while the gloomy interior regions would correspond to the edible portion of the fruit. Generally speaking, the rind of the orange is rather too coarse for the purpose of this illustration. It might be ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... matter of that?" said Robin, with great alacrity. "Ye may go see, master, an' ye liken—the mare's as dry as our meal-tub, and as ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... we stolid beef-eaters, before we had been taught by modern science that we were no better than baboons ourselves, were wont discourteously to liken to that of the livelier tribes of Monkey, did in fact so much impress the Hollanders, when first the irriguous Franks gave motion and current to their marshes, that the earliest heraldry in which we find the Frank power blazoned seems to be founded on a Dutch endeavour to give some distantly ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... a few people liken one's duty in the matter of the draft to the Prohibition law. If we obeyed a summons to fight, whether we liked fighting or not, we should likewise obey the law regarding drinking, they contend. The two things are as separated as the Poles. ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... cloud, because I find it already said to my hand, as it were, in a pretty verse, and because I must needs liken Montmorenci to something that is soft and light. Yet a cloud does not represent the glinting of the water in its downward swoop; it is like some broad slope of sun- smitten snow; but snow is coldly white and opaque, and this has a creamy ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... so powerful, so withering, as the blast of ridicule. Only the strongest men can withstand it, only reformers who are such in deed, and not alone in name, can snap their fingers at it, and liken it to the crackling of thorns under a pot. Confucius and Martin Luther must have been ridiculed, Mr. Crewe reflected, and although he did not have time to assure himself on these historical points, the thought stayed him. Sixty odd weekly newspapers, filled with arguments from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Often did Juno eke Queen of the Heavenly host Boil wi' the rabidest rage at dire default of a husband Learning the manifold thefts of her omnivolent Jove, 140 Yet with the Gods mankind 'tis nowise righteous to liken, * * * * * * * * Rid me of graceless task fit for a tremulous sire. Yet was she never to me by hand paternal committed Whenas she came to my house reeking Assyrian scents; Nay, in the darkness of night her furtive favours ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... following him from place to place, always closing around him, always seeking to strangle him, or to poison him in some vital spot, that most silent, subtle serpent of life—Poverty. Knowing this, and knowing also the man he had become, she would in secret sometimes liken him to one of those rare unions of delicacy and hardihood which in the world of wild flowers Nature refuses to bring forth except from the cranny of a cold rock. Its home is the battle-field of black roaring ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... still be found. The wise man will therefore seek to die to the evil, and while yet in this world of mortality, to think immortal things, and so as far as may be flee from the evil. Thereby shall he liken himself to the divine. For it is a likening to the divine to be just and holy ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... to the Invalides, amongst whom there still lingered a few who had been defeated by FREDERICK at Rosbach. Certainly the relics took no shame from such a seizure and such a guardianship. But the palace at Potsdam was not destroyed and stands to this day. I do not wish to liken myself to FREDERICK, nor do I compare you with NAPOLEON, but I tell you the story, which is true, for what it is worth. I wonder if you ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various

... would answer, "Iss, iss, lad, do 'ee come agen; for 'tis aisy to see with half a eye that 'tain't wan look, nor two neither, that 'ull circumnavigate the insides o' that ole chap if 'taint to his liken to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... truth and a high but gentle spirit. Such are the lessons I have striven to teach; and I have thought that it might best be done by representing to my readers characters like themselves,—or to which they might liken themselves. [1] ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... and her passion goes on increasing because she can never get a word from me. "Mr Neverbend, I tell you this,—you are going to make a fool of yourself. I think it my duty to tell you so, as your wife. Everybody else will think it. Who are you, to liken yourself to Galileo?—an old fellow of that kind who lived a thousand years ago, before Christianity had ever been invented. You have got nasty murderous thoughts in your mind, and want to kill poor Mr Crasweller, just out of pride, because you have said you would. Now, Jack is determined that ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope

... liken dog-roses to the rose, or wind- flowers to the roses of the garden; by the garden walls ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... protuberance in a pile of granite at a little distance off, which bears a remote resemblance to a gigantic human face, adorned with a short beard; and which, he is informed, is considered quite a portrait (of all the people in the world to liken it to!) of Dr. Johnson! It is, therefore, publicly known as "Johnson's Head." If it can fairly be compared with any of the countenances of any remarkable characters that ever existed, it may be said to exhibit, in violent exaggeration, the worst physiognomical peculiarities ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... interesting person for the first time, one frequently endeavours to trace a resemblance with some previous acquaintance or friend. I have a similar propensity when I visit interesting cities; but I had difficulty in calling to mind any place to which I could liken Copenhagen. Between Sweden and Denmark generally, there are more points of difference than of resemblance. Sweden is the land of rocks, and Denmark of forest. Oehlenschlaegel calls the latter country, 'the fresh and grassy,' but he might also have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... bottom of the ocean, than to support or tolerate a rascally rabble of people that will not lend. These fellows, I vow, do I hate with a perfect hatred; and if, conform to the pattern of this grievous, peevish, and perverse world which lendeth nothing, you figure and liken the little world, which is man, you will find in him a terrible justling coil and clutter. The head will not lend the sight of his eyes to guide the feet and hands; the legs will refuse to bear up the body; the hands will leave off working any ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... work, so we, too, should contemplate the universe thereon, and consider our highest welfare. Let us never neglect the example of the best life, the combination of action and thought, but keeping a clear vision of it before our minds, so far as our human nature will permit, let us liken ourselves to immortal God by word and deed."[158] High-flown this language may be, but what Philo wishes to mark is the spiritual value of the Sabbath. It is not merely a day of rest from workaday toil, but it is a day upon which ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich

... of the interior of our globe. The vibrations which carry the tidings of the earthquake spread through the rocks on the surface, from the centre of the disturbance, in gradually enlarging circles. We may liken the spread of these vibrations to the ripples in a pool of water which diverge from the spot where a raindrop has fallen. The vibrations transmitted by the rocks on the surface, or on the floor of the ocean, will carry the message all over the earth. As these rocks are flexible, ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... farmer, with strong views on the subject of tithe, it had not been entirely forgotten. The farmer was a tenant of Owen Davies, and when he called her a "parson in petticoats, and wus," and went on, in delicate reference to her powers of extracting cash, to liken her to a "two-legged corkscrew only screwier," she perhaps not unnaturally reflected, that if ever—pace Beatrice—certain things should come about, she would remember that farmer. For Elizabeth was blessed with a very long memory, as some people had learnt to their cost, and generally, sooner ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... This tendency is known as pragmatism. It ranges from systematic doctrines, reminiscent of Fichte, which seek to define practical needs and deduce knowledge from them, to the more irresponsible utterances of those who liken science to "shorthand,"[407:8] and mathematics to a game of chess. In any case pragmatism attributes to nature a certain dependence on will, and therefore implies, even when it does not avow, that will with its peculiar principles or values cannot be reduced to the terms of nature. In short, ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... real eyes, but markings which serve as such, enough to scare the average chuckle-headed bird. Sometimes they trust to vein-markings on their bodies, which turn them into casual misshapen leaves. Sometimes they liken themselves to twigs—" ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... avisement*, *deliberately, advisedly* Would never write in none of his sermons Of such unkind* abominations; *unnatural Nor I will none rehearse, if that I may. But of my tale how shall I do this day? Me were loth to be liken'd doubteless To Muses, that men call Pierides (Metamorphoseos wot what I mean), But natheless I recke not a bean, Though I come after him with hawebake*; *lout I speak in prose, and let him rhymes make." And with that word, he with a sober cheer Began his tale, and said ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... whiles it 's aff, and when on, it 's ajee; He 's braid as he 's lang, an' ill-faur'd is he, A dafter-like body I never did see. An' yet for this cratur' she says I am deein', When that I deny, she 's fear'd at my leein'; Obliged to put up wi' this sair defamation, I'm liken to dee wi' grief an' vexation. An' oh! she 's ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... subjective principle tending to become objectified—is the ideal. In the complete sense of the word—not restrained merely to esthetic creation or made synonymous with perfection as in ethics—the ideal is a construction in images that should become a reality. If we liken imaginative creation to physiological generation, the ideal is the ovum awaiting fertilization in order ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... To whom then will ye liken God, And what likeness place beside him? An image! a craftsman cast it, And a smelter o'erlays it with gold. He who is too poor to do this Chooses a tree that is not decayed, Seeks for himself a skilled craftsman, To set up an image that shall ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... envoy most abusive letters for blundering in the scheme which had been so well concerted between them. Then he sent for Malherbe, who straightway perpetrated more poems to express the King's despair, in which Henry was made to liken himself to a skeleton with a dried skin, and likewise to a violet turned up by the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... comparisons, profited by the diversity of its uses to liken the central compartment in the Green Box to the arradach in an ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses, His glory still beams in their eyes: Oh, those truants from earth and from heaven, They have made me more manly and mild! And I know how Jesus could liken The Kingdom of ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... Almighty Allah hath condemned them in His Holy Book,[FN243] herein He denounceth their filthy practices, saying, 'Do ye approach unto the males among mankind[FN244] and leave your wives which your Lord hath created for you? Surely ye are a people who transgress!' These it is that liken girls to boys, of their exceeding profligacy and ungraciousness and inclination to follow the fiend and own lusts, so that they say, 'She is apt for two tricks,'[FN245] and these are all wanderers from the way of right and the righteous. Quoth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... girl, whose mind was properly balanced, could have considered it otherwise. Its owner was cheerful as the lark, industrious as the bee, thoughtful and provident as the ant, benevolent as!—well, I won't liken her to any of our four-footed friends; indeed, just at this moment, I must confess that no comparison occurs to me: but Aunt Mary loved her nieces, delighted to impart to them those stores of knowledge to which she was herself constantly adding, and which ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring

... may think that a far-fetched simile; but really it isn't. If a young cataract could be turned into a village, that would be Clovelly. The marvellous little place is absolutely unique; yet if one could liken it to anything else on earth, it might be to a corner of Mont St. Michel, or a bit of old Bellagio, going down to the sea; and certainly it is more Italian than English in atmosphere and colouring, only it is perfectly ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... be no bad similitude, to liken the pleasure which we take in seeing one of these fine plays acted, compared with that quiet delight which we find in the reading of it, to the different feelings with which a reviewer, and a man that is not a reviewer, reads a fine poem. The accursed critical habit,—the being ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... liken the wedding-ring to an ancient circus, in which wild animals clawed one another for the sport of lookers-on. Perish the hyperbole! We would rather compare it to an elfin ring, in which dancing fairies made the sweetest music ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold

... the sapling liken I And set my hope to win thee or to die. Distraught, I follow thee, and sore afraid, Lest any look ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... years China nominally allowed no foreign traders within her borders; recently, however, about forty cities, commonly known as "treaty ports," have been opened to the trade of foreign countries. Goods going inland any distance are required to pay a "liken" or internal tariff at the ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... hints would have furnished any woman with a clew; but, since you have not availed yourself of their aid, I must lift the shroud that hides the corpse of my youth, my happiness, my faith in man, my hope in God. Ah! unto what shall I liken it? This ruined, wretched thing I call my life? To the Tauk e Kerra,—standing in a dreary waste, lifting its vast, keyless arch helplessly to heaven? Even such a crumbling arch, beautiful and grand in its glorious promise, is the incomplete, crownless life of Agla Gerome,—a lonely ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... particular case; it meant neither more nor less than the truth, in that particular case: but as to a political party's always taking a middle course, under the pretence of being in a juste milieu, he should liken it to a discreet man's laying down the proposition that four and four make eight, and a fool's crying out, 'Sir, you are wrong, for four and four make ten;' whereupon the advocate for the juste milieu on system, would be obliged to say, 'Gentlemen, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... I see an exemplary and good man, I liken it to a two-headed boy, or a fish turned up by the plough, or a teeming ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... was the first to compare the conductors of public worship in Christian Churches with the priests and Levites, and the author of the [Greek: Didache] was the first to liken the Christian prophets to the high priests. It cannot, however, be shown that there were any Christian circles where the leaders were directly styled "priests" before the last quarter of the 2nd ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... left very real impressions; and here we found tracks most curious and bewildering; for amid the slush that edged the pit—which I would mention here had less the look of a pit now that I had come near to it—were multitudes of markings which I can liken to nothing so much as the tracks of mighty slugs amid the mud, only that they were not altogether like to that of slugs; for there were other markings such as might have been made by bunches of eels cast down and picked up continually, at least, ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... still, why love you Earl Godwin? He hath changed sides from party to party, and in each change won lordships and lands. He is ambitious and grasping, ye all allow; for the ballads sung in your streets liken him to the thorn and the bramble, at which the sheep leaves his wool. He is haughty and overbearing. Tell me, O Saxon, frank Saxon, why you love Godwin the Earl? Fain would I know; for, please the saints (and you and your Earl so permitting), I mean to live and die in this merrie England; and ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... wearing her heavy traveling-dress, but after a moment's reflection she went into her bedroom, and quickly changed it for a pale silk dress of the softest shade of rose. This dress was a special favorite of her husband's; he used to liken her to a rosebud in it, and said that no color more truly matched the soft tender bloom ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... To liken Beardsley to Botticelli, however, seems indeed a sin. The master was an artist, but Beardsley only gave chalk talks. His work is often crude, rude and raw. He is only a promise, turned to dust. Yet let the simple ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... died in his sins and was now nearing the place of eternal torment. He could liken the scene before him to nothing on earth. It must be Hell, and he felt that the lid had been ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... has not the law thundered from Sinai, 'Thou shalt not steal'? True, plagiarism is nowhere distinctly forbidden by Moses; but have not critics judicially pronounced it author-theft? Has not metaphor been sounded through every note of its key-board, to strike out all that is base whereunto to liken it? Have not old Dr. Johnson's seven-footed words—the tramp of whose heavy brogans has echoed down the staircase of years even unto our day—declared plagiarists from the works of buried writers 'jackals, battening on dead ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... shall I liken this fair, tender, childish face, which had in the narrow space of ten years gathered such perfection of outline, such unearthly purity of colour, such winsome grace, such complex expressions? Probably ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... first three days of warfare, the newspapers made no effort to pretend that the situation could be retrieved; editors and public alike recognised that these were blows over the heart, and that it was a matter of moments before we were counted out. One might liken the whole affair to a snap checkmate early in a game of chess; one side had thought out the moves, and brought the requisite pieces into play, the other side was hampered and helpless, with its resources unavailable, its strategy discounted in advance. ...
— When William Came • Saki

... Almonds are the most nourishing. Next in order come walnuts, hazel or cob nuts, and Brazil nuts. The proteid value of these three does not differ much. After these come the chestnut and cocoanut, and lastly we have the pine kernel. Speaking very roughly, we may liken walnuts, hazel nuts, and Brazil nuts to beef for flesh and muscle-forming value, while pine kernels correspond more nearly to fish. Almonds are nearly double the ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel

... was allowed to celebrate his repulse of Death by strong waters. Four days later he sat on the side of his cot and said to the patients mildly: 'I'd 'a' liken to 'a' spoken ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... murky depths Comes a doctrine sage, That doth liken living mind To a written page; Since all knowledge comes through Sense, Graven ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... "I cannot liken it to aught," answers Fer rogain, "unless it be the fire of a king. May God not bring that man there tonight! 'Tis a pity ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... addition to wooden nutmegs, banjoes and other blessings of civilization emanating from the New World, America gives us both tobacco and Brazil wood (the only material of which it is possible to make a thoroughly good bow), I think that, if I may liken the violinist's mind to a temple of many shrines erected to all those who have contributed to his welfare and enjoyment, there should be one niche reserved for Christopher ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George

... to carry out the comparison properly, it is far more exact to liken the timid to these degenerate flowers, which are indebted to the shade in which they hide for their puny ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... ventured out on the foaming waves of the Polar Sea. June was advancing, and the ice began to move perceptibly at a distance from the shore; and as the icebergs knocked and fell against each other, the crash was truly awful. I can only liken it to what we might suppose produced by a set of monster ninepins tumbled about by a party of gigantic Dutchmen. I must relate one more event, which served to convince my companions of the perfect correctness of my statements. One night, as I was retiring ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... had almost certainly been abandoned some time previously: so that this city of dreadful night, in which, at the moment when Silence choked it, not less than forty to sixty millions swarmed and droned, must have more resembled Tartarus and the foul shades of Hell than aught to which my fancy can liken it. ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... formed its nourishment while logic was the hard outside shell. Posidonius, a later member of the school, objected to the metaphor from the vineyard on the ground that the fruit and the trees and the wall were all separable whereas the parts of philosophy were inseparable. He preferred therefore to liken it to a living organism, logic being the bones and sinews, physic the flesh and ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock

... only shifted it to his right hand. He never had a chance to strike again with it; for in that same instant Rayburn swung his revolver at arm's-length through the air and brought it down on his head with a sound so muffled and so hollow that I can liken it only to the staving-in of the head of a full cask. For a moment, while Rayburn drew back to strike again, the Indian's body swayed heavily; and then all his muscles relaxed, and he fell heavily and limply to the ground—while his brains spurted ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... in black, and without ornaments of any kind save a silver buckle at her waist, Rhoda seemed to have endeavoured to liken herself to the suggestion of her name by the excessive plainness with which she had arranged her hair; its tight smoothness was nothing like so becoming as the mode she usually adopted, and it made her look older. Whether by accident or design, she took an upright chair, and sat upon it in a stiff ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... few feet from him. They seemed to contemplate us, astonished. They turned upon themselves, as though consulting. Slowly they advanced. We were pushed forward and lifted gently. Then as we hung suspended, held by that force which always I can liken only to myriads of tiny invisible hands, the shining arcs of their ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... I need not go on to examine with the philosopher the acts of this pair under the whip and spur of love, because I am not going to talk about love. For my present purpose I shall suggest another dichotomy. I will liken the soul itself of man to a house, divided according to the modern fashion into three flats or apartments. Of these the second floor is occupied by the landlord, who wishes to be quiet, and is not, it seems, afraid of fire; ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... departed Tammuz are contained in several Babylonian hymns, which liken him to plants that ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... stretch the neck of a Boy of Twelve, and children even smaller than I had worn the white Nightcap, and smelt the Nosegay in the Cart. Indeed, I think the Ordinary wanted me to be Finished according to Law, that he might preach a Sermon on it, and liken me to one of the Children that mocked the Prophet, and was so eaten up by the She-Bears that came out of a Wood. When I think on the Reverend and Pious Persons who now attend our Criminals in their last unhappy Moments, and strive to bring them to a Sense of their Sins, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... found no example and no companion, and their heart fainted. What then? The lesson they gave in their first aspirations is yet true; and a better valor and a purer truth shall one day organize their belief. Or why should a woman liken herself to any historical woman, and think, because Sappho, or Sevigne, or De Stael, or the cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation do not satisfy the imagination and the serene Themis, none can,—certainly not she? Why not? ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... comparare, to liken to: a variation in the form of an adjective or adverb to express ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... that "the rose lost its color at sight of her cheeks and the jasmines silver bud turned pale." A beauty in the Arabian Nights, however, turns the tables on the flowers. "Who dares to liken me to a rose?" ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... "I never did liken you to anything," Pao-y protested, "neither did I ever laugh at you! and why then will you get ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... by three miners; and our mules, taking a sudden liking for their horses, jogged on at a more brisk rate. The instincts of the mulish heart form an interesting study to the traveller in the mountains. I would (were the comparison not too ungallant) liken it to a woman's; for it is quite as uncertain in its sympathies, bestowing its affections when least expected, and, when bestowed, quite as constant, so long as the object is not taken away. Sometimes a horse, sometimes an ass, captivates the fancy of a whole drove of mules, but often ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... ship, and with my own friends; but I myself, going to thy tent, will lead away the fair-cheeked daughter of Brises,[27] thy prize; that thou mayest well know how much more powerful I am than thou, and that another may dread to pronounce himself equal to me, and to liken himself openly [to me]." ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... Portugal; its tropical vegetation and its animal life, its perpetual summer, tempered alternately by the ocean and the mountain breeze. When he mentioned any fact which Lady Mabel thought might liken this region to Africa in Moodie's imagination, she would turn and repeat it for his benefit. Thus, the wolves and the wild boars abounding in the mountains, became to him nameless monsters infesting the country; the serpents were ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... in finding a suitable simile for her volatility in this matter: rainbows with changing colours, water on a windy day, the wind itself in the month of March, the much-desiderated perpetual motion; all are feeble similes to describe a woman's fickleness in dress. Shall we liken it to her tongue's untiring play? or shall we not rather say that it is a psychological fact standing per se? the concomitant effect and consequence of her beauty? But, dear creatures! we are not going to quarrel with them for what gives us so much unconscious pleasure, (we do not mean ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... Looking down to the ground, towards which she was directing her alarmed gaze, I saw that it was covered by countless numbers of white ants, which came swarming in through a small hole in the wall. I can only liken the appearance of the insects to a stream of water suddenly bursting into the house, so rapidly did they make their way through the opening. It was too late to think of stopping it, for the room was in a few seconds ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... service faithlessly and heartlessly, with the hope of marrying a fortune. The marriage failed, and you come back with falsehood in your heart and on your lips, chattering about your love for my royal house. You are not ashamed to liken yourself to a hound, and to howl even as they do, in order that I may take you back into favor. Do not suppose, for one moment, that I am deceived by these professions—if you could have done better for yourself elsewhere, you would not have returned to Berlin; that not being the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... awakened here by a bell, which I never can liken to any other than a dustman's, and can hardly find a spot whereto parasols and smart ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... themselues: it is such a common practise among them, that it is counted for no shame: they grease their faces with such colours, that a man may discerne them hanging on their faces almost a flight shoote off: I cannot so well liken them as to a millers wife, for they looke as though they were beaten about the face with a bagge of meale, but their eye browes they ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... you aren't going? You must come in a moment. I want to give you the manuscript of that sermon of mine on the casting down of Baal, that is the one in which I liken the military power of Germany to the brazen idol which. . . . Just a moment, Albert. The manuscript is in my desk and. . . . Oh, dear me, the door is locked. . . . ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... think, to die for his Lord Christ.) And so he fell down upon the floor with contorted features, and hands and feet quivering with agony. Every one was struck dumb with horror at such a death; but the knight laughed loudly, and cried, "Ha! thou base-born serf, I shall teach thee how to liken thy feudal lord to a brute," and striding over his quivering limbs, he ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red squaw, The consumptive, the erysipalite, the idiot, he that is wrong'd, The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark, I swear they are averaged now—one is no better than the other, The night and sleep have liken'd ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman



Words linked to "Liken" :   compare, study, equate



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