"Nil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it were missing altogether. One of the party would walk on to find the way, and later I would go forth to find him. We could see the road stretching away in front of us for kilometres; but between us and it there would be twenty yards of nil. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... up, the damage from the artistic point of view is almost nil; it simply calls for some work by carpenters ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere Edita doctrina Sapientum templa serena; Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre Errare, atque viam palanteis quaerere ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... heavy and sickening with the fumes of chloroform. They fairly sent my head a-reeling, but their effect upon the burglar seemed to have been nil. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... Convention repealed its ordinance nullifying the Tariff, and agreed to the collection of the duties now imposed. It followed this concession by another ordinance nullifying the Force Bill. The practical effect of this was nil, for there was no longer anything to enforce. It was none the less important. It meant that South Carolina declined to abandon the weapon of Nullification. Indeed, it might plausibly be urged that that weapon had justified itself by success. ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... 'Religion is rot, And the laws of the world are nil; For the bad man is he who is caught And cannot foot his bill. And there is no place called hell; And heaven is only a truth When a man has his way with a maid, In the fresh keen hour ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... aut mare Thuscum, Tanto cum strepitu ludi spectantur; et artes, Divitiaeque peregrina, quibus oblitus actor Cum stetit in Scena, concurrit dextera laevae. Dixit adhuc aliquid? Nil sane. Quid placet ergo? Lana Tarentino violas ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... forcible than classical—had quite a piratical flavour, in fact; and my friend of "the wonderful works of God" looked up with a deprecating air. Its effect on George was nil, except perhaps to ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... perfect gas naturally becomes much greater as the solution becomes more diluted. It then imitates gas in some other properties; the internal work of the variation of volume is nil, and the specific heat is only a function of the temperature. A solution which is diluted by a reversible method is cooled like a gas ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... carectarum nil quia per firmarium. Item pro eorum duspot (xij'd) nil, causa predicta. Item pro eorum forlot ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... theory of political economy, looked at the position of the Russian peasant simply from the point of view of capital, wages, and rent. He would indeed have been obliged to admit that in the eastern—much the larger—part of Russia rent was as yet nil, that for nine-tenths of the eighty millions of the Russian peasants wages took the form simply of food provided for themselves, and that capital does not so far exist except in the form of the most primitive tools. Yet it was only from that point of view that he considered every laborer, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Valachria terris, Oceanus tumidis quam vagus ambit aquis. Nulla ubi vox avium, pelagi strepit undique murmur, Coelum etiam larga desuper urget aqua. Flat Boreas, dubiusque Notus, flat frigidus Eurus, Felices Zephyri nil ubi juris habent. Proque tuis ubi carminibus, Philomena canora, Turpis in obscoena rana ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... drove past the first Montenegrin block-house, we were reminded of a ride which we once took to it, while our knowledge of the border dangers was nil. On that occasion we had cantered, innocently, straight towards it, and were amused to see its little garrison promptly turn out. A man came running towards us motioning us to halt. This unmistakable request ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... knows when he may get the letter, which "asks him to come home at once, but only gives to him such information about the Will as has already been given to every member of the testator's family." And that is nil. I dare say we shall be kept waiting for months before we get hold of the estate which is ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... capture of Dongola and in the subsequent pursuit were: British, nil. Native ranks: killed, 1; wounded, 25. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... lost. He sent it to Caesar, having been bold enough to say in it whatever occurred to him should be said in Cato's praise. We may imagine that, had it not pleased him to be generous—had he not been governed by that feeling of "De mortuis nil nisi bonum," which is now common to us all—he might have said much that was not good. Cato had endeavored to live up to the austerest rules of the Stoics—a mode of living altogether antagonistic to Cicero's ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... ingrederis grato victoria plausu. Dumque fores alijs, vitamque et regna tuetur Ianitor externus, cingunt tua limina ciues: Dumque alijs sordet sapientia regibus, almo Pegasidvm tu fonte satur, tot Appollinis artes Aurea vaticina fundis quasi flumina lingua. Nil nostri inuenere dies, nil prisca vetustas Prodidit, in linguis peragunt commercia nullis Christiadvm gentes, quas te, diuina virago, Iustius Aoniae possint iactare sorores. Audijt haec inundus, cunctisque in finibus ardet Imperio parere tuo: et quae forte recusat Miratur vires regio ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... numerous and costly mistakes already, which they now frankly avow. If they persisted in their present plan they would be adding another to the list. And as to their power to help us positively, it is nil. Their initial omission to send a formidable military force to Poland was an irreparable blunder, for it left them without an executive in eastern Europe, where they now can help none of their protegees against their respective enemies. Poles, Rumanians, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... said he. "As the schoolmen labored most intellectually and scientifically—practical result, nil, so these labor harder than other men—result, nil. This is literally 'beating the air.' The ancients imagined tortures particularly trying to nature, that of Sisyphus to wit; everlasting labor embittered by everlasting ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... his ashes. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. The directors are meeting now to elect his successor. Only one name has been mentioned. There's only one editor we'll hear of for the paper. Won't you come back ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... accordingly but, at the end of that time, the young Prince had learned nothing, his mind being wholly occupied with play and disport; and when summoned and examined by his sire, behold, his knowledge was as nil. Thereupon the King turned his attention to the learned once more and bade them elect a tutor for his youth; so they asked, "And what hath his governor, Al-Sindibad, been doing?" and when the King answered, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... after the repeal of the corn laws and of the prohibition of imports of live stock, the imports of live stock, meat, and dairy produce were, except from Ireland, almost nil[714]; since then they have increased enormously, and in 1907 the value of live cattle, sheep, and pigs imported was L8,273,640, not so great, however, as some years before, owing to restrictions imposed; ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... he must have done so as such a man probably would, in strict honor as to deed, word, and definite thought, but under occasional accesses of passion of which he said nothing, and which in all probability and by grace of God refined down to nil, or nearly so, as he got accustomed to look in honor at so beautiful a thing. (He may have left off the undraped after her death.) First, her figure is absolutely fine Gothic; I don't think any antique is so slender. Secondly, she has the sad, ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... days in a cataleptic trance for the coming of the supply ship. If the ones who remained within suspected anything—anything at all!—then his chances of coming out of this alive were practically nil. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Hungary or on Bright's Spanish authority, whatever that may have been. His knowledge of the strange history of the Gypsies was very elementary, of their manners almost more so, and of their folk-lore practically nil. And yet I would put George Borrow above every other writer on the Gypsies. In Lavengro and, to a less degree, in its sequel, The Romany Rye, he communicates a subtle insight into Gypsydom that is totally wanting in the works—mainly philological—of Pott, Liebich, Paspati, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... ever been made from beyond the gate of death—and even such supposed phenomena are inextricably intertwined with quackeries and deceits—it is an abnormal and not a normal thing. The scientific evidence for the continuance of personal identity is nil; the only hope lies in the earnest desire of ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... destructives?] on pent cro're" &c. Leonardo always writes Ermini, Erminia, for Armeni, Armenia (Arabic: Irminiah). M. RAVAISSON also deviates from the original in his translation of the following passage: "Or tu ne crois pas que le Nil ait mis plus d'eau dans la mer qu'il n'y en a a present dans tout l'element de l'eau. Il est certain que si cette eau ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... pricked so quickly! It is a consolation to reflect that the New York critics did everything in their power to push along a project that would have been of great value to this metropolis. It was foredoomed to failure, because it depended upon the iniquity known as "quick returns." De mortuis nil nisi bonum. (I ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... faults which are only pardonable in old men, who, in the decline of life, when health and spirits fail, have a kind of claim to that sort of tranquillity. But a young man should be ambitious to shine, and excel; alert, active, and indefatigable in the means of doing it; and, like Caesar, 'Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.' You seem to want that 'vivida vis animi,' which spurs and excites most young men to please, to shine, to excel. Without the desire and the pains necessary to be considerable, depend upon it, you never can be so; as, without ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... that young scamp Mercury says that we do nothing, and leave all the duties of Olympus to him. Will you believe it, he actually says that our influence on earth is dropping down to nil. ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... The old lady, owing to her great age, was also virtually an invalid; so that both she and her daughter scarcely ever left their room, and hence their influence upon young Ernst's education and training was practically nil. His uncle, however, after an abortive attempt to follow the law, had settled down to a quiet vegetative sort of existence, which he regulated strictly according to fixed rules and methodical procedure; and these he imposed more or less upon the household. Justizrath Otto (or Ottchen, as ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... and such news, Philibert!" replied the Governor in at one of despondency. "It needs the wisdom of Solon to legislate for this land, and a Hercules to cleanse its Augean stables of official corruption. But my influence at Court is nil—you know that, Philibert!" ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... trifle," Freydis replied, "although it is the only magic I can perform in an enclosure of buttered willow wands. Now, then, you see for yourself that I am not going to take orders from you. So the figure you have made, will you or nil you, must limp about in all men's sight, for not more than a few centuries, to be sure, but long enough to prove that I am not going ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... principle, De mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!" suggested Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was hidden ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... of two places, A and B, on a given day, his witnesses for each place must be prepared to answer for the whole day. If they can only prove that he was not at A in the morning, and not at B in the afternoon, the evidence of his absence from both is nil, because he might have been at B in the morning and at ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the Romans, Consiliis armisque sua moderamina summa Arbitrio tractare suo: nil juris in hac re Pontifici summo, modicum concedere regi Suadebat populo. Sic laesa stultus utraque Majestate, reum geminae se fecerat aulae. Nor is the poetry of Gunther different from ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... doctor, but nil desperandum was my motto, so I went to work at my crucible again, with redoubled energy, and made an ingot nearly every second day. I determined this time to put them in some secure place myself; but the very first day I set my apparatus in order for the projection, the girl Marion—that is my ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... "De mortuis nil nisi bonum," said he. His air was grave, his blue eyes solemn, and the Abbot had little cause to suspect the closeness with which that pair of eyes was watching him. He coloured faintly at the implied rebuke, but he inclined his head as if submissive to the correction, ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... protection who were in power felt compelled to concede something—or to appear to do so. Congress appointed a Tariff Commission of which the Chairman was secretary of the wool manufacturers' association, and after a report the tariff act of 1883 was passed. The net results were almost nil. Some rates were lowered, while others were raised with a definite protectionist purpose. The average rates for the next seven years, 1884-1890, were 45 on dutiable (an increase of nearly 2 per cent) and 30 on free and dutiable (unchanged as compared ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... philosophy; the alternative of surrender and suicide is exemplified by Avicenna and his followers when they declared that that which is true in theology may be false in philosophy, and vice versa; and by Sanchez in his famous defence of the thesis "Quod nil scitur." ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... not now advance many steps, without spying eyes to track and denounce him. Her own helplessness struck her with the terrible sense of utter disappointment. The possibility of being the slightest use to her husband had become almost NIL, and her only hope rested in being allowed to share his fate, whatever ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... anger had wholly left her, but her fear remained. A terrible sense of responsibility was upon her, and she was utterly at a loss as to how to cope with it. Her influence over this man she believed to be absolutely nil. She had not the faintest notion how to deal with him. Lady Carfax would have known, she reflected, and she wished with all her heart that Lady Carfax ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... January, and thus far the opportunities for skating that had come to the young people of that section of country where Scranton was located, had been almost nil; which would account for the enthusiasm of the lads when Thad announced how rapidly the thermometer was giving promise of ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... vitality, deaden his instincts, derange moral action, cause hope to die within his infant breast almost as soon as it was born." Every pauper was to them an obnoxious charge to be reduced to a MINIMUM or NIL. The Baby's constitution alone ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... respuis actus Merito rector cohibere modo. Nam cur tantas lubrica uersat Fortuna uices? Premit insontes Debita sceleri noxia poena, 30 At peruersi resident celso Mores solio sanctaque calcant Iniusta uice colla nocentes. Latet obscuris condita uirtus Clara tenebris iustusque tulit 35 Crimen iniqui. Nil periuria, nil nocet ipsis Fraus mendaci compta colore. Sed cum libuit uiribus uti, Quos innumeri metuunt populi 40 Summos gaudent subdere reges. O iam miseras respice terras Quisquis rerum foedera nectis. Operis tanti pars ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... trip is to be carried out in the spring; for although, as we shall endeavour to show later, the scenery is then at its best, still, since it is not the season, only one or two hotels are open in each resort, and society is "nil." ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... Nil mortale loquor; coelum mihi carminis alta Materies; poscunt gravius coelestia plectrum. Muscosi fontes, sylvestria tecta, valete, Aonidesque deae, et mendacis somnia Pindi: Tu, mihi, qui flamma movisti ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... by the unconscious mass. It is needful however, that these individualities should not be in too pronounced disagreement with received ideas. Were they so, to imitate them would be too difficult and their influence would be nil. For this very reason men who are too superior to their epoch are generally without influence upon it. The line of separation is too strongly marked. For the same reason too Europeans, in spite of all the advantages ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... Petri hausissent aequora vasta ratim, Inviolata fides aeterno permanet aevo. Percutit injustos ira molesta Dei; Quem neque praemeditans latuit Nero, funera cujus Distulit adversa in tempora longa vice. Occidit ergo miser, Divumque hominumque favore, Traduxitque illuc sors malesuada virum. Nil gravius pugnare Deo, pugnare feroci Fortunae. Vinci magnus ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... for me! Do you think the kindness has missed its due effect? No, no, I am glad,—(knowing what I now know,—what you meant should be, and did all in your power to prevent) that I have not received the picture, if anything short of an adequate likeness. 'Nil nisi—te!' But I have set my heart on seeing it—will you ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... when he looked at it, and the first thing he did was to try to discover what object, if any, such a hole could have. He got a piece of candle, and by enlarging the aperture a little was able to examine what lay beyond. The result was nil. The trunk-room, although heated by steam heat, like the rest of the house, boasted of a fireplace and mantel as well. The opening had been made between the flue and the outer wall of the house. There was revealed, ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... morals, religion, and history; and a library which aspires to be complete must comprise, in addition to imaginative works, all these branches of intellectual activity. Comprising all these branches, it cannot avoid comprising works of which the purely literary interest is almost nil. ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... insubordination. My native attendants pointed out an extensive weir, 200 feet long and five feet high; they said it was the property of a family, and emphatically remarked, "that white men had stolen it and their country;" the Yow-ew-nil-lurns were the original inhabitants. "Tapoe," the Mount Napier of Mitchell, is an isolated hill of volcanic formation; the crater is broken down on the west side to its base. The great swamp is skirted by low hills and well grassed open forest land; the natives ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... me. Granted that I am very glad the railway was made and use it when I find it convenient, I do not suppose that those who projected and made the line allowed me to enter into their thoughts; the debt of my gratitude is divided among so many that the amount due from each one is practically nil. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... could not help thinking that there was much of the bizarre about every thing I saw—but then the world is made up of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts of conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much, as to be quite an adept at the nil admirari; so I took my seat very coolly at the right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite, did justice to the good ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the air, as Hercules invaded hell. The discovery of fire put us in possession of a forbidden secret. Is this unnatural conquest of nature safe or wise? Nil mortalibus ardui est: ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... risk is slight. Under esophagoscopic bouginage the prognosis is favorable as to ultimate cure, the duration of the treatment varying with the number of strictures, the tightness, and the extent of the fibrous tissue-changes in the esophageal wall. Mortality from the endoscopic procedure is almost nil, and if gastrostomy is done early in the tightly stenosed cases, ultimate cure may be confidently expected with careful ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... what you do, miracles or fruitless deeds, You're a man, man, man, if you do them with a will; And no matter how you loaf, cursing wealth or mumbling creeds, You are nothing but a noise, and its weight is nil. ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... miseros! quam totus homuncio nil est, Sic erimus cuncti, postquam nos auferet orcus. Ergo vivamus, dum ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... silk: Its colors, ah, how vain The task to name the splendid hues that in that vest obtain! Go, view the rainbow and recount the glories of the sight And number all the radiances that in its glow unite, And then, when they are counted, with pride be it confessed They're nil beside the splendor of the Will J. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... was maintained that history would no longer kindle enthusiasm. No, in their desire to acquire an historical grasp of everything, stultification became the sole aim of these philosophical admirers of "nil admirari." While professing to hate every form of fanaticism and intolerance, what they really hated, at bottom, was the dominating genius and the tyranny of the real claims of culture. They therefore concentrated and utilised all their ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of other successes were likewise required, namely, the battle at Katholisch Hennersdorf, in Lusatia, and the battle of Kesseldorf, before this peace took place, still we cannot say that the moral effect of the battle of Soor was nil. ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... amongst those beings whose hands are as black as those of apes and their skin tanned like the ancient parchments of an olim; whose complexion is burnt brown by the sun and whose neck is wrinkled like that of a turkey; who are covered with rags; whose voice is hoarse; whose intelligence is nil; who think of nothing but the bread box, and who are incessantly bowed in toil towards the ground; who dig; who harrow; who make hay, glean, gather in the harvest, knead the bread and strip hemp; who, huddled among domestic beasts, infants and men, dwell in holes and dens scarcely covered with ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... [1928]name registered in thy book." Out of this fountain proceed all those cracks and brags,—[1929]speramus carmina fingi Posse linenda cedro, et leni servanda cupresso—[1930]Non usitata nec tenui ferar penna.—nec in terra morabor longius. Nil parvum aut humili modo, nil mortale loquor. Dicar qua violens obstrepit Ausidus.—Exegi monumentum aere perennius. Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis, &c. cum venit ille dies, &c. parte tamen meliore mei super alta ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... for hem that been despeyred In love, that never nil recovered be, And eek for hem that falsly been apeyred Thorugh wikked tonges, be it he or she; Thus biddeth god, for his benignitee, 40 So graunte hem sone out of this world to pace, That been ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... also due to the Very Rev. Canon Gildea, D.D., M.R., who has kindly read through this book for the "Nil obstat"; and to the courteous Curator of the Library and Museum at Boulogne for permitting us to make a sketch of Caligula's famous tower and lighthouse, which was called Turris Ordinis or Turris Ardens by the Romans, and Nemtor or Nemthur by ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... yet a lad by his indomitable grit and personal courage fought his enemy, continued to fight him, and finally conquered him, all by sheer determination never to give in. Let others in his position take heart of grace and continue the struggle, and may they, too, rout their enemy as the S.B. did. Nil desperandum! I may add that an ice-cold bath of an hour in the North Sea in January, and eighteen months' incarceration in a Turkish prison, are not absolutely ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... plains of Mongolia and Tibet, they present the same general characteristics of land surface, climate, flora and fauna, and the same nomadic populations of pastoral or hunting tribes. In them the movement of peoples reaches its culminating point, permanent settlement its nil point. Here the hunting savage makes the widest sweep in pursuit of buffalo or antelope, and pauses least to till a field; here the pastoral nomad follows his systematic wandering in search of pasturage and his hardly less systematic campaigns of conquest. It ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... replied, "The difference between the two sorts of madmen is, that he who is so will he nil he, will be one always, while he who is so of his own accord can leave off being one whenever ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and another sovereign went by-and-by at the bootmaker's, leaving the damsel with just twenty shillings out of her quarter's wage; but as the need of pocket-money at Kingthorpe, except for the Sunday offertory, was nil, she felt herself passing rich in the possession of that last remaining sovereign. She would have liked to spend it all upon Christmas gifts for her young friends at The Knoll; but this fond wish she relinquished with a sigh. Paupers could not be givers of gifts. Whatever she gave must be the fruit ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... pro tribus tabulis ex nuce cornisate (?) ad continenda nomina librorum e per le cornise de tre banchi vechi ex nuce die supradicta; nil omnino restat habere ut ipse sua manu affirmat, computatis in his illis LX bononenis qui superius scribuntur. ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... was a law of the twelve tables, and De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction—even if the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad dog, it is true, and a dog's death it was that he ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... nec Jovis ira nec ignes, Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas. Cum volet illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis hujus Jus habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi; Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis Astra ferar ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... winds, why call you hence away? Why make you breach betwixt my soul and me? Ye traitorous floods, why nil your floats delay Until my latest moans discoursed be? For though ye salt sea-gods withhold the rain Of all your floats and gentle winds be still, While I have wept such tears as might restrain The rage of tides and winds against their will. Ah shall I love your sight, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... their way through the grey Coolabah trees; the decorated women throwing their leafy missiles with accurate aim into the ranks of the boys, who did not dare to look at their assailants. A Boorah boy must give no evidence of curiosity; the NIL ADMIRARI attitude then begun clings to a black man through life. The women of the tribe express voluble surprise, but a black man never except by the dilation ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... have been present at all; at least Col. Stewart, who was there and was acquainted with every one of note in the army, asserts positively that there was no such man along; nor has any other American account ever mentioned him. His military knowledge was nil, as may be gathered from his remark, made when the defeats of Braddock and Grant were still recent, that British regulars with the bayonet were best fitted to ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... legend relates that they were known in the north and suppressed by Harsha. See Ettinghausen, Harsha Vardhana, 1906, p. 86. Nil Sadhana appears to be a name for tantric practices. See Avalon, Principles of ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... nil prius, neque fortius: Verum si incipies, neque perficies naviter, Atque ubi pati non poteris, cum nemo expetet, Infecta pace ultro ad eam venies indicans Te amare, et ferre non posse: Actum est, ilicet, Peristi: ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... exactly, 78 out of 250—had not reappeared, but the conditions for its re-appearance were highly favourable. The earth was all water, the vegetation all slime, the air half steam, and the difference between wet and dry bulbs almost nil. Thoroughly dispirited for the first time, I was meditating how to escape, when H. M. Steamship "Torch" steamed into Clarence Cove, and Commander Smith hospitably offered me a passage down south. To hear was to accept. Two days afterwards (July 29, 1863) I bade ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... to render "Caesar's things" to foreign Caesars, demand such total bankruptcy that we must needs repudiate the just debts of home creditors, whose chimneys smoke just beyond the fence that divides us? De mortuis nil nisi bonum is a traditional and sacred duty to departed workers; but does it exhaust human charity, or require contemptuous crusade against equally honest, living toilers? Are antiquity and foreign birthplace ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... pressure. I felt only a certain tightness in the joints of my fingers, and even this discomfort soon disappeared. As for the exhaustion bound to accompany a two-hour stroll in such unfamiliar trappings—it was nil. Helped by the water, my movements ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... Mr. George Osborne. The first English oration was made by Mr. Jedidiah Huntington, in the year 1763, and the first English poem by Mr. John Davis, in 1781. The last Latin syllogisms were in 1792, on the subjects, "Materia cogitare non potest," and "Nil nisi ignis natura est fluidum." The first year in which the performers spoke without a prompter was 1837. There were no Master's exercises for the first time in 1844. To prevent improprieties, in the year 1760, "the duty of inspecting the performances on the day," says Quincy, "and expunging all ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... kitchen), "she was very whimsical, expensive, ill-tempered, and, I'm afraid, a little—upon the— flightly order—a little touched or so;—but mum for that—the lady is now dead; and it is my maxim, de mortuis nil nisi bonum. The young squire was even then very handsome, and looked remarkably well in his weepers; but he had an awkward air and shambling gait, stooped mortally, and was so shy and silent that he would not look a stranger in the face, nor open his mouth before company. Whenever he spied ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... affecting and all, true no doubt; altho no one knew the character of this believing penitent either in point of veracity or judgment.—By the testimony of his land-lady in Court, one would not form the best opinion of him; but de mortuis nil nisi bonum. ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... nil," said the rhyme, "when kings will," but though nobles and people submitted in the lifetime of Ferdinand, the storm broke out again on his death in October, 1383. During the last ten years the Queen had ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... then prevalent in the nervous civilian areas back of the lines, reached us, but its effect, as far as I could see, was nil. Our officers and men were as unconcerned about the reports of enemy successes as though we were children in the nursery of a burning house and the neighbourhood was ringing with fire alarms. German advances before Amiens, enemy rushes gaining gory ground in ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... Bristol's seeking me there; and, eager as I was to give them substance, found them but airy—ultimately was forced to admit them to be nil. ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... court. Demurrer to declaration, if there ever was one, overruled. Defendants who are served now, at 8 o'clock p. m., of the last day of the term, ask to plead to the merits, which is denied by the court on the ground that the offer comes too late, and therefore, as by nil dicet, judgment is rendered for Pl'ff. Clerk assess damages. A. Lincoln, ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... Britain were a fiasco in the military sense. The damage inflicted by the bombs was not at all in proportion to the quantity of explosive used. True, in the case of Antwerp, it demoralised the civilian population somewhat effectively, which perhaps was the desired end, but the military results were nil. ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... added, "should now become your motto: "Inveni portum. Spes et fortuna valete; Nil mihi vobiscum est: ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... understood thing between himself and his protector, Senor Pomponio de Vergara y Puyarola, that his labours need not be otherwise than purely formal. To every one of the intelligent queries on the part of a paternal government it had been his custom, therefore, to append the magic word NIL. Banking system—NIL. Meat export—NIL. Cotton industry—NIL. Agriculture—NIL. Canal traffic—NIL. Teak ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... you once were, And I the same man still, You'd be the gainer by it, For you—you can't deny it— A most uncommon dunce were; My profit would be nil, If you were what you once were, And I ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... think at nil. I suppose you would have left me in ignorance forever, if I had not heard from ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. are, while separated, as useful to society as they might be. Each of them tends to create a celibate community, where the chance for meeting possible mates is practically nil. The men's organization has made, so far as we are aware, little organized attempt to meet this problem. The women's organization in some cities has made the attempt, but apparently with indifferent success. The idea of a merger of the two organizations with reasonable differentiation ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... him by Shu Kofa, while Ama Wang, on his side, sought to gain over Shu Kofa by making him the most lavish promises of reward. But that minister proved as true to his sovereign as Wou Sankwei did to the Manchu. The result of the long correspondence between them was nil, but it showed the leaders of the Manchus in very favorable colors, as wishing to avert the horrors of war, and to simplify the surrender of provinces which could not be held against them. When Ama Wang discovered that there was no hope of gaining over Shu Kofa, and thus paving ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... a ship when it's in spacedrive. It's out of normal space-time dimensions. We had a smattering of the theory at cadet school ... anyway, if one did flash into normal space-time—say, for instance, coming in for a landing—the probability of us being at the same place at the same time was almost nil. 'Two ships passing in the night' as the old ...
— Homesick • Lyn Venable
... loyal journal published in Kilkenny—the native town of the young rebel, who in this instance played his first trick on the government—referred to his supposed decease in terms which showed that the rule de mortuis nil nisi bonum found acceptance with the editor. The following are the words of the obituary notice which appeared in the Kilkenny Moderator on or about ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... an appreciation of the grim humor which had called upon him so early in his week to fulfill his oath, and a grinding resentment at the Fate which had thrust him into a position where he should show so impotent before those eyes. As far as personal fear went, it was nil. He was as oblivious to possible pain, possible death, as though he were now merely recalling a dream. Such contingencies had been decided the moment he swallowed the scarlet syrup. Fear had been annihilated in him because the most he had to lose was this next six days. He was too good ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Guest who comes with him to sup, The Host compounds a strangely mingled cup;— Red Wine of Life and Dregs of Bitterness, And, will-he, nil-he, each ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." When For me this end has come and I am dead, And the little voluble, chattering daws of men Peck at me curiously, let it then be said By some one brave enough to speak the truth: Here lies a great soul killed by cruel ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... aurum liuido nil iuuat, imo nocet: quia enim hic inuidiae et otij facibus super ingenuitatem mentis omnium generaliter nobilium principum verebatur in corde: (ingenuitas enim, et rusticitas nunquam cohabitant in cordis vno domicilio) Composuerat ista sibi in hunc finem, vt per se singulos aduocaret aliquos ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... the vast majority of your sex, whilst at the same time you could be put to the blush in many things by a school-girl of fifteen. For instance, though I firmly believe that you could at the present moment take a double first at the University, your knowledge of English literature is almost nil, and your history of the weakest. All a woman's ordinary accomplishments, such as drawing, playing, singing, have of necessity been to a great extent neglected, since I was not able to teach them to you ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Miss Tinne's death is differently told by different authorities; but we believe the above to be a correct version. See Dr. Heughlin's "Reise in das Gebiet des Weissen Nil," etc.; Dr. Augustus Petermann, "Mittheilungen;" Miss Edwards's "Six Life-Studies of Famous ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... of rede to every land, * Whose driving causeth all the world to thrive; Nil is the Nile of Misraim by thy boons * Who makest misery smile with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... an obnoxious charge by any and every means to be reduced to a minimum or nil. Ginx's Baby was reduced to a minimum. His constitution enabled him to protest against reduction to nil. But, just after the bills of costs had been taxed, mulcting the rate-payers of St. Bartimeus in a sum of more than L 1,600, the Guardians were made aware of the name ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... "Lady Helena is always talking to me about cultivating what she calls 'elegant repose.' Poor, dear grandmamma! Her perfect idea of good manners seems to me to be a simple absence—in society, at least—of all emotion and all feeling. I, for one, do not admire the nil admirari system." ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... aliis formis substantialibus [sc. materialibus] dicendum est non fieri proprie ex nihilo, sed ex potentia praejacentis materiae educi: ideoque in effectione harum formarum nil fieri contra illud axioma, Ex nihilo nihil fit, si recte intelligatur. Haec assertio sumitur ex Aristotele 1. Physicorum per totum et libro 7. Metaphyss. et ex aliis auctoribus, quos statim referam. ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... a later race of stylists, who have gone as far as Samoa and beyond in the quest of exotic perfumery, Borrow would have said simply, in the words of old Montaigne, "To smell, though well, is to stink,"—"Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere." Borrow, in fact, by a right instinct went back to the straightforward manner of Swift and Defoe, Smollett and Cobbett, whose vigorous prose he specially admired; and he found his choice ill appreciated by critics whose sense of style demanded that a clear glass window should be ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... down on every side to the water, in which stunted willow trees with myriad roots—like mangroves—find an amphibious existence. We passed through their groves, hooting as though we were leaving Liverpool, and out into the eau-de-nil waters of the ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... timor. Cicatrix conscientiae pro vulnere est. Fortunam[281] citius reperias quam retineas. Cravissima est probi hominis iracundia. Homo totiens moritur, quotiens amittit suos. Homo vitae commodatus, non donatus est. Humanitatis optima est certatio. Iucundum nil est, nisi quod reficit varietas. Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest. Minus saepe pecces, si scias quod nescias. Perpetuo vincit qui utitur clementia. Qui ius iurandum servat, quovis pervenit. Ubi peccat aetas maior, ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... brought glasses and the "stationary waiter" looked through them. Finally, it will be remembered the "stationary waiter" left the room, casting a glance which indicated "let it be understood that all emoluments are mine, and that Nil is the reward of this slave." Still, Dickens wrote the book as a detective story; he wrote it as The Mystery of Edwin Drood. And alone, perhaps, among detective-story writers, he never lived to destroy his mystery. ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... like a slave trying to build up the ruins of the old business. It is difficult, discouraging work, and so far the results are practically nil, but they will come. Something will come! More and more I feel the conviction in my heart that all this trouble and upheaval have been because God has some better thing in store for us both. We have only to wait and be patient, and the way will open.—I don't want to be ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... last new rush in Western Australia or Queensland, or perhaps buried in the worked-out ground of Tambaroora, Married Man's Creek, or Araluen; and by-and-by the memory of some half-forgotten reef or lead or Last Chance, Nil Desperandum, or Brown Snake claim would take their thoughts far back and away from the dusty patch of sods and struggling sprouts called the crop, or the few discouraged, half-dead slips which comprised the orchard. Then their conversation would ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... not letters only, but whole tomes and voluminous treatises about nothing? Why should a fellow like me, who all his life does nothing, be ashamed to write nothing, and that, too, to one who has nothing to do but read it?" And so, with "ex nihilo nil fit," he laughingly ends ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... the Parisian; "it knows neither father nor mother, the commandments of God, nor those of the Church, neither laws divine or human: their member knows no doctrine, understands no heresies, and cannot be blamed; it is innocent of all, and always on the laugh; its understanding is nil; and for this reason do I hold it ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... to ourselves the material arrangement of the starry strata, I have found the following remarkable passage in Kepler's 'Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae', 1618, t. i., lib. 1, p. 34-39: "Sol hic noster nil aliud est quam una ex fixis, nobis major et clarior visa, quia propior quam fixa. Pone terram stare ad latus, una semi-diametro via e lactea e, tunc ha ec via lactea apparebit circulus parvus, vel ellipsis parva, ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... with, there is a little sermon to be preached on that torn card. "Nil desperandum" should always be the motto of the competition player, and it is a motto that will probably pay better in golf than in any other game. I think it is very likely that some scores of monthly medals have been lost through a too precipitate destruction of the scoring ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... war our communications with America are slow and irregular. In the beginning they were nil. From the end of July to the middle of August we received neither letters, telegrams, nor papers. I suppose it was the same with you concerning direct news from us. Our adversaries had the field all for themselves and ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... Barry, mistress of Louis XV. Here also dwelt Hebert, editor of the foul Pere Duchesne. Both perished on the scaffold. We cross the Cour and leave by the Rue Damiette (L.), turn again L. and descend the Rue du Nil to the Rue des Petits Carreaux. This we follow to the L., and continue down it and the busy and picturesque Rue Montorgeuil, noting (L.) No. 78, the curious house at the sign of the Rocher de Cancale. 72-64 were part of the roomy sixteenth-century posting ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... soon to become the only form of outdoor existence possible for too many inhabitants of the British Isles. But a walk without an object, unless in the most lovely and novel of scenery, is a poor exercise; and as a recreation, utterly nil. I never knew two young lads go out for a "constitutional," who did not, if they were commonplace youths, gossip the whole way about things better left unspoken; or, if they were clever ones, fall on arguing and brainsbeating on politics or metaphysics from the moment they left ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... host of Wakungu, lately returned from the Unyoro war, came to pay their respects to the king: they had returned six days or more, but etiquette had forbidden their approaching majesty sooner. Their successes had been great, their losses, nil, for not one man had lost his life fighting. To these men the king narrated all the adventures of the day; dwelling more particularly on my defending his wife's life, whom he had destined for execution. This was highly approved of by all; and they unanimously said ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of Jasmin's record for his journeys during these fifty days:—"... At Foix, from M. de Groussou, President of the Communion of Bienfaisance, 33 fr., 50 c. At Pamiers, nil. At Saint-Girons, from the President of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, 16 fr. At Lavaur, from M. the Mayor, 22 fr. At Saint-Sulpice, nil. At Toulouse, where I gave five special seances, of which the two first, to Saint-Vincent de Paul and the Prefecture, produced ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... dedicated to them some specimens of real sailor poetry, combining the names of the staff. With grim humour, the "operation room" bore above it "Nil desperandum"; and the decorated walls of the hospital told the onlookers that "small vessels should keep in shore," that "windmills are not turned by a pair of bellows," that "good things are not found in heaps," that "hasty people fish in empty ponds," that "plenty, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... will be a few trees that will have to be replaced the first few years and is something not to be worried about. Dr. G. A. Zimmerman said, "Why worry about the blight? The wild ones have always had it to a small extent. Spread is so slow it isn't perceptible, damage being almost nil, so let's ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... tell her that he knew Willi! She was sorry to remember how often she had dissuaded her mistress from getting something at the Stores that could be got elsewhere, some little thing on which the tiny commission she received would have been practically nil, or, worse still, overlooked. Her commission had been often overlooked of late unless she kept a very sharp look-out on the bills, which Mrs. Otway had a tiresome habit of ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... still more valuable, on the spiritual and intellectual planes, which you can give; and you can start from this point and practise the spirit of opulence, even though your balance at the bank may be nil. And then the universal law of attraction will begin to assert itself. You will not only begin to experience an inflow on the spiritual and intellectual planes, but it will extend itself to the material ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... and having sternly (not to say with indignation) looked on at the flying waiter while he set the clean glasses round, directed a valedictory glance towards Mr. Grewgious, conveying: 'Let it be clearly understood between us that the reward is mine, and that Nil is the claim of this slave,' and pushed the flying waiter before him out of ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... doctor had felt his pulse for the last time, he cried out suddenly, "I have made a statement of my affairs, the liabilities are numerous—the assets nil; but I rely on the clemency of ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... "'Nil conscire sibi;' that ought to be enough for a simple man. But it is not enough for me. It cannot be enough for a man who intends to act as an attorney for others. Others must know it as well as I myself. You know it. But can I remain an attorney for you only? There are some of whom just ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... dirty, ill-smelling beerhouse. They were celebrating something or another, were jingling their money, discussing future earnings, and laughing uproariously. One table was especially absorbed in its noisy gaiety. There sat the celebrated town-rowdy Nil Krasavtsev with three of his friends. They drank, and sang hooligan songs, then paid their bill and went out. One ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... in Italy any more than good society does in most modern states. Roman aristocracy, like all aristocracies, whether of blood or of money, is international in its sympathies, skeptic in its soul. And its influence, in a decisive question of life and death to the nation, is nil. The Prince von Buelow was wasting his time with people who could not decide anything. As Salandra said, with dignified restraint in answer to the vulgar attack upon him made by the German Chancellor,—"The Prince was a sincere lover of Italy, but he was ill-advised by persons who no longer ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... It is the great defect, I think, of some of our best modern writers. They are marvellously FIT and terribly little NASCITUR. It is why I can never concede the highest palm in her craft to G. Eliot. Her writing is glorious—Imagination limited—Dramatism—nil! ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... laughed, rather bitterly, I thought—"when every trade requires capital, and the only trade I thoroughly understand, a very large one. No, no, Phineas; you'll not see me setting up a rival tan-yard next year. My capital is NIL." ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... contained in the most widely used American hymnals down to 1880 the average number of hymns of purely American origin was not quite one in seven; the proportion would be a little larger now. And the number of Methodist poets is almost nil, in spite of the fact that the compiler is a Methodist and the volume is issued from the official Methodist Publishing House. But if we thought that this would be any barrier to its wide circulation in Methodist homes we should be deeply ashamed for our church. We are confident ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... eighty. His education had been somewhat hurried, but there was no doubt as to his mechanical ability. He took to a car like a young duck to water. He talked motor, thought motor, and would have accepted—I won't say with enthusiasm, for Alfred's motto was 'Nil admirari'—but without hesitation, an offer to drive in the greatest race in the world. He could drive really well, too; as for belief in himself, after six months' apprenticeship in a garage he was prepared to vivisect ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... But nothing came of it; the engineer explained that he was obliged to start work from the south because that was nearest the sea, and saved the need of an aerial railway, reduced the transport almost to nil. No, the work must begin that way; no more ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... he was the king's favorite, and always accompanied him when he went hunting. He was obedient to every word of the king's, but of a rather uncertain temper towards the rest of the world. However, de mortuis nil nisi bonum; there he lay dead in the passage. Sapt put his hand on the beast's head. There was a bullet-hole right through his forehead. I nodded, and in my turn pointed to the dog's right shoulder, which was ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... humanam per somnia mentem, Nocturnaque quiete docet; nulloque labore Hic tantum parta est pretiosa scientia, nullo Excutitur studio verum. Mortalia corda Tunc Deus iste docet, cum sunt minus apta doceri, Cum nullum obsequium praestant, meritisque fatentur Nil sese debere suis; tunc recta scientes Cum nil scire valent. Non illo tempore sensus Humanos forsan dignatur numen inire, Cum propriis possunt per se discursibus uti, Ne ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... these consequences might safely be predicted as almost certain to result from his engaging in such a career, it by no means the more necessarily follows that, once engaged, he would not have persevered in it consistently and devotedly to the last; nor that, even if reduced to say, with Cicero, "nil boni praeter causam," he could not have so far abstracted the principle of the cause from its unworthy supporters as, at the same time, to uphold the one and despise the others. Looking back, indeed, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... correct the text by this notice than by a silent suppression, that it may remain a memorable instance of the danger incurred by the historian from forged documents; and a proof that multiplied authorities add no strength to evidence, when nil are to be traced ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... may study the Arno in all its ever-changing moods. Seldom is its colour quite the same. The hue of cafe-au-lait in full spate, it shifts at other times between apple-green and jade, between celadon and chrysolite and eau-de-Nil. In the weariness of summer the tints are prone to fade altogether out of the waves. They grow bleached, devitalized; they are spent, withering away like grass that has lain in the sun. [4] Yet with every ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... please her. Peter, their son, has been expelled from the university, in spite of his indifference toward "new" ideas. The children are continually harassed by their father, who bemoans the fact that he has given them an education. Besides, another sadness troubles him: Nil, his adopted son, whom he has had taught the trade of a mechanician,—an alert and industrious fellow,—wants to marry Polya, a girl without a fortune. The father is beside himself, for, if Nil marries, he will never be in a condition ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... Aurelius had a face that never changed—for joy or sorrow, "being an adherent," he adds, "of the Stoic philosophy." The pose of superiority to emotion was not uncommonly held in those times to be the mark of a sage—Horace's "nil admirari". The writers of the Gospels do not conceal that Jesus had feelings, and expressed them. We read how he "rejoiced in spirit" (Luke 10:21)—how he "sighed" (Mark 7:34) and "sighed deeply" (Mark 8:12)—how his look showed "anger" (Mark 3:5). They tell us of his indignant utterances ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... triumphantly captured and preserved for dissection. The men shortly afterwards returned to town, having learnt all that they wanted to learn, and inflicted more damage than they had hoped to inflict. They were bombarded on the journey home, but their casualities were nil. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... execution; it contains passages of lofty thought and real beauty, such as the dream of Pompeius, or the character which Cato gives of Pompeius, and is full of quotations which have become household words; such as, In se magna ruunt—Stat magni nominis umbra—Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum (aline ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... of all these systems in their later developments, is their cosmopolitanism. Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem alien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in any of them. And the reason of this is not far to seek. We have seen already (p. 82) how the chaos of sophistic doctrine was largely ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... dock-people had generously charged me "nil" for dues. I had letters for France from the highest authorities to pass the Rob Roy as an article entered for the Paris "Exhibition;" and when the douane and police functionaries came in proper state at Boulogne to appraise her value, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... have just observed in yesterday's paper that money matters are in a bad way. There has been a crisis in the city, and your investments have sunk so low that your income will be practically nil." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... the Divisional Cup Competition, we beat the Divisional Mechanical Transport Column 3—0, and got into the semi-final, when, however, we were badly beaten by the 4th Leicesters at Bishop's Stortford, by 3 goals to nil. In a Brigade paper chase which was held on December 26th, Pvte. Allen of ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... been common at one time in southern India. It will be sufficient to give a few examples. The interesting Todas tribe of the Nil'giri Hills practise fraternal polyandry. The husbands of the women are usually real brothers, but sometimes they are clan brothers. The children belong to the eldest brother, who performs the ceremony of giving the mother a miniature bow and arrow; all ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... "De mortuis nil nisi bonum," Geoffrey laughed. "No jests about the dead, Alison. But to tell you a secret, he never was alive. He doesn't ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... hole to put one's finger in, looking like a mere spot in the middle of a great white panel; to accumulate so much patient and delicate workmanship on almost imperceptible accessories, and all to produce an effect which is absolutely nil, an effect of the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... res corporales nil nisi materiale continerent, verissime in fluxu consistere, neque habere substantiale quicquam, quemadmodum et Platonici ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Ivan soon discovered that, in winter, regimental duties were practically nil. Half the privates of his regiment had been dismissed to their native villages. The rest, though nominally in barracks, and paraded once or twice a month (very badly), were wont to eke out their half-pay (supposed to be whole, but actually shared with two ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... that the only education which serves is the one that increases human efficiency, not the one that retards it. An education for honors, ease, medals, degrees, titles, position—immunity—may tend to exalt the individual ego, but it weakens the race, and its gain on the whole is nil. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... do not heed his will; The friends who loved him once, now stand afar; His sorrows multiply; his strength is nil; Behold! his character's bright-shining star Fades like the waning moon; and deeds of ill That others do, are ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... itaque multa ex Taciti operibus deessent, ut Nicoli voluntati morem gereret Poggius, nil omisit intentatum, ut per Monachum nescio quem e Germania Tacitum erueret. MEHUS, Praefat. ad Lat. ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... tension between the two ladies became greater until it was almost at the breaking point. Several attempts had been made by the distracted husbands to unscrew the strings which they knew were about to snap, but the result was nil. ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... unconsciousness is reached, the unpleasant taste of the ether being thus avoided and the induction period shortened. The mortality from nitrous oxide is small, and from the gas and oxygen in expert hands nil. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of labour is almost nil, and so I am very well off. I begin to see the charms of capitalism. To pull down the stove in the servants' quarters and build up there a kitchen stove with all its accessories, then to pull down the kitchen stove in the house arid put up a Dutch stove instead, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... replied the banterer; "the Chevalier first, and if he leaves anything worth fighting, I; as for you, my poet, your chances are nil." ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath |
