"Omnipotent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'primitive Arunta,' by their myth of the Ungambikula, 'a word which means "out of nothing," or "self-existing,"' say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.[6] Once more, I find that I have spoken of some savage Beings as 'omnipresent' and 'omnipotent.' But I have pointed out that this is only a modern metaphysical rendering of the actual words attributed to the savage: 'He can go everywhere, and do everything.' As to the phrase, also used, that Baiame, for example, 'makes for ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... knee," as we say in the army. Could any other living man have persuaded the British nation to accept universal compulsory military service as he did last year? Why, even the Church refused exemption. He is supreme—omnipotent. ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... omnipotent, so divine a thing, we should have love stories proving the truth and worth of alliances between an Earl and a kitchen-maid, between a Duchess and a day-labourer; but no attempt is made to upset conventional ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... God of mystery exercising his incomprehensible judgments! Doubtless he has pronounced a secret anathema against this land: blasting with maledictions the present, for the sins of past generations. Oh! who shall dare to fathom the depths of the Omnipotent? ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... up before me at those strange semi-human cries, and would not be put away—and I tried to turn, and yet my eyes were riveted on the black mass, which seemed vainly to implore the help of man against the stern ministers of the Omnipotent. ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... those formerly bestowed upon the crown of Portugal. This grant was made by the pope "out of our pure liberality, certain knowledge, and plenitude of apostolic power," and by virtue of "the authority of omnipotent God granted to us in St. Peter, and of the Vicarship of Jesus Christ which we administer upon the earth."[544] It was a substantial reward for the monarchs who had completed the overthrow of Mahometan rule ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... is accomplished; that an enemy, for instance, is actually harmed by merely wishing him harm. This mode of thinking forms the basis for many magic ceremonials. It is this latter mechanism,—i.e., the endowment of one's own thoughts with an omnipotent power,—which is also frequently illustrated in malingering. It is sufficient for the type of individual who malingers to merely say the word, and the most fantastic creation of his fancy immediately becomes a reality and is apperceived by him as such. A ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... value, and who knew in spite of her maidenhood that marriage was as a rule no dancing matter, should have had zest for this revelry surprised him still more. However, young people could not be quite old people, he concluded, and custom was omnipotent. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... dreamed. But what are they finding, more and more, below their facts, below all phenomena which the scalpel and the microscope can show? A something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent, retreating before them deeper and deeper, the deeper they delve: namely, the life which shapes and makes; that which the old schoolmen called "forma formativa," which they call vital force and what not—metaphors all, or rather counters to mark an unknown quantity, as if they should call it x ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... law of cause and effect, by which material phenomena are necessarily controlled, but to less worthy conceptions of the Divine Mind governing all things. The Deity of the Christian and Mohammedan worlds is a Being eternally dissevered from a world which he has by an omnipotent effort evoked from nothingness—a conception now regarded as impossible. Consequently, while God is in his high heaven, surrounded by his court, the world holds on its courses, and is periodically corrected by special interferences, generally ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... of this as the era of the plutocrats, nobody can misunderstand me. Everybody has recognized the rise of the money power. Its growth not merely stifles the independence of the people, but the blind believers in this omnipotent power of money assert that its liberal use condones every offense. The pulpit does not speak out as it should. These plutocrats are the enemies of religion, as they are of the state. And, not to mince matters, I will say that, ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... wretched cot, Who on the state dishonor might have brought, And reared him to the Christian's hope and trust. The boy to manhood grown, became a light To many souls, preached for human need The wondrous love of the Omnipotent. The work has multiplied like stars at night When darkness deepens; every noble deed Lasts longer, than ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... suspected of all sorts of high-handed practices—making and breaking reputations, running up and down, booming and exploiting—of which I should hardly think them capable. Popular opinion notwithstanding, I doubt whether critics are either omnipotent or utterly depraved. Indeed, I believe that some of them are not only blameless but even lovable characters. Those sinister but flattering insinuations and open charges of corruption fade woefully when one considers how little the critic ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... outsparkle the Mediterranean along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. Gideon Gory, of Winnebago, Wisconsin! Why any one knows that the Gorys were to Winnebago what the Romanoffs were to Russia—royal, remote, omnipotent. Yet the Romanoffs went in the cataclysm, and so, too, did the Gorys. To appreciate the depths to which the boy Gideon had fallen one must have known the Gorys in their glory. It happened something ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... "and with her sceptres in her hands, took her seat again upon the throne. The Archbishop of Canterbury proceeded with the Communion service and pronounced the final blessing. The choir sang the anthem, 'Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.' The Queen then left the throne, and attended by two Bishops and noblemen bearing the regalia and swords of State, passed into King Edward's chapel, the organ playing. The Queen delivered the sceptre ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... at the instant in which he had almost defied the power of the Omnipotent to bring help to Ellen, became aware of Fanshawe's presence, his hardihood failed him for a time, and his knees actually tottered beneath him. There was something awful, to his apprehension, in the slight form ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... isle Might rise in green-haired beauty eminent, And like a goddess, glittering from the deep, Hereafter sway the sceptre of domain From pole to pole; and such as now thou art, 10 Perhaps NEW-HOLLAND be. For who shall say What the OMNIPOTENT ETERNAL ONE, That made the world, hath purposed! Thoughts like these, Though visionary, rise; and sometimes move A moment's sadness, when I think of thee, My country, of thy greatness, and thy name, Among the nations; and thy character,— Though some few spots be on thy flowing ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... the people dance. To me, sitting in red shirt and pomaded hair at his feet, it seemed as if he were a magician. He threw his bow across the strings and compelled them to do his bidding. He was the great, the omnipotent personage of the feast. I sunned ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... divide the empire of heaven with the Almighty, was hurled down to hell. His aim was no less than the throne of the universe; his means, myriads of angelic armies bright, the third part of the heavens, whom he lured after him with his countenance, and who durst defy the Omnipotent in arms. His ambition was the greatest, and his punishment was the greatest; but not so his despair, for his fortitude was as great as his sufferings. His strength of mind was matchless as his strength of body; the vastness of his designs did not surpass ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... to be instinct with fresh life, and to glisten in his new-made scales; so, when the Tirynthian {hero} has put off his mortal limbs, he flourishes in his more aethereal part, and begins to appear more majestic, and to become venerable in his august dignity. Him the omnipotent Father, taking up among encircling clouds, bears aloft amid the glittering stars, in his chariot drawn by {its} ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... moral right? The unrighteous partiality, extorted by the threats of Carolina and Georgia in 1788, which gives them a disproportionate representation because of their property in men, and the unity of interest which makes them always act in behalf of Slavery as one man, have made them thus omnipotent. The North, distracted by a thousand interests, has always been at the mercy of whatever barbarian chief in the capital could throw his slave whip into the trembling scale of party. The government having been always, since this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... coffee cups and glasses, were all that remained; and James Polder played with the cut fruit, the half-full cordial glass before him. "I am going to be brutally frank, Jimmy," she said again. "You know that is a habit of mine, too. You are a very brilliant young man, but you are not omnipotent—you require stiffening, like a collar. And I would be a splendid laundress for you. Harriet is a long shot too lenient. I might not be so comfortable to live with, but I'd be bracing. I'd have you in that dirty little ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee, and the light shall shine upon thy ways.' Then is my will to be omnipotent, and am I to be delivered from the experiences of disappointments and failures and frustrated plans that are common to all humanity, and an essential part of its discipline, because I am a Christian man? ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... seen Death face-to-face have little real conception of his horrible unasked intrusion into the house of Life. That house is to them almost as inviolable as the home of our babyhood was to the most of us, a sacred fane under the protection of an omnipotent high-priest and priestess—papa and mamma. Almost as inviolable, that is, when those who live in it are our friends. Of course, the people in the newspapers go dying—are even killed in railway accidents. This frame of mind will change for Sally when she has seen this patient die. For the time being, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... selection was largely due to the relief it offered from the incubus of the old theological conception of the Deity as a personal agency, always interfering with the course of events,—an infinite, omnipotent, and omniscient stage manager,—a conception under which the Christian world at large lay when Darwin announced his solution of the problem. The religious world had been, up to that time, chained to the anthropomorphic conception of Deity, and it was even less due to the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... all is over; forcing upon his loathing eye and soul the sufferings and groans of men who have familiarly consorted with him, eaten with him, battled out watches with him—men of his own type and badge—all this conveys a terrible hint of the omnipotent authority under which he lives. Indeed, to such a man the naval summons to witness punishment carries a thrill, somewhat akin to what we may impute to the quick and the dead, when they shall hear the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... But beside hero-worship there is the exorcism of devils. By the same mechanism through which heroes are incarnated, devils are made. If everything good was to come from Joffre, Foch, Wilson, or Roosevelt, everything evil originated in the Kaiser Wilhelm, Lenin and Trotsky. They were as omnipotent for evil as the heroes were omnipotent for good. To many simple and frightened minds there was no political reverse, no strike, no obstruction, no mysterious death or mysterious conflagration anywhere in the world ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... praise the Omnipotent! 280 Let us the legend relate Told by a monk in the Priory. Thus ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... such a thing deepens the mystery of the world; but such an act as this is not to me half as mysterious as the action of an omnipotent Power which allowed so bright and gracious a creature as Dick was long ago to drift into ugly, sordid, and irreparable misery. Yet it seems to me now that Dick has at last trusted God completely, made the last surrender, and put his miserable case ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... his health, or so at least the newspapers said. Ben-Zayb rendered thanks to "the Omnipotent who watches over such a precious life," and manifested the hope that the Highest would some day reveal the malefactor, whose crime remained unpunished, thanks to the charity of the victim, who was too closely following the words of the Great Martyr: Father, forgive them, for they ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... name for 'the ideal of action'—to seek first light as to the true nature of our world and ourselves, dismissing and disregarding all appearance, however charming or seductive. Unless we learn to see Progress as universal and omnipresent and omnipotent, we shall set before ourselves ideals of action which are false and treacherous. We must exert ourselves not merely to apprehend, but to dwell in the ...
— Progress and History • Various
... in Hesperian sky, When the courts of heaven are all ablaze With the glorious tints and pageantry That to mortal mind so clearly portrays The mighty power of omnipotent hand, And the tender touch of a boundless love, Is an omen true—infallible proof Of ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... then, that a man thus minded should gradually have been led on into the Catholic Church. Judging as we do from the event, we thankfully recognise in him an elect soul, for whom, in the decrees of Omnipotent Love, a seat in heaven has been prepared from all eternity—whose name is engraven on the palms of those Hands which were graciously pierced for his salvation. Such eager, reverential thoughts of God as his, prior to his recognising ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... pale light made white the window.... The river murmurs. Through the silence its voice rises omnipotent; it reigns over all creatures. Sometimes it caresses their sleep, and seems almost itself to die away in the roaring of its torrent. Sometimes it grows angry, and howls like a furious beast about to bite. The clamor ceases. Now there is a murmuring of infinite ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... no reason for relating; for with more hideous extremes they maintain the evils of the Lutaos, while those peculiar to them are, as it were, the brutal creatures among other citizens. But that even will add praises to the changes that have resulted from the skill of the Omnipotent, and to the zeal of the missionaries, by whose means virtue produced the civilized and Christian conduct which now is theirs. Their dress approaches that of the inhabitants of the beach with whom they have communication. Accordingly, those who traffic with Lutaos or Moros dress in their style; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... claim that this God is a God of love, a God omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal. And the Christians claim that this great God, the Creator of our wonderful universe, is the God revealed to us in ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... Dark Rimmon[9] o'er a crag alone! And Gibil with his blasting malisoun, Above with his dark face maleficent, Who wields a power o'er men omnipotent Forlore! forlore! the souls who feel that blast Which sweeps around that black forbidding coast! Fierce whirling storms and hurricanes here leap, With blasting lightnings maltalent and sweep The furious waves ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... not susceptible of decay effected in the ordinary way by a gradual separation of particles, affords no proof that that same omnipotent power which created it cannot by another simple exertion of power again reduce it to nothing. The only reason for belief which this argument affords is that the soul cannot be acted upon by decay. But it does not prove that it cannot destroy its existence. Therefore, for the validity ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... are now rarely if ever in this country adjusted by an appeal to "the code." The custom, now universally condemned as barbarous, was at an early day practically upheld by an almost omnipotent public opinion. As is well known, in many localities to have declined an invitation to "the field of honor" from one entitled to the designation of a "gentleman" would have entailed not only loss of social position, but to a public man would have been a bar to future political advancement. ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... has no great fondness for poetry, and can hardly extract a moral out of Shakespear. His house is warmed and lighted by steam. He is one of those who prefer the artificial to the natural in most things, and think the mind of man omnipotent. He has a great contempt for out-of-door prospects, for green fields and trees, and is for referring every thing to Utility. There is a little narrowness in this; for if all the sources of satisfaction are taken away, what is to ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... and fevered face of the slumbering child. The little watch beat bravely to the march of time, eager to keep pace with that never-flagging runner; while the quick and feeble breathing of the girl told how she was fast losing in the race with the all-omnipotent hours. On a small table stood two phials, in which were imprisoned dull-coloured liquids, powerless, despite their supposed potency, to stay the hunger of the disease so rapidly consuming the patient; and by ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... story—part of it as great a fib as ever was told; for children once inside the walls of that "noble charity," never know who left them there; and any attempt to find each other out, by parent or child, is punished with the instant withdrawal of the omnipotent protection of the awful "governors." This lady, who bears all the romance of the piece upon her own shoulders, expects to meet her long-lost husband at the Ship, in Wapping, and instead of seeking her daughter, repairs thither, having done all the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... bespoke a princely rank. Her garb was graced with youth's appropriate ornaments. Her form was beauty's shrine, or of that shrine she moved as the guardian deity. Whatever Nature offers fairest and best had surely been assembled to mould her charms. Love omnipotent was her creator. Then I too plainly noted that the lovely maid, revealed the signs of passion long entertained for some ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... in the eye. "Why not? I know of nobody so competent. Come, man put that Satan of unreasonable self-reproach behind you. When man becomes omniscient and omnipotent there'll be no errors in his judgment or his performance—and not before. Meanwhile we're all in the soup of fallibility together. I—I'm not much at expressing myself elegantly: but I trust I'm sufficiently forcible," ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... pleasure." "There is no wisdom, or understanding, or counsel, against the Lord." "He will make the devices of the people of none effect." "The Lord of Hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it." "Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!" ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... soon disappear. He doubted whether the house had authority to give powers of the description proposed to any set of men—at all events it was impolitic. The bashaws whom the bill proposed to start into life would be omnipotent; they might do as they pleased, and account for their acts by merely stating it was their pleasure. There were to be no less than thirty-six discretionary powers vested in the commissioners; a degree of authority entrusted to three men of which the country ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... uniformity with which the editor has marshalled them in his work, almost makes them resemble the productions of one hand. We need not point out the merit of this individual contribution; for the lady-pen must be omnipotent indeed which could write equally well on every branch of female accomplishment. By way of a seasonable extract we take part of a brief historical sketch prefixed to the Dancing instructions, and a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 406, Saturday, December 26, 1829. • Various
... such a mongrel thing? We Jacobites or Monophysites or whatever they choose to call us will not yield a jot or tittle of the divine nature of our Lord and Saviour; and if the old faith must die out, I will turn Moslem and be converted to your One Omnipotent God; for before I confess the heresies of the Melchites I will be hewn in pieces, and my wife and children with me. Who knows what may be coming to pass? And there are many advantages in going over to your side: for the power is in your hands, and long may you keep it! We have got to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... astonished on beholding this figure, and discovered, by the force of internal penetration, that it could be nothing but the power of the Omnipotent which had assumed a body and become visible. He now felt that God is all in all, and all is from him, and all ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... they, no more fit to rule; they are beginning to look up and to see over the rim of the world—and we have opened their eyes. They have learned that Japanese can defeat Caucasians, that China turns in its sleep, that England is no more omnipotent than omniscient. They've heard of anarchy and socialism and have learned to throw bombs. Only the other day a justice in Bengal was killed by a bomb.... I fancy I talk," the girl broke off with her clear laugh, "precisely like my father, who talks ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... Severinus, when he heard this, gave boundless thanks to the Creator, who sometimes puts off the prayers of suppliants for this end, that as faith, hope, and charity grow, while lesser things are sought, He may concede greater things. Lastly, this did the mercy of the Omnipotent Saviour work, that while it brought to slavery a woman free, but cruel overmuch, she was forced to restore to liberty those who were enslaved. This having been marvellously gained, the queen hastened with her husband ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... honored Lucifer, I present FASHION as one of those social institutions of men which might the most easily become, with a little fostering at our hands, to us the most productive of vices, under a name least calculated to alarm. It already holds an almost omnipotent sway over the wealthier, or what they call the higher, classes of society, who hesitate at no sins that can be committed with its sanction; and the disposition is every day growing stronger and stronger, among all classes, to fall in with its behests. Encourage its progress, make its ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... these figures, as you will have seen, are tied round with strings. They believe that the zemes send rain or sunshine in response to their prayers, according to their needs. They believe the zemes to be intermediaries between them and God, whom they represent as one, eternal, omnipotent, and invisible. Each cacique has his zemes, which he honours with particular care. Their ancestors gave to the supreme and eternal Being two names, Iocauna and Guamaonocon. But this supreme Being was himself brought forth by a mother, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... not have existed; and as it does exist, the origin of evil (for if evil means no more than pain 'in genere', evil has a true being in the order of things) is not only a difficulty of impossible solution, but is a fact necessarily implying the non-existence of an omnipotent and infinite goodness,—that is, ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... the cliff. Babaji instructed the shocked disciples to fetch the stranger's body. When they returned with the mangled form, the master placed his divine hand on the dead man. Lo! he opened his eyes and prostrated himself humbly before the omnipotent one. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... has no fairer sight to show than this its blossom-time, With all the gently running streams that wander o'er its face, It is indeed the handiwork of God Omnipotent, The Lord of every noble gift, and Giver ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... were at a stalemate. There hadn't been a really good skirmish for nearly five years. War was hardly anything but a memory, what with both sides practically omnipotent. Unless troops could be landed, war was downright impossible. And, no one could land troops, so there was ...
— Minor Detail • John Michael Sharkey
... some cause to be alarmed when she saw Miss Du Prel, if she wants to keep us in a chastened mood, at home. It seems as if all of me were in high carnival. Life is raised to a higher power. I feel nearly omnipotent. Epics and operas are child's play to me! It is true I have produced comparatively few; but, oh, those that are to come! I feel fit for anything, from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter. I think of the two, I rather lean to the manslaughter. Oh, I don't ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Sarka, though it piled higher upon his shoulders the weight of his responsibilities. The other-worldliness of Lunar, called now Luar, explained her mastery of the Gnomes, and through them the cubes, and her knowledge of the omnipotent qualities of the white flames of the Moon's core, which might have been, it came to Sarka in a flash, the source of all life on the Moon in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... that waft our riches out of sight Grow on the gamester's elbows, and the alert And nimble motion of those restless joints, That never tire, soon fans them all away. Improvement too, the idol of the age, Is fed with many a victim. Lo! he comes— The omnipotent magician, Brown, appears. Down falls the venerable pile, the abode Of our forefathers, a grave whiskered race, But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead, But in a distant spot; where more exposed It may enjoy the advantage of the North And aguish East, till ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... him. After what he had said, of course there would be no more praise in the 'Breakfast Table,'—and, equally of course, no novel of hers could succeed without that. The more she thought of him, the more omnipotent he seemed to be. The more she thought of herself, the more absolutely prostrate she seemed to have fallen from those high hopes with which she had begun her literary career not much more ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... having these prerogatives, has the Supreme Good, or rather is the Supreme Good, or has all the attributes of good in infinite intenseness; all wisdom, all truth, all justice, all love, all holiness, all beautifulness; who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; ineffably one, absolutely perfect; and such that what we do not know of Him is far more wonderful than what ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... transparent—did I summon up Genius, art, practice—I might not so speak, It should be e'er imagin'd: yet believ'd It may be, and the sight be justly crav'd. And if our fantasy fail of such height, What marvel, since no eye above the sun Hath ever travel'd? Such are they dwell here, Fourth family of the Omnipotent Sire, Who of his spirit and of his offspring shows; And holds them still enraptur'd with the view. And thus to me Beatrice: "Thank, oh thank, The Sun of angels, him, who by his grace To this perceptible hath lifted ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... existence; but as the act of generation, in the most spiritual and abstracted sense, must be supposed to transmit the properties of a common nature, they durst not presume to circumscribe the powers or the duration of the Son of an eternal and omnipotent Father. Fourscore years after the death of Christ, the Christians of Bithynia, declared before the tribunal of Pliny, that they invoked him as a god: and his divine honors have been perpetuated in every age and country, by the various sects ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... earth, thy six days' work; To Thee, ALMIGHTY ONE! thy child would raise A loud thanksgiving. And if this, my strain Of joy and thanks, and supplication, be Or cold, or weak, or insincere in aught, (As our poor hearts deceive themselves so oft,) Thou! O OMNIPOTENT! canst make it warm,— Warm as thy love, strong as thy Son's strong tears, And pure as thine own essence. Formed by Thee, Saved by thy mercy from thy wrath, we all Are guilty ingrates, and the best of men ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... The lesson of that paradox that the dying gave strength to the living, the feeble to the strong, was the old one which is ever new, that mere human power is weakness when it is strongest, and that power drawn from God is omnipotent when it seems weakest. And the further lesson is the lesson of our text, that our hands are then strengthened, when His hands are laid upon them, of whom it is written: 'Thou hast a mighty arm: strong is Thy hand, and high is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... been strengthened in goodness by relying on the sympathising support of a powerful and good Governor of the world (he says) have, I am satisfied, never really believed that Governor to be, in the strict sense of the term, omnipotent. They have always saved His goodness at the expense of His power. They have believed . . . that the world is inevitably imperfect, contrary ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... the ark was borne in triumph, David leaped with gladness then; Now before the Type's fulfilment We should joy as holier men; For, omnipotent to save, Christ hath ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... right send-off, that crowd of bedraggled loud-talking ragamuffins, the scrapings from the whole beach, already besieging the sponsors with their petulant whining: "Our candy now, and the almonds, the almonds!" "Senor" Mariano's face was beaming omnipotent over the vessel's side. "Candy, eh! It's candy you want!" He well knew what all the good things he had brought to eat had cost—one whole onza—gold—to keep on good terms with nephew! And he bent over, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... moral law to the world, where He found the words of wisdom and consolation—the divine words of power—for all generations, there is positively not one sentence of explanation. Of all the young Jews of His day, how came He by these powers and this omnipotent wisdom? Now the Christian theory does attempt an explanation. It gives an ample answer to the question. M. Renan gives no answer whatever. He flies to sentiment. We have all sorts of adjectives—'delicious,' 'enchanting, 'beautiful,' 'sweet,' 'charming'—he beats a whole female seminary ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hear shall live forever," where the "tears shall be wiped from off all faces"—and where the righteous bondman shall no longer fear the driver's lash or master's frown, but freely join in the song of "Alleluia! The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!" ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... religion the same purpose as the Royal Family does for the civil realm in some countries of our world. The Divine Family are genuinely descended from their sacred ancestors who were, by a visible show of omnipotent power, appointed and consecrated to the sacred work of dispensing truth and officiating in all sacraments. The ordination of all the ministers of Holen must be held by a member of this Divine Family. By reason of this one source of authority, there is, therefore, no ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... "What form so omnipotent an element will assume—how long it will welter to and fro as a wild democracy, a wilder anarchy—what constitution and organization it will fashion for itself, and for what depends on it in the depths ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He created patriotism and taught the nations war—founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... great princes as my king and the king of Japon; and that these discussions and conferences in true friendship and alliance may redound to much peace to the universal happiness of the world, and to the glory of omnipotent God, the King of kings. Inasmuch as certain presents have been sent me but lately from Japon, which are of great value, I would wish to have some rare and valuable products of our Espana to send in return; but, since weapons are the articles ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... muse does not fear to sing of such modern and mechanical phenomena as the railway train, which she loves to see "lap the miles and lick the valleys up," while she is fascinated by the contrast between its prodigious force and the way in which it stops, "docile and omnipotent, at its own stable door." But even she can hardly bring the smoking locomotive into such pathetic relations with nature as the "little brig," whose "white foot tripped, then dropped from sight," leaving "the ocean's heart too smooth, too blue, to ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... of the forces of nature. And there are no disloyal Englishmen; there are no English revolutionists, because the oligarchic management of England is so complete as to be invisible. The thing which can once get itself forgotten can make itself omnipotent. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... and recess, on the walls of which the puny human image was easily reflected in beautiful and picturesque and grotesque shadows, which were mistaken for gods. But the Nature and Universe revealed by modern Christian science are too vast and profound to mirror anything short of the image of the Omnipotent himself. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... that it was no vision, but that he was actually transported in the body to his journey's end; and if any impossibility be objected, they think it a sufficient answer to say that it might easily be effected by an omnipotent agent.' ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... faces of varied hue convince the heart which leaps with glad surprise that they, too, are living symbols of omnipotent thought. With a child's eager eye I drink in the myriad star shapes wrought in luxuriant color upon the green. Beautiful is the spiritual ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... Russian ally of France, and because concessions are not likely to be obtained at Pekin by Germany, if the latter country places itself in direct and open opposition to the St. Petersburg government. Russian influence has, for some time past, been omnipotent at Pekin, mainly through the kindly assistance rendered to China in 1895, followed up by what has been practically an offensive and defensive league. The nature of the understanding between Russia and the Middle Kingdom has, indeed, for some time been patent to all the world except Englishmen, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... would be spent in denying it. So, I repeat, it is a mistaken Christianity which allow men to cherish a blind belief in the omnipotence of prayer. Prayer, certainly, when the appropriate conditions are fulfilled, is omnipotent, but not blind prayer. Blind prayer is superstition. Prayer, in its true sense, contains the sane recognition that while man prays in faith, GOD ACTS BY LAW. What that means in the immediate connection ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... instructed and so intelligent as he, to dwell so much on the possible anger of the Lord, rather than on his pity and love. The theory of extreme Puritanism can surely offer no quainter example of its fallacy than this idea that the omnipotent Jehovah—could be seriously offended, and could stoop to revenge, because a little, nervous child of nine had disturbed a prayer by being frightened ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... he, "while the present Convention sits in Paris; it has but one head, but it has ten thousand bloody hands. There can be no peace, no rest in France, while Danton, Robespierre and Barrere are omnipotent. Let us at once start for Paris: Brittany will join us, and parts of Normandy; the Southerns will follow us; the men of Bordeaux and of the Gironde: have not their own orators, the leaders of the Revolution, been murdered in their seats, because they were not willing that all France should become ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... excellence of Power; and consequently it is from that Power, that the Kingdome over men, and the Right of afflicting men at his pleasure, belongeth Naturally to God Almighty; not as Creator, and Gracious; but as Omnipotent. And though Punishment be due for Sinne onely, because by that word is understood Affliction for Sinne; yet the Right of Afflicting, is not alwayes derived from mens ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... in, they certainly believed in themselves. They might be relied on to spare nothing and no one in their project, however ridiculous or mad their purpose might be. What then availed my paltry protection when the girl herself was a willing victim, and the men omnipotent? Nevertheless, if I failed eventually to serve her, I could at least do ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... of the slaver's crew. Not one of them, either those in the gig or on the raft, ever again saw the shore. They perished upon the face of the wide ocean—miserably perished, without hand to help or eye to weep over them. No eye beheld them but that of the Omnipotent—no hand but His was near; and it was near—for it was the hand of God that ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... of the real position of the Gods. They weren't omnipotent. Their place in the scheme of things was high, but they were certainly not equal with the One who had created the Universe and the Gods themselves in the first place. Possibly, Forrester had always thought, they ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... isolation, like Marsa in her solitude; and he did not consider himself ridiculously absurd or foolishly romantic, when he remembered that his countrymen, the Hungarians, were the only people, perhaps, who, in the abasement of all Europe before the brutality of triumph and omnipotent pessimism, had preserved their traditions of idealism, chivalry, and faith in the old honor; the Hungarian nationality was also the only one which had conquered its conquerors by its virtues, its persistence in its hopes, its courage, its contempt of all baseness, its extraordinary ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... above us teem with His myriads of shining witnesses. The universe of solar systems whose wheeling orbs course the crystal paths of space proclaim through the dread halls of eternity, the glory, and power, and dominion, of the all-wise, omnipotent, ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... the fraudulent and the fair are in the first instance confounded in one mass. The subsequent selection and distribution is left to the Nabob. With him the agents and instruments of his corruption, whom he sees to be omnipotent in England, and who may serve him in future, as they have done in times past, will have precedence, if not an exclusive preference. These leading interests domineer, and have always domineered, over the whole. By this arrangement, the persons seduced ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... wise men, to whom the world pays incessant homage, consent meekly to confess the infirmity of their reason? They feign, on the contrary, even when crushed beneath the Divine splendor, an air of great importance; and when the Omnipotent in His mercy deigns to bend to their low level, to lay open to them the treasures of His sovereign thought, do you think that in token of the sacred and respectful admiration which they owe in return for such goodness, they will prostrate themselves like the Seraphim whose ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of the night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible. From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half sound, a half whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... foreign languages, one cannot avoid associating together the unsolved mystery of that discrepancy of tongues prevailing in different countries with the disagreeing floras and faunas of the same regions,—each diversity bearing alike the unmistakable marks of Omnipotent design for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... decided that Parliament was omnipotent—and Parliament, in its omnipotence, instead of trial by jury and the Habeas Corpus, enacted admiralty courts in England to try Americans for offenses charged against them as committed in America; instead of the privileges of Magna Charta, nullified the charter ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... the two women seemed lovelier than when their hearts ran out to their approaching king. He felt now the power of personal sovranty, how these children of the East awaited not Xerxes the Master, but Xerxes the Omnipotent, God-Manifest, whose decrees were as the decrees of Heaven. And their awe could not fail to awe ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... it craftily; while, as a wolf hangs in the field, Matui, who had borne it and in accordance with the law of her tribe had exposed it to die, panted weary and footsore in the bamboo-brake, watching the house with hungry mother-eyes. What would the omnipotent Assistant Collector do? Would the little man in the black coat eat her daughter alive as Athon Daze said was the custom of all ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... future is not Wholly Dry. Mud unto mud! — Death eddies near — Not here the appointed End, not here! But somewhere, beyond Space and Time. Is wetter water, slimier slime! And there (they trust) there swimmeth One Who swam ere rivers were begun, Immense, of fishy form and mind, Squamous, omnipotent, and kind; And under that Almighty Fin, The littlest fish may enter in. Oh! never fly conceals a hook, Fish say, in the Eternal Brook, But more than mundane weeds are there, And mud, celestially fair; Fat caterpillars drift around, And Paradisal grubs are found; Unfading moths, ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... Omnipotent reigneth; and though we do not believe in his so immediate interference in events as would satisfy our impatience of injustice, yet he achieves his ends and brings about his compensations by having made Good infinitely and ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... gardens in the dryest summer beautified and comforted with fountains. Which engine when I found that it was in the power of my hands to do, as well as of my heart to conceive that it might be done, I did kneel down and give humble thanks from the bottom of my heart to the omnipotent God whose mercies are fathomless, for his vouchsafing me an insight into so great a secret of nature and so beneficial to all mankind ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... shall find a quick responsive echo; a second self, the same in thought, emotion, character, or with such slight shades of difference as shall make the blending more harmonious; one, and only one, to whom God has indissolubly joined us by the omnipotent law of a pure, immutable attraction—if this be an essential fact, then, as I sat drinking in the harmony of the song that night, this sublime truth in all its purity was revealed to me; and with the revelation came a purifying and exalting power, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... its rider through the air and cover the space of a year in a single day." The King marvelled and was amazed at these three wonders, following thus hard upon one another on the same day, and turning to the sage, said to him, "By Allah the Omnipotent, and our Lord the Beneficent, who created all creatures and feedeth them with meat and drink, an thy speech be veritable and the virtue of thy contrivance appear, I will assuredly give thee whatsoever thou lustest for and will bring thee to thy desire and thy wish!"[FN6] Then he entertained ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... all the wisdom of the Egyptians," by receiving the priestly education of the royal princes, and that he had advanced from grade to grade in the religious mysteries, even to the highest, in which the great truth of the One Supreme, the omniscient, omnipotent God was imparted, as the sublime acme of all human knowledge, thus attributing to Moses before his flight into Midian, an almost modern conception of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... perfect happiness. It may be—it is—impossible to gratify that desire in this life. Still, another life is not implied, for God may not have intended us to draw the inference that He is going to gratify it. If omniscient and omnipotent, God must be held to have intended, whatever occurs, but no such God is assumed in M. Flammarion's illustration, and it may be that God's knowledge and power are limited, or that ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... their uncertainty translated into a lugubrious silence. Slowly, inevitably, the catastrophe must come; it was even now being realized. Villa defeated was a fallen god; when gods cease to be omnipotent, they ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... despair. Convinced of the general correctness of the views here advanced, and desirous of entering on the work of reform, let them take courage, and begin it immediately. Though the mother, by her influence in the early formation of character, is almost omnipotent, she is not quite so. Though the Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots, still it is not utterly impossible for those to do well who have been long accustomed to do evil. "What has been done," you know, "can be done." Make this maxim your motto, and go forward in the work ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... Debatings, by bursts of Parliamentary eloquence. It is not consolatory to behold! For properly, as many men as there are in a Nation who can withal see Heaven's invisible Justice, and know it to be on Earth also omnipotent, so many men are there who stand between a Nation and perdition. So many, and no more. Heavy-laden England, how many hast thou in this hour? The Supreme Power sends new and ever new, all born at least ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... inquiries. Pericles has borne all his misfortunes with the dignity of an immortal. No one has seen him shed a tear, of heard him utter a complaint. The ungrateful people blame him for all their troubles, as if he had omnipotent power to avert evils. Cleon and Tolmides are triumphant. Pericles is deprived of ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... had rustled again, and now the minister had resumed his word pictures. This time they were not of the mighty Jehovah, just, unapproachable, omnipotent; but of the lonely Man of Nazareth standing by the lakeside and calling the fishermen to Him, and then on to Calvary when He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... things what shall I say? Lord, Thy will be done. I have well deserved to be troubled and weighed down. Therefore I ought to bear, would that it be with patience, until the tempest be overpast and comfort return. Yet is Thine omnipotent arm able also to take this temptation away from me, and to lessen its power that I fall not utterly under it, even as many a time past thou has helped me, O God, my merciful God. And as much as this deliverance is difficult to me, so much is it easy ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... was a tall, thin, elegant figure, and very fair, had a roseate flush spread over her delicate features, and she looked beautiful as she knelt to offer up her grateful and sincere adoration to the omnipotent, omnipresent, merciful Disposer of All. I believe that my father was the only person amongst the whole congregation who did not, at that moment, enjoy unmixed delight. I could discover that his enquiring ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... possibilities, does not his own system give a queer one? If highly rarefied oxygen be vital power, more highly rarefied oxygen {41} may be more vital and more powerful. Where is this to stop? Is it impossible that a finite quantity, rarefied ad infinitum, may be an Omnipotent? Perhaps the true Genesis, when written, will open with "In the beginning was an imperial quart of oxygen at 60 deg. of Fahrenheit, and the pressure of the atmosphere; and this oxygen was infinitely rarefied; and this oxygen ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... then, was seething, and I was trying to understand. I never did. No one ever understood Russia. The explanation of all that has happened there is simply the eternal duplication of history—a huge class of people, physically omnipotent, conscious of wrongs, unintelligent, and led by false prophets. All revolutions are the same. The purging is too severe, so ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pilgrim had toiled among cliffs and precipices during the earlier part of the morning. More lately, issuing from those rocky and dangerous defiles, he had entered upon that great plain, where the accursed cities provoked, in ancient days, the direct and dreadful vengeance of the Omnipotent. ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... sir, when the exaltation of the nerves has reached such a degree as this, the imagination is omnipotent, good news may give life, bad news death. A soothing thought in such cases is worth all the drugs ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... now!" at which David started, looked all around him, and then moved on as commanded. His back, always bent, and his gait, always decrepit and shuffling, were now pitiably so, and he had a long, long journey before him; but, thanks be to Him whose omnipotent care protects and watches over the poor in spirit, he had escaped a far longer one. On and on he went, not cold now, not thinking, not in haste; passing thick-coated travellers who ran, and clapped their hands, and swung their arms for warmth; passing gay companies in cabs that rolled over the snow ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... have re-read this often, and have committed it to your tenacious memory, you shall thus recompense me for this care of instruction, that as often as you shall have successfully made use of my work, you pray for me for the pity of Omnipotent God, who knows that I have written these things, which are here arranged, neither through love of human approbation, nor through desire of temporal reward, nor have I stolen anything precious or rare through envious ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... hoof-prints of the drinking herd; And, shallower for long heats, the oxen's ford Challenged her bleeding feet. She crossed unharmed, And soon in green-gold pastures girt by woods Stood up secure. Then forth she stretched her hands, Like Agnes praising God amid the flame: 'Omnipotent, Eternal, Worshipful, One God, Immense, and All-compassionate, Thou from the sinner's snare hast snatched the feet Of her that loved Thee. Glory to Thy name.' Thenceforth secure she roamed those ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... were, were joyously quoted to all new-comers. His legal ingenuity appeared miraculous, and it was confidently asserted in the Coffee House that he could turn black to white with so persuasive an argument that there was no Judge on the Bench to confute him. But he was not omnipotent, and his zeal encountered many a serious check. At times he failed to save the necks even of his intimates, since, when once a ruffian was notorious, Moll and the Clerk fought vainly for his release. Thus it was that Cheney, the famous wrestler, whom Ralph had often backed against all comers, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... incentive and as a possible reward. It becomes a tragedy when we think of the wasted years, the hopeless prayers and the anguish of those who fight the battle which is predestined to end in [5] apparent failure. We are disposed to doubt the justice of the Omnipotent Mind who created us and left us seemingly alone—derelicts in ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... delight: *i.e. of Dunmow That made me that I ever would them chide. For, though the Pope had sitten them beside, I would not spare them at their owen board, For, by my troth, I quit* them word for word *repaid As help me very God omnipotent, Though I right now should make my testament I owe them not a word, that is not quit* *repaid I brought it so aboute by my wit, That they must give it up, as for the best Or elles had we never been in rest. For, though he looked as ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Bismarck declined, nor would it, according to diplomatic etiquette, have been possible for him not to decline. Later on, however, Schloezer was placed en disponibilite, that is to say, he was politely dismissed. He had to pay a kind of farewell visit to Bismarck, who was then omnipotent. Being asked by Bismarck what he intended to do, and whether he could be of any service to him, Schloezer said very quietly, "Yes, your Excellency, I shall take to writing my Memoirs, and you know that I have seen much in my time which many ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... His promises, until He hath put a period to sin and misery, infirmity and death, re-established universal holiness and happiness, and caused all the inhabitants of the earth to sing, 'Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.'" If Methodism be faithful to her mission, ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... were momentous. For if the cosmos is the effect of an immanent, omnipotent, and infinitely beneficent cause, the existence in it of real evil, still less of necessarily inherent evil, is plainly inadmissible. [Note 13] Yet the universal experience of mankind testified then, as now, that, whether ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... that lost themselves in immensity the ineffable name, incommunicable and never to be pronounced, was seared by forked flames on a tablet of stone. A nation learned that El was Jehovah, that they were in his charge, that he was omnipotent, and that the world ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... exercising the omnipotent power which it claimed, was accustomed to pass bills of attainder; that is to say, it would convict men of treason and other crimes by legislative enactment. The person accused had a hearing, sometimes a patient and fair one, but ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... soul of the child, is naturally revolutionary; and when the revolution fails, the soul of the youth becomes naturally pessimistic. All moral life and moral judgment have this deeply romantic character; they venture to assert a private ideal in the face of an intractable and omnipotent world. Some moralists begin by feeling the attraction of untasted and ideal perfection. These, like Plato, excel in elevation, and they are apt to despise rather than to reform the world. Other moralists ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... unshaken on divinity! There's no such love as mine alive in man. From every corner of the frowning earth, It has been crowded back into my heart. Now, take it all! If that be not enough, Ask, and thy wish shall be omnipotent! Your hand. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... instinctively, for help and support. Human teaching presented a God from whom she shrank in fear and dislike. The Bible revealed Jesus. When she most felt her need, the Bible presented One whose eyes overflowed with sympathy, and whose hand was omnipotent. She instinctively felt, like Mary of old, that, at "His feet," ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... shall be born with soul full of bright melodies; or a Beethoven, with his depth and tenderness of feeling; or a Handel, lifting us above this earth until we shall hear the multitude of voices joining in one vast song,—'Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.' Nor is this impossible. Our history, it seems to me, has but just begun. All the past is but sorrow and gloom, with here and there a bright ray to bid us hope.... I hope they [the colored youth ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... Empedocles considered that the omnipotent and all-producing divinity fills all things, and with them nothing was so small that it did not contain within it the occult in every respect, although they were always progressing onwards to where it was predominant, and where it found a ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... pleasantest mornings he experienced on his long and solitary quest. His heavy clothing kept him warm, his seat was comfortable, the pace was good and Fritz was excellent company. Fritz was a simple peasant, though, in his belief that Germany was right in everything and omnipotent, that the other nations through jealousy had conspired to destroy her, but she, instead, would destroy them all, and rule a ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with heat and thirst, could say no more. Then Jupiter omnipotent, calling to witness all the gods, including him who had lent the chariot, and showing them that all was lost unless speedy remedy were applied, mounted the lofty tower from whence he diffuses clouds over ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... 'Oh! infinitely omnipotent GOD! whose mercies are fathomless, and whose knowledge is immense and inexhaustible; next to my creation and redemption I render thee most humble thanks from the very bottom of my heart and bowels, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... nature of his brain trouble and of his escape I have already told you. Enough that that wondrous bridge which an Omnipotent Providence threw across the river, while we stood gaping upon the other bank, stands fixed as any rock. As often as he will revisit Gramarye, the patient treads it with a firm, confident step. I do not matter—besides, I must soon return to Rome—but, by my advice, Valerie and those who are and ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... science and their philtres aside, and were womanly, and natural, and sincere; where, to gain or to keep their treasure, they would gladly have broken their wand, they failed utterly, and found they were only half omnipotent. The justice was retributive, but it was very complete. Be sure, with those passionate natures, the honey of a thousand triumphs never deadened the sting of the one discomfiture. Suitors flocking from every shore and island of the AEgean never made Sappho forget, for one hour, that ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... to contradict. In my little cottage he seemed like a giant, six-foot-two, broad, and swart with the burning fire of tropical suns. He seemed to fill the place, to dominate me and my paltry surroundings, even as in later years I saw him, the master spirit in a great assembly, eagle-eyed, strenuous, omnipotent. There was something about him which made other men seem like pygmies. There was force in the stern self-repression of his speech, in the curve of his lips, the ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that the Emperor must be destroyed. An assassin was found in the person of Koma, a naturalized Chinese, suzerain of the Aya uji, and, being introduced into the palace by the o-omi under pretence of offering textile fabrics from the eastern provinces, he killed the Emperor. So omnipotent was the Soga chief that his murderous envoy was not even questioned. He received open thanks from his employer and might have risen to high office had he not debauched a daughter of the o-omi. Then Umako caused him to be hung from a tree and made a target of his body, charging him with having ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... sensual make him celestial." As I said this, there appeared through the gate as it were lightning: and on my asking what it meant, he said, "Such lightning is a sign to us that there will come the ancient one from the east, who teaches us concerning God, that He is one, the alone omnipotent, who is the first and the last; he also admonishes us not to worship idols, but only to look at them as images representative of the virtues proceeding from the one God, which also together form his worship. This ancient one is our angel, whom we ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... however, to look with apprehension to the possible turn which the affairs of Italy may take, proceeding from the political views of the President. It is not improbable that he may act now that he is omnipotent upon the views contained in his celebrated letter to Edgar Ney in 1849, which were at the time disapproved by the Assembly.[31] He will feel the necessity of doing something to compensate the French for what they have lost by him at home, to turn their attention from home affairs to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... creation, one could most easily reply that it is the goodness and grace of God which He bestowed on the race that is after His image."[183] "For all that is in the universe and the universe itself are the gift and bounty and grace of God."[184] Again, "God is omnipotent; He could make all evil, but He wills only what is best."[185] "All is due to God's grace, though nothing is worthy of it;[186] but God looked to His own eternal goodness, and considered that to do good befitted His own blessed ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... the Virgin and her Child with the moon any Roman Catholic cathedral will show. [275] The Roman Missal will present to any reader "Sancta Maria, coeli Regina, et mundi Domina"; the Glories of Mary will exhibit her as the omnipotent mother, Queen of the Universe; and Ecclesiastical History will declare how, as early as the close of the fourth century, the women who were called Collyridians worshipped her "as a goddess, and judged it necessary to appease her anger, and seek her favour ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... deny Him Care of each host in the fight? His thunder was here in the hills When the guns were loud in July; And the flash of the musketry's light Was sped by a ray from God's eye. In its good and its evil the scheme Was framed with omnipotent hand, Though the battle of men was a dream That they could but half understand. Can the purpose of God pass by him? Nay; it was sure, and was wrought Under inscrutable powers: Bravely the two armies ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... was an omnipotent instrument compared with this knowledge of the finite, which remains the ignorance it always was, till the infinite by its own act has piece by piece ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... that marble-covered land, Would blessed Enda tell me wondrous tales— How, for the children of his love, the hand Of the Omnipotent Father never fails— How his own sister,[57] standing by the side Of the great sea, which bore no human bark, Spread her light cloak upon the conscious tide, And sailed ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... is a very powerful person to-day: indeed, if he is not omnipotent, he is at least omnipresent. It is he who writes nearly all the learned books and articles, especially of the scientific or skeptical sort; all the articles on Eugenics and Social Evolution and Prison ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... and love for his comrades in the great struggle, and his high sorrow for his own wrong-doing,—the palsied and crushing conception of this excellent and helpful being as a poor worm, writhing under the vindictive and meaningless anger of an omnipotent tyrant in the large heavens, only to be appeased by sacerdotal intervention, was fading back into those regions of night, whence the depth of human misery and the obscuration of human intelligence had once permitted its escape, to hang evilly over the western world for ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Design," he informed me, "and thoughts are all duller Than Beauty, and Beauty is Art; but no critic can grouse At the notion of Absolute Pure Indivisible Colour As calm as Eternity, smooth as omnipotent nous— I am ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... having done that which every Christian is called to do, and specially the Pastor of the Church, I have received the most sacred body of Christ with penitence, taking it from his table with my two hands, and praying the Omnipotent God that he would pardon my sins. Having had these sacraments I have also received the extreme unction, which is the last sacrament for the redeeming of my soul. Again I recommend to you, as long as I am able, the Roman Church, notwithstanding that I have already done so; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... generous-minded young women who, in this lonely district, had found sweet communion a necessity of life, and by pure and instinctive good sense had broken down a barrier which men thrice their age and repute would probably have felt it imperative to maintain. But perhaps this was premature: the omnipotent Miss Power's character—practical or ideal, politic or impulsive—he as yet knew nothing of; and giving over reasoning from insufficient data he lapsed into ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... this life for the greater glory of God and man's promise of a reward in another life, of which we wot but little and that little not scientifically authenticated. He wanted the great, all-compelling, omnipotent Present, with its gifts that he could clutch in his fierce hands or draw to his hungry heart. To hell with the future. He reflected that misers permit their thoughts to dwell upon it and die rich and despised, leaving ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... Vienna, and this tribunal could hardly receive the Pompadour graciously. The marquise, therefore, entreated the empress to execute judgment against this fearful tribunal of virtue, and to bow to the yoke of the omnipotent goddess Venus. All these letters can be seen in the "Supplement aux OEuvres Posthumes."] These Fliegende Blattern, as we have said, were the weapons with which King Frederick fought against his enemies when the rough, inclement winter made it impossible for him to meet them in the open field. ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... from all manual labor on Sunday is that "God made the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh He rested," therefore, man, created in the image of his Maker, should hold this day sacred. How it can be possible for a supreme, omnipotent and all-powerful being without "body, parts or passions" to become wearied thru physical exertion is a question that ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... see property equalised, or common, and he tries to answer the argument that excessive population would ensue. He quotes (ii. 862) a reported conjecture of Franklin's that 'mind will one day become omnipotent over matter.' If over matter, which is outside us, thinks Godwin, why not over our own bodies, 'in a word, why may not man be one day immortal' (ii. 862). He points out that the mind already has great power over the body, that it can conquer pain, assist in the cure of disease, and successfully ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... Therefore, to apply such a term to God—to say "a jealous God"—outrages the good sense of a Confucianist,[24] almost as much as the statement that God "cannot lie" did that of the Pundit, who wondered how God could be Omnipotent ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... principle into life, and adduced the example of England in support of his argument. 'Goethe immediately replied that the choice of the example was not happy, for that in no country was selfishness more omnipotent; that no people were perhaps essentially less humane in their political or their private relations; that salvation came, not from without, by means of forms of government, but from within, by the wise moderation and humble activity of each man ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... overwhelming. Nothing can be farther from our political thoughts to-day than this dread of the power of the national executive. On the contrary, we are constantly finding that it is feeble where we wish it were strong, impotent where we wish it omnipotent. The Senate of the United States has deprived the President of much of the power intended for his office, and has then found it, on the whole, convenient and desirable to allow itself to be held ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... prayers, blessed the Prophet, and kissed the finger tips of the right hand. They then made the seven Ashwat or circuits, and from time to time raised their hands to their ears, and exclaimed, "In the name of Allah and Allah is omnipotent!" The circuits finished, and it was deemed advisable to kiss the Black Stone. For some minutes Burton stood looking in despair at the swarming crowd of Bedouin and other pilgrims that besieged it. But Mohammed was equal to the occasion. Noticing that most of those ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... those shortsighted politicians, who conclude that this step will involve us in slaughter and devastation, may plainly perceive that no measure in our power will so naturally and effectually work our deliverance. The motion of a finger of the Grand Monarch would produce as gentle a temper in the omnipotent British minister as appeared in the Manilla ransom and Falkland Island affairs. From without, certainly, we have everything to hope, nothing to fear. From within, some tell us that the Presbyterians, if freed from the restraining power of Great Britain, would overrun ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... om; it is nitya, i.e., eternal, meaning probably that though the result of Maya or Avidya, it is no longer subject to rebirth; it is virajas, i.e., free from desire and passion, and lastly it is Jyotishmat or luminous, meaning Omniscient and Omnipotent. The commentator cites a passage from Vasishtha's treatise on yoga which declares the same results as consequent on the attainment of Knowledge. It is, of course, implied that in attaining to such a state, the mind as mind must be destroyed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... lief adore your image, as that in my heart, for both mean the same; but more, how can I? I love great Oro, though I comprehend him not. I marvel at his works, and feel as nothing in his sight; but because he is thus omnipotent, and I a mortal, it follows not that I am vile. Nor so doth he regard me. We do ourselves degrade ourselves, not Oro us. Hath not Oro made me? And therefore am I not worthy to stand erect before him? ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... to certain destruction, unless succored by the God of his fathers. In former years, and just before his departure, Miriam, with sparkling eyes and enthusiastic words, had praised the power and majesty of this omnipotent Lord, who preferred his people above all other nations; but the lofty words of the prophetess had filled his childish heart with a slight fear of the unapproachable greatness and terrible ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... intended," says Burns to Creech, 30th May, 1789, "to have troubled you with a long letter, but at present the delightful sensation of an omnipotent toothache so engrosses all my inner man, as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense." The poetic Address to the Toothache seems to belong to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... up to the highest pitch of expectation—would he present us with such an impotent conclusion as that the designer, though a living person and a true designer, was yet immaterial and intangible, a something, in fact, which proves to be a nothing: an omniscient and omnipotent vacuum. ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... proud heart, with blessings free: 'Tis the old fruitless quest of ardent youth, And soon or late you will come back to me. You'll learn there's naught so common as the breath Of life, unless it be the calm of death: You'll learn that with the Lord Omnipotent there's nothing commonplace, And with such souls as that poor child's, humbled, abashed, you'll hide ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... an omnipotent and benevolent Creator would never have formed such a world as this, and filled it with such inhabitants if the present was the only, or even the first, state of their existence; for this state which, if unconnected with the past and the future, would ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... gathered the summer berries in season, and the autumn's plentiful and spicy store of boxberries, checkerberries, teaberries or gingerbread berries with October's brown nuts. There were gingerbread and "cacks" even in the earliest days; but they were not sold in unlimited numbers. The omnipotent hand of Puritan law laid its firm hold on their manufacture. Judge Sewall often speaks, however, of Banbury cakes and Meers cakes; Meer was a celebrated Boston baker and confectioner. The colonists had also egg cakes ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle |
