"Weaken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... problems of Western and Central Europe had assumed an aspect quite different from that which they had worn five years earlier. More and more France was drawn into the actual conflict of the Thirty Years' War, impelled by a sense of new and unparalleled opportunity to weaken the House of Hapsburg. This, in turn, meant the preoccupation of Richelieu with European affairs, and a heavy drain upon the resources of France in order to meet the cost of her more ambitious foreign policy. Thus the duel with Austria, as it progressed during the last decade of the cardinal's ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... conflict was to weaken the Goths, to encourage the Romans, to make Belisarius confident of success. The siege lasted after this nearly a year. The extremity of hunger and misery was endured in the city. The supply of water ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... the theory is set up that higher mental development and strenuous mental exertion, in short, higher nervous activity, exert a repressing influence upon the sexual impulse and weaken the procreative power. This is disputed by the other side. The fact is pointed to that the better situated classes have, on an average, fewer children and that this is not to be ascribed solely to preventive measures. Undoubtedly, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... statement as tantamount to the assertion that the cloth was made without design. If she did, she would not credit your statement. If you patiently explained to her the theory of carding-machines, spinning-jennies, and power-looms, would her reception of your explanation weaken her conviction that the cloth was the result of design? It is certain that she would believe in design as firmly as before, and that this belief would be attended by a higher conception and reverent admiration of a wisdom, skill, and power greatly beyond anything ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... settlement, and its defects kept the colonists for many months in turmoil and disorder. The Indians proved a constant source of danger, for they were tireless in cutting off stragglers, ambushing small parties and in destroying the crops of the white men. Famines came at frequent intervals to weaken the colonists and add to their misfortunes. But by far the most terrible scourge was the "sicknesse" that swept over Virginia year after year, leaving in its wake horrible suffering ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... unconsciously untruthful. Even when their misrepresentations have been exposed, in spite of the boasted fairness of our country, we know that we must not always expect a withdrawal of false news, still less adequate apology. Constant reading of this character cannot but weaken the Catholic sense and instinct, and engender in their place a worldly and critical spirit most harmful in every way, unless we take means to counteract it. What are these means? A place must be found ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... certain. America has many advantages to weaken the temptation to crime, but she is very far from perfect. The people on some of her coasts have been accused of resorting to the old English practice of showing false lights, with a view to mislead vessels, and of committing cruel ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... be well tucked around her, in order to thoroughly exclude the air from the body. The extra clothing, as soon as she is warm and perspiring, should be gradually removed, as she ought not to be kept very hot, or it will weaken her, and will thus retard ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... man was deacon in a church of a denomination other than that to which the parson belonged, and the rivalry between the two sects had been brisk, not to say thoroughly bitter and almost mean, for a long time. Anything that would disgrace the family of the pastor of the opposing church would weaken the influence of the church itself, and the same would redound to the glory of the church in which the deacon officiated. I grant that this is a side issue, but side issues are often of more moment, in cases like ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... not merely to destroy his victim. He ought to try a bit to make him feel his error—perhaps not enough to convert him, but enough to give him a bad conscience and to weaken the energy of his defence. These violent caricatures of men's beliefs arouse only contempt for the incapacity of their authors to see the situations out of which the problems grow. To treat the negative character of one abstracted ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... a most wholesome tendency which leads us to esteem religion as the main interest in life. We must feel a sense of shame when we consciously permit the influences, which most favorably mold our character, to weaken their hold upon our lives. Certainly in our time religion is the essential agent by which character is molded. Any of us would be foolishly short-sighted were he willing to weaken the hold of religion ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... speech, so much precious breath and precious time wasted in empty boasts, foolish anger, useless reiteration, blatant argument, ignoble mouthings, that I have learned to deem speech a curse, laid on man to weaken and envenom all his undertakings. For over two hundred years I have never spoken myself: you, I hear, are not so reticent. I only speak now because one of you said a beautiful thing that touched me. If we all might but go back to our makers! Ah, yes! ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... to their faith in the face of disaster. He looked at Maria, in her pretty little best gowns and hats, setting forth, and a sweet tenderness for her love of God and belief sweetened his own agnosticism. He would not for the world have said a word to weaken the girl's faith nor to have kept her away from church. He would have urged her to go had she manifested the slightest inclination to remain at home. He was in a manner jealous of the girl's losing what he had himself lost. He tried to refrain from airing his morbid, bitter views of life ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... army,—was distinguished by a remarkable dignity of manners and deportment: the style of his sentiments, naturally lofty, was now exalted by love: and finally he had in all probability saved Miss Walladmor's life. These were strong appeals to a young heart: doubtless it did not weaken them that the noble expression of his countenance was then embellished by the graces of early youth (for he was not twenty), and yet unsaddened by internal suffering—which has since given him the look of a person older ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... age of gold, would return, has been the hope or the dream of some, in every period. Yet if he did come back, or any equivalent of his presence, he could but weaken, and by no means smite through, that root of evil, certainly of sorrow, of outraged human sense, in things, which one must carefully distinguish from all preventible accidents. Death, and the little perpetual daily dyings, which have something of its sting, he must [180] necessarily leave ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... demand the whole of his energies to bring them to a successful end? I do. It's not a matter of self exactly, but we are all so full of weaknesses that this unselfish way of dividing our energies is apt to weaken our own defenses. Thus the scheme for our own uplifting, our own purification, rather suffers. You see, I think we are here on this earth for the purpose of bettering ourselves and preparing for that future, which—I know what I am saying sounds selfish, but really, ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... many movements and many attempts were made on either side, because the enemy, having the advantage in numbers, attempted to weaken the Roman strength by dividing it into many parts, as not being likely to suffice for all points of attack. At the same time the camp was besieged, at the same time a part of the army was sent to devastate the Roman territory, and to ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... such a terrible spree that his system wasn't in condition to resist disease, and before long it was plain he was going to make a die of it. He was a plucky fellow, and when the doctor told him he had to go, he didn't weaken. ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... appeals, and keep such reasons in mind in the training of their young. "For the sake of the Emperor you must not drink the water from these condemned wells; for the sake of the Emperor you must observe these sanitary precautions—lest you start an epidemic and so weaken the {270} Emperor's fighting forces!" So said the Japanese sanitary officers in the war with Russia; and when the struggle ended Surgeon-General Takaki was able to boast in ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... Facility, Islamabad continues to require waivers for politically difficult reforms. Long-term prospects remain uncertain as development spending remains low, regional tensions remain high, and political tensions weaken Pakistan's commitment to lender-recommended economic reforms. GDP growth will continue to hinge on crop performance; dependence on foreign oil leaves the import bill vulnerable to fluctuating oil prices; and efforts to open and modernize the ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... with two small sticks. Another circular instrument (the boundah) serves as a bass; it contains an equal number of different-sized drums, on which the musician strikes with violence, with a view perhaps to weaken the shrill, discordant notes of a very rude species of flageolet, and of an equally imperfect kind of trumpet, which are usually played with a total disregard of time, tune, or harmony. Two or three other instruments, similar in principle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... old lady was powerless, he returned to the garden and tried once more to weaken the girl's resolution, but without success. It was with a very troubled mind that he took the train back to San Sebastiano ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... as to whether such persons ever existed, after that Straussian method of pseudo-criticism which cometh not from above, from the Spirit of God, nor yet indeed from below, from the sound region of fact, but from within, out of the naughtiness of the heart, defiling a man. I might weaken, too, the effect of the hymn by going on with the rest of it, and making you smile at its childish miracles and portents; but I should only do a foolish thing, by turning your minds away from the broad fact that St. Bridget, or various persons who got, in the lapse of time, massed together ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... mountain that bears the name of Gottmar. The later descendants of this powerful and widely-ramified house could no longer explain the cause of their cruel condition. It had been deemed advisable by their ancestors to exterminate every record of it, hoping thereby perhaps to weaken, in the course of time, the curse itself. The precaution was fruitless. No alteration whatever took place in the fate of the doomed family, which at length was regarded, no less by itself than by the world, as the outlawed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... was tactful. For him to attempt to add anything to the words of Taggarak would be to weaken them. They were the climax, and silence was golden. Throughout the eloquent appeal of the chief, Deerfoot stood with his hands idly folded behind him, his eyes fixed upon the face of Taggarak, whose pose gave a good view of his features, and listening in the very intentness of his ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... creative energy, and which entitles him to the distinction of being made in the image of God and animated by a spark of the Divine Mind. Whilst chemical pursuits exalt the understanding, they do not depress the imagination or weaken genuine feeling; whilst they give the mind habits of accuracy by obliging it to attend to facts, they likewise extend its analogies, and though conversant with the minute forms of things, they have for their ultimate end the ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... that the box in which the richly carved and precious statue is packed should be tossed aside. Swiftly youth goes on toward maturity, age toward old age, and the scythe awaits all. But sickness and trouble can do nothing more than dim the eye, dull the ear, weaken the hand. Dying and death avail not for injuring reason, affection, or hope, ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the lieutenant as he saw that the man was beginning to weaken. "I guess I'll excuse you now, Sheldon, for he'll probably talk more freely with me alone. And as he talks English I shan't ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... be able to represent the idea of Association with the scanty resources at our command; nor would the discontinuance of our establishment, or of any of the partial attempts now in progress, in the slightest degree weaken our faith in the associative system or our conviction that it will sooner or later be adopted as the only form of society suited to the nature of man, and in accordance with the divine will. We have never attempted anything more than to prepare the way for ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... enemies than the virtuous arm which she opposes to their rage, she comes, in the very time when the emissaries of our common enemies are making useless efforts to neutralize the gratitude, to damp the zeal, to weaken or cloud the view of your fellow-citizens; she comes, I say, that generous nation, that faithful friend, to labor still to increase the prosperity and add to the happiness which she is ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... appearance. Paulicians, Petrobrusians, Albigensians, and kindred sects, all started from the principle of dualism, and even at the time were openly accused of Manicheistic ideas. They all involved more or less immoral principles, and rejected, or at least strove to weaken, the commonly-received ideas upon which society, civil and religious, is founded. Had they succeeded in spreading their errors through Europe, it is possible that the invasion would have been more fatal in its consequences ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... mine; but I was certain that mine was the one listened to, and that being the case, of what avail was his opinion on the state of the country any way? During these weeks the condemned man is visited by large numbers of people, both friends and foes; but before no one does he for a moment weaken in his constant declaration of the correctness of his cause. Some of the verbal shot that his proslavery interlocutors received were as hot as those which he fired from his musket into their midst on that terrible Monday—for instance, ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... is my Richard both in shape and minde Transform'd, and weaken'd? Hath Bullingbrooke Depos'd thine Intellect? hath he beene in thy Heart? The Lyon dying, thrusteth forth his Paw, And wounds the Earth, if nothing else, with rage To be o're-powr'd: and wilt thou, Pupill-like, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... would not be surrounded, as now, with every circumstance which tempts toward drink; by every circumstance which depresses the vital energies, and leaves them an easy prey to pestilence itself; by bad light, bad air, bad food, bad water, bad smells, bad occupations, which weaken the muscles, cramp the chest, disorder the digestion. Let any rational man, fresh from the country—in which I presume God, having made it, meant all men, more or less, to live—go through the back streets of any city, or through whole districts of the "black countries" of England: and then ask ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... may never breed pain, which they think always follows dishonest pleasures. But they think it madness for a man to wear out the beauty of his face, or the force of his natural strength; to corrupt the sprightliness of his body by sloth and laziness, or to waste it by fasting; that it is madness to weaken the strength of his constitution, and reject the other delights of life; unless by renouncing his own satisfaction, he can either serve the public or promote the happiness of others, for which he expects a greater recompense from God. So that they look on such a course of life as the mark of a ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... urged his ever-growing force. And, next, Consumption's meagre corse, 30 With feeble voice, that scarce was heard, Broke with short coughs, his suit preferred: 'Let none object my ling'ring way, I gain, like Fabius, by delay; Fatigue and weaken every foe By long attack, secure, though slow.' Plague represents his rapid power, Who thinned a nation in an hour. All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand. Now expectation hushed the band, 40 When thus the monarch from the throne: 'Merit ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... involves correct discrimination between what it necessary and what is superfluous. A writer should never be brief at the expense of being clear, to say nothing of being grammatical. It shows lamentable want of judgment to weaken the expression of a thought, or to stunt the meaning of a period for the sake of using a few words less. But this is the precise endeavor of that false brevity nowadays so much in vogue, which proceeds by leaving out useful words and even by sacrificing grammar and logic. It is not only that ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... If I weaken and submit he is happy as the day is long. If he gets it roached up on both sides that will make me look like a horizontal-bar performer, which is his idea of manly beauty. Or if he gets it roached up on one side only there is still some consolation in it for him I'm liable to be mistaken anywhere ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... latterly germinated in Boldwood, whose unreasoning devotion to Bathsheba could only be characterized as a fond madness which neither time nor circumstance, evil nor good report, could weaken or destroy. This fevered hope had grown up again like a grain of mustard-seed during the quiet which followed the hasty conjecture that Troy was drowned. He nourished it fearfully, and almost shunned the contemplation of it in ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... replied Don Philip; "we shall only weaken our force: besides, they may fall into ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... their full value. In some schools even suspension is so common that it does not seem to the pupil a very terrible thing. "Familiarity breeds contempt," and frequency implies familiarity. A punishment seldom resorted to will always seem to the pupil to be severe. As we weaken, and in fact bankrupt, language by an inordinate use of superlatives, so, also, do we weaken any punishment by its frequent repetition. Economy of resources ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... not upon any consideration weaken one single effort in behalf of these poor creatures, but we cannot disguise the fact that but few of this class are saved. Women who enter the downward path ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... the latter would preponderate.' Indeed it cannot be said that after nearly five-and-thirty years, up to and including the present moment, during which Competitive Examination has been a field of battle, much has been added to Peacock's attack on it, or anything said on the other side to weaken the cogency of that attack. No doubt he was to some extent a prejudiced judge; for, though few people would at any time of his youth have had less to fear from competitive examination, his own fortune had been made by the opposite ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... burned brightly at the close of these weeks of inspirational exploration. "With nothing to distract or weaken me I ought now, at least to justify the faith which Howells and other of my literary friends and advisers had been kind enough to declare." Seizing my pen with new resolution I bent to the task of putting into fiction certain phases of ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... interviews between one in my position and those of my—my corps of assistants who may so far forget themselves as to seek them, must always be deplored. They tend only to weaken..." ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... inclined to commit, and then he takes care that opportunities shall not be wanting to gratify the tendency to evil. He tempts men to excess in that which is in itself lawful, causing them, through intemperance, to weaken physical, mental, and moral power. He has destroyed and is destroying thousands through the indulgence of the passions, thus brutalizing the entire nature of man. And to complete his work, he declares, through the spirits, that "true knowledge places ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion maybe. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life hence it is a valuable possession ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the years rolls on. They speak sometimes of the dead mother, and even now Jeff's voice hushes and his steady eyes are misty at the mention of her name or the recalling of her words. He loves her with a love that time has no power to weaken; he has kept all her sayings faithfully in his heart; her letters to him are his ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... think that it ought to be.' And I am ready to maintain my position. 'We should like to hear you prove that a man ought to make a beast of himself.' You are speaking of the degradation of the soul: but how about the body? Would any man willingly degrade or weaken that? 'Certainly not.' And yet if he goes to a doctor or a gymnastic master, does he not make himself ill in the hope of getting well? for no one would like to be always taking medicine, or always to be in training. 'True.' And may not convivial meetings have ...
— Laws • Plato
... unbroken! Keeping time is power's token. Let us march all, never weaken Time from Vard down to Viken, Vinger up to Bergen's region,— Let us make one marching legion, Then we'll rout some wrong from Norway, Open wide ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... from the corner I was facing as though it were a live thing that had seized upon me. It was the voice of a woman, of great age apparently, and yet it possessed a fierce, biting energy that no amount of years could weaken. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... are brought to the scene, either to strengthen friends Or to weaken opponents. Certain herbs are thrown into the air or shaken before the runners to enervate them. Some enterprising Mexican may bring a white powder or similar substance, declaring that it is very efficacious, and get a Tarahumare to pay a high price for it. But whatever means are employed, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... of a piece with the many admirable institutions existing among them. I once ventured to say a part of what I thought about it to one of the Professors of Unreason. I asked him whether he did not think it would do serious harm to a lad's principles, and weaken his sense of the sanctity of his word, and of truth generally, that he should be led into entering upon an engagement which it was so plainly impossible he should keep even for a single day with tolerable integrity—whether, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... these appliances of tight-lacing often complain that they cannot sit upright without them—are sometimes, indeed, compelled to wear them during all the twenty-four hours; a fact which proves to what extent such articles weaken the muscles of the trunk. The injury does not fall merely on the internal structure of the body, but also on its beauty, and on the temper and feelings with which that beauty is associated. Beauty is in reality but another name for expression of countenance, which is the index of sound health, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... quarrels. The crown scene, in which the Prince helps himself to the crown while his father is yet alive, is taken by Shakspeare from Monstrelet, who is supposed to have invented all that he narrates in order to weaken the claim of the English monarch to the French throne. If Henry IV., when dying, could declare that he had no right to the crown of England, on what could Henry V. base his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... their helmets as the water poured into his suit. They saw him writhe and struggle desperately in the remorseless grip which held him. The two huge eyes of the cuttlefish surveyed his death throes minutely; watched his agonized struggles gradually weaken; watched his legs and arms relax, his head sink lower.... And then the tentacle let a lifeless body float to ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... of whom James of Vitry says, that he was believed to have received baptism at his death which happened in the year when Damietta was besieged. It is admitted that Wading was mistaken in quoting this passage to prove the conversion of the Sultan of Egypt, but that does not weaken the evidence of Ugolino. He says that Francis went a second time to the sultan before his return to Italy. He urged him to be converted. The Saint, not being able to induce him to overcome the human obstacles which stood in the way, prayed fervently for him for several successive days, ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... this strange conference ended. As for me, I had sprung to the side of the old friend of my boyhood, and was trying to tell him my joy at his good fortune, and listening to his assurance that nothing that could ever befall him could weaken the love that he bore me. My uncle touched me on the shoulder, and we were about to leave, when Ambrose, whose bronze mask had been drawn down once more over his fiery passions, came demurely ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that you suppose our dissensions owing to French intrigues—we want no foreign causes; but in so precarious a letter as this I cannot enter into farther explanations; indeed the French need not be at any trouble to distract or weaken our councils! ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... The disasters of the Franco-German war gave a great impulse to them. These disasters did more to strengthen and deepen than all the vulgar violence of the pseudo-scientific and pseudo-literary atheism of parliamentary Paris has yet done to weaken the religious sentiment in France, and the French Catholics cannot be cited to illustrate Aubrey de Vere's noble saying that 'worse than ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... station, bought his ticket, got into the car, and as soon as he felt him self being carried away by the train, he felt a fear, a kind of dizziness, at what he was going to do. In order not to weaken, back down, and return alone, he tried not to think of the matter any longer, to bring his mind to bear on other affairs, to do what he had decided to do with a blind resolution; and he began to hum tunes from operettas and music halls ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... ready the instant the outlaw had flung against the fence. He had been prepared to see the boy weaken, and had anticipated it in his forward leap. The furious animal had risen to drive home his hoofs, when an arm shot out, caught the bridle, and dragged him sideways. This unexpected intervention dazed the animal; and while he still stood uncertain, Gordon swung to the saddle and dug his heels ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... if not from Stradivari, from whom did Guarneri receive instruction?[10] To disagree with what is popularly accepted, and yet to withhold one's own counter-theory, may perhaps tend to weaken one's case. There can be but one method to be pursued if, in the absence of any historical data, we set about the investigation of the question, viz., that of analogy. Starting upon this ground, the first step to be taken is to endeavour to discover the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... rather not have found. But I can't make any positive diagnosis as yet. Some big sickness is coming on—that, I am afraid, is certain. I shall come out here to-morrow. But, Mr. Bennett, be careful of yourself. Even steel can weaken, you know. You see this rabble" (he motioned with his head toward the anteroom, where the other visitors were waiting) "that is hounding you? Everybody knows where you are. Man, you must have rest. I don't need to look at you more than once to know that. Get ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! Art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations! ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... liable to degenerate into faction. Commonwealths are made of families, free Commonwealths of parties also; and we may as well affirm, that our natural regards and ties of blood tend inevitably to make men bad citizens, as that the bonds of our party weaken those by which we are held to ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... in substance, not in words, is to contradict what General Shafter says officially in one particular, but in no such way as to discredit the General, or to weaken Bonsal. It is not a case of bringing two universal, antagonistic propositions face to face, but a case where two men of different training look upon an action from different standpoints and through different field-glasses. General Shafter says of the collision ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... frigates or vessels necessary to protect the landing, either real or pretended, of the Americans, should anchor in those channels. The enemy would then be obliged either to disperse among the forts, and thereby to weaken their lines, or else to leave the field open to the Americans, who, by a diversion upon the lines, would force the enemy to have them fully manned, and prevent them ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... story that does not occur in consecutive minutes. It has been found that even the lowering of the curtain for one second to denote the lapse of an hour or a year, has a tendency to distract the minds of the audience from the story and to weaken the singleness of effect without which a ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... dispositions and good sense of our men that, though all the officers entered fully into the spirit of these amusements, which took place once a month alternately on board each ship, no instance occurred of anything that could interfere with the regular discipline, or at all weaken the respect of the men towards their superiors. Ours were masquerades without ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... tumble of their first struggles in political life these men, less old than aged, have to endure the additional wear and tear of a ministry. Thus it is that their eyes begin to weaken just as they need to have the clear-sightedness of eagles; their mind is weary when its youth and fire need to be redoubled. The minister in whom Rabourdin sought to confide was in the habit of listening to men of undoubted ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... of the settlers, and saw that unless they made a powerful effort, and that speedily, they must forever relinquish all hope of reconquering Kentucky. Such an effort was determined upon for the next year; and in order to weaken the whites as much as possible, till they were prepared for it, they continued to send out small parties, ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... fitness. It is not strange if we are tempted to despair of good. We ask too much. Our religions and moralities have been trimmed to flatter us, till they are all emasculate and sentimentalised, and only please and weaken. Truth is of a rougher strain. In the harsh face of life, faith can read a bracing gospel. The human race is a thing more ancient than the ten commandments; and the bones and revolutions of the Kosmos, in whose joints we are but moss and fungus, ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... announced more agreeable intelligence to his companion. Sir Reginald was afraid to propose the open treason he meditated; but he fancied, if the rear-admiral could fairly withdraw his own division from the fleet, it would at once weaken the vice-admiral so much, as to render an engagement with the French impossible, and might lead to such a separation of the commands as to render the final defection of the division inshore easier of accomplishment. It is true, Bluewater, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... nursed Tommy once before, and she knew that in Tommy's estimation at least he had been the means of saving his life. He was a man of steady nerve and level judgment. He would not have sent for her if his faith in his own powers had not begun to weaken. It meant that Tommy was very ill, that he might be dying. All that was great in Stella rose up impulsively at the call. Tommy had ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... well aware of the temper of the people and of the situation that prevailed politically in the Empire—more so, in fact, than most men. He was also well aware that internal strife of a very serious nature could so dangerously weaken the Empire that the Gehan Federation would be able to ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Maritime War is the destruction of the enemy's commerce and navigation, in order to weaken and destroy the foundations of his naval power. The capture or destruction of private property is necessary to that end, and is allowed in maritime wars, by the practice and law ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... answered him, "lest your words should weaken me. Go now, and bear you bravely, as you will for your own honour and that of England, and for mine. Dead or living you are my darling, and dead or living we shall meet once more and be at rest ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... spirit of moderation, justice, and brotherly kindness, will constitute a cement which would forever preserve our Union. Those who cherish and inculcate sentiments like these render a most essential service to their country, while those who seek to weaken their influence are, however conscientious and praiseworthy their intentions, in effect ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... from him in judgment for his manifold crimes. One only remains, the present Duke of Gloucester, and I do consider that this branch of heresy should be removed, even in preference to his parent, whose conduct is such as to assist our cause, and whose death may weaken the animosity of his Catholic Majesty, whose hostility is well known to be personal. I have neither men nor money to offer to you, but I have means, I trust, soon to accomplish this point, and I dedicate my useless ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... institutions, the solitary dissociation of America from the history and the achievements of the Old World, the melancholy absence of monuments of past greatness and worth,—these and many other circumstances peculiar to our position all serve to weaken the general interest in what are called classical studies, and to direct the attention of the most ambitious and active minds far too exclusively to the pursuits of science. And when to these circumstances peculiar to ourselves is added the influence of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... had in the world—save his deep convictions of right and wrong. He was responsible for Viviette. That risk of horror he could not let her run. He had hoped, with a great agony of hope, that Dick would have seen it for himself. To formulate it had been torture. But he could not weaken. The barrier between Dick and Viviette was not of his making. It was composed of the grim psychological laws that govern the abnormal. To have disregarded it would have been a crime from which his soul shrank. All the despair in Dick's face, though it wrung his heart, could not move ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... perhaps, into foreign countries; a proceeding which naturally tends to weaken their nursery, prejudice in favour of the Religion in which they were bred, and by removing them from all means of public worship, to relax their practical habits of Religion. They return home, and commonly are either hurried round in the vortex of dissipation, or engage ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... body is in the throes of a vital struggle with a virulent poison it would seem, to any unprejudiced mind, the height of folly to further weaken the vital resistance by the administration of any ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... commission of colonel, with instructions to raise his men solely from the frontier counties west of the Blue Ridge, [Footnote: 3 Butler, p. 48; but Henry's public instructions authorized Clark to raise his men in any county.] so as not to weaken the people of the seacoast region in their struggle ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... (4) Weaken the chain that pulls the bucket conveyers carrying coal. A deep dent in the chain made with blows of a pick or shovel will cause it to part under normal strain. Once a chain breaks, normally or otherwise take your ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services
... likening them to fire—good when confined and dangerous when scattered about—has been one of the main leaders among those who can not relinquish the idea that our body of sacred literature should be kept a controlling text-book of science. The only effect of such teachings has been to weaken the legitimate hold of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... country's political dishonesty does not depress the true patriot. He is content to think that his ideals are as lofty as their realisation is remote, and that the triumph of graft is as nothing compared with a noble sentiment. The result is that the Americans refuse to weaken their national prestige by the advertised cannibalism which is so popular in England. They are for their country, right or wrong. They do not understand the anti-patriot argument, which was born of the false philosophy of the eighteenth century, and which has left so evil ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... of the tenth day after leaving Athens, Miltiades drew up his army in order of battle. He was obliged to perilously weaken his center in order to confront the whole of the Persian army, so as to avoid the danger of being outflanked and surrounded. The Greeks began the battle by a furious attack along the whole line, endeavoring to close in a hand-to-hand conflict ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... the charter was confirmed by thirty-two "acts of parliament," have a mischievous bearing in another respect. They tend to weaken the authority of the charter, by conveying the impression that the charter itself might be abolished by "act of parliament." Coke himself admits that it could not be revoked or rescinded by the king; for he says, ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... the Amalekites. They owe us a hundred loads still. Load the prisoners with some copper, to make them tired and the natives civil. What can we do to procure what we want, and yet not to weaken ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wife of the banker, stated in a shocked manner, "Any place from three-fifty to five-fifty a week! I know positively that Mrs. Clark, after swearing that she wouldn't weaken and encourage them in their outrageous demands, went and paid five-fifty—think of it! practically a dollar a day for unskilled work and, of course, her food and room and a chance to do her own washing right in with the rest of the wash. HOW MUCH ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... the private correspondence, surely the conversation (if it occurred) was "of a private nature," yet Mr. Rees had no scruple in retailing it from the pulpit. Mrs. Bonner adds that her demerits are beside the point, which is, "Did Mr. Bradlaugh weaken in his Atheism?" to which she answers emphatically "No." She nursed him in his last illness, and her testimony is authoritative. Respect for her father's memory justifies her in printing this correspondence, and we are ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... State time to complete and man its batteries, and to obtain an unlimited number of guns and quantities of shot and shell from the cannon foundry at Richmond, Virginia, known as the Tredegar Iron Works. Thus, while our supplies would be running out, theirs would be coming in. Every day's delay would weaken us and strengthen them. I was strongly opposed to this fatal measure, which ultimately cost us the loss of Fort Sumter; but as it had simply emanated from Anderson himself, by virtue of his powers as commanding officer, and had not been submitted to a council of war, there was ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... to be our strongest weapon. We wanted to conquer brute force by the truth. If we persist in this desire, let us not lie; let us not weaken ...
— The Shield • Various
... remark, that the only part of the Viceroy's answer to the deputation, that could weaken the arguments in favour of Free Trade, was his saying, "there was no immediate pressure on the market;" and this was the only part found fault with by the un-named minister to whom ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... delighted to see him that they crowded round him, endeavouring to touch his clothes, and evincing the most extravagant joy. The matron endeavoured to silence them; but Napoleon said, 'Let them alone; let them alone. This may weaken the head, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... where she kindles a fire and cooks her victuals alone. Her seclusion lasts four days. During this time she may not approach or touch a horse, for the Indians believe that such contamination would impoverish or weaken the animal.[227] Among the Potawatomis the women at their monthly periods "are not allowed to associate with the rest of the nation; they are completely laid aside, and are not permitted to touch ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... his misfortune, for miserable people are so foolish that this does them the greatest good in the world; yet I also hold that we should be content with expressing sympathy, and carefully avoid having any. It is a passion that is wholly worthless in a well-regulated mind, which only serves to weaken the heart, and which should be left to ordinary persons, who, as they never do anything from reason, have need of passions to ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... and unable to see beyond: or that the study of philosophy, if made a serious business (compare Republic), involves grave results to the mind and life of the student. For it may encumber him without enlightening his path; and it may weaken his natural faculties of thought and expression without increasing his philosophical power. The mind easily becomes entangled among abstractions, and loses hold of facts. The glass which is adapted to distant objects takes away the vision of what is near and ...
— Sophist • Plato
... animal might, if there were proof of it, be admitted without raising a presumption that would compel us to give a brute origin to man, why should we admit a thing of which there is no proof? Why should we encourage the guesses of these speculators and thus weaken our power to protest when they attempt the leap from the monkey to man? Let the evolutionist furnish ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... is a firm believer that the right use of hypnotism by intelligent persons does not weaken the will. Says he: "I do not believe there is any danger whatever in this. I have no evidence (and I have studied a large number of hypnotized subjects) that hypnotism will render a subject less capable of exercising ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... It is necessary that woman should be of a cold constitution, because a redundancy of Nature for the infant that depends on her is required of her; for otherwise there would be no surplus of nourishment for the child, but no more than the mother requires, and the infant would weaken the mother, and like as in the viper, the birth of the infant would be the death of ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... forth their reasons in a paper which was approved by Samuel Adams, and caused the legislature to reconsider its action. It was feared that a call for a convention might seem too much like an open expression of a want of confidence in Congress, and might thereby weaken it still further without accomplishing any good result. For the present, as a temporary expedient, Massachusetts took counsel with New Hampshire, and the two states passed navigation acts, prohibiting British ships from carrying goods out of their harbours, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... by Federalism would all tend to weaken the power of Great Britain. That this is so has been already to a great degree established, in considering the mode in which Federalism destroys the sovereignty of Parliament. But a system of Federalism would assuredly weaken the Government ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... was a great addition to Helen's comfort. She found there were many spare moments that would, without this resource, have been spent in vain regrets and recollections of the past, which only served to weaken her mind and prevent her performing her ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... of that nature, and as such have their proper office, it is an error then to aim at their extirpation. It is true that in a perfect moral state emotion will be rare, but then this will have been gained by regular process, being the legitimate result of the law that "passive impressions weaken as active habits are strengthened, by repetition." If musical instruments are making discord, I may silence or I may bring them into harmony in either case I get rid of discord, but in the latter I have the positive enjoyment of music. The ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... balcony to the railing. Still back and forth, now in the moonlight, now in shadow, wildly they fought. Once Mr. Magee felt his feet slip from beneath him, but caught himself in time. His strength was going—surely—quickly. Then suddenly his opponent seemed to weaken in his grip. With a supreme effort Magee forced him down upon the balcony floor, and tumbled on top of him. He felt the chill of the snow under his knees, and its wetness in ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... soliloquizing—a habit to which he was a good deal addicted—during which he would murmur, "What a pity!"—"How much to be regretted!"'—"I would rather have him for a son than any man on earth!" and other similar expressions. Of course, these involuntary disclosures did not weaken my regard for ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... and other caricaturists used their pencils with less humour and more malice with the same object of belittling the demonstration with ridicule. But ridicule is not so potent a weapon in England or in Ulster as it is said to be in France. It did nothing to weaken the Ulster cause; it even strengthened it in some ways. It was about this time that hostile writers began to refer to "King Carson," and to represent him as exercising regal sway over his "subjects" in Ulster. Those "subjects" were delighted; ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... nothing against Paris, and his presence before it will only incite the inhabitants against us, and increase their animosity. It would have been better to have applied the force in reducing several strong towns where, as at Orleans, the bulk of the inhabitants are favourable to us. In this way we should weaken the enemy, strengthen ourselves, and provide places of refuge for our people in case of need. However, it is too late for such regrets. The Prince is there, and we must take him what succour ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... on which I pounced like a hawk. The negroes wished to get it away from me, thinking I should injure myself; but I would not part with it. The sweetest meal I ever had in my life, was this rice, a fair portion of which, however, I gave to my companion. We had not fasted long enough materially to weaken our stomachs, and no ill consequences followed from the indulgence. After eating heartily, we both lay down on the cabin floor, and went to sleep. We reached the wharf about eight in the evening. Just within the bar, ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... called her own, and an army, in which she placed her fondest hopes, made captive. But, on the other hand, we are compelled to admit, that she has met with no such reverse of fortune as materially to debilitate her, or weaken her resources for another campaign. Her trade has, for the most part, returned in safety. Her fleets have blocked up those of the Dutch, and, upon the separation of the combined fleets, recovered the superiority in the European seas. The army taken in America is only so far ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... world the test of religions must be their effect on the character of those who believed in them: religion is no doubt itself an outcome of character, but it reacts upon it, and must either strengthen or weaken. We are not therefore justified in dismissing the 'Religion of Numa' without inquiry as to its relation to morality, for on our answer to that question must largely depend our judgment ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... protection against his falling into the sin of peculation, by so amply supplying him with simpler means of enriching himself. Besides, it is fair to presume that the long acquaintance had begotten sufficient confidence to weaken the effect of that saying which some wit has put into the mouth of a wag, "Make me your executor, father; I care not to whom you leave the estate." Let all this be as it might, nothing can be more certain than that my worthy ancestor executed his trust with the scrupulous ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... quite well that they had not told simply from heedlessness and want of initiative. He would have flogged the whole lot soundly, but he wanted them fresh for the morrow's work. Cutting down their rations would but weaken them, and as for threatening to dock their pay, such a threat has no effect ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... and the ram with keen concern. But Edison says his mother used up a lot of arnica on his small frame after this double encounter. The little lad early learned to observe that 'It's a great life if you don't weaken!' ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... sort of hunger, which makes him eat the linen which envelops him. This reviving being, or oupire, comes out of his grave, or a demon in his likeness, goes by night to embrace and hug violently his near relations or his friends, and sucks their blood so much as to weaken and attenuate them, and at last cause their death. This persecution does not stop at one single person; it extends to the last person of the family, if the course be not interrupted by cutting off the head or opening the heart of the ghost, whose corpse is found in his coffin, yielding, flexible, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... grand scale can exist. The unscrupulous creation and manipulation of public opinion; the concealment of low and mean designs under an appearance of nobility and disinterestedness; the putting forward of one argument in support of a policy, while a thousand are kept back which weaken or invalidate it; the appeal to prejudice and blind passion; the cunning use of suggestion; worst of all that pitiable game which consists of turning the people's noblest instincts—instincts of fellowship, solidarity, romance—to the basest ends; marks ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... raised her reproachful eyes to Peg, and finished with a swipe at her offending nose with her sleeve, she had never looked more beautiful, and Peggy glanced away, fearing she might weaken. ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... the Turks attempted to violate this agreement a general engagement ensued, and the Turkish and Egyptian fleets were completely destroyed in the course of a few hours. By this impolitic act England and France played into the hands of Russia, who was anxious to weaken the power of Turkey, and thus they gave some help towards the long-cherished object of ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... had sufficiently worked upon Lord Colambre's mind to weaken his enthusiasm for his native country; and when Lady Isabel had, by the appearance of every virtue, added to a delicate preference, if not partiality for our hero, ingratiated herself into his good opinion, and obtained an interest in ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... which will do all its work in the calm soul, that has no hunger or desire but to escape out of the mire of its earthly life into its lost union and life in God. I mention this, out of a fear of your giving in to an eagerness about many things, which, though seemingly innocent, yet divide and weaken the workings of the divine life ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... even more interesting. William Livingston was one of the ablest lawyers, most independent thinkers, and ardent republicans of the unquiet times. Witty and fearless, he had for years made a target of kingly rule; his acid cut deep, doing much to weaken the wrong side and encourage the right. His wife was as uncompromising a patriot as himself; his son, Brockholst, and his sprightly cultivated daughters had grown up in an atmosphere of political discussion, and in constant association with the best intellects of the day. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... with a gloomy and despotic disposition to generate an unmitigated hostility to all innovations in religion; a feeling which the thought that his most formidable political opponents were also the enemies of his faith was not calculated to weaken. As his European possessions, scattered as they were over so many countries, were on all sides exposed to the seductions of foreign opinions, the progress of the Reformation in other quarters could not well be a matter of indifference to him. His immediate interests, therefore, urged him ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... mathematics at Ingolstadt, is more intimately connected with the history of Galileo. This learned astronomer having, early in 1611, turned his telescope to the sun, necessarily discovered the spots which at that time covered his disc. Light flying clouds happened, at the time, to weaken the intensity of his light, so that he was able to show the spots to his pupils. These observations were not published till January 1612; and they appeared in the form of three letters, addressed to Mark Velser, one of the magistrates of ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... herself by any means within his reach. Again the alternative of an early marriage presented itself. He might hasten the wedding, and then take Phillida to Europe, where the sight of a religious life quite different from her own would tend to widen her views and weaken the ardor of her enthusiasm. He wondered what would be the effect upon her, for instance, of the stack of crutches built up in monumental fashion in one of the chapels of the Church of St. Germain ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... advancing His gospel. Nor indeed can any one escape this charge, who preaches faith in any such a manner as either directly or indirectly tends to set aside any branch of obedience: who preaches Christ so as to disannul, or weaken in any wise, the least ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... should be attended to as far as possible within doors. Violent exertions however are no more to be recommended than inactivity; for whatever fatigues the body, prevents the benefit of exercise, and tends to weaken rather than strengthen it. Fast walking, immediately before or after meals, is highly pernicious, and necessarily accelerates the circulation of the blood, which is attended with imminent danger to the head ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... come along an' hedn't interdooced him. It ain't your twenty millions thet'll ever block Jeff's game, But one Man thet wun't let 'em jog jest ez he's takin' aim: Your numbers they may strengthen ye or weaken ye, ez 't heppens They're willin' to be helpin' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... such mental and bodily resources; and not unconscious how much the issue of her fate might depend on her own self-possession, she prayed internally for strength of body and for mental fortitude, and resolved at the same time to yield to no nervous impulse which might weaken either. ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... antagonism between speculation and action begin to appear. There will be a chasm, which he cannot fill, between his life in the closet and his life in the world; his impotence to carry his thought into act will limit and weaken the thought itself. But this ill result will equally ensue, whether the art in which he finds his nurture be that of the novelist or that of the poet. The novel-reader sees human action pass before him like a panorama, ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... easy to say whether a particular element of language is to be interpreted as an independent word or as part of a larger word. These transitional cases, puzzling as they may be on occasion, do not, however, materially weaken the case for the psychological validity of the word. Linguistic experience, both as expressed in standardized, written form and as tested in daily usage, indicates overwhelmingly that there is not, as a rule, the slightest difficulty in bringing the word to ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... should be done to impair or weaken the agencies at present engaged in the work of Indian education. Every such agency should be encouraged and promoted, except as other and better agencies are provided for the work. In particular, owing to the anomalous condition of the Indians and the fact that the Government is administering trust ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various
... at their plight. Catherine, more resolute, tried to encourage her companion; but as they jogged and jolted over the deserted road for what seemed hours, even her own courage began to weaken. ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... negroid descent, while some four million of them, not accounted for by the Federal census, have escaped into the ranks of the white race, and are re-enforced very largely by such escapements every year. The vitiation of blood has operated irresistibly to weaken that pride of ancestry, which is the foundation-stone of pride of race; so that the Afro-American people have been held together rather by the segregation decreed by law and public opinion than by ties of consanguinity since ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... at Louisville during the revival, you felt you had a call to write and save sinners, and you did that as your trial and probation, but that since you backslided and are worldly again, and go to parties, you just keep it up for foolin' and flirtin'! SHE ain't goin' to weaken on the man that shot her brother, just because he's got a gold mine ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of England has raised the interest on * * * *'s mortgage one-third per cent., making an additional annual charge of L1,500 a year to him. I am very sorry for him, but I know nothing so likely to rouse the landed aristocracy from their apathy, and to weaken their idolatry of Peel so much as this warning note of the joint operation of his free ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... garden by bathing it in rose perfume in order that the spectators might get the odor of the roses together with the sight of them. The limitations of an art are in reality its strength and to overstep its boundaries means to weaken it. ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... An era remarkable in this respect was the great Northern war (1700-1721), at the end of which the population of Finland was reduced to a third, and its devastated land divided between hostile powers. Another division of the country (1743) only contributed still more to weaken the national strength. All that remained of this strength was required to maintain the union with Sweden, which was apparently the only salvation of ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... transitional epochs when institutions persist, after the beliefs and conditions which molded them have utterly disappeared. The inertia of such a rock-ribbed shell is terrible, and while sometimes the erosive power of agitation and discussion suffices to weaken and destroy it, more often the volcanic fires of social convulsion are alone strong enough. The first such shock came from within the English-speaking world itself, but not in Europe. The American colonies, appreciating ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... November, therefore, an abortive and ill-arranged attack was made. It sufficed to show that the Ladysmith garrison was by no means disposed to yield, and that a formal and perhaps prolonged investment would be needed to weaken its powers of resistance. To this task, therefore, the main body of the Boer commandos was assigned; but, as an erroneous report had come in that 5,000 English troops had concentrated at Frere, it was decided that a strong reconnaissance, ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... that I agree with the wise governor of the olden time whose motto was to empty the minds of the people and fill their stomachs, weaken their wills and strengthen their bones. When times were troublous he opened the government granaries and the ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... a bond, it appears, between mother and child which endures as long as they do. It is independent of love; reason cannot weaken it; hate cannot destroy it. When a man's mother dies, something in the man dies, too. Blair Maitland, walking aimlessly about in the windy May midnight, standing on the bridge watching the slipping twinkle of a star ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... suicide. The clothes, too, exhibited proofs of a struggle, for they were torn and soiled, but nothing had been taken away. A little gold was found in the pockets, and though in no great plenty still enough to weaken the first impression that there had also been ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... stamped with immortality, and from it there is no appeal. If we impress the sinner with the idea that he is not punished and rewarded here, but that the whole is to be settled in the future world, then we, in the same proportion, weaken the force of virtue and strengthen the cause of vice. And this is one obvious reason, why men continue in sin, as long as they dare, expecting at some future day to repent and escape all punishment. They go on from day to day, and from year to ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... in Ensal's earlier days, he had suffered a fracture of his left arm, and in his struggling Earl now weighed heavily on that arm which began to weaken. Ensal soon saw that he was not going to be able to pinion Earl for the hour to intervene before the coming of the officer. So deciding, he concluded to stake all on a fall. He felt that if he could get Earl down and get the famous neck hold, which they had practiced so much ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... the enclosed drafts, and wishes only to remark on one passage, where Lord Clarendon says, "that he acts by the unanimous desire of the Cabinet," which she thinks better altered or omitted. If left, it might weaken the authority of future instructions emanating from the Secretary of State alone; moreover, he acts constitutionally under the authority of the Queen, on his own responsibility and ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... not know about before, and they must have money to buy them. So work for money has taken the place of fighting. Again, in some ways the Europeans, enforcing peace and making many quick ways of travel, such as good roads and bridges, have helped to weaken the power of the chiefs. Nobody likes changes to come, and the old people are always sorry when their children begin new customs; but on the whole it is good for Africans that other nations came to their country, because they have brought peace in the place of war, and safety ...
— People of Africa • Edith A. How
... movement was broken by cliques and quarrels, until the spirit of disaffection was no longer formidable. In August, her Majesty displayed in a marked way her personal interest in her Irish subjects by a State visit to Dublin. The Queen was received with enthusiasm, and her presence did much to weaken still further the already ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... of the ladies of the poem to drink a draught of wine; but he declined, on the plea that he was just going into battle, and must not take aught to weaken his powers. Now, if the soupe au vin had been known in Troy, it is clear that in declining vinum merum upon that score, he would have added in the hexameter, 'But a soupe au vin, madam, I will degust, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... must be had. Learn to stop when you get through. Do not keep stringing out conversation or argument after you have made your point. You only weaken your case and prejudice people against you for your lack of tact, good judgment, or sense of proportion. Do not neutralize all the good impression you have made by talking on and on long after you have ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... is merciful in this—that He rewardeth every man according to his works. That man will take thought for to-day, earnestly and diligently, even at times anxiously and in fear and trembling; but he will not distract, and divide, and weaken his mind by taking thought for to-morrow also. Each day he will set about the duty which lies nearest him, with a whole heart and with a single eye, giving himself to it for the time, as if there was nothing else to be done in the ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... was to weaken it in such a way that, though it would bear the weight of one, it would collapse when the main body of our foemen were upon it, and so precipitate them into the ice-cold stream. The water was but a couple of feet deep at the place, so that there was nothing for them but ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... aunt, Lady St. Maur, would be waiting for him on the doorstep. As no matronly figure materialized in that locality, he alighted, and obeyed a brass-lettered injunction to "knock and ring." Then he disappeared inside the house, and remained there so long that Dale's respect for the law began to weaken. The chauffeur had been given a racing certainty for the first race; the hour was nearing twelve, and every road leading to Epsom Downs would ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy |
