"Ascribe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then, that every man possesses indefeasible worth is the basis of public morality, and at the same time the moral principle by which our private relations to our fellow-men are regulated. What does it mean to ascribe indefeasible worth to every man? It means, for instance, that human beings may not be hunted and killed in sport as hunters kill birds or other game; that human beings may not be devoured for food as they ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... of the silk-worm came early into use. The Chinese ascribe its introduction to the wife of one of their emperors, to whom divine honors were subsequently paid. Until the Christian era silk was little known in Europe or Western Asia. It is mentioned but three ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... observer. Each story presented some singularity; on the first floor four tall, narrow windows, close together, were filled as to the lower panes with boards, so as to produce the doubtful light by which a clever salesman can ascribe to his goods the color his customers inquire for. The young man seemed very scornful of this part of the house; his eyes had not yet rested on it. The windows of the second floor, where the Venetian blinds were drawn up, revealing ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... fallacy of this retort is transparent. The immediate object of Belief is a proposition which I hold to be true, not a thing apprehended in an act of conception. I believe in an infinite God; i.e., I believe that God is infinite: I believe that the attributes which I ascribe to God exist in Him in an infinite degree. Now, to believe this proposition, I must, of course, be conscious of its meaning; but I am not therefore conscious of the Infinite God as an object of conception; ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... of heroic size on the new portion of the edifice, with arms uplifted as if in blessing, was the gift of a noble of Brittany. It was brought over in the Seventeenth Century, and for two hundred years has been the patron saint of sailors, who ascribe to it miraculous powers. Its ancient pews, the crutches on the walls, and pictures which are among the first works of art brought to the country, suggest the varied scenes which have taken place around the old sanctuary since its doors were first ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... can be placed; in the creation of a public sentiment, its influence extends in ever-widening circles. It is against this unfairness and exaggeration that those who take moderate ground in this question of animal experimentation have the duty of protest and complaint. We do not ascribe the unfairness to intentional mendacity. Such motive may be discarded without hesitancy, so far as concerns any reputable writer. But surely there has been a carelessness regarding the truth which even the plea of ignorance ought not ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... light. l. 177. I have often been induced to believe from observation, that the twilight of the evenings is lighter than that of the mornings at the same distance from noon. Some may ascribe this to the greater height of the atmosphere in the evenings having been rarefied by the sun during the day; but as its density must at the same time be diminished, its power of refraction would continue the same. I should rather suppose that it may be owing to the ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... anything. They must declare that they will maintain the struggle for our independence. If the delegates from those divisions, where they cannot hold out any longer, differ from the others with reference to the possibility of continuing the war, we must not ascribe that to indifference or cowardice or slackness, but to facts which have wrought a sincere conviction in them. Where I differ from one or other of you, I do so simply on facts. If I should maintain silence as to the true state of affairs, and matters went wrong later on, I, as Head, ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... acting each in a definite direction: upward, downward, outward, and inward. The downward force is associated with the weight of the materials of which the building is constructed. To all physical objects we ascribe a tendency toward the earth. An unsupported weight will fall, and even when supported will exert a pressure downward. And this tendency is no mere directed force in the physical sense, but an impulse, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... this, however, arises from a subsequent act of reflection, of which we need take no account. At the same time, we admit that the latter pleasures are the property of a very few. To these pure and unmixed pleasures we ascribe measure, whereas all others belong to the class of the infinite, and are liable to every species of excess. And here several questions arise for consideration:—What is the meaning of pure and impure, of moderate and immoderate? We may answer the question by an illustration: Purity of white paint ...
— Philebus • Plato
... of a state of things, "highly discreditable to our Government, and totally incompatible with the religion we profess." Such a service as this, preceding the creation of the college, led Pitt's other friend, Wilberforce, in the discussions on the charter of 1813, to ascribe to Lord Wellesley, when summoning him to confirm and revise it, the system of diffusing useful knowledge of all sorts as the true foe not only of ignorance but of vice and of political ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... abroad and this unwillingness was intensified in regard to war in remote America. Moreover Whig leaders in England discouraged enlistment. They were bitterly hostile to the war which they regarded as an attack not less on their own liberties than on those of America. It would be too much to ascribe to the ignorant British common soldier of the time any deep conviction as to the merits or demerits of the cause for which he fought. There is no evidence that, once in the army, he was less ready to attack the Americans than any other foe. Certainly the Americans did not think ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... achievements. The simple truth breaks the spell of the poet's picture, and forces us to unveil its fallacy, though it has been pronounced by the historian of Shrewsbury to "form one of the brightest ornaments of the pages of Marmion." To whatever cause we ascribe the decline of Owyn's power, we cannot trace its origin to a judicial visitation as the consequence of his failure in that hour of need. The poet's imagination, creative of poetical justice, wrought upon the tale as it was told; but that tale was ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... as a troll-dragon have any sanction in folk-lore? Yes, it does. It is characteristic of Norse folk-lore to ascribe troll-like qualities to beings about which there seems to be something supernatural, such as invulnerability. In one of Asbjrnsen's tales, there is a story about a troll-bird, told by a man named Per Sandaker, who "was supposed to be strong ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... always been a marvel to me how the Indian conjuror has gained his spurious reputation. I can only ascribe the fact to the idea that the audience start with the impression, sub-conscious though it may be—of Mahatmaism, Jadoo, or any other synonym by which Oriental Magic is designated. This allows them to watch with amazement tricks that are so simple that no English conjuror ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... recorded in his diary, "when I closed the day with ejaculations of fervent gratitude to the Giver of all good. It was, perhaps, the most important day of my life.... Let no idle and unfounded exultation take possession of my mind, as if I would ascribe to my own foresight or exertions any portion of the event." But misgivings followed hard on these joyous reflections. The treaty had still to be ratified, and the disposition of the Spanish Cortes was uncertain. There was, too, considerable ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... comparatively weak and insipid. They, of course, conspicuously reflect the characteristics of the social order to which they belong. Critics call repeated attention to the lack of sublimity in Japanese literature, and ascribe it to their inherent race nature. While the lack of sublimity in Japanese scenery may in fact account for the characteristic in question, still a more conclusive explanation would seem to be that in the older social order man, as such, ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... are losing, that the exporters do not obtain their capital [from what they ship], and that the ships which go are smaller, and return with poorer cargoes. Although this loss is so well known, there are some who ascribe the cause of so great an effect to the Filipinas, and not to the misapprehension of Espaa—which is persuaded that the wealth of the Indias must be inexhaustible, and that the merchants can still gain on their investments ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... emission, reflection and refraction of light, electricity, calefaction, sensation, and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as a fifth element, endowed with these very powers; and the Vedas abound with allusions to a force universally attractive, which they chiefly ascribe to the sun, thence called 'Aditya, or the attractor,' a name designed by the mythologists to mean the child of the goddess Aditi. But the most wonderful passage on the theory of attractions occurs in the charming allegorical poem of 'Shi'ri'n and Ferhai'd, or the Divine Spirit, ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... a view. There can indeed be little doubt that the compilers of the Nihongi embellished the bald tradition with imaginary details; used names which did not exist until centuries after the epoch referred to; drew upon the resources of Chinese history for the utterances they ascribe to the Empress and for the weapons they assign to her soldiers, and were guilty of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... stood up, and lent a sort of one-sided and listless attention to the prayer, were thinking of the scandalous and aristocratical conduct of Mr. Warren, in "goin' out o' meetin' just as meetin' went to prayers!" Few, indeed, were they who would be likely to ascribe any charitable motive for the act; and probably not one of those present thought of the true and conscientious feeling that had induced it. So the world wags! It is certain that a malignant and bitter feeling was got up against the worthy rector on that occasion, and for ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... you. I urge you not to use ugly names about anyone. In the war it was not the fighting men who were distinguished for abuse; as has been well said, 'Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant.' Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own. There may be students here to-day who have decided this session to go in for immortality, and would like to know of an easy way of accomplishing it. That is a way, but not so easy as you think. ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... what I really think? Of course it is within the law—the perfect law—to visit at m'sieu' the philosopher's house and talk at length also to m'sieu' the philosopher's wife; while to make the position regular by friendship with the philosopher's child is a wisdom which I can only ascribe to"—his voice was charged with humour and malicious badinage "to an extended acquaintance with the devices of human nature, as seen in those episodes of the courts with which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... refute. This indulgence is conceded to antiquity, that by blending things human with divine, it may make the origin of cities appear more venerable: and if any people might be allowed to consecrate their origin, and to ascribe it to the gods as its authors, such is the renown of the Roman people in war, that when they represent Mars, in particular, as their own parent and that of their founder, the nations of the world may submit to this as patiently as they submit to their sovereignty.—But in whatever way ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... understand him to have asserted that things impossible by the ordinary laws of material causation are possible by faith in God. I do not perceive, if we allow these words to have any meaning whatever, that we can ascribe to ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... The distinction corresponds no doubt to some real differences, but there is no difference of the kind suggested by Reid. 'All [the qualities] are relative and equally relative—our perception of extension and resistance as much as our perception of fragrance and bitterness.'[485] We ascribe the sensations to 'external objects,' but the objects are only known by the 'medium' of our sensations. In other words, the whole world may be regarded as a set of sensations, whether of sight, smell, touch, or resistance to muscular movement, accompanied ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... the assistance she gave us was, obviously, to enfeeble a hated and powerful rival. A second motive was to extend her relations of commerce in the new world, and to acquire additional security for her possessions there, by forming a connection with this country when detached from Great Britain. To ascribe to her any other motives, to suppose that she was actuated by friendship toward us, is to be ignorant of the springs of action which invariably regulate the cabinets of princes. A despotic court aid a popular revolution through sympathy with its principles! ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Indian history—the incoming of an influence that will not stale, as mere ideas may. "Is there a single soul in this audience," said the Brahmo leader, the late Keshub Chunder Sen,[96] to the educated Indians of Calcutta, mostly Hindus, "who would scruple to ascribe extraordinary greatness and supernatural moral heroism to ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... a plain, everyday sort of man, and cannot make pretty speeches—which I scorn, and the expression of which from such a source I can ascribe only to a secret desire to get money. That is my plain, ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... and seating myself at a window, consumed the day in alternately looking out upon the storm, and gazing at the picture which lay upon a table before me. You will, perhaps, deem this conduct somewhat singular, and ascribe it to certain peculiarities of temper. I am not aware of any such peculiarities. I can account for my devotion to this image no otherwise, than by supposing that its properties were rare and prodigious. Perhaps you will suspect that such were the first inroads of a passion ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... Basle and thence to Rome, perhaps, but on my return I shall try to visit you ... I have heard of the deaths of William, Francis and Andrew (his old Dutch friends). Remember me to Master Henry and the others who live with you; I am disposed towards them as befits me. For those old tragedies I ascribe to my errors, or if you like to my fate. Do not omit to commend me to Christ in your prayers. If I knew for sure that it would be pleasing to Him that I should return to live with you, I should prepare ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... are flashing! I shall begin to be quite frightened of you. I didn't ascribe any motives to you, but I only warned you to beware of Captain Gates. He told Kenneth you were a bewitching little thing two days after he had first seen you, and I think the fact of your being so different ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... 13. "There are those who ascribe everything to chance, and believe that the world is made without a director, nature influencing the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... of manliness. If a man could not be measured by a public-school standard, then he was beyond the pale with Hastie. Like so many who are themselves robust, he was apt to confuse the constitution with the character, to ascribe to want of principle what was really a want of circulation. Smith, with his stronger mind, knew his friend's habit, and made allowance for it now as his thoughts turned towards ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method; in that they begin not their Ratiocination from Definitions; that is, from settled significations of their words: as if they could cast account, without knowing the value of the numerall words, One, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... me a great unkindness from Fate; for, now that, above all times in my life, I need full command of what powers of speech I possess, disturbed health so threatens to interfere with them that I fear I shall very inadequately express myself. Any failure in my response you must please ascribe, in part at least, to a greatly disordered nervous system. Regarding you as representing Americans at large, I feel that the occasion is one on which arrears of thanks are due. I ought to begin with the time, some two-and-twenty years ago, when my highly valued friend Professor ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... who have traversed delectable landscapes and recorded their impressions, in memory or in notebooks, we have tried to communicate to other minds the "incommunicable thrill of things": a pleasant if unsuccessful endeavor. When you are new at it, you ascribe your failure to want of skill, but you come to realize that skill will not help you very much. You will do well if you hold the reader's interest in your narrative: you will not, except by accident, make him see ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... instead of resting on mere imaginations, this whole structure of Buddhistic philosophy has, as its cornerstone, certain facts which have been preserved from the wrecks of a time earlier than that which our grandfathers ascribe to the creation of the world, and handed down without interruption from eras of civilization of which the earth at present does not retain even the ruins. Such a claim of antiquity rouses an interest in our minds, were it only for its stupendous ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... theoretic conception which unravels and illuminates the tangle of centuries of observation and experiment. There are minds, it may be said in passing, who at the present moment stand in this relation to Mr. Darwin. For my part, I should be inclined to ascribe to penetration rather than to presumption the notion of a contagium animatum. He who invented the term ought, I think, to be held in esteem; for he had before him the quantity of fact, and the measure of analogy, that would justify a man of genius in taking a step so bold. 'Nevertheless,' says ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... babies that die mysteriously are unwanted girls, and in nearly every case the parents promptly ascribe the death to the bite of a scorpion, and are ready to produce some more or less poisonous insect in support of ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... general principles of honour and justice, but which were occasionally warped according to circumstances; with all the virtues and vices so heterogeneously jumbled and heaped together, that it was almost impossible to ascribe any action to its true motive, and to ascertain to what point their vice was softened down into almost a virtue, and their virtues from mere excess degenerated into vice. Their names were O'Connor, Mills, and Gascoigne. The other shipmates of our hero it will be better to ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... become a bigot and a devotee, and already contemplated taking orders in the Church of Rome. He still remained, however, attached to the object of his former adoration, but above all he belonged to the Queen, and consequently resigned to Mazarin. La Rochefoucauld—ever ready to ascribe to himself the chief share in any undertaking in which he figured, as well as the character of a great politician—asserts that he entreated Madame de Chevreuse not to attempt at first to govern the Queen, but to endeavour solely ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the purity of the rock, contrasted with the foulness of dust or mould, is expressed by the epithet "living," very singularly given in the rock, in almost all languages; singularly I say, because life is almost the last attribute one would ascribe to stone, but for this visible energy and connection of its particles: and so of water as opposed to stagnancy. And I do not think that, however pure a powder or dust may be, the idea of beauty is ever connected with ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... earliest developments of human thought we find a strong tendency to ascribe mysterious powers over Nature to men and women especially gifted or skilled. Survivals of this view are found to this day among savages and barbarians left behind in the evolution of civilization, and especially is this the case among the tribes of Australia, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Jacobin club. "Your own brothers," Bernadotte replied, "were the founders of that club. And yet you reproach me with favoring its principles. It is to the instructions of some one, I know not who , that we are to ascribe the agitation which now prevails." "True, general," Napoleon replied, most vehemently, "and I would rather live in the woods, than in a society which presents no security against violence." This conversation only strengthened the alienation ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... this biographer, he often lost himself in reveries not far removed from trance. His favourite amusement was novel-reading; and to the many "blue books" from the Minerva press devoured by him in his boyhood, we may ascribe the style and tone of his first compositions. For physical sports he showed no inclination. "He passed among his school-fellows as a strange and unsocial being; for when a holiday relieved us from ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... strengthen love of home and domestic life, and to do away with the prevalent tendency to what has been termed individualism, will be a step in the right path and will aid in lessening the evils which so many wrongly ascribe to faulty legislation. If any further proof of this fact is needed it is found in the knowledge that by far the larger part of the seekers for relief come from our native population, while none but those who have some practical experience in the realities of the divorce ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... the hearts of the saints, for which, from my inmost soul, I desire to be grateful to God, and the honour and glory of which not only is due to Him alone, but which I, by His help, am enabled to ascribe ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... rocke of your judgement disasterly chanceth to be shipwrackt. A dere louer and cherisher you are, as well of the louers of Poets, as of Poets them selues. Amongst their sacred number I dare not ascribe my selfe, though now and then I speak English: that smal braine I haue, to no further vse I conuert saue to be kinde to my frends, and fatall to my enemies. A new brain, a new wit, a new stile, a new soule will I get mee to ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... originality to all of his thoughts and actions is essential to the student's proper advance, as to the work of the scientist. Should the student, therefore, be taught to believe in and trust himself, holding his own powers and tendencies in high esteem? Should he learn even to ascribe whatever merit he may possess to the qualities that are peculiar to him? And should he, accordingly, look upon the ideas and influences of other persons merely as a means—though most valuable—for the development of this self that he holds so sacred? Or should he learn to ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... the midst of our amusements, it naturally makes a deeper impression than at other times, either because the contrast makes us more keenly susceptible, or rather perhaps because our senses are then more open to impressions, and the shock is consequently stronger. To this cause I must ascribe the fright and shrieks of the ladies. One sagaciously sat down in a corner with her back to the window, and held her fingers to her ears; a second knelt down before her, and hid her face in her lap; a third threw herself between them, and embraced her sister with a thousand tears; ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... on very well with regard to the new St. James, who was not deficient in working such miracles as the people liked to ascribe to him and to believe of him. The belted knights were pleased to find out that the growing of a beard was only a passing fancy of their patron; and as all were satisfied, and the revenues increased, the priests were also ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... was personally acquainted with Becket, when there was little probability of his ever becoming a confessor, martyr and saint," endeavoring to discover a motive for the munificence of the Scottish King, continues to say: "Perhaps it was meant as a public declaration that he did not ascribe his disaster at Alnwick to the ill-will of his old friend. He may, perhaps, have been hurried by the torrent of popular prejudices into the belief that his disaster proceeded from the partiality of Becket towards the penitent Henry; and he might imagine that if equal ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... Surely if it took the barbarians of Western Europe so many centuries to develop a language and create empires, then the nomadic tribes of the "mythical" periods ought in common fairness—since they never came under the fructifying energy of that Christian influence to which we are asked to ascribe all the scientific enlightenment of this age—about ten thousand years to build their Tyres and their Veii, their Sidons and Carthagenes. As other Troys lie under the surface of the topmost one in the Troad; and other ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... it, and which have afforded great Matter of Speculation to the Curious. I have heard various Conjectures upon this Subject. Some tell us that C is the Mark of those Papers that are written by the Clergyman, though others ascribe them to the Club in general: That the Papers marked with R were written by my Friend Sir ROGER: That L signifies the Lawyer, whom I have described in my second Speculation; and that T stands for the Trader or Merchant: But the Letter X, which is placed at ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... reason to believe that the outlying stars of this cluster are as far from the central ones as the nearest star we know of, Alpha Centauri, is from us! Little wonder was it, then, that men hesitated to ascribe to the Pleiades any real connection with each other, and supposed them to be merely an assemblage of stars which seemed to us to ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... mortal hands thy peace destroy, Or friendship's gifts bestow, Wilt thou to man ascribe the joy — ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... been twice repeated over the telephone; yet that the call had not emanated from Mrs. Hewett's house was now palpably evident. Days had been when I should have regarded the episode as preluding some outrage, but to-night I felt more disposed to ascribe it ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... waters, very dangerous to boats in a fresh breeze. Owing to this, one of the boats that accompanied us, sailing at the rate of seven miles an hour, struck upon one of these rocks. Its mast was carried away by the shock, but fortunately no other damage sustained. The Indians ascribe the muddiness of these lakes to an adventure of one of their deities, a mischievous fellow, a sort of Robin Puck, whom they hold in very little esteem. This deity, who is named Weesakootchaht, possesses considerable power, but makes a capricious use of it, and delights in tormenting ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... omit to say That in Transylvania there's a tribe Of alien people that ascribe The outlandish ways and dress On which their neighbours lay such stress, To their fathers and mothers having risen Out of some subterraneous prison Into which they were trepanned Long time ago in a mighty band Out of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... yet. It is death that looms in the future, the shadow of death upon life. "None can escape his destiny" we often exclaim when we hear of death lying in wait for the traveller at the bend of the road. But were the traveller to encounter happiness instead, we would never ascribe this to destiny; if we did, we should have in our mind a far different goddess. And yet, are not joys to be met with on the highways of life that are greater than any misfortune, more momentous even than death? May a happiness not be encountered that the ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... regard to all this class of subjects, I am of the opinion of Goethe, that "it is just as absurd to deny the facts of spiritualism now as it was in the Middle Ages to ascribe them to the Devil." I think Mr. Owen attributes too much value to his facts. I do not think the things contributed from the ultra-mundane sphere are particularly valuable, apart from the evidence they give of continued ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... wrote the story on a column, And on the great church window painted The same, to make the world acquainted How their children were stolen away, And there it stands to this very day. And I must not omit to say That in Transylvania there's a tribe Of alien people who ascribe The outlandish ways and dress On which their neighbors lay such stress, To their fathers and mothers having risen Out of some subterranean prison Into which they were trepanned Long time ago in a mighty band Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... with Mrs. Poulter that, for the reasons she gave, it would be desirable to remove from Russell House. He also felt that, as a clergyman, he would do wisely in leaving, for he could not ascribe the disappearance of 'the domestic' to anything but ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... unconscious sex factors are slight or absent in most normal cases, that these patients and their doctors alike are sex-intoxicated, and that the Freudian psychology applies only to perverts and erotomania or other abnormal cases. To ascribe all this aversion to social or ethical repression is both shallow and banousic, for the real causes are both manifold and deeper. They are part of a complicated protest of normality, found in all and even in the resistance of subjects of analysis, which is really a factor which is basal for self-control ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... birth in the faculty," thought Snorky, puzzled to ascribe an adequate reason. Such events, be it mentioned, were usually attended by cuts and in the higher spheres with ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... de is Gigantes, the tombs of the giants, as they are called, form another class of Sarde antiquities of the earliest age. The structures to which the popular traditions ascribe this name, may be described as a series of large stones placed together without any cement, inclosing a foss or hollow from fifteen to thirty-six feet long, from three to six wide, and the same in depth, with immense flat stones resting ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... the eclipse, the influence. With others I commune, who tell me whence The torrent doth of foreign discord flow; Relate each skirmish, battle, overthrow, Soon as they happen; and by rote can tell Those German towns, even puzzle me to spell. The cross or prosperous fate of princes they Ascribe to rashness, cunning, or delay; And on each action comment, with more skill Than upon Livy did old Machiavel. O busy folly! why do I my brain Perplex with the dull policies of Spain, Or quick designs of France? Why not repair To the pure innocence o' the country air, And neighbour ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... was not only a Poet, and skilled in harmony, but a great Theologist and Prophet; also very knowing in medicine, and in the history of the [1030]heavens. According to Antipater Sidonius, he was the author of Heroic verse. And some go so far as to ascribe to him the invention of letters; and ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... little of a prig to scold the girl, and too much of a man not to be touched and flattered by the sincerity of her embrace. He was too much of an Englishman to ascribe it to its real passionate motive, and to ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... generous reception has been extended to me to-night as few are permitted to enjoy, and I should be wanting in gratitude did I not appreciate the sentiment expressed in this cordial greeting. I should be vain indeed to ascribe it to myself, or for a moment to accept it solely as a personal tribute. As an expression of appreciation of the gallant troops which I have the honor to command, it is accepted in behalf of the living and for them ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... error to hold that the prevalence of doctrines unfavourable to the maintenance of the Union between England and Ireland were wholly or even in the main due to his conduct. His conversion itself remains to be accounted for. This would (except to those critics who ascribe the most important acts of public statesmanship to the pettiest forms of private selfishness) remain almost unaccountable unless it were regarded in the light, in which it ought no doubt to be looked upon, of an example of the facility with which a leader guided by keen sympathy with the ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... dictation which have just been ascribed to a minority are so far from being inconsistent with the real powers of the majority that the latter, when properly understood, are seen to be their complement and their counterpart. For, though socialists and thinkers like "X" ascribe to majorities powers which they do not possess, we shall find that majorities do actually possess others, in some ways very much greater, of which such thinkers have thus far taken no cognisance at all. I have said that minorities can dictate their own terms to majorities which desire to ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... your head, and that you are above corresponding with civilians. Your friends, however, who know you better and value your worth, think otherwise; and having seen a paragraph about a certain O'Malley being tried by court-martial for stealing a goose, and maltreating the woman that owned it, ascribe your not writing to other motives. Do, in any case, relieve our minds; say, is it yourself, or only a relative that's mentioned? Herbert came over from London with a long story about your doing wonderful ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Dr. Darwin conceived that the religious feeling of man might have grown out of the natural emotions of fear,[1] love, gratitude, &c., when once men began to question as to the explanation of the phenomena of life, and to ascribe the forces of nature to the possession of a spirit such as he himself was conscious of: and with much more positive intent, Mr. H. Spencer has also, after most painstaking inquiries, formulated what he conceives to be the origin of religious belief in man. He refers us to the early belief in ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... an altar; to offer peace-offerings; and to rejoice before the Lord their God. In the Hebrew edition of the same inspired books, Mount Ebal is selected as the scene of these pious services;—a variation which the Samaritans openly ascribe to the hatred and malignity of the Jews, who, they assert, have in this passage corrupted the sacred oracles. In the immediate vicinity of the town is seen a small mosque, which is said to cover the sepulchre of Joseph, and to be situated in the field ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... And all the world knows, that when Julian the Apostate was at Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, to consult Apollo, the god, notwithstanding all the sacrifices offered to him, continued mute, and only recovered his speech to answer those who inquired the cause of his silence, that they must ascribe it to the interment of certain bodies in the neighbourhood. Those were the bodies of Christian martyrs, amongst which was ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... beholding the Great Stone Face ascribe firmness to its features. They perhaps judge their fellowmen in like manner. They fail to see the depth of thought or honest sincerity of soul that shines forth from many a rough exterior, beneath which beats a heart of purest gold. How ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... taken for a locative of the verbal noun, and the whole phrase be translated, Isaw him in the action of beating his own son, (vidi patrem cdere ipsius filium). As in every Bengali phrase the participle in ite can be understood in this manner, Ithink it admissible to ascribe this origin to it, and instead of taking it for a nominative of a verbal adjective, to consider it as a locative of a ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... "that my man carefully washed out the bearings with paraffin, and let the machine dry without oiling it again. The consequence was that they became heated to a considerable temperature and jammed. Even at the outset the machine ran stiffly as well as noisily, and I, being inclined to ascribe this stiffness to my own ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... tomb to have been that of Messalla Corvinus, the historian and poet, a friend of Augustus and Horace; others ascribe it to his son, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... would regret it, but not sufficiently so to repent having written my Memoirs, for, after all, writing them has given me pleasure. Oh, cruel ennui! It must be by mistake that those who have invented the torments of hell have forgotten to ascribe thee the first place among them. Yet I am bound to own that I entertain a great fear of hisses; it is too natural a fear for me to boast of being insensible to them, and I cannot find any solace in the idea that, when these Memoirs are published, I shall be no more. I cannot think without ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... ask them whence their victory came: They, with united breath, Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb, Their triumph ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... their massive trunks, clothed with a scaly texture almost like the skin of living animals and contorted with all the irregularities of age, may well have suggested those ideas of royal, almost divine, strength and solidity which the sacred writers ascribe to them.—Turn to the ninety-second psalm, Clara, ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... a religious sentiment; but it would be a strange absurdity to regard as an effort of piety the invention of the form of the arch itself, of which one of the earliest and most perfect instances is in the Cloaca Maxima. And thus in the case of spires and towers, it is just to ascribe to the devotion of their designers that dignity which was bestowed upon forms derived from the simplest domestic buildings; but it is ridiculous to attribute any great refinement of religious feeling, or ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... her uneasy and doubtful, though for what he watched she had no notion. For it was upon herself rather than upon Guy that his attention seemed to be concentrated. His attitude puzzled her. She felt curiously like a prisoner, though to neither word, nor look, nor deed could she ascribe the feeling. She was even at times disposed to put it down to the effect of the weather upon her physically. It did undoubtedly try her very severely. Though the exercise that she compelled herself to take had restored to her the power to sleep, she always ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... motionless, unless disturbed. From whence comes this disturbance? It must proceed from something outside the atoms, or the matter, so that we can never say that there is nothing in the universe but matter. And now if we ascribe motion to the atoms, or like other philosophers, perception, then that is nothing more nor less than to ascribe mind to them, which, however, if you are right, must first evolve itself out of this matter. If we wind something ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... the am'rous youth[1] bestow'd the race; Venus (the nymph's mind measuring by her own), Whom the rich spoils of cities overthrown Had prostrated to Mars, could well advise Th' advent'rous lover how to gain the prize. Nor less may Jupiter to gold ascribe; For, when he turn'd himself into a bribe, Who can blame Danae[2], or the brazen tower, That they withstood not that almighty shower 10 Never till then did love make Jove put on A form more bright, and nobler than his own; Nor ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... the Issuer of Decrees in all things be done! Ascribe unto the Creator glory, bowing before ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... various rounds? Their wandering course now high, now low, then hid, Progressive, retrograde, or standing still, In six thou seest; and what if seventh to these The planet earth, so stedfast though she seem, Insensibly three different motions move? Which else to several spheres thou must ascribe, Moved contrary with thwart obliquities; Or save the sun his labour, and that swift Nocturnal and diurnal rhomb supposed, Invisible else above all stars, the wheel Of day and night; which needs not thy belief, If earth, industrious of herself, fetch day Travelling east, and with her part averse ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... "whether the real cause of their quarrel has ever been rightly told. I should not be at all surprised if one of these days some savant does not discover a papyrus containing a missing page of Holy Writ, which will ascribe the reason of the first bloodshed to a love affair. Perhaps there were wood nymphs in those days, as we are assured there were giants, and some dainty Dryad might have driven the first pair of human brothers to desperation by her ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... delinquent was called, John Clerk rose and addressed the Bench: "I am sorry, my lords, that my young friend so far forgot himself as to treat your lordships with disrespect. He is extremely penitent, and you will kindly ascribe his unintentional insult to his ignorance. You will see at once that it did not originate in that: he said he was surprised at the decision of your lordships. Now, if he had not been very ignorant of what takes place in this Court every day; had he known your lordships but half so long as I ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... have munched up the acorn does not know what to make of the pearl. That sudden ice which then freezes over us, that supreme disgust and despair almost of the whole world, which for the moment we confound with the one worldling— they who have felt, may reasonably ascribe to Philip. He listened to Mr. Beaufort in utter and contemptuous silence, and then ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of arts, Had been but a dunce without wine, And what we ascribe to his parts, Is due to the juice of the vine. His belly most writers agree, Was as big as a watering-trough, He therefore leap'd into the sea, ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... now attribute this act? To Arthur, the brother whose love for liquor in every form she had always decried, and had publicly rebuked only a few hours before? Knowing nothing of Carmel having been on the scene, they must ascribe this act either to him or to me; and when they came to dwell upon this point more particularly—when they came to study the exact character of the relations which had always subsisted between Adelaide and her brother—they must see the improbability of her drinking with him under ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... everybody is sure he had one, and hath none. If I will ask mere philosophers what the soul is, I shall find amongst them that will tell me, it is nothing but the temperament and harmony, and just and equal composition of the elements in the body, which produces all those faculties which we ascribe to the soul; and so in itself is nothing, no separable substance that overlives the body. They see the soul is nothing else in other creatures, and they affect an impious humility to think as low of man. But if my soul were no more than the soul of a beast, I could ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... fear or joy according to their predilection, that modern discovery is gradually putting the Bible out of date. A feeling, if not a judgment, has in some quarters arisen, that in view of the vastness of creation, the Scriptures ascribe to this globe and its concerns a share of its Maker's ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... of marriage had been utterly unexpected. Regarding him as she did, it seemed to her little short of an insult. She hardly knew what motive to ascribe to him for it; but circumstances seemed to point to one, ambition. No doubt he thought that she might prove of use to him when he stepped into the ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... changed their habits of living from those of wanderers in the wilderness to those adapted to their early settlements in Canaan and afterward to the settled conditions under the monarchy, they would still base their laws upon these earlier principles. Hence it was not unnatural to ascribe the origin of these laws to Moses, nor is it to-day inaccurate to speak of them as the Mosaic code, even though they may have been put into their present form at different periods remote from one another, and by rulers, prophets and priests whose ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... his friends were set against Socialists ere they began to examine their arguments. I must confess that my deep attachment to him led me into injustice to his Socialist foes in those early days, and often made me ascribe to them calculated malignity instead of hasty and prejudiced assertion. Added to this, their uncurbed violence in discussion, their constant interruptions during the speeches of opponents, their reckless inaccuracy in matters ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... first it is not without some Reason, that I ascribe Colour (in the sense formerly explan'd) chiefly to the Superficial parts of Bodies, for not to question how much Opacous Corpuscles may abound even in those Bodies we call Diaphanous, it seems plain that of Opacous bodies we do indeed see little else than the Superficies, for if we ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... and, to a considerable extent, still exists, even among Scientific men, in relation to the nature of this Method, arises from the want of an understanding of its twofold mode of operation, as just explained. The assertion of those who ascribe the failure of this Method to its neglect of Facts, is true; the averment of Professor Whewell that it was neither from a lack of Facts nor Ideas, but because the Ideas were not distinct and appropriate to the Facts, is not less so. But the former statement applies to that phase of the Method ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... task of his, straight through the heart of danger, had been achieved, and in his modesty, which was a modesty of thought as well as word, he did not ascribe it to any strength or skill in himself, but to the fact that a Supreme Being had chosen him for a time as an instrument, and was working through him. Like nearly all who live in the forest and spend most of their lives in the presence of ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the same words, but the same voice, corresponding to the individuality of each, was God's way of speaking with them. And as the same voice sounded differently to each one, so did the Divine vision appear differently to each, wherefore God warned them not to ascribe the various forms to various beings, saying: "Do not believe that because you have seen Me in various forms, there are various gods, I am the same that appeared to you at the Red Sea as a God of war, and at Sinai as a ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... bearing testimony at some of the services appealed to her needs and gave her a sense of oneness with eternal truth, which had hitherto been lacking from her religious experience. In judging Wilbur she was disposed to ascribe the defects of his character largely to the coldness and analyzing sobriety of his creed. She had accompanied him to church listlessly, and had been bored by the unemotional appeals to conscience and quiet subjective designations of duty. She ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... Their discontented and deserted shades. Observe these horrid walls, this rueful waste! Here some refresh the vigour of the mind With contemplation and cold penitence: Nor wonder while thou hearest that the soul Thus purified hereafter may ascend Surmounting all obstruction, nor ascribe The sentence to indulgence; each extreme Has tortures for ambition; to dissolve In everlasting languor, to resist Its impulse, but in vain: to be enclosed Within a limit, and that limit fire; Severed from happiness, from eminence, And flying, but hell bars us, from ourselves. Yet ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor |
