"Concentrate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it at the opening of the war, the navy had never, except for short and passing intervals, been regarded with the interest its importance deserved. To this had doubtless contributed the fixed policy of the Government to concentrate its attention upon the internal development of the country, and to concern itself little with external interests, except so far as they promoted the views of that section which desired to give extension to slaveholding ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... tried to concentrate his mind on his affairs and get through the day. But the gray look kept growing and growing, and the secretary decided towards evening to suggest sending for Theodora. Josiah, however, would not hear of this. He was not ill, he said, it ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... interest in the anti-slavery struggle?" The answer is twofold. That he did not join the Free-soilers in 1844 was most probably owing to the influence of Judge Story, who had already marked Sumner out for the Supreme Bench, and wished him to concentrate his energies in that direction. His friends, too, at this time—Hillard, Felton, Liebe, and even Longfellow—were either opposed to introducing the slavery question into politics ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... her year away from school had made it hard for her to concentrate her mind on her studies, and while she had not deliberately neglected her work, as Constance had in her algebra, she had not always kept up to the highest pitch. She was working furiously now, with the tests to face so soon, and with it went the resolve to be more studious from day to ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... that the mesilla dips to the south-west; that there is a depression along the northern end of its "neck;" and that from f the rocks bulge upwards again. All this contributes to concentrate the drainage of the entire cliff-top, as far north of the church as it was inhabited, in the hollow where the gate of the general enclosure is placed. This gate was therefore not only a passage-way, but also the ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... dog appears to concentrate all his powers in his own immediate vocation; and in this does he exert and exhaust his whole capacity. If he be suddenly awoke, and hurriedly called, he rears himself up to see what sheep are running away, and he is so honourable, that he will lie among pails full of milk, and neither ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... accidental irregularities, and exceptions to general rules, which constitute the many improbabilities of real narrative, present us with a clear and abstracted view of the general rules themselves; and thus concentrate, as it were, into a small compass, the net ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... in the pursuit of fame, and be egoistic to the back-bone, although one's interests, in this case, include even the contents of the minds of generations yet unborn. One may forego many pleasures and concentrate all one's efforts upon the attainment of intellectual eminence or of a virtuous character, and yet seem to have a claim to the name ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... possessions. They will consist of such things as methods of grasping facts, methods of reasoning about facts, and of concentrating attention. In acquiring these habits you must have some material upon which you may concentrate your attention, and it will be supplied by the subjects of the curriculum. You will be asked, for instance, to write innumerable themes in courses in English composition; not for the purpose of enriching the world's literature, nor for the delectation of your English ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... it haunts me like a phantom; I know it is unsubstantial and vain; but it will be present; will intrude its horrors on my mind; will whisper that my brother, as volatile as ardent, would have divided his energies amid a hundred objects. It was I who taught him to concentrate them and to gage all on this dreadful and desperate cast. Oh that I could recollect that I had but once said to him, "He that striketh with the sword shall die by the sword"; that I had but once said, "Remain at home; ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... clearly determined; he ought to have plainly proposed to himself to assume the Regency, or at least the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom in the place of Gaston, by will or by force, in order to concentrate all power in his own hands; that he might become, in short, a Cromwell or a William III.: and Conde was neither the one or the other. His mind had been perturbed by sinister dreams; but, as has been remarked, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... lots of poor women don't concentrate on the child either. They have far too much to do and worry about. They are 'seeing to' things up till ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... turned away from the dames of Goya, clad in white cambric, with their rosebud mouths and with their hair done up like a turban, to concentrate his attention on a nude figure, the luminous gleam of whose flesh seemed to throw the adjacent canvases in a shadow. He contemplated it closely for a long time, bending over the railing till the brim of his hat almost touched the ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... almost immediately after dinner. She endeavored to finish some initial-work on old embroideries, but the needle insisted upon pausing and losing stitch after stitch. She went to bed and tried to concentrate her thoughts upon a story, but she could no more follow a sentence to the end than she could fly. Then she strove to sleep, but that sweet healer came not to her wooing. Nothing she did could overcome the realization of the ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... repaid by a commanding view of the tumbling waters. The rays of the sun falling upon this sheet of water produced an exquisite effect. Here from the thick-growing shrubbery as we watched the amber waters concentrate for their fall, and break into silken streamers of irised spray, we knew they had been appropriately named ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... put into it. Put into it brains and heart and energy and economy. Broaden it by originality of methods. Extend it by enterprise and industry. Study it as you would a profession. Learn everything that is to be known about it. Concentrate your faculties upon it, for the greatest achievements are reserved for the man of single aim, in whom no rival powers divide the empire of the soul. Better adorn your ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Charlemagne was the first in modern Europe who introduced the great improvement in the art of war, of pouring large bodies of men, by different roads, into the hostile country; of teaching them to co-operate, though separate, to concentrate when required; and of combining their efforts and their movements for a general purpose on a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... mental drag to tear his thoughts away from these wild wanderings to the present; and, determining to forget self, he tried hard to concentrate his mind, not upon his own position, but upon that of the poor fellow ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... Mr. Ormond." He consulted the card again. "That'll be fourteen hundred and eleven credits." He beamed. "We included a case of Ruykeser's Concentrate, compliments of the management." He handed a circular to Tee. "This is a list of our ports and facilities on other planets. Our accommodations are the finest, and we carry a complete line of parts." He ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... question. The practical answer depends upon the strength of the attacking force compared to that of the defending force. If the Germans could keep only five hundred thousand men on the Western front they would have to withdraw from a part of the line, concentrate on chosen positions and depend on tactics to defend their exposed flanks in pitched battle. Three million men, with ten thousand guns, could not break the line against an equally skilful army of three millions with ten thousand guns; but five millions with fifteen thousand guns might break the line ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... his mouth, that he has been killing a hen, I am breaking up the whole phenomenon of the dog's appearance, and paying attention only to the blood and feathers on his head; and these lead me directly to similar appearances when I have caught him in the act. If I reason, Every student who can concentrate his attention can learn quickly, George Marston has a notable power of concentration, Therefore George Marston can learn quickly, I again break up the abstraction student, and the concrete fact George ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... three bodies of the ordinary man have become one body for the yogi. If under these conditions you want to see only one world at a time, you must fix your attention on it, and thus focus it. You can, in that state of enlarged waking, concentrate your attention on the physical and see it; then the astral and mental will appear hazy. So you can focus your attention on the astral and see it; then the physical and the mental, being out of focus, will appear ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... to speak, staring absently the while after the fortune-teller, as he descended the carpeted steps and rejoined the throng on the sidewalk below—"you know, if a man—anyone, could take advantage of such a wave of thought as this which is now sweeping through Egypt—if he could cause it to concentrate upon him, as it were, don't you think that it would enable him to transcend the normal, to ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... such a manner that the Governor could not tell from time to time how the financial results of expenses and profits were progressing, has produced its inevitable consequences. In future, I feel convinced, it will be found matter of the utmost consequence to concentrate the accounts at Fort Garry, and to send copies of the vouchers, journals, and ledgers from Fort Garry to England, instead of adopting the reverse practice, and endeavouring, as hitherto, to make the accounts travel as long a distance and be made up over as ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... Mepergan), methadone (Dolophine, Methadose), and others (Darvon, Lomotil). Opium is the brown, gummy exudate of the incised, unripe seedpod of the opium poppy. Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) is the source for the natural and semisynthetic narcotics. Poppy straw concentrate is the alkaloid derived from the mature, dried opium poppy. Qat (kat, khat) is a stimulant from the buds or leaves of Catha edulis that is chewed or drunk as tea. Quaaludes is the North American slang term for methaqualone, a pharmaceutical depressant. Stimulants are drugs that relieve mild depression, ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... encounter with Alfred, and his enforced luncheon at home with Aggie, he found his mail, his 'phone calls, and his neglected appointments in a state of hopeless congestion, and try as he would, he could not concentrate upon their disentanglement. Growing more and more furious with the long legged secretary who stood at the corner of his desk, looking down upon him expectantly, and waiting for his tardy instructions, Jimmy ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... common conception of missionary work as small. We look at the parts, and the smallest parts, because our minds instinctively seek a unity, and only in the parts do we find a unity, nor there often, unless we concentrate our attention on one aspect of the work. But by thinking of foreign missions in this small way and speaking of them in this small way, we alienate men who are accustomed to think in large terms of large ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... clear of the morass of industrial decay in which they are at present involved. Such a programme has actually been decided upon-a programme the definite object of which is to reconcile the workers to work not simply hand to mouth, each for himself, but to concentrate first on those labors which will eventually bring their reward in making other labors easier and improving ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... do not know that I could wholly blame her," she said. "I fancy that it is not easy for any woman of great beauty to concentrate her whole devotion on one man. It must seem to her that she is giving too much to an individual, however good he ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the opening movement, he was not rightly awake to what he was doing. His fingers, like well-drilled soldiers, went automatically through their work, neither blundering nor forgetting; but the mind which should have controlled them was unable to concentrate itself: he heard himself play as though he were listening to some one else. He was only roused by the burst of applause that succeeded the final chords. As he struck the first notes of the ANDANTE WITH VARIATIONS, he nerved himself for an effort; but now, as if it were the result of his previous ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... himself, during which he took out a little package from his pocket, and emptying out on his desk the five little spangles it contained, regarded them intently. He had always been fond of looking at some small and seemingly insignificant object while thinking. It served to concentrate his thoughts, no doubt. At all events, some such result appeared to follow the contemplation of these five sequins, for after shaking his head doubtfully over them for a time, he made a sudden move, and sweeping them into the envelope from which ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... El-Azhar, and so on to the Coptic church that is the silent centre of "old Cairo." It is said that there are over four hundred mosques in Cairo. As I looked down from the minaret of Ibn-Tulun, they called me through the mist that blotted completely out all the surrounding country, as if it would concentrate my attention upon the places of prayer during these holy days when the pilgrims were crowding in to depart with the Holy Carpet. And I went down by the staircase of the house, and in the ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... must depend upon itself for protection against machine guns should concentrate a large number of rifles on each gun in turn and ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... pack-horses to carry our provisions and camp necessaries. The weather was exceedingly hot, although the previous summer months had been reasonably cool, the heat having been tempered by southerly sea breezes. Nature now seemed to intend to concentrate all the usual heat of an Australian summer into the two remaining months that were left to her. The thermometer usually stood for several hours of each day at 104, 105, and 106 degrees in ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... spite of my efforts to fix my thoughts on the matter in hand, they wandered away with the strangest persistency in the one direction of Sir Percival and the Count, and all the interest which I tried to concentrate on my journal centred instead in that private interview between them which had been put off all through the day, and which was now to take place in the silence and solitude of ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... to take advantage of the rash situation of the First German Army to concentrate upon it the efforts of the Allied Armies on the extreme left. All dispositions will be made in the course of September S to start for the ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... concentrate her thoughts, she dropped the magazine into her lap and leaned back with a sigh. From where she sat she had a good view of the stables, and fifteen minutes later, while she still watched, she saw Langford come out of one of the stable doors and walk toward the house. She felt absolutely ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Lord Ashley was no mere sentimentalist out for a momentary sensation. At all times he gave the credit for starting the work to Sadler and his associates; and from the outset he urged his followers to fix on a limited measure first, to concentrate attention on the work of children and young persons, and to avoid general questions involving conflicts between capital and labour. Also he took endless pains to acquaint himself at first hand with the facts. 'In factories,' he said ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... any of the stockmen or hut-keepers could be trusted, the Gilpins begged that some of the police might remain, while they went round to drive in and concentrate the herds of cattle and the flocks of sheep, now probably without keepers, and subject to the depredations of the outlaws. It was very hard work; but, with the help of Craven, a few of the better-disposed men, who were found at their ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... power to sign; he could not draw a cheque for thirty shillings. Until he could produce legal evidence of his uncle's death, he was a penniless outcast—and as soon as he produced it he had lost the tontine! There was no hesitation on the part of Morris; to drop the tontine like a hot chestnut, to concentrate all his forces on the leather business and the rest of his small but legitimate inheritance, was the decision of a single instant. And the next, the full extent of his calamity was suddenly disclosed to him. Declare his uncle's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... itself fundamentally with the apt conjunction of events, and the more nearly it approximates to the verity of life the more likely is it to be of immediate appeal. There is a vraie verite which only the poet, evolving from dramatic concepts rather than attempting to concentrate these in a quick, moving verisimilitude, can attempt. The passing hither and thither of Pippa, like a beneficent Fate, a wandering chorus from a higher amid the discordant medley of a lower world, changing the circumstances and even the ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... and Venetians, who were Austrian subjects. As this was refused, he declared war. He fell into a second error. He assumed the offensive tardily, and did not push forward rapidly to the point where the French army must concentrate, before its concentration could be accomplished. He made a third and more serious mistake, which proved ruinous. He withdrew from the war after his first defeats when his army was beat, indeed, but neither broken nor disorganized, when he still held the unconquered quadrilateral, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... morals we should admit, in the abstract, that the sins of the educated classes were as great as, or perhaps greater than, the sins of the poor and ignorant. But in practice the great difference between the mediaeval ethics and ours is that ours concentrate attention on the sins which are the sins of the ignorant, and practically deny that the sins which are the sins of the educated are sins at all. We are always talking about the sin of intemperate drinking, because ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... with her reading, and Morris pretended to go on with his. He soon found, however, that he could not concentrate his attention on the little volume in his hand, and so quickly abandoned the attempt, and spent his time in meditation and in casting furtive glances at his fair companion over the top of his book. He thought the steamer chair a ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... lovable and estimable personality. To see all sides and issues of a question, is a speculative, but not always a practical advantage; to have many diversified tastes and affections helps to enlarge our sympathies, but not to concentrate our energies. ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... when the belief is once specified, and the special and intelligible god is distinguished in the night and horror of the all-pervading natural power, the belief in his reality helps to concentrate our attention on his nature, and thus to develope and enrich our idea. The belief in the reality of an ideal personality brings about its further idealization. Had it ever occurred to any Greek ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... dilatory movements Gyulai gave the Sardinians time to concentrate an army of 80,000 men around the fortress of Alessandria, and lost all the advantage of being the first in the field. In early May the French army reached Italy, partly by way of the St. Bernard Pass, partly by ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... the sheer weight of the native attack, the Heavies had never been completely broken up. They maintained their resistance to the end, jammed up as they were against and among the camels, and thus enabled the men on the two sides of the square to concentrate their fire on ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... pad, then tear it off and keep it?" asked the attendant. "We ask all visitors to do that simply as a guarantee of good faith. Then if you will write under it what you wish to find out from the professor I think it will help you concentrate. But don't write while I am in the room, and don't ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the psychometrist for a 'reading' should not be antagonistic nor frivolous, neither should he desire special information, nor concentrate his thought forces upon any given point, as otherwise he may dominate the psychic and thus mislead him into perceiving only a reflex of his own hopes or fears. He will do well to preserve an open mind, and an impartial though sympathetic mental attitude, and then await results. ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... in opposition with the Wallachians, or, as they now like to call themselves, Rumanes, and we try to maintain the peace with Prussia. And now when we should concentrate all our forces to meet the changes which threaten us, a stupid and wicked Opposition divides the nation into two hostile camps [how very singular and unexampled!]. We fight one another to the great pleasure of Russia and Prussia, who enjoy our fratricidal feuds as the Romans in the amphitheatre ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the animal world is thrown into a state of alarm. They stream along the ground and climb to the summits of all the lower trees, searching every leaf to its apex, and whenever they encounter a mass of decaying vegetable matter, where booty is plentiful, they concentrate, like other Ecitons, all their forces upon it, the dense phalanx of shining and quickly-moving bodies, as it spreads over the surface, looking like a flood of dark-red liquid. They soon penetrate every part of the confused heap, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... of postscript No. 2, concentrate your mind upon sweetbreads. Sweetbreads are made in Chicago of the pancreases of horned cattle. From Portland to Portland they belong to the first class of refined delicatessen. And yet, on the human plane, the pancreas is in Class VI, along ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... To concentrate on being economical by going grimly down the street, looking at the shop windows, looking hard at miles of things one will not buy, cannot be said to be a practicable method ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... enterprise I should take a small force and depend rather upon surprise than upon numbers. A large body could not conceal itself, would have great difficulty in getting food, and would cause all the Russians around us to concentrate for its certain destruction. On the other hand, if a small body of cavalry could get past the Cossacks unseen it was probable that they would find no troops to oppose them, for we knew that the main Russian army was several days' march behind us. This corn was meant, no doubt, for ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... around. But with whisky humming in his blood he paced onward in a happy dream. The wretched puddles by the way, the frowning rookeries where misery squalled, the melancholy noises of the street, were passed unheeded by. His distracted powers rallied home; he was concentrate, his own man again, the hero of his musing mind. For, like all weak men of a vivid fancy, he was constantly framing dramas of which he was the towering lord. The weakling who never "downed" men in reality was ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... was well that there were yet nearly two hours before the preliminary dancing would be over; he needed some time to collect himself. The air seemed full of strange voices, and he watched the moving faces as in a dream, unable to concentrate his attention upon ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... is made to devise a system which does concentrate responsibility and power, serious difficulties are encountered. Concentration of responsibility can be brought about in one of two ways—either by subordinating the legislature to the executive or the executive to the legislature. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... training of a strenuous kind in sympathy and tenderness; but if we are to be fair, it must be done. And the rule applies to Jesus also. Have we given his meaning to his term—force, value, emotion, and suggestion? In a later chapter we shall have to concentrate on one term of his—God—and try to discover what he intends that ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... the more communicative one, after a moment's contemplation, "I never expected to see this!" He indicated by a gesture the stupendous life of Broadway beginning slowly to roll back upon itself like an obstructed river. It was obviously gathering in a general pause to concentrate its attention upon something of leading interest about to appear to view. "We're in earnest at last, and we can see, now, that the South was in the deadest kind of earnest ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... storm came, and had been caught in it farther up, and perished. Anyway it was worth investigation. When Dick returned with the fox and the trap to the tilt he told the others of his theory and it was decided to concentrate their efforts in that direction ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... own time that she has begun to get hold of the true conception of her business in the world. That the church is here to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, to concentrate her energies upon realizing the kingdom of God in the world, now begins to be evident to men of insight; and there is a loud call upon her to bestir herself and take up this work so long neglected, and give ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... of Alice has really done nothing but permit his absorbing worship of many demure little maids to focus and concentrate itself into an almost incredible transformation of what was the intrinsic nature of the writer into what was the intrinsic nature ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... alone in the zareba. The giraffes had fallen in behind and were following them, and level with them, on Hillyard's side, the ostrich stepped like a delicate lady in a muddy street. Hillyard found it a little difficult to concentrate his thoughts on Stella Croyle's message. But he would have delivered it awkwardly in any case. He had seen enough of Harry Luttrell last night to understand that an ocean now ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... active hostilities.[11] Matters were long in coming to an outbreak. Various points had been contended over, when Philip had endeavoured to change the seat of the great council, or to take divers measures tending to concentrate certain judicial or legislative functions for his own convenience, but in a manner prejudicial to the autonomy of Ghent. His centripetal policy was disliked, but when his policy went further, and he attempted to control purely civic offices, dislike grew into resentment ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... without its consolations to the murmurer, for as soon as the actual reading stopped he could take up a novel or magazine and, leaving his vocal organs to carry on the work, concentrate his mind upon the preparation of material ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... work horse requires daily about one pound of grain (concentrate) for each hundred pounds of live weight. Of hay he will need a slightly larger amount or about fourteen to eighteen pounds a day, according to size, weight, and character of work done. The idle horse will do well on less grain ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... set his teeth. Forty to win! A large order. But it was going to be done. His whole existence seemed to concentrate itself on ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... which they are displayed. These important pursuits being, however, cultivated, some by one man, and some by another, have been isolated rather than united: the aid which might be derived from analogy and from mutual illustration has been lost; and no disposition has been shown to concentrate them upon history, of which they are, properly speaking, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... have such an audience. Speaking was not easy or agreeable to him, and his sole purpose for many years in speaking at all was to consume so much time. Parnell was a man who always found it rather hard to concentrate his mind on any subject unless he was alone and in silence. This was perhaps one of the many reasons why he kept out of the House of Commons as much as he could. Anything like noise or disturbance around him seemed to destroy his power ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... agents sent to the German Embassy in Moscow. The Russian secret service apparently watched him a little too closely, for he was shifted to Sofia, Bulgaria, where he bought a private plane and flew wherever he wished. In 1935, when the signers of the "anti-Communist pact" decided to concentrate upon Mexico, Northe was ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... from hearing a lot of things he doesn't wish to hear. "It is like this," he once said to me: "deafness gives you a needed isolation; reduces your sensitiveness so things do not disturb or distract; allows you to concentrate and focus on a thought until you ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... came daily to make their household purchases. To sell and to buy is the life of the lower orders, and money and famine are their two leading passions. They are always ready for tumult in those places where these two passions concentrate, and no where is sedition more readily excited, or in greater ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... benefit. The lack of thought pressure made it easier for him to concentrate. In spite of his fatigue the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... unless we concentrate our efforts upon a comparatively narrow line of work. But this does not necessitate that our views should be narrow or our aims low. Teufelsdroeckh may live on a narrow lane; but his thoughts, starting along the narrow lane, ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... commanding natural openings for our attack. These are almost impregnable. But there are pregnable points between them. Here, our method will be the same that the Japanese followed and that they learned from European armies. We shall concentrate in masses and throw in wave after wave of attack until we have gained the positions we desire. Once we have a tenable foothold on the crest of the range the Brown army must fall back and the rest will be ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... their cross-grained commander, Cuesta, he led a small British force up the valley of the Tagus to seize Madrid, while the chief French armies were engaged in distant provinces. In one sense he achieved his aim. He compelled the enemy to loose their hold on those provinces and concentrate to save the capital. And before they fully effected their concentration, he gave battle to King Joseph and Marshals Jourdan and Victor at Talavera (July 28th). Skilfully posting the Spaniards behind intrenchments and in gardens where their raw ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... at first, of the fertility of the earth in its wildness; and so far, her attributes are to some degree confused with those of the Thessalian Gaia and the Phrygian Cybele. Afterwards, and it is now that her most characteristic attributes begin to concentrate themselves, [103] she separates herself from these confused relationships, as specially the goddess of agriculture, of the fertility of the earth when furthered by human skill. She is the preserver of the seed sown in hope, under many epithets derived ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... it may be to concentrate all authority in the hands of one man is shown by the melancholy record of the wars of Louis XIV. To aggrandize France and gain fame for himself, Louis plunged his country into a series of struggles from which it emerged completely exhausted. Like ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... difference there is between fancy and fact. During this brief absence of mine, had come home the brother who had always seemed to concentrate the hatred of the whole family towards me for the wrong they assumed I had done to the youngest daughter who loved me. On my return I found the peaceful home I left in the morning a perfect pandemonium. Sarah was fairly frantic. The whole family were abusing her. The returned brother especially, ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott
... as everyone (except possibly Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN and the cynic who professes to hate letters so much that he wishes that they cost a shilling a-piece to send) will agree, one good resolution which above all others you should concentrate upon for 1921, and that is to get back our penny postage. With so many comparatively unnecessary things still untaxed, it never should have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... as Joan of Arc rode forth from Vaucouleurs to liberate France. In much the same spirit Henry IV saw De Monts set sail for Acadia. The king would contribute nothing from the public purse or from his own. Sully, his prime minister, vigorously opposed colonizing because he wished to concentrate effort upon domestic improvements. He believed, in the second place, that there was no hope of creating a successful colony north of the fortieth parallel. Thirdly, he was in the ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... precaution to baffle any inquisitiveness on the part of his landlady by locking his sitting-room door and carrying away the key, but it was in a very different mood from his former light-hearted confidence that he sat down to his drawing-board in Great Cloister Street that morning. He could not concentrate his mind; his enthusiasm and his ideas ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... girl in the orange sweater had a handful of scribbled notes, and was telling them where to push the pills. There were other objects on the map, too—pistol-cartridges, and cigarettes, and foil-wrapped food-concentrate wafers. Paula, seeing ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... said at length, 'is more like my own than I imagined. I, too, have wavered for a long time between literature and science, and now at last I have quite decided—quite—that scientific study is the only safe line for me. The fact is, a man must concentrate himself. Not only for the sake of practical success, but—well, for ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... can do," replied Mrs. Fortescue, "is to concentrate all of your love upon your wife, for then you have no other man ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... own breakfast room reading his own morning paper. To give even the faintest suggestion of the strength and size of the people in this sense in the course of a dramatic performance is obviously impossible. That is why it is so easy on the stage to concentrate all the pathos and dignity upon such persons as Charles I. and Mary Queen of Scots, the vampires of their people, because within the minute limits of a stage there is room for their small virtues and no room for their enormous crimes. It would be impossible ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... contributed much, some of ephemeral, some of lasting importance to the development of embryology. For this discussion, we will divide the seventeenth century into three overlapping, but generally distinct, periods; and, without pretence of presenting an exhaustive exposition, we will concentrate upon the concepts and directions of change characteristic of each period, with primary reference to those individuals who best reveal the character of seventeenth-century ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... demon drags down by the hair is another kind of quarrel from that of Orcagna between a feathered angel and bristly fiend for a diminutive soul—reminding us, as it forcibly did at first, of a vociferous difference in opinion between a cat and a cockatoo. But Buonaroti knew that it was useless to concentrate interest in the countenances, in a picture of enormous size, ill lighted; and he preferred giving full play to the powers of line-grouping, for which he could have found no nobler field. Let us not by unwise comparison mingle with our admiration ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... for what position you are fitted; but never refuse to give your services in whatever capacity it my be the opinion of others who are competent to judge that you may benefit your neighbors and your country. My second rule is, when you agree to undertake public duties, concentrate every energy and faculty in your possession with the determination to discharge those duties to the best of your ability. Lastly, I would counsel you that, in deciding on the line which you will take ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... to the admired and trusted doctor all her peculiar mental and moral symptoms. She was saying that she could no longer manage the house, could not concentrate her mind on anything, could not refrain from strange caprices, could not remain calm, could not keep her temper, and was the worst conceivable wife for such a paragon as Arthur Prohack. Her daughter alone had saved the household organism from a ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... could fall suddenly upon the Germans they might do so, but it is no easy matter to move large bodies of men quickly, and to be successful they ought to be able to hurl themselves against the Germans before they have time to concentrate. I have no doubt whichever side we issue out on, we shall get on fairly enough as long as we have the assistance of the guns of the forts; but beyond that I don't think we shall get. The Germans must by this time know the country vastly better ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... cared for? What was to become of the race, if the few women who loved art, and through art learned really to love their kind, were forever to be denied? And here was Vina Nettleton with the spiritual power to concentrate her dream into an avatar (if into the midst of her solitary labors, a great man's love should suddenly come)!... Did the Destiny Master fall asleep for a century at a time, that such a genius for motherhood should be denied, while the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... persecution depend on the truth of the doctrine defended, in which case they will divide on both sides. Such persons, again, as are more strongly impressed with the cruelty of actual executions than with the danger of false theories, may concentrate their indignation on the Catholics of Languedoc and Spain; while those who judge principles, not by the accidental details attending their practical realisation, but by the reasoning on which they are founded, will arrive at a verdict adverse to the Protestants. These comparative ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... prostrated by these conflicting griefs and joys to be able to concentrate my mind upon affairs; I will ask our good friend here to break the news by wire or post to the Lady Gwendolen and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... always secure to it a liberal and efficient support. But beyond this object we have already seen the operation of the system productive of discontent. In some sections of the Republic its influence is deprecated as tending to concentrate wealth into a few hands, and as creating those germs of dependence and vice which in other countries have characterized the existence of monopolies and proved so destructive of liberty and the general good. A large portion ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... poor copies of men. Our European vessels are beyond and above the West Asiatic and the African. He becomes at the best a kind of imitation Jack Tar. He will not, or rather he cannot, take the necessary trouble, concentrate his attention, fix his mind upon his "duties." He says "Inshallah;" he relies upon Allah; and he prays five times a day, when he should be giving or receiving orders. The younger generation of officers, it is true, drinks wine, and does not indulge in ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... to issue from her mind and heart. The lyric "Despondency and Aspiration" was hoped to be her best production, as it was certainly her most laborious effort. On it she was anxious to concentrate all her powers. It was meant to be the prologue to a poetical work which was to be called The Christian Temple. It was her purpose, "by tracing out the workings of passion—the struggle of human affection—through various climes, ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... of our uplifting of mind towards the Divine Goodness Which has thus deigned to come amongst us is the very reason for our attention to the words in the act of consecration, and makes the priest pronounce them distinctly and reverently. Some scrupulous folk, however, concentrate their whole attention on being intent and attentive; but this is really a distraction, and not attention, for its object is precisely the being attentive. The uplifting, then, of our minds to God in the consecration has indeed to be the very greatest, not, indeed, ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... headway. It is entering very largely into the instructive and the entertaining departments of the world's curriculum. Millions of dollars are annually expended in the production of films. Companies of trained and practiced actors are brought together to enact pantomimes which will concentrate within the space of a few minutes the most entertaining and instructive incidents of history and the leading happenings ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... made this winter (1831-32) with his Shelleyan "Sonnet to a Cloud" and his imitations of Byron's "Hebrew Melodies," from which he learnt how to concentrate expression, and to use rich vowel-sounds and liquid consonants with rolling effect. A deeper and more serious turn of thought, that gradually usurped the place of the first boyish effervescence, has been traced by him to the influence of Byron, in whom, while others saw nothing more than wit and ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... spy on the house. But this, when they reached it, only confirmed their first guess. The signals were much more plainly visible here, and it was obvious now, as it had not been before, that the screen they had noticed had been erected as much to concentrate the flashes and make them more easily visible to a receiving station as to conceal the operator. So they turned and figured a straight line as well as they could from the spot where the flashes were made. Harry ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... that our country would also have come out victorious. For during further continuation of this protracted war, Russia would have become even more exhausted and plundered than now. The masters of that combination, who would concentrate in their hands the fruits of the victory, that is, Great Britain and America, would have displayed toward our country the same methods which were displayed by Germany during the peace negotiations. ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... agent of confusion, more widely human in character. Every idea strongly held and, on the other side, strongly challenged, kindles spontaneously into passion, and every great cause has its poetry as well as its dialetics. Men, forced to concentrate all their thought on one reform, come to see it edged with strange, mystical colours. Let justice only triumph in this one regard, and our keel will grate on the shore of the Fortunate Islands, the Earthly Paradise. All the harshness of life will be dulcified; we shall lie dreaming ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... his ton of luggage. He leaned out of the carriage window and exchanged hand kisses with Peggy until the curve of the line cut her off. Then he settled down in his corner with the Morning Post. But he could not concentrate his attention on the morning news. This strange costume in which he was clothed seemed unreal, monstrous; no longer the natty dress in which he had been proud to prink the night before, but a nightmare, Nessus-like investiture, ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... that it helps to concentrate the minds of the sitters, and it will also furnish a convenient place to rest our hands. Anyhow, all the great investigators began this way," I replied, pacifically. "We may also require ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... on her bed for nearly half an hour, trying to concentrate her thoughts on the present and future, yet unable to keep them from flying back to the past, the long-ago past, which lately had seemed unreal, as if she had dreamed it; the past when she and Victoria had been all the world to ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... forms of the game; (2) the captain's place is near the dividing line, instead of at the farthest point from it as in I; this gives the guards of his team, on the opposite side of the ground, a greater opportunity to reach him than in I, while any increased tendency to concentrate play near the dividing line is offset by the scoring of the ball through completing a round of the circle, and by the greater freedom allowed the guards; (3) the guards may run at large, not being confined ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... invest in the future. My tax proposals are a major step in that direction. To supplement these proposals, I ask that Congress enact changes in Federal tax laws that will speed up plant expansion and the purchase of new equipment. My recommendations will concentrate this job-creation tax incentive in areas where the unemployment rate now runs over 7 percent. Legislation to get this started must be approved ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Gerald R. Ford • Gerald R. Ford
... a huge parchment map of the valley, Nelson nodded, and his keen black eyes became very serious. "I want you to concentrate every man you can muster in each of those cities. Meanwhile tell the populace,"—he drew a deep breath—"that Altara will certainly be returned ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... of thinking, 'tis for women, kind and wise, These neglected scattered units to enrol and mobilize, Their vagabond activities to curb and concentrate, And turn the skittish hoyden to a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... a single glance I knew that the great treasure of gold, which had seemed to me overwhelming because of its immensity, was as nothing in comparison with this other treasure wherein riches were so concentrate and sublimate that I had the very essence of them: and I reeled and trembled again as I hugged the thought to me that by my finding of it I was made master ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... attention must move and force the interest of the spectator toward the new goal. But such help by the writing on the wall is, after all, extraneous to the original character of the photoplay. As long as we study the psychological effect of the moving pictures themselves, we must concentrate our inquiry on the moving pictures as such and not on that which the playwright does for the interpretation of the pictures. It may be granted that the letters and newspaper articles take a middle place. They are a part of the picture, but their influence ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... To concentrate her thoughts on mortgages and deeds when she was burning to be on her way to France—to confer power of attorney, audit bills for taxes, for up-keep of line fences, when she was mad to go to New York and find out how quickly she could be sent to France—such things seemed more ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... combination not to be found probably in one man in a thousand. Such Admirable Crichtons are rare in any profession or business, and that of mining is no exception. Men who profess too much are to be distrusted. Your best men are they who concentrate their energies and intellects in special directions. The Mining Manager should, if possible, be chosen from men holding certificates of competency from some technical mining school and, of course, should, in addition, ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... this he muttered in a wildly casual kind of a way, at no one in particular, as his gaze flitted from one object in the room to another, always passing over Beth almost impersonally. But in a moment she saw his gaze concentrate upon ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... the door softly and sat down at his desk, trying to concentrate on his mail. He felt a sudden chill. But he managed, after a fashion, to fix his mind upon immediate problems. Twice during the morning he made a move toward leaving to do some soliciting, but almost at once he invented an excuse ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... by experience that when his nerves were out of hand the best thing for him to do was to work. He must sit down to the table and force himself, at all costs, to concentrate his mind on some one thought. He took from his red portfolio a manuscript containing a sketch of a small work of the nature of a compilation, which he had planned in case he should find it dull ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... rather than dividing up our departments by narrow subjects, we would organize them around the great purposes of government. Rather than scattering responsibility by adding new levels of bureaucracy, we would focus and concentrate the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Richard Nixon • Richard Nixon
... said Bob Sawyer, turning up his coat collar, and pulling the shawl over his mouth to concentrate the fumes of a ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... was an agricultural country until the beginning of manufacturing and the revolution in communication made it profitable to concentrate people and capital in the cities. Between 1850 and 1880 the number of cities with a population of 50,000 more than doubled. The actual construction of the houses, the water and lighting systems, and the sewers for these communities gave employment to labor. As cities grew, their more ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... alluvial and every creek and river bed is therefore a potential diamond mine. The only labour necessary is to remove the upper layer of earth,—the "overburden" as it is termed—dig up the gravel, shake it out, and you have the concentrate from which a naked savage can pick the precious stones. They are precisely like the mines of German South-West Africa. So far no "pipes" have been discovered in the Kasai basin. Many indications have been found, and it is inevitable that they will be located in time. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... to concentrate itself more and more in certain groups which we call 'civilised nations.' The literati of the last century were for ever in fear of a new conquest of the barbarians, but only because their imagination was overshadowed and frightened by ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... attempting to interview a large number of ex-slaves the workers should now concentrate on one or two of the more interesting and intelligent people, revisiting them, establishing friendly relations, and drawing them out over a period ...
— Slave Narratives, Administrative Files (A Folk History of - Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves) • Works Projects Administration
... the Alexandrian school. The loss of active life, consequent on this gradual dissolution, was much increased when Alexandria fell under Roman sway. Then the influence of the school was extended over the whole known world, but men of letters began to concentrate at Rome rather than at Alexandria. In that city, however, there were new forces in operation which produced a second grand outburst of intellectual life. The new movement was not in the old direction—had, indeed, nothing in common with it. With ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... clues and was following these industriously. For the moment, however, he must drop this work and concentrate his mind upon the tremendous and remarkable business which his coming marriage involved. He had a series of articles to write for the Monitor, and he applied ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... choice. A competitor would concentrate where your biggest volume of sale was going on, though; political enemies would try to get up here, and that's what this gang's ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... though the man was dressed in the extreme of fashion, he had no difficulty in recognizing him. It was Leo Bandrist, the lord of El Diablo. Gregory returned the islander's nod and hurried to the street. As he walked to the cannery he found it hard to concentrate his thoughts on the problem of raising the desired funds. Rock was a royal old hypocrite. Of that he was sure now. The financier had used his influence among the jobbers to some purpose. He had knocked him through his local paper. And now he was telling him, almost threatening him, to stay away ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... ambition; it was to the right of keeping he sacrificed the right of having. The whole extent of his fault was revealed to him by the simple sight of the pretender. All which passed in the mind of Fouquet was lost upon the persons present. He had five minutes to concentrate his meditations upon this point of the case of conscience; five minutes, that is to say, five ages, during which the two kings and their family scarcely found time to breathe after so terrible a shock. D'Artagnan, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... are the most intense and lasting bonds of earthly love. One by one let us count them over and recall each act and bond of love, and think of all that we may trust them for and all in which they stood by us, and then as we concentrate the whole weight of recollection and affection, let us put God in that place of confidence and think He is all that and ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... had a larger experience of them, dear, you will find that there is usually a reason, or at least a primitive instinct of some sort, at the root of their actions. But, seriously, we must really concentrate our attention upon the poet, for my other engagement will call me away at four, which only leaves me ten ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... love, absolutely. That is my strongest point. As soon as I find a champion, I am going to concentrate all my energy and all my talent on falling dead ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... door from the kitchen and stood looking in and laughing, with her hands on her hips. By this time the rapier was making a criss-cross pattern of flashing lines close to the young man's head while Alice, in the enjoyment of her exercise, seemed to concentrate all the glowing rays of her beauty in her face, her ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... failed. On the Great Lakes and the high seas the navy had won glory, but only a handful of privateers was left to keep up the fight. The collapse of Napoleon's power had brought a lull in Europe, and the British were free to concentrate their energies as never before on the conflict in America. The effects were promptly seen in the campaign which led to the capture of Washington and the burning of the Federal Capitol in August, 1814. They were equally manifest in a well-laid plan for a great ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg |
