"Defeat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hundred eighty thousand soldiers would expire in October. He must have half a million to take their places. A Congressman objected that elections were approaching; that the rigorous law he proposed would be intensely unpopular; that it might mean the defeat, at the polls, of many Republican Representatives; it might even mean the President's defeat. He replied that he ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... better knowledge still Which nowise proved more constant; gain, to-day, Was toppling loss to-morrow, lay at last —Knowledge, the golden?—lacquered ignorance! As gain—mistrust it! Not as means to gain: Lacquer we learn by: ... The prize is in the process: knowledge means Ever-renewed assurance by defeat That victory is somehow still to reach, But love is victory, the prize itself: Love—trust to! Be rewarded for the trust In ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... the letter is curious enough; exhibiting the Sovereign, on the one side, taking secret counsel of the Opposition, and the Ministry, on the other, coming down to Parliament with measures which they were well aware His Majesty was eagerly watching for a constitutional excuse to thwart and defeat. ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... forgotten ideas form in our minds with old places when we return to them, he began to think the same thoughts, only that now, in place of progressing, they passed in an inverse direction with a confusion of defeat. ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... bought, the captain and the men who were to take the friars over had been chosen, and almost everything was ready for their setting sail, when the plan was defeated I know not whence or how. My disappointment and the great sadness which I felt in seeing the defeat of an expedition which I so much desired, and for whose fulfilment had not sufficed his Holiness's permission and the special ordinance from your Majesty, made me think that this was the will of God; thus I was forced to abandon the attempt. But God, whose ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... defeat, of General Burgoyne's army by the bad conduct, and desertion, of his Indian ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... knows through what trials and humblings we may have to pass before the full strength of the nation is duly arrayed and led to victory. We must be patient, as our fathers were patient; even in our worst calamities, we must remember that defeat itself may be a gain where it costs our enemy more in relation to his strength than it costs ourselves. But if, in the inscrutable providence of the Almighty, this generation is disappointed in its lofty aspirations ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of little worth, Yellow Brian," she said softly, and her eyes steadied him, "if it were won without reverses. Few men have the luck to win always, and a touch of defeat is not an ill thing, perhaps. When we had this news of you from Galway, a week since, I sent off a galley to find Blake at the Cove of Cork and seek aid of him. Also my kinsmen will return to Gorumna before going home to Erris, and we are ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... for, respecting the connection, if any, between the narrative of Colonel Menendez, the bat wing nailed to the door of the house, and Mr. Colin Camber, I have not the foggiest notion. In this, at last, I have triumphed over Auguste Dupin. Auguste Dupin never confessed defeat." ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... to such a story often is written last, because of the necessity of writing a running account of the game as it progresses, yet of giving final results in the lead. The feature most frequently played up is the final result, with additional mention of the causes of victory or defeat, the equality or inequality of the opposing players, and any important incidents. Always too, of course, the names of the teams, the time, and the place are given. But the score is regularly the feature,—so much so that if one is in doubt about what to feature ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... chief of state: President MELES Zenawi (since 1 June 1991); appointed by the Council of Representatives following the military defeat of the MENGISTU government; following the elections to the National Assembly scheduled for May 1995 the lower house of the National Assembly will nominate a new president head of government: Prime Minister ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... gathered himself up after his defeat, and stood upon his legs again. He was mortified at the result of his attempt to release the officer, and improve his situation in the boat. He had thought of using the tiller as a weapon, and now he was sorry he had not done so. Doubtless it was better for him that he had not; for that would only ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... of Louisbourg arose not from victory but from defeat; not from military strength but from naval weakness; not from a new, adventurous spirit of attack, but from a half-despairing hope of keeping one last foothold by the sea. It was not begun till after the fortunes of Louis ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... the battle-field and propose to crush the other side (defeat the enemy), you have got to do one thing: you have got to make your rifle fire better than his, and you have got to ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... "First defeat of Middlesex," replied Clarence; "Surrey's at the head of the table now for the Championship! Fine batting by Gloucester at Nottingham yesterday—319 to Notts 299 first innings, and ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... power of words to express. But I had a suspicion that the man who should be bold enough to attempt the passage of that barrier would have to face many a rebuff, as well as the very strong probability of ultimate ignominious, irretrievable defeat; and as I was then—and still am, for that matter— a rather sensitive individual, I quickly determined that I at least would not dare such a fate. Moreover, I seemed to find in the drift of what she had said—and more particularly in her manner ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... which meat and potatoes, baked beans, boiled and fried eggs, Indian pudding, and pumpkin pies figured prominently. Often as many as one hundred and twenty-five eggs were eaten. After dinner came wrestling, boxing, and rough-and-tumble contests, in which defeat was not always taken with the best ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... remembering only that they were gentlemen and Spaniards. He offered at the same time to land with his men, to assist Hojeda in revenging the death of Cosa and the rest. Nicuessa accordingly landed with 400 men, which was more than sufficient to defeat the Indians, whose town was taken and burnt. By this victory the Spaniards acquired a vast number of slaves, and got so much booty that each shared seven thousand pieces of gold. Nicuessa and Hojeda now agreed to separate, that each might pursue the plan of discovery and settlement which was directed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... territories by their overlord. To be sure, France was having much trouble with her Flemish cities, which were in revolt again under the noted brewer-nobleman, Van Artevelde,[18] yet it seemed presumption for England to attack her—England, so feeble that she had been unable to avenge her own defeat by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of voice, while a chaplain in the Revolutionary army was called by the patriots the "Great gun of the gospel." The defeated charmer, acknowledged himself outdone and bounding from the bedside hid his defeat in the forest. Mr. Boardman died about the time his parishioners and neighbors were on the famous expedition to Cape Breton and the capture of Louisburg and when Whitfield's preaching was arousing the church. He was twice married and had six children. ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... being frightened they became more furious; and when they were wounded they would pluck the arrows out of their bodies and hurl them back at the Spaniards, falling dead in the very act. After one such severe defeat and massacre the natives scattered for many months, hiding among the mountains and trying to collect and succour their decimated families; but the Spaniards, who with their dogs grew skilful at ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... field, my dear—fairly out of the field. Acknowledge the defeat with a good grace. Let us shake hands, and drink a glass of wine together in token ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... long winter, as they were very fat. They often endeavored to break open the door of the hut, and one of them even clambered upon the roof, and endeavored to get inside through the hole we had made to allow the smoke to escape; it required the united energies of all of us to defeat his intentions. ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... pigeon. I read the smile on Kingsley's lip. It was brief, momentary, pleasantly contemptuous. Then, suddenly, as if he had newly recollected his policy, his countenance assumed a new expression—one more natural to the youth who has been depressed by losses, vexed at defeat, but flatters himself that the atonement is at hand. Perhaps, something of the latent purpose of his mind increased the intense bitterness in the manner and tones ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... countenance which tells of present cheerfulness or glad onward-looking; there was no spring in his step; his voice had fallen to a lower key, and often he spoke with that hesitation in choice of words which may be noticed in persons whom defeat has made self-distrustful. Ceaseless perplexity and dread gave a wandering, sometimes a wild, expression ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... hour with the doctor that evening, and went about his ordinary work for the next few days with a scowl which boded no good to any one who chanced to cross him, least of all to those of us who had contributed to his defeat. ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Parliamentary Army, then quartered at Northampton. Being persuaded by Prince Rupert to disregard the warning, the King set off to march northward, but was surprised on the route, and a disastrous defeat followed. ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... grew something grimmer when he recalled him—the one person, boy and man, whom he had really hated in the world. They had been enemies from childhood, and once in a bout of wrestling at the Chiswick school Neil had thrown him by an unfair trick and taunted him continually thereafter on his defeat. Robert had made a compact with himself that some day he would pay Neil Jameson back. He had not forgotten it—he never forgot such things—but he had never seen or heard of Neil Jameson after leaving Chiswick. He might have been dead for anything Robert Turner knew. Then, when John Kesley ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Defeat the measure at any cost. The more the merrier, and charge it to me. BREWSTER. P.S. Please send many cables and mark ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... firm of Topman and Gusher, which I need scarcely tell the reader was a creation of his. Mrs. Chapman soon had enough to do at pushing her way into society. But the more she pushed the more did little social obstructions seem to rise up and defeat her efforts. She would associate with first-rate society, she said, or none; and Mattie should be introduced and shine in ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... argument, but defeat gave him far more happiness than could have come from victory. Leaving her that night, he closed his hand over her delicate fingers in a clasp which left her smiling in wonder after he had gone. She watched horse and rider disappear into the whiteness of the new winter till ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... slept profoundly, on the eve of a great event—of a great contest to be met when the day should break—of a critical victory, depending on him alone to save the Guards of England from defeat and shame; their honor and their hopes rested on his solitary head; by him they would be lost or saved; but, unharassed by the magnitude of the stake at issue, unhaunted by the past, unfretted by the future, he slumbered the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... of Charleston, and the history of every corner, and when he chose he could make his knowledge interesting. In this mood he was a pleasant companion, and Phyl, her recent experience almost forgotten, let herself be led and instructed, not knowing that this armistice was the equivalent of a defeat. ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... people now ranged themselves round the kitchen fire, where good humour seemed to maintain an absolute dominion; and Partridge not only forgot his shameful defeat, but converted hunger into thirst, and soon became extremely facetious. We must however quit this agreeable assembly for a while, and attend Mr Jones to Mrs Waters's apartment, where the dinner which he had bespoke was now on the table. Indeed, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... will be a long and on the whole a successful future perhaps. Think of the variety and the opportunity which this great, multiform, breathing world holds forth to a man; the friends, the activities, the changes of scene, the surprises, the conflicts, success and failure, hope and fear, triumph, defeat—life, in a word. It is a divine thing, a glorious thing, the God-given birthright of all men. It is the molding of character, the endless, stimulating struggle, the growing sense of human brotherhood, the faces and hands of our fellow creatures, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... when the war resulted in the defeat of the Chinese and the treaty of Nanking in 1842 with its repudiation of all their demands, the compulsory cession of the island of Hongkong, the opening of not only Canton but Amoy, Foochow, Shanghai, and Ningpo as treaty ports, the location of a British ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... conscience has been replaced by an empty purse, to fill which is their one object in life. Their general is their god, and they follow him or desert him just according as he leads them to victory and plunder, or to defeat. They march from country to country, selling their services to whichever side they think will give them the richest booty. Swedes! I can assure you, there is not a Swede left in the Swedish army, or, at all events, very few. The men the great Gustavus Adolphus brought over the ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... his beloved must meet * Sad pain, and from her charms bear sore defeat: What is Love's taste? They asked and answered I, * Sweet is the taste ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... other towns, rivers and boundaries; in nature study, many classifications, the detailed study of leaves, and the study of many uncommon wild plants. The teaching of facts that cannot function in the lives of pupils directly encourages the mere collecting habit, and thus tends to defeat the purpose here proposed. Not that we do not wish children to collect facts; but while acquiring them we want children to carry the responsibility of discovering ways of turning them to account, and mere collecting tends to dull this sense ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... considerable excitement about the hearths of Glamerton, generally, in consequence of the news of the master's defeat carried home by the children. For, although it was amazing how little of the doings at school the children were in the habit of reporting—so little, indeed, that this account involved revelations of the character and proceedings ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... and I should say that afterwards, between the repulse of McClellan and Pope and the Battle of Gettysburg, most of the adherents of the North were consciously "hoping against hope," and, especially at the time of the defeat at Chancellorsville and the Northern invasion by Lee in 1863, were almost ready to confess the case desperate.[A] Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson altered the face of affairs, and revived a confidence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... will consider Borrow's 'craze' for verse translations remained with him to the end. We know with what equanimity he bore his defeat in early years. Did he not make humorous 'copy' out of it in Lavengro. It must have been a greater disappointment that his publisher would have none of his wares when he had proved by writing ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... hurrying on now to his irresistible conclusion. "She found that he was infatuated with the famous stage beauty, that he was planning to marry another, her rival. She accused him of it, threatened to defeat his plans. He knew she knew his unfaithfulness. Instead of being your sister's murderer, Dr. Jermyn was helping her get the evidence that would save both her and perhaps win Miss Fox ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... he beheld his company, and the wealth he had obtained. Mazin related what had befallen him, of dangers, and hunger, and thirst; his safe arrival in the islands of Waak al Waak; the deliverance of his wife from prison, and the defeat of the army sent to oppose his return. He mentioned also the reconciliation between the sisters of his wife, and whatever had happened to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of Napoleon's second reign passed rapidly away. The defeat at Waterloo restored Louis XVIII. to the throne, with a better prospect of its permanent possession. Napoleon, in the long agony at St. Helena, expiated the crime of raising the banner of Equal Rights for All Men, in opposition to the exclusive privileges of kings ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... themselves—how foredoomed to failure is the preaching which continues in the world of religion this exaltation of human sufficiency and natural values, domesticating them within the church. It is to laugh to see them there! It means so transparent a surrender, so pitiable a confession of defeat. If anything can bring the natural man into the sanctuary it is that there he has to bring his naturalness to the bar of a more-than-natural standard. If he comes at all, it will not be for entertainment and expansion but because there we insist ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... more and more fierce and cruel as time passed, and only three years before General Wayne won his lasting victory, General St. Clair had suffered his terrible defeat by the Indians. Through this defeat, the power of the whites in the West was shaken as it had never been before; the savages were filled with pride and hope by the greatest triumph they had achieved over their enemies; and all the settlements in ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... On the 8th Battle of Abookir, 1801. If you take care to pronounce the victory A-book-er, you may possibly get a jest out of it in connection with a welshing transaction on the turf, when you can call it "the defeat of A-book-er." Good at a hunting-breakfast where the host is a nonagenarian, who can observe "1801?—the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... flame the Mission was pouring out, retreating like an army in defeat. Every avenue was congested with the moving multitude, small streets emptying into larger ones, houses ejecting their inmates. At each corner the tide was swollen by new streams, rolling into the wider current, swaying to adjustment, then pressing on. Looking forward Pancha could see the ranks ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... week of August the excitement in Paris reached its greatest height, and culminated on the Saturday after the battle of Weissenburg. Of this defeat John Turner had, as I believe, the news before any other in Paris. Indeed, the evil tidings came to the city from the English Times. The stout banker, whose astuteness I had never doubted, displayed at this time a number of those qualities—such as courage, cool-headedness ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... damosels that accompanied her: which they caried vnto their Isle; which thing in all the Indians countrey they esteeme to be the greatest victory: for afterward they marry these virgins, and loue them aboue all measure. The Spanyard that made this relation, tolde mee that after this defeat he went to dwell with Oathcaqua, and had bene with him full eight yeeres, euen vntill the time that he was sent vnto me. The place of Calos is situate vpon a riuer which is beyond the Cape of Florida, forty or fifty leagues towards the Southwest: and the dwelling of Othcaqua is on this side the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... Ministry had been imposed on the Court, and although his policy of accepting the fusion of the orders was followed, his influence really amounted to little. The Queen and the Comte d'Artois soon plucked up courage after their first defeat, and took up once more the policy of repression; but {63} as it was now apparently useless to attempt to stem the tide by means of speeches or decrees, they persuaded the King that force was the only means. By using the army he could ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... prepare and calm the people for the time when certain news will be had of the occurrences in Portugal. They will bring back a report of everything which has been learned there of affairs, even to the defeat of the Infante Don Antonio. I realize that it is necessary to be diligent in order to effect the desired ends, or that at least I shall be informed of the conditions there, and the forces with which the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... obliged to you, Oliver," said Doggie, finally. "But our ideas are entirely different. You're primitive, you know. You seem to find your happiness in defying the elements, whereas I find mine in adopting the resources of civilization to defeat them." ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... height of crime which commonly in the end accompanies inordinate ambition. She had won him to consent to the murder, but she doubted his resolution; and she feared that the natural tenderness of his disposition (more humane than her own) would come between, and defeat the purpose. So with her own hands armed with a dagger, she approached the king's bed; having taken care to ply the grooms of his chamber so with wine, that they slept intoxicated, and careless of their charge. There lay Duncan in a sound sleep after ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... to his traditions, has consistently demanded compromise before electing anyone, and where that has been refused, the candidates have gone down to defeat. Hyndman, founder of the Social Democratic Federation and the ablest Socialist in public life; Quelch, editor of "Justice," the official organ of that party, for more than a decade, and Geo. Lansbury, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... attempt to enter or communicate with any one within be confined only to this single point? And why not satisfy himself at once if any trespassers were lounging around the walls, and then confront them boldly in the open? Their discovery and identification was as important as the defeat ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... holiness of life was the chief thing, and she could not make out that it was the monopoly of any creed or any sect, or any age of the world. He gave her his blessing, and, not to acknowledge a complete defeat, he told Madame Fournier that if the dear young lady met with poignant griefs and mortifications, for which there were abundant opportunities in her circumstances, he had expectations that she might then seek refuge and consolation in the tender ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... the part of the author demands a corresponding change in the actor. Clearly, he must speak verse differently from prose, though there are foes to poetry who beg him to break up the lines and defeat the efforts of the poet; and he must adopt a manner in a blank-verse tragedy unsuitable to a play by Mr Barrie. Moreover, he ought to aim at seeming natural in both. Here is the rub; he must aim at seeming, not being, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... worthy of him. Mr. Alcott had spent more than the income of the school in its equipment, creating debts which Louisa afterward paid; all his educational ideals were at stake, and he could not accept defeat easily. However, in 1839, a colored girl was admitted to the school, and all his pupils were withdrawn, except the little negress and four whites, three of whom were his own daughters. So ended the Temple school. The event was very fateful for the Alcott family, but, much ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... He set on his bride's head the imperial crown studded with twenty-five hundred gems. She became the Empress Catherine I. of Russia and went to the wars with her husband, Peter the Great, saved him from surrendering to the Turks, and made a success of a great defeat ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... is, even in mere trifles, to get the better of his antagonist, by placing him in a ludicrous view. I have known him sometimes use the same art, when hard pressed in serious disputation. Goldsmith, I remember, to retaliate for many a severe defeat which he has suffered from him, applied to him a lively saying in one of Cibber's comedies, which puts this part of his character in a strong light. 'There is no arguing with Johnson; for, IF HIS PISTOL MISSES FIRE, HE KNOCKS YOU DOWN WITH ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... the unique comedy The Broken Jug. Finally he attempted another great drama in verse, Penthesilea, embodying in the old classical story the tragedy of his own desperate struggle for Guiscard, and his crushing defeat. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... we could learn the lesson of my text; and feel that, however often in the past I may have broken down, the word of Christ's command, which thrills into my will, is also the word of Christ's promise which should stay my heart, and give me the assurance that past defeat shall ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... he now was, and that twice in succession. Turn as he might, he could find no way in which to reopen an approach to either the Oxford tutor or the Crimean nurse. They were plainly too much for him, and he had to acknowledge his defeat. The experience was good for him; he did not realize this at the time, nor did he enjoy the sensation of not getting what he wanted. Nevertheless, a reverse or two was due. Not that his success was having any undesirable effect upon him; his Dutch ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... he took his mother to the ball game and saw the Cubs defeat the Giants. He tried to explain the game to his mother, who pretended an interest and tried hard to understand. But she found her truant fancy going elsewhere—it centered about this boy of hers, her daughter and also about the husband who could not endure ...
— Ted Marsh on an Important Mission • Elmer Sherwood
... whole world, and each man feels as if his own forefathers fought them. Mine, by the by, if they fought them at all, must have been on the side of Hannibal; for, certainly, I sympathized with him, and exulted in the defeat of the Romans on their own soil. They excite much the same emotion of general hostility that the English do. Byron has written some very fine stanzas on the battle-field,—not so good as others that he has written on classical scenes ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eagerness to enforce it have travestied it into the misleading maxim, "That attack is the best defence." Hence again an amateurish notion that defence is always stupid or pusillanimous, leading always to defeat, and that what is called "the military spirit" means nothing but taking the offensive. Nothing is further from the teaching or the practice of the best masters. Like Wellington at Torres Vedras, they ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... of Crawford and Brady, formed a dangerous horde of robbers, who, for years, kept the whole colony in terror. For a while they plundered without hindrance, till a party of about a dozen attacked the house of an old gentleman named Taylor, who had the courage to fight and defeat them. With his three sons, his carpenter, and his servant, he fired upon the advancing ruffians, whilst his daughters rapidly reloaded the muskets. The robbers retreated, leaving their leader—Crawford—and two or three others, who had been wounded, to be captured by Mr. ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... you're a Camp Fire Girl," he added, as if it were not so much of a defeat to be beaten by a Camp Fire Girl as by ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... Ever since they were small boys in grammar school, the brothers had been constructing miniature monoplanes, biplanes, and seaplanes, which they had pitted against the best product of other lads in the neighborhood and surrounding towns, without once meeting defeat. Many of these specimens of youthful ingenuity they still preserved, suspended in bedroom and attic, where they were a never-ending source of interest to visitors at the Ross homestead ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... cloth. It came into favor about the time of the defeat of the Berbers by General Gordon in his campaign against the Mahdi ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... here I must confess, to my shame, that my first definite thought on realising my condition was not thankfulness to God for having saved me from manifold danger, but one of anger and impatience because I had been foiled in my purpose. It seemed to me as though defeat tracked my steps everywhere. Ever and always I was outwitted by more clever brains than my own, and now when I fancied I had wealth and power within my grasp, it was snatched from me in a moment. I did not remember the probability that the supposed ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Exquisite art and degrading corruption were contemporary in Greece as well as in Rome. Phidias and Iktinos had scarcely completed the Parthenon, when the glory of Athens had departed; Phidias died in prison; and the Spartans set up in the city the memorials of their own triumph and of Athenian defeat. It was the same in ancient Rome, where art was at its greatest height when the people were in their most degraded condition. Nero was an artist, as well as Domitian, two of the greatest monsters of the Empire. If the "Beautiful" had been ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... those who give way to despair; but the blue devils attack the best hearted at times, and for once I felt the hopelessness of my position, and began to think it useless to struggle further. Perhaps, after all, it would be better to accept defeat and surrender myself. Better that than being hunted like a hare, as I was. And then my thoughts were cut short. Something soft and furry sprang into my lap. It was Pompon, Le Brusquet's ape, and he looked into my face with ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... the golden rover, recalls the tales of old romance, how ladie bright unto her lover, some young knight, smitten with her glance, would point out some heroic labour, some unheard-of deed of fame; he must carve out with his sabre, and ennoble thus his name. He, a giant must defeat sure, he must free the land from tain, he must kill some monstrous creature, or return not till 'twas slain. Then she'd smile on him victorious, call him the bravest in the land, fame and her, to win, how glorious—win and keep ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... advertised as a health food. When the National Playground Association was organized President Roosevelt cautioned its officers against too frequent use of the word "supervision" on the ground that supervision and direction were apt to defeat the very purpose of games and to stultify the play spirit. Is the little girl on the street who springs into a hornpipe or a jig to the tune of a hurdy-gurdy, or even the boy who runs before automobiles or trolley cars ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... significant words of his, uttered at the end of the year 1899 to an enterprising young man who had founded a Franco-German review in Munich and craved his moral support. "Is it possible," he exclaimed, "that it has already come to that? Well, a nation is not conquered until it accepts defeat. Whenever France gives up she ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the will of the Senate, we see that the people were still recognized as sovereign in legislation. The laws were good. All depended on their execution; and the Senate, as the administrative body, could practically defeat their operation when Caesar's term of office expired; and this it unwisely determined to do. The last thing it wished was any reform whatever; and, as Mr. Froude thinks, there must have been either reform or revolution. But this is not so clear to me. Aristocracy was all-powerful when money could ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... painted curtain. There must have been knowledge of color, modelling, and relief to have produced such an illusion, but the aim was petty and unworthy of the skill. There was evidently an advance technically, but some decline in the true spirit of art. Parrhasios finally suffered defeat at the hands of Timanthes of Kythnos, by a Contest between Ajax and Ulysses for the Arms of Achilles. Timanthes's famous work was the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, of which there ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... But Cromwell was his opponent, and Cromwell carried victory on his banners. The young king had invaded England, reached Worcester, and there felt the heavy hand of the Protector and his Ironsides. A fierce day's struggle, a defeat, a flight, and kingship in England was at an end while Cromwell lived; the last scion of royalty ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... spite of the fact that he could not offer any defense, or do aught but bend his back to the full weight of his humiliation, he had a certain majesty of demeanor. Revolt at humiliation alone precipitates the full measure of it, and the strength which survives defeat, even of one's own convictions, is of a good quality. Silence under wrongful accusation gives the ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... account of the whole incident. In his narrow black eyes there was a look of hatred for the friend who had always been his superior. He thought of the money incident, and of Sarudine's condescending attitude towards him, and he revenged himself for past slights by a minute description of his comrade's defeat. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... bringing a variety of presents for Kamrasi, which, in addition to the defeat of his enemies, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... offered everywhere to the two young horsemen, and the women and the old men—not many young men were left—wanted to hear of Gettysburg. They would not accept it as a defeat. It was merely a delay, they said. General Lee would march North once more next year. Harry knew in his heart that the South would never invade again, that the war would be for her henceforth a purely defensive one, but he said nothing. He could not discourage people ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... that was carried on, the different philosophical schools, the Buddhist reaction, its conflict with Brahmanism, its final defeat, and its influence on the victorious system ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... of the person and career of Satan; beginning with his creation; his original condition; his fall, and on to his kingdom with all its developments, and his final defeat and banishment. It presents a personage so mighty and so prominent in the world to-day that the Christian heart would fail, were it not for faith in the One who has triumphed over all ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... tell me that the various brands of socialists differ so much in their beliefs about this future that the bewildered layman can make nothing at all of their theories. Very well. They differ so much because there are so many different things we can do with this human race.... The defeat of death; the life period advancing to ten-score years all crowded with happy activity. The solution of labor's problem; increasing safety and decreasing hours of toil, and a way out for the unhappy consumer who is ground between labor and ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... am afraid, - but there was so much color, and such a fine, rich air of tradition about the whole place, that it seemed to me I would have risked listening to her. I turned away, however, with that sense of defeat which is always irritating to the appreciative tourist, and pot- tered about Beaune rather vaguely for the rest of my hour: looked at the statue of Gaspard Monge, the mathematician, in the little place (there is no place in France too little to contain an effigy ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... leaves, and threaten now, all ye boughs with menacings. Roar, grouse, and clamor on, all ye jangling jays. No longer can ye strike terror into these two souls, small though they be. The heart of the hunter has now been born for each. Fear and defeat are known no longer in the compass of their thoughts. Follow, follow, follow! So spake the good old savagery of the natural man. Better for this creature had it never disturbed these two with its ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... not boarded with us, was much enraged at our defeat, stigmatizing us as cowards for allowing ourselves to be driven from a deck upon which we had obtained a footing; he called upon us to renew the combat, and leading the way, he was the first on board ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... imperfection and capacity of unlimited progress. The true religious philosophy of an imperfect being is not a system of creed, but, as Socrates thought, an infinite search or approximation. Finality is but another name for bewilderment or defeat. Science gratifies the religious feeling without arresting it, and opens out the unfathomable mystery of the One Supreme into more explicit and manageable Forms, which express not indeed His Essence, which is wholly beyond our reach and higher than our faculties can climb, but His Will, and so ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... may be unhappy, if it rounds the play out with big and logical design. Death is not necessarily poignantly sad upon the stage, because death is life's logical end. And who can die better than he who dies greatly? [1] Defeat, sorrow and suffering have a place as exquisitely fitting as success, laughter and gladness, because they are inalienable elements of life. Into every life a little sadness must come, we know, and so the lives of our stage-loves may be "draped with woe," ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... dissatisfied with the world and their ancestral religion, hearts yearning for divine sympathy and love; "as many as were ordained to eternal life believed;" and these formed in every city the nucleus of a Christian church. Even at Lystra, where the defeat seemed so utter, a little group of faithful hearts gathered round the mangled body of the apostle outside the city gates; Eunice and Lois were there with tender womanly ministrations; and young Timothy, as he looked down on the pale and bleeding face, felt his heart ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... was now seen on the top of one of the besieging towers. He was pale as death. He trembled, but not with dismay only; ten thousand varying emotions tore his breast. To be thus set up as a monument of his own defeat, to be threatened with execution by an enemy he had contemned, to be exposed to such indignities by the unthinking ferocity of his colleague, filled him with such contending passions of revenge against friends and foes, that he forgot the present fear of death in turbulent wishes to deprive ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... kingdom; for he no sooner understood that the sultan was levying an army to disperse the rebels than he begged the command of it, which he found not difficult to obtain. As soon as he was empowered, he marched with so much expedition, that the sultan heard of the defeat of the rebels before he had received an account of his arrival in the army. And though this action rendered his name famous throughout the kingdom, it made no alteration in his disposition; but he was as affable ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... with rage at the memory of the morning's defeat which I had witnessed, Quint glared at me for a moment. Then he ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... appointment, in spite of our protests, to be transferred to the man to whom it is now regarded as practically transferred.[451] We will take the utmost care not to omit struggling for any point that it seems possible to maintain, and not to present the appearance of defeat if we have in any case failed to maintain it. You must shew your wisdom and greatness of mind by regarding your fame and high position as resting on your virtue, your public services, and the dignity of your character, and by believing that, if the perfidy ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... enjoy Nancy thoroughly a day or two should be devoted to it, and here, as at Chalons-sur-Marne, creature comforts are to be had in the hotels. In the Ducal Palace are shown the rich tapestries found in the tent of Charles le Temeraire after his defeat before Nancy, and other relics of that Haroun-al-Raschid of his epoch, who bivouacked off gold and silver plate, and wore on the battlefield diamonds worth half a million. In a little church outside the town, commemorative of this victory, are collected the cenotaphs of the Dukes ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... having long held him in his arms. "I know what return your brothers have made you for delivering them out of the hands of the black; but you shall be revenged to-morrow. Let us now go to the palace where your mother, who has shed so many tears on your account, expects me to rejoice with us for the defeat of our enemies. What a joy will it be to her to be informed, that my victory is your work!" "Sir," said Codadad, "give me leave to ask how you could know the adventure of the castle? Have any of my brothers, repenting, owned it to you?" ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... tumult in the street had died away they sought the needed repose. It had been decided that Brace should remain for a while, since it might be dangerous to meet Billings and his friends while they were smarting under the sting of defeat. ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... the nature of evidence. Under proper treatment, a Chinese witness is by no means doggedly stubborn or doltishly stupid; he may be either or both if he has previously been tampered with by native officials, but even then it is not absolutely impossible to defeat his dishonesty. Occasionally a question will be put by a foreigner to an unsophisticated boor, never dreamt of in the philosophy of the latter, and such as would never have fallen from the lips of ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... a recasting of plans and thus constitute the most valuable of experiences. But if it is too great, or if there is lacking a certain fortitude, it may act as a paralyzer of energy thenceforth. In the prize ring this is often noted; the spirit of a man goes with a defeat and he never again has self-confidence; thereafter his ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... and Miss Schuyler, who could find no words to reassure her, was thankful that her attention was demanded by her restive horse. The strain was telling on her, too, and, with less at stake than her companion, she was consumed by a longing to defeat the schemes of the cattle-men, who had, it seemed to her with detestable cunning, decided not to warn the station agent, and let the great train go, that they might heap the more obloquy upon their enemies. The risk the engineer and brakesmen ran was apparently ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the assembly, he aroused the people, and this coalition necessarily ruined him. The convention on the 9th of Thermidor was no longer, as on the 31st of May, divided, undecided, opposed to a compact, numerous, and daring faction. All parties were united by defeat, misfortune, and the proscription ever threatening them, and would naturally cooperate in the event of a struggle. It did not, therefore, depend on Robespierre himself to escape defeat; and it was not in his power to secede from the committees. ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... the reformation he was producing; while, latterly, the leaning towards England is less the result of a simple mental dependence,—though of that there still remains a disgraceful amount—than of calculation, and a desire in a certain class to defeat the dominion of the mass, and to establish that of a ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the land to-day that realize the gentleness and forbearance of this righteous little brother of ours, who, though armed with a weapon that will put the biggest and boldest to flight or disastrous defeat, yet refrains from using it until in absolute peril of his life, and then ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... that it bespoke resolution to-night; in spite of which, in half an hour, Caspar Goodwood, who had arrived hopeful as well as resolute, took his way back to his lodging with the feeling of a man defeated. He was not, it may be added, a man weakly to accept defeat. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... brought defeat and chagrin. He travelled northward to the Orkneys to seek a seat there, and, writing from Edinburgh on 6th July, tartly informed Pitt of his rejection after a journey of nearly a thousand miles. He must (he adds) either obtain a seat elsewhere, or take no further interest in ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... were, without connecting particles, conveys the impression of hurry and confusion, culminating in the rush of fugitives fleeing under the influence of panic-terror. They are like the well-known words, 'I came, I saw, I conquered,' only that here we have to do with swift defeat—they came, they saw, they were conquered. They are, in regard to vivid picturesqueness, arising from the broken construction, singularly like other words which refer to the same event in the forty-sixth psalm, 'The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved; He uttered His voice, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Bacchus, now she dares To feign new orgies, and her crime complete. Swift with her daughter to the woods she fares, And hides her on the mountains, fain to cheat The Trojans, and the purposed rites defeat. "Hail, thou alone art worthy of the fair! Evoe, Bacchus! for thy name is sweet. For thee she grows her dedicated hair, For thee she leads the dance, the ivied wand ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... power for the large Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria was reduced to a small republic after its defeat in World War I. Following annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938 and subsequent occupation by the victorious Allies in 1945, Austria's status remained unclear for a decade. A State Treaty signed in 1955 ended the occupation, recognized Austria's independence, and ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the Tories had collected, some 800 strong; and Rutherford hoped, with Gregory's aid, to crush them. But to his disappointment, no opportunity was given, for General Bryan, the Tory leader, hearing of the defeat of the Loyalists at Ramseur's Mill a few days before, crossed the Yadkin and united with General MacArthur, whom Cornwallis had sent to ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... of glorious confidence—so certain of success. He will go to battle with the assured hope of victory. I shall fight expecting nothing but defeat." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... well fall upon and make prisoner the two English travellers; and if despatches were found upon the person of either, they would almost certainly be shot as spies. Indeed, so bitter was the feeling on the part of the French after their defeat at Blenheim, that any travellers belonging to the hated English nation went in ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was tolerant, as if he dealt with a child. But Fulton, his angry eyes boring into the accused man, saw that, for the first time, there were tired lines tugging the corners of his mouth. It was an expression that heralded defeat, the first ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... and fierce struggle, however, was this supremacy won. The French, Spanish, and Dutch each and all in turn disputed England's claim to the sovereignty of the seas. It is unnecessary to repeat here the oft-told tale of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, nor yet the almost as familiar story of our frequent naval encounters with the Dutch in the days of Admiral Blake and the great Dutch Admiral Van Tromp. Long and desperate those conflicts ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... to go. I need hardly tell you that we both recognized that it was wronging you for him to stay on in the house after we discovered that we loved each other. Hugh planned to go, and then came the accident, and we were helpless. At last, in order not to defeat me when he saw that I was trying to overcome the fault in myself, he thought it necessary to die so that I should be free. You know, John dear, I should never try to live with you again unless I could tell you anything ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... saw him coming or whether it was accident, but at any rate she suddenly turned and moved toward the stern of the ship. Ten watchful gossips had noted Coleman's travel in her direction and more than half the passengers noted his defeat. He wheeled casually and returned to his three friends. They were colic-stricken with a coarse and yet silent merriment. Coleman was glad that the ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... he continued, "in losing so many ships and their supplies, but it will not defeat us. We all came here with the understanding that it would be difficult. We did not expect an easy life. We knew it would be tough, but not quite as tough as it's going to be now. But we will win! And remember, we are no longer people of ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... romantic circumstances, until it is now very difficult to give its true narrative. If Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy, ever wore it suspended round his neck, he sported a magnificent jewel. If the Curate of Montagny bought it for a crown of a soldier who picked it up after the defeat of Granson, not knowing its value, the soldier was unconsciously cheated by the Curate. If a citizen of Berne got it out of the Curate's fingers for three crowns, he was a shrewd knave. De Barante says, that in 1492 (Columbus was then about making land in this hemisphere) this diamond ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... is remarkable in yet another way. It has given us the most voluminous literature extant, that treats of any single episode of the Revolutionary War. In general, it takes many more words to explain a defeat than to describe a victory. Hence this fulness is much more conspicuous upon the British than upon the American side of the history of this campaign. Not only the general, who had his reputation to defend, but high officials, whose guiding hand was seen behind the ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... having long held him in his arms. "I know what return your brothers have made you for delivering them out of the hands of the black; but you shall be revenged to-morrow. Let us now go to the palace where your mother, who has shed so many tears on your account, expects to rejoice with us on the defeat of our enemies. What a joy will it be to her to be informed that my victory is your work!" "Sir," said Codadad, "give me leave to ask how you could know the adventure of the castle? Have any of my brothers, repenting, owned it to you?" "No," answered ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... easy. Denonville doesn't know the Iroquois as you and I do. He is elated now about his victory,—he thinks he has settled the question of white supremacy. If I were to tell him to-morrow that he has only made a bitter enemy of the Senecas, and that they will not rest until they wipe out this defeat, do you suppose he would believe it? You have given a pledge to the Iroquois that is entirely outside of the Governor's view of military precedent. To tell the truth, Menard, I don't believe he will ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... butchered in cold blood. Antwerp was on this occasion saved from the excesses of its divided and furious citizens, and preserved from the horrors of pillage, by the calmness and intrepidity of the Prince of Orange. Valenciennes at length capitulated to the royalists, disheartened by the defeat and death of De Marnix, and terrified by a bombardment of thirty-six hours. The governor, two preachers, and about forty of the citizens were hanged by the victors, and the reformed religion prohibited. Noircarmes promptly followed up his success. Maestricht, Turnhout, and Bois-le-duc submitted ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan |
