"Define" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Scius and probably not those of Marcia. We may speak of the "State religion" of Rome, as distinct from various other religions tolerated and practised in different parts of the empire, but it is scarcely possible to define the contents of that "State religion." There were certain special priests and priestly bodies who saw to it that certain rites and ceremonies should be perfortied scrupulously in a prescribed manner and on prescribed dates; but these were officers of the state, whose knowledge ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... contribute to air pollution; acid rain, resulting from sulfur dioxide emissions, is damaging forests; pollution in the Baltic Sea from raw sewage and industrial effluents from rivers in eastern Germany; hazardous waste disposal; government currently attempting to define mechanism for ending the use of nuclear power; government working to meet EU commitment to identify nature preservation areas in line with the EU's Flora, ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... 12 nm exclusive economic zone: geographic coordinates define outer limit continental shelf: median line ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... members of the family were less distinctive. "Gloriana"—pronounced as two words: "Glory Anna"—being the work of her father, who also named it, was simply a cylindrical roll of canvas wagon-covering, girt so as to define a neck and waist, with a rudely inked face—altogether a weak, pitiable, manlike invention; and "Johnny Dear," alleged to be the representative of John Doremus, a young storekeeper who occasionally supplied Mary with gratuitous sweets. Mary never admitted this, and as we were all gentlemen along ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... seemed to stop the breath. I went into the front room and the back room, and the kitchens downstairs; they were all dirty and dusty enough, as you would expect, but there was something strange about them all. I couldn't define it to you, I only know I felt queer. It was one of the rooms on the first floor, though, that was the worst. It was a largish room, and once on a time the paper must have been cheerful enough, but when I saw it, paint, ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... he does not define himself, nor tell us what it is, nor how it is to be come at, it is plain, all the way through, that he is a believer in "nationalistic socialism." Now, we cannot indict a man for cherishing hopes, or for encouraging them in others. But, in the case of the negroes, at the close of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... immemorial cult of the Black Stone at Mecca. If a conference of Vedantists and Muslims could be held, it would appear that the former regarded image-worship (not idolatry) [Footnote: Idols and images are not the same thing; the image is, or should be, symbolic. So, at least, I venture to define it.] simply as a provisional concession to the ignorant masses, who will not perhaps always remain so ignorant. So, then, Image-worship and its attendant Mythology have naturally become intertwined with high and holy associations. Thus that delicate ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... treatise we may, perhaps, define it as the power to see what is hidden from ordinary physical sight. It will be as well to premise that it is very frequently (though by no means always) accompanied by what is called clairaudience, or the ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... "You may define our positions as you please," said he. "But I'll remind you that the nature of a thing is not changed by the name you give it. I am concerned with facts; chiefly with the fact that we entered into definite articles ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... "Define the word 'home,'" she was once asked when very young. "Where Mother is," was her ready reply. "Where Love is," would be her ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... I cannot define the motives which actuated me at this time. They do not appear to have flowed in a clear and pellucid stream. I discover a thirst for the surprising and experimental, for situations, dilemmas, and emergencies, ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... took a cab to get there sooner. He felt as anxious as if some one were waiting for him; that showy house, cold and solitary before, seemed animated with a spirit he could not define, a beloved soul which filled it, pervading all ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... oddity showed the spirit of Art that dictated them. There were no pretty, well-finished, young-ladyish sketches of tumble-down cottages, and trees whose species no botanist could ever define;—or smooth chalk heads, with very tiny mouths, and very crooked noses. Olive's productions were all as rough as rough could be; few even attaining to the dignity of drawing-paper. They were done on backs of letters, or any sort of scraps: and comprised ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... n't trouble to define his position. At best it was at that instant an anomalous one; so far as I knew there were no grounds upon which to hold him at all; and while I would have hesitated to say that he was actually in custody, at the same time it is also true that I would not have permitted him to walk ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... torment. He loathed the million tricks of civilization. At the same time, being a man of some discrimination at least, he rarely let himself go completely. Of these wilder, simpler instincts he was afraid. They might flood all else. If he yielded entirely, something he dreaded, without being able to define, would happen; the structure of his being would suffer a nameless violence, so that he would have to break with the world. These cravings stood for that loot of the soul which he must deny himself. Complete surrender would involve somehow a disintegration, ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... that Aristotle, who is so fond and free of definitions, hath not thought proper to define the Ridiculous. Indeed, where he tells us it is proper to comedy, he hath remarked that villany is not its object: but he hath not, as I remember, positively asserted what is. Nor doth the Abbe Bellegarde, who hath written a treatise on ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... good people have taken the trouble to inform me that I am a pessimist. Perhaps so; but I am not worrying much about it. A pessimist is a person somewhat difficult to define. The fool who smokes in a powder-house, or believes that his neighbors always speak well of him behind his back; the wife who encourages her husband to pay court to other women on the supposition that no harm ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Before the strength of Anu let him bleed. Upon this giant Sar so filled with pride, Let Anu's winged bull[1] in fury ride, And I will aid the beast to strike him prone, Till he in death shall breathe his dying groan." And Anu said: "If thou to it shall join Thy strength, which all thy noble names define Thy glories[2] and thy power thus magnified, Will humble him, who has thy power defied," And Ishtar thus: "By all my might as queen Of war and battles, where I proudly reign, This Sar my hands shall strike upon the plain, And end his strength and all his boastings ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... the general work of cells differ from their special work? Define absorption, excretion, and assimilation as applied to ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... Henry of Monmouth's future character and conduct were, under Providence, affected by the circumstances of his family and its several members, it would perhaps be less philosophical than presumptuous to define. But, that those circumstances were (p. 003) peculiarly calculated to influence him in his principles and views and actions, will be acknowledged by every one who becomes acquainted with them, and who is at the same time in the least degree conversant with the growth and ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... trials, and discouragements connected with this work, Mrs. Prentiss shared with her husband; and, when finally crowned with the happiest success, it owed perhaps as much to her as to him. This brief statement seems needful in order to define and render clear her position, as a pastor's wife, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... for the discharge of certain functions, and each man in the whole body politic able to fit himself for that class, the injustice, and therefore the malignant variety of discontent, would disappear. Of course, I am speaking only of justice. I do not attempt to define the proper ends of society, or regard justice in itself as a sufficient guarantee for all desirable results. Such justice may exist even in a savage tribe or a low social type. There may be a just distribution of food among a shipwrecked crew, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... be found a learned discussion of the word Nirv[a]na and a list of the other names by which the old P[a]l[i] writers attempt to define it? ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... regal authority, and could not, without extreme violence, be adjusted to any other form of government: that a protector, except during the minority of a king, was a name utterly unknown to the laws; and no man was acquainted with the extent or limits of his authority; that if it were attempted to define every part of his jurisdiction, many years, if not ages, would be required for the execution of so complicated a work; if the whole power of the king were at once transferred to him, the question was plainly about a name, and the preference ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... of radiation to conduction, if we define radiation, internal as well as external, as the communication of motion from the vibrating atoms to the aether, we may, I think, by fair theoretic reasoning, reach the conclusion that the best radiators ought ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... there is a general confession that life is not yet well adapted to her needs, or she to her place in the world. There is a perpetual effort to readjust her claims, to define her position, and to map out her sphere, and these boundary lines are arbitrarily drawn at every conceivable distance from the centre, so that what seems extravagant latitude to one, is far within the ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... destiny, it strolled downhill or up as it wished, taking no trouble about the gradients, nor about the view, which nevertheless expanded. The great estates that throttle the south of Hertfordshire were less obtrusive here, and the appearance of the land was neither aristocratic nor suburban. To define it was difficult, but Margaret knew what it was not: it was not snobbish. Though its contours were slight, there was a touch of freedom in their sweep to which Surrey will never attain, and the distant brow of the ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... of 1781. During this inchoate period of union the action of the United States was that of a confederation in which some portion of the several sovereignties was understood to be surrendered to the whole. It was the business of the articles to define the precise nature and extent of this surrendered sovereignty which no state by itself ever exercised. In the mean time this sovereignty, undefined in nature and extent, was exercised, as well as circumstances permitted, by ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... religious and, even more narrowly, by ecclesiastical observance. For there are many idealists to whom religion with its scientific creeds and definite dogmas seems only a dreary sort of metaphysic, an attempt to define what is beyond definition. But there are some idealists who find the sense of worship and the consciousness of an immortal power in the high passions and affections of life. To these the human form, the spirit that looks out from human eyes, are the symbols of their mystery. ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... reminiscence—burst forth in its great devouring flame and conflagration quickly and fiercely spreading and raging, and enveloping all, defining in two conflicting ideas—first the Union cause—second the other, a strange deadly interrogation point, hard to define—Can we not now safely confess it?—with magnificent rays, streaks of noblest heroism, fortitude, perseverance, and even conscientiousness, through its pervadingly malignant darkness. What an area and rounded field, upon the whole—the spirit, arrogance, grim tenacity of the South—the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... overridden. The interesting complications which might arise, if Grover should mistake one Daughter of the Rhine for the other, stimulated her romantic fancy and made her eager as a girl to have the plot carried into effect. What was to be accomplished by it, she did not trouble herself to define; it only gave her a kind of confused satisfaction to think that she was mystifying somebody who had for a long time been mystifying her. Roeschen was exactly of Miss Jones's height and their figures closely resembled each other. So when they were masked a microscope ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... of his wife came back to his mind; and instead of turning in to the Tuileries Gardens, Birotteau walked on to meet the notary. Anselme followed his master at a distance, without being able to define the reason why he suddenly felt an interest in a matter so apparently unimportant, and full of joy at the encouragement he derived from Cesar's mention of the hob-nailed shoes, the one ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... all that which they try to express, and vastly more. The trouble is these men talk about the attributes of God, and confound these with the being and personality of the Great Parent. I may describe the scent of the rose, but that does not define the rose itself. I cannot separate the rose from its color or form or odor, any more than I can divorce music from the instrument. These vague and incomplete definitions have had much to do with the unbelief in the world. Tom Paine wrote a book which he called the 'Age of Reason' on the premise ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... old-fashioned spirit of that cause I might cite the career of this companion as an illustration of the efficacy of higher mathematics for women, for she possesses singular ability to convince even the densest legislators of their legal right to define their own electorate, even when they quote against her the dustiest of state constitutions or ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... the clearness of intellectual and moral insight; 'counsel and might,' to the qualities which give sound practical direction and vigour to follow, and carry through, the decisions of practical wisdom; while 'the knowledge and fear of the Lord' define religion by its two parts of acquaintance with God founded on love, and reverential awe which prompts to obedience. The fulfilment, and far more than fulfilment, of this ideal is in Jesus, in whom were 'hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,' to whom ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... we do not attempt to define the female figure below the waist, at least; but although we may safely veil or even conceal Nature, we cannot misrepresent or outrage her, except at the cost of utter loss of beauty. The lines of drapery, or of any article of dress, must conform to those of that part of the figure which it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... pictures flitted rapidly to and fro across the vast mirror of the flame, such as might be reflected from an intelligence crowded with the memories of over two thousand years which it was too exhausted to separate and define. ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... Ditrichin (the wife of Siegemund, a distinguished civil officer of Prussia) was afflicted with an internal disease which baffled the skill of the midwives, who had pronounced her pregnant, and none of whom could define her disorder. After many months of suffering, she was visited by the wife of a poor soldier, who told her what ailed her; in consequence of which, she was cured by her physicians. This circumstance awakened in the mind of the lady an intense desire to ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... and had seen the editor going along the alleyway. Coming in at the front door and finding himself a chair, he lighted one of the stogies and crossing his legs began to talk. He seemed intent upon convincing the boy of the advisability of adopting a line of conduct that he was himself unable to define. ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... list of his polemics he gradually finds opportunities to define his views somewhat; circumstantially, for instance, in the answers to Alberto Pio, of 1525 and 1529. Subsequently it is always done in the form of an Apologia, whether he is attacked for the Colloquia, for the Moria, Jerome, ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... define exactly the office and duties of the District Visitor. Historically she is the direct result of the Evangelical movement which marked the beginning of this century; the descendant of the "devout women not a few" who played, like ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... did Mr. Weller, senior, define the Funds, and what view did he take of Reduced Consols? in what terms is his elastic force described, when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins at the meeting? Write down the ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... have been fully aware that wherever the affections are concerned, the human mind is most tenacious of what one half of the philosophers in the world will not allow to exist, and the other half cannot define. Influenced as we all are every moment in our preferences and aversions, sometimes imperceptibly, sometimes avowedly, by the most trifling and often the silliest causes, yet the wisest of us start, and back, and think it incumbent on our pride in love affairs, to resist the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... existence." These opinions, however, Scott assigns very vaguely to the influence of "a nameless crowd of obscure writers," and thinks it fortunate that Shakspere was unacquainted with classical rules. The critic had evidently made no attempt to define the influence of particular writers upon Shakspere. His criticism is at some points purely conventional, as for instance when he calls the poet "that powerful magician, whose art could fascinate us even by means of deformity itself "; but on the ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... fought them; he hated them; they made him appear unto himself weak, even effeminate! His abhorrence of sentimentalism had been among the strongest of his life-characteristics; and yet, though he could not define it, a mellowing something seemed to be acting upon him that dull, bitterly cold winter morning, that shed a soft glow throughout his mental chambers, that seemed to touch gently the hard, rugged things of thought that lay within, and soften away their ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... anxious here only to start for discussion the idea of an electoral representation of the nations upon these three bodies that must in succession set themselves to define, organize, and maintain the peace of the world. I do not wish to complicate the question by any too explicit advocacy of methods of election or the like. In the United States this college which elects the President is elected on the same register ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... one month's end to the next. The Church choir had its annual dance, to which she was invited; but the perverse creature cared not for dancing. Her mother did not seek society, did not appear to require it. Nor did Hilda acutely feel the lack of it. She could not define her need. All she knew was that youth, moment by moment, was dropping down inexorably behind her. And, still a child in heart and soul, she saw herself ageing, and then aged, and then withered. Her twenty-first birthday was well above the horizon. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... enquire how it stands related to religion. But the view we take of that relation will necessarily be coloured by the idea which we have formed of the nature of religion itself; hence a writer may reasonably be expected to define his conception of religion before he proceeds to investigate its relation to magic. There is probably no subject in the world about which opinions differ so much as the nature of religion, and to frame a definition of it which would satisfy every one must obviously be impossible. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Some of them turn prophets, have secret revelations, will be of privy council with God himself, and know all his secrets, [6585] Per capillos spiritum sanctum tenent, et omnia sciunt cum sint asini omnium obstinatissimi, a company of giddy heads will take upon them to define how many shall be saved and who damned in a parish, where they shall sit in heaven, interpret Apocalypses, (Commentatores praecipites et vertiginosos, one calls them, as well he might) and those hidden ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... affairs of the separate cities or provinces. If it permitted both Papists and Protestants to associate themselves against the common foe, it could hardly have been imagined, when the Articles were drawn, that it would have claimed the exclusive right to define the minutest points in a single ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... pounds if he were only going out for the day to inquire about a situation as organist. But if a man is running off with a young lady it will not do to have an absolutely empty purse. Even though she may be an heiress, he cannot very well begin by asking her to pay his railway-fare. "It would define the relative positions a little too clearly," thought Percival ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Carmen was a pure-blooded gipsy. At all events, she was infinitely prettier than any other woman of her race I have ever seen. For a women to be beautiful, they say in Spain, she must fulfil thirty ifs, or, if it please you better, you must be able to define her appearance by ten adjectives, applicable to three portions of ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... that time I cannot surely define—perhaps they tolerated me out of love for the West. But I here acknowledge my obligation to "The Listener." He taught me to recognize literary themes in the city, for he brought the same keen insight, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... center is swept the arc v' v' through the point v. It will be evident on a little thought, that if the tooth A' impelled the exit pallet to the position shown, the outer angle of the pallet must extend down to the point v, on the arc v' v'; consequently, we define the impulse face of this pallet by drawing a line from point x to v. To define the outer face of the exit pallet, we draw the line v e parallel to the line ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... ALL must be INFINITE, for there is nothing else to define, confine, bound, limit; or restrict THE ALL. It must be Infinite in Time, or ETERNAL,—it must have always continuously existed, for there is nothing else to have ever created it, and something can never evolve from nothing, and if it had ever "not been," even for a moment, it ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... that for one week I had daily passed his house, instinctively avoiding an entrance. One day, however, I quite as instinctively sought an interview with the Doctor, impelled by some strange impulse I could not well define. I was familiarly but courteously greeted with these words, "You have been in the city an entire week, and yet have not called to see me." In reply I frankly confessed that I avoided upon principle the members of his ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... the garden, by asking her what she had done, whether she had made progress; and it seemed that she retired from his questions with a vague suggestion of reserve she had not shown on the ship. It was not that she answered unwillingly, but he could not define the difference in her manner, although he felt that a ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... definition has as yet satisfied all naturalists; yet every naturalist knows vaguely what he means when he speaks of a species. Generally the term includes the unknown element of a distinct act of creation. The term "variety" is almost equally difficult to define; but here community of descent is almost universally implied, though it can rarely be proved. We have also what are called monstrosities; but they graduate into varieties. By a monstrosity I presume is meant some considerable deviation ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... he started, rose to his feet, and turned toward the door eager-eyed, as a hand knocked softly; before he could speak it opened, and Mrs. Trapes reappeared; she was clad in a long flannel dressing gown, and as she paused in the shadows by the door he could vaguely define that she still held the precious ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... there is something highly poetical about a forge I am not singular in this opinion: various individuals have assured me that they can never pass by one, even in the midst of a crowded town, without experiencing sensations which they can scarcely define, but which are highly pleasurable. I have a decided penchant for forges, especially rural ones, placed in some quaint, quiet spot—a dingle for example, which is a poetical place, or at a meeting ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... full in power and efficacy at moments when hysteria in paroxysm is at its height? Who shall define faith? Who shall say what it is, and who shall place its limitations ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... the chamber waiting for something that was not Julian, intending to do something but unable to define that thing. There was a vague admission that this last pause before his entry into Jerusalem where he must accomplish so much was an opportunity for some sort of preparation, but he lacked direction and resource. He was ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... orders for the Attack he will reveal all information concerning the movements and dispositions of the enemy and of co-operating troops and arms; he will allot tasks to the companies and to the machine-gun platoon (if not brigaded) and will define the frontage of the forward companies; he will also detail the assembly positions, give compass-bearings for the advance, describe the action of other arms in support, make the necessary signalling arrangements, notify the zero hour, arrange for the synchronisation of watches, notify his own position ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... something as precious as life. If Dorn went to war at all—if he ever reached those blood-red trenches, in the thick of fire and shriek and ferocity—there to express in horrible earnestness what she vaguely felt yet could not define—then so far as she was concerned she imagined that she would not ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... no! Not the way you define honesty down in the States. He's a grabber, Mac is. Better not leave anything valuable around unless you've got it spiked to the floor. He ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... in parents found, Induced the girl, whose heart by LOVE was bound; To celebrate the Hymeneal scene, As in the statutes of Cythera's queen. Our legendary writers this define A present contract, where they nothing sign; The thing is common;—marriage made in haste: LOVE'S ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... OF SPEECH, AND SENTENCE ELEMENTS. What are the four kinds of sentences? What are the different parts of speech? Define each. What is the difference between a clause and a phrase? What is the difference between a principal clause and a subordinate clause? Illustrate. Illustrate an adverbial clause. An adjective clause. Illustrate an adverbial ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... the President further instructions. It now became apparent to everybody connected with the farce that if it was kept up further, Mr. Lincoln would be put in the attitude of suing the Confederacy for a peace. Lincoln determined to end the situation and at the same time define his position before the world, clearly. He dispatched John Hay to Niagara with ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... violence, looting, arms trafficking, ethnic conflicts, and refugees in border areas; UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) has maintained over 4,000 peacekeepers in Sierra Leone since 1999; Sierra Leone considers excessive Guinea's definition of the flood plain limits to define the left bank boundary of the Makona and Moa rivers and protests Guinea's continued occupation of these lands, including the hamlet of ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... light hair twined in curls, like a boy's, about his head. Only in his eyes, which were blue, rather prominent, and a little wanting in mobility, an expression might be remarked which it would be difficult to define. It might have been melancholy, or it might have been fatigue; and the ring of his voice seemed ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... containing these ingredients, either singly or together, and its commercial value is determined by the amount it contains of these substances. But while this is so, it must not be forgotten that if we define a manure to be a substance which contributes in any way to the fertility of the soil, substances other than these above mentioned may be fairly regarded as manures. The fertility of a soil, we have seen, depends not merely on the presence of certain constituents, but also on their ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent.' Let us define this word omniscient. In a common sense way, 'omni' means all, and 'scientia' means science, then it would be proper to say, 'God is all science, and science is perfect intelligence,' for the scientific reality concerning anything, ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... 1214, and died in 1227, (12) so that it is certain Helinand wrote the last part of his "Chronicle" not later than the last-mentioned year. The limits of time, therefore, between which the "Chronicle" was written are clearly circumscribed; and if it is impossible to define the exact year in which this particular entry was made, it is not, I fancy, beyond the legitimate bounds of ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... whoever feels that he cannot execute them, or swear to execute them, without committing sin, has no other choice left than to withdraw from the government, or to violate his conscience by taking on his lips an impious promise. The object of the Constitution is not to define what is the law of God, but WHAT IS THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE—which will is not to be frustrated by an ingenious moral interpretation, by those whom they ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... congregation consisted of persons who had never, or scarcely ever, heard him before, and who might never hear him again. Not one of those visitors must go away, therefore, without hearing the great preacher define his position on every point,—not theology alone, but all current events and permanent principles, the Presidential nomination or message, the laws of trade, the laws of Congress, woman's rights, woman's costume, Boston slave-kidnappers, and Dr. Banbaby,—he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to define man, so as to distinguish him from other animals. Burke says, "Man is an animal that cooks its victuals." "Then," says Johnson, "the proverb is just, 'there is reason in roasting eggs.'" Dr. Adam Smith has hit this case; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... very hard to define a landlord, and you will hear of some being landlords who do not get a shilling from their estates. Under these circumstances they would be like the fox in AEsop's fable who had ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... for the hush of the past is about us. We scarcely distinguish anything at first; the moon has set on the other side of the hotel, and perhaps, too, some of the dimness of those twenty intervening years affects our eyesight. By degrees, however, objects begin to define themselves; the bed shows doubtfully white, and that dark blot upon the pillow must be the face of our sleeping man. It is turned towards the window; the mouth is open; probably the good Doctor is snoring, albeit, across this distance of time, the ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... would have been hard to define what was wanting in his manner. He lamented his unavoidable delay, and entertained her with all the political and parliamentary gossip he had brought home, and which she always much enjoyed as a tribute to her wisdom, so much that it had been an entire, though insensible cure for the ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who are Agrarians? Though the words are used as glibly as the luring party-terms of the passing year, it is no very easy matter to define them. Indeed, it is by no means an easy thing to affix a precise and definite meaning to any political terms, living or dead. Let the reader endeavor to give a clear and intelligible definition of Whig and Tory, Democrat and Republican, Guelph ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... or trouble, call it how you please. These, like other simple ideas, cannot be described, nor their names defined; the way of knowing them is, as of the simple ideas of the senses, only by experience. For, to define them by the presence of good or evil, is no otherwise to make them known to us than by making us reflect on what we feel in ourselves, upon the several and various operations of good and evil upon our minds, as they are differently applied ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... still have been respectful, for I like to be on the safe side of things and I had not the remotest idea what the position and functions of an adjutant are. I know now that he is something like an archdeacon, a man of enormous importance whose duties it is a little difficult to define exactly. He expected me. With the help of the sergeant-major he had found a servant for me and ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... superstition, there is always progress; so far as sensuality over chastity, death. And the two contests are simultaneous. It is impossible to distinguish one victory from the other. Observe, however, I say victory over superstition, not over religion. Let me carefully define the difference. Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes some places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... which had always seemed to her to be her mother's soul, looking down upon her from the windows of heaven. Now, to-night there shone beside it a smaller, feebler one, and in the fleecy cloud which floated around it, she fancied she could define the face of her baby sister. Involuntarily stretching out her hands, she cried, "Oh, mother, Allie, I am so happy now;" and to the child's imagination the stars smiled lovingly upon her, while the evening wind, as it gently moved the boughs of the tall elm trees, ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... burning coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, an atmosphere that Dave could feel although he could not define it; a sense that everything was all right. He soon found himself talking with Mrs. Duncan about horses, and then about his old life on the ranch, and then about coming to town. Almost, before he knew it, he had told her about Reenie Hardy, but he had checked himself ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... suffice for the utmost perfection of spoken language, which has all the potent and manifold aids of personality. In writing, whether it be prose or verse, you are free to produce effects whose peculiarity one can only define vaguely, by saying that the senses have one part less in them than in any other of the forms and effects of art, and the imaginary voice one part more. But the question need not be laboured here, because there can be no dispute as to the quality of Macaulay's ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... all his conceptions of government. Even where the conclusions of his policy were correct they seemed to have been reached by some unworthy process. Like Germany at large, Prussia breathed uneasily under an oppression which was everywhere felt and yet was hard to define. Its best elements were those which suffered the most: its highest intellectual and political aims were those which most excited the suspicion of the Government. Its King had lost whatever was stimulating ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... brother. I do not intend to define the passions: but I do believe that if he were to live and offer himself, she would marry him, and make him such a wife as ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... another class of men who denied human power of absolution. They were called Scribes or writers—pedants, men of ponderous learning and accurate definitions; from being mere transcribers of the law, they had risen to be its expounders. They could define the exact number of yards that might be travelled on the Sabbath-day without infringement of the law; they could decide, according to the most approved theology, the respective importance of each duty; they would tell you, authoritatively, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... your bob-fly is tripping on the surface, as we consider that a well-managed "bob" is the most life-like of the whole lot. Do not fish with too long a line, unless, indeed, on an exceptional occasion, when you wish to reach the lie of a feeding fish. It is difficult to define a long line, but a good general rule is that it should never be longer than when you have the consciousness that, if a fish should rise, you have him at a fair and instantaneous striking distance. Remember that the time the flies first touch the water after ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... its character was sinister and forbidding. Once or twice he had been in the cemetery of the Mission near his father's rancho, and the ugly feeling that he stood too close to death came back to him; why, he could not define. There was no sign of a cross anywhere; but he felt that he stood in a dead world, nevertheless. Once the ground quivered beneath his feet, and the horrible idea occurred to him that Southern California had been swallowed by an earthquake, ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... consider it incumbent on me to present to Congress at its next session a matured view of the whole subject, and to endeavor to define, approximately at least, and according to my own convictions, what appropriations of this nature by the General Government the great interests of the United States require and the Constitution will admit and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... he is distended with megalomania, now he is deflated, now he is quarrelsome, now impenetrably self-satisfied, but always he is sudden, jerky, fragmentary, energetic, and—in some subtle fundamental way that I find difficult to define—absurd. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... through your inmost soul's eyes, not through your intellect, not through your perception, not through your knowledge, not through your logic, not through your metaphysics. To understand it you have to divine, not to define; you have to observe, not to calculate; you have to sympathize, not to analyze; you have to see through, not to criticize; you have not to explain, but to feel; you have not to abstract, but to grasp; you have to see all in each, but not to know all in all; you ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying, by gentle means, the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, with powers so disposed— in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them—conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... how far they rest on an irrefragable basis; or whether, after all, it might not be well for paleontologists to learn a little more carefully that scientific "ars artium," the art of saying "I don't know." And to this end let us define somewhat more exactly the extent of these pretensions ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... the desert and its stones as old; but in one sense they are unnaturally new. They are unused, and perhaps unusable. They might be the raw material of a world; only they are so raw as to be rejected. It is not easy to define this quality of something primitive, something not mature enough to be fruitful. Indeed there is a hard simplicity about many Eastern things that is as much crude as archaic. A palm-tree is very like a tree drawn by a ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... don't know. There is a sort of strain and mystery which I cannot define. I am not a coward, you know, but sometimes I am afraid and feel alone in the world. There is Leon, of course; but Leon is no ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... devolve upon the powers who signed the Paris treaty of 1856 to discuss and define those sentences which were left open and indefinite there, and to come to an agreement with Russia, if this is possible, as I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... coast, when the rising sun gave a faint blue outline of the Wicklow mountains, and assured him that he had actually and really before him, "The Holy Hills of Ireland." Nearer and nearer he comes, and Howth at one side and Wicklow Head at the other define what he, not unjustly, regards as the Bay. And surely on a bright clear morning, with just enough of sunlight, it is as fair a scene as mortal eye can rest on. The Dublin and Wicklow hills, which at first seemed to rise from the shore, recede by degrees, and with their undulating ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... permanent, but) occasional only [FOOTNOTE 34:1]. And should this argumentation be objected to on the ground of its implying that consciousness—which is essentially of the nature of intelligence— is something non-intelligent like material things, we ask you to define this negation of non-intelligence (which you declare to be characteristic of consciousness). Have we, perhaps, to understand by it the invariable concomitance of existence and shining forth? If so, we point out that this invariable ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... which even his own analytical mind could not define, the Secretary sought Lucia Catherwood. He admired her height, her strength and resolved beauty—knew that she was of a type as admirable as it was rare, and wondered once or twice why he did not love her instead of Helen Harley. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... quite out of control, the driver leaning back in his seat with a contented grin, while his colleague manipulated the unwieldy whip. The tract ran parallel to the Rand for some distance, and we got a splendid view of Johannesburg and the row of chimney-shafts that so clearly define the reef. ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... still intercedes in man's behalf, and light will be given to those who seek it. Though this was not at first understood by Adventists, it was afterward made plain, as the scriptures which define their true position began to ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... rested on an impregnable foundation. During these debates it was found necessary to distinguish the different shades of doctrine by the establishment of a fixed terminology. The disputants were obliged to define with precision the expressions they employed; and thus various forms of speech ceased to have an equivocal meaning. But, in the second or third century, theology had not assumed a scientific form; ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the poor, the unfortunate and orphan being one of the first duties of a civilized and Christian State, the General Assembly shall, at its first session, appoint and define the duties of a Board of Public Charities, to whom shall be entrusted the supervision of all charitable and penal State institutions, and who shall annually report to the Governor upon their condition, ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... has always been difficult to define. In the Middle Ages its meaning varied in different places, and changed somewhat in the centuries between 1200 and 1500 A.D. In these pages it signifies in general an institution for higher education; and ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... arrived at his destination, Mr. Tolman established himself temporarily at a hotel, and spent the next three or four days in walking about the city looking for what he wanted. What he wanted was rather difficult to define, but the way in which he put the matter to himself was something ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... of a scientific treatment of the anaemic condition is carefully to define its extent. For this purpose the symptoms above mentioned are little suited, however great, in their proper place, their practical ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... determinate idea in the minds of most men, and it is therefore liable to uncertainty and confusion. I have no great opinion of a definition, the celebrated remedy for the cure of this disorder. For when we define, we seem in danger of circumscribing nature within the bounds of our own notions, which we often take up by hazard, or embrace on trust, or form out of a limited and partial consideration of the object before us, instead of extending our ideas to take in all that nature comprehends, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... smile, he said, "Come on with me, Anton, I have something to show you. Place yourself by the brook, with your face to the north. There the brook forms a straight line from west to east, the border of the wood a semicircle. Wood and brook together define the segment ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... not a fettering of human impulse, but a registration of the deepest yearnings of men and women. The laws that define and support it are merely man's efforts to express the common opinion that has taken form out of the experiences through the centuries of a great multitude of persons who, like ourselves, have sought success ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... because Grace did not as usual join in the conversation, and it was left to Kara and to her husband to supply the deficiencies. She was experiencing a curious sense of depression, a premonition of evil which she could not define. Again and again in the course of the dinner she took her mind back to the events of the day to discover the reason for ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... than any other manifestation of animal sagacity. Elephant-trainers, too, adduce instances that almost pass the line of distinction between intuitive prudence and the results of reflection. Yet if those distinctions suffice to define the difference between reason and the primitive instincts, they should reduce the scope of the question in so far as to make it clear that, instead of measuring the degree of the development of special faculties of the animal mind, we should ascertain the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... which no one can precisely define, threw doubts into some minds. It was asserted, however, that this English woman was rich and that she had passed her life in travelling through every country in the world because her family had cast her off. Why had her family cast her off? Because ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... not of course necessary for people to define pedantically to themselves the meaning of every word they use, but surely it must conduce to clear thinking to use a language in which you are perpetually called upon, if you are writing seriously, to make just the mental effort necessary to think ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... the nature of 'Pity,' which we may define as 'pain arising from another's hurt.' What term we can use for pleasure arising from another's gain, ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... it is possible to define an absolutely invariable unit of time; it would be desirable to determine with sufficient precision, if only once in a century, the relation of the second to such a unit, so that we might verify the variations of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... attending. I had not the least suspicion of any thing wrong; yet, by some mysterious providence, or something for which I can not account, a presentiment took possession of my mind that all was not right. I knew not what I feared, and could in no way define my apprehensions; but I grew so uneasy, that I finally gave up the party and returned home, before ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... again would receive the slightest attention. A man in public life could not do himself a greater injury than by saying in public that the commissions in the army or navy, or berths in the Civil Service, should be given exclusively to gentlemen. He would be defied to define the term,—and would fail should he attempt to do so. But he would know what he meant, and so very probably would they who defied him. It may be that the son of a butcher of the village shall become as well fitted for employments requiring gentle culture as ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... how often soever they approach it. The proportions and beauties of the whole building are so intimately united, that they may be compared to good breeding in men; it is what every body perceives, and is captivated with, but what few can define. That it has an irresistible beauty which delights men of sense, and which charms the eyes of the vulgar, I think must be admitted; for no other possible reason can be assigned why this building alone, standing in the very centre of a city, wherein every excess ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... for some reason she could not at this moment define, was finding the conversation ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... give life to the South, divide the nations on each side of the black and white line for ever, and bring this war to the end. There is probably not one of these clamourers for recognition who could define the limits of the State to be recognized.... And, over and above all, recognition, unless it meant 'war,' would be an aggravation of the horrors of the contest; it would not aid the South one whit, and it would add immensely to the unity and the ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... inextinguishable hatred; the shrinking figure of Alice he scarcely deigned to notice; but when his glance met the firm, commanding, and yet lovely form of Cora, his eye lingered a moment, with an expression that it might have been difficult to define. Then, filled with his own dark intentions, he spoke in the language of the Canadas, a tongue that he well knew was comprehended by most ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... conscious as he passed with Lawrence through the now crowded streets that Bunning's hysteria had had an effect upon his nerves. He could not define it more directly than by saying that the Shadow that had, during these many weeks, appeared to be pursuing him, at a distance, now seemed to be actually with him. It was as though three of them, and not two, were walking there side by side. It ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole |
