"Definition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... [19] Coleridge's definition of poetry as "the best words in their right places" may be fitly alluded to here. It occurs ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... may say, words in their best order—Coleridge's equally admirable definition of prose. It is splendid prose, won only from great nobility of emotion. But it is not poetry, not the best words in the best order announcing that the feeling expressed has been experienced with the highest ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... Percy. "The atom is extremely small, much too small to be seen with the most powerful microscope; but you know all things are relative and we always measure one thing in terms of another. We say a foot is twelve inches and an inch is one-twelfth of a foot, and there we stop with a definition of each expressed in terms of the other, and both depending upon an arbitrary standard that somebody once adopted; and yet, while the foot is known in most countries, it is rare that two countries have exactly the same standard for ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... systems of planting usually employed are known as "drills," "rows" and "hills." I do not remember ever seeing a definition giving the exact distinctions between them; and in horticultural writing they seem to be used, to some extent at least, interchangeably. As a rule "drills" refer to the growing of plants continuously in rows, such as onions, ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... still to ask: How speedy? At what degree of speed; in what particular points of this variable course, which varies in velocity, but can never stop till Time itself stops, does revolution begin and end; cease to be ordinary mutation, and again become such? It is a thing that will depend on definition ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Shogun—during the period immediately preceding the modern regime—that Japanese civilization reached the limit of its development. No further evolution was possible, except through social reconstruction. The conditions of this integration chiefly represented the reinforcement and definition of conditions preexisting,—scarcely anything in the way of fundamental change. More than ever before the old compulsory systems of cooperation were strengthened; more than ever before all details of ceremonial ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... representations. Mr. Deedy would as soon have sent me to call on Neil Paraday as he would have published a "holiday-number"; but such scruples presented themselves as mere ignoble thrift to his successor, whose own sincerity took the form of ringing door-bells and whose definition of genius was the art of finding people at home. It was as if Mr. Deedy had published reports without his young men's having, as Pinhorn would have said, really been there. I was unregenerate, as I have hinted, and couldn't be concerned to straighten out the journalistic ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... twenty unable to define a horse!' said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. 'Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... explain its development from a dream to a nightmare, and the hair's-breadth escape by which it did not hurl us to destruction, as it seems to be hurling the Turk? It is a certain spirit; and we must not ask for too logical a definition of it, for the people whom it possesses disown logic; and the whole thing is not so much a theory as a confusion of thought. Its widest and most elementary character is adumbrated in the word Teutonism or Pan-Germanism; and with this (which was what appeared to win in 1870) we had better ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... says M. de S. P. (Bernardin de St. Pierre), but the definition is too short, if he thinks he has said everything. Here is mine. Remember that the subject is metaphysical. An object really beautiful ought to seem beautiful to all whose eyes fall upon it. That is all; there is nothing more to ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... the double canvas roofing of a tent the sun beats down like a giant with a leaden club. The temperature in the wards increases. At the worst moments you feel distinctly that it would be possible, by giving way to something that escapes definition, to go off your head. A spirit of indifference to everything is necessary. Any kind of worry is simply a mode of suicide. A man, for instance, who feels continually he ought to be up and doing, and that to lie still in vacancy is a sin, does not ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... reference to this account that Chopin's mode of creation does not show genius, but only passion. From which we may conclude that he would not, like Carlyle, have defined genius as the power of taking infinite pains. To be sure, the great Scotchman's definition is inadequate, but nothing is more false than the popular notion that the great authors throw off their works with the pleasantest ease, that creation is an act of pure enjoyment. Beethoven's sketch-books tell a different story; ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... changed into flower. Not trapped by memories grown into tradition that must not die, they hit upon an approach that man could master. For it was the Greek beginnings which led to the Oxford definition of how to make scientific inquiry into the ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... who was a party to the debate, to be guilty of an act of great disingenuousness. Dr. Watson, the Bishop of Llandaff, in the course of a speech, in which he supported the claims of the Prince of Wales, incidentally cited a passage from Grotius, with regard to the definition of the word right. "The chancellor, in his reply," says the bishop in his memoirs, "boldly asserted that he perfectly well remembered the passage I had quoted from Grotius, and that it solely respected natural, but was inapplicable to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... Appeal, whereby the sale of the photographs was stopped, and the photographer was held to have been guilty of a technical contempt. This judgment contained perhaps the most searching and learned definition of constructive contempt that has yet been formulated: but for the text of this, I must refer the student to the law reports, because, as it took two hours to deliver, I fear that it would, notwithstanding its many beauties, be ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... the two generating forces; the Volition and the Idea were the two products. Volition, he thought, was the Idea evolved from the abstract state to a concrete state, from its generative fluid to a solid expression, so to speak, if such words may be taken to formulate notions so difficult of definition. According to him, the Mind and Ideas are the motion and the outcome of our inner organization, just as the Will and Volition are ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... mental and nervous disorders has been so loosely applied that some definition may be necessary. By the term "idiocy," is meant a condition of undeveloped mentality. Idiocy exists in various degrees, from the complete absence of intellectual faculties to a condition of mere irresponsibility in which the subject is capable of self-help, and sometimes of self-support under ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... clear and all objects seemed to stand out in sharp definition, a condition seldom seen by dwellers on our Earth except in extremely ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... Christendom. It was their duty, he declared in those earlier writings of his, to prohibit, by force if necessary, the proceedings of those priests who were hostile to the gospel. He now applied the idea and definition of external, idolatrous practices to the Papal system of public worship and the sacrifice of the mass. To suppress these practices, he said, was the duty of those authorities who watched over the external relations ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... Charteris. "Heaven, as I apprehend it, is a place where we shall live eternally among those ladies of old years who never condescended actually to inhabit any realm more tangible than that of our boyish fancies. It is the obvious definition; and I defy you to evolve a more enticing allurement toward becoming ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... with the characteristics of the Ormuzd and Sosiosch of the Zend-Avesta, the Ainsoph of the Kabalah and the Carpistes [Greek: Καρπιστης] of the Gnostics. The idea that the true Initiates and Faithful become Kings and Priests, is at once Persian, Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic. And the definition of the Supreme Being, that He is at once Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end—He that was, and is, and is to come, i.e., Time illimitable, is ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... St. Patrick first preached the Christian faith in Ireland, before a powerful chief and his people, when he spoke of one God, and of the Trinity, the chief asked how one could be in three. St. Patrick, instead of attempting a theological definition of the faith, thought a simple image would best serve to enlighten a simple people, and stooping to the earth he plucked from the green sod a shamrock, and holding up the trefoil before them he bade them there behold one in three. The chief, struck by the illustration, asked ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... discussion of the old and new theology—Princeton standing for the old with its definition of Christianity as "a piece of information given supernaturally and miraculously"; Andover standing for the new—so alleged Whittaker—with many polite and ingenious evasions of this proposition without ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... worship are the common laws of custom,"—he replied—"No more,—no less. And in this we are much like other nations. We believe in no actual Creed,—who does? We accept a certain given definition of a supposititious Divinity, together with the suitable maxims and code of morals accompanying that definition, ... we call this Religion, . . and we wear it as we wear our clothing for the sake of necessity and decency, though truly we are ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... opened a little at this definition. "Hum! multum in parvo; it may be so," he said; and casting down his eyes, he was soon lost in a profound reverie, while the canoe continued to progress forward by little impulsive bounds, under the rapid stroke of the paddles. Eda rested her fair cheek ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... amuse my reader to recall, by the side of Scott's early definition of "a virtuoso," the lines in which Akenside has painted that character—lines which might have been written for a description of the Author ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... system is so clearly defined and so well known, at any rate in all our large centres of labor, that definition is hardly necessary. For England and America alike the sweater is simply a sub-contractor who, at home or in small workshops, undertakes to do work, which he in turn sublets to other contractors, or has done under his own eyes. ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... not only enjoins this hope as a duty, but also enjoins the perfection of it as being a thing to be aimed at by all Christian people. What is the perfection of hope? Two qualities, certainty and continuity. Certainty; the definition of earthly hope is an anticipation of good less than certain, and so, in all the operations of this great faculty, which are limited within the range of earth, you get blended as an indistinguishable throng, 'hopes and fears that kindle ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... proceed with a definition of the crime committed by these negroes, and a more particular account of the punishment ...
— The Trial and Execution, for Petit Treason, of Mark and Phillis, Slaves of Capt. John Codman • Abner Cheney Goodell, Jr.
... sermon from Dr. Battershall, at St. Peter's, on "Seeing Him who is invisible,"—the Apostle's definition of faith. We remained to Holy Communion. He is evidently fond of ritual, but there was nothing really objectionable. In the evening we all went to Judge Parker's, and Mrs. Parker, who had not left her room for ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... twenty-five and a girl of fifteen should each have a dream of marriage, the same definition would apply to each, just the same as if they would each approach a flower and smell of it differently. Different influences will possess them unconsciously, though the outward appearance be ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... schoolboy; but though we close our ears, we cling to our definition, in spite of its proved and naked insufficiency. Mr. Jenkin was not so easily pleased, and readily discovered that the heroic line consists of four groups, or, if you prefer the phrase, ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and his love of ease. In the dramas of intrigue he exhibits some of the talents of Mercury, but with less activity and ingenuity, and occasionally suffers by his interference. According to the technical definition of his attributes he is to excite mirth by being ridiculous ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... enriched our language, our literature, with a new wealth of poetic diction, has added to it new symbols, has enabled us to inhale a more liberal if an unfamiliar air, has, above all, raised us to a fresh standpoint, a standpoint involving our construction of a new definition. ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... seem to be saying something, when we say nothing. I was describing to F—— some knavish tricks of a mutual friend of ours. 'If he did so and so,' was the reply, 'he cannot be an honest man.' Here was a genuine truism, truth upon truth, inference and proposition identical,—or rather, a dictionary definition usurping the place of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... to the reason why she had vaguely imagined or divined a remarkable character in this man. A hunter was one who killed animals for their fur, for their meat or horns, or for some lust for blood—that was Helen's definition of a hunter, and she believed it was held by the majority of people living in settled states. But the majority might be wrong. A hunter might be vastly different, and vastly more than a tracker and slayer of game. The mountain world of forest was a mystery ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... imagined that Christianity would have favored the extension of woman's freedom. In a very short time women are seen only in two capacities—as martyrs and deaconesses (or nuns). Now what the early Christians did was to strike the male out of the definition of man, and human being out of the definition of woman. Man was a human being made to serve the highest and noblest purposes; woman was a female, made to ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... part of the text. Rashi had recourse to them in his teaching when the precise Hebrew expression was lacking, or when he explained difficult terms, especially technical terms of arts and crafts. The use of a French word saved him a long circumlocution. Sometimes, the laaz followed a definition or description, in a striking manner giving the meaning of ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... reproduced point—the constant of the sine relationship must also be fulfilled with large apertures for several colours. E. Abbe succeeded in computing microscope objectives free from error of the axis point and satisfying the sine condition for several colours, which therefore, according to his definition, were "aplanatic for several colours''; such systems he termed "apochromatic''. While, however, the magnification of the individual zones is the same, it is not the same for red as for blue; and there is a chromatic ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... doctrine of faith and morals; and that for this reason such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are in their very nature, not, however, by reason of the consent of the Church, unchangeable. If—which God may avert!—any one should presume to contradict this definition of ours,—let him be accursed!" Amid flashes of lightning and peals of thunder this document was read to a council whose membership had shrunk during seven months of deliberation from 767 to 547 attendants,—277 qualified ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... 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 Yenga ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... five special phases of belief, as follows: First, Religion by Definition; Second, Religion by Submission; Third, Religion by Substitution; Fourth, Religion by ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... term, Sir, we mean a place to which all merchandises, as well foreign as domestic, may be imported, and from which they may be freely exported. You will judge, Sir, by this definition, that all the merchandises of the north, without exception, may be imported into L'Orient, and exported from it by the Americans. In a word, L'Orient will be reputed foreign with regard to France, as far as it respects commerce. The prohibitions and duties upon foreign merchandises will take ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... a parish officer to perform the duties of his office. It might also be employed, when persuasion failed, to induce a parishioner to accept office when chosen by his fellows.[180] But, it would seem, one single definition would comprise all cases: excommunication was employed against all those who disobeyed some order of the spiritual judge, express or implied—it was a summary process for contempt of court, in fact, and was daily ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... writing, and we begin liking his work, we own willingly enough that we have not, and cannot have, got the compass of his talent. We must wait till he has written more, and we have learned to like him more, and even then we should hesitate his definition, from all that he has done, if we did not very commonly qualify ourselves from the latest thing he has done. Between the earliest thing and the latest thing there may have been a hundred different things, and in his swan-long life of a singer there would probably ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... he was a man of genius, but not a hero. Now, while Gordon was essentially a genius, he was even more essentially a hero. True heroism is inseparably associated with self-sacrifice. A man may be as brave as a bulldog, yet be entirely wanting in all that goes to make him a hero. The dictionary definition by no means embraces all that the word implies. Lord Wolseley in a magazine article remarked that he had met but two heroes in his eventful life; one of them was that noble Christian officer General Lee, who commanded the Southerners in the American War, and the other ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... an objector to the above syllogism need not be a materialist; it is not even necessary that he should hold any theory of things at all. Nevertheless, for the sake of definition, I shall assume that he is a materialist. As a materialist, then, he would appear to be as much entitled to his hypothesis as a theist is to his—in respect, I mean, of this particular argument. For although I think, as before shown, that in ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... the school of Aristotle hath both commended many errors unto us, and sought also thereby to obscure the glory of the high moderator of all things, shining in the creation, and in the governing of the world: so if the best definition be taken out of the second of Aristotle's "Physics," or "primo de Coelo," or out of the fifth of his "Metaphysics"; I say that the best is but nominal, and serving only to difference the beginning of natural ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... transportation as 'a series of punishments embracing every degree of human suffering, from the lowest, consisting of a slight restraint upon freedom of action, to the highest, consisting of long and tedious torture.' It was with the latter part of the definition in mind that Clarke told his story. He chose to represent servitude in the chain-gangs of Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island as the condition of slavery which Sir Richard Bourke and Sir George Arthur admitted it to be, as the utter failure described by the experienced ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... then," said his friend, "if you must have a definition, Hatton may rank under the genus 'antiquary,' though his species is more difficult to describe. He is a heraldic antiquary; a discoverer, inventor, framer, arranger of pedigrees; profound in the mysteries of genealogies; ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... always understood that this was equivalent to the declaration that the doctrine in question had been revealed to the Apostles, and had come down to us from them, either by Scripture or tradition. And as the acts of all the Councils, and the history of every definition of faith evidently show, it was never contended that a new revelation had been made, but every inquiry was directed to this one point—whether the doctrine in question was contained in the Sacred Scriptures or in ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... entrance of that humanity into the minister's spare room a new chapter in Henry Maxwell's life began, and yet no one, himself least of all, dreamed of the remarkable change it was destined to make in all his after definition of ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... and the talk had again drifted around to a one-sided discussion of practical politics in the Western definition of the term, when Gantry, pleading weariness on the score of his hard week's work at the railroad meeting, went to bed. The summer night was at its perfect best, and Blount was still wakeful enough to refill his pipe and well-balanced ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... of interest in these Celtic folk-tales is the light they throw upon the relation of hero-tales and folk-tales (classes 2 and 3 above). Tales told of Finn of Cuchulain, and therefore coming under the definition of hero-tales, are found elsewhere told of anonymous or unknown heroes. The question is, were the folk-tales the earliest, and were they localised and applied to the heroes, or were the heroic sagas generalised and applied to an unknown ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... her even more than her own ill behaviour. The stranger was certainly not coarse, far from gross. Even his talk about beer (she remembered every word of it) had been amusing rather than offensive. Was he a 'gentleman'? The question agitated her; it involved so technical a definition, and she felt so doubtful as to the reply. Beyond doubt he had acted in a gentlemanly way; but his voice lacked something. Coarse? Gross? No, no, no! Really, her father was very severe, not to say uncharitable. But perhaps he was thinking of the heavy ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... devil!" I said to my friend, after satisfactory definition of the Pine Rat; "what fiend may he be, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... to the omens recorded in the present volume, the majority of which have no direct connection with spiritual beings, while it will also be allowed that these do not lie without the field ordinarily covered by the word superstition. For our purposes, therefore, it is necessary to enlarge this definition. This may be done by emphasizing the first component part of the word, and introducing into it the notion of what has been left over, or of survival, made familiar by the genius of Edward B. Tylor. In these lingering notions we have opinions respecting ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... those of Fletcher and Shirley a generation or two earlier, deliberately ridicule moral principles and institutions, especially marriage, and are always in one degree or another grossly indecent. Technically they are often clever; according to that definition of literature which includes a moral standard, they are not literature at all. To them, however, we shall briefly return at the end ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... government, but claimed by as good a tenure as any other sort of property. In this doctrine no doubt the Chancellor was perfectly right; and only wrong in supposing that any denial of that doctrine is implied by the Political Economists in calling Tithes a Tax; which, on the true definition of a Tax (as I shall show hereafter), they certainly are.] inclusively, the twenty- second, twenty-third, and twenty-ninth; and these may be entirely omitted by the student, and ought at any rate ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... recall again the Master's good-bye Olivet message, and notice just what it means? Listen to the very words: "Ye shall receive power." Let me ask you—what is power? Will some one give a simple definition of that word? There are four words, four of the commonest, most familiar in our language, for which I have not been able to find a definition. If some one here can help me I will be grateful. They are the words life, light, love, and power. What do they mean? ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... and the races had come and gone, and the celebration of Fourth of July was ripening, ere Abel Ah Yo beat down by brutal psychology the citadel of her reluctance. It was then that he gave his famous exhortation which might be summed up as Abel Ah Yo's definition of eternity. Of course, like Billy Sunday on certain occasions, Abel Ah Yo had cribbed the definition. But no one in the Islands knew it, and his rating as a revivalist ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... they meet, and, strange to say, every woman expects to be kissed, and is quite offended if she is passed by without being saluted in this way, which is so much more ancient and historic than the meaningless modern one of shaking hands. This Indian definition of New Year's Day vastly amused the boys, and when in the morning Mrs Ross and Wenonah came in, they, of course, had to be saluted in the orthodox fashion. This was very agreeable, but when the Indian cook came into the dining room, in answer to Mrs Ross's ringing, Wenonah ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... the sixteenth century under the title of the morality play, such as Corneille, who foresaw everything, anticipated and predicted in his preface to Don Sancho: "I would rather say, sir, that tragedy should excite pity and fear, and that in its essentials, since there is necessity for definition. Now if it be true that this latter feeling is only excited in us when we see those like ourselves suffer, and that their misfortunes put us in fear of similar calamities, is it not also true that ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... and not of quality." The authors may possibly not agree in the definitions of the idea of self-consciousness—we ourselves perhaps are only an additional example in confirmation of this fact—; but whatever the definition may be, the fact itself remains, that self-consciousness does not stand as one of the intellectual faculties beside the others and cooerdinate with them, but, as an entirely new form of being, introduces a qualitatively new and valuable factor ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... consciousness, and whose purpose is the will to produce the best possible offspring, is conceded by scientists who reject not only Schopenhauer's metaphysic, but metaphysic in general. Even Nietzsche, that arch-individualist, has proved by many of his pronouncements, and most strikingly by his well-known definition of marriage, that he has not escaped its fascinations. "Schopenhauer ignores all phenomena which are not in support of his myth," says Lucka, who denies this instinct of philoprogenitiveness and would substitute for it a "pairing-instinct." "The experience of others," he argues, "not our ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... Road, as Bartlett called it, in answer to a question by the professor, and there was no need to ask why it was so termed. It was a good highway, but rather stony, the road being, in places, on the bare rock. It paid not the slightest attention to Euclid's definition of a straight line, and in this respect was rather a welcome change from the average American road. Sometimes they passed along avenues of overbranching trees, which were evidently relics of the forest ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... can name a thing according to the knowledge we have of its nature from its properties and effects. Hence because we can know what stone is in itself from its property, this name "stone" signifies the nature of the stone itself; for it signifies the definition of stone, by which we know what it is, for the idea which the name signifies is the definition, as is said in Metaph. iv. Now from the divine effects we cannot know the divine nature in itself, so as to know what it ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... General, sternly, 'listen to this definition of 'Mutiny,' and then, as you are a lawyer, think of your ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... accepted as a truism; and similarly, it is supposed that the artist also is born, not made. But seeing that the mechanical side of any art is learned by experience, study, or observation—still to quote the definition—without which an adequate manifestation of that art is impossible, then certainly the artist is made. He is born with certain qualities necessary for the artist, it is true; but failing his technical skill, these other gifts can never be ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... himself, in allowing others to know he possessed this strange power? Would they not at once treat him as a madman? Might they not place him under observation, or even deprive him of his liberty? At the thought he came to an abrupt halt His own definition of the miracle as a "power" had opened a new line of speculation. If this strange gift (already he was beginning to consider it more leniently) were concealed from others, could he not honorably ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... did succeed, and so well that Camors was slightly piqued. If not a coxcomb, he was at least young: he was accustomed to please: he knew the Princess de Clam-Goritz had lately applied to him her learned definition of an agreeable man—"He is charming, for one always feels in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... requiring explanation, have been arranged, as regular lessons in spelling and definition. In these definitions, however, it must be kept in mind, that no attempt has been made to give all the meanings of which a word is susceptible, but that only which it bears in the particular place in the exercise ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... mean that limited body which, whether as the Upper Ten Thousand of London or as the Four Hundred of New York, usually arrogates the title. Such narrowness of definition seems peculiarly out of place in the vigorous democracy of the West. By society I understand the great body of fairly well-educated and fairly well-mannered people, whose means and inclinations lead them to ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... Peter," I objected; "or at least you are getting ready to do so. Stop it; and give me a working definition of the difference between a hobby ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... crude remarks on the subject of the 'influence'; well, I accept your definition of what the effects of that influence should be; I recognize the wisdom of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... smoke and drink beer with the peasants and the people whenever I could get the chance. What impressed me was the little part they had in directing their own government, and the little they knew about what it was doing. There was a general disposition to accept, as a definition of duty which must not be questioned, whatever they were told to do by the Vorstand. It is this habit of mind, dating back to the days of Frederick the Great, with only occasional and brief interruptions, which has led many ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... with Lepas. We got into the habit of calling him Lepas, because it was the Malay for "let go," which definition we broadened until it became a term of correction for every form of mischief. He was such a restless, active little imp, with hands into everything and upon everything, that it was ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... will deny that some general help is necessary, when Schmidt's admirable Lexicon commits itself to such a misleading statement as that a virginal is a kind of small pianoforte, and when a very distinguished Shakespeare scholar has allowed a definition of a viol as a six-stringed guitar to appear in ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... without so long explication as he gave, but it was greatly needed in the theological world, which at that time was sunk in a sea of metaphysical definition, and consumed with a lust for explaining everything in heaven and earth in terms of alphabetic plainness. Dr. Bushnell was not only justified by the necessity of his situation in resorting to his theory, but he had the right which every man of genius may claim for himself. Any one whose thought ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... stereoscopic camera was behaving itself as such. It is due to the psychic entities to say that whatever was produced on one-half of the stereoscopic plates was produced on the other—alike good or bad in definition. But, on a careful examination of one which was rather better than the other ... I deduce this fact, that the impressing of the spirit form was not simultaneous with that of the sitter.... This I consider ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... Carboniferous; of the Permian; of the Trias; of the Jurassic; of the Cretaceous; of the Eocene; of the Miocene; of the Post-Pliocene; of Atlantic ooze; as builders of limestone; as forming green sands. Forbesiocrinus. Forest-bed of Cromer. Forest-bugs. Forest-marble. Formation, definition of; succession of. Fossiliferous rocks; chronological succession of. Fossilisation, processes of. Fossils, definition of; distinctive, of rock-groups; conclusions to be drawn from; biological relations of. Foxes. Fringe-finned Ganoids. ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... definition of nonsense, Dr. Johnson replied, "Sir, it is nonsense to bolt a door with ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Yale is credited with this definition of freedom of speech: "The liberty to say what you think without thinking what ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... an Indian, and prescribing penalties for its infringement. It was not the first time that Otasite had heard unfavorably of the influences of "nawohti," which, by the way, with the Cherokees signified physic, as well as spirituous liquor, a synonymous definition which more civilized people have sought to apply. He was content that he and the old chief were once more in affectionate accord, and he did not seek to interpret the flash of triumph in ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Mr. Schneider, he sat still amidst the wreck of his desk, pondering over a famous definition of war given by an American general ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... ground stroke is the general definition of a chop. The slice and chop are so closely related that, except in stroke analysis, ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... he was about twenty-five and had formed a somewhat indefinite definition of friendship, but one entirely his own (and perhaps Mary's) Bibbs went to bed, and was the only Sheridan to sleep soundly through the night and to wake at dawn with a ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... any way. Aunt Poll's sole trouble was lest Sally should take cold. The proprieties, those gods of modern social worship, as well as their progenitors, the improprieties, were unknown to these simple souls; they did things because they were right and wrong. They were not nice according to Swift's definition, nor proper in the mode of the best society, but they were good and pure; are the disciples and lecturers of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... other method, however laborious, could have reached the truth of form which results from the very freedom with which the conception has been expressed; but it is a truth of the simplest kind—the definition of a stone, rather than the painting of one—and the lights are in some degree dead and cold—the natural consequence of striking a mixed opaque pigment over a dark ground. It would now be possible to treat this skeleton of a stone, which could only have been knit together by Tintoret's rough ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... in one point of view the confutation of a celebrated but eccentric definition of poetry as a "criticism of life." If this were true it would be a greater work than "Paradise Lost," which must be violently strained to admit a definition not wholly inapplicable to the minor poem. If, again, Wordsworth and Coleridge are right in pronouncing "Paradise Regained" ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... My definition of a drunkard has always been this: A man is a drunkard when he drinks whisky or any other liquor before breakfast. I think that is pretty nearly right. Personally I never took a drink of liquor ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... dialogues of Plato. The process of interrogation is of the same kind with that which Socrates practises upon the youthful Cleinias in the Euthydemus; and he characteristically attributes to Alcibiades the answers which he has elicited from him. The definition of good is narrowed by successive questions, and virtue is shown to be identical with knowledge. Here, as elsewhere, Socrates awakens the consciousness not of sin but of ignorance. Self-humiliation is the first step to knowledge, even of the commonest things. No man knows how ignorant ...
— Alcibiades I • (may be spurious) Plato
... city, say in Georgia; and I have one in my mind's eye. There the people do not live so fast as to have no time to enjoy their life, while they have all that makes life enjoyable. Successful effort is my nearest approach to a definition of what constitutes happiness. There, there is every scope for various effort. The city and country around are still in process of active growth. "Fecundity" is writ large across the surface of the State, on fields, in mills, in mines. ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... earliest legislation upon this subject is found in the act of August 29, 1842, section 3; and the only legislation upon the subject is found in this section and in section 11, of the act of March 2, 1861. The definition of the subject matter, or, in other words, of a "design," is the same in both acts. It ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... men crossed Charlestown Neck, and halted for a clear definition of the impending duty. Major Brooks, of Colonel Dodge's regiment, joined here, as well as a company of artillery. Captain Nutting, with a detachment of Connecticut men, was promptly sent, by the quickest route, to patrol Charlestown, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... general treatment, as naively detailed as the pictures of those early painters contemporary with Dante, who has shown a similar care for minute and definite imagery in his verse; there, too, in the very midst of profoundly mystic vision. Such definition of outline is indeed one among many points in which Rossetti resembles the great Italian poet, of whom, led to him at first by family circumstances, he was ever a lover—a "servant and singer," faithful as Dante, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... became incredibly wealthy and enjoyed a far greater income than any state of Europe. The clergy were permitted to try certain cases at law, and they themselves had the privilege of being tried in their own church courts for minor criminal offenses. This last book of the Code begins with a definition of the Trinity; and much space is given to a description of the different kinds of unbelievers and the penalties attached to a refusal to accept ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... matter more than a fly, nor did any one else except the person I was talking to. You do feel like that with these quiet, masterful sort of people, whether you care for them or not. It's just a kind of momentary hypnotism; or, at least, that's the definition ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... he flashed out with a comment which lit up the subject as an electric spark might, but in general he shone unconsciously. I remember that one day when, at the club, we were discussing the nature of genius, some one turned to Emerson and asked him for a definition of the thing, and he instantly replied, "The faculty of generalizing from a single example;" and nobody at the table could give so good and concise a definition. There is a portrait of him by Rowse, who knew and loved him well, which renders this side of Emerson in a way that makes ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... definition of a narrow mind?' said Isabel. 'It sounds like faith and love. Are you sure you did not make it ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tongue and freed her mind she usually got the best of it, for she seldom failed to have common sense on her side, while Jo carried her love of liberty and hate of conventionalities to such an unlimited extent that she naturally found herself worsted in an argument. Amy's definition of Jo's idea of independence was such a good hit that both burst out laughing, and the discussion took a more amiable turn. Much against her will, Jo at length consented to sacrifice a day to Mrs. Grundy, and help her sister through ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... exclaimed Michel Ardan in a serious tone, as if they had told him of some serious event. "What I particularly like in your definition of the hyperbola (I was going to say hyperblague) is that it is still more obscure than the word you ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... not want to delay or bother people with my definition of democracy, but I do not mind confiding to them where I have ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... either in their own persons or through their ancestors, the right of taking magistracy, in short those who are participes imperandi et parendi.' What has already been said in Chapter II. about the origin of the Italian Republics will explain this definition ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... reason as he could command bade him look up and view with scorn the ragged defenders of the forts; but whence came this hail of missiles which kept him so sore? Clearly there was some element of his nature which eluded grasp and definition, a misty influence making itself felt here and there. To none of the sources upon which I have touched was it clearly traceable; in truth, it arose from them all. The man had never in his life been guilty of offence against his graver conscience; he had the sensation of ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... representing new ones, which is here attributed with such distinctness and so sparingly, has been given by nature in complete perfection to no man, nor entirely denied to any. The shades of it cannot be distinguished by so loose a scale as language. A definition of genius which excludes such a mind as Schiller's will scarcely be agreeable to philosophical correctness, and it will tend rather to lower than to exalt the dignity of the word. Possessing all the general ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... the existence of a human organism, not subject to observation, as we have to admit the existence of any other invisible, fantastic being. This assertion was erroneous, because for the understanding of humanity, i.e., of men, the definition of an organism was incorrectly constructed, while in humanity itself all actual signs of organism,—the centre of feeling or consciousness, ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... too much for us," I thought, when we seemed to have been keeping up the struggle for hours, though minutes would have been a more correct definition; and, with the longing for help and counsel growing more and more intense, I was about to kneel down and speak to Mr Reardon, and ask him ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... states, are reserved to the states or to the people." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of definition. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... lady what buffs." And, to render the definition still more explicit, she rolled up the sleeve of her wrapper, showed me mighty biceps, and then with her arm performed several rapid revolutions ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... under word "king."] and Sir Walter Raleigh wrote that attempts to bind the king by law justified his breach of it, "his charters and other instruments being no other than the surviving witnesses of unconstrained will." [Footnote: Raleigh, Prerogative of Parliament, Preface.] But this definition of the prerogative of the king was an exaggerated description of his real position in the English system of government, and was either academic or argumentative. As properly used, absolute monarchy merely meant an all-powerful ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... and turning to the definition of law, and the statement of a few elementary principles, found that they were thoroughly understood. Turning on, he paused with his finger ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... to the use of the book and the system of its construction may be given here. Each title or subject is defined once in the text. Where a title is synonymous with one or more others the definition is only given under one title, and the others appear at the foot of the article as synonyms. It may be that the reader is seeking the definition of one of these synonyms. If so a reference to the index shows him at once what page contains the information sought for. The use of an index ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... mind; and Browning, who continually intrudes, is sometimes Don Juan and sometimes himself and sometimes both together, and sometimes another thinker who strives to bring, as in the visions in the poem, some definition into this changing cloudland of the brain. And after all, not one of the questions posed in any of the poems is settled in the end. I do not say that the leaving of the questions unsettled is not like life. It is very like life, but not like the work of ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... United States were instructed to favor obligatory arbitration; the establishment of a permanent court of arbitration; the prohibition of force in the collection of contract debts; immunity from seizure of private property at sea; a clearer definition of the rights of neutrals, and ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... securing their custom. Some people thought him a careless, good-natured fellow, and wondered how, with his off-hand ways, he contrived to make money so fast, but those who knew him well saw that he was one of those who "never lost an opportunity." Others declared that Monsieur Ramin's own definition of his character was, that he was a "bon enfant," and that "it was all luck." He shrugged his shoulders and laughed when people hinted at his deep scheming in making, and his skill in taking advantage ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... the parties in the relation of complainant and defendant. This relation can in every case be established, if not by mutual agreement, then by some agency of the League of Nations charged with that duty. Until this reform of procedure takes place there will be no definition of issues, and arbitration will continue to be the long and elaborate proceeding it has ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... limits of natural conditions. Neither view is correct. This phenomenon is not new but is as old as the world; and it is not supernatural but is subject to the eternal laws that govern all that exists. This phenomenon has been usually defined as "intercourse with the spirit world." That definition is inexact. Under such a definition the spirit world is contrasted with the material world. But this is erroneous; there is no such contrast! Both worlds are so closely connected that it is impossible to draw a line of demarcation, separating the one from the other. We say matter is composed ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... definition of a Governor it is seen that his position is an anomaly and he himself a figure-head, his duty being to strengthen the link that connects the Colony to Great Britain, This definition as before mentioned, may be allowable from a general point of view, but never from the Young ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... is a feeling inherent in most Englishmen, and whether in the chase, or with the rod or gun, they far excel all other nations. In fact, the definition of this feeling cannot be understood by many foreigners. We are frequently ridiculed for fox-hunting: 'What for all dis people, dis horses, dis many dog? dis leetle (how you call him?) dis "fox" for to catch? ha! you eat dis creature; ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... occurred to the reflecting student of logic, that the philosophers of the schools must have been sorely straitened in seeking for a definition of man, before they would have had recourse to such a derogation from his apparently higher attributes, as to define him by "animal risibile," or "animal bipes implumis." An attentive consideration will, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... definition of sensibility, replied the sage, I should say that it is the result of acute senses, finely fashioned nerves, which vibrate at the slightest touch, and convey such clear intelligence to the brain, that it does ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... Definition of Clover.—According to Johnson's Encyclopaedia, clover or trefoil is a plant of the genus Trifolium and the family Leguminosae. The Standard Dictionary defines it as any one of several species of plants of the genus Trifolium of the bean family Leguminosae. ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... Professors can always be hired to prove, by arguments of race or language or history, that a group about which there is a dispute is, or is not, a nation, as may be desired by those whom the professors serve. If we are to avoid all these controversies, we must first of all endeavor to find some definition of ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell |
