"Ennoble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hesitation of the imbecile, and fiercely indignant against half-heartedness and disloyalty. Whatever faults, therefore, his enemies may allege, these will all fade away in the splendor with which coming ages will ennoble the greatest of war ministers in the nineteenth century. He will be remembered as "one who never thought of self, and who held the helm in sunshine and in storm with the same ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... important and real things—viz. elevation and purity of heart and mind. You are in the period of life to which fair dreams of the future are natural. It is, as the prophet tells us, for 'the young man' to 'see visions,' and to ennoble his life thereafter by turning them into realities. Generous and noble ideas ought to belong to youth. But you are also in the period when there is a keen joy in mere living, and when some desires, which get weaker as years go on, are very ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... these to the heirs male of Bartholomew. Only in the event of the extinction of the male line, direct or collateral, is it to descend to the females of the family; and those into whose hands it may fall are never to diminish it, but always to increase and ennoble it by all means possible. The head of the house is to sign himself "The Admiral." A tenth of the annual income is to be set aside yearly for distribution among the poor relations of the house. A chapel is founded and endowed ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... would animate and elevate his style; and it was at such points as these, too, that he would begin to speak of the "vain dream of life," of the "inexhaustible torrent of fair forms," of the "sterile, splendid torture of understanding and loving," of the "moving effigies which ennoble for all time the charming and venerable fronts of our cathedrals"; that he would express a whole system of philosophy, new to me, by the use of marvellous imagery, to the inspiration of which I would naturally have ascribed ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... sweet and noble simplicity of the young chatelaine in giving her orders. If an air of distinction seems hereditary in some families it is surely because the exercise of the duties conferred by the possession of wealth has a natural tendency to ennoble the whole character ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... and cruel, less degrading and dwarfing for the children that are born into it, and I have tried also to make clear that realization of, and revolt against, the bad management and waste and muddle which result from our present economic system. I want now to point out that Socialism seeks to ennoble the intimate personal life, by checking and discouraging passions that at present run rampant, and by giving wider scope for passions that are now thwarted and subdued. The Socialist declares that life is now needlessly dishonest, base and mean, because our present ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... he continued, enthusiastically; "and, if I mistake not, the Agamemnon will be an epoch in your life. You will find that all these studies will serve to ennoble your art, and you will be able to put mind into your work, and not merely form and colour. Do you know, I feel so well that I believe I shall not only live to finish Andrea del Sarto, but also ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... a healer of the wounds of his unhappy country. Dolly V., sweet Dolly V., for how many years have I looked forward to this present meeting! For how many years has it been my intention to exalt and ennoble you! I redeem it. Behold in me, your husband. Yes, beautiful Dolly—charmer—enslaver—S. Tappertit ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... in the language of the market, one shilling the better for her. Her father, a man of low birth, and having, perhaps, in spite of his wealth, suffered from the proud man's contumely, has determined to ennoble his family by means of his only child, and she is not to enjoy his fortune unless she marry one who has a title. If she unites herself with any man, below the rank of a baron's son, he swears she shall never see the colour of sixpence of his money. I understand that a certain Lord Roadster, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... history he wrote ‘Merlin and the Gleam.’ From his boyhood he had felt the magic of Merlin—that spirit of poetry—which bade him know his power and follow throughout his work a pure and high ideal, with a simple and single devotedness and a desire to ennoble the life of the world, and which helped him through doubts and difficulties to ‘endure as seeing Him who ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... he was never able to return it at any time, for once she got it, the Russian made away with it in some secret manner and refused to give it up. Her price for returning it was his royal father's consent to ennoble her, to receive her at the Mauravanian court, and so to alter the constitution that it would be possible for her to become ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... disturb your convictions—I really won't!" she went on soothingly, for now he was rather more ruffled than she. "But I did want and long to ennoble some man to high aims; and when I saw you, and knew you wanted to be my comrade, I—shall I confess it?—thought that man might be you. But you take so much tradition on trust that I don't know ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... primary importance in the scheme of atonement. But with the loss of the Temple, the idea of sacrifice entirely vanished, and atonement became a matter for the personal conscience. It was henceforth an inward sense of sin translating itself into the better life. 'To purify desire, to ennoble the will—this is the essential condition of atonement. Nay, it is atonement' (Joseph, Judaism as Creed and Life, p. 267; cf. supra, p. 45). This, in the opinion of Christian theologians, is a shallow view of atonement. But it is at all events an attempt to apply theology to life. And ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... a conscience clear, Though toiling for bread in an humble sphere, Doubly blessed with content and health, Untried by the lusts and cares of wealth, Lowly living and lofty thought Adorn and ennoble a poor man's cot; For mind and morals in nature's plan Are the genuine ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... and individuality that ennoble your face are a sealed book to all but me. Mine is the power which transforms you into the most lovable of men, and that is why I would keep your mental gifts also for myself. To others they should be as meaningless as your ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... to the level of the barn-yard," this is merely a catch-phrase intended to arouse prejudice and to obscure the facts. The reader may judge for himself whether the eugenic program will degrade mankind to the level of the brutes, or whether it will ennoble it, beautify it, and increase ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... of her own intractable character, without religious faith to ennoble it, without even imagination to refine it—the unconscious disclosure of the one tender and loving instinct in her nature still piteously struggling for existence, with no sympathy to sustain it, with no light to guide it—would have touched the heart of any ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... owns no duty, and is good for no use; not a repose which Thought cannot ennoble, and Affection cannot sanctify. To serve the cause of the poor and the ignorant, in the little sphere which now surrounds me; to smooth the way for pleasure and plenty, where pain and want have made it rugged too long; to live more and more worthy, with every day, of the sisterly ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... there. The name of Jesus had never been heard in that wild north-land, and so as none of the blessedness of religion had entered into the hearts of the people, so none of its sweet, losing, elevating influences had begun to ennoble and bless their lives and improve their habits. So he pondered over what he witnessed and heard, and was thankful when the day's hunting was over, and Memotas would talk to him as they sat there on their robes around the fire, often for hours at a time. ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... recognised standard of generosity and of justice. Their deeds became the theme of the poets, who sought to embellish their virtues and extenuate their offences. Thus, certain models, not indeed wholly pure or excellent, but bright with many of those qualities which ennoble a national character, were set before the emulation of the aspiring and the young:—and the traditional fame of a Hercules or a Theseus assisted to inspire the souls of those who, ages afterward, broke the Mede at Marathon, and arrested the Persian might in the Pass of Thermopylae. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... there was very little in Tom's life which tended to ennoble him. It is true there was a service for soldiers every Sunday morning in one of the big buildings in the town, and while Tom, lover of music as he had always been, was somewhat influenced by the singing of the men, and while the hymns reminded him of his Sunday-school ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... ever at Shafton when he looked elsewhere, and were dropped at once when they encountered his, that she was irresistible! In fine, the affectionate delicacy of her whole demeanour, joined to the promptitude and boldness she had so lately evinced, tended to ennoble the services she ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Teacher of all. Although teaching is a very responsible work, yet does one seldom reach fame in it. The truth is, fame does not stand for so much work done, but for so much worldly opinion gained. Do not enter this work of teaching to misunderstand or slight it, but to be proud of it, and to ennoble it. ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... Niagara would spare the tourist. It is only a human mind that can instruct a human mind. There is a man in Cincinnati, of small stature, and living in a small house of a street not easy to find, who is doing more to raise, inform, and ennoble Cincinnati than all her lovely hills and dales. It is the truly Reverend A. D. MAYO, minister of the Unitarian Church of the Redeemer. His walls are not wainscoted, and there is about his house no umbrageous park nor verdant lawn. It has only pleased Heaven, so far, to endow him with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... the woman who makes a good record in the shop shall be respected in the home, and that she who becomes skilled in thought and acquainted with scientific research, should find thereby an introduction to society, that will ennoble her, and it is impossible to describe the effect that would be produced upon the minds of all. In this work women of culture can keep step with Jesus, and become the benefactresses of their sex and blessings to mankind. Let woman help woman, and society will be reformed. Let man be true ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... the artist's task, through offering his best and most carefully prepared achievements, to educate the public, to ennoble it; and he should carry out his mission without being influenced by bad standards ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... Danish frontier and the sea. Here, surrounded by overpowering numbers, without food, without ammunition, he capitulated on the 7th of November, after his courage and resolution had done everything that could ennoble both general and soldiers in the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... I forgive you—and I shall leave you. (He puts on the brown cloak and hat, picks up his stick and travelling bag.) For if I were to stay, I'd soon grow worse than I am now. The innocent child, whose mission was to ennoble our warped relationship, has been defiled by you in his mother's womb and made an apple of discord and a source of punishment a revenge. Why should I stay here to ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... description which the world has yet seen. And this too is true. But I doubt even whether that conviction is so strong as the conviction of the young successful lover, that he has achieved a triumph which should ennoble him down to late generations. As he goes along he has a contempt for other men; for they know nothing of such glory as his. As he pores over his "Blackstone," he remembers that he does so, not so much that he may acquire law, as that he may acquire Fanny; and then all other porers ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... smallness of daily endeavour, Let the great meaning ennoble it ever, Droop not o'er efforts expended in vain, Work, as believing, that labour is gain." Queen ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not know whether you have ever noticed what a part difficulties play in our natural life. They call out man's powers as nothing else can. They strengthen and ennoble character. We are told that one reason of the superiority of the Northern nations, like Holland and Scotland, in strength of will and purpose, over those of the sunny South, as Italy and Spain, is that the climate of the latter has been too beautiful, and the life it encourages too easy ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... and unlimited in its extent; the time has been, when the whole known world was in a manner united in one community: but the sphere of education has always been limited. It is for nations to produce the events, that enchant the imagination, and ennoble the page of history: infancy must always pass away in the unimportance of mirth, and the privacy of retreat. That government however is a theme so much superior to education, is not perhaps so evident, as we ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... again with a leap, overflowing upon her fine skin. Understanding now came to her, with crushing force. Her knight made for her a pretty summary of an episode that was past. There was to come no coronation of words to ennoble these caresses: Mr. Canning, at parting, desired to thank her for her sweetness. And this was the high moment toward which she had been dancing on the fleece-pink of ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... contend with nature, but keep her as innocent as I can." Select only such writings of this class as some judicious friend has recommended. Read poetry. If it be true poetry, it is the twin-sister of religion. It will exalt and ennoble your soul. Study history. From that you will draw unfailing draughts of knowledge and wisdom. Be familiar with good biography. Above all, make the Word of God your constant study. So will you be educated for every ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... centuries seems of yesterday, so full is it of those delicate critical distinctions which are sometimes supposed peculiar to modern writers. The piece has for its title La Deffense et Illustration de la langue Francoyse; and its problem is how to illustrate or ennoble the French language, to give it lustre. We are accustomed to speak of the varied critical and creative movement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as the Renaissance, and because we have a single name for it we may sometimes fancy ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... higher classes instead of elevating the inferior. Liberty and equality then govern by their negative side, instead of exercising the positive and beneficent influence they should have, to develop all forces to their utmost, to ennoble the mind, to give more elasticity to the soul and greater vigor to thought, to give birth to those varied forms and to that moral energy, which should bring us nearer to final equality in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... fell—but, falling, kept the highest seat, And in her loveliness, her pomp of woe, Where now she dwells, withdrawn into the wild, Still o'er the mind maintains, from age to age, Its empire undiminish'd. There, as though Grandeur attracted grandeur, are beheld All things that strike, ennoble; from the depths Of Egypt, from the classic fields of Greece— Her groves, her temples—all things that inspire Wonder, delight! Who would not say the forms. Most perfect most divine, had by consent Flock'd thither ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... or later, the desire to share in the stores of knowledge which human intelligence has won, in the insight into the working of the forces of nature, which it has acquired and applied to industry, in the arts which ennoble and support human action; in short to participate in the spiritual treasures which are, as it were, the birthright of those born under a luckier star. This desire, which opens to the diligent the way to material prosperity and inner contentment, seems for society as a whole an important ...
— The Condition and Tendencies of Technical Education in Germany • Arthur Henry Chamberlain
... refer to is not one brought about by the opponents of religion, by materialistic doctrines, but is owing to the development of the religious sentiment itself. Instead of tending to an abrogation of that sentiment, it may be expected to ennoble its emotional manifestations ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... magnificence of his life and the folly of his waste. In these two cases the same term means very different things—to scatter money broadcast does not say it all; there are ways of doing it which ennoble men, and others which degrade them. Besides, to scatter money supposes that one is well provided with it. When the love of sumptuous living takes possession of those whose means are limited, the matter ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... beauty into many a shady corner, opens all the flowering petals and sets all the birds singing in the sky. The whole scene changes when a beam of light from Him falls upon earthly joys. He will transform them and ennoble them and make them perpetual. Do not meddle with mirth over which you cannot make the sign of the Cross and ask Him to bless it; and do not keep Him out of your gladness, or it will leave bitterness on your lips, howsoever sweet it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... place he lives in, or from necessity, or from failure in the highest attempts, he is obliged to descend lower; he will bring into the lower sphere of art a grandeur of composition and character that will raise and ennoble his works ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... that Art is the handmaid of God," he answered hotly. "I happen to believe in Jesus Christ, and I conceive that no picture is worthy to be called great or worthy of any Christian's painting unless it possess some qualities calculated to ennoble the mind of those who see. Art is the noblest labor man can employ time upon. The thing comes from God; it is a talent only to be employed in the highest sense when ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... way to begin their labors among the Chinese. They are busily engaged learning the language. Poor girls! what a life they have before them! But apart from all question of its true usefulness, they have the grand thought to sustain them, and ennoble their lives, that they go at the call of what seems to them their duty. We watch the Chinese eating and laugh at their chopsticks, but we forget that one reason why John Chinaman prides himself upon ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... has the courage and self-restraint to leave his noble creations alive: too many try to ennoble them by death. For my part, if I have to go out of life before you, I would gladly trust you to the hands of Clara, or Rose, or Janet, or most of all Vittoria; though, to be accurate, I fear they have all grown too old for you ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... reason must not ignore or deplore it, but direct it into the proper channels; it may indicate the dangers that it incurs; but merely to thwart it, to regard it with shame and horror, is to establish an internecine warfare. The true function is rather to ennoble the physical desire by the just concurrence of the soul. But the essence of the situation is co-operation and not coercion; and each must be ready to compromise. If the physical nature will not compromise ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... granted, and by this our present Charter do give, grant and confirm, the name, style, title, dignity and honour of the same Principality and Earldom, and him, our said most dear Son, the Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as has been accustomed, we do ennoble and invest with the said Principality and Earldom, by girting him with a sword, by putting a coronet on his head, and a gold ring on his finger, and, also, by delivering a gold rod into his hand, that he may preside there, and may direct and defend those parts. To hold to him and ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... strong on art. Raphael and Phidias were always getting into his pulpit. Truth was beauty, and beauty was truth. He never wearied of maintaining the uplifting quality resident in the Sunday afternoon contemplation of works of painting and sculpture, and nothing, to his mind, was more calculated to ennoble and refine human nature than the practice of art itself. The Doctor was one of the trustees of the Art Academy; he went to every exhibition, and dragged as many of his friends with him as could be induced to listen to his orotund commentaries; and he had almost reached the point where it was ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... ceaseless influence. Their power is none the less because they never break the home-silence; they mould the young life and stamp their impress upon it. How important then that all such objects should be chosen, not only as treasures of artistic beauty, but for their power to elevate and ennoble character. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to fall for Freedom's right? He's dead alone that lacks her light! And murder sullies in heaven's sight The sword he draws:— What can alone ennoble fight? A noble cause! ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... politicians, feigning to be ignorant of what they knew; to know what they were ignorant of; to keep secrets which had no existence; to lock the door to mend a pen; to appear deep when they were shallow; to set spies in motion, and to intercept letters; to try to ennoble the poverty of their means by the grandeur of their objects. The censorship, of course, did not escape. The scene being laid in Spain, Figaro affirmed that at Madrid the liberty of the press meant that, so long as an author spoke neither of authority, nor of public worship, nor ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... love, such a courtship, and such a wedlock as that of Robert and Clara Schumann ennoble not only the art and history of music, but those ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... and phenomena of consciousness which ennoble man in the eyes of his fellows have had a less ancient history than those connected with his physical needs. Hunger and the reproductive instinct affected the oldest and simplest forms of the organic world. ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... troubles that occupied every sleeping and waking thought of Hankinson Judson Terwilliger. His mind was now set upon the hardest problem it had ever had to cope with, that problem being how to so ennoble the spectre cook of Bangletop that she might outrank the ancestors of his landlord in the other world—the shady world, he called it. The living cook had been induced to remain partly by threats and partly by promises of increased pay; the threats consisting largely of expressions of ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... assume a superiority over the present; but I think a contemplation of mediaeval art would often open a new avenue of thought and lead to many a pleasing and profitable discovery; I would too add the efforts of my feeble pen to elevate and ennoble the fond pursuit of my leisure hours. I would say one word to vindicate the lover of old musty writings, and the explorer of rude antiquities, from the charge of unprofitableness, and to protect him from the sneer of ridicule. ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... (Melbourne): "The genuine humour of these larrikin love poems is all the more effective because beneath the surface fun there is a suggestion of deeper feelings that ennoble men and unite them in the ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... animating sight to see a man of genius, regardless of temporary gains, whether of money or praise, fixing his attention solely upon what is intrinsically interesting and permanent, and finding his happiness in an entire devotion of himself to such pursuits as shall most ennoble human nature. We have not yet seen enough of this in modern times; and never was there a period in society when such examples were likely to do more good than at present. The industry and love of truth which distinguish Sir Joshua's mind are most admirable; but he appears ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... good," said Janet; "it would ennoble your character. Not that it needs it," she added hastily. "And I could write another story about that quaint old man who paid the musicians to go away, and who made us all laugh ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... those who do not believe that to give to women common rights and privileges will degrade them, but on the contrary I believe it will ennoble them; and I believe further that to put them on an equality in the matter of rights and privileges with men will enhance their charms ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... down in our national history woman has been hand in hand with man, has assisted, supported and encouraged him, and now there are women ready to help reform the life of the body politic, and side by side with man work to purify, refine and ennoble the world. Miss Couzins seemed Inspired by her own thoughts and carried the audience along with her in her ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... work-field and my prize, not in dead forms and colours, or ink-and-paper theories, but in a living, immortal, human spirit! I will study no more, except the human heart, and only that to purify and ennoble it.' ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... embrace it.) To flame above it like the god of day! To rule over it with a monarch mind! To hold in subjection all the raging passions, all the insatiable desires in this fathomless ocean! 'Tis certain, though the cunning of the thief ennoble not the theft, yet doth the prize ennoble the thief. It is base to filch a purse—daring to embezzle a million,—but it is immeasurably great to steal a diadem. As guilt extends its sphere, the infamy decreaseth. (A pause, then with energy.) To obey! or to command! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... existence of the Church of England itself. The majority of the English clergy denounced the proposition, and some even declared its author a madman; but Mr. Gladstone pursued his chosen way with energy and directness. In one of those elevated speeches with which he was accustomed to ennoble debate, he laid the details of his plan open to the Commons. The Irish Church was to be disestablished and disendowed, its bishops were to lose their seats in Parliament, and it was to become a free and independent ecclesiastical body, like the Presbyterian, Wesleyan, or Catholic churches, ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... overthrow of all titles of distinction. Every man, high or low, was to be addressed simply as Citizen . Napoleon wished to introduce a system of rewards which should stimulate to heroic deeds, and which should ennoble those who had deserved well of humanity. Innumerable foreigners of distinction had thronged France since the peace. He had observed with what eagerness the populace had followed these foreigners, gazing with delight upon their gay decorations The court-yard of ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... the Savior of the world directed his attention to political life, and Christianity and politics are in no wise antagonistic. On the contrary, it is the aim of Christianity to elevate and ennoble even earthly relations; it is the true religion of the people. No saying is so misunderstood, so entirely twisted from its real meaning, as that uttered by Christ: "My kingdom is not of this world." This earth, the theatre of divine love and power, ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... to be the highest bulwark of slavery. Its votaries understood its strength and weakness. Independent, well- paid free labor and industries (46) would ennoble the men of toil, bring wealth and power, build up populous towns and cities, and consequently overwhelm, politically and otherwise, the institution of slavery, or draw into successful social competition with plantation life ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... that there was once in our city a very rich merchant called Arriguccio Berlinghieri, who, foolishly thinking, as merchants yet do every day, to ennoble himself by marriage, took to wife a young gentlewoman ill sorting with himself, by name Madam Sismonda, who, for that he, merchant-like, was much abroad and sojourned little with her, fell in love with ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... similar kind, has also been talked of, one which it may appear almost ridiculous to suggest in England, but which would be considered so in no other country. It is, to ennoble some of the greatest scientific benefactors of their country. Not to mention political causes, the ranks of the nobility are constantly recruited from the army, the navy, and the bar; why should not the family of that man, whose name is imperishably ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... made the Courage, screw your, to the sticking place —mounteth with occasion Course, I have finished my —of true love never did run smooth Course of empire Courtesy, I am the very pink of Counterfeit presentment Coward, thou slave —upon instinct Cowards die many times —, what can ennoble Crabtree, and old iron rang Creator, remember thy Creature not too bright Credulity, ye who listen with Crime, within thee, undivulged —, it was worse than a Critics, not trust in Critical, nothing if not Criticising elves Cross, sparkling, she wore —, last at his Crotchets in thy head now Crown ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... divinity itself, inculcating an abject reverence for the Court, gave additional effect to the licentious example of the Court. We look in vain for those qualities which lend a charm to the errors of high and ardent natures, for the generosity, the tenderness, the chivalrous delicacy, which ennoble appetites into passions, and impart to vice itself a portion of the majesty of virtue. The excesses of that age remind us of the humours of a gang of footpads, revelling with their favourite beauties at a flash- house. In the fashionable libertinism there is a hard, cold ferocity, an impudence, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... man was prepossessing in the highest degree, displaying as it did every requisite of mind and body that can ennoble and dignify manly beauty. He stood at the summit of his prime, his form erect and symmetrical, though somewhat stouter than is usually to be found in men of his race. His bearing was graceful, lofty, and commanding; his eye eagle-like in its ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... detecting the money-changer and driving him out of the temple, took him for a sentimental and chivalrous lover, and, helped by its only half-discarded doctrine of celibacy, gave virginity a heavenly value to ennoble its commercial pretensions. In short, Mammon, always mighty, put the Church in his pocket, where he keeps it to this day, in spite of the occasional saints and martyrs who contrive from time to time to get their heads and souls free to testify ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... symbol, is undoubtedly an affectation of great simplicity and familiarity of language. They disdain to make use of the common poetical phraseology, or to ennoble their diction by a selection of fine or dignified expressions. There would be too much art in this, for that great love of nature with which they are all of them inspired; and their sentiments, they ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... giving you an insight into the character of these boys as a key to their after-life. I know that the child is not always 'father to the man,' and that the insertion of a new and transforming principle into the soul will elevate and ennoble the meanest man. But as a general rule the mainsprings of character develop early, and the man is very much as the child has made him. The sowing then, brings forth a harvest afterwards. They tell us, that two natives of Scotland settled in the ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... all in all." What a triumph it would be if the Church were fighting really with that banner floating over her! What a life ours could be if that were really our banner! To serve God fully, wholly, only, to have Him all in all! How it would ennoble, and enlarge, and stimulate our whole being! I am working, I am fighting, "that God may be all in all;" that the day of glory may be hastened. I am praying, and the Holy Spirit makes His wrestling in me with unutterable longing, "that God may be all in all." Would that we ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... herself seemed at loose ends. Visiting the Academy of Design, she studied "in silent reverential awe," the marble face of Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci, and declared, "Making that cold marble breathe and pulsate, Harriet Hosmer has done more to ennoble and elevate woman than she could possibly have done by mere words...." Of Rosa Bonheur, the first woman to venture into the field of animal painting, she said, "Her work not only surpasses anything ever done by a woman, but is a bold and successful ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... deliberate strain after virtue: when, in other words, their habitual motives, aims, methods, their character, in short, naturally draw them into the region of what is virtuous. 'It is by our ideas that we ennoble our passions or we debase them; they rise high or sink low according to the man's soul.'[36] All this has ceased to be new to our generation, but a hundred and thirty years ago, and indeed much nearer to us than that, the key to all nobleness was thought ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... long vigils and abstemious diet. When his first transports had subsided, she still maintained the same ascendant over his mind, by the more solid merit of temper and understanding. Justinian delighted to ennoble and enrich the object of his affection; the treasures of the East were poured at her feet, and the nephew of Justin was determined, perhaps by religious scruples, to bestow on his concubine the sacred ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... atrophy of the affections? As long as he was in the world was it right that he should isolate himself from any of its sympathies and trials? Why was it not a higher life to enter into the common lot, and suffer, if need be, in the struggle to purify and ennoble all? He remembered the days he had once passed in the Trappist monastery of Gethsemane. The perfect peace of mind of the monks was purchased at the expense of the extirpation of every want, all will, every human interest. Were these ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that he had only one life to lose, and it would be interesting to see how brave he was; besides, the King would have good reason to ennoble him if he overcame them. The King at last allowed himself, though rather unwillingly, to be won over by Red's persistency, and one day asked Ring to go and kill the oxen that were in the wood for him, and bring their horns and hides to him in the evening. ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... instance on his palette; hence that undisturbed dexterity of handling which gives so much the appearance of life in his best works. The distinctive characteristics between a portrait painter and a historical painter, is "that the one paints man in general, the other a particular man;" hence, to ennoble the work, it is necessary to make it conform, as much as can be done with safety to the likeness, to the great principles that guide the highest branches of the art—that is, by softening down those features that overstep the boundary of general nature, and assisting those parts that fall short, ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... multitude. From these untuneful utterances we gladly turn to her prose. There she shows strength of character and goodness of heart. One aim, never lost sight of, is perceptible through all, and gives unity to the whole; this is a fervent desire to ennoble human life; consequently her works will long have influence, and continue to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... bring comfort to others which it may be she could never have found had she been the pampered darling of some wealthy house. Often, when she forgot what she was doing, Louie made surmises concerning Frarnie Maurice, wondering if she were the noble thing that Andrew needed to ennoble him—if she were really so strong and beautiful that the mere sight of her had killed all thought or memory of an older love; trying to believe her all that his guardian angel might wish his wife to be, and to acknowledge that she herself was so low and small and ignorant that she could ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... right. I couldn't bear to have you think such a thing, especially—well, I'll tell you why some day. But I do wish you had a title. Do they ever ennoble ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... Russell] brought into public life, and he carried through it unimpaired, the qualities which ennoble manhood—truth, justice, fortitude, self-denial, a fund of genuine indignation against wrong, and an inexhaustible sympathy with human suffering.... With a slender store of physical power, his life was a daily assertion ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... the epic manner of Milton. His figures may be called historic parallels, whereby the names and incidents of human history are made to elucidate and ennoble the less familiar names and incidents of his prehistoric theme. Sometimes, following Homer, he borrows a figure from rustic life, as where, for instance, he compares the devils, crowding into Pandemonium, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... ennoble her conduct from that moment of her life onwards. She would exercise kind patronage towards Swithin without once indulging herself with his company. Inexpressibly dear to her deserted heart he was becoming, but for the future he should at least be hidden from ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... reading the newspapers and romances, and in visiting the theatres. It is not strange to us to see our philosopher in the tavern, in the theatre, and at the ball. It is not strange in our eyes to learn that those artists who sweeten and ennoble our souls have passed their lives in drunkenness, cards, and women, ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... universal brotherhood of man, whether pleading in behalf of the oppressed African, or the oppressed Greek, or the oppressed Hungarian; who gave all his sympathy and all his influence in aid of every pursuit, enterprise, and institution which could ennoble the human race; who made all other human law pay homage to the Constitution of his country, and all human law to the Divine Revelation; who gave to Dartmouth a more enduring fame throughout America, and to America a more enduring fame over the whole earth: of Levi Woodbury, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... too far to say that a woman's mind is in her heart; it is the source both of the thoughts which ennoble and elevate, and of those which are selfish and worldly; it is the key to all the powers of her soul, so that he who becomes the possessor of her heart is master of her whole being, and can exercise over her a power of fascination which has ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... of losing our enthusiasms. Let us ever glory in something, and strive to retain our admiration for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... makes the demand, and the necessity is the ever-advancing spirit of to-day, which urges all to attain something that will not only benefit themselves, and be an incentive to others, but will enlighten and ennoble the coming ...
— Silver Links • Various
... calves and such folly," he said. "We are likely enough to have our waters of Marah. But it seems to me the best way to ennoble labor, give it its true dignity, and show the possibilities for the workmen, is concerted action. As matters stand now, few poor men can ever acquire sufficient capital to start any business; and perhaps this is not best when we ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... it is essentially a matter of refinement, of power to free them from their natural root in the practical and instinctive, and lift them into the higher region of sentiment. But every kind of sensation, however low, may become beautiful; this is not to degrade beauty, but to ennoble sensation. ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... the history of British Art, the great merit of Gainsborough is, to have broken us entirely loose from old conventions. Wilson had turned aside from Dutch art to ennoble landscape by selecting from the higher qualities of Italian art; but Gainsborough early discarded all he had learned from the bygone schools, and gave himself up wholly to Nature; he was capable of delicate handling and minute ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... others, but to govern himself by an inward law, and to advance towards his proper perfections; that he belongs to himself and to God, and to no human superior. In all our teachings we aim to purify and ennoble the character of our patients by promoting in them true virtue, strong temperance proclivities and a true piety; and to accomplish these ends we endeavor to stimulate their own exertions for a better knowledge of God, ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... as if we were both of us incapable of decency or self- control? Why must love be always assumed to make us weak and contemptible, as if it were some subtle poison? Why shouldn't it strengthen and ennoble us?" ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... is old-fashioned. She would have preferred to live in one place the year around, to beautify and to ennoble that place; to be buried from it as she had been married into it, and to leave upon it the stamp of her character, incessant industry and good taste; to fill it gradually with the things she loved best or admired most, and to be always ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... President Marsh of the college using his great learning and his great influence to purify the city, to ennoble its patriotism, to inspire the young men and women who loved as well as admired him to lives of Christian service, always teaching them that education means great responsibility for the weak ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... world, it becomes blind to all else. Moral death falls on it; and any sin looks sweet that takes it nearer to its goal. It is a passion that generates at once all the loftiest and all the vilest things, which between them ennoble and corrupt the world—even as heat generates at once the harvest and the maggot, the purpling vine and the lice that devour it. It is a passion without which the world would decay in darkness, as it would do without heat, yet to which, as to ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... our work now. Scarred by the weaknesses of man, with whatever guidance God may offer us, we must nevertheless and alone with our mortality, strive to ennoble the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... no better than a dog's life? What else but a long dog's life does this make heaven to be? Such an undervaluing of a short but noble life, is consistent with the scheme which blasphemes earth in order to ennoble heaven, and then claims to be preeminently logical. According to the clear evidence of the Bible, the old saints in general were at least as uncertain as I have ever been concerning future life; nay, ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... humble, and the earthly-minded heavenly. It draws all who truly receive it, by a gradual but certain process, into a likeness to Christ, which is the sum of all goodness. In proportion also as the principles of the gospel gain ground in any community, they ennoble it, purify it, and inspire it with the spirit of truth and justice. Very imperfectly is our country pervaded by this good leaven. Yet it is this, small as is its measure, which makes the difference between the state of society here at home and ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... say, in the case of a lady of inferior rank—or even birth, the King of these parts can, on her marriage with a nobleman—blank it all!—ennoble her father and mother, and their fathers and mothers, though they've been dead, or as good as ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... relation to his strength than it costs ourselves. But if, in the inscrutable providence of the Almighty, this generation is disappointed in its lofty aspirations for the race, if we have not virtue enough to ennoble our whole people, and make it a nation of sovereigns, we shall at least hold in undying honor those who vindicated the insulted majesty of the Republic, and struck at her assailants so long as a drum-beat summoned them ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to an empire so great and so distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding. Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I felt myself more firm. I derived, at length, some confidence from what in other ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... difference between the sexual life (Liebesleben) of antiquity and ours lies in the fact that the ancients placed the emphasis on the impulse itself, while we put it on its object. The ancients extolled the impulse and were ready to ennoble through it even an inferior object, while we disparage the activity of the impulse as such and only countenance it on account of the merits of ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... the whole brood of superstitions which are legion in India; they are also a positive and constructive force in the impartation of those principles of morality and teachings of religion which will ennoble life here and hereafter. And in this connection it should not be forgotten that all mission schools—higher and lower—enjoy unlimited opportunity to teach, daily, to all their students God's Word and to apply its principles and its saving message to the ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... heart, and who lives a simple life, has not a chance of being the fashion. Ergo: A woman of fashion and a man in power are analogous; but there is this difference: the qualities by which a man raises himself above others ennoble him and are a glory to him; whereas the qualities by which a woman gains power for a day are hideous vices; she belies her nature to hide her character, and to live the militant life of the world she must have iron strength under ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... me, an honour from the gods, a grace divine, is shed about the path of him the hero-ruler. (12) Not only does command itself ennoble manhood, but we gaze on him with other eyes and find the fair within him yet more fair who is to-day a prince and was but yesterday a private citizen. (13) Again, it is a prouder satisfaction doubtless to hold debate with those who are preferred to ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... influence, they developed a noble and heroic character. At the same time it must be conceded that their ethical system was marked by signal blemishes and radical defects. After all its excellence, it did not give roundness, completeness, and symmetry to moral life. The elements which really purify and ennoble man, and lend grace and beauty to life, were utterly wanting. Their systems were rather a discipline of the reason than a culture of the heart. The reason held in check the lower passions and propensities of the nature but it ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... devising. And for the simple reason that they are not sincere. I put aside an educated enthusiast such as Westlake. The proletarian Socialists do not believe what they say, and therefore they are so violent in saying it. They are not themselves of pure and exalted character; they cannot ennoble others. If the movement continue we shall see miserable examples of weakness led astray by popularity, of ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Ninon perceived that the first immoderate transports of love gradually lost their activity, and by applying the precepts of her philosophy to explain the phenomenon, came to regard love by its effects, as a blind mechanical movement, which it was the policy of men to ennoble according to the conventional rules of decency and honor, to the ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... not to wait till movement is slow and color is dull. We are not tempted to make a vacancy and call it piety; but when man's life is so full that it tempts him daily to self-consciousness and pride, then let him open it wide to the consciousness of God and ennoble it with the full dignity of that humility whose first condition is the presence of God in the soul that He built ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... you—ennoble you; the love, the sweet influence of such a woman are all powerful. Once yours, you could surround her with such an atmosphere of care and tenderness, that her heart must be won to love you—to forget the past. Without her, you are doomed—doomed. What matters a few more moments ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... head that looks as if it was born in the purple, you would ennoble anything, dear ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... might become a memory that would enrich and ennoble all the years on ahead or they might, through wrong interpretation, embitter ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... looked more closely into the matter. "Who knows," thought the clockmaker to himself, "but that Jared, who is a monstrous sly fellow, will pick up some southern heiress, with a thousand blackies, and an hundred acres of prime cotton-land to each, and thus ennoble the blood of the Bunces by a rapid ascent, through the various grades of office in a sovereign state, until a seat in Congress—in the cabinet itself—receives him;"—and Ichabod grew more than ever pleased and satisfied with the idea, when he reflected that ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... every playgoer can testify) is an engine of incalculable power for influencing society; and every effort to purify and ennoble its aims seems to me to deserve all the countenance that the great, and all the material help that the wealthy, can give it; while even those who are neither great nor wealthy may yet do their part, and help to— "Ring out the darkness of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... Trinity in unity bears to the triad in discord. It is intended for the entireness of our sanctification: "the very God of peace sanctify you wholly." Brethren, we dwell upon that expression "wholly." There is this difference between Christianity and every other system: Christianity proposes to ennoble the whole man; every other system subordinates parts to parts. Christianity does not despise the intellect, but it does not exalt the intellect in a one-sided way: it only dwells with emphasis on the third and highest part ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... cheer, console, purify, or ennoble the life of the people. Without this aim literature has never sent an arrow close to ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... beautiful women, if true, gentle, and unselfish, have great power with their own sex, and almost unbounded influence over men. Your power, therefore, is subtle, penetrating, and reaches the inner life, the very warp and woof of character. If a beautiful statue can ennoble and refine, a beautiful woman can accomplish infinitely more. She can be a constant inspiration, a suggestion of the perfect life beyond and an earnest of it. All power brings responsibility, even that which a man achieves or buys; but surely, if one ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... but the English nation, as embodied in the persons of the wise and good, he honoured and reverenced with all the depth of his nature. It was for the sake of his nation that he was to devote his life to a work, which was to ennoble her tongue ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... that each person is not really a person, but is the consequence of his brain and nerves; and having thus, by logical analysis, got rid of the spirit of man, their reason and their conscience quite honestly and consistently see no need for, or possibility of, a Spirit of God, to ennoble and enable the human spirit. Why need there be, if the difference between an animal and a man be one of degree alone, and not ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... 25th, 1446, the King laid the foundation stone of the chapel, and so began a building which, as a distinguished member of the college (Lord Orford) said, would "alone be sufficient to ennoble any age." It has been classed with the chapel of Henry VII at Westminster and Saint George's collegiate church at Windsor, as one of "the three great royal chapels of the Tudor age"; but there is no edifice, ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild
... hope that the future mission of the moving picture will be along educational and moral lines tending to uplift and ennoble our boys and girls so that they may develop into a manhood and womanhood worthy the history and best traditions ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... brightened her gloomy, monotonous existence. The only pleasure. Her love did not deserve any other name. In that ardent, despotic, restless spirit there had never been a question of tenderness. She was completely ignorant of the delicious, poetic thoughts that ennoble a passion and make it pardonable. Her life had been passed in insane excitement, tormented by the idea of being happy at all costs. She had lived for the last seven years under the sway of her licentious, insatiable passion. Never did a melancholy thought of remorse bear witness in that depravity ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... continuously and profoundly surprising that one becomes overwhelmed by it. It reaches limitation; it seems to deny that man is susceptible to grandeur, or that motives of a superior order can uplift and ennoble the soul, but it does so with a sorrow that is profound. All that portion of the sentimental and moral world which in itself is the highest remains ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... Earl of Erroll—a husbandman who stayed the flight of his countrymen in the battle of Luncarty and won the victory over the Danes by the help of the yoke of his oxen—exhausted with the fray uttered the exclamation "Hoch heigh!" The grateful king about to ennoble the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... elected consul six times, and had conquered Jugurtha, the Cimbri, and the Teutons. The self-made man had become famous and rich, and in the face of an aristocracy proud of its ancestors, had tried to ennoble his obscure origin by taking his wife from an ancient and most noble, albeit impoverished and ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... marvellous one. Success and unquestioned dominion far more often deprave and distort than ennoble and purify the moral nature of man. But something like this transformation was seen when Octavian, the crafty and selfish intriguer, ripened into the wise and statesmanlike Augustus. Nor have our own days been quite ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... yours you rate, Count me those only who were good and great. Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go! and pretend your family is young; Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards. Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies? "Where, but among the heroes and the wise?" Heroes are much the same, the points agreed, From Macedonia's madman to ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... importance. It is of especial interest, in calling attention to the fact that the creator of Pompilia, Balaustion, and the heroine of the "Inn Album"—all central figures, whence radiate the life and spiritual energy of the work they ennoble—had, at this period, created no typical figures of women in any degree corresponding to ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... make his revenues fructify, twelve thousand livres might rise to twenty thousand. Then, when once an incumbent of this post, he would marry Mademoiselle de Montalais. Mademoiselle de Montalais, of a half noble family, not only would be dowered, but would ennoble Malicorne. But, in order that Mademoiselle de Montalais, who had not a large patrimonial fortune, although an only daughter, should be suitably dowered, it was necessary that she should belong to some great princess, as prodigal ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to need any talking about, that the direct tendency of what we venture to call love to God, meaning thereby the turning of the whole nature to Him, in aspiration, admiration, longing for likeness, and practical imitation, is to elevate, ennoble, and illuminate the whole character. It was said about one woman that 'to love her was an education.' That was exaggeration; but it is below the truth about God. The true way to refine and elevate and educate is to cultivate ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sure that your impulse is not personal nor sinister, but a desire to serve and ennoble your race, rather than to dazzle and be served by it; that you are ready joyfully to "scorn delights, and live laborious days," so that thereby the well-being of mankind may be promoted—then I pray you not to believe ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... Sir John, if it were certain these foreign umpires would not abuse the power to their own particular advantage, if they could have the feelings and sentiments which ennoble and purify a nation far more than money, and if it were possible they could thoroughly understand the character, habits, wants, and resources of another people. As things are, therefore, we believe it is wisest to trust our own elections to ourselves—not to a portion ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... could not go home in the state he was then; he felt sure he should kill the twins if he did. He pondered for awhile, and then he thought he would go and hear some music. He said he thought a little music would soothe and ennoble him—make him feel more like a Christian than he ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... the truth, for the truth's own sake—a woman who will sacrifice her pride, rather than sacrifice an honest man who loves her—is the most priceless of all treasures. When such a woman marries, if her husband only wins her esteem and regard, he wins enough to ennoble his whole life. You have spoken, dearest, of your place in my estimation. Judge what that place is—when I implore you on my knees, to let the cure of your poor wounded heart be my care. Rachel! will you honour me, will you bless me, by ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... said: "Here is your lover, your husband, your cherished partner, left by fate below your station, yet whom you may lift to your side! Shall man, alone, crown the humble maiden,—stoop to love, and, loving, ennoble? Be you the queen, and love him by the royal right of womanhood!" But the other sternly whispered: "How shall your fine and delicate fibres be knit into this coarse texture? Ignorance, which years cannot wash away,—low ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... alphabet—I 'm nearly sure; She read some French romances here and there, Although her mode of speaking was not pure; For native Spanish she had no great care, At least her conversation was obscure; Her thoughts were theorems, her words a problem, As if she deem'd that mystery would ennoble 'em. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... property of figuring, expressing, and picturing language.... With it, however low its origin, one could reconstruct a people or a society." Its principal, not only, means, are metaphor and allegory. It lends itself equally to methods that degrade or ennoble existing words, but with a very marked preference for ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... that Posthumus is unworthy of Imogen, or only interesting on Imogen's account. His character, like those of all the other persons of the drama, is kept subordinate to hers: but this could not be otherwise, for she is the proper subject—the heroine of the poem. Every thing is done to ennoble Posthumus, and justify her love for him; and though we certainly approve him more for her sake than for his own, we are early prepared to view him with Imogen's eyes; and not only excuse, but sympathize in her ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... slowly turning, faced seaward. Her arms assumed the well-known beseeching attitude, the serpent bracelet glittering fiercely in the sun. Her voice changed, became softer. "Yet they are my people!" she continued, "and the last of our race. Ennoble them, great Gods! quicken their hearts and spare them!" Looking outward with the rapt look of a prophetess in whom, though torn with tempests of fanaticism and of passion, human and superhuman, no thought was mean, no sentiment ignoble, she poured out ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... singer. They were willing that she should sing in church and at funerals, but not in opera. For a long time Bear-Tone labored to convince them that a voice like Helen's has a divine mission in the world, to please, to touch and to ennoble the hearts of ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens |
