"Insuperable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are no souvenirs of happy evening hours that sing always in the heart of a Berlin they can never know. For them, shall be no memory of that vast and insuperable gemuetlichkeit, that superb and pacific democracy, that dwells and shall dwell forever by night in the spirit of the German people. They will never know the Berlin that lifts its seidel to the ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... the simplest and the best of them all. That he should have persisted in spite of discouragement after discouragement, struggling to overcome obstacles which to the faint-hearted would have seemed insuperable, constitutes one of his greatest claims to undying fame. He left on record an account of his experiences in Europe on this voyage, memorable in more ways than one, and extracts from this, and from letters written to his daughter and brothers, will ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the avowed objective of which was the Spanish coast, then deprived of much of its defence by the departure of Camara's ships, and most imperfectly provided with local fortifications. Had Camara gone on to the East, Watson would have followed him, and, although arriving later, there was no insuperable difficulty to so combining the movements of our two divisions—Dewey's and Watson's—as to decide the final result, and to leave Spain without her second ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... Villabuena gazed on the temporary prison, of which he commanded a view from his balcony, and meditated how he should overcome the almost insuperable difficulties that opposed themselves to Herrera's rescue, there emerged from the door of the guard-room a man, whose gait and figure the Count thought he knew, although he was too far distant to discern his features. This man was in a sort ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... of another man,' Laura replied, 'not that that is an insuperable barrier, but you brought, I fear, lewdness into your conjugal life, and lewdness is fatal to happiness whether it be indulged within or outside the bonds of wedlock. I'm sorry,' she said, 'that you had to leave Yarmouth before my lecture on the ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... could be proved myths and the miracles but inventions, there would still remain the greater, the insuperable miracle of the world's picture of the perfect and all glorious personality of Jesus and the fact of His preeminent power in the world to-day. This is the sign He gives this age, and to this the open mind answers: "Thou art the Christ, the saviour of ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... active in wickedness, sought for his victims and found them throughout the entire city. And it was because he acted alone that he was enabled to carry on his operations with so much security, and from the same cause arose the insuperable difficulty of getting a clue to the murderer. But let me go on with my story; the sequel will explain to you the secrets of the most atrocious but at the same time of ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... employed by the Martians was unknown to us. We did not even know the limit of the effective range of our own disintegrators. If it should prove that the Martians were able to deal their strokes at a distance greater than any we could reach, then they would of course have an insuperable advantage. ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... with the southern secession from the Old School, and in full agreement with it in morals and politics. The two bodies were not long in finding that the doctrinal differences which a quarter-century before had seemed so insuperable were, after all, no serious ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... "if she could be content with praising him, and regretting the insuperable obstacles, and if she would encourage you to be patient—There, let ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... strict habits of truthfulness is at once most sure and most easy. The difficulty is indeed increased ten thousandfold, when the neglect of parents has suffered even careless habits on this point to be contracted. The difficulties, however, though great, are not insuperable to those who seek the freely-offered grace of God to help them in the conflict. The resistance to temptation, the self-control, will indeed be more difficult when the effort begins later in life; but the victory will be also the more glorious, and the general effects on the character ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... observation express the mode of the action of the causes. There are here two ideas absolutely distinct: the power which acts, and the manner in which it acts. If the naturalist thinks that his science is everything, he must conclude that we can know nothing beyond the laws, and that an insuperable ignorance hides from our view the power of which they express the action. But he rarely succeeds in keeping this position, and deceives his reason by confounding the laws which he discovers with the causes with which his mind is not able to dispense. He says first of all with Franchi, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... most flattering and unexpected conditions, one can comprehend the object of this nocturnal walk and the long pause that Henri made beneath the windows of Zibeline's apartment. A small garden, protected by a light fence, was the only obstacle that separated them. But how much more insuperable was the barrier which his own principles had raised between this ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... nothing less than a duty, to use the opportunity of her first visit to London to seek for means of helping Emma Vine and her sister. Her long illness had not weakened this resolve; but now that she was in London the difficulties of carrying it out proved insuperable. She had always imagined herself procuring the services of some agent, but what agent was at hand? She might go herself to the address she had noted, but it was to incur a danger too great even for the end in view. If Mutimer heard of such a visit—and she had no means of assuring herself that communication ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... had to contend: there was another to be overcome before they could come in contact with it. The channel was little known and extremely intricate: all the buoys had been removed; and the Danes considered this difficulty as almost insuperable, thinking the channel impracticable for so large a fleet. Nelson himself saw the soundings made and the buoys laid down, boating it upon this exhausting service, day and night, till it was effected. When this was done he thanked God for having enabled him to ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... close approach or collision of two stars, or from the rushing of a dark or faint star through a resisting medium, then the novae, planetaries and Wolf-Rayets belong to a new and second generation: they were born under exceptional conditions. The velocities of the planetary nebulae seem to be an insuperable difficulty in the way of placing them between the irregular nebulae and the helium stars. The average radial velocity of 47 planetary nebulae is about 45 km. per second; and, if the motions of the planetaries are somewhat at ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... therefore, remains the secret of the race. Of such secrets it has many, which it reveals one by one, at such moments of history as become truly critical; and the solutions it offers to insuperable difficulties are almost always unexpected, and of strangest simplicity. The hour approaches, perhaps, when it will speak once more. Let us hope, without being too sanguine; for we must bear in mind that humanity has yet by no means emerged from ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... powerful allurements of riches, and honour, could never seduce him to relinquish the interest of his country, so not even the most immense dangers could deter him from pursuing it. In a private letter to a friend from Highgate, in which he mentions the insuperable hatred of his foes to him, and their design of murthering him, he has these words; Praeterea magis eccidere metuo quam occidi, non quod vitam tanti aestimem, sed ne imparatus moriar, i.e., 'Besides, I am more apprehensive of killing, than being killed, not that I value life ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... complete justification of the trust the people have reposed in us constrain me to remind those with whom I am to cooperate that we can succeed in doing the work which has been especially set before us only by the most sincere, harmonious, and disinterested effort. Even if insuperable obstacles and opposition prevent the consummation of our task, we shall hardly be excused; and if failure can be traced to our fault or neglect we may be sure the people will hold us to ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... "Cedant arma togae," the life-long sentiment of Sumner, in conflict with "Stand fast and stand sure," the well-known device of the clan of Grant, reminds one of the problem of an irresistible force in collision with an insuperable resistance. But the President says,—or is reported as saying,—"I may be blamed for my opposition to Mr. Sumner's tactics, but I was not guided so much by reason of his personal hatred of myself, as I was by a desire to protect our national ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "Schoolmaster," (1570,) had already suggested the adoption of the ancient hexameter by English poets; but Ascham (as afterwards Puttenham in his "Art of Poesie") thought the number of monosyllabic words in English an insuperable objection to verses in which there was a large proportion of dactyles, and recommended, therefore, that a trial should be made with iambics. Spenser, at Harvey's instance, seems to have tried his hand at the new kind of verse. He ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... highly necessary to provide for that point a more adequate security. Some position above its mouth, commanding the passage of the river, should be rendered sufficiently strong to cover the armed vessels which may be stationed there for defense, and in conjunction with them to present an insuperable obstacle to any force attempting to pass. The approaches to the city of New Orleans from the eastern quarter also will require to be examined and more effectually guarded. For the internal support of the country the encouragement ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... country were equalized, and a proportionate share of military service secured from each, thus removing the very serious inequality of recruitment, which had arisen during the first two years of the war, and which, when the bureau was organized, had become an almost insuperable obstacle to the further progress of ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... beauty, grace, and moral excellence, when united in a person of the other sex. She was imprudent, precisely because her own heart was incapable of guile. She had never yet felt the sting of the poverty to which she was condemned, and had not reflected on the insuperable distance that custom has placed between the opulent and the poorer classes of the community. She beheld Mr. Falkland, whenever he was thrown in her way at any of the public meetings, with admiration; and, without having precisely explained to herself the sentiments she ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... as well as by your letter, that the difficulties still exist about your ceremonial at Ratisbon; should they, from pride and folly, prove insuperable, and obstruct your real business, there is one expedient which may perhaps remove difficulties, and which I have often known practiced; but which I believe our people know here nothing of; it is, to have the character of MINISTER only in your ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... them whom Love and Fancy grace, When grosser eyes are clos'd in sleep, The gentle spirits of the place 35 Waft up the insuperable steep, On whose vast summit broad and smooth Her nest the Phoenix Bird conceals, And where by cypresses o'erhung The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... knowledge were essentially continental, and who never felt quite at home with English ways of thinking. I feel perfectly satisfied on this point, however, that English commercial jealousy, with which we naturally had to reckon, would not have proved an insuperable obstacle to a good understanding with England, provided that we had declared ourselves ready, ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... intentness which foreshadowed what I was subsequently to suffer. She was a singular fatuous artificial creature, and I was never more than half to penetrate her motives and mysteries. Of one thing I'm sure at least: that they were considerably less insuperable than her appearance announced. Miss Ambient was a restless romantic disappointed spinster, consumed with the love of Michael-Angelesque attitudes and mystical robes; but I'm now convinced she hadn't in her nature ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... begin with the conviction in which it ended. It began and long continued with the belief that though England was wrong, Rome was not right; that though the Roman argument seemed more and more unanswerable, there were insuperable difficulties of certain fact which made the Roman conclusion incredible; that there was so much good and truth in England, with all its defects and faults, which was unaccountable and unintelligible on the Roman hypothesis; that the real upshot ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... in a visible time as much the victor over the other that it can dictate it its own terms, and as on the other side there is no common basis to be seen for a sensible compromise. It is not the extravagance of demands that forms an insuperable barrier for peace. Extravagant terms of peace have indeed been formulated by unauthorised persons or groups but they have nowhere received the sanctioning stamp of the responsible governments. The latter prefer rather to shine by the moderation of their ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... the distant invisible mountains, and were fortunate in finding somewhat better footing than they had on their previous march. They covered about 25 miles on that "day," without untoward incident. Their ray pistols gave them on insuperable advantage over the largest and most ferocious beasts they could expect to meet, so that they became more and more confident, despite the knowledge that they were rapidly using up the energy stored in their weapons. The first one had long ago been discarded, and the charge indicators ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... with all the affections. Still it was well understood that Adrienne was not likely to marry, her birth raising her above all intentions of connecting her ancient name with mere gold, while her poverty placed an almost insuperable barrier between her and most of the impoverished young men of rank whom she occasionally saw. Even the power of the dauphine was not sufficient to provide Adrienne de la Rocheaimard with a suitable husband. But of this the charming ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... campaign will open as soon as the roads are dried up. The mud in Virginia is much more formidable than at the North, and presents an insuperable, perhaps I should say an unfathomable, obstacle to active operations. I hope General Grant will succeed in taking Vicksburg. The loss of that important stronghold would be a great ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... course which the central European powers have announced their intention of following in the future with regard to undersea warfare seems for the moment to threaten insuperable obstacles, but its apparent meaning is so manifestly inconsistent with explicit assurances recently given us by those powers with regard to their treatment of merchant vessels on the high seas that I must believe that explanations ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... duration. He now made up his mind to search for Speke, and went up the White Nile as far as Gondokoro, where the meeting with Speke took place. Baker left this place March 26, 1863, but met with almost insuperable obstacles in trying to make further advance. The porters deserted, the camels died, and the ammunition and the presents intended to ease the way through the territory of native princes had to be all abandoned. Thus disencumbered, his party ascended the White Nile until they reached ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... "the demagoguery and corruption of our public men would have been considered, in my day, insuperable objections to government assuming ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... him. For most purposes three horses are more "handy" than one elephant. The elephant is caught when he is already grown up, and then trained. It is as a matter of economy that he is not bred in confinement, and not because there is any insuperable difficulty in the matter. Occasionally elephants ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... a malignant shadow over her sister. Even if Fay herself confessed the difficulties of obtaining Michael's release after this lapse of time would be very great. Unless the confession came from her they would be insuperable. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... demagogic violence—had possibly a useful part to play at the present stage of things. He, however, could have no place in that camp. Too indiscreetly he had hoisted his standard of idealism, and by stubborn resistance of insuperable forces he had merely brought forward the least satisfactory elements of his own character. 'Hold on!' cried Malkin. 'Fight the grovellers to the end!' But Earwaker had begun to see himself in a light of ridicule. There was just ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... afforded. This naturally took time, and the convoy did not arrive in England until after the middle of May. The experience gained showed, however, that the difficulties apprehended by the officers of the Mercantile Marine were not insuperable, and that, given adequate protection by cruisers and small fast craft, the system was at least practicable. It was accordingly decided to put it into operation at once, and to extend it as rapidly as the increase in the numbers of ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... over-estimate oneself is a virtue very rare among poets, and certainly does not lead to public triumphs. Modesty is apt to accompany the sense of humour which alleviates life, while it is an almost insuperable bar to success. ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... while (when it turned out Peel and cemented their alliance with the Radicals), and now it hangs like a millstone round their necks, and is not unlikely to produce the dissolution of the Government. Strange that this Irish Church in one way or another is the insuperable obstacle to peace and tranquillity in Ireland, and to the stability of any Administration here; and yet it is fought for as if the prosperity or salvation of the State ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... of the store in despair. He found himself engaged in what appeared to be an endless chase after a phantom Considine, and the difficulties in his way semed insuperable. Yet how could he go back and tell them all at home that he had failed? What would they think of him? The thought made him miserable; and he determined, if he failed, never to go back to the old station ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... but insuperable barrier to an industrious and godly life. It means not only the leading of these lost multitudes out of the "City of Destruction" into the Canaan of plenty, but the lifting of them up to the same level of advantage with the more favoured of mankind for securing ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... rigorously imposed upon the newly-appointed; and though the law did not sanction this in the case of rectors, yet not a single instance of a licence of non-residence occurs; the difficulty of finding substitutes was becoming daily more and more insuperable, and the penalty of deserting a parish without licence was a great deal too serious to be disregarded. In the months of June, July, and August things were at their worst, as might have been expected. In July alone there were two hundred and nine institutions. During the year ending ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... have a basis of truth for their arguments: the features upon which they rely are, in each case, undeniably present, yet at the same time each line of argument is faced with certain insuperable difficulties, fatal ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... using redistilled bisulphide this defect may be avoided. (2) Another defect is the evil odour of the solvent. This, however, is less with redistilled bisulphide than with the ordinary quality, and with suitable apparatus is not insuperable. (3) Another defect is the volatility and inflammability of carbon bisulphide. On the other hand, bisulphide possesses the very great advantage of being at once heavier than, and insoluble in, water, and it can be, therefore, stored ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... the conjectures, of the learned concerning the time when the books of the New Testament were collected into one volume, as also about the authors of that collection, are extremely different. This important question is attended with great and almost insuperable difficulties to us in these latter times" (Mosheim's "Eccles. Hist.," p. 31). These difficulties arise, to a great extent, from the large number of forgeries, purporting to be writings of Christ, of the apostles, and of the apostolic Fathers, current in the early Church. "For, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... the suppression of the slave trade some such arrangement might be made as that of mixed tribunals for the trial of slave-trading vessels, and alleged that divers European powers were uniting for this purpose, Mr. Adams suggested, as an insuperable obstacle, "the general extra-European policy of the United States—a policy which they had always pursued as best suited to their own interests, and best adapted to harmonize with those of Europe. This policy had also been that of Europe, which had never considered the United States as belonging ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... am inclined to agree with you," said Denzil, and barrister and detective departed, each convinced that the Vrain case was ended, and that in the face of the insuperable obstacles presented by it there was not the slightest chance of avenging the murder of the unfortunate man. The reading of the mystery was beyond mortal ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... lift the whole subject of paternity in the popular mind to the plane where it belongs, as will this love and knowledge, when it is bred in the child from his early years. Many difficulties in handling this subject that become insuperable might never even exist if the knowledge of fatherhood, if love and respect for it and for the father as the giver of life, were bred into the boy at an early age. Moreover a certain shyness, which often makes it more difficult ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... ridiculous, I know that. I haven't got anything to found my hopes on but the fact that there's nothing in my way to the one insuperable obstacle: to the fact that she doesn't and can't really care a straw for me. But just now that seems a mere bagatelle." He laughed with a nervous joy, and he kept talking, as he walked up and down Wade's study. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... should urge the Government to appoint a scientific adviser to the Fishery Board. A letter of his on this subject had appeared in the "Times" for March 30. There seemed to him, with his practical experience of official work, insuperable objections to the status of such an officer. Above all, he would be a representative of science in name, without any responsibility to the body of scientific men in the country. Some of his younger colleagues on the Council, who had not enjoyed the same experience, thought that ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... natural difference, leading to confusion of thought, and very possibly to that instinct of contradiction of which I was speaking? A great deal of time is lost in profitless conversation, and a good deal of ill temper frequently caused, by not considering these organic and practically insuperable conditions. In dealing with them, acquiescence is the best of palliations ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... tribunal of justice; and it is not difficult to discern, in this inflexible impartiality, the source of the obloquy which that same spirit has not been inactive in attempting to excite against the Supreme Court of the United States itself: and of the insuperable aversion of the votaries of nullification to encounter or abide by the decision of that tribunal, the true and legitimate umpire of constitutional, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... that I should have ever summoned up courage to speak to you, if you had not taken me by surprise. It would be different if I were now as I was ten years ago, but I feared you might think my health an insuperable objection." ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that want other things are masters of this. What is most profitable? Virtue; for by a right managery of other things she makes them all beneficial and advantageous. What is most pernicious? Vice; for it depraves the best things we enjoy. What is most strong? Necessity; for this alone is insuperable. What is most easy? That which is most agreeable to nature; for pleasures themselves ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... written across it. "It can't be done," were the few words which Sir Raffle Buffle had written across the note from his private secretary. Here was a difficulty which Johnny had not anticipated, and which seemed to be insuperable. Sir Raffle would not have answered him in that strain if he had not been very ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the posts of Athens and Rome. Personally I should have preferred Athens, but I had recently established my family at Rome, and the serious objection to a family residence at Athens in the want of any refuge from the heats of the intense summer of that city at a practicable distance from it, was an insuperable obstacle to my accepting it. The succession of Lord Dufferin to the Embassy at Rome, and the friendly personal relations which his large-hearted nature established between the Embassy and the correspondentship, made the position highly ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... honorable gentleman from Kentucky considered well the claim he now advances? If it were not disrespectful I would ask, has he ever read the decision which he now tells us is an insuperable barrier to the adoption of this great ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... this Russian proposal. Not till Henri's return (FEBRUARY 18th, 1771) could he entirely believe that the Czarina was serious;—and then, sure enough, he did, with his whole heart, go into it: the EUREKA out of all these difficulties, which had so long seemed insuperable. Prince Henri "had an Interview with the Austrian Minister next day" (February 19th), who immediately communicated with his Kaunitz,—and got discouraging response from Kaunitz; discouraging, or almost negatory; which did not discourage Friedrich. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the position of European investigators vis-a-vis Japan differs entirely from that of Japanese vis-a-vis Europe. The Japanese possess every facility for studying and understanding Europe. Europeans are warded off by well-nigh insuperable obstacles from understanding Japan. Europe stands on a hill-top, in the sunlight, glittering afar. Her people court inspection. "Come and see how we live"—such was a typical invitation which the present writer recently ...
— The Invention of a New Religion • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... of his soldiery along that fearful wilderness which is called emphatically, "The Valley of Desolation." A single look or word was commonly sufficient to set all in motion again. But if the way presented some new and apparently insuperable difficulty, the Consul bade the drums beat and the trumpets sound, as if for the charge; and this never failed. Of such gallant temper were the spirits which Napoleon had at command, and with such admirable skill did he ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... could not accept without degradation, or refuse without aggravating the existing grounds of hostility. Circumstances might arise—such as a change in the Government—to obviate the former difficulty; but the latter was insuperable. It would have been inconsistent with the principles upon which the war was undertaken to have proposed or submitted to any conditions which France, exulting over her recent successes, could have been expected to approve; and the result of such a negotiation at such a moment ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... who could easily have put collecting and other business in my hands, but none of them did it. I felt this very keenly. Quite apart from a young man's pushing himself, despite every obstacle, there is the great truth that sometimes the obstacles or bad luck become insuperable. Mine did ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... would not be a very heavy burden on it to pay their ransom; and to paying it, no patriot or loyal citizen of the free States would raise the slightest objection. The objection therefore urged, though grave, need not be regarded as insuperable; and we think the advantages of the measure, in a military point of view, would be far greater than any disadvantage we have to apprehend ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various
... wanderer on the face of the earth, not for his own crimes, but for those of his father; and Heaven justly punished in the crime the sin of my injustice. When I thought that evidence of my shame was divided from me by an insuperable barrier, when I believed that the ocean would soon separate me from my fears, a righteous Providence brought thee before me, forlorn and expiring. It was the son of Therese Sobieski I had exposed to such wretchedness. It was the cherished of ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... and quiet pleasures, was spent in degrading anticipations. What enabled me to conquer, was not so much heroism as a susceptibility to nobler joys, and the difficulty which a man must encounter who is not susceptible to them must be enormous and almost insuperable. Pity, profound pity, is his due, and especially if he happen to possess a nervous, emotional organisation. If we want to make men water-drinkers, we must first of all awaken in them a capacity for being ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... like all savage people who dwell in excessively hot regions, have an insuperable aversion to clothing. The writers of the middle ages inform us, that in the north of Europe, articles of clothing distributed by missionaries, greatly contributed to the conversion of the pagan. In the torrid zone, on the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... that the so-called Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever written, and though imparting to us, as I fully believe it does, revelations of the Divine will and character, cannot be regarded as historically true.... My reason for no longer receiving the Pentateuch as historically true, is not that I find insuperable difficulties with regard to the miracles or supernatural revelations of Almighty God recorded in it, but solely that I cannot, as a true man, consent any longer to shut my eyes to the absolute, palpable self-contradictions of the narrative. The notion of miraculous or supernatural ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... is that by no means can we measure the humidity, or indeed the precipitation or evaporation. I have just been discussing with Simpson the insuperable difficulties that stand in the way of experiment in this direction, since cold air can only hold the smallest quantities of moisture, and saturation covers an ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... chopping wood and teaming, in Lorain county. In the following Spring he returned to Cleveland and obtained a situation as helper in a hardware store. Here it became apparent to him that he was sadly deficient in an educational point of view, and that it offered an almost insuperable barrier to his advancement in life. To remedy this, so far as possible, he devoted all his leisure hours to study, and on the establishment of the evening schools the following winter, he availed himself of them, and the ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... insuperable difficulties. From Fort Sumner to Las Vegas the distance is one hundred and thirty miles. Much travelled by freight teams carrying government supplies, the road was infested throughout with hostile Navajos, for whom the freight trains were the richest spoils they could ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... to procure than other birds, and that it would be almost impossible to convey them to England. That is a question it would be premature to discuss now; but if the attempt should ever be made, the difficulties would not perhaps be found insuperable. In all countries one hears of certain species of birds that they invariably die in captivity; but when the matter is closely looked into, one usually finds that improper treatment and not loss of liberty is the cause of death. ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... Revolution the expanding population had reached the mountains and was ready to go beyond. The difficulty of crossing the mountains was not insuperable, but the French and Indian War, followed by Pontiac's Conspiracy, made outlying frontier settlement dangerous if not impossible. The arbitrary restriction of western settlement by the Proclamation of 1763 did not stop the more adventurous ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... proud spirit, and turns even the sweets of life to ashes in the mouth, had him in bitter bondage. He lashed himself with it, reminding himself constantly of his origin and his environment, and magnifying these into insuperable barriers which would for ever stand blankly in his way. Although common-sense told him that there was no other course open to Gladys than to accept the kindness offered her by the lawyer and his wife, and though in his inmost better heart he did not doubt ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... of victory? It was the seal of Pompeius! The instinct of the partisan and politician conquered every infirmity. He broke the wax, untied the thread, and opened. The letters were in cipher, and at first sight illegible. But this did not present any insuperable difficulty. Most classic ciphers were sufficiently simple to be solved without very much trouble. Drusus knew that in all Caesar's correspondence a cipher had been used which consisted merely of substituting for each letter the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... ministers, and still more that of women, Louis XIV. had an insuperable antipathy. It must therefore have cost him much to renounce the flattering hope of seeing his grandson make practical application of the lofty instructions in which his personal royalty reflected itself with ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... farmer—a rich man, as riches are reckoned in Ireland. He was a clerk in a lawyer's office, and poorly paid. But he might have earned more. She would gladly have given up anything. And the objections of parents in such cases are not insuperable. But between these two there was something more. Denis Ryan was a revolutionary patriot. Mary Drennan's parents were proud of another loyalty. They hated what Denis loved. The two loyalties were strong and irreconcilable, like the loyalties of the South and the North when the South ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... disciples were amazed. "Who then can be saved?" they wondered. Jesus understood their perplexity, and encouraged them with the assurance that with God all things are possible. Thus were they given to understand that while wealth is a means of temptation to which many succumb, it is no insuperable obstacle, no insurmountable barrier, in the way of entrance to the kingdom. Had the young ruler followed the advice called forth by his inquiry, his possession of riches would have made possible to him meritorious service ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... that Warburton could by no argument prove or even make likely this continuous miracle, in which he placed the existence of Israelitish Theocracy! For could he have done so, in truth, he could then, and not till then, have made the difficulty really insuperable, to me at least. For that which was meant to prove the Divine character of the Mission of Moses, would have rendered the matter itself doubtful, which God, it is true, did not intend then to reveal; but which on the other hand, He ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... testimony of the driver respecting the difficulty of obtaining a vehicle, every horse being engaged haying. The ladies announced that, as the distance was only six miles, it could be walked, in case this difficulty proved insuperable. An individual at the tea table proposed that the travellers should be taken up some time in the middle of the night, that the horse might return by six o'clock in the morning; but this suggestion was unanimously frowned down. The chief ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Hatteras," he said, "that we ought not to lose an instant; we ought to load the sledge with all our provisions, and take as much wood as possible. A journey of six hundred miles under such circumstances is long, I confess, but not insuperable; we can, or rather we ought, to make twenty miles a day, which would bring us to the coast in a month, that is to say, ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... projects have actually any value whatsoever. When the Great Eastern, the largest ship of its time, had been built on the Thames by the celebrated engineer Brunel, its launching was attended with unforeseen and what seemed to be insuperable difficulties. Mr. Brunel's descendants have, I believe, still in their possession, a collection of drawings, sent him by a variety of inventors, and representing all sorts of devices by which the launching might be accomplished. All were, as the draughtsmanship was enough to show, ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... sympathy from him. When she asked him about this many years later, he assured her that he had found the court vehemently hostile to me, and that his well- meant attempts to produce my work had met with insuperable obstacles. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the diffusion of this superstitious spirit is an obstacle, an insuperable barrier set up against the development of the moral sense. We shall sow principles of morality as the farmer who sows in the fields the seeds properly selected which will not grow unless the soil is adequate. Sane morals is founded upon the basis of ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... It is too abominably tedious. But, if I do not join in with Desmarets, who has the guy-ropes of a restoration well in hand, I must inevitably be—removed, as the knave phrases it. For as long as I live, I will be an insuperable barrier between Augustus and his Sophia. Otototoi!" he wailed, with a fine tone of tragedy, "the one impossible achievement in my life has always been to convince anybody that it was mine to dispose of as ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... because it was composed of the most diverse elements, was quickly founded. All the gifts of the Holy Spirit were there poured out, and it was easy to perceive that this new Church, emancipated from the strict Mosaism which erected an insuperable barrier around Jerusalem, would become the second cradle of Christianity. Assuredly, Jerusalem must remain forever the capital of the Christian world; nevertheless, the point of departure of the Church of the Gentiles, the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... had always thought as an example, that the restraints upon the sex were insuperable only to those who think them so, or who noisily strive to break them. She had taken a course of her own, and no man stood in her way. Many of her acts had been unusual, but excited no uproar. Few helped, but none checked her; and the many men who knew her ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... affair, I consider the Ministers as criminal as himself; for the Queen, to this day, believes that Beaumarchais was sanctioned by them and, you know, Her Majesty has ever since had an insuperable dislike to both De Maurepas and De Vergennes. But I have nothing to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... hindered by charter, and by the overwhelming opposition of the people, from seriously trying to establish the Episcopal church. The sure fate of any such mad experiment had been well illustrated in the time of Andros. In the other seven states there were no such insuperable obstacles. The Church of England was maintained with languid acquiescence in New York. By the Quakers and Presbyterians of New Jersey and North Carolina, as well as in half-Catholic, half-Puritan Maryland, its supremacy was unwillingly ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... Cirripedes have, in fact, been neglected owing to their close affinity, and the consequent necessity of their being included in the same Work with the Sessile Cirripedes; for these latter will ever present, I am fully convinced, insuperable difficulties in their identification by external ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... second Chamber which could possibly exist would have to be built on the foundation of the House of Lords. It is out of the question to think practically of abolishing that assembly, to replace it by such a Senate as I have sketched or by any other; but there might not be the same insuperable difficulty in aggregating the classes or categories just spoken of to the existing body in the character of peers for life. An ulterior, and perhaps, on this supposition, a necessary step, might be, that the hereditary peerage ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... think there are not many things in poets' lives more touching than his silence, in verse, as to his own chief sorrow. A stranger intermeddles not with it, and he kept secret his brief lay on that insuperable and incommunicable regret. Much would have been lost had all poets been as reticent, yet one likes him better for it than if he had given us a ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... lost the last word and the answer, unless it were merely a significant exclamation of belief. "You wouldn't stand upon the chances of change though," resumed Bulchester, "I know you well enough. But, according to you, there's the insuperable obstacle." ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... emotions of the kind, even could he have flattered himself that there was any chance of their being returned by the object of his rising passion. But Iskander was as modest as he was brave and gifted. The disparity of age between himself and Iduna appeared an insuperable barrier to his hopes, even had there been no other obstacle. Iskander struggled with his love, and with his strong mind the struggle, though painful, was not without success. He felt that he was acting in a manner ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... wealthy. That Leslie was especially so. That when she was of age she would have a vast inheritance. There had been no sign of great wealth or ostentation in their living but if that were so then there was an insuperable wall between him ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... account of Jumbe's murders and selling the people, but one cannot take it all in; at the mildest it must have been bad. This is all they ever do; they cannot form a state or independent kingdom: slavery and the slave-trade are insuperable obstacles to any permanence inland; slaves can escape so easily, all therefore that the Arabs do is to collect as much money as they can by hook and by crook, and then leave ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... to return to England calling Hart's granddaughter her child. She said she had an insuperable objection and repugnance to the idea, and an aversion for the poor little creature began to ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... interviews with him, with the object of endeavouring to solve the difficult problem of how to secure precise workmanship in lock-making. But they could not solve it; they saw that without better tools the difficulty was insuperable; and then Bramah began to fear that his lock would remain a mere mechanical curiosity, and be prevented from coming ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... then that its mirth might be insuperable, not to be saddened by the most grievous song; nevertheless he did not turn back then, but softly climbed the stairs and, placing the agate bowl upon a step, struck up the chaunt called Dolorous. It told of ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... to realize her situation? Or was it that tragedy had put on its comic mask, and laughed at death? The truth is simple. Her faith had triumphed over what seemed to be insuperable obstacles; and she was with Philip, for better or for worse. A miracle had been wrought; and miracles are not meaningless, or idle, or without purpose. It was a feeling perhaps unknown to man, who is merely a reasoning creature, much given to material consideration of natural causes and effects, ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... delicious Paradise, Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, As with a rural mound, the champaign head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, Access denied; and overhead upgrew Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend, Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung; Which to our general sire gave prospect large Into his ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... between her and other girls. Besides this, she was a singularly determined young woman. She had made up her mind to marry the young Squire; he in his folly had given no single hint of the vast, the insuperable difficulties that lay in the way; and so the bitter business ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... there was no occasion for a separate establishment being kept up in each." But the sea lay between England and Ireland, and the delays and sometimes difficulties which were thus interposed rendered it "necessary that Ireland should have a separate government;" and he affirmed that "this was an insuperable bar to a beneficial Union," quoting a saying of Lord Somers, that "if it were necessary to preserve a separate executive government at Edinburgh after the Union, he would abandon the measure." Mr. Grey even denied that the prosperity of Scotland since the Union was mainly attributable to that ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... almost insuperable objection presents itself at first seeming. Seeing that, the true cause of doubt and unbelief in the uncritical, is to be sought for proximately in the decay of a popular consensus in favour of belief, and ultimately in the disagreements and negations of those who lead and form public ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... would consume in the course of twelve months solid matter to the extent of four or five times its own weight, and some animals are of course far more voracious. This difficulty as to stowing the animals and their food into the ark is quite insuperable; it is not to be obviated by any employment of miraculous intervention. Not even omnipotence can make a clock strike less than one, and God himself must fail to make two things occupy the same ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... attachment of Felix to Alice Pascal; an attachment which would have been quite to her mind, if there was no loss of honor in allowing it whilst she held a secret which, in all probability, would seem an insuperable barrier in ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... must be able to kill all the characteristics of his own hand; third, he must know all of the characteristics in the hand he is imitating; fourth, he must be able to assume characteristics of the other's hand at will. These four points are insuperable obstacles, and the forger does not live who has ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... of an expedition full of almost insuperable difficulties, while the spirits of all parties in the state, broken by the variety of their dangers and toils, were still enfeebled; while the clang of trumpets was ringing in men's ears, and the ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... middle door. From there she discovers the letter which LOTH has left lying on thee table. She runs to it, tears it open, feverishly takes in the contents, of which she audibly utters separate words. "Insuperable!" ... "Never again." ... She lets the letter fall and sways. It's over! She steadies herself, holds her head with both hands and cries out in brief and piercing despair. It's over! She rushes out through the—middle door. The farmer's voice without, drawing nearer. Hay-hee! ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... be enabled to render that service to the community for which by nature he is best fitted. Compulsory elementary education is but one stage in the process. We must, as a nation, at least see that no insuperable obstacles are placed in the path of those who have the requisite ability and desire to advance farther in the development of their powers. Moreover, if need be, we must, in the words of Rousseau, compel those who from various causes are unwilling to ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... the effect, which the subsequent slavery in the colonies must produce. For by your inhuman treatment of the unfortunate Africans there, you create the same insuperable impediments to a conversion. For how must they detest the very name of Christians, when you Christians are deformed by so many and dreadful vices? How must they detest that system of religion, which appears to resist the natural ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... way, my father being confident that we should encounter no insuperable obstacles. We had climbed to a height early in the day, from which, through his glass, he had obtained a view over the region we had to pass. Though wild and rugged in the extreme, it was of no ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... wondering whether Dinah had put on a muslin gown on purpose to protect herself by an insuperable obstacle, Bianchon, with the help of the coachman, was seeing his luggage piled on the diligence. Finally, he came to take leave of Dinah, who was excessively friendly ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... selfish advantage. This is not the mother's only objection to me, or only proof of that frailty she justly ascribes to me. To prove me innocent of this charge will not reconcile her to her daughter's marriage. It will only remove one insuperable impediment to her ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... "One insuperable objection to such a reciprocity arises from the nature of our government, as a confederation, since there is no identity in our own criminal jurisprudence: but a chief reason is the exceedingly artificial condition of your society, which is the very opposite of our own, and indisposes the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... drifted for an hour the holy man approached a narrow strand, shut in by steep mountains. He went along the coast for a whole day and a night, passing around the reef which formed an insuperable barrier. He discovered in this way that it was a round island in the middle of which rose a mountain crowned with clouds. He joyfully breathed the fresh breath of the moist air. Rain fell, and this rain was so pleasant that the holy ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... simplify the arrangements and how very little work Patch has when you and I are alone here. It is a pity there is not time to obtain Sir Charles's sanction. That would be more proper, of course, more satisfactory. But under the circumstances it need not, I think, be regarded as an insuperable objection. I told the Miss Minetts and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... offering, regarding success and failure as one, and engaged himself in a protracted struggle to get behind the deceptive seeming into the reality that remained unseen. After years of sustained efforts, he succeeded in overcoming almost insuperable difficulties in the way of the realisation of the great dream of his life. The closed doors at last opened, and the seemingly impossible became possible. The secret of the plant world stood revealed by the autographs ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... the change of the present legal representation of the kingdom. On all this I shall observe, that it will be very unsuitable to your wisdom to adopt the project of a bill to which there are objections insuperable by anything in the bill itself, upon the hope that those objections may be removed by subsequent projects, every one of which is full of difficulties of its own, and which are all of them very essential alterations in the Constitution. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that so lately as the years 1858-60, the "bar" at the mouth of the Tyne was an insuperable obstacle to all but vessels of very moderate draught; and that ships might lie for days, and sometimes weeks, after being loaded, before there came a tide high enough to carry them out to sea. The river was full of sand-banks, and little islands stood here and there—one in ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... scarce; and it was absolutely necessary that the besiegers should either force their way across the river or retreat. The difficulty of effecting a passage over the shattered remains of the bridge seemed almost insuperable. It was proposed to try the ford. The Duke of Wirtemberg, Talmash, and Ruvigny gave their voices in favour of this plan; and Ginkell, with some ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... matter of our drifts has been ground out of the solid siliceous lodes by glacial and fluvial action, and that the auriferous leads have been formed by the natural sluicing operations of former streams. To this, however, there are several insuperable objections. ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... under the British flag. A native power, organised solely for aggressive warfare against one of two possible white neighbours, constituted therefore, in his opinion, not only a perpetual menace to the safety of Natal, but an insuperable obstacle to the effective discharge of a duty by the paramount Power, the successful performance of which was a condition precedent to the reunion of the European communities. The only point in dispute ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... difficulties not only increased, they became tenfold, immediately upon the introduction of Polly. Dickens, however, conquered them all somehow. But to anybody else, setting forth the story histrionically, impersonating the characters as they appeared, these difficulties would by necessity have been insuperable or simply overwhelming. Catching the very little fair-haired girl's Christian name readily enough, when she comes up to him in the street, with the surprising announcement, "O! if you please, I am lost!" Barbox Brothers can't for the life of him conjecture what her surname is,—carefully ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... our principal modern difficulties with regard to belief in a life to come; do they, or do they not, present valid and insuperable obstacles to ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... ends of development, were self-caused, is surely a much more difficult task. It is the existence of such a variety, it is the existence of a uniform tendency to produce certain though multitudinous results, that makes the insuperable difficulty of supposing matter always developing (towards certain ends) to ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... (though I had driven there with no other thought in my head than to dance well), had replied that I never indulged in that pastime, that I began to blush, and, left solitary among a crowd of strangers, became plunged in my usual insuperable and ever-growing shyness. In fact, I remained silent on that spot ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... on the book- table that groaned with light literature. Once I met her at the Academy soiree, where you meet people you thought were dead, and she vouchsafed the information, as if she owed it to me in candour, that Leolin had been obliged to recognise insuperable difficulties in the question of FORM, he was so fastidious; so that she had now arrived at a definite understanding with him (it was such a comfort) that SHE would do the form if he would bring home the substance. That was now his position—he ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... objection to trying his luck with Mrs. Glenarm? Not he! Any woman would do—provided his father was satisfied, and the money was all right. The obstacle which was really in his way was the obstacle of the woman whom he had ruined. Anne! The one insuperable difficulty was the difficulty ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... India, as I hope before long to see a telegraphic communication between the office of the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) and every Presidency over which he presides. I shall no doubt be told that there are insuperable difficulties in the way of such an arrangement, and I shall be sure to hear of the military difficulty. Now, I do not profess to be an authority on military affairs, but I know that military men often make great mistakes. I would have the army divided, each Presidency ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... said, Not so, Lord: Forgive now this people their sin; or if thou wilt not, blot me also out of the book of the living. O admirable charity! O insuperable perfection! The servant speaks freely to his Lord: He beseeches him either to forgive the people, or to destroy him together ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... or shorter periods, invaded by the sea; but any break of continuity was probably not prolonged; for Mr. Wallace's investigations in the Eastern Archipelago have shown how narrow a sea may offer an insuperable barrier to the migration of land animals. In Palaeozoic times this land must have been connected with Australia, and in Tertiary times with Malayana, since the Malayan forms with African alliances are in several cases distinct ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... partial efforts.[305] Writing subsequently to Henry himself, he said that the work to be done was a repetition of the conquest of Wales by Edward I, and it would prove at least, as tedious and as expensive. Nevertheless, if the king could make up his mind to desire it, there was no insuperable difficulty. He would undertake the work himself with six thousand men. The difficulty would be then, however, but half overcome, for the habits of the people were incurable. Strong castles must be built ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... whether all this joy was not premature. The task undertaken by the Pope seemed to present insuperable difficulties. It is never easy to put new wine into old bottles, and our age is one where all things tend to a great crisis; not merely to revolution, but to radical reform. From the people themselves the help must come, and not from princes; in the new state of things, there will ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... quick feelings, with a serene, self-possessed temper. Spare no efforts in ascertaining how near the individual who addresses you approaches this ideal. An utter failure, should present, in your view, an insuperable obstacle to a ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey |
