"Potent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sorrowful,—"Sweet Jesus! merciful Jesus! suffering, calumniated dying Jesus, pity me—rescue me," she murmured, folding her cold hands together. Far away fled the powers of darkness, and left only the sweetness and peace of that potent deliverer, JESUS, in her soul. Once more the angels of her life looked up rejoicing, and spread their wings of light about her way. Without, there had been an exterior calm; but it was like that gray, sad stillness, ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... New England has been the most potent force, in the building of this great nation. The homes of our Puritan ancestors were really the birthplaces of these United States. What then was the character of these homes? They were simple and even rude, as considered externally—and especially ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... dialectic. The second house was more curious still. Much pains is spent upon the description of it with its "quiet signs of wealth, and of a noble taste," in which both colour and form, alike of stones and flowers, seemed expressive of a rare and potent beauty in the personality that inhabited them. There were inscriptions there to the dead martyrs, inscriptions full of confidence and peace. Old pagan symbols were there also—Herakles wrestling with death for possession of Alkestis, and Orpheus taming the wild beasts—blended naturally with ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... of the senators alone had been privileged by the host to appear en habit de ville, and these paid for their privilege before they got clear off. Their potent seignorships, in truth, soon found themselves exceedingly ill at ease here: jostled by lawless pirates, lassoed by wild Guachos, and plundered of their loose cash by irresistible broom and orange girls, they were fain ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... thing traced over with silver, set him thinking eagerly of another little bottle, of glass with a silver stopper, his wife's vinaigrette which she was fond of using when her head ached. From that, the contemplation of inhaling aromatic salts, he went naturally enough to the inhaling of more potent things which assuage pain, and could assuage, if taken in sufficient quantities, the pain of life itself. He remembered the exaltation which he had experienced once when given chloroform for a slight operation. Directly the idea of repeating that blissful ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... asleep, in heaps, in the roadside, and lay there till morning, when they woke, declaring, as did the monks, that they had been all bewitched. They knew not—and happily the lower orders, both in England and on the Continent, do not yet know—the potent virtues of that strange fungus, with which Lapps and Samoiedes have, it is said, practised wonders for ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterward the very engines which had lifted ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... looking at. Did the hand which sometimes guided Edith's pencil ever retain the fingers longer than necessary, a pair of deep blue eyes looked into his, not reproachfully, for Nina could not fathom the meaning of what she saw, but with an expression of childlike trust and confidence far more potent than frowns and jealous tears would have been. Nina was in Arthur's way, but not in Edith's, and half the pleasure she experienced now in going to Grassy Spring, was derived from the fact that she thus saw more of Nina than ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... came the next afternoon, addressed to Harvey. In a state of great excitement he broke the seal and read the poignant missive with eyes that were glazed with wonder and—something even more potent. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... and six hundred pieces of gold; yet were they not able to conceal what they had stolen, but brought it all to Josephus, to Tarichee. Hereupon he blamed them for the violence they had offered to the king and queen, and deposited what they brought to him with Eneas, the most potent man of Taricheae, with an intention of sending the things back to the owners at a proper time; which act of Josephus brought him into the greatest danger; for those that had stolen the things had an indignation at him, both because they gained ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... "Respublica," the Republic, was the one word which to his ear contained a political charm. It was the shibboleth by which men were to be conjured into well-being. The word constitution is nearly as potent with us. But it is essential that the reader of Roman history and Roman biography should understand that the appellation had in it, for all Roman ears, a thoroughly conservative meaning. Among those who at Cicero's period dealt with politics in Rome—all of whom, no doubt, spoke ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... Transylvania. The son of Christopher, Sigismund Battori, shook off the Turkish bondage, defeated many of their armies, slew some of their pashas, and gained the title of the Scanderbeg of the times in which he lived. Not able to hold out, however, against so potent an adversary, he resigned his estate to the Emperor Rudolph II., and received in exchange the dukedoms of Oppelon and Ratibor in Silesia, with an annual pension of fifty thousand joachims. The pension not being well paid, Sigismund ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Brahma, O Yudhishthira, is an illustration in point. In olden times the adorable Vasishtha enquired of Brahma as to which among these two, viz., the Karma of a creature acquired in this life, or that acquired in previous lives (and called Destiny), is the more potent in shaping his life. Then, O king, the great god Brahma, who had sprung from the primeval lotus, answered him in these exquisite and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... terminated long before he had arrived half-way, "nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita," when more than one other great intellect has been but commencing its true work. I believe, that, if Shelley had lived, he would himself have been the most potent and useful commentator on his own writings, in the production of other and more complete works. But meanwhile the true measure of his genius is to be found in the influence which he has had, not only over those who have proclaimed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... to scoff at this apparition as a heretical innovation, there was still the story of Concepcion, the Demon Vaquero, whose terrible riata was fully as potent as the whaler's harpoon. Concepcion, when in the flesh, had been a celebrated herder of cattle and wild horses, and was reported to have chased the devil in the shape of a fleet pinto colt all the way from San Luis Obispo to San Francisco, vowing not to give up the chase until he had overtaken ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... was that the redskin, Laura, official laundress of the Arrowhead, had lately attended an evening affair in the valley at which the hitherto smart tipple of Jamaica ginger had been supplanted by a novel and potent beverage, Nature's own remedy for chills, dyspepsia, deafness, rheumatism, despair, carbuncles, jaundice, and ennui. Laura had partaken freely and yet again of this delectable brew, and now suffered not only from ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... than Sylvia and Octavio, though with different ends. All he had now to fear was from the answer Philander's letter should bring, for whom he had, in spite of love, so entire a friendship, that he even doubted whether (if Philander could urge reasons potent enough) he should not choose to die and quit Sylvia, rather than be false to friendship; one post passed, and another, and so eight successive ones, before they received one word of answer to what they sent; so that Sylvia, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... not miscalculated my danger. The man did not appear to have the least idea as to how I was to help him. He only knew that I was in his power, and he used his control to insure that something more potent than friendship should be enlisted in his behalf. As the days went by, his behavior grew to be a frightful thing to witness. He threatened, flattered, implored, offered to double the sum he had promised if I would save him. My ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... A less potent factor in the situation I found in the painful feeling now aroused in the Grand Duke at the prospect of not being able to fulfil the promise he had once held out to me, that I should visit him in Karlsruhe, where he was in residence; if the main object for the visit were to ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Goldsmith's flirtation with that vein of sentiment. His dogged conservatism prevented him from recognising the strength of the philosophical movements which were beginning to clothe themselves in Rousseauism. Burke, if he condemned the revolutionary doctrine as wicked, saw distinctly how potent a lesson it was becoming. Johnson, showing the true British indifference, could treat the movement with contempt—Hume's scepticism was a mere 'milking the bull'—a love of paradox for its own sake—and Wilkes and the Whigs, though wicked in intention, were simple and superficial ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... thankful that we live in a happier time; but let us also remember the maxim, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." If a Church lose the Spirit of God, there is no depth of corruption to which it may not rapidly descend; and a degraded Church is the most potent factor of ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... target as a darting dorsal fin, and a fat suckling lay kicking convulsively on the ground. He hurried up, the hunting gleam bright in his eyes, and hurled the second stone at the little animal. It still kicked, and he picked up the first stone, thinking it might be more potent to kill, and crashed it down on the unfortunate pig's head. It glanced from the head to the other stone and struck ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... open portal wooed Maya, but wooed in vain. Once, upon the steps of a quaint and picturesque cottage stood an artist, with eyes that flashed heaven's own azure, and lit his waving curls with a gleam of gold. His pleading look tempted the Child of the Kingdom with potent affinities of land and likeness; his fair cottage called her from wall and casement, with the spiritual eyes of ideal faces looking down upon her, forever changeless and forever pure; but when, from purest pity, kindness, and beauty-love, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... those two months had sunk in. No temptation, howsoever strong—the desire to know how the divorce trial of the H. K. Peabodys turned out, the itch of yearning to learn whether the body of the man found drowned in Exeter Pond was identified—proved potent enough to pull him away from his rule. That the news he read was anywhere from ten weeks to four months old when it reached him did not matter; in fact he very soon forgot that such was the case. For two precious hours a day he was translated back to the day and date that the rumpled ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... presently, in a low voice, and she nodded her head to signify agreement. The presence of Mr. Skale when he was in the house but invisible, was often more real and tremendous than when he stood beside them and thundered. Some part of him, some emanation, some potent psychic messenger from his personality, kept them closely company, and tonight the secretary felt it very vividly. His remark was really another effort to keep in close touch with Miriam, even in thought. He needed her more than ever in this sea of silence that was ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... purpose, of course," said my informant, "is so that American sympathy, now so potent, will cease for both refugees and interned Belgians. If the factories start, and there is work for them, and the refugees still refuse to return, you can ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the most part younger, and Clavering was scarcely half his age: but when they met in conclave something usually happened, for the seat of the legislature was far away, and their will considerably more potent thereabouts than the law of the land. Sheriff, postmaster, railroad agent, and petty politician carried out their wishes, and as yet no man had succeeded in living in that region unless he did homage to the ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... a morbid attitude toward death, a conviction that self-pity was reasonable, normal, wholesome, a belief that it was her duty to publicly display intensive evidences of her affliction, determined a lasting and potent influence in this girl's life which was to alloy her young womanhood—disturbing factors, all, which before twelve caused much emotional disequilibrium. She now lived with her uncle in New York City and her summers were spent in Canada. The sense of fitness ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... is lifting the veil to-day from the suffering which repression causes. It is a pity that its most brilliant exponents should ascribe to a single instinct—however potent—all the ills that afflict mankind, for such one-sidedness defeats its own object; but, at least, the modern psychologist is trying to show us "exactly where each tooth-point goes" in the repression of the sex-instinct among women as among ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... prepared for that today. The entire post of Katleean was getting ready for the Potlatch, an Indian festival scheduled for the near future. For this occasion Kayak Bill, in his carefully secreted still across the lagoon, had completed a particularly potent batch of moonshine, known locally as hootch. The arrival, earlier in the afternoon, of the jocose old hootch-maker with a canoe-load of his fiery beverage, had been a signal for a gathering at his cabin across the courtyard. From the sounds that now floated out on the late afternoon air, he must ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... will, it's no use talking, poverty is more potent and powerful, as a moral engine, than all the "sermons and soda water," law, logic, and prison discipline, ever started. All a man wants, while he has a chance to be honest, and to get along smoothly, is a good situation and two dollars a day; ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... sources and receiving the most hearty words of cheer from friends, of whom none has been more potent or more earnest than Bishop B.W. Arnett, D.D., of the African M.E. Church, I have, after five months of severe labor, about completed my task, so far as I find it in my power to complete it; and trusting that the majesty and interest of the story itself will atone for any defects in ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... oh, chilling sound! That tolls the knell of hope and joy! Potent with torturing pang to wound, But not in ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... him, 'throwing out' words at an object in his mind, trying to grasp and analyse that strange sense which haunts the student of Rome's decline as it once overshadowed the infancy of Europe, that sense of a slowly departing majesty, of a great presence just withdrawn, and still incalculably potent, traceable throughout in that humbling consciousness of Goth or Frank that they were but 'beggars hutting in a palace—the place had ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the closest connection with this that we must chew our food fine before we can digest it, and that the same food given in large lumps will choke and kill which in small pieces feeds us; or, again, that that which is impotent as a pellet may be potent as a gas. Food is very thoughtful: through thought it comes, and back through thought it shall return; the process of its conversion and comprehension within our own system is mental as well as physical, and here, as everywhere else with mind and evolution, there must be a cross, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... constantly into account, and work out the means of its influence and operation. That authority, as I shall show, transcends both in power and in alertness the natural reactions of the national mind, and is incomparably more potent in combating ideas. It is supported by a body of law that is unmatched in any other country of Christendom, and it is exercised with a fanatical harshness and vigilance that make escape from its operations well nigh impossible. Some of its effects, both ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... university with a mind open and free as to Judaism. He comes there with definite views on the subject which have already been crystallized under the influence of early training. Judaism, of whatever shade it may happen to be, is more potent a factor in the domestic life of German Jews and in the bringing up of the young than it is with us here. Jewish boys there evince a keener interest in Judaism than do Jewish boys in America. Their intelligent understanding of Judaism is therefore ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... common talents; as to which his friends only deplore that he has scattered them so much, or, according to the expression of the author of the Letters on Poland, that "his genius was too eager in embracing at once so much within its potent grasp; and thus, instead of concentrating his powers, lessened their brilliant beams, by diffusing them over too ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... of gold from the ebony cabinet, and threw it contemptuously at the old woman's feet. The chink of the gold was potent enough to excite a smile ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... remarked the young host, who had indiscreetly taken two full tumblers of old hard cider before Rivers had noticed his unaccustomed use of this rather potent drink. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... the struggle for existence act in regard to variation? Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is so potent in the hands of man, apply under Nature? I think we shall see that it can act most efficiently. Let the endless number of slight variations and individual differences occurring in our domestic productions, and, in a lesser degree, in those under Nature, be borne in mind, as well as the ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... successors we know that light, and more particularly what we call actinic light, is an effective means of setting free electrons from certain substances. In short, our photographic agent, light, has the power of expelling from certain substances the electron which is so potent a factor in most, if not in all, chemical effects. I have not time here to refer to the work of Elster and Geitel whereby they have shown that this action is to be traced to the electric force in the light wave, but must turn to the probable bearing of this phenomenon on the ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... to-day most of them are absent. Some attribute their defection to chagrin at their shortsightedness in resisting the appointment of Mr. CAMPBELL as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. As Attorney-General they fear he will exert a much more potent influence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... of a people we have the most reliable clue to the history of their progress in culture and intelligence, for religions even when unwritten are potent to conserve old conceptions, and thus their followers advance beyond them, as does the intelligence of the twentieth century look pityingly upon the conception of the cruel and jealous God of the Old Testament, whose praises are nevertheless ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... in all the great railways of New York, north, east, and west, except one, where their share is only a few millions. They are in most of the great railways radiating from Chicago. They dominate in several of the systems that extend to the Pacific. It is their votes that make Mr. Morgan so potent, though, it may be added, they need his brains more than he needs their votes— at present, and the combination of the two constitutes in large measure the 'community ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... out and believed in. He is a determined, almost a savage partisan in politics and religion, a steady patriot, something of a statesman, very much indeed of a friend and a lover. And of all this there is ample evidence in his verse. Yet the alchemy of his poetry has passed through the potent alembics of verse and phrase all these rebellious things, and has distilled them into the inimitably fluent and velvet medium which seems to lull some readers to inattention by its very smoothness, and deceive others into a belief in its lack of matter by the very finish and brilliancy of its form. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... shine out fair, O moon! To thee I sing My soft low song: to thee and Hecate The dweller in the shades, at whose approach E'en the dogs quake, as on she moves through blood And darkness and the barrows of the slain. All hail, dread Hecate: companion me Unto the end, and work me witcheries Potent as Circe or Medea wrought, Or Perimede of the golden hair! Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. First we ignite the grain. Nay, pile it on: Where are thy wits flown, timorous Thestylis? Shall I be flouted, I, by such as thou? Pile, and still say, 'This pile ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... worshipper at the shrine of Musical Comedy the atmosphere of a first night at a new, or renascent, theatre is perhaps rather too heady. There are so many potent vintages set on the board; so many connoisseurs who will offer to tell you beforehand of the merits ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... prerogatives of traffic or the hypocritical refinements of diplomatic craft? Are not such conditions, with the luxurious licentiousness so natural thereto, combined with the stolid indifference and poverty of the masses, most potent factors in the decline and fall ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... the grape, thou potent boy, Thou only object of our cordial vows, To thee alone I consecrate my heart, Ready to follow thee in ev'ry part: Thy influence sweet mirth bestows, For thee alone I'd live and die in scenes of joy. Thy bounty all our wishes still prevents; Thy wond'rous sweetness calms to soft repose ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... commonly cited as indigestible, but for all that it is commended by old writers as a potent remedy for stone. If not too old, well masticated, and eaten at the beginning of a meal, I do not think it is more indigestible than the ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... ransacked—in search, P. Sybarite didn't for an instant doubt, of evidence as to the relations between Shaynon and Mrs. Inche calculated to prove incriminating at an inquest; though the little man entertained even less doubt that lust for loot had likewise been a potent ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... shape, or become, so to speak, conscious of its own purposes. But its doctrinal views, its peculiar vein of religious sentiment, its respect for antiquity and tradition, its proneness to casuistry, its taste for symbolism, were already potent influences working on the more susceptible of the younger minds. On Mr. Gladstone they told with full force. He became, and never ceased to be, not merely a High-churchman, but what may be called an Anglo-Catholic, in his theology, deferential not only to ecclesiastical tradition, but ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... representation. In his view the Jews never created dramatic poetry, partly because of the Mosaic prohibition against plastic delineation of their Deity, partly because the tragic element, which was so potent an influence in the development of the Greek drama, was wanting in their heroes. The theory that the Song of Songs, that canticle of canticles of love, was a pastoral play had no lodgment in his mind; the poem seemed less dramatic to him than the Book of Job. The former sprang from ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Bagdad, may there still be found That potent powder, finely ground, Which changes all who on it feast, Monarch or slave, to bird or beast? Do Caliphs taste and unafraid, Turn storks, and ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... influence to procure you employment with one of my friends among the native princes. Well, I have kept my word; firmavi fidem, as the Latin hath it. Angria is my friend; I have used my influence with him; and you are now in the service of one of the most potent of Indian princes. True, your service is but beginning. It may be arduous at first; it may be long ab ovo usque ad mala; the egg may be hard, and the apples, perchance, somewhat sour; but as you become inured to your duties, you will learn ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... of it. Religion is the most potent form of intoxication known to the human race. That's why I took you over to hear the little baseball player. I wanted you to get a sip. But don't let it go to your head." And Nickols mocked me with soft tenderness ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... above described condition to be a most potent but inadequately recognized cause of the various forms of uterine diseases ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... to go in she gave him a glance which had just enough sweetness in it to neutralize the irony of her words. In the treatment of her lovers, Madeline always punctured the skin before applying a drop of sweetness, and perhaps this accounted for the potent effect it had to inflame the blood, compared with more profuse but superficial applications of less ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... his poetical friend.[201] Meanwhile, his house is not wanting in needful garniture to render a country residence most congenial. His cellars below vie with his library above. Besides 'the brown October'—'drawn from his dark retreat of thirty years'—and the potent comforts of every species of 'barley broth'—there are the ruddier and more sparkling juices of the grape—'fresh of colour, and of look lovely, smiling to the eyz of many'—as Master Laneham hath it in his celebrated letter.[202] I shall leave you ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... ring is thrice carried off at the point of the lance. Feats of horsemanship follow in a covered building, to the right; and the juggler, conjurer, or magician, displays his dexterous feats, or exercises his potent spells ... in a little amphitheatre of trees, at a distance beyond. Here and there rise more stately edifices, as theatres ... from the doors of which a throng of heated spectators is pouring out, after having indulged ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... impossible to describe a successful solution of the problems of any particular school as it is to paint the lily, the rose, or the rainbow. All are equally indescribable and intangible, but nevertheless the more real, potent, and inspiring on that account. Such a situation means the presence of a strong life, a strong mind, and a strong hand exemplifying ideals every day. This is education, this is ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... be anticipated. Supposing a President, supported by a congressional majority, were to formulate some policy no more subversive than that which has been formulated by the present British Cabinet, and this policy were to be resisted, as it surely would be, by potent financial interests, the conflicting forces would converge upon the Supreme Court. The courts are always believed to tend toward conservatism, therefore they are generally supported by the conservative interest, both here and elsewhere. In this case a dilemma ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... reserved for the last, the most potent and forcible cause of destruction, the domestic hostilities of the Romans themselves. Under the dominion of the Greek and French emperors, the peace of the city was disturbed by accidental, though frequent, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... hearts, he judged "their spirit to be as high as was the spirit of their ancestors when they imprisoned Andros, while they were four times as numerous." As the burden of official responsibility pressed heavily on him, he realized that he had to deal with an element far more potent than "the faction" which officials had long represented as composing the Patriot band, and that much depended on dealing with it wisely. This was not a dependent and starved host wildly urging the terrible ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... greater want in this age than a full, fair, fearless religio clerici; the men who could write it, dare not; and the men who dare write it, cannot. They say the age is not ripe for it; and if they mean that it would cause violent offence to the potent rulers of fashionable religious dogmatism, they are right. But I wander from my theme, and meddle with the subjects which this is not ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... any of these was the example set by Ramsay and bettered by Burns of refurbishing old indecent or fragmentary songs. Robert Fergusson (1750-1774) was regarded by Burns still more highly than Ramsay, and his influence was even more potent. In his autobiographical letter to Doctor Moore he tells that about 1782 he had all but given up rhyming: "but meeting with Fergusson's Scotch Poems, I strung anew my wildly-sounding, rustic lyre with emulating vigour." In the preface to the Kilmarnock ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... worship you have feasted us like a kinge. God bless the Queen's grace. We have fed plentifully, and now whilom I can speak plain English, I heartily thank you Master Mayor, and so do we all. Answer, boys, answer! Your beere is pleasant and potent, and soon catches us by the caput and stops our manners, and so Huzza for the Queen's Majesty's Grace, and all her bonny brow'd dames of honour! Huzza for Master Mayor and our good dame Mayoress, the Alderman and his faire Aldress; there ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... Antony, having washed his burly visage, was leaning over the quarter-railing of the galley, contemplating it in the glassy waves below. Just at this moment the illustrious sun, breaking in all his splendor from behind a high bluff of the Highlands, did dart one of his most potent beams full upon the refulgent nose of the sounder of brass, the reflection of which shot straightway down hissing hot into the water, and killed a mighty sturgeon that was sporting beside the vessel. When this astonishing ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... blossom; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living object of power and beauty among us; and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it not the less scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell. The conditions of society which brought it forth and nourished it have long disappeared; but as those far-off stars which once were and are not, still continue to shed their rays upon us, so the light of chivalry, ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... Euripides, accounts bread and water enough to satisfy nature, "of which there is no surfeit, the rest is not a feast, but a riot." [3750]S. Hierome esteems him rich "that hath bread to eat, and a potent man that is not compelled to be a slave; hunger is not ambitious, so that it have to eat, and thirst doth not prefer a cup of gold." It was no epicurean speech of an epicure, he that is not satisfied with a little will never have enough: and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... which so many homes lays down the community must take up. The public school cannot cultivate the spirit of prayer, and if the home does not, the church remains the only possible agent through which it may be done. The Sunday-school teacher is the church's most potent instrument, therefore a large share of ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... much as by their ancestry; those young princes, schooled by stern adversity, from whom so much might be expected,—all made me hope that new-born liberty might be made to accord with the ancient monarchy of our forefathers. The government would thus have possessed the two most potent spells in all human affairs,—antiquity and novelty; memory and hope. It was a fair dream, and most natural at my age. Each succeeding day, however, dispelled a portion of that dream. I perceived with grief that old forms but ill contain new ideas; that ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... a potent note; and being swung under the arch it filled the house from top to bottom with surly, clanging reverberations. The sound accentuated the conventual appearance of the building; a wintry sentiment, a thought of prayer and mortification, took hold upon Elvira's mind; and, as for ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... statement. He has always been an opponent of the "Company Store" system; now he sees that it is likely to be the potent factor in exciting ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... Another—the most potent cause of all—is the complete revolution of opinion as regards woman's work which has been effected in the course of a single generation. Thirty years ago, if a girl was compelled to earn her bread by her own work, what could she do? There were a few—a very few—who wrote; many very excellent ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... from her mind to mine, the impression produced on me was painful in the last degree. Horrible imaginings of deformity possessed my brain, and profaned all that was purest and dearest in my recollections of Miss Dunross. It was useless to change the subject—the evil influence that was on me was too potent to be charmed away by talk. Making the best excuse that I could think of for leaving my mother's room, I hurried away to seek a refuge from myself, where alone I could hope to find it, in the presence ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... each other than those which appear cast in the same mould. The source of this fascination is difficult to trace; it possesses not reason for its basis, yet it is perhaps the more tyrannical in its influence from that very cause. The weakness of our natures occasionally makes us feel a potent charm in ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... eventful evening, therefore, the dinner-party, stimulated by her art and by potent wines (gazing with long-necked dignity at the autocratic whisky-decanter), rapidly assumed a crescendo and an accelerando—the two things for which a ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... explanation of terms, and then proceed to divide and subdivide the matter, as a priest does a sermon. Such a dose would, I am sure, have sickened you. I have therefore thought it best to give you very little at a time, and watch, as physicians do with potent medicines, the effect produced. When we meet, which I verily believe will be in five or six days after the receipt of this, you shall have as much as I shall find ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... shirt, when lo! upon my breast I beheld imprinted a picture of the direful deed—seared in by rays more potent than the sun's—photographed there, as if by the lightning's ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... had become almost a fixed belief that European war was only a nightmare of the imagination. War in the Balkans, war possibly in the East of Europe, we could think of; but war flinging the complex organization, so potent yet so delicate, of great and fully civilized States into the melting-pot—that we never really believed in. Prophets of finance, prophets of the labour world, had told us the thing was impossible. Even our most recent experience, the irruption of armed forces into the political arena, had ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... secret energy of vice that could not be escaped so simply—nor, indeed, by any device; that breathed in the spiritual atmosphere itself of the place. Always, this mysterious, invisible, yet horribly potent, power of sin was like a miasma throughout the prison. Always, it was striving to reach her soul, to make her of its own. She fought the insidious, fetid force as best she might. She was not evil by nature. She had been well grounded in principles of righteousness. Nevertheless, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... being nothing less potent than a brew of whisky punch, which he had ordered (or rather requested Bunker to order) as the most romantically national compound he could think of, produced, indeed, a fervor of foolhardiness. He insisted upon opening the door wide, and getting Bunker to address ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... Street was a most shabby-appearing vehicle, the driver of which, moreover, as Mr. Leary could divine even as he crossed the sidewalk, had wiled away the tedium of waiting by indulgence in draughts of something more potent than the chill air of latish November. Mr. Leary peered doubtfully into the illuminated countenance but dulled eyes of the driver and caught a whiff of a breath alcoholically fragrant, and he understood that the warning relayed to him by ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... general was not apparent to them, there seemed to be a sudden, sufficient reason for keeping up the forms of life; and even the waiters at hotels showed the more alacrity in doing away with crumbs and creases and dregs with struggling flies in them. This potent charm, added to the fact that she was the eldest daughter, toward whom her mamma had always been in an apologetic state of mind for the evils brought on her by a step-father, may seem so full a reason for Gwendolen's domestic empire, that to look for any ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... not of finding truth; of finding reasons and counter-reasons, of exciting doubt and controversy, not of vouchsafing certitude. So long as it contents itself with controverting that which is false, it is potent and salutary; but when, despising divine assistance, it advances beyond this, it becomes dangerous, like a caustic drug which attacks the healthy flesh after it has consumed ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... prodigious pretensions. Surely these words had their origin at an epoch when 'letters' stood higher in the scale of estimation than they do now; when he who knew them possessed a spell that rendered him a potent character among ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Creator, Sovereign, Judge, much more often than Father: we hear from Milton more of his might than of his love. So at once here, at the age of fifteen, he inserts into the Psalm he is paraphrasing that characteristic phrase, so splendid and potent itself, so gladly speaking ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... Arthur's Court. But Mr Benden found that the adventures of Sir Isumbras, or the woes of the Lady Blanchefleur, were quite incapable of making him forget the very disagreeable present. Then he tried rebuilding and newly furnishing a part of his house; but that proved even less potent to divert his thoughts than the books. Next he went into company, laughed and joked with empty-headed people, played games, sang, and amused himself in sundry ways, and came home at night, to feel more solitary and miserable than before. Then, in desperation, he sent for the ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... Princesses. The first day of my reading in the inner apartment of Madame Victoire I found it impossible to pronounce more than two sentences; my heart palpitated, my voice faltered, and my sight failed. How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which ought to surround sovereigns! Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit Trianon, would never ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... where fertile only calculated to produce few articles,—a people thus disadvantageously situated, in respect to territory and soil, and moreover engaged in a most perilous, doubtful, and protracted contest for their religion and liberty, with by far the most potent monarch of Europe,—this people, blessed with knowledge and freedom, forced to become industrious and enterprizing by the very adverse circumstances in which they were placed, gradually wrested from their opponents—the discoverers of the treasures of the East and of the new ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... "as flourishing a condition as we may appear to be in to foreigners, we labor under two mighty evils; a violent faction at home, and the danger of an invasion by a most potent enemy from abroad. As to the first, you are to understand that for above seventy moons[12] past there have been two struggling parties in this empire, under the names Tramecksan and Slamecksan, from the high and low heels of their shoes, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... notions must be of that favorite catchword of Southern partisans; "State rights." It may be objected, "These people can have been only the extremely ignorant." That, however, is my own conviction: but such childish assumptions were not the less prevalent for being preposterous, nor the less potent in leavening the mass of opinion, when the question was, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... at his ease in a comfortable chair, and amused himself by watching her different little plots. And then she had bright eyes, and she flattered him, and allowed him to scold her occasionally. And now and again there might be some more potent attraction, when she would admit him to take her hand,—or the like. It was better than to sit smoking with men at the club. But he could not sit up all night even with Madalina Demolines, and at eleven he got up to take his leave. "When shall you see ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... slow foot retired. Yet were remaining some of ancient race, And ancient arts were now their sole delight: With Time's first sickle they had marked the hour When at their incantation would the Moon Start back, and shuddering shed blue blasted light. The rifted rays they gathered, and immersed In potent portion of that wondrous wave, Which, hearing rescued Israel, stood erect, And led her armies through his crystal gates. Hither (none shared her way, her counsel none) Hied the Masarian Dalica: 'twas night, And the still breeze fell languid ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... been attracted to the barkentine Retriever for two very potent reasons—the first was a delicious odor of stew emanating from her galley; the second was her house flag, a single large, five-pointed blue star on a field of white with scarlet trimming. Garnished left and right with a golden wreath and below with the word Captain, Matt ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... worshippers together; since noise is a recognised means of driving away spirits, probably in consequence of its effect in frightening wild animals. It is for the same end that music is essential at weddings, especially during the night when the spirits are more potent; and this is the primary object of the continuous discordant din which the Hindus consider a ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... not follow that a thing must be nothing because it isn't a substance. Don't you see, man, that an idea is something, yet it is not a substance. Thought, which is so potent a factor in this world, is not a substance, yet it cannot be called nothing. It is a condition—it is the result of brain-atoms in action. Electricity is sometimes described as an 'invisible imponderable fluid,' but that is not quite correct, ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... this last confidence—the rarest from one of the Blood— did George X— disclose in course of certain seances the "Square of Sevens," that most particular and potent method of prying into the past and present and future. In it figures the wonderful "Parallelogram," with its "Master Cards," "Influences," and so on— which our book records. Moreover, George X— declared that whereas most of his race can or will use only corrupted or quite frivolous ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... enough to shatter any dream, to turn to pathos any situation. In Jones' case they had acted as a most potent spell. He could still hear the voice, wrathful, but with a tinge of mirth in it, ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... from glass, wax, leather, or other suitable material such as ivory or the precious metals (Ezekiel xvi, 17), has been known from primitive times; and the spread of the cult of Priapus was a potent factor in making the instrument more common in the western world. Numerous Greek authors make mention of it: Aristophanes, Lucian, Herondas, Suidas and others. That it was only too familiar to the Romans is shown by their many references ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... conscience brought him to a stand. And then, in his sober moments, he so bothered his friends with his remorse, and his terrors and woes, that they were obliged, in self-defence, to get him to drown his sorrows in wine, or any more potent beverage that came to hand; and when his first scruples of conscience were overcome, he would need no more persuading, he would often grow desperate, and be as great a blackguard as any of them could desire—but only to lament his own ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... page from the Epistle to the Galatians. The Judaizers are called "dogs," and as their circumcision was no longer the sign of a covenant with God, the apostle calls it a mere outward mutilation of the flesh (iii. 2). It is unlikely that Jewish influences were potent at Philippi. The explanation of this passage appears to be that the apostle, before completing his letter, learnt of some new and successful plot of the Judaizers at Rome or elsewhere. Nervously dreading lest they should invade his beloved ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... They could now cultivate cotton under an extensive system of agriculture with large immediate profits. Experience proved, however, that the system was extraordinarily wasteful, leading to a rapid exhaustion of the soil. This ever-recurring exhaustion of the soil and demand for new land was a potent cause of the incessant pressure of population into the virgin lands of the Southwest, ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... sleep-filled eyes, smiled the sweet, meaningless smile of a half-awakened child. Her consciousness had not yet fully returned, and her glance, curiously clear and liquid, rested on his without intelligence. The woman in her was never more apparent, her seduction never more potent. Her will dormant, her bounding energies at low ebb, she looked a thing to nestle, soft and yielding, against a ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... chambers to drag forth the loiterers; but after breakfast his lordship's power ended, and it was in suspense till night, when his personal presence was paramount, or, as Dugdale expresses it, "and then his power is most potent." ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... The most potent instrument of the new papal system was Gratian's Decretum, which was issued about the middle of the twelfth century. It was a mass of fabrications. It made the whole Christian world, through the papacy, ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... maintained by the older boys over the younger ones. The code of the lesser, and almost independent, republic of the dormitory and the green is as clear in its terms as that of the unlimited monarchy of the school-room, and more potent in shaping the character. The lads train themselves for the battle of the world, with some help from the masters. It is a sound system on the whole, if based, to appearance, rather too much on the principle of the weaker ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... announced that a non-profit organization, the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) had been established to investigate UFO reports. He would be chairman of the board of governors and his board would consist of such potent names as: ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... the cynic," Pitying runs your poet-smile, "He has sat at the Devil's clinic With some dead love up the while." Dead or alive are one with passions, Under the potent knife of Truth They will be seen composed of craving— ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... America was absolute. His wealth, his ability and even more the sum of the capital he could control through the banks, trust companies and industrial organizations, which he dominated, made his word as potent as ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... for the present situation of things at court, perhaps I might not have obtained it so soon. For," said he, "as flourishing a condition as we may appear to be in to foreigners, we labour under two mighty evils: a violent faction at home, and the danger of an invasion, by a most potent enemy, from abroad. As to the first, you are to understand, that for about seventy moons past there have been two struggling parties in this empire, under the names of Tramecksan and Slamecksan, from the high and low heels of their shoes, by which ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... a sanity of judgment that enable him to put before us not merely a plausible, but a convincing portrait of a man who twenty years after his death, in spite of changing fashions, exercises, as in his own day, a strange and potent spell over the imagination." ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... diversion, for contrast, for sharpening style, and for balancing of ideas, but strength comes of finding a main line and holding to it. No man can read a book with sympathetic understanding without taking from it something that makes him more complex and more potent. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... boast, Till, to complete her works, she starts a ghost. If such the mode, what can we hope to-night, Who rashly dare approach without a sprite? No dreadful cavern, no midnight scream, No rosin flames, nor e'en one flitting gleam. Nought of the charms so potent to invite The monstrous charms of terrible delight. Our present theme the German Muse supplies, But rather aims to soften than surprise. Yet, with her woes she strives some smiles to blend, Intent as well to cheer as to amend: On her own native soil ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... down to soothe the weary eyes, How all the griefs and heart-aches we have known Come up like pois'nous vapors that arise From some base witch's caldron, when the crone, To work some potent spell, her magic plies. The past which held its share of bitter pain, Whose ghost we prayed that Time might exorcise, Comes up, is lived and suffered o'er again, Ere sleep comes down ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... our attention on one or two salient points. Europe has often been accustomed to watch with anxiety the rise of some potent arbiter of her destinies who seems to arrogate to himself a large personal dominion. There was Philip II. There was Louis XIV. There was Napoleon a hundred years ago. Then, a mere shadow of his great ancestor, there ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... one has advanced all tangible reasons and causes for the depopulation of the Marquesas, there remains another, mysterious, intangible, but it may be, more potent than the others. The coming of the white has been deadly to all copper-colored races everywhere in the world. The black, the yellow, the Malay, the Asiatic and the negro flourish beside the white; the Polynesian ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... creation of which man is capable, is to will the will of the Father. That has in it an element of the purely creative, and then is man likest God. But simply to do what we ought, is an altogether higher, diviner, more potent, more creative thing, than to write the grandest poem, paint the most beautiful picture, carve the mightiest statue, build the most worshiping temple, dream out the most enchanting commotion of melody and harmony. If Godfrey could have seen the soul of the maiden into whose face his ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... well served the King,' she said. 'You have made him rich and potent. I believe ye have none other desire so great as that desire to make him potent and ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... donkeys who talk the English language and spend their time in discussing eugenics, you could not disprove the statement, but would it, on that account, have any claim to be believed? Some minds would be prepared to accept it, if it were reiterated often enough, through the potent force of suggestion. This force, exercised largely by emphatic repetition (the theoretical basis, as has been observed, of the modern practice of advertising), has played a great part in establishing authoritative ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... that wounded him. Then, too, the quicker the cheaper, and that will make it easier on the taxpayers." This latter is so comforting! So the order is written, the funeral is rushed through, and the county goes home to its dinner, feeling well satisfied with itself,—so potent are the consolations of philosophy at so many hundreds ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Sybil that the false report contained that one word of truth. Worse than this! an indignity had been put on Bridget by Mark Driver, who seemed the last man in the world to inflict it. Jimmy, however, realized that one of her most potent charms was a delectable, seductive ingenuousness and irresponsibility, which might, perhaps, on occasion prove a little misleading to unregenerate man. Nevertheless, he felt sore as ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... causes. Firstly, Prince Alexander, on marching against the Servians, had very tactfully proclaimed that he did so on behalf of the existing order of things, which they were bent on overthrowing. His actions having corresponded to his words, the Porte gradually came to see in him a potent defender against Russia. This change in the attitude of the Sultan was undoubtedly helped on by the arguments of Lord Salisbury to the Turkish ambassador at London. He summarised the whole case for a recognition of the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... are done are in themselves so interesting that it matters comparatively little who is doing them; and certain characters are in themselves so interesting that it matters comparatively little what they do. To conceive a potent train of action and thereby foreordain the nature of such characters as will accomplish it, or to conceive characters pregnant with potentiality for certain sorts of deeds and thereby foreordain a train of action,—either is a legitimate method for planning out a narrative. ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... doubly potent, for the barley from which the beer was made and the drink itself was supposed to be imbued with the life-giving powers of Osiris, and the blood-colour reinforced its therapeutic usefulness. The legend now begins to become involved and confused. For the goddess is making the rejuvenator for ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... of such a youth; and does the most potent congress of these rebellious colonies intrust their soldiers to the leading of such ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... service of these senoritas, languorous and forbidding, indifferent and sensuous. Against these rude gipsies the refined grace and Goyaesque elegance of La Argentina stand forth in high relief, La Argentina, in whose hands the castanets become as potent an instrument for our pleasure as the violin does in the fingers of Jascha Heifetz. Bilbao, too, with his thundering heels and his tauromachian gestures, bewilders our highly magnetized senses. When, in the dance, he pursues, without catching, the elusive Doloretes, ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... Ivar and his foster-brothers the interested reader must gain knowledge in the pages of the delightful narrative itself. Suffice it to say that there is no lack of romantic incident at any stage of the story. The prowess of the four Vikings is always potent; they fall in love; Ivar fights a duel, and then wins the loveliest of brides. There is throughout the volume the stimulating air which blows through the Sagas, the nipping salt air ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... the piano and when that potent, shock-haired Pole spread his great hands above the keys I fancied something of the tiger in the lithe grace of his body, and in his face a singular and sultry solemnity was expressed. Inspired no doubt by the realization ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... by that wretchedly false Irishman whom he had trusted with all the confidence of a candid nature and an open heart! He had been most treacherously misused! Treachery was no adequate word for the injury inflicted on him. The more potent is a man, the less accustomed to endure injustice, and the more his power to inflict it,—the greater is the sting and the greater the astonishment when he himself is made to suffer. Newspaper editors sport daily with the names of men of ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... alone, perhaps it would not have been sufficient ground for his recall; but coming as it did on the top of all the others, it was, I think, the most potent factor. ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... world in its first naked glory, with the hues of fancy spread over it, or in its high and palmy state, with the gravity of history stamped on the proud monuments of vanished empire,—who, by his 'so potent art,' can recall time past, transport us to distant places, and join the regions of imagination (a new conquest) to those of reality,—who shows us not only what Nature is, but what she has been, and is capable of,—he who does this, and does it with ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... medieval Europe was taught that his first duty was spiritual and that no nationality nor patriotism could compare with that. Then we Protestants began our battle for spiritual liberty against the tyranny of Rome, and as one of the most potent agencies in the winning of our battle we helped to develop the spirit of nationality. In place of the Holy Roman Church we put state churches. In place of devotion to the Vatican we were tempted to put devotion to the nation. Luther did more than write spiritual ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... to me, 'I am first going to use one of our old means of getting knowledge. It has failed me in the past, but it will be, perchance, more potent in the presence of ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... not dimmed the lustre of her keen grey eyes nor dulled her faculties; and though she could no longer take an active part in the management of the household, yet from her corner in the pleasant room a potent spell reached out and overshadowed the members of the household. No crowned monarch on his throne ever ruled over such deferential and loyal subjects as those that here yielded to her benign sway. Not that she required it of them—it was graciously accorded her as to the patriarchs ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... deliriously and writhe in convulsions, we at once surmise that this agreeable beverage contained some dangerous substance; but a delicate analysis is necessary to detect and decompose the poison. The philosophy of the eighteenth century contained poison, and of a kind as potent as it was peculiar; for, not only is it a long historic elaboration, the final and condensed essence of the tendency of the thought of the century, but again its two principal ingredients have this peculiarity, that, separate, they are salutary, and in combination ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the drowse of darkness, the noises quieted and the fires died down. Red Arrow felt his potent symbols whispering to him. ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... is sincere," the Oracle declared, "the country needs him. If he is a charlatan, then for heaven's sake, even at the expense of all the laws that were ever framed, away with him! There is no man breathing to-day who is developing a more potent, a more wide-reaching influence upon the destinies ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Lizzie went towards her slowly and giddily. She must of course kiss her patroness. She took her listless hand and bent towards her stern lips. Habitually Mrs. Ford was the most undemonstrative of women. But as Lizzie looked closer into her face, she read the signs of a grief infinitely more potent than her own. The formal kiss gave way: the young girl leaned her head on the old woman's shoulder and burst into sobs. Mrs. Ford acknowledged those tears with a slow inclination of the head, full of a certain grim pathos: she put out her arms and pressed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... numerous Negrito tribes inhabiting that part of Asia is indubitable; that some of them persist to this day in a state of approximate purity is no less true, but the influence of crossing has here been most potent. Races of lighter hue and taller stature have invaded the territory of the Negritos, to a certain extent intermarried with them, and thus have originated the various Dravidian tribes. These tribes, therefore, afford us a valuable clue as to the position occupied in former ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson |
