"Precept" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... region Englishmen "might enjoy good health, and also be of signal benefit, by leading the multitude of industrious inhabitants to cultivate cotton, maize, sugar, and other valuable produce, to exchange for goods of European manufacture, at the same time teaching them, by precept and example, the great truths of our holy religion." Water-carriage existed all the way from England, with the exception of the Murchison Cataracts, along which a road of forty miles might easily ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... officers may not lawfully intromit or intermeddle, that then the Maior, shirifes, baylifes, and other head officers, or ministers, within euery such citie, borough, towne incorparate or place or places franchised, vpon a precept to them, or any of them, to be directed from the gouernour or gouernours, Consuls and assistants of the said fellowship, in number and forme aforesaid, vnder the common seale of the sayd fellowship ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... presumptuous of me if it did, my dear father," replied Lord Sherbrooke, "and would argue that precept and example had done nothing for me. Come, Wilton," he added, "come in to my help, for here are father and son flinging so hard at each other, that I shall get my teeth dashed down my throat before I've done. ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... great men who have given direction to the fortunes of the nation. No President of the United States, from the beginning of the Republic, ever excelled him in essential preparation for the tasks of the office. By a thorough acquisition of abstract knowledge, by clear and convincing precept and by a firm and diligent practical application of the outstanding principles of statecraft, no occupant of the Executive chair up to his advent was better furnished for a notable administration of public affairs. And Wilson's Administration has been notable. Its achievements, ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... the Virgin, glosses on the creed and pater noster, canciones on original sin and the like unpromising topics, all discussed in the most bald, prosaic manner, with abundance of Latin phrase, scriptural allusion, and commonplace precept, unenlivened by a single spark of true poetic fire, and presenting altogether a farrago of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... Moorings.' She was very disgusted not to be in any position of authority, and consoled herself by continual criticism of the monitresses, particularly Merle, with whom she was always sparring. She was a curious character, all precept but not much practice. She loved to give good advice and to lay down the law, and was rather priggish in bringing out moral maxims for the benefit of others. She had a tremendous sense of her own importance and what was due to her, and was very ready to consider ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... due and wary note upon't; With whispering and most guilty diligence, In action all of precept, he did show ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... southward by easy stages, accompanied by a long retinue of Scotsmen, until he reached Theobald's, at that time the mansion house of Sir Robert Cecil, but soon to become a royal hunting-lodge. On the 19th the mayor issued his precept to the livery companies to prepare a certain number of members to accompany the mayor in his attendance upon the king, who was shortly expected in the city. It was intended that not only the mayor and aldermen but also ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... Compliance with the precept in the Old Testament, "Love ye the stranger[1]," becomes a delight as well as a duty in such an instance as that about to be recorded, especially when we consider the affecting injunction conveyed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Be not forgetful ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray
... ethical, now or at any future time. But when the recipient stage is past, and boys begin to assert themselves, they have a tendency to resist, if not to resent, professedly moral and religious teaching; and this chiefly because it then comes to them or is presented to them in the shape of abstract precept and authoritative dogma. Now, the growing mind of youth is keen after realities, and has no native antagonism to realities merely because they happen to be moral or religious realities. It is the abstract, preceptive, ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman
... Janice Day's earnestness, her "do something" tactics, that had carried to happy conclusion several important public movements in Polktown. Quite unconsciously at first, by precept and example, she had urged awake the long dozing community, and, once having got its eyes open, Janice Day saw to it that the town did ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... to write others, be sure of that; and you will do well, my dear friend, for your own sake and for ours, to follow the precept of Denis Diderot: "My friends, write stories; while one writes them he amuses himself, and the story of life goes on, and that is less gay than the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to be launched so unprepared into the presence of an offended Creator!—it was impossible—it was contrary to his nature and to the religion which he professed. How could he hope for the Divine assistance in his perilous undertaking, when he embarked on it, regardless of the precept to ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... precept of a patriot touching the price and preciousness of liberty, femininity, scorning to be free, exults in shackles. We hesitate over our own taste, and turn rather to the crowning of some courageous male, with a liking and a talent for notoriety. The duties of this gentleman being irksome and his ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... children listened with admiration to Percy's views on war topics, much regretting that the Government had not yet obtained the benefit of his advice. Godfrey even hoped that the war would not be over before there was a chance for precept to be put into practice, and already, in imagination, saw his brother in the uniform of a Field Marshal. Winona smiled tolerantly. She took Percy's opinions for what they were worth. If his school report was anything to go by, he had certainly not won laurels at Longworth this ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... sovereign, and of a splendid banquet at the beginning of Grindal's occupancy of the see. Now, however, things were changed. There were seldom many distinguished persons to dine with the disgraced prelate; and he himself preferred too to entertain those who could not repay him again, after the precept of the gospel; and besides the provision for the numerous less important guests who dined daily at Lambeth, a great tub was set at the lower end of the hall as it had been in Parker's time, and every day after dinner under the steward's direction was filled with food from the tables, which ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... inhumanity on her own part. While it is true that cruelty is apt to beget cruelty, it cannot be said that "like cures like." Even in war, we are not absolved from the obligation to remedy evils by the influence of a good example. "Let your light so shine" is a precept that knows no times nor seasons as it knows neither latitude ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... you shall have it now in precept, and in an hour or two in practice. You see those stubbles on the hill—in those seven or eight fields there are, or at least should be, some five bevies; there is good covert, good easy covert all about, and we can mark our birds down easily; now, when I find one bevy, I shall ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... the superior could impose on those who should be thus firm in their purpose the precept of obedience, so that they should subject themselves as curas to an ordinary and to tho choice of a governor. And if for the above reasons those who are zealous for their rules should be lacking in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... the truth, so as to explain the divine jealousy implied in the precept of loving God exclusively and supremely, is, for all its patent limitations, the most generally serviceable. Treated as a strict equation of thought to fact, and pushed accordingly to its utmost logical consequences, it becomes a source ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Morris (too familiar to require reproduction here) are, despite their real beauty, over-black on the page, and awkward when examined in detail. While the stimulus Morris's work gave to typography was much needed at that time, the present reaction toward more refined faces is most gratifying. By precept and example Mr. Morris produced a salutary revolt against the too thin and light and mechanical type faces before in use, but he went too far in the opposite direction, and we are now certainly falling back upon a more ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... conscription, and to train their children to industry and handiwork; they also invited them to enter the learned professions, and to attach themselves to the country by the purchase of public obligations. Usury was absolutely forbidden, the Israelite being enjoined as a religious precept to make no distinction in money transactions between Hebrew and Christian. The minutest details of the whole transaction were foreseen and regulated by Napoleon, and may be studied in his ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... precept, Tom, as you will find,' observed the mate to me. 'I never tell men to do what I am not ready to do myself. That's the reason they ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... exterminated by the small-pox and the weapons of their enemies. I have long taken a deep, because a national, interest in this question, and have endeavoured to examine in the spirit of that noble {237}precept, which ought to be bound up with the existence of every Cymro, "The truth against the world." Consequently, I have found that much of what is put forth as evidence on this question is, as Mr. Corney has very justly intimated, quite inadmissible; in short, unworthy of belief. Still, the inquiry ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.02.09 • Various
... and which he must constantly struggle to suggest or typify, that the work of his hand prove not a golden calf, an offence both to God and man. The moral ideal always advances as we approach it. 'Be ye perfect as I am perfect,' is the precept of the Master. This is the justification of the poet when he portrays men in advance of the common level of life. The moral Beautiful is the realization of Duty, which the poet should picture in its most sublime ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... his integrity and mercy were proverbial. By their fruits, indeed, shall we know this community, the history of which furnishes as fine a commentary upon the benefit of good social training for the young—example and precept happily keeping concert with the ordinary necessities and performances of life, the one supported by the manliest courage, the other guided by the noblest principle—as ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... all along the line—the hard and soulless art of technique and rule, of tradition and precept, however accomplished, however perfect it is, is worth nothing; it is only another dreary form of labour, unless through some faculty of the spirit, some vital intensity, or even some inexplicable felicity, not comprehended, not designed, not intended by the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the highest perfection of which he could conceive. "And no greater praise can be given to a work of heathen morality than to say, as may be said of the ethical writings of Aristotle, that they contain nothing which a Christian may dispense with, no precept of life which is not an element of Christian character; and that they only fail in elevating the heart and the mind to objects which it needed ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... added, with the prim politeness of a child who accosts a guest according to rule and precept. Ellen had never, in fact, had a young man make a formal call upon her before. She reflected now, both with relief and trepidation, that her mother was away, having gone to her aunt Eva's. She had ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... maxim, when I was not disposed to wait the natural development of events. By neglecting this precept, I have nearly sacrificed the lives of my best friends. Lawry, if you are going to be a steamboat man, let me give you this maxim for ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... goods of this world but for a season; the Lord—as correctives to honor and riches—the Lord has placed sufferings, sickness, and death; and no one," added she, with a melancholy smile, which proved she made the application of the funeral precept to herself, "no man can take his wealth or greatness with him to the grave. It results, therefore, that the young gather the abundant harvest prepared for them by ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ladies were alarmed at the idea of going to sea, and though Miss Georgiana was very unwilling to be separated from the count, and though her mother encouraged the young lady to vanquish her fears as much by precept and as little by example as possible, yet when she was to be handed into the boat, she drew back in pretty terror, put her hands before her face, and protested she could not venture even with Count Altenberg. After as much ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... impatient of inquiries which related to diet; thinking, I suppose, that after the age of childhood, in ordinary cases, each person might regulate it best for himself. But from an almost entire abstinence from fermented liquors, he was, both by precept and example, a strenuous adviser. "He believed," says Miss Edgeworth, in her Memoirs of her Father, "that almost all the distempers of the higher classes of people arise from drinking, in some form or other, too much vinous spirit. To this he attributed ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, has borne the following testimony to the character of Lord Pitsligo. "Whoever is so happy, either from his natural disposition, or his good judgment, constantly to observe St. Paul's precept, 'to speak evil of no one' will certainly acquire the love and esteem of the whole community of which he is a member. But such a man is the rara avis in terris; and, among all my acquaintance, I have known only one person to whom I can with truth assign ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... He who observes one precept, in addition to those which, as originally laid upon him, he has discharged, shall receive favor from above, and is equal to him who has fulfilled the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... then he is insupportable," said a youthful nephew of a virtuous clergyman of this type in my presence the other day, adding, after reflection, "He seems to think that to die is the only really satisfactory thing that any one ever does." That is the worst of carrying out the precept, "Set your affections on things above, not on things of the earth," too literally. It is not so good a precept, after all, as "If a man love not his brother, whom he hath seen, how shall he love God, Whom he hath not seen?" It is somehow an incomplete philosophy ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... go amongst men, even if it were at the risk of life, and deliver the Divine message. They had to use every device to make it telling, striking in at every opportunity and giving line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. They did not disdain the homeliest means, if it served the purpose. A prophet would go about in public carrying a yoke on his neck, like a beast of burden, or lie a whole ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... another precept of the House of Strahni," he broke in calmly. "Their women—where they ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... impassable gulf. Already he foresaw as possible results all that he had most wished to avoid, and felt himself powerless to avert them; for, however ready to alienate her from good influences, and expose her to bad ones, he yet shrank from inculcating falsehood and wrong by precept. With a boy it would have been different, and he might have had little hesitation in bringing him up, by both precept and example, in the way he was to go; but with his little innocent woman-child—no, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... little good which fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave; and, in general, take the word of a man who has seen the world, and who has studied human nature more by experience than precept; take my word for it, I say, that books teach us very little of the world. The greatest merit in a state of poverty would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous—may distress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and even avarice, in the lower orders' of mankind, are true ambition. These ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... a portion of his private interests to preserve the rest; we would fain preserve the whole, and oftentimes the whole is lost. Everybody I see about me seems bent on teaching his contemporaries, by precept and example, that what is useful is never wrong. Will nobody undertake to make them understand how what is right may be useful? No power upon earth can prevent the increasing equality of conditions from inclining the human mind to seek out ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the conduct of individuals. You cannot be said to have any morality left. Success is the supreme justification of all actions whatsoever. The fact in itself is nothing; the impression that it makes upon others is everything. Hence, please observe a second precept: Present a fair exterior to the world, keep the seamy side of life to yourself, and turn a resplendent countenance upon others. Discretion, the motto of every ambitious man, is the watchword of our ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... beyond this the peculiarity of the case has not been much considered. Montaigne, however, gives us details which seem full of suggestion to scientific educationists. "Without art, without book, without grammar or precept, without whipping, without tears, I learned a Latin as pure as my master could give;" and his first exercises were to turn bad Latin into good.[151] So he read his Ovid's Metamorphoses at seven or eight, where other forward boys had the native ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... months ago, however, severe restrictions were in vogue, and the warden declared that it was his belief and policy that men in prison should be taught by precept and illustration to regard themselves as dead to the world; that they should be held practically incommunicado, no visitors, letters at most but once a month, no conversation between prisoners—silence, solitude, suffocation in this terrible quicksand of jail for months, years, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... men of other nations and recognizing their merits; and in knowledge of Germany he acquired a position among Englishmen of his day rivalled only by Odo Russell, afterwards Ambassador at Berlin. Morier's father had for many years represented Great Britain in Switzerland and could guide him both by precept and by example. Free intercourse with the most liberal minds in Oxford had developed the lessons which he had learnt at home. But his own energy and application effected more than anything. He was not satisfied till he had mastered a problem; and books, places, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... suggestions of sexual desire imparted by the presence of the spermatic fluid, the presence of the prepuce seems to anticipate those promptings. Circumcised boys may, in individual cases, either through precept or example, physical or mental imperfection, be found to practice onanism, but in general the practice can be asserted as being very rare among the children of circumcised races, showing the less irritability of the organs in the class; neither ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... horse in a fit of anger is the one great precept and maxim of conduct in regard to the treatment of a horse; for anger is destitute of forethought, and consequently often does that of which the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... the whole grown closer with the spread of education, the multiplication of learned magazines and the facilities of travel. One of the most interesting chapters in the development of modern thought can be written, as Dr. Merz has shown by example as well as by precept, on the theme of the mutual influence of the great national centres of thought, and in particular of France, England, and Germany. These nations might seem as though designed, whether by nature or by the unconscious hand of political history, to be half-willing, ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... do not believe in any such diseased condition of man. According to them, he is not to be cured, but to be educated. The Church is not a hospital, but an academy. Man needs, mainly, instruction. His purposes, in the main, are right; but he errs as to what he has to do. What he requires is precept ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... 89. The precept given to each of these spirits for its deliverance is—Turn thine eyes to the lucre (lure) which the Eternal King rolls with the mighty wheels. Otherwise, the wheels of the "Greater Fortune," of which the constellation is ascending when Dante's ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... they know not yet which and how many are to be spared. The discipline of this night will, I trust, impress upon them that principle of our revolution which they have hitherto failed to learn, or have been tempted to forget. This night, father, will establish your precept and mine, and that of our Master—no retaliation. If not, may God direct us, by whatever suffering, to some other method of teaching it; for, at whatever cost, it must ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... sufficiently clear, and, with practical illustrations, to make the subject intelligible to every capacity. The explanation is the truth of God, and it settles forever the slavery question, so far as it rests on this precept of ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... she suggest to him that it is at least not customary to go about giving the poor to drink out of our own especial milk cans? There came to her mind the noble lines which but frame as with jewels the simple Christian precept,—the words spoken to Sir Launfal when, weary, poverty-stricken, and disheartened, the knight returns from his fruitless search for the Holy Grail; when humbly he shares his cup and crust with the leper at the gate,—the leper who straightway ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... is the sum of all duty; and in the measure in which we approximate thereto, we come to perfection. So, then, there are here just two points that I would briefly touch upon now—the one is the sublime precept of the text, and the other the all-sufficient motive enforcing it. 'Be ye imitators of God as'—because you are, and know yourselves to be—'beloved children,' and it therefore behoves you to be ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... that he suffered no serious harm, but were as strictly forbidden to wait upon him. As no school could be found conducted on principles sufficiently rigorous, he was attended at home by a master who set a high price on the understanding that he was to illustrate the beauty of abstinence not only by precept but by example. Rowland passed for a child of ordinary parts, and certainly, during his younger years, was an excellent imitation of a boy who had inherited nothing whatever that was to make life easy. He was passive, pliable, frank, extremely slow at his books, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... which the Roman empire received, during the first century of the Christian Aera, was the province of Britain. In this single instance, the successors of Caesar and Augustus were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter. The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seemed to invite their arms; the pleasing though doubtful intelligence of a pearl fishery, attracted their avarice; [6] and as Britain was viewed in the light ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... mortification. Too late, I remembered that the new-comer in a community should guard his tongue among the natives until he has unravelled the skein of their relationships, alliances, feuds, and private wars—a precept not ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... told this story, he asked the king: "O King, explain the matter to me. Why did they lose their magic, when everything had been done according to precept?" ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... of the causes of their unhappiness. Among other doctrines of his new code, he insisted on a community of property—a very comfortable regulation for those, who like himself, were too indolent to labor for the acquisition of it. A more salutary and rational precept, and one which he enforced with considerable energy, was the duty of the young, at all times and under all circumstances, to support, cherish and respect the aged and infirm. He declaimed with vehemence against all innovations in the original dress and habits of the Indians—dwelt ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... one political precept pre-eminent above all others and acknowledged by all, it is that which dictates the absolute necessity of a union of the States under one government, and that government clothed with those attributes and powers with which the existing Constitution has invested it. We are indebted, under Providence, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... he arose and joined the company, who, encouraged by the precept and example of Michael Lambourne, and consisting chiefly of persons much disposed to profit by the opportunity of a merry meal at the expense of their landlord, had already made some inroads upon the limits of temperance, as was evident from ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... load you with burdens of his own imposition. We are determined to keep not only our own hands clean, but also those of our officials. Otherwise, vainly does a good Judge guard himself from receiving money, if he leaves to the many under him licence to receive it on their own account. But we, both by precept and example, show that we aim at the public good, not ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... the subject and not of the author. He is by his own account dealing with hard times, but not with a hard eternity, not with a hard philosophy of the universe. Nevertheless, this is the one place in his work where he does not make us remember human happiness by example as well as by precept. This is, as I have said, not the saddest, but certainly the harshest of his stories. It is perhaps the only place where Dickens, in defending happiness, for a moment forgets ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... unfolds elaborately the sense of his allegory, as he expounded it to his friends in Dublin. "To some," he says, "I know this method will seem displeasant, which had rather have good discipline delivered plainly by way of precept, or sermoned at large, as they use, than thus cloudily enwrapped in allegorical devises." He thought that Homer and Virgil and Ariosto had thus written poetry, to teach the world moral virtue and political wisdom. He attempted to propitiate Lord Burghley, who hated ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... Office Mr. De Norman's death, is still more striking; and it has an additional interest as being eminently characteristic of the writer: 'It has not been my fortune,' he says, 'to meet with a man whose life was so much in harmony with the Divine precept, "not slothful in business, serving the Lord." With a consistency unparalleled in my experience he brought to bear on the discharge of every duty, and to the investigation of every subject however minute, the complete and undivided attention of the sound abilities, the good sense, and the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... it was now too late; the savages had passed on to some distance. I, however, explained to Matilda the beauty of the divine precept, 'Do unto others as you would they should do unto you,' asking her how she would have liked to be detained by the savages, and what, then, would be the suffering of her own mamma? She was thoughtful for a moment, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... the principle and reformation the incident," was the theory of the old school. The New school reverses the order to "Reformation the principle and punishment the incident." Obviously this course renounces the old principle of retaliation and vengeance and embraces that indicated by Christ in his precept "bear ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... his broken English. This man gave me a hymn-book, and one of the first hymns I read in it afforded me great consolation. It was written by a man who had been a sailor like myself, and one who had been almost as wicked as myself, but who has since done a vast deal of good, by means of precept and example. This hymn-book I now read in common with my bible. But I cannot express the delight I felt at a copy of Pilgrim's Progress which this same Lascar gave me. That book I consider as second ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... nation. All youthful hearts do well to covet wealth, wisdom and leverage power! But man should remember that the chief value of prosperity is in its capitalization of personality, and the rendering of others sensitive to example and precept. Should man forget this, earth will hear no sadder cry than his when, closing the life career, he exclaims: "While thy servant was busy here and there the opportune moment ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... manner a Tusculan ordinance forbade the sale of new wine, until the priest had proclaimed the festival of opening the casks. The early prevalence of the culture of the vine is likewise attested not only by the general adoption of wine-libations in the sacrificial ritual, but also by the precept of the Roman priests promulgated as a law of king Numa, that men should present in libation to the gods no wine obtained from uncut grapes; just as, to introduce the beneficial practice of drying the grain, they prohibited the offering of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... you right, provided that love is made subservient to a holier one. But your first duty is, in the words of our Saviour, "to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." Obedience to this precept involves a great many other duties, but none of these should interfere ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... the administration of justice; established schools for public instruction; encouraged poets and men of letters, and cultivated the sciences. He built mosques in every city that he visited; inculcated religion by example as well as by precept; and celebrated all the festivals prescribed by the Koran with the ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... precept? It is at best an illustration; it is case law at the best which can be learned by precept. The letter is not only dead, but killing; the spirit which underlies, and cannot be uttered, alone is true and helpful. This is trite to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fact that they have never observed the commandment. I ask, however, when has their monastic fanaticism permitted them time and opportunity to perceive for once this law in their hearts, to become sensible of the example set them in their own human instinct, or even to read the precept in books or hear it preached? Poor, miserable people! Do you presume to think that God will make void this, love's commandment, so deeply and clearly impressed upon the heart, so beautifully and unmistakably illustrated in your own natures, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... so much facts, dates, and figures, as principles, ideas, and sentiments, which they endeavour to teach. The scholar is made familiar with what he is told by observation and experience whenever it is possible, for that is how Nature teaches. Precept, they say, is good, and example is better; but an ideal of perfection ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... of 1545 was approaching, and the fulfilment of the precept of confession, which marks the farthermost frontier of Catholic observance, within which even the most lax must remain under penalty of excommunication ipso facto, afforded the Bishop his opportunity. He withdrew from all his clergy, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... really a sense of proportion; to correct certain tendencies by showing the consequences in the career of the hero in the story [Of this motive the children must be quite unconscious and there should be no didactic emphasis]; to present by means of example, not precept, such ideals as will sooner or later be translated into action; and finally, to develop the imagination, which really includes all ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... only raw and untrained employees, but provide instruction calculated to make workmen and clerks masters of their jobs and also to fit them for advancement to higher and more productive planes. Teaching is by example rather than by precept, just as it was in the old ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... affirm {36} that the twilight doctrine of the new faith is a desirable substitute for the waning splendour of 'the old,' I am not ashamed to confess that, with this virtual negation of God, the universe to me has lost its soul of loveliness; and although, from henceforth the precept 'to work while it is day' will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning of the words 'that the night cometh when no man can work,' yet when at times I think, as think ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... She did not refuse, and there was a whispering between her and those next her in debate of the question. But it was closed by the loud, austere voice of one of the believing matrons in the apostolic mandate, "Let your women keep silence in the churches." The text was not closely apt; it was not a precept obeyed in the revivals of any of the sects in Leatherwood; it was especially ignored in the meetings of the Dylks believers; but its proclamation now satisfied the yearning always rife in them to affiliate their dispensation ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... altogether oblivious to pedigree. It has been well said that he who does not respect his ancestors will never be likely to achieve anything for which his descendants will respect him. Man learns but very little in this world from precept; he learns something from experience; he learns much from example, and the "best teachers of humanity are ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to Agnes, I will not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, with ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... occupying positions of public trust. There is too little respect shown in the household. The father and mother are not honored in the home as they deserve to be, and in the state the same principle rules. "Thou shall not speak evil of the ruler of thy people," is an apostolic precept, and the command, "Honor thy father and thy mother," was ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... think, because I'm a clerk, that I'm not one of the intellectuals. I'm a reading man, a thinking man. I read in a book—a high class six shilling book—this precept: Affirm your manhood. It appealed to me. Ive always remembered it. I believe in it. I feel I must do it to recover your respect after my cowardly behavior. Therefore I affirm it in your presence. I tell that man who insulted me that I dont give a damn ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... writers. There can be no better preparation for the perils and responsibilities of authorship than to study the critical analyses of Guicciardini and Sarpi, Clarendon, Saint-Simon, and many another, scattered through the sixty volumes of the master. And finally he taught by precept and practice the necessity of exploring the relations of States to one another and of measuring the interaction of foreign ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... arrest, of manners and customs roundabout our birthplace. I think we had never been so much as during these particular months disinherited of the general and public amenities that reinforce for the young private precept and example—disinherited in favour of dust and glare and mosquitoes and pigs and shanties and rumshops, of no walks and scarce more drives, of a repeated no less than of a strong emphasis on the more sordid sides of the Irish aspect in things. There was a castellated residence ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... nervous child by the simple and easy methods which are successful in the case of a normal child; that is, you cannot repeat a simple discipline two or three times and have the child learn the lesson. In the case of the high-strung nervous child it requires "line upon line and precept upon precept;" for, whereas a normal child will respond to a certain discipline after it is repeated a half dozen times, the nervous child will require the persistent repetition of such a discipline from ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... prove the superior force of example over precept, let him try teaching a baby to say "Thank you" or "Please," merely by being scrupulously careful to say these things to the baby on all fit occasions. No one has taken the statistics of the number of times every small child is exhorted to perfect himself in ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... one least likely to suffer by the lapse of time, and the last probably to reach oblivion, because it appeals to young Americans in the whole nation, is his "Boys of '76." The first lore to which Carleton listened after his infant lips had learned prayer, and "line upon line, and precept upon precept," from the Bible, was from his soldier grandfathers. These around the open fireplace told the story of Revolutionary marches, and camps, and battles. Nothing could be more real to the open-eyed little boy than the narratives related by the actors themselves, ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... some for whom the predominant influence is the external one, authority, example, precept, and the like. Others in whose lives the interior action of the Holy Spirit predominates. In my case, from my childhood God influenced me by an interior light and by the interior touch of ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... many. Penloe's ideas are so radical that it gives us a shock all over even to think of attempting to bring the people to that mode of living. The thought we have concerning our sex is instilled into us by custom, precept and example, so that from earliest infancy to introduce such an innovation as Penloe proposes would apparently, to our minds, seem like undermining our social structure and its very foundations. While we admit the state of ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... enforcing residence of bishops, better payment of tithes. (Hist. Parl. i. 322-27.) The Dignitaries, we can observe, walk stately, apart from the numerous Undignified,—who indeed are properly little other than Commons disguised in Curate-frocks. Here, however, though by strange ways, shall the Precept be fulfilled, and they that are greatest (much to their astonishment) become least. For one example, out of many, mark that plausible Gregoire: one day Cure Gregoire shall be a Bishop, when the now stately are wandering distracted, as Bishops in partibus. With other thought, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... depends upon the force of example rather than of precept. Parents must be scrupulously just and truthful to the child, for his quick perception will detect the slightest deceit, and the evil impression made on his mind may be lasting. They must confidently expect ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... which all men must travel to their destiny. One is called the way of Precept, the other the way of Counsel. In each the advantages and inconveniences are about equally balanced. The former is wide and level with many joys and pleasures along the way; but there are many pitfalls and stumbling blocks, while on one side is a high, steep ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... falling flat upon the earth, he be hindered in running the race set before him, as looking to the forerunner his pattern,) in this girdle of hope, that he may be "holy in all manner of conversation," keeping his eye upon the precept and pattern, that his practice may be conform. It is written, saith he, "be ye holy, for I am holy;" the hope of seeing God, and being ever with him, imposeth a necessity upon him who hath it, to ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... influenced by Dargomyjski, particularly in the matter of realism. "I insist that the tone will directly translate the word," was an axiom of this musician. His friend and follower often carries this precept to the point of caricature. There are numerous songs which end in mere mimicry, parody, a pantomime of tone. The realism so much emphasised by the critic Stassow and others is really an enormous sincerity, and the reduction to an almost bare ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... becoming to stamp it as official? it is lamentable inconsiderateness to expect fishermen to be able to dodge the weather by such guidance; and it is time to stop this easily concocted nostrum for notoriety; for it is vague and inconclusive in every precept, and has scarcely an assertion which is not contradicted ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... the contrary. There was the chance, however, that the boy had really taken the first step upon the road toward a criminal career, and if such were the case Bridge felt morally obligated to protect his new found friend from arrest, secure in the reflection that his own precept and example would do more to lead him back into the path of rectitude than would any ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... general fund of bright reading matter is such as excites the vivid imagination of the young, without leaving a trace of wild and unbridled adventure to torture their minds to a longing for border acts of cowboy heroism. There is a moral precept in every page, and an abundance of thrilling adventure to awaken the lethargy of any boy or girl. We cheerfully commend it to parents as a valuable adjunct to the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... Mint from his office. Upon a memorial praying for a trial of the Pix by this officer, a summons issues to certain members of the privy council to meet on a day fixed. The Lord Chancellor also directs a precept to the wardens of the Goldsmith's company, requiring them to nominate a competent number of able freemen of their company, skilful to judge of, and to present the defaults of the coin, if such be ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... clearing him of the charge of doing any moral harm—such harm would be as likely to be done by records of Bedlam, or the Lock Hospital, or a dipsomaniacs' home—put on the wrong side of his account a quantity of dull and dirty trash,[466] which, without his precept and example, would never have been written, or, if written, read. But the great, if mostly wasted, power displayed in his work is quite undeniable by any real critic; he did some things—and more parts of things—absolutely good; and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... where we get all our divine precept and inspired morality, the bible. You must come to wish this Mr. Van Tassel good, instead of evil; try to love, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... ideas took such hold of his imagination, that he often started up in bed and screamed aloud. But John was too sincerely religious to cherish a revengeful spirit. The wrong done to him was as great as one mortal could inflict upon another; but he had learned the divine precept not ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... and the genuineness of the sentiment which dictated those words is therefore above suspicion. To work vigorously, to do well whatever he (or she) has to do, is a real pleasure to the Utopian child. Indeed his whole being is a living response to the familiar precept: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... show'r, his words prevail, And aid the moral precept of his tale: His wond'ring hearers learn, and ever keep These first ideas of the restless deep; And, as the opening mind a circuit tries, Present felicities in value rise. Increasing pleasures every hour they find, The warmth more precious, and the shelter kind; Warmth that ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... elevation, for purposes so noble, and aims so lofty, that not his country alone, but the whole of mankind, benefited by his work. It is no exaggeration to say that he has raised the standard of civilization, and the world to-day is undoubtedly better for both the precept and the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... for following this precept himself and, with one eye significantly cast upon the jury, is likely to lead his witness a merry dance until the latter is finally "bogged" in a quagmire of absurdities. Not long ago, shortly after the publication of his book, the lawyer had ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... parent for child. The sadness of the world has been, that men have not always been spiritually free. Freedom has been a social growth—a phase of progress. It has taken wars and persecutions, revolutions and reformations, the blood of saints and martyrs, the sorrow of ages, to plant this precept in the ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... observance of a magical ceremony, so the dreaded consequence does not really result from the violation of a taboo. If the supposed evil necessarily followed a breach of taboo, the taboo would not be a taboo but a precept of morality or common sense. It is not a taboo to say, "Do not put your hand in the fire"; it is a rule of common sense, because the forbidden action entails a real, not an imaginary evil. In short, those negative precepts which we call taboo ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... miraculous and supernatural from the gospel history, and there is nothing left for you to accept. There is no political economy nor worldly morality in it. It is wholly the history of a supernatural person, and every precept of his morality comes with a divine sanction. Further, you know nothing of either his life or his morality but from the gospel history, and if the record of the miracles which occupy three-fourths of the gospels be ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... the importance of Christianity ought we to be filled by such descriptions as these? Yet, in vain have we "line upon line and precept upon precept."—Thus predicted, thus prayed and longed for, thus announced and characterized and rejoiced in, this heavenly treasure poured into our lap in rich abundance we scarce accept. We turn from it coldly, or at best possess it negligently, as a thing of no account or estimation. ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... most beneficent influence on his life and conduct. If our hearts go out in love to all with whom we come in contact, we inspire love, and the same ennobling and warming influences of love always return to us from those in whom we inspire them. There is a deep scientific principle underlying the precept—If you would have all the world love you, you must ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... most frequently repeated maxim is "abstain and endure"; abstain from all evil, suffer all aggression and so-called misfortune without rebelling or complaining. Another precept widely propagated among them and by them, "Live according to nature," remarkably resembles an Epicurean maxim. This must be made clear. This precept as they interpreted it meant: adhere freely and respectfully to the laws of the universe. The world is a God who lives according ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... to attend to his advice, and set out in the highest glee, wishing for no better sport than to try the firmness of my resolutions on this head, though, it must be confessed, I was fully more inclined to follow the precept enjoined upon me by another friend, who, by way of improving the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Yankee women, scraggy, scrawny, and hard as whip-cord, breed like Norway rats, and they fill all the brothels of the continent.... But they multiply—the only scriptural precept they obey—and boast their millions. So do the Chinese; so do the Apisdae, and all other pests of the animal kingdom. Pull the bark from a decayed log, and you will see a mass of maggots full of vitality, in constant motion and eternal gyration, one crawling over one, and another creeping under another, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Virgin, relics (of which they might have had a cartload), the observation of Lent, is no part of it, since they neither taught nor practised any of these things. Vows of celibacy are not more contrary to nature, than to the positive precept of St. Paul. He mentions a very common case, in which people are obliged, by conscience, to marry. No mortal can promise that case shall never be theirs, which depends on the disposition of the body as much as a fever; and 'tis as reasonable to engage never to feel the ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... natural endowment and that they may use it in such a manner as will bring the most glory to God. So train them and so live before them in the home that in after-years they will say with pleasure: "This precept was always taught me by my parents. Father and Mother's holy example has been a priceless birthright ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... of three, not divided nor separated by the intellect, but actually comprehended in its unity, and that a per- fect trinity. I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magick of numbers. "Be- ware of philosophy," is a precept not to be received in too large a sense: for, in this mass of nature, there is a set of things that carry in their front, though not in capital letters, yet in stenography and short characters, something of divinity; which, to wiser reasons, serve as luminaries ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... of Drunkenness, which is the open Road to all others, and daily cheat them in every thing we sell, and esteem it a Gift of Christianity, not to sell to them so cheap as we do to the Christians, as we call our selves. Pray let me know where is there to be found one Sacred Command or Precept of our Master, that counsels us to such Behaviour? Besides, I believe it will not appear, but that all the Wars, which we have had with the Savages, were occasion'd by the unjust Dealings of the Christians towards them. ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... intemperance of language, which led her to reply to the insidious questions of the devil; in appearance this forgetfulness was very slight. To answer a question, give an explanation requested of you, clear up a doubt, render an account of a precept of the Lord, seem at first sight something natural and permitted. It is quite easy to be deceived in this matter. We readily convince ourselves that we are actuated by laudable motives in such like conversations—motives for gloryfying God and justifying His providence; but ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... again, that my father might learn me to speak without this wicked way of swearing.'[18] In his numerous confessions, he never expresses pain at having, by his vicious conduct, occasioned grief to his father or mother. From this it may be inferred, that neither his father's example nor precept had checked this wretched propensity to swearing, and that he owed nothing to his parents for moral training; but, on the contrary, they had connived at, and encouraged him in, a course of life which made him a curse to the neighbourhood in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... ways a changed man since that night at Weston Zoyland. A transformation seemed to have been wrought in him as odd as it was sudden, and it dated from the moment when with tears in his eyes he had wrung Wilding's hand in farewell. Where precept had failed, Richard found himself converted by example. He contrasted himself in that stressful hour with great-souled Anthony Wilding, and saw himself as he was, a weakling, strong only in vicious ways. Repentance claimed ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... actively engages in the work of instructing and building up the boys in a knowledge of the useful arts. He believes in religion, morality, and social and political virtue. He insists upon practice in addition to precept and theory, as well in the inculcation of the duties of social life as in mechanics ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... year to say things pleasing to the many, and to those who guide the many. And so, I verily believe, the majority of scientific men think. There are those among them who have obeyed very faithfully St. Paul's precept: "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life." For they have discovered that they are engaged in a war—a veritable war—against the rulers of darkness, against ignorance and its twin children, fear and cruelty. ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... their enemies. Celsus says that they cared neither to receive nor to give any reason of their faith, and that it was an usual saying with them, do not examine, but believe only, and thy faith will save thee. Julian affirms, that the sum, of all their wisdom was comprised in this single precept, believe. The Gentiles, says Arnobius, make it their constant business to laugh at our faith, and to lash our ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English
... ancient times, while in modern it had only been wrestling and struggling towards something of the sort, and had only in one country discovered, and not quite consciously there, that the beauty of the novel lies in having no type, no kind, no rules, no limitations, no general precept or motto for the craftsman except "Here is the whole of human life before you. Copy it, or, better, recreate it—with variation and decoration ad libitum—as faithfully, but as freely, as you can." Of this great fact even Fielding, the creator of the modern novel, was perhaps ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. 9. Whom shall He teach knowledge? and whom shall He make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. 10. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: 11. For with stammering lips, and another tongue, will He speak to this people. 12. To whom He said, This is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... as something as far from old-fashioned opera as were Wagner's later dramas; that he aimed in the first instance at a presentation of its dramatic contents, and considered the music as a means, and not entirely as an end. In this he followed a Wagnerian precept. His score is filled with instrumental interludes designed to accompany actions or to depict emotions. He leaves no question in our minds on this point, but as fully as Wagner in his "Lohengrin" period he indicates the bodily movements that are to go hand in hand with the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... have done credit to a Cairo m'allim. But I had had lots of instruction on those points, and in fact surprised him with a trite fanaticism equal to his own, ending with a statement that whoever did not believe every article and precept of the Sunni faith not only was damned forever beyond hope, but should be despatched in a hurry to face ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... when that merry period set him free from the rigorous fetters of fanaticism. Unless he differed more than we can readily believe from the public feeling at that time, Dryden was satisfied to give to Caesar the things that were Caesar's, without being in a hurry to fulfil the counterpart of the precept. Foremost in the race of pleasure, engaged in labours alien from serious reflection, the favourite of the most lively and dissolute nobility whom England ever saw, religious thoughts were not, at this period, likely to intrude frequently upon his mind, or to be encouraged when they did so. The time, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... first place observe that Aristotle is not giving a precept here, but only making historical mention of a peculiarity which he observed in the Grecian examples before him. But what if the Greek tragedians had particular reasons for circumscribing themselves within this extent of time, which with the constitution of our theatres ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... Jesus says to his Disciples, "a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." This is not true, for the love of man towards his neighbour, was not a new precept, but at least as ancient as Moses, who gives it, Levit. xix. as the command of God, "Thou shalt love thy ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... cups and calabashes, calumets and tobacco, were passed round; and we were all very merry and mellow indeed. Smacking our lips, chatting, smoking, and sipping. Now a mouthful of citron to season a repartee; now a swallow of wine to wash down a precept; now a fragrant whiff to puff away care. Many things did beguile. From side to side, we turned and grazed, like Juno's white oxen in ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... injunction to live in a garret, which I have found frequently visited by the echo and the wind. Nor was the tradition wholly obliterated in the age of Augustus, for Tibullus evidently congratulates himself upon his garret, not without some allusion to the Pythagorean precept: ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... the bachelor turned to another, and from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart and were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example. Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable by his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an admonition to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings, or turnings out of the way; which injunction, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... if not better, view makes him less exacting. He is more tolerant of honest, dogmatic assertion, believing it to result from environment. Early precept and conviction are elements transmuted by white ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... teacher, Nelson: blest and over blest In thy outgoing at the noon of strife When glory clasped thee round; while wayward Death Refused my coaxings for the like-timed call! Yet I did press where thickest missiles fell, And both by precept and example showed Where lay the line of duty, patriotism, And honour, in that ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... time, as occasion may require, a court of criminal jurisdiction, which court is to be a court of record, and is to consist of the judge-advocate and such six officers of the sea and land service as the governor shall, by precept issued under his hand and seal, require to assemble for that purpose.' This court has power to inquire of, hear, determine, and punish all treasons, misprisions of treasons, murders, felonies, forgeries, perjuries, trespasses, and other ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... many opposite theories and tendencies that his pages may in some sort be taken as an epitome of the whole matter. It would be impossible to abstract from their great bulk any consecutive or consistent system of thought or precept. His influence has been mainly by isolated ideas of more or less truth and value. It is impossible here to analyze his work. Such is the mixed tissue of his woof that the captive princess who was set to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... cold wine soup, but ate nothing, watching her husband's appetite with the mixed wonder and concern that thirty years' knowledge of its capacities had not diminished. He studied her face meanwhile; he was accustomed to reading faces, and hers he knew by line and precept. He listened to her choked little laughs and hurried speeches. All her talk was mere postponement; she was fighting for time. Hence he argued that the trouble which had sent her flying home to him from the mountains was ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... artillery—Lieutenants Lewis and James. Donald Swain Lewis had joined the Royal Engineers in 1904, and, after qualifying as a pilot in May 1912, had transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in December 1913. By example and precept he had done all that he could before the war to adapt wireless telegraphy to the uses of the Flying Corps and to convince others of its necessity. Before the battle of the Aisne ended he had won his victory. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is is right;" an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... but always do right, and this meant simply and only, be a Christian. It was such a noble way to step upward from the beginning; not easy, oh, no, far from that, so often doing wrong in spite of precept and example, so often hesitating, until the delay weakened the power of doing right; yet so often, with hope and prayer to aid her, planting her foot firmly on the upper rung, singing as ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... country and mankind." The assertion that they desired to invert this order, to destroy every social link in so far as it tended to produce inequalities, was the pith of his great indictment against the French "metaphysical" revolutionists. They had perverted the general logical precept of the sufficient reason for all inequalities by converting it into an assuming of the equality of concrete units. They fell into the fallacy of which I have spoken; and many radicals, utilitarians, and others have followed them. They assumed that all the varieties of human character, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... whole, this method, in the minister's hands, answered well. It kept up the interest of the meeting to some who would hardly have cared to listen to a sermon out of the kirk, or on a week night. A few who were only occasional hearers on the Sabbath liked these informal discussions of precept and doctrine, as they would have liked the discussion of any other matter, for the mere intellectual pleasure to be enjoyed, and, as may be supposed, opportunities for this kind of enjoyment did ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... national conscience. It is no exaggeration to say the world is wholly the ear to hear the news from the goddess of peace. A time will surely come, if our purpose be steady and our resolution firm, when universal peace will be restored, and Shakya Muni's precept, 'not to kill,' will ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... in exalting himself "above all that is called God, or that is worshiped."(78) He had dared to change the only precept of the divine law that unmistakably points all mankind to the true and living God. In the fourth commandment, God is revealed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby distinguished from all false gods. It was as a memorial of the work of creation that the seventh day ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... ornamented with Dutch tiles, illustrating passages in Bible history, on which he had many a time gazed with admiration. Among the rubbish lay the wreck of the good dame's elbow-chair, from which she had given him so many a wholesome precept; and hard by it was the family Bible, with brass clasps; now, alas! reduced almost to ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... to give to his experiences a final artistic expression. He communicated the "Wertherian malady" to a whole generation, but he himself emerged triumphant and unscathed. The hurricane which wrecked so many powerful intellects spared his own. After the Italian journey he never ceased by example and precept to recommend harmony and balance, and he became so completely the perfect type of intellectual and artistic sanity that the world has forgotten the Bohemian days of Frankfurt and Leipzig, the merry days of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... Mosaic law, for the Jews believed that these ligaments had power to avert every kind of evil, but especially to drive away demons. as appears from the Targum on the Canticles," etc. We see that the Babylonian precept was to bind holy sentences "around the head" and others "right and left of the threshold of ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... be thought that, because the ultimate methods of work employed by painters vary according to the particular effects produced by each, there would be any difficulty in obtaining their collective assent to a system of elementary precept. The facts of which it is necessary that the student should be assured in his early efforts, are so simple, so few, and so well known to all able draughtsmen that, as I have just said, it would be rather ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... byword, moral, phylactery, protasis[obs3]. axiom, theorem, scholium[obs3], truism, postulate. first principles, a priori fact, assumption (supposition) 514. reflection &c (idea) 453; conclusion &c (judgment) 480; golden rule &c. (precept) 697; principle, principia[Lat]; profession of faith &c. (belief) 484; settled principle, accepted principle, formula. accepted fact. received truth, wise maxim, sage maxim, received maxim, admitted maxim, recognized maxim &c; true saying, common saying, hackneyed saying, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... manners, many begin with the manners, and leave the heart to chance and influences. The golden rule contains the very life and soul of politeness: 'Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.' Unless children and youth are taught, by precept and example, to abhor what is selfish, and prefer another's pleasure and comfort to their own, their politeness will be entirely artificial, and used only when interest and policy dictate. True politeness is perfect freedom and ease, treating ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... afternoon tea when you drop in to see her and her daughter. She says to herself that it is to spare the servants the stairs; but, all the time, under the stairs, the servants are blushing for the sometimes unaccountable stinginess of their unusually munificent mistress. I shall give you "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little" of Aristotle upon munificence in little things till you come up to his pagan standard. "There is a real greatness," he says, "even in the way that some men will buy a toy to a child. Even in the smallest matters the ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... is that of the state of man. He among us who best knows how to bear the good and evil fortunes of this life is, in my opinion, the best educated; whence it follows that true education consists less in precept than in practice. We begin to instruct ourselves when we begin to live; our education commences with the commencement of our life; our first teacher is our nurse. For this reason the word "education" had among the ancients another meaning which we no longer attach ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... had to teach patience, meekness and forbearance by precept and example, ever holding up as the grand motive, love to Jesus, and a desire to ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... put his heart to school, Nor dares to move unpropp'd upon the staff Which Art hath lodg'd within his hand,—must laugh By precept only, and shed tears by rule. Thy Art be Nature! the live current quaff, And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool, In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool Have kill'd him, Scorn should write his epitaph. How doth the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... given to piety, I see. In that case, perhaps you are aware of a precept commanding us to love our neighbors. Now, I'm your nearest neighbor at present; so, to keep up a consistent Christian spirit, just be good enough to say ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... of instruction in hospital work, so it is best for the leaders to have lectures, lessons, and demonstrations. There is danger in a "little knowledge" of such an important subject. So we shall only say that the one important Scout precept of obeying orders is in a hospital of paramount importance. Disobedience ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... sanctioning chattelism or property in man in any shape or form, by precept and example taught the opposite, the dignity of labor and the laborer, the common brotherhood of man, and consequent equality, political and religious. Did his apostles indorse this doctrine, or, fearing the result, did they side ...
— Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? • Isaac Allen
... thousand people. Yet when chance sent him but fifty auditors he spoke with just as much feeling. His sermons were full of wit, often homely but never coarse. He knew how to interest tired men; how to keep the children awake. He interspersed anecdote with injunction, and precept with homely happenings. He yearned to better this life, and to evolve ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the action to the word, and in less than ten minutes I had auricular evidence that, as far as the sleep was concerned, he was carrying his precept ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... first formed the idea of studying phenomena according to a stricter and surer method than that which they had in the first instance spontaneously adopted, they did not, conformably to the well-meant but impracticable precept of Descartes, set out from the supposition that nothing had been already ascertained. Many of the uniformities existing among phenomena are so constant, and so open to observation, as to force themselves upon involuntary recognition. Some facts are so perpetually and ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill |
