"Dignify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prison. "Virgin of Atocha, Virgin of the Pillar, Virgin of Sorrow, of Divine Compassion, send happy sleep to thy handmaid Manuela, shed the dew of thy love upon her eyelids, keep smooth her brows, keep innocent her lips. Dignify me, thy servant, Gil Perez, more than other men, that I may be worthy to sustain this high ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... tractable, though wild; And Innocence hath privilege in her, To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes And feats of cunning, and the pretty round Of trespasses, affected to provoke Mock chastisement and partnership in play. And, as a fagot sparkles on the hearth Not less if unattended and ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... friend's adversity is yours. And it would be almost a fault in me to regret those afflictions, which give you an opportunity so gloriously to exert those qualities, which not only ennoble our sex, but dignify human nature. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... have found work so soon, and that too among friends, and without any particular responsibility attached to the position. I would dignify my labor, doing it well and acceptably, carrying always a sunny face and pleasing mood. The work was of a kind despised by hundreds of women, who, after landing at Nome, had not found agreeable and genteel ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... void is made which can nevermore be filled. It is not his visible presence or his tangible body that we shall so much miss. It is the magnetism of a pure mind, the silent, potent influence of a spotless character, the power of a great, good, and noble soul to elevate and dignify all with whom it came in contact that will prove our irreparable loss. No man ever associated with Gen. LEE without feeling the better for it. To have been with him made you feel like one who had drawn a long deep inspiration of pure fresh air ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... consciousness of the frivolity of his favourite pursuits; and this consciousness produced one of the most diverting of his ten thousand affectations. His busy idleness, his indifference to matters which the world generally regards as important, his passion for trifles, he thought fit to dignify with the name of philosophy. He spoke of himself as of a man whose equanimity was proof to ambitious hopes and fears, who had learned to rate power, wealth, and fame at their true value, and whom the conflict ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... government, in municipal laws and political mechanisms, and in the people's attitude toward their cities, have tended to dignify municipal service. The city job has been lifted to a higher plane. Lord Rosebery, the brilliant chairman of the first London County Council, the governing body of the world's largest city, said many years ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... said Alice, continuing to dignify her enforced submission with a tone of unabated hauteur; and she gave her mother Mrs. Mavering's letter, which Dan ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... naturalists, and I believe the great Linnaeus amongst them, class me with the Castor or Beaver race, and dignify me with a very long and learned-sounding name, Zibethicus. But I am quite content, for my part, to own my relationship to the race of Mus, and to be known by the simple name Musk-Rat, which they give me ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... the way, we abandoned our steamer that evening, and set off at an early hour the next morning. We made camp at the end of the day's march within ten miles of Buford, and arrived at the post without having had any incident of moment, unless we may dignify as one a battle with three grizzly bears, discovered by our friendly Indians the morning of our second day's journey. While eating our breakfast —a rather slim one, by the way—spread on a piece of canvas, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... experience no change of disposition! but receive with humility, and support with meekness the elevation to which thou art rising! May thy manners, language, and deportment, all evince that modest equanimity, and cheerful gratitude, which not merely deserve, but dignify prosperity! May'st thou, to the last moments of an unblemished life, retain thy genuine simplicity, thy singleness of heart, thy guileless sincerity! And may'st thou, stranger to ostentation, and superior to insolence, with true greatness of soul shine forth conspicuous ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... the vocabulary, if we dignify it by that name, of the mammals. The sloths, those curious animals whose entire life is spent clinging to the underside of branches, on whose leaves they feed, may be said almost to be voiceless, so seldom do they give utterance to the nameless wail which constitutes their only ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... will continue to act according to your wishes. I am not called upon to proclaim to the world and my acquaintance that I am the daughter of my own servant, and that you were kind enough to marry your estimable mistress after my birth in order to confer upon me what you dignify by the name of legitimacy. No. That is not necessary. If it could hurt you to proclaim it I would do so in the most public way I could find. But it is folly to suppose that you could be made to suffer by so simple ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... the hotel corridor was all but empty. Presently a substantial-looking gentleman came briskly in from the street, nodding affably to the colored porters and bell-boys, who greeted him by name. He wore a flowing Prince Albert coat, which served to dignify a growing portliness, and his coal-black whiskers glistened in the light. A voice, which appeared to come from nowhere in particular, brought ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... natural phlegm, to discern and to resent personal affronts—oftentimes when there was no occasion therefor—he was a favorable exemplar of that peculiar, and to our mind, somewhat incomprehensible quality, which the Southern people glory in, and which they dignify by the stately epithet of 'chivalry.' On the whole, he must be regarded as the ablest, and therefore the most culpable and dangerous of the insurgent leaders; and he may, perhaps, be considered the first of Southern statesmen ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... man was prepossessing in the highest degree, displaying as it did every requisite of mind and body that can ennoble and dignify manly beauty. He stood at the summit of his prime, his form erect and symmetrical, though somewhat stouter than is usually to be found in men of his race. His bearing was graceful, lofty, and commanding; his eye eagle-like in its unflinching brightness; his face, in its ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... the new Abbot served of itself to dignify a ceremonial which was deprived of all other attributes of grandeur. Conscious of the peril in which they stood, and recalling, doubtless, the better days they had seen, there hung over his brethren an appearance of mingled terror, and grief, and shame, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... dignify such a collection of mud hovels with the name of "City," would be a keen irony; not greater, however, than is the name with which its Padres have baptized it. To call a place with its moral character, a very Sodom in iniquity, "Holy Faith," is scarcely a venial sin; ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... forms of society exist, should you arrive at manhood the probability is that you will marry. If then you should ever think of marriage, think of it as a duty; and not merely as the means of self gratification, or the indulgence of some childish and irrational passion, which irrational people dignify with the name of love. Let the affection you conceive for woman be founded on the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... once wert bounteous as the hand of heaven, wert tender as the new born babe. What is it that has changed thy disposition to the hard, the wanton, the obdurate? Behold a lover's tears! Behold how low thou hast sunk him, whom thou once didst dignify by the sweet and soothing name of thy friend! If ever the voice of anguish found a passage to your heart, if those cheeks were ever moistened with the drops of sacred pity, oh, hear me now! But I will address myself to the rocks. I will invoke the knotted oaks and the savage ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... to hear from Mr. Mackey some details about the Muni River, where he travelled in company with M. du Chaillu. It still keeps the troublous reputation for petty wars which made the old traders dignify it with the name of "Danger." The nearest Falls are about thirty miles from Olobe Island, and the most distant may be sixty-five. Of course we had a laugh over the famous Omamba or Anaconda, whose breath can be felt against the face before it ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the fellow, by way of asking pardon—ha, ha, ha! had the modesty to wait on me two or three days ago, to inform my honour—ha, ha, ha! as he was pleased to dignify me,—that the execution was now ready to be put in force against my honour;—but that out of respect to my honour—as he had taken a great deal of my honour's money— he would not suffer his lawyer to serve it, till he had first informed my honour, because ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... me that there is nothing in the world to arouse me. I only ask for action, but I can find no motive sufficient to excite it: let me then, in my indolence, not, like the world, be idle, yet dependent on others; but at least dignify the failing by some appearance of that freedom which retirement ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... contracts the leprosy of envy. In petty minds that leprosy becomes a base and brutal cupidity, both insolent and shrinking; in cultivated minds it fosters anti-social doctrines, which serve a man as footholds by which to rise above his superiors. May we not dignify with the title of proverb the pregnant saying, "Tell me what thou hast, and I will tell thee ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... The two pontoons were thus securely fastened together above and below, the result being that the entire structure formed a good, substantially- built raft, having in its centre portion a platform or deck measuring twelve feet fore and aft, and eighteen feet athwartships. The craft—if one may dignify the structure with such a name—was rigged with one mast, situated exactly in the centre, and well supported by shrouds on each side, and she was provided with a lateen or three-cornered sail bent to a very long yard composed of a number of bamboos fished together. The yard was ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... rob, to burn, and to fly. Although the smoke of burning ships has everywhere marked the track of the Georgia and the Florida upon the ocean, they have never sought a foe or fired a gun against an armed enemy. To dignify such vessels with the name of ships-of-war seems to me, with deference, a misnomer. Whatever flag may fly from their mast-head, or whatever power may claim to own them, their conduct stamps them as piratical. If vessels of war even, they would by this conduct ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... she had by him, without ever putting him to any trouble, or endeavouring to come up to Town to take upon her the style and title of Madam Wild, which the last wife he lived with did with the greatest affection. The next whom he thought fit to dignify with the name of his consort, was the afore-mentioned Mrs. Milliner, with whom he continued in very great intimacy after they lived separately, and by her means carried on the first of his trade in detecting stolen goods. The third one was Betty Man, a woman ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... have just come upon one of the unities most coveted in our literature, and most valued by us when attained, — the portrait, the individuality, the character. The construction of a plot we call invention, but that of a character we dignify with the name of creation. It may therefore not be amiss, in finishing our discussion of form, to devote a few pages to the psychology of character-drawing. How does the unity we call a character arise, how is it described, and what is ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... you have many, princess, judging from your standpoint; but you cannot right them by committing greater ones. Nothing can dignify or ennoble deliberate assassination, or wanton, cruel, secret murder. The ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... remains of the work of skilled fingers serve to dignify the art of which it is capable, and to sing a varied song in the ears of the modern embroiderer, who follows her own will in spite of time-hallowed examples. The women of today, 1920, have been called to work that is widely different from that of the ages when embroidery was ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... until I change my clothes. Then we 'll be ready to start. I 'm not even going to dignify this letter by replying to it. And for one principal reason—" he added—"that I think the Rodaines have ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... in any place where Providence has put you, for the future at least. And the firm purpose of serving God in it, will dignify for the ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... houses which would dignify Georgian aldermen; square red houses set about with wistaria and high garden walls, worthy to be neighbours of Richmond Park; worthy, too, of a handsomer neighbour than Petersham church, an insignificant little building which yet was thought sufficient for the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Women are so cross-grained that it is a wonder to me that men should ever have anything to do with them. They have about them some madness of a phantasy which they dignify with the name of feminine pride, and under the cloak of this they believe themselves to be justified in tormenting their lovers' lives out. The only consolation is that they torment themselves as much. Can anything be more cross-grained than you are at this moment? You were ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... him at once within the ban of that judgment to which she had called him. It would be well if one could believe the story; there would seem a dramatic justice—a tragic retribution—about it. Its very terror would dignify the story of a life that, on the whole, was commonplace and vulgar. But, for ourselves, we confess that we cannot believe in the mysterious letter, the fatal summons, the sudden fulfilment. There are too many stories of the kind floating ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... sound!—"The Battle of Prague." Mrs. Tag-rag, a fat, showily dressed woman of about fifty, her cap having a prodigious number of artificial flowers in it, sat reading a profitable volume, entitled "Groans from the Bottomless Pit to Awaken Sleeping Sinners," by (as he was pleased to dignify himself) the Rev. DISMAL HORROR—a very rousing young dissenting preacher lately come into that neighborhood, and who had almost frightened into fits half the women and children, and one or two old men, of his congregation; giving out, among several ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... crossed on a penny ferry which the current pushed over in the manner of the earliest ferries, near the tobacco factory, and came back into the heart of the town through streets of low stone houses, with few buildings of note to dignify their course. Small craft lay along the steep muddy shores, and at one place a little excursion steamer was waiting for the tide to come in and float it for the fulfilment of its promise of sailing at ten o'clock. We idly longed to make its voyage with it, and if the chance ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... prescribed; and since they know little about the ground or meaning of what they do, they feel content and safe if at least they have done it properly. Sacrifices are often performed in this spirit; and when a beautiful order and religious calm have come to dignify the performance, the mind, having meantime very little to occupy it, may embroider on the given theme. It is then that fable, and new religious sentiments suggested by fable, appear prominently on ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... in most of the mechanic arts is, however, far simpler than the science of cutting metals. In almost all cases, in fact, the laws or rules which are developed are so simple that the average man would hardly dignify them with the name of a science. In most trades, the science is developed through a comparatively simple analysis and time study of the movements required by the workmen to do some small part of his work, and this ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... spectacles of cruelty and horror. Though civilization may in some degree abate this native ferocity, it can never quite extirpate it; the most polished are not ashamed to be pleased with scenes of little less barbarity, and, to the disgrace of human nature, to dignify them with the name of sports. They arm cocks with artificial weapons, which nature had kindly denied to their malevolence, and with shouts of applause and triumph see them plunge them into each other's hearts; ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... And would it be quite safe to assume so promptly that the quality q of a feeling is one and the same thing with a feeling of the quality q? The quality q, so far, is an entirely subjective fact which the feeling carries so to speak endogenously, or in its pocket. If any one pleases to dignify so simple a fact as this by the name of knowledge, of course nothing can prevent him. But let us keep closer to the path of common usage, and reserve the name knowledge for the cognition of 'realities,' ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... inconsiderable, when it is only by your own weakness that you make yourself so; for it is virtue, not pedigree, that renders a man either valuable or happy. Philosophy does not either reject or choose any man for his quality. Socrates was no patrician, Cleanthes but an under-gardener; neither did Plato dignify philosophy by his birth, but by his goodness. All these worthy men are our progenitors, if we will but do ourselves the honor to become their disciples. The original of all mankind was the same, and it is only a clear ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... indeed bestow on us a portion of their fire, they seem to have lighted it in sport and left it; the harder task and the nobler is performed by that genius who raises it clear and glowing from its embers, and makes it applicable to the purposes that dignify or delight our nature. I have ever said, 'Reverence the rulers.' Let, then, his image stand; but stand apart from Pindar's. Pallas and Jove! defend me from being carried down the stream of time among a shoal of royalets, and the rootless ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the impression it created. As it was little is recorded about it. Probably the very silence of the press is significant of the fact that there was scant faith in the invention, and that it was considered too visionary a scheme to dignify with any notice. However that may be, the newspapers passed this wonderful event by with almost no comment. History, however, is more generous and several amusing stories have come down to us of the fright ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... languages; but erudition does not naturally furnish them with its resources. The most ignorant, it sometimes happens, will use them most. The eminently democratic desire to get above their own sphere will often lead them to seek to dignify a vulgar profession by a Greek or Latin name. The lower the calling is, and the more remote from learning, the more pompous and erudite is its appellation. Thus the French rope-dancers have transformed themselves ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... revolutionise a great many of our thoughts, and bring new ideas into much of our conventional language. 'A good work' is not a piece of beneficence or benevolence, still less is it to be confined to those actions which conventional Christianity has chosen to dignify by the name. It is a designation that should not be clotted into certain specified corners of a life, but be extended over them all. The things which more specifically go under such a name, the kind of things that Judas wanted to have substituted for the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... he had lost his heart two years and a half before, he was considerably surprised. It would be absurd to suppose that the boyish fancy which had made so much romance in his life for so many months could outlast the excitements of the University. It would be absurd to dignify such a fancy by any serious name. He had grown to be a man since those days and he had put away childish things. He blushed to remember that he had spent hours in writing odes to the beautiful unknown, and whole nights in dreaming of her face. And yet he could remember ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... I can manage here On brocoli and mutton round the year, 'Tis true no turbots dignify my boards, But gudgeons, flounders, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... this region the ordinary tourist will find little to interest him. He will see nothing which he can possibly dignify by the name of scenery, and he may journey on for many days without having any occasion to make an entry in his note-book. If he should happen, however, to be an ethnologist and linguist, he may find occupation, for he will here meet with ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... in all harmony. By numbers harmony can be expressed far more severely than by Poetry, and so successfully up to a point, that poets have borrowed the very word to dignify their poor efforts. They "lisp in numbers"—or so they say: and the curious may turn to the Parmenides, to Book vii. of The Republic and others of the Dialogues and note how Plato, hunting on the trail of many distinguished predecessors, ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... musician concentrate his energies upon the banjo—he may dignify the instrument, but he belittles himself in doing it. Kate," he pleaded, "don't throw away any years of happiness! Don't hurt your own character for a handful of nonentities whose importance you exaggerate! ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... be quite frank with you," Tallente went on. "What I am going to suggest to you is pure guesswork. A political opponent, if I can dignify the fellow with such a term, has in his possession an article of mine which I wrote some years ago, during the war. I have been given to understand that he means to obtain publication of it for the purpose of undermining my position with the Labour Party. Has he brought ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... gentleman; but he is a gentleman who wears a very dirty shirt, and lives a very miserable life, having nothing to employ him or keep him alive except the pleasures of the chase and of the scalp-hunt—which we dignify with the name of war. The writer differed from his critical friends, and from many philanthropists, in believing the Indian to be capable—perfectly capable, where restraint assists the work of friendly instruction—of civilisation: the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... self-abnegation and self-sacrifice in the cause of suffering humanity having been absolute, and who have nobly vindicated every claim made by their sex to full equality with men in all that serves to dignify human nature. Her rightful place is among "the noble army of martyrs," for her life was undoubtedly very much shortened by her many cares and heavy responsibilities and excessive labors in behalf of the pitiable objects of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... majesty beyond. Its old name was Cosignano. But it had the honour of giving birth to AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who, when he was elected to the Papacy and had assumed the title of Pius II., determined to transform and dignify his native village, and to call it after his own name. From that time forward Cosignano has ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of Darkness and Sleep. Idle Men, who have not been at the Pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant Men are very subject to decry those Beauties in a celebrated Work which they have not Eyes to discover. Many of our Sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the Name of Criticks, are the genuine Descendants of these two illustrious Ancestors. They are often led into those numerous Absurdities, in which they daily instruct the People, by not considering that, 1st, There is sometimes a greater Judgment shewn ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to work, and I will give you your wages." It is for benevolence like this, well and usefully exercised, that Sir Robert Vaughan is especially remarkable, as well also for all those qualities which adorn and dignify the British country gentleman. Always careful of the welfare, habits, and comforts of the poor around him; patronizing the industry, ingenuity, and good conduct of his more humble countrymen, and ministering to the wants of the sick and the poor; hospitable in the extreme; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... possess too great a charm to be thus rudely thrown aside. To me, there is hardly a more lovely sight in the world than the union of two congenial spirits in the tie of sincere and unselfish affection. But I do not dignify with the name of friendship those caprices of the moment, which so often assume its title and usurp its place. A young girl meets another at an assembly—she is pleased with her manners; thinks her amiable, because she smiles frequently; intellectual, because she converses easily; ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... kindred, on high, For six thousand years whom cou'd ye descry; Whom, like him, have seen of meer mortal birth; Tho Alfred and Edward once dignify'd earth? Blush, blush, scepter'd pirates, who trail your faint fire: Ye meteors, that transiently dazzling expire! Whose lust of vain pow'r stains the page of your story: What glow worms ye look, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... no reason in this. Was the thing not a fact which she had confessed? was he not a worshiper of fact? did he not even dignify it with the name of truth? and could he wish his wife had kept the miserable fact to herself, leaving him to his fools'-paradise of ignorance? Why then should he feel resentment against the man whose teaching had only compelled her to confess it?—But the thing was out ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... Kentucky, Senator Ollie M. James. When the President read the letter and observed its rather harsh character he was deeply wounded and disappointed. When he showed it to Senator James, the Senator read it and advised that by reason of its character the President ought not to dignify it by any acknowledgment. The President turned quickly to the Kentucky statesman and said: "No, my dear Senator, the President of the United States must ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... "Tannhaeuser" he brought out in 1853, in spite of the Elector's opposition. In 1857 he was pensioned, and two years later died. He was born a musician and died one, and in his long and honorable life he was always true to his art and did much to ennoble and dignify it, notwithstanding the curious combinations in his musical texture. He never could understand or appreciate Beethoven. He proclaimed himself a disciple of Mozart, though he had little in common with him, and he declared Wagner the greatest of all living ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... criminal militarism which is impoverishing Europe and driving the starving poor mad. That has many crimes to answer for, but not this one, I think. One may not attribute to this man a generous indignation against the wrongs done the poor; one may not dignify him with a generous impulse of any kind. When he saw his photograph and said, "I shall be celebrated," he laid bare the impulse that prompted him. It was a mere hunger for notoriety. There is another confessed case of the kind which is as old ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... notions, and her liberal way of thinking. This superiority of soul chiefly manifests itself in the contempt of those minute delicacies and little decorums, which, trifling as they may be thought, tend at once to dignify the character, and to restrain the levity of the younger part ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... return of the commissioners, the king being arrived in parliament, they began to dignify several of the Scots nobility with offices of state, and because a lord-treasurer was a-wanting it was moved that none did deserve that office so well as the earl of Loudon, who had done so much for his country. But the king, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... of enthusiastic young men, which reminded one of Abelard among his pupils in the infant university of Paris. Cousin elevated the soul while he intoxicated the mind, and created a spirit of inquiry which was felt wherever philosophy was recognized as one of the most ennobling studies that can dignify the human intellect. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... wrote as follows: "I send you the grand cross of St. Stephen; but as a mark of distinction you must wear it in brilliants. You have done so much to dignify it, that I seize with eagerness the opportunity which presents itself to offer you a tribute of that gratitude which I feel for your services, and shall continue to feel until the day of my death. MARIA THERESA." [Footnote: Wraxall, vol. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Napoleon and the Granitarium. Worms'-meat is usually outlasted by the structure that houses it, but "this too must pass away." Probably the silliest work in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb for himself. The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by contrast ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... Martinianic nation, we have resolved to advance him to the rank of nobility, so that he, and all his descendants shall be regarded as true noblemen, and enjoy all the prerogatives and rights, of which the nobility of Martinia are in possession. Furthermore, we have determined to dignify him with a new name; he shall therefore from this day, be no longer called Kakidoran, but Kikidorian. Moreover, since his new dignity requires a richer style of living, we grant him a yearly pension of two hundred patarer. Given in the council-chamber of Martinia, the fourth day ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... supporters of the same theory: the fact being meanwhile that in all which is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey dissents perhaps as widely and as determinately as Mr. Coleridge; dissents, that is to say, not as the numerous blockheads among the male blue-stockings who dignify their ignorance with the name of dissent—but as one man of illustrious powers dissents from what he deems after long examination the errors of another; as Leibnitz on some occasions dissented from Plato, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Chastisement. That it is a very seasonable one, I believe, every Person will acknowledge. When what is set up for the Standard of Taste, is but just the Reverse of Truth and Common Sense; and that which is dignify'd with the Name of Politeness, is deficient in nothing—but Decency and Good Manners: When all Distinctions of Station and Fortune are broke in upon, so that a Peer and a Mechanick are cloathed in the same Habits, and indulge in the same Diversions and Luxuries: When Husbands are ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... forms of metrical composition. It is the mighty soaring of an exalted soul which makes the Psalms so dear to us, and not their artificial structure. They were made to reveal the ways of God to man and the life of the human soul, not to immortalize heroes or dignify a human love. We may not be able to appreciate in English form their original metrical skill; but it is impossible that a people so musical as the Hebrews were kindled into passionate admiration of them, had they not possessed great rhythmic beauty. We may ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... that of the conversation just described was one of those glorious autumn mornings which sometimes come as a faint compensation for the utter vileness and bitter disappointment of the season that in this country we dignify by the name of summer. Notwithstanding his vigils and melancholy of the night before, the Squire was up early, and Ida, who between one thing and another had not had the best of nights, heard his loud cheery voice shouting about ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... have been achieved. Indeed, I think that the gift of the Transvaal and Orange River Constitutions and the great settlement resulting therefrom will be by itself as a single event sufficient to vindicate in the eyes of future generations the administration of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and to dignify his memory in Parliaments and periods which we shall not see. But our work abroad is not yet completed, has not yet come to its full fruition. If we should continue, as I expect we shall, to direct public affairs for the full five years which are the normal and ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... should dignify by the name of ancestor-worship the older Roman festival of the Lemuria, which was held on the 9th, 11th and 13th of May. For the lemures were, like our unlaid ghosts, unburied, mischievous or inimical spirits, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... all affairs thou sole director; Of wit and learning chief protector, Though small the time thou hast to spare, The church is thy peculiar care. Of pious prelates what a stock You choose to rule the sable flock! You raise the honour of the peerage, Proud to attend you at the steerage. You dignify the noble race, Content yourself with humbler place. Now learning, valour, virtue, sense, To titles give the sole pretence. St. George beheld thee with delight, Vouchsafe to be an azure knight, When ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... forgotten that he was not alone—"when men had no universal conceptions, they would have done well to look at the trees. Instead of fostering a number of little souls on the pabulum of varying theories of future life, they should have been concerned to improve their present shapes, and thus to dignify man's single soul" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... may be wanting to this play while yet it is mine, will be sufficiently made up to it when it is once become your lordship's; and it is my security, that I cannot have overrated it more by my dedication than your lordship will dignify ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... that each is the complement or counterpart of the other, and that, alone, each is but a half sphere, and imperfectly rounded at that, I should more nearly approach to accuracy. To make the perfect whole which the Creator had in His idea, the two halves must be united. And so I dignify the oldest of human institutions—marriage. I accord to it the very perfection of wisdom, beauty, utility, adaptation. I am aware that in so speaking I hold to an old-fashioned belief, and tread incontinently, not only on a notion afloat ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thoroughly done away they will be a stain on the national character. It is not the least of our national misfortunes that the strength and character of our army are thus impaired. Familiarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, it can no longer boast of the noble and generous principles which dignify a soldier; no longer sympathise with the dignity of the royal banner nor feel the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war that makes ambition virtue. What makes ambition virtue? The sense of honor. But is this sense of honor ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... graceful gifts and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive and add rhyme and ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... lonely ease. Better a perilous journey overseas Away from thee, than this, the life I lead, To sit all day in the sunshine like a weed That grows to naught,—I love thee more than they Who serve thee most; yet serve thee in no way. Father, I beg of thee a little task To dignify my days,—'tis all I ask Forever, but forever, this denied, I perish." "Child," my father's voice replied, "All things thy fancy hath desired of me Thou hast received. I have prepared for thee Within my house a spacious chamber, where Are delicate ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... he make a boast of it? If he has a voice, I have got the ghost of it! When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is, When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is! But I never mind; for what does it signify? See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify: All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness— Have I not played with Phelps? (To Wenman) I'll ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... Language next: from hence new pleasure springs; For Styles are dignify'd, as well as Things. Tho' Sense subsists, distinct from phrase or sound, Yet Gravity conveys a surer wound. The chymic secret which your pains wou'd find, Breaks out, unsought for, in Cervantes' mind; And Quixot's wildness, like that King's of old, Turns all ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... which mournful and funereal ceremonies mingled. It was an essential part of the lessons given the Initiates, to teach them the relations of their own souls with Universal Nature, the greatest lessons of all, meant to dignify man in his own eyes, and teach him his place in ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... did any one else; in the dormitory they exchanged a cold good-night. Irving did not press Westby for a retraction of the charge which he had overheard the boy make; it seemed to him unworthy to dignify it by taking such notice of it. He knew that none of the boys really believed it and that Westby himself did not believe it, but had been goaded into the declaration in the desperate effort to maintain a false position. ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... from the healthy tone that breathes throughout your epistle, that you are as happy as every one who knows you wishes you to be, and as prosperous as you deserve. Knowing, also, as I do, your feeling for art and all that tends to raise and dignify man, I most sincerely congratulate you on the prospect of your being able to retire, in the full vigour of manhood, to follow out that sublime pursuit, in comparison with which the painter's art is but a faint glimmering. 'The Landscape of other worlds' you alone have sketched ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... to me. The men in that audience tomorrow will be the vilest of voluptuaries: men in whom the only passion excited by a beautiful woman is a lust to see her tortured and torn shrieking limb from limb. It is a crime to dignify that passion. It is offering yourself for violation by the whole rabble of the streets and the riff-raff of the court at the same time. Why will you not choose rather a kindly love and ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... crying on the coast of Epirus, "Great Pan is dead," arose from some misapprehension, but no precise explanation of its origin has been given.[1335] Poets like Pindar and Vergil, disposed to preserve and dignify the old traditions, treat Pan respectfully and sympathetically, but ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... she was young and beautiful and accomplished, and the smiles of fortune shone upon her, yet her native modesty and worth made her unconscious of her own attractions. Her heart was the seat of all the softer virtues which ennoble and dignify the character ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... this eclectic character of the Brahmo Somaj which has robbed it of much of its power. It may seem, at first, a very fine thing to collect, classify, and codify the best from many religions and dignify them as a religion. But that can never become a unified message of life to any people. It may be ethically immaculate, but it has no vital power. The distinctive, life-giving, and inspiring element of every faith has been eliminated, and only the common, unimpassioned, ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... should dignify an ugly jealousy by fine words I don't know. For some women—women like our old friend—gratitude is hard. That is the moral of ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... regret the pain he has caused; he will want to forget and be forgiven quickly though he may not go through the formality of an apology. A formal apology and reconciliation will, in his judgment, dignify the episode and make a mountain out of a molehill. The wife will be wise to so regard it though it is an injustice to her. The husband will not underestimate the importance of the event, however, and ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... effects in the long, rolling line of slow-marching dactyls and spondees. The tempered realism of Tegner, which shuns all that is harsh and trite, accords well with the noble classical verse. He employs it, as it were, to dignify his homely tale, as Raphael draped the fishermen of Galilee in the flowing robes of Greek philosophers. The description of the church, the rustic youth, and the patriarchal clergyman has, however, the note of experience and the touch of earth ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... fellow might say, and to maintain it before the world. He was at once troubled to see Hammer mixed up in the case, for he detested Hammer as a plebeian smelling of grease, who had shouldered his unwelcome person into a company of his betters, which he could neither dignify nor grace. ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... seating myself at his feet, attentively surveyed his countenance. The emotions which were visible during wakefulness had vanished during this cessation of remembrance and remorse, or were faintly discernible. They served to dignify and solemnize his features, and to embellish those immutable lines which betokened the spirit of his better days. Lineaments were now observed which could never coexist with folly or associate with ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... cost of fifteen thousand livres, as Boileau declares, engaged the front seats of two theatres for six successive evenings—the one to be packed with applauding spectators, the other to exhibit empty benches, diversified with creatures who could hiss. Nothing could dignify Pradon's play, as nothing could really degrade that of Racine. But Racine was in the highest degree sensitive, and such a desperate plot against his fame might well make him pause ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the one whose story is told in these pages was devoted and finally sacrificed to dignify their common country in the eyes of his countrymen, and to unite them in a common patriotism; he inculcated that self-respect which, by leading to self-restraint and self-control, makes self-government possible; and sought to ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... after honour hunts, I after love: He leaves his friends to dignify them more; I leave myself, my friends, and all, for love. 65 Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me, Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, War with good counsel, set the world at nought; Made wit with musing weak, ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... human flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet; his tawdry lampoons are called satires, his turbulence is said to be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... 1727 put up a modest little church and in 1740 decided to dignify it with a clock and bell. Accordingly Ebenezer Parmilee constructed for the parish a clock with brass works which the committee agreed to try. Fancy his amazement when the trial of his handiwork dragged on for two long years! The people had been keen to get the ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... private interest; and Jerom, or Ambrose, might patiently acquiesce in the justice of an ineffectual or salutary law. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase the wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with the specious ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Japanese author* writes: "Yoritomo, convinced by observation and experience that the beautiful and the splendid appeal most to human nature, made it his aim to inculcate frugality, to promote military exercises, to encourage loyalty, and to dignify simplicity. Moral education he set before physical. The precepts of bushido he engraved on the heart of the nation and gave to them the honour of a precious heirloom. The Hojo, by exalting bushido, followed the invaluable teaching of the Genji, and supplemented it ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... regarding the forces of nature, we perpetually make use of symbols which, when they possess a high representative value, we dignify with the name of theories. Thus, prompted by certain analogies, we ascribe electrical phenomena to the action of a peculiar fluid, sometimes flowing, sometimes at rest. Such conceptions have their advantages ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... "Mortgagees," the Court said, "are constitutionally entitled to no more than payment in full. * * * To hold that mortgagees are entitled under the contract clause to retain the advantages of a forced sale would be to dignify into a constitutionally protected property right their chance to get more than the amount of their contracts. * * * The contract clause does not protect such a ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... which he can do, have so momentary an existence that they may be safely neglected: but the abiding injury is to the most august interest which for the mind of man can have any existence,—viz. to his own nature: to raise and dignify which, I am persuaded, is the first—last—and holiest command [1] which the conscience imposes on the philosophic moralist. In countries, where the traveller has the pain of seeing human creatures performing the labors of brutes, [2]—surely the sorrow which the spectacle ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it happens, but this dignify of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every idea of your policy. Show the thing you contend for to be reason, show ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... scene in a great tragedy, and then I fully understood the worship she had won as belonging only to those consummate artists who have arisen to dignify and ennoble the lyric stage. As we left the house Procter said, "You are in great luck to-night. I never heard her sing ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... in childhood, when the mother and the family fail to develop the womanly qualities of modesty, grace, generosity of character, and geniality of temper, which dignify, adorn, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... "I do only what the greatest of your scientific men do—that is, guess. There is this difference however between us—I call my guesses, guesses, mere conjecture;—they dignify theirs as profound theories or as ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... women exhibit daily without being conscious that they have done anything especially creditable. They experience, so far as their own words and acts furnish evidence of their feelings, a sort of lukewarm emotion which they dignify with the name of love. But they not merely suspect without the slightest provocation, they give up the men to whom they have pledged the devotion of their lives, for reasons for which no one would think of abandoning ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... 'I presume that he will speak of me and of what you dignify as my achievements, foolishly fond child; and therefore it was meet that I should not neglect the opportunity of being in his presence, in order that he might speak well of me rather than the reverse. Otherwise, you well know that I would have preferred to let revelling ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various |
