"Alter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... night to ascertain the will of God, and to struggle without ceasing to conform their wills to his as therein revealed, was therefore the great object of existence for them, not that they could thereby alter in the least their future state, but that they might, if possible, find out what ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... Essay, to make some further Observations relating to the Constitution of Characteristic-Writings; which, to prevent Repetitions, I forbear mentioning here; but if the Reader be religious in the Observance of a strict Method, he is at full Liberty to alter the Situation of them, and to refer them ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... named Thomas Blackburne had continued the old practice of holding churchings in the Lady-chapel, and was ordered publicly to renounce this error, as well as that of having left "that olde, abhominable, and supersticious vawte called the Wilfride's nedle[24] and the alter therein" undefaced. One townsman is punished for having taken part in the Mass during the late Rising. The clergy generally were unclerical in dress and lax in their performance of the reformed services, which the parishioners ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... Clothes alter our very nature. A man could not help being fierce and daring with a plume in his bonnet, a dagger in his belt, and a lot of puffy white things all down his sleeves. But in an ulster he wants to get behind a lamp-post ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... stern taskmaster, demanding long years of preparation and combination of effort for one end. The political separation of the two countries does not alter the fact that they are, in the military sense, one area of operations and of supply, and, at a time like the present, when the mutual dependence of all parts of the Empire is gradually being realised; when the dominions ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... the ones being friends and they spoke then about what was happening. They did not alter everything. ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... remarks on art; I had told myself, I had even partly believed, he did not want to come; I had been (and still am) convinced that he was sure to be unhappy out of Muskegon; in short, I had a thousand reasons, good and bad, not all of which could alter one iota of the fact that I knew he only waited ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... ladies dropped off. Miss Somers went out of the room for a few minutes to alter her dress, as it was the custom of the family, before dinner. She left a portfolio of pretty drawings and good prints, for Miss Barbara's amusement; but Miss Barbara's thoughts were so intent upon the harpers' ball, ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... an extent unknown elsewhere. The tyranny and caprice of fashion were as characteristic in Montaigne's day as at present. "I find fault with their especial indiscretion," he says, "in suffering themselves to be so imposed upon and blinded by the authority of the present custom as every month to alter their opinion." "In this country," writes Yorick, "nothing must be spared for the back; and if you dine on an onion, and lie in a garret seven stories high, you must not betray ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that he was a good fellow. On this latter point, it was only the barest justice to Julia's tastes and judgment to take it for granted that he would be a good fellow. Yet the uncle felt uneasily that this would alter things for the worse. The family party, with that hypothetical young man in it, could never be quite so innocently and completely happy as—for instance—the family party in this compartment had been during these wonderful ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... women in. They know we shall not cut our throats, hating the sight of blood and rating our skins a hantle higher nor our lives; and as for hanging, while she is a fixing of the nail and a making of the noose she has time t' alter her mind. But a jump into a canal is no more than into bed; and the water it does all the lave, will ye, nill ye. Why, look at me, the mother o' nine, wasn't I agog to make a hole in our canal ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Johnson. Every member had his body servant, and they were not unfrequently taken for their masters. Lady Juliana, too, after the death of her nephew, had one or two attendants out of livery, and in a different fashion from your attire. Peter, I think with John Moseley there, we must alter you a little for the sake ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... frying-pan and was shaking a pot of strong green tea when there was a tapping at the door, which opened while he wondered whether there would be time for him to alter his attire. Then he stood up with the teapot in his hand, and made a little whimsical gesture of dismay as Miss Townshead stood before him. She coloured a trifle, but took courage at Alton's soft laugh, for it was clear that he was as yet only concerned about the ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... what's going on at Pokrovskoe. Is the house standing still, and the birch trees, and our schoolroom? And Philip the gardener, is he living? How I remember the arbor and the seat! Now mind and don't alter anything in the house, but make haste and get married, and make everything as it used to be again. Then I'll come and see you, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... portion of her thoughts. A year ago she was on the threshold of womanhood, and at such critical periods Aunt Jeannie knew well that a year may confirm existing tendencies or completely alter them, bringing to light strands of character that had been woven below the surface. For many reasons she had a peculiar tenderness towards this dear niece. For seven rather dreadful years Daisy had lived ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... staggered when she saw him sitting up in bed and heard him cursing the orderlies, who had come back by that time. But she couldn't do anything. She wasn't really a bad sort of woman, and I don't suggest for a moment that she wanted to have Binny buried alive. But she had no authority. She could not alter an order. And there the thing was in black and white. However, she persuaded the orderlies to wait another half-hour. She went off and found one of the surgeons. He was a decent sort of fellow, but young, and he didn't see his way to interfering. ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... of philosophy unhesitatingly and courageously to proceed with the task of improving that part of the world which has been recognised as still susceptible to change. But genuine philosophers do, as a matter of fact, teach this doctrine themselves, inasmuch as they work at endeavouring to alter the very changeable views of men, and do not keep their opinions to themselves. Genuine disciples of genuine philosophies also teach this doctrine; for, like Wagner, they understand the art of deriving a more decisive and inflexible will from their master's teaching, ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... to this. Life, on such conditions as my good friend had just stated, would be simply unendurable to me. Nothing could alter my resolution—for this plain reason, that nothing could reconcile me to living with my husband on the terms on which we were living now. It only rested with Benjamin to say whether he would give a helping hand to his ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... is not quite so helpless as his official superior, but on retiring he humorously reposes his feet on the pillow and his head on nothing but the bare floor of the tent, and stubbornly refuses to permit Abdullah to alter either his pillow or his position. The phenomenal young man and myself likewise seek our respective pile of quilts, Abdullah removes the lamp, draws a curtain over the entrance of the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... did not! Her mind is strangely altered, 'twould astound Me not a whit now if her nature too Should alter and her hair should change to blonde Instead of raven tresses that of old So richly waved ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... Justice Blackburne interrupted. "It was too late," he said, "to criticise the evidence, and the Court had neither the right nor the power to alter or review it. If," he added, "you have any reason to give why, either upon technical or moral grounds, the sentence should not be passed upon you, we will hear it, but it is too late for you to review the evidence to show that ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... isn't their fault at all. It doesn't alter the fact that these professional soldiers, pensioned and decorated in the time when we're only civvies, will have made war in a ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... wolves!" Hellen remarked jocularly. Hardly, however, had he spoken these words before he had reason to alter his tone. "Great heavens! do you hear that?" he cried. "There is no mistake about it this time. It is a wolf, or may I never live to ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... alter the case, sir, and we would rig you up the best berth we could manage," answered ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... all abuse, Remain a liege to me, And large your provender shall be.' Alas! good housing or good cheer, That costs one's liberty, is dear. The horse his folly now perceived, But quite too late he grieved. No grief his fate could alter; His stall was built, and there he lived, And died there in his halter. Ah! wise had he one small offence forgot! Revenge, however sweet, is dearly bought By that one good, which gone, all else ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... side of the bed, with the letter in his hand, informed him that the family at the Hall had returned from the Continent on the evening before, with their only son, who was now restored to health. This intelligence induced Forster to alter his plans; and trusting to the former friendship of Lord Aveleyn, he despatched Robertson to the Hall, stating his own condition, and requesting that his lordship would come to the cottage. Lord Aveleyn immediately obeyed the summons; and ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... fear of, or by affection for, some other trader, from getting all he can, in so far competition is limited. Whenever any one conspires with another trader to act together with him to withdraw or to alter his bid, in so far competition is limited. Private property and economic competition do not merely happen to exist side by side, forming more or less favored conditions each for the other; they ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... was but a momentary truce, an interregnum of indolence; but it was all they asked for. They could no longer nurse any illusions as to the trend of their way or the endlessness of their quest. They must now always keep moving. They might alter the manner of their progression, they might change their stroke, but the continuity of effort on their part could no more be broken than could that of a swimmer at sea. They must ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... alteration in the solids and fluids which so effectually contributes to the cure. The contraction of the solids, he says, impresses new mathematical motions and directions to the fluids; in one or both of which is seated all distempers, and without any other help than a continuance of faith, will alter their quality; a philosophy as wonderful and intricate as the nature of the poison it is intended to expel; but which, however, supplies this observation, that, if the particles of sound can do so much, the effluvia ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... and I had to renounce my dream of dragging its author into the limelight. When I met him afterwards, for the first time for many years, I found to my astonishment that he, who had been a quite tolerably presentable young man, had actually managed by sheer scorn to alter his personal appearance until he had become a sort of walking repudiation of Oxford and all its traditions. It must have been largely in his own despite that he was squeezed into something called a Readership of phonetics ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... a pleasure to see him again—a creature of abounding vitality whom time cannot alter. He is as lithe-limbed as when he was a boy, and as lithe-witted. I don't know how his consciousness could have arrived at appreciation of Antoinette's cooking, for he talked all through dinner, giving me an account of his mirific adventures in foreign cities. Among other things, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... this man for one. What! blush not at it; you are not alone: Here is another that know not my mind, Nor he in my words great favour can find. The planet Mercurius is neither hot nor cold, Neither good, nor yet very bad of his own nature, But doth alter his quality with them, which do hold Any friendly aspect to him: even so I assure We Mercurialists, I mean hypocrites, cannot long endure In one condition, but do alter our mind To theirs that talk with us, thereby friendship to find. The little cameleon, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... unmitigated ruffian, who merited his soubriquet El-Kalb ("the Hound"). On one side sat his son Salim, a large, beardless lad, who had begun work by presenting us with a sheep—Giorgi (cook) said it cost us L40. On the other was his eldest brother and alter ego: the wrinkled Sagr (Sakr) has been a resident at Cairo, and still boasts that he received the "tribute" of a horse from the Viceroy, whom he affects to treat as an equal or rather an inferior. The others ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... In this we have the earliest authentic instance of the peculiar integrity of mind which was so characteristic of him in his dealings with philosophy and tradition. He never allowed any weight of authority or any apparent disturbance of existing ideas to alter the conclusions to which his reason led him. This intellectual courage made him fitted to be the leader in the battle for evolution and against traditional thought, and we shall find again and again in consideration ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... of "pension," he takes occasion to rap the writers who had flattered their patrons since the days of Elizabeth; though he afterwards accepted a comfortable pension for himself. With characteristic honesty he refused to alter his definition in subsequent ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... hazardous to endeavour to alter one's facts in order to support historical theories. This M. Franois de Rosires, Archdeacon of Toul, discovered, who endeavoured to show in his history of Lorraine that the crown of France rightly belonged to that ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... adopted is not very remote from this. But I was perhaps wrong in treating first of the agency of gravitation, which owes almost all its powers to the operation of other causes. In consequence of your hint, I shall alter my plan a little, and consider first the chemical agency of water, then that of air, and lastly that of electricity. In every species of chemical change, temperature is concerned. But unless the results of volcanoes ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... position in any way, or make the discovery that he had a father living more likely to shock and bewilder him that this discovery should come mingled with many extraneous wonders. And yet these facts did alter the circumstances. "You cannot hide the heir to a peerage." Lady Mariamne was far, very far, from being a philosopher or a person of genius, and yet this which she had said was in reality quite unanswerable. Phil Compton might have been ignored for ever by ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... them treading hurriedly and heavily upon the brush. Sometimes, again, he ran ahead of all of them, and for a few moments would be lost to sight; but he usually returned, as quickly and quietly as he went, and would either lead them forward on the same route with confidence, or alter it according to his discoveries. He was literally feeling his way; the instincts and experience of the practised scout finding no sort of obstacle in the deficiency of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... head to head. There was quite a loud report. It was the cracking of the skull of one of the ponies. The pony had to be shot, but no particular harm was done to the riders. As a result of this accident it was decided to alter the rules of the game. This was done, and there was no more wild galloping to start the game. After trying several ponies, I was successful in getting hold of two real good ones. One was a light, cream-coloured mare, descended from a Welsh Taffy imported sire. I called her "Creamie." ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... of a country alter. If in a small degree, the relative proportions of the inhabitants will in most cases simply be slightly changed; but let the number of inhabitants be small, as on an island, and free access to ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... solve that difficulty yet," replied Ned, smiling; "but my not being able to point out how things may be put right, does not, in the least degree, alter the fact that, as they are at present, ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... written; the other half remains for some future Schiller. Nor can we conceive of a better opportunity for the display of the peculiar powers of this poet, than would have been afforded by that catastrophe he has chosen to alter. Was the opportunity felt to be too great? Had the poet become wearied and exhausted with his theme, and did he feel indisposed to nerve himself afresh for scenes which called for the strenuous efforts of his genius? We know that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... sufficient to decide whether a particular rain-drop should make its way into the Gulf of St. Lawrence or into the Gulf of Mexico. The flutter of a bird's wing may have affected all history. Some students may see an immeasurable significance in the flight of parrots, which served to alter the course of Columbus, and guided him to the discovery of North and not of ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... now, if it wasn't in olden time. The proverb says, 'Young people think old people to be fools, but old people know young people to be fools.' We must alter that, for I says, 'Old people think young people to be fools, but young people know old ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... What I had ordered for big girls of nine and ten would just go on girls of six and seven. Either French children are much stouter than English, or they wear thicker things underneath. Here again there was work to do—all the sleeves were much too long; my maids had to alter and shorten them, which they did with rather a ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... cities, and I fancy that they would be regarded as taking the lead of the other religious denominations in New York. Their tendency is to high-church doctrines. I wish they had not found it necessary to alter the forms of our prayer-book in so many little matters, as to which there was no national expediency for such changes. But it was probably thought necessary that a new people should show their independence in all things. The Roman ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... mainly on the form and quality of the materials. You cannot compose a rope of sand, or a round globe of square stones—and my friend Mr. Strettell will tell you, in his lectures on grammar, that words are just as stubborn and intractable materials as sand or stone, and that we cannot alter their meaning or value a single shade, for they derive that meaning from a higher fountain than the soul of man, from the Word of God, the fount of utterance, who inspires all true and noble thought and speech—who ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... munificence of his father; and, still cultivating the same resources, he made pretence of his vocation to solicit permission for an absence of ten years. He is said to have obtained a solemn promise from the people to alter none of his institutions during that period [223]; and thus he departed from the city (probably B. C. 575), of whose future glories he had laid the solid foundation. Attracted by his philosophical habits to that solemn land, beneath whose mysteries the credulous Greeks revered the secrets ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... concupiscences, and stirs up both men and women to burning lust." Yet, as Burton himself adds further on in the same section of his work (Mem. V, Subs. III), without protest, "some are of opinion, that to see a woman naked, is able of itself to alter his affection; and it is worthy of consideration, saith Montaigne, the Frenchman, in his Essays, that the skilfullest masters of amorous dalliance appoint for a remedy of venereous passions, a full survey ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... means a giving and a getting He's a barber-shop philosopher Monotonously intelligent No virtue in not falling, when you're not tempted Of course I've hated, or I wouldn't be worth a button Only the supremely wise or the deeply ignorant who never alter Passion to forget themselves Political virtue goes unrewarded She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid Smiling was part of his equipment Sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home Soul ...
— Quotations From Gilbert Parker • David Widger
... who knew Roger might have expected, for his mother, after the old tradition, too, that gave every eldest daughter of the Bradleys that lovely name. No bitter obstinacy, no unyielding pride of Madam Bradley's could alter in his calm mind the course of his duty, and I never heard a harsh word from him concerning the matter. Margarita cared absolutely nothing about it and never, he told me, expressed the faintest curiosity as to his family ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... justly still, as well as the EXECUTOR, he should be called the EXECUTIONER, and then his title would be complete. In Vendemiaire, the military Tartuffe, he threw aside the Revolution's natural heirs, and made her, as it were, ALTER HER WILL; on the 18th of Brumaire he strangled her, and on the 19th seized on her property, and kept it until force deprived him of it. Illustrations, to be sure, are no arguments, but the example is ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not alter their relative positions according to the season of the year, but the constellations preserve always the same aspect precisely, even ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... not that I do not believe. I am not a puppy or a fool to flatter myself that you must be in love with me. I believe you well enough. But still it is possible that your mind may alter." ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... his every emotion. His love for her was his whole being. It was something so great and strong that it enveloped all his senses. She was his, and he was incapable of imagining life without her. She was his, and only death could alter so obvious a fact. She was his vanguard in life's battle, a support that shored up his confidence and courage to face, with a calm determination, whatever that battle had to ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... marking it, and everybody is putting it to itself—as something very uncommon. But never mind! I am used to having what I say mocked at in this house. It's nothing new to me to have my words passed over as if they hadn't been spoken. I can bear it and it don't alter my duty. I am bound to go on a-doing what I believe to be right just the same, however I am treated. I can't sit by and say nothing when I know that I ought to lift up my voice in warning. So I say again—you can mark my word or not as you think best—that we are all a-going to see some ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... fell in with high islands of ice. On the 24th, we had fresh gales with hazy and cold weather, and met so many ice islands, that we were frequently obliged to alter our course to avoid them. On the 25th, we had strong gales with very heavy and frequent squalls: as we were now drawing near Cape Horn, and in all the charts of Terra del Fuego which I had seen, there ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... it," cried Klutz, slapping his leg and grinning horribly. "I knew you would deny it when you heard she had been behaving badly. But denials do not alter anything—no one ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... to, also particularly impressed this upon the monks, and directed that all the brothers who were engaged as scribes, were not to alter any writing, although in their own mind they might think it proper, without first receiving the sanction of the abbot, "on no account were they to commit so great a presumption."[53] But notwithstanding that the scribes were thus ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... however, more obstinate, than susceptible of flattery, did not alter his tone. He maintained that "these overtures would be useless; that so long as the Russian territory was not entirely evacuated, Alexander would not listen to any proposals; that Russia was sensible of all her advantage at this season of the year; nay, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... yellow, and blue. Newton measures the yellow and violet, and finds them as forty to eighty. Fraunhofer makes the proportion twenty-seven to one hundred and nine. Wallaston's spectrum differs from both. Field says, "No one has ventured to alter either estimate, and no one who is familiar with the spectrum will put much faith in any measurement of it, by whosoever and with what care soever made."[354] He says white light is composed of five parts red, three yellow, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... but there was nothing to prevent Pius IX. from bringing it into fashion again, after the example of Pius VI., if he chose; but he does not choose to do so. His relations are of the second order of nobility, and are not rich: he has done nothing to alter their position. His nephew, Count Mastai Ferretti, was recently married; and the Pope's wedding present consisted of a few diamonds, worth about L8000. Nor did this modest gift cost the nation one baioccho. The diamonds came from the Sovereign ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... so-called Ghibelline Colonna. But the means employed were of so frightful a character that they must certainly have ended in the ruin of the Papacy, had not the contemporaneous death of both father and son by poison suddenly intervened to alter the whole aspect of the situation. The moral indignation of Christendom was certainly no great source of danger to Alexander; at home he was strong enough to extort terror and obedience; foreign rulers were ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... of Mr. Justice Story; and thus to have drank at the very fountain head of constitutional law—that branch of our national jurisprudence which can least fluctuate. Judges of a day and not of a generation, or crazy legislators with spasmodic wisdom, may alter, and overturn, and mystify by simplification, the laws and usages of every-day life; but it is scarcely to be apprehended that the current of our constitutional law will ever be diverted from original channels. There is danger rather of its ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... anything about them, which we don't, worse luck. Just you give him back his own sauce, Bella, and next time he finds fault with you, laugh in his face and tell him he has got to put up with what he finds, for it ain't likely you can alter your nature to suit his high mightiness. Pitch on a thing or two he does which you don't like, and give him a sermon as long as your arm. You see; he will come off his pedestal. Sakes alive! he ought to have me to deal with; I bet I'd teach him a ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... sufficiently shown. The faults of all are indeed numerous and gross, and have not only corrupted many passages perhaps beyond recovery, but have brought others into suspicion, which are only obscured by obsolete phraseology, or by the writer's unskilfulness and affectation. To alter is more easy than to explain, and temerity is a more common quality than diligence. Those who saw that they must employ conjecture to a certain degree, were willing to indulge it a little further. Had the authour published his own works, we ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... cheek). There you are horrid again. But you smile. Je te connais, mon brave. [Greek: Gignosko se pai] (never mind the accents). Ich kenne dich, mein alter. Cognosco te, amice. I know you, old fellow. You are only chaffing. As if you had not discovered that which all truly great indolence has taught ever since the first star looked out and beheld chaotic vastness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... whole, the regulating principle, the general curves and proportions of the strata may be just as visible after the disturbance as before it. The Gospels bring before us the visible and distinct outlines of a life which, after all efforts to alter the idea of it, remains still the same; they present certain clusters of leading ideas and facts so embedded in their substance that no criticism of detail can possibly get rid of them, without absolutely obliterating the whole record. It is this leading idea, or cluster ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... expression began imperceptibly to alter the planes of her face, and slowly she grew as scarlet as Mary—scarlet to the ears. She looked at her watch again—and twenty-five minutes had elapsed since she ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... the emphasis is laid on training for home sewing rather than on training for wage earning. The courses now given are not planned for workers in the garment trades, but to help women and girls who want to learn how to make, alter, and repair their ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz
... gone in search of the scabbard; and burning with shame and anger, Sir Henry stood disarmed, at the mercy of his antagonist. The republican showed no purpose of abusing his victory; nor did he, either during the combat, or after the victory was won, in any respect alter the sour and grave composure which reigned upon his countenance—a combat of life and death seemed to him a thing as familiar, and as little to be feared, as an ordinary ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... think it necessary to reprint the original preface. When I wrote it I had already had some, and since I wrote it I have had much more, experience in writing literary history. I have never seen reason to alter the opinion that, to make such history of any value at all, the critical judgments and descriptions must represent direct, original, and first-hand reading and thought; and that in these critical judgments ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... processes, under the mistaken notion that something that is worth while may be acquired without effort. I think that educators are generally agreed that such a policy is thoroughly bad,—for it subverts a basic principle of human life the operation of which neither education nor any other force can alter or reverse. To teach the child that the things in life that are worth doing are easy to do, or that they are always or even often intrinsically pleasant or agreeable, is to teach him a lie. Human history gives us no examples of worthy achievements that have not been made at ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... particularly to price alterations. If there is a very marked difference in general price level, the salaries—both by the addition or remission of bonuses and the general alteration in scales for new entrants—may be expected to alter, at any rate, in the same direction, and that part of the expense which consists of the purchase of materials will also be responsive. The second, or non-responsive part, is the part that has a fixed expression in currency, and does not alter with changed conditions. This, for the most ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... between the act of breaking bread and the other part of the meeting. We cannot have the breaking of bread at the commencement of the meeting, because of the confusion occasioned by the intermixture of those who are not in fellowship with us. To alter this, and to request all who are not in fellowship with us (except those belonging to the families of the saints) to sit by themselves, as is the case at Bethesda, would, we fear, produce increased dissatisfaction. ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... necessity of force or coercion, upon the theory that, do what you will, you alter only the distribution, not the general quantity of force, is the leading principle of the book. Compulsion and persuasion go together, but the 'lion's share' of all the results achieved by civilisation is due to compulsion. Parliamentary government is a mild and ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Stuyvesant should build up, alter and repair the Company's property was his duty. For the consequent loss or profit he will ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... you, Paul, even although it may drive you mad. It'll alter everything, everything! I've found out something. To-day, to-day——" The tones of her voice had changed, and there was a mad intensity which he could not understand. She had grown calmer, too, and her body had become ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... patient," she said, with feeling; "and I hate to be a brute. Yet what is there to do? I can't alter my resolution. And I can't bear to refuse you when you talk to me like that. So—you must forgive me if I take a brusque way of ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... the educational issue first has been already indicated. We can all get to work on it at once for ourselves, and it is a far more fundamental and, in some respects, easier thing to introduce a new idea into the minds of others than to alter the boundaries and political conditions of States. If we once achieved a general atmosphere of co-operation and goodwill in the world, the practical problems would be already more ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... with him, whereas he found the cheerful indifference of his mother a trifle unprincipled. At times his thoughts would run about thus: "It is bad enough that I am as I am, and will not and cannot alter myself, negligent, refractory, and intent on things that nobody else thinks of. At least it is proper that they should seriously chide and punish me for it, and not pass it over with kisses and music. After ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... suit. I was nervous, but he was even more nervous; yet in the moment of looking up he had not seemed nervous. He could not do enough, apparently, to make me feel at ease, and to show his appreciation of me and my work. He spoke enthusiastically of The Jest, begging me neither to suppress it nor to alter it. And, without the least suggestion from me, he offered me a considerable sum of money in advance of royalties. At that time I scarcely knew what royalties were. But although my ignorance of business was complete, I guessed that this man was behaving in a manner highly ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... human rights. To secure these rights, says the Declaration of Independence, "Governments were instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;" and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to substitute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." The Government of this country, in common with ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... serious proposal to alter our numeral system and to count by twelves. Thus 10 would be twelve, 11 thirteen, etc., two new symbols being invented for ten and eleven. The names of numbers must of course be changed. There are persons who think such changes practicable. I thought this proposal absurd when I first ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... modified accordingly. The invasion of the loyal States might have been altogether prevented, or it might have been rendered even more disastrous. Speculations of this kind as to movements which could have been made, are not of much value, inasmuch as they cannot alter the irrevocable past. Military operations are subject to so many contingencies, that it is impossible to conjecture with any certainty what results might have followed a different plan of campaign. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... house not less beautiful than chaste and wise," a very commonplace way of mourning for a dead mistress. This seemed insufferable to the English translator. Faithful as he is throughout, he would not take upon himself to alter actual facts, yet he thought right to give a different account of his hero's feelings: "But lyke as he folowed the Emperoure so dyd Lucres folow hym in hys sleep and suffred hym no nygtes rest, whom ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... the appointed day, exactly as I would send for a ticket-porter at home, and determined to make the best of it. The wild unlimited sands, the desolation of the Dead Sea, the rushing waters of Jordan, the outlines of the mountains of Moab;—those things the consular tariff could not alter, nor deprive them of the ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope
... Turkish, the Prophet is styled Peigshamber: the French, whose vanity induces them to alter and vilify every proper name not derived from their own language, persist in spelling it Pegchamber: this, however, seems so ludicrous, when we consider the exalted rank of the individual to whom it is applied, that the reader will exclaim involuntarily ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... "It don't alter the case of the three pounds," grumbled Vance. "What's her grandfather to me, that I should give his grandchild three pounds, when any other child in the village would have leaped out of her skin to have ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... useless for you to attempt to justify your conduct, for it was simply inexcusable. No argument can possibly alter that fact. Everyone was waiting about for a considerable time in the supper-room, desirous of drinking your health, while you, it transpires, were hiding in a corner with this very questionable foreigner whom ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... to alter his novel after its publication, to condense it, to add to it, to modify or to heighten its situations, and otherwise so to change it that to all outward appearance it is practically a new book? I leave this point in literary ethics to the consideration ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Such attacks it was for the two deputations to make. The duty of those who claim to advise you here was to discuss the situation impartially, and to inquire, in an uncontentious spirit, what course is best in your interests. {2} As it is, if one could alter the fact that they are known to us, and that they speak the dialect of Attica, I believe that many would imagine that those on the one side actually were Arcadians, and those on the other, Spartans. For my part, I see plainly enough the difficulty of offering the best advice. For ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... except that in cloth. His addition of one-seventh to the ordinary price of copper, so that his money-changers gave only 180 ounces of that metal, instead of 210, for one-sixth of an ounce of gold, seems rather to have been the result of ignorance than of fraud and avarice; since he did not alter the gold coin, in which alone all public and private payments were made. At this time, the geographical knowledge of the Romans, respecting what had formerly constituted a portion of their empire, must have ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... sixty years old, methodical in his habits, punctilious in his dress, polite in his demeanour, and precise in his language. He wore a high collar of such remarkable stiffness that his shoulders had to turn with his head whenever it was necessary to alter his position. This gave an appearance of respectability to the head, not to be acquired by any other means. It was, indeed, the most respectable head I ever saw either in the flesh or ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... (although somewhat hemmed in on the east) a position unique amongst churches.[57] "The only and as it happened unsurmountable Difficulty remaining was the obstinate Averseness of great Part of the Citizens to alter their old Properties, and to secede from building their Houses again on the old Ground and Foundations"; and as rebuilding began almost as soon as the smoke of the Fire had ceased, and long before anything definite could be decided upon, a great opportunity was lost. The estimated three-quarters ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... decided against us, dear Traverse. Let us bend gracefully to a decree that we cannot annul! It cannot, at least, alter our sacred relations; nor can anything on earth shake our steadfast faith in each other; let us take comfort in that, and in the thought that the years will surely roll round at length and bring the time that shall ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... treading under foot of all glistering beauty of vain ceremonies. Next, no power or liberty must be permitted to any, of what estate, degree or authority they be, either to live without the yoke of discipline by God's word commanded, or to alter one jot in religion which from God's mouth thou hast received. If prince, king or emperor would enterprise to change or disannul the same, that he be the reputed enemy to God, while a prince who erects idolatry must be adjudged to death. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... find me just the same as now! Yes, I think I can promise THAT. Let that suffice. You said the other day you liked me because I had not changed for five years. You can surely trust that I will not alter ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... settled these little matters, as I was fast approaching my fortieth year, I began to alter my style, and live in a manner more befitting my rank and revenues; yet I still held much aloof from all ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Alter per Turquescen, et per Persiam, tamen ibi sunt deserta plurium dietarum, in quibus nisi esset ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... straightened on the farther wall a framed portrait in colour of Majestic Folly, a prize bull of the Hereford strain. Then he drew a curtain, flicked dust from a corner of the table, and made a slow way to the kitchen door, pausing to alter slightly the angle of a chair ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... which to defend her sex of the present generation from the sarcasm of Mr. Plomacy. She had once declared, in one of her warmer moments, "that now-a-days the gentlemen were all women, and the ladies all men." She could not alter the debased character of the age. But, such being the case, why should she take on herself to cater for the amusement of people of such degraded tastes? This question she asked herself more than once, and she could only answer herself with a sigh. There was her own brother ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... livres each. All ecclesiastical communities and hospitals were now prohibited from investing money at interest, in anything but India stock. With all these props and stays, the system continued to totter. How could it be otherwise, under a despotic government that could alter the value of property at every moment? The very compulsory measures that were adopted to establish the credit of the bank hastened its fall; plainly showing there was a ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... exercise as he likes without damaging himself on the very plain and serviceable upholstery. If anybody would only contrive some kind of a lever that one could thrust in among the works of this horrid automaton and check them, or alter their rate of going, what would the world give for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... 121. His more correct designation would be Marcus Antoninus, but since he bore several different names at different periods of his life, and since at that age nothing was more common than a change of designation, it is hardly worth while to alter the name by which he is most popularly recognised. His father, Annius Verus, who died in his Praetorship, drew his blood from a line of illustrious men who claimed descent from Numa, the second King of Rome. ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... He found his solution by peopling the world with invisible forces, anthropomorphic in their conception, like himself in their thought and action, differing only in the limitations of their powers. His own dream existence gave him seeming proof of the existence of an alter ego, a spiritual portion of himself that could dissever itself from his body and wander at will; his scientific inductions seemed to tell him of a world of invisible beings, capable of influencing him for good ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... wondering where he should be that time to-morrow, or whether possibly Mr Webster would alter his mind, and send ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... done," such was the matter of M. du Chatelet's discourse. "The Court was less insolent that this pack of dolts in Angouleme. You were expected to endure deadly insults; the superciliousness you had to put up with was something abominable. If this kind of folk did not alter their behavior, there would be another Revolution of '89. As for himself, if he continued to go to the house, it was because he had found Mme. de Bargeton to his taste; she was the only woman worth troubling about in Angouleme; he had been paying court to her ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... would keep her word and, to prevent greater mischief, he informed her that the violinist Massi was commissioned to take her son to Spain to rear him in his wife's native place until his Majesty should alter his plans ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... execute with our vocal apparatus in order to emit certain definite sounds. If, through practice, we become able to hear the words without opening our mouths and (what is much more difficult) to hear the sounds by running the eye down the page of the music, all this does not alter anything of the nature of the writings, which are altogether different from direct physical beauty. No one calls the book which contains the Divine Comedy, or the portfolio which contains Don Giovanni, beautiful in the same sense as the block of marble which contains Michael Angelo's ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... not alter the matter. It won't change, and you've got to choose in which of the three ways I have suggested you will ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... pain at finding him in October, 1660, sitting as a judge at the Old Bailey, trying and condemning to death batches of the regicides, men under whose orders he had himself acted, who had been his colleagues in parliament, with whom he had sat on committees to alter the ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... remember quite well now," said Mrs. Hornby. "How fortunate that you reminded me. We must alter that answer at once." ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... think of censuring Ottawa's noble women, their conduct is not so servile or dependent as the unfair critic would like to paint it. We must not forget, the truth of the little by-word, that "circumstances alter cases," what is perfectly justifiable in Ottawa would be "abominably atrocious" in ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... gives you a misleading impression of space, the actual size of the pleasaunce being about two hollyhocks by one, but it is the correct word to describe the air of neglect which hangs over the place. However, I am going to alter that. ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne |
