"Dictate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... numerous, if not too generally understood also, to be discussed here afresh; and upon them, men of all sections and of all creeds based firmest faith that, so soon as Europe understood that the separation was permanent and a regular government had been organized, the power of cotton alone would dictate immediate recognition. The man who ventured dissent from this idea, back it by what reason he might, was voted no better than an idiot; if, indeed, his rank disloyalty was ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... provided for those priests who left the Catholic Church.[16] As regards lay Catholics further measures were taken to encourage the children of Catholic parents to become Protestant by ordaining that in such a case the Court of Chancery could interfere and dictate to the father what provision he must make for such children. Similarly wives of Catholics were encouraged to submit by the promise that the Court of Chancery would interfere to safeguard their interests. Stringent regulations were made to ensure that all pretended ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... resolution was returned to the House of Representatives with this observation from the Governor: "I see no place in the organic law, that vests the Council and House of Representatives with the right to dictate to the Executive in the discharge ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh
... may describe the office of the brain as that of averaging the interests of life, physical, intellectual, moral; and a good brain is one in which the desires answering to these respective interests are so balanced, that the conduct they jointly dictate, sacrifices none of them. Similarly, we may describe the office of a Parliament as that of averaging the interests of the various classes in a community; and a good Parliament is one in which the parties answering to these respective interests ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... extravagant expressions of admiration and fondness that his heart could dictate, and accompanied them with the warmest embraces. All which warmth and tenderness she returned; and tears of love and joy gushed from both their eyes. So ravished indeed were their hearts, that for some time they both forgot the dreadful ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... such was the rectitude of the primitive state, that reason was subject to God, and the lower powers to reason. Now the virtues are nothing but those perfections whereby reason is directed to God, and the inferior powers regulated according to the dictate of reason, as will be explained in the Treatise on the Virtues (I-II, Q. 63, A. 2). Wherefore the rectitude of the primitive state required that man should in a sense possess ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... to start with," Lindsay answered, with an irascible air, as if he intended to take this time to finish the young man's case, "that I am in the habit of consulting my attending physicians, and not having them dictate to me—" ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... presence of some to whom she could speak without restraint; and yet this was an indulgence she found it prudent to wait for. Immediately on her arrival she caused these few lines, unsigned, to be forwarded by a faithful hand to Madame Campan:—"I dictate this from my bath, by which my bodily strength at least may be recruited. I can say nothing of the state of my mind. We exist: that is all. Do not return till summoned by me. This is very important." It was not till seven or eight weeks ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... the force of these considerations, he did not lose sight of those fundamental principles of good faith which dictate that every practicable exertion ought to be made, scrupulously to fulfil the engagements of government; that no change in the rights of its creditors ought to be attempted without their voluntary consent; and that this consent ought to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... their acknowledgments of dependence and obligation to Him who hath endowed them with these capacities and elevated them in the scale of existence by these distinctions; as it is likewise a plain dictate of duty and a strong sentiment of nature that in circumstances of great urgency and seasons of imminent danger earnest and particular supplications should be made to Him who is able to defend or to destroy; as, moreover, the most precious interests ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... the right to search any ships carrying the American flag, the distrust of the foreign Liberals was not removed. They inclined to stand aside and to allow the commercial classes of France and England to dictate policy toward the United States. The blockade, by shutting off the European supply of raw cotton, on both sides the channel, was the cause of measureless unemployment, of intolerable misery. There was talk in both countries of intervention. Napoleon, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... of Africa when smallpox breaks out in a kraal, that kraal is surrounded by guards and its inhabitants are left to recover or perish, to starve or to feed themselves as chance and circumstance may dictate. During the absence of the smallpox laws the same plan, more mercifully applied, prevailed in England, and thus the evil hour was postponed. But it was only postponed, for like a cumulative tax it was heaping up against the country, and at last the hour had come for payment to an authority whose ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... righteousness, and consent to be led to the Registry or even to the altar, they insist on first arriving at an explicit understanding that both parties are to be perfectly free to sip every flower and change every hour, as their fancy may dictate, in spite of the legal bond. I do not observe that their unions prove less monogamic than other people's: rather the contrary, in fact; consequently, I do not know whether they make less fuss than ordinary people when either party claims the benefit of the treaty; but the existence of the treaty ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... literature is looking up. Thank you, I will take sugar in mine." It was "Boston" who indited letters of congratulations from H. W. Longfellow, Tennyson, and Browning, to Mr. Chubbuck, deposited them in the Sierra Flat post-office, and obligingly consented to dictate ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... informed of the smallest events of their lives. He possesses a calendar of their births; he records their chronology and the succession of generations; he has noted their methods of work, examined their diet, and recorded their meals. He discovers the motives which dictate their peculiarities of choice; why the Cerceris, for instance, among all the victims at its disposal, never selects anything but the Buprestis and the weevils. He is familiar too with their tactics of warfare ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... old woman. Whether he wanted to marry the girl or not, he certainly did not wish, at this stage of the game, to make it impossible. The wise plan was to leave the situation open in every direction, so that he could freely advance or freely retreat as unfolding events might dictate. So he turned in the direction of the Severence house, walked at his usual tearing pace, arrived there somewhat wilted of collar and exceedingly dusty of ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Cowperwood. Stener was Cowperwood's tool. Mollenhauer and Senator Simpson were strong rivals of Butler for the control of city affairs. Simpson represented the Republican control of the State legislature, which could dictate to the city if necessary, making new election laws, revising the city charter, starting political investigations, and the like. He had many influential newspapers, corporations, banks, at his beck and call. Mollenhauer represented the Germans, some Americans, and ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... magistrate, "write as follows:" And in a monotonous voice he began to dictate the prescribed formula, an unnecessary proceeding, for the clerk was quite as familiar with it as the magistrate himself:—"On the 16th of October, 186-, at nine o'clock in the morning, in compliance with the request of the servants ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... that the finding of the court of inquiry and the views of this Government thereon be communicated to the Government of Her Majesty the Queen Regent, and I do not permit myself to doubt that the sense of justice of the Spanish nation will dictate a course of action suggested by honor and the friendly ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... intimation from our companions of their advisability,—in fact, their absolute necessity. We pause aghast! Ah! the renewed shouts of laughter from those merry, but more timorous damsels, who, from their secure surroundings,—those becoming barriers adopted at the dictate of Parisian caprice and retained with feminine pertinacity,—had poked fun ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... change is coming over us. We have suddenly taken to reading books, and while they are not always the best books, they are better than newspapers. And now a young business man feels that it is distinctly to his advantage if he can dictate a thoroughly good letter to his superior or to a well informed customer. Good letters raise the tone of a business house, poor letters give the idea that it is a cheapjack concern. In social life, well written letters, ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... and CENSORS OF BOOKS, was a bold invention, designed to counteract that of the Press itself; and even to convert this newly-discovered instrument of human freedom into one which might serve to perpetuate that system of passive obedience which had so long enabled modern Rome to dictate her laws to the universe. It was thought possible in the subtlety of Italian astuzia and Spanish monachism, to place a sentinel on the very thoughts as well as on the persons of authors; and in extreme cases, that ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... mariner, strove valiantly with the task of putting the island into a state of defence, and when at last the long-expected armada of their foes rose above that distant blue horizon in the north all had been done that skill and experience could dictate. ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... what hostility against all eminence, what rancour against all glory. Not only kingly power offends them, but every other; and they talk of putting to the sword, as if it were the quietest, gentlest, and most ordinary thing in the world. The knaves even dictate from their stools and benches to men in armour, bruised and bleeding for them; and with school-dames' scourges in their fists do they give counsel to those who protect them from the cart and halter. In the name of the Lord, I must spit outright (or worse) ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... queen of the Llotta; a strange mixture of cruelty and tenderness, of cold hatred and the longing for love. A dual personality hers, susceptible to the deepest emotion or to utter lack of feeling as the mood might dictate. ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... accepted fact that the class interest of slavery, by holding a tie in the Senate, could defeat any measure or any nomination to which its leaders might be opposed; and thus, banded together by an absolutely cohesive political force, they could and did dictate terms. A tie-vote cannot carry measures, but it can always defeat them; and any combination of votes that possesses the negative power will in the end, if it can be firmly held, direct and control the positive action of the body to which it belongs. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... said Stephano, "it is not for me to dictate nor to advise. But as I always entertain an esteem for a man with whom I have measured weapons—and as I have somehow formed a liking for your lordship—pardon my boldness—I should recommend you not to remain in Florence on account ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... for her to dictate terms. She hasn't got to face the very upright and honourable gentleman whom, she calls the Dragon, whereas I have; and I've already shamed myself by asking for large sums at short intervals. I simply can't go to him here and "hold him up" for four thousand francs. It would ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... is a family story of great pathos. It does not obtrusively dictate its lesson, but it quietly introduces, and leaves it within ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... the same oracular power to a large black stone by the sea-shore, which they approached with certain solemnities, and considered the first fancy which came into their own minds, after they did so, to be the undoubted dictate of the tutelar deity of the stone, and, as such, to be, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... ignorance, the degradation, the servility of the slaves, and of the non-slaveholding whites of the South, and of the corresponding classes in the Free States. It is through this ignorance and servility that the slaveholders manage to dictate to ecclesiastical bodies, to have power to control pulpits, presses, Colleges, Theological Seminaries, and Missionary and Tract Societies." To keep the blacks and non-slaveholding whites in ignorance is, doubtless, ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... friends by the countless graceful acts as host, and shown to his players. As soon as a Fitch play began to be a commodity, coveted by the theatrical manager, he nearly always had personal control of its production, and could dictate who should be in his casts. No dramatist has left behind him more profoundly pleasing memories of artistic association than Clyde Fitch. The names of his plays form a roster of stage associations—the identification of "Beau Brummell" with ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... sense of aiming at. And now do you not think that if we had burning in our hearts, and conscious to our experiences, the sense of union with Jesus Christ the risen Saviour, that would shape the direction and dictate the aims of our earthly life? As surely as the elevation of the rocket tube determines the flight of the projectile that comes from it, so surely would the inward consciousness, if it were vivid as it ought to be in all Christian people, of that risen life throbbing within the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... enough worry to drive an ordinary man out of his mind. I never heard of such difficulties as those he has to meet. We come to help a people who won't help themselves, to fight for people who not only won't fight for themselves, but want to dictate how we shall fight. Instead of being fed by the country, we have to feed it; and the whole object of the Juntas, both in Spain and Portugal, seems to be to throw every difficulty in our way, and ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... his compliance with its advice. And on what important matters was that advice offered! The King complained that his prerogative was openly infringed by it; that Parliament wished to decide on his alliances with other sovereigns, and to dictate to him how to conduct the war; that it brought under debate questions of religion and state, and the marriage of his son: what portion of the sovereign power, he asked, was left to him? On the competence which Parliament ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... in Congress, resorted to a similar procedure in that national body. At this time there was almost a pitched battle between the slave States and the free commonwealths, each one endeavoring to develop more strength than the other in the effort to dictate the policy of the nation with reference to the States to be formed out of the remaining western territory. Lincoln did not take any active part in the discussion of slavery during the first session of his service in Congress, but he always voted against ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... some of those unwritten exploits of the Army," I darkly hinted: "I'll bet I can find a brilliant historiographer not a hundred miles away from the 'Three Nuns' who could dictate a few of 'em that would fairly make the Daily Mail turn green with ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... with high mud walls and no doorway; the prisoner was hoisted up and lowered down through an aperture in the roof. He was condemned to be burnt alive on the following morning for some imaginary offence, while Sali and Fowooka were to be either pardoned or murdered, as circumstances might dictate. Sali was a great friend of Rionga, and determined to rescue him; accordingly he plied the guards with drink, and engaged them in singing throughout the night on one side of the prison, while his men burrowed like rabbits ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... he agreed, "but since we have the opportunity of these few moments' conversation, Nora, there is one thing I wish to say to you. I place no embargo upon your friendship with Mr. Crawshay. I do not presume to dictate to you even as to the subjects of your conversation with him. Tell him what pleases you. Talk to him about me, if you will—you will find him always interested. But there is one thing. If your lips should ever breathe ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he said, "is young and foolish, with little presence and still less mental power. When I was with him at Asti, treating of important matters, his councillors spent their time eating and playing cards in his presence. Sometimes he would dictate a letter by one man's advice, and then withdraw it at the suggestion of another. He is haughty and ill-mannered, and when we were together, he has more than once left me alone in the room like a beast, to go ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... hastened across the hall, where her creche was built up on a carved bench. The poor little Lady Elinor had no mother, and her father, the count, had been gone for several days; and while in the castle were no end of serving men and women and retainers, yet none of these presumed to dictate to the little mistress, and so she had put her creche together in a ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... "Dictate what you please, Mr. Dorriforth, and I will write it," said she, with a warmth like the most unaffected inclination. "And while you, Sir," she continued, "are so indulgent as not to distress me with the importunities ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... treat me rudely, and perhaps refuse my prayer at this time. I go first to Burey, to persuade my uncle Laxart to go with me, it not being meet that I go alone. I may need you in Vaucouleurs; for if the governor will not receive me I will dictate a letter to him, and so must have some one by me who knows the art of how to write and spell the words. You will go from here to-morrow in the afternoon, and remain in Vaucouleurs until ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... represented gained him an audience where men who wrote for one paper only were repulsed on the threshold. Senators, governors, the presidents of great trusts and railroad systems, who fled from the reporter of a local paper as from a leper, would send for Keating and dictate to him whatever it was they wanted the people of the United States to believe, for when they talked to Keating they talked to many millions of readers. Keating, in turn, wrote out what they had said to him and transmitted it, without color or bias, to the clearinghouse ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... Mr Balfour, on which I am ill qualified to converse with you," answered Morton; "but I own I should strongly doubt the origin of any inspiration which seemed to dictate a line of conduct contrary to those feelings of natural humanity, which Heaven has assigned to us as the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... where I forget, he could dictate Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his memoirs.... Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village Than be second in Rome; and I think he was right when he said it. Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many times after; ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... immediately taken up by Mr Shepherd, whose interest was involved in the reality of Sir Walter's retrenching, and who was perfectly persuaded that nothing would be done without a change of abode. "Since the idea had been started in the very quarter which ought to dictate, he had no scruple," he said, "in confessing his judgement to be entirely on that side. It did not appear to him that Sir Walter could materially alter his style of living in a house which had such a character of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... dictate to us," Mrs. Steadman declared vehemently, after Mrs. Burrell had gone to speak to Mrs. Watson and Aunt Kate. Mrs. Steadman had a positive dread of having any person "dictate" ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... a man of wit, who is never easy but where he can be allowed to dictate and preside; he neither expecteth to be informed or entertained, but to display his own talents. His business is to be good company, and not good conversation, and therefore he chooseth to frequent those who are ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... his discourse was concluded, he paused for our reply, which we made with equal gravity in English; upon this he betrayed great impatience at his harangue having been lost upon us, and supposing that we could, at all events, read, he called to his secretary, and began to dictate a letter. The secretary sat down before him with all due formality, and having rubbed his cake of ink upon a stone, drawn forth his pen, and arranged a long roll of paper upon his knee, began the ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... outrages were committed by the fanatical leaders of the North, though he regretted the Union, said, "Fight to the death for our liberty." I say so, too. I want to fight until we win the cause so many have died for. I don't believe in Secession, but I do in Liberty. I want the South to conquer, dictate its own terms, and go back to the Union, for I believe that, apart, inevitable ruin awaits both. It is a rope of sand, this Confederacy, founded on the doctrine of Secession, and will not last many years—not five. The North Cannot subdue us. We are too determined to be free. They have no right ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... at a distant point, and Bonaparte wanted to send them an important order. Whilst loading his cannon, he called aloud to an under-officer to whom he might dictate the dispatch. A young man hastened to the call, and said he was ready to write. Upon a mound of sand he unfolded his pocket-book, drew out of it a piece of paper, and began to write what Napoleon, with a voice above the cannon's roar, was dictating to him. At this very moment, as ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... turned slightly under his hand, "those little speeches sound very well, but we both understand each other perfectly. You want my services in this case; you must have them; and I am willing to render them; but it is useless for you to dictate terms to me. I will undertake the case in accordance with your wishes, but only upon ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... Our own conscience doth dictate so much unto us, we know there is a God and nature doth inform us; Nulla gens tam barbara (saith Tully) cui non insideat haec persuasio Deum esse; sed nec Scytha, nec Groecus, nec Persa, nec Hyperboreus dissentiet (as Maximus Tyrius the Platonist ser. 1. farther adds) ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... attempt to retreat, he might draw the animal after him, or stumble upon it—not knowing its direction. It was to ascertain its whereabouts that he had stopped and stood listening. That once known, he might keep his place, or lake to flight—as circumstances should dictate. ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... satisfies me. My life can never extend to twenty years.(328) Anyone that saw me this moment would not take me for a Methusalem. I have not strength to dictate more now, except to add, that if Mr. Nicholls has seen my narrative about Chatterton, it can only be my letter to Mr. Barrett, of which you have a copy; the larger one has not yet been out of my own house. Yours ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... government with expense of blood and spirit, and had settled down to the compromise of 1688. In Shakespeare's day there was also, of course, some movement toward fixity of ideas, and there were great men who strove to convert others to their ideas and to dictate belief and conduct. But there was a breathing spell in which, comparatively speaking, men were not alike, but individual, and in which their motives and ideas revelled in a freedom from ancient precedent. In this era of flux ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... him—to the old Saxon laws of Alfred and of Athelstan, which he called the customs of his grandfather. In a matter of trial for heresy, or a question of doctrine, he was the obedient servant of Rome; but when the Pope laid officious hands on the venerable customs of England, and strove to dictate in points of state law, he found no obedient servant in ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... much to be able to respond heartily and cheerfully to his appeal, but she could not. Her heart refused to dictate hopeful words, and her tongue could not have uttered them. She sat silent and grave while her brother was speaking, and when he ceased she hardly knew whether she were glad or not, to perceive that, absorbed ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... fine artistic effects. I can believe that both intensity and dignity may be gained by this sacrifice of the plainer human responsibilities, although I am not prepared to say at what loss of other qualities. It is clear that such a writer will not allow the public to dictate to him the nature or form of his lyric message, and he will have to depend for success entirely on the positive value of ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... least let us lead the lives of the fish that populate this liquid element, or better yet, the lives of amphibians, which can spend long hours either at sea or on shore, traveling through their double domain as their whims dictate! ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... of the Church, the Roman Catholic hierarchy is a Bolshevik democracy in comparison. The Church is controlled by an absolutely irresponsible self-perpetuating body of five men, who alone dictate its policy. I have in my hand a letter from a Christian Science healer who was listed as an "authorized practitioner", and who withdrew from the Church because of its attitude on public questions. He sends me a copy of his ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... to how far and how wisely a man may abase himself before another, whether that other claim divine authority or not. For this is the true problem which confronts us as a nation, and all else is insignificant beside. We have found out who are the real rulers here, who dictate politics and public action with no less authority than they speak upon religion and morals, It was only the other day that a priest, one of our rulers, declared that he would not permit a political meeting to be held in his diocese and this fiat was received with a submission which showed how accurately ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... although I have thus alluded to what would most gratify my own wishes, it was not intended to dictate to you the manner in which you might promote my interest. If your Lordship's superior judgment and greater knowledge of the world can suggest anything else for my consideration, it ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... patriarchal, barbarian and civilized. Under these general heads may be classed the various social forms through which man has progressed up to the present day. If four have existed may not a fifth, or even a sixth, be discovered and organized? Common sense would dictate that there could, although the world has entertained ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... longer held at rates above their real value. At the present period an additional reason exists for adopting the measure recommended. When the country is engaged in a foreign war, and we must necessarily resort to loans, it would seem to be the dictate of wisdom that we should avail ourselves of all our resources and thus limit the amount of the public indebtedness to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... playing the artistic game of "five points." A more difficult pastime was never invented. The materials necessary are simply a piece of paper and a pencil: it is their use that is extraordinary. A person puts five dots on the paper in whatever position fancy may dictate: on this slight foundation another is expected to design a figure, the puzzle being to include all the marks given. One that I saw had four of the dots placed unusually close together, and the fifth in a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... of a couple of dozen fellows willing to earn a dishonest living if a five-pound note had been locally put upon his head. A patriotic philanthropist, destitute of the bowels of compassion and of every dictate of humanity, might have saved a great deal of undeserved suffering if he had made this donation towards his 'removal'—a pretty euphemism of ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... this we placed rugs and laid the man; and between two mules he was borne by the Gauchos slowly homewards to the estancias. Poor wretch! he had expected to come here all but a conqueror, and in a position to dictate his own terms—he arrived a ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... covering I might think best to wear. Were my history known, my name would be the theme of every tongue, the derision of the stoical, the pity of the simple, and exposed to the ridicule of a heartless and unfeeling world. The head must dictate and govern my actions, all else submitting. Yet nothing can equal the wretchedness of trying to conceal with smiles the bitter struggles of a wounded spirit, whose every hope hath perished. Eye may not pierce through the laughing ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... should prove right! Oh, if you should prove right! Death! I'd find a way to settle the score of that pert fellow from France, and to dictate terms to his lordship at the ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... Pompeius was hardly ever, even provisionally, in earnest with the collegiate scheme. His was one of those petty and mean natures, towards which it is dangerous to practise magnanimity; to his paltry spirit it appeared certainly a dictate of prudence to supplant at the first opportunity his reluctantly acknowledged rival, and his mean soul thirsted after a possibility of retaliating on Caesar for the humiliation which he had suffered through Caesar's indulgence. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... hair-splitting theory based thereon. His platitudes about the danger of misplacing reinforcement in an arch are hardly warranted. If the depth and reinforcement of an arch ring are added to, as the inelastic, hinge-end theory would dictate, as against the elastic theory, it will strengthen the arch just as surely as it would strengthen a plate girder to thicken ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... you have enlisted in the King's service, the men who are to serve under me—men who do not serve, but dictate, and this before the enterprise that has brought me from France is even under way! What explanations do you offer me, M. de Cussy? I warn you that I am not pleased with you. I am, in fact, as ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... conceived the idea of suppressing the system of Abbanship, thinking that, as the Somali had access to Aden without any impost, Englishmen ought to enjoy a corresponding freedom to travel in Somali Land. This perhaps was scarcely the right time to dictate a policy which would be distasteful as well as injurious (in a monetary sense) to the people among whom we were about to travel, and with whom it was highly essential to our interest to be on ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... suffered when you were born and because I 've suffered since with every ache you ever had, that that gives you the right to dictate to me now? [In a dead voice.] I've been unhappy enough and I shall be unhappy enough in the time to come. [Meeting the hard wonder in Joy's face.] Oh! you untouched things, you're as hard ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... federal supremacy over the National Guard. In supporting the right of the Secretary of the Army to dictate racial policy to state guards in 1948, the National Guard Committee adopted a position that would haunt it when the question of integrating the guard came up again in the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Thanksgivings, Offerings and Sacrifices, it is a Dictate of naturall Reason, that they be every one in his kind the best, and most significant of Honour. As for example, that Prayers, and Thanksgiving, be made in Words and Phrases, not sudden, nor light, nor Plebeian; but beautifull and well composed; For else we do not God as much honour ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... to him instantly, now, before I leave the room, and you shall dictate the letter to him. By heavens, you shall!" He had dropped her hands when she called him violent; but now he took them again, and still she permitted it. "I have postponed it only till I had spoken to ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... begs to thank Mrs Jones for asking him to tea at six sharp, when he will be very pleased to fall in with her wishes and be of service in any other way her better feelings may dictate." ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... coy maiden, Ease, when courted most, Farthest retires—an idol, at whose shrine Who oftenest sacrifice are favoured least. The love of Nature and the scene she draws Is Nature's dictate. Strange, there should be found Who, self-imprisoned in their proud saloons, Renounce the odours of the open field For the unscented fictions of the loom; Who, satisfied with only pencilled scenes, Prefer to the performance of a ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... ordered wrongs, and who went everywhither with a high head a-boasting that he followed after his own thinking and his own desire,—why, that young fellow also is now silenced and dead. For the well-thought-of Count of Poictesme must be as the will and the faith and as the need of others may dictate: and there is no help for it, and no escape, and our old appearances must be preserved upon this side of the window in order that we may ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... few hours to think it over. I have some important messages to dictate." Glotz rang a bell and two guards appeared. They stepped up beside Stan ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... reserved for such a woman. Perhaps that reserve had been her answer to his plainly shown respect. Just because of her position, he had been even more respectful to her than he was to other women, following in this a dictate of his temperament. What would she be like in the unreserve of a ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... to reject; and that in this discretion is wrapped up another—that of prescribing the terms and conditions of admission in case you are willing to admit: "Cujus est dare ejus est disponere." I will not for the present inquire whether this involved discretion to dictate the terms of admission belongs to you or not. It is fit that I should first look to the nature ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... not dictate these letters, what did? Could it be ambition? So astute a man as Chesterfield, who was kept well informed as to the impression made by his son, could hardly suppose it likely that the boy would make a name for himself, and thereby confer distinction upon the family of which he ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... wishes me to do this, and there is no concealed humorism in your request which I am too dull to fathom, you must accompany me to my study and dictate the document I am to indite. I shall wait till you bid farewell to ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... with the increasing influence of his journal. He became unduly self-sufficient; he undertook not only to lay down a policy for the guidance of the constitutional responsibilities of the government, but to dictate methods for the campaigns. The Tribune articles headed "On to Richmond!" while causing irritation to commanders in the field and confusion in the minds of quiet citizens at home, were finally classed with the things to be laughed at. In the later years of the War, the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... Empowered by modern technology and emboldened by success, terrorists seek to dictate the timing of their actions while avoiding our strengths and exploiting our vulnerabilities. In an increasingly interconnected and technologically sophisticated world, where time and distance provide less and less protection, we must be ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - February 2003 • United States
... another. Yes, I know; and I'm as sorry as you are this should have come here," tapping the body with his cane. "The next best thing for me is not to recognise it; and," he added coolly, "I don't. You may, if you please. I don't dictate, but I think a man of the world would do as I do; and I may add, I fancy that is what K—— would look for at our hands. The question is, Why did he choose us two for his assistants? And I answer, Because he didn't ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... requires practice," he muttered. "Here, Bert, you're cleverer with your fingers than I. You take it, and I'll dictate." ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... addressed them, saying, 'Ye mighty creatures, I have been commanded by the deities and the Pitris to question you about the mysteries of religion and duty. I desire to bear you discourse on that subject in detail. Ye highly blessed ones, do ye discourse on the subject as your wisdom may dictate.' ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... conscience," (it is astonishing how exemplary Thorne felt in administering the rebuke); "that rests with your conscience," he repeated, "and with that I've nothing to do. The existence of such reports—which lays your conduct as a married woman open to censure—gives me the right to dictate the terms of our legal separation. I'm obliged to speak plainly, Ethel. You brought about the issue, and must abide by the consequences. I've stated my terms and it's for you to ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... dictate you a letter,' she said. 'Far be it from me to interfere, and I don't pretend to know more about this sort of thing than anybody else. At the same time, if you'll take it down just as I tell it, and send it off, you'll find ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... of them undertake to justify a Marriage between a Boy and a Girl, though without the Privity, and against the Consent of their Parents; if the Contract be (as they phrase it) in Words of the present Tense. And yet that Position is neither according to the Dictate of Nature, the Law of Moses, or the Doctrine ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... on the table, she hid her face in them, and sobbed as though her heart would break. Curtis placed a hand on her shoulder, and strove to calm her with such commonplace phrases as his dazed brain could dictate, but she wept bitterly, just as a child might weep if disappointed about the non-fulfillment of some object on ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... sir," said General Bachmann; "and it is usual for conquerors to dictate their terms before they enter a captured city. In the name of our general, Count Tottleben, I have to communicate to you what sum we demand from you as a war contribution. This demand amounts to four millions of ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... these Chiricahua leaders, having deliberately broken their treaty, and known to be incorrigibly criminal, have been at least confined where they could neither incite nor lead more murderous raids? It was neither a dictate of humanity nor of true statesmanship to set them loose with arms in their hands. One of the essential steps in the civilization of any tribe is to demonstrate that crimes are to be ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various
... experienced demagogue comes along and says, "Sir: you are the dictator: the voice of the people is the voice of God; and I am only your very humble servant," he says at once, "All right: tell me what to dictate," and is presently enslaved more effectually with his own silly consent than Coriolanus would ever have enslaved him without asking his leave. And the trick by which the demagogue defeats Coriolanus is played on him in his turn by his inferiors. ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Nature has worked, constantly improving her models, adding to and changing as experience would seem to dictate! She has developed her higher and more complex forms as man has developed his printing-press, or steam-engine, from rude, simple beginnings. From the two-chambered heart of the fish she made the treble-chambered heart of the frog, and then the four- chambered heart of the mammal. The first ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... that office no longer. The heat was becoming so great that perspiration streamed down the faces of those present. Doctor Bonamy had begun to dictate a report of the examination of La Grivotte to one of the seminarists, while Father Dargeles, watchful with regard to the phraseology employed, occasionally rose and whispered some verbal alteration in the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... newer names than ours. Few of us count; the lumbering British or Dutch cattle our race was bred from, even in these brief generations, have become decadent and barren; we are even passing from a fashion which we have neither intellect to sustain nor courage to dictate to. It's the raw West that is to be our Nemesis, I think.... 'Mix corpuscles or you die!'—that's what I read as I run—I mean, saunter; the Malcourts never run, except to seed. My, what phosphorescent perversion! One might almost mistake it for philosophy.... But it's only the brilliancy ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Cadenabbia with his saws. He's close-mouthed. All you need to do is to keep quiet. You can spend the night at the villa with me, and I'll give you a few ideas about shooting a pistol. Here; write what I dictate." He pushed Abbott over to the desk and forced him into the chair. Abbott wrote mechanically, as one hypnotized. The colonel seized the letter. "No flowery sentences; a few words bang at the mark. Come up to the villa as ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... hardly two of the flock agree. It is the rarest little oracle! Apollo himself might envy its adroitness in the utterance ambiguities. One man says that the doctrine of "future life" is undoubtedly a dictate of the "religious sentiment,"—one of the few universal characteristics of all religion; another declares his "insight" tells him nothing of the matter; one affirms that the supposed chief "intuitions" of the "religious ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... That it has its dangers those who have studied it most closely are most aware, but these dangers will exist in any case, and if those who ought to guide are silent, these perils will be encountered without the safeguards which experience would dictate and prudence suggest. It seems to me that it would be difficult to do better service in this direction than to strengthen the hands of those who have for many years past been trying to rationalise the consideration of the ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... principle itself to another place, as has been already mentioned, it will be sufficient to remark here that, in the sense of the author who has been most emphatically quoted upon the occasion, it would only dictate a reduction of the SIZE of the more considerable MEMBERS of the Union, but would not militate against their being all comprehended in one confederate government. And this is the true question, in the discussion of which we are at ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... again no more we meet, No more our former looks repeat; Then, let me breathe this parting prayer, The dictate of my bosom's care: "May Heaven so guard my lovely quaker, That anguish never can o'ertake her; That peace and virtue ne'er forsake her, But bliss be aye her heart's partaker! Oh! may the happy mortal, fated [i] To be, by dearest ties, related, For her, each hour, new joys ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... except when I screamed. In that I was not an Automaton. I was myself in that particular; and the more restraint they put upon me, the more freedom I had. I cried independently of all my aunts and cousins. They could n't dictate me ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... every reformation, the interest of individuals has been our principal, if not our only impediment. We could not at once deprive so large a body of our fellow-servants of their bread, without feeling that reluctance which humanity must dictate,—not unaccompanied, perhaps, with some concern for the consequence which our own credit might suffer by an act which involved the fortunes of many, and extended its influence to all their connections. This, added to the justice which was due to your servants, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... the foundation of the intended structure. Now, the question naturally suggests itself, Whence does this ancient and invariable usage derive its origin? Why may not the stone be deposited in any other corner or portion of the edifice, as convenience or necessity may dictate? The custom of placing the foundation-stone in the north-east corner must have been originally adopted for some good and sufficient reason; for we have a right to suppose that it was not an arbitrary selection.[116] ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... you allow that I've won and that it's up to me to dictate terms. If my uncle were ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... political parties are dangerous to any nation, no matter how pure or how patriotic the motives and principles which first bring them together. No political party can or ought to exist when one of its corner-stones is opposition to freedom of thought and to the right to worship God "according to the dictate of one's own conscience," or according to the creed of any religious denomination whatever. Nevertheless, if a sect sets up its laws as binding above the State laws, wherever the two come in conflict this claim must be resisted and suppressed ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a question of logic, such as I here had before me, was peculiarly one on which the propagator of a new religion could not be allowed to dictate; for if so, every false system could establish itself. Let Hindooism dictate our logic,—let us submit to its tests of a divine revelation, and its mode of applying them,—and we may, perhaps, at once find ourselves necessitated to "become little children" in a Brahminical school. Might not ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... am, therefore, with such a favourable opinion of my associates in this undertaking, it would ill become me to dictate to any of them. But as these institutions have so often failed in other nations, and as it is natural to think with regret how much might have been done, and how little has been done, I must take leave to offer a few hints, by which those errors may be rectified, and those defects supplied. These ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... is white, it is not black: but it does not follow that if it is not black, it is white: because negation extends further than affirmation. And hence too, that one ought not to do harm to another, which pertains to the negative precepts, extends to more persons, as a primary dictate of reason, than that one ought to do someone a service or kindness. Nevertheless it is a primary dictate of reason that man is a debtor in the point of rendering a service or kindness to those from whom he has received ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... prison, and subsequently for the gallows. And so, you see, you are talking childishly when you dangle these threats and preliminaries to immediate execution before my eyes. It is not you, but I, who will dictate the terms on which we part. It may perhaps interest you to explain this new phase of the situation to your fellow-countrymen, and the matter will also serve to dissipate the few minutes which yet have ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... the case, which I can hardly conceive, I presume your own feelings will dictate to you the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... always hung lighted outside of the tent door. All evidence pointed to the four men from Tumbang Djuloi who recently left us. The sergeant had noticed their prahus departing from a point lower down than convenience would dictate, and, as a matter of fact, nobody else could have done it. But they were gone, we were in seclusion, and there ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... trade unionism. Even in the early sixties we find not a few unions, national and local, limiting their hours by agreement with employers. The national unions, however, for the most part left the matter to the local unions for settlement as their strength or local conditions might dictate. In some cases the local unions were advised to accept a reduction of wages in order to secure the system, showing faith in Steward's theory that such reduction ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... "I'll dictate to you," said Aglaya, coming up to the table. "Now then, are you ready? Write, 'I never condescend to bargain!' Now put your name and the ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... but we may justly consider it a breach of the political convenances which are expected to regulate the intercourse of one well-bred government with another, when men holding places in the ministry allow themselves to dictate our domestic policy, to instruct us in our duty, and to stigmatize as unholy a war for the rescue of whatever a high-minded people should hold most vital and most sacred. Was it in good taste, that I may use the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... not. Only thy life will I give thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.(38) But there is still more conclusive evidence. That Baruch had not been associated with Jeremiah before 603-4 is a fair inference from the fact that the Prophet had to dictate to him all his previous Oracles. Now it is striking that up to that year and the introduction of Baruch as Jeremiah's scribe, we have few narratives of the Prophet's experience and activity—being left in ignorance as to the greater part of his life under Josiah—and that these few narratives—of ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... God to lead them in their way and they will brook no authority or restraint. They will give their money, but they want to dictate how it shall be spent. They will work as long as you let them please themselves, but let any pressure come and you immediately run up against, not the grace of resignation, but a letter of resignation, withdrawing from some important trust, and arousing a whole community of criticising ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... this, having counted upon an instant surrender which would enable him to dictate his own terms. 'I don't want to frighten you,' he said sulkily: 'I only want you to see that I don't mean to be trifled with!' He had followed her to the window, meaning to induce her to return, but all at once he stepped back hastily. 'There's some one coming,' ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey |
