"Dictum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... desirable in the interests of the English Church at the present time. I am not one of those who think that the points at issue between Anglo-Catholics and Anglo-Protestants are trivial: history has always confirmed Aristotle's famous dictum about parties—[Greek: gignontai ai staseis ou peri mikron all' ek mikron, stasiazousi de peri megalon]—but I do not so far despair of our Church, or of Christianity, as to doubt that a reconciling principle must and will be found. Those who ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... smiled blandly and turned to explain this dictum to his clan. And the dazed Miss Bailey saw the anger and antagonism die out of the faces before her and the roses above them, heard Mr. Borrachsohn's gentle, "We would be much obliged if you will ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... superba, crudelia barbaros nequivisse pati; alii autem equites illos Gn. Pompeii veteres fidosque clientes voluntate ejus Pisonem aggressos; numquam Hispanos praeterea tale facinus fecisse, sed imperia saeva multa ante perpessos. Nos eam rem in medio relinquemus. De superiore conjuratione satis dictum. ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... ready himself to supply what was deficient." Mr. CARR has in his time played many parts. He made a start at the Bar, but did not get further than the position of a Junior, which suited him admirably. As a critic, he cannot plead in extenuation the dictum of DISRAELI that critics are those who have failed in Literature and Art. He has written several successful plays, was English editor of L'Art, was among the founders of the New Gallery, and remains established as one of our best after-dinner speakers. Of such ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... Lecompton convention was legally constituted and had exercised its powers faithfully. The organic act did not bind the convention to submit to the people more than the question of slavery. Meantime the Supreme Court had handed down its famous decision in the Dred Scott case. Fortified by this dictum, the President told Congress that slavery existed in Kansas by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. "Kansas is, at this moment, as much a slave State as Georgia or South Carolina"! Slavery, then, could be prohibited only by constitutional provision; ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... he had chafed bitterly at his own enforced silence: he would have given all he possessed in the world for the right to warn Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse that a wolf was prowling in the fold under cover of the night. He had seen Lady Sue's eyes brighten at the dictum that she was to remain behind—they told him in eloquent language the joy she felt to be free for two days that she might ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... alias dictum fuit quod Francia per mulierem desolaretur, et postea per Virginem restaurari debebat?" Evidence given by Durand Lassois in ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... prove the reasonableness and utility of any course of action which is required of boys as of mature men. Persuasion has, in other words, taken the place of command, and there is nobody left whose dictum owes much of its weight to his years or his office. Boys as well as their elders now expect advice to be based on personal experience, and do not listen with any great seriousness or deference to admonitions ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... d'une chose qui servit a vous pour le corriger on pour le jeter au feu. Nous autres grands auteurs, nous sommes trop riches pour craindre de rien perdre de nos productions. Mandez-moi ce qu'il vous semble de ce dictum." ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... the Arabs, notorious for parsimony, gave ten gold pieces for one of his songs. Other poets have come down to us by name, and Joseph Ezobi, whom Reuchlin calls Judaeorum poeta dulcissimus, went so far as to extol Arabic beyond Hebrew poetry. He was the first to pronounce the dictum famous in Buffon's repetition: "The style is the man himself." Provence, the land of song, produced Kalonymos ben Kalonymos (Maestro Calo), known to his brethren in faith not only as a poet, but also as a scholar, whose Hebrew translations from the Arabic are of most important works ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... in his own mind. Friendly critics excuse him: an interpretation of the Dred Scott decision which explained it away as an irresponsible utterance on a subject outside the scope of the case, a mere obiter dictum, is the justification which is called in to save him from the charge of insincerity. His friends, today, admit that this interpretation was bad law, but maintain that it may have been good morals, and that ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... dictum without asking for the reason. She sat for a moment disconsolately thoughtful. Then ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... vocabulary becomes exhausted, and they speedily breathe their last in the oft-repeated tale that the "old-fashioned sailor is an extinct creature," and, judging from the earnest vehemence that is thrown into it, they convey the impression that their dictum is to be understood as emphatically original. Well, I will let that go, and will merely observe how distressingly superficial the knowledge is as to the rearing, training, and treatment which enabled those veterans ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... Ward did not translate describes the genesis of Democritus Platonissans. More writes that after finishing Psychathanasia, he felt a change of heart: "Postea vero mutata sententia furore nescio quo Poetico incitatus supra dictum Poema scripsi, ea potissimum innixus ratione quod liquido constaret extensionem spacii dari infinitam, nec majores absurditates pluresve contingere posse in Materia infinita, infinitaque; Mundi duratione, quam in infinita Extensione spacii" ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... which would benefit those who were deprived, or outcast, or bereft. But Theodore was too young and too energetic to be contented with the life of a philanthropist, no matter how noble and necessary its objects might be. He had already accepted Emerson's dictum: ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... that "as the great mathematicians and metaphysicians represent the aristocracy of human intellect so the great religious geniuses represent the aristocracy of human emotion." There is nothing new in this claim, neither is there any evidence of its truth. Coleridge's dictum that the proper antithesis to religion is poetry is open to serious objection, but there is more to be said for it than may be said for the antithesis set up by Prof. Thomson. As a matter of fact, religious geniuses have often pursued their work with as much attention ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... dogma that Kings can do no wrong is based on a dictum of Hincmar Archbishop of Rheims, viz., that kings are subject to no man so long as they rule by ...
— 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.
... history, who was John, brother german to King David II., son of Robert Bruce? David II., in a charter to the Priory of Rostinoth, uses these words: "Pro salute animae nostrae, etc., ac ob benevolentiam et affectionem specialem quam erga dictum prioratum devote gerimus eo quod ossa celebris memoriae Johannis fratris nostri germani ibidem (the Priory) humata quiescunt dedimus, etc., viginti marcas sterlingorum, etc." Dated at Scone, "in pleno parliamento nostro tento ibidem decimo die ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... ourselves, and in others festering into faults. Woman's position and ambitions, the home, the amusements, and the satisfactions of life, are very different in Germany from ours. I note these as facts, not as inferiorities. I note, too, that in Germany, as elsewhere, Hegel was profoundly right in his dictum, that everything earned to its extreme becomes its contrary. Too much caution may become a positive menace to safety; too much orderliness may result in individual incapacity for sell-control; just as liberty rots into license, and demos descends ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... saplings on this, radiating like the others. As the wood burns away, shove the sticks in toward the center, butts on top of each other as before. This saves much chopping, and economizes fuel. Build a little wind break behind you and lie close to the fire. Doubtless you have heard the Indian's dictum (southern Indians express it just as the northern ones do): 'White man heap fool; make um big fire—can't git near; Injun make um little fire—git close. ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... the imprudence of certain men who, for the sake of putting on the appearance of wit, controvert the feminine dictum, that the figure is preserved by meagre diet. Women on such a diet never grow fat, that is clear and positive; do ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... trade-unionist for the militia is the hatred of a class for a weapon wielded by the class with which it is fighting. No workman can be true to his class and at the same time be a member of the militia: this is the dictum of the ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... child seems to be such a vase, unspeakably beautiful, filled with knowledges and integrities more precious than gold and pearls. "Let him who would be great select the right parents," was the keen dictum of President Dwight. ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... said will serve to elucidate and emphasize the necessity of perfect cleanliness, inside as well as outside of the body. It justifies the dictum of Kuhne, the apostle of Nature Cure: "Cleanliness is Health." Anything that in any way interferes with or obstructs the circulation of vital fluids and nerve currents in the system is bound to create the abnormal conditions and ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... comfort of his company, and treats them as he should do, while another company is neglected and left solely to the care of the sergeants, there will necessarily be envy and ill feeling. The regiment will cease to be a unit. I may say, gentlemen, that this is the dictum not of myself, but of Marshal Turenne, who was my instructor in the art of war, and who followed out the better system from the time that he was a boy of fourteen until now. The result is that his regiment is the finest in the service. It will be my aim and ambition to raise the ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... writers, or Fathers, as they are often called, came thus to be considered not only as surpassing all other men in piety, but also as excelling them in wisdom. Their dictum was looked upon as final. This eminent position they held for many centuries; indeed, it was not until near the period of the Reformation that they were deposed. The great critics who appeared at that time, by submitting the Patristic works to a higher analysis, comparing them with ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... between the Nile and the Red Sea. The first is a passage of Pliny the Elder, which asserts that Ptolemy Philadelphus only carried the canal to the bitter lakes. "Ex quo navigabilem alveum perducere in Nilum, qua parte ad Delta dictum decurrit, sexagies et bis centena mill. passuum intervallo, (quod inter flumen et Rubrum mare interest,) primus omnium Sesostris Aegypti rex cogitavit: mox Darius Persarum: deinde Ptolemaeus sequens: qui et duxit fossam latitudine pedum centum, altitudine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... other proofs; but I contend that they do not go far enough. I am still strongly of opinion that when the divine Manco returns to us he will come in the guise of one of ourselves, an Indian of the blood-royal; and therefore I must refuse to accept the dictum of my Lord Tiahuana that the young white man is the re-incarnation of the first Manco, the founder of our nation." ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... Perhaps in his own dictum, that genius is never quite sane, gives a partial explanation of many of his fantastic schemes. The question of money was his great preoccupation and anxiety, and possibly his pecuniary difficulties, and the strain of the heavy ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... with salt. But if words are neither useful to the speaker, nor necessary for the hearer, nor contain any pleasure or charm, why are they spoken? For words may be idle and useless as well as deeds. And besides all this we must ever remember as most important the dictum of Simonides, that he had often repented he had spoken, but never that he had been silent: while as to the power and strength of practice consider how men by much toil and painstaking will get rid even of a cough or hiccough. And silence is not only never thirsty, as Hippocrates ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... point of beauty in a Japanese maiden, and then asks the usual questions as to whence I came, whither I am going, and to what country I belong. These, according to the Japanese code of etiquette, are all polite questions; and in return, violating no dictum which the purists of Kioto or Yeddo have laid down, I inquire her age ("Your honorable years, how many?"). The answer, "Ju-hachi," makes known that she is eighteen years of age. Chatting further, I learn what things there are to be seen in the neighborhood, whether ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... that fecundation or impregnation is always an electrical phenomenon; ... it results from the completion of an electric circle,—the union of positive and negative electricities.' This, however, is not accepted by all as the dictum of modern science. Physiology has clearly established that the new being is the result of contact between the male element, an independent, living animal, on the one part, and the female element, a matured egg, on the other, involving the union of the contents ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... intelligendis illud consumere opus non sit. [Eheu! quantas strages paravere verba nubila, quae tot dicunt ut nihil dicunt;—nubes potius, e quibus et in rebus politicis et in ecclesia turbines et tonitrua erumpunt!] Et proinde recte dictum putamus a Platone in Gorgia: os an ta onomata eidei, eisetai kai ta pragmata: et ab Epicteto, archae paideuseos hae ton onomaton episkepsis: et prudentissime Galenus scribit, hae ton onomaton chraesis tarachtheisa kai taen ton ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... tragic Melpomene, with more matter than spirit, and on the other side by the comic Thalia, with more spirit than matter, it came to pass that, oscillating between the two, he remained neutral and inactive, rather than operative. Finally, the dictum of the censors, who, restraining him from that which was high and worthy, and towards which he was naturally inclined, sought to enslave his genius, and from being free in virtue they would have rendered him contemptible ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... spicing the chocolate. In ancient recipes we read of the use of white and red peppers, and the addition of hot spices was defended and even recommended on purely philosophical grounds. It was given, in the strange jargon of the Peripatetics, as a dictum that chocolate is by nature cold and dry and therefore ought to be mixed with things ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... The dictum in question is generally quoted as an educational formula in favour of giving every one what is called a sound general education. And it is probably one of the contributory causes which account for ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... extraordinarily gifted author, a perfect versifier, a wondrous lyrist, and a delicious raconteur, endowed with a grace, ease and power of expression that delighted even the exacting artistic sense of Turgenev. To him aptly applies the dictum of Socrates: "Not by wisdom do the poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration." I do not mean to convey that as a thinker Pushkin is to be despised. Nevertheless, it is true that he would occupy a lower position in literature did his reputation depend upon his contributions ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... that same extraordinary assortment of visitors at the Marshall house, one of the University co-eds had said facetiously that you met there every sort of person in the world, from spiritualists to atheists—everybody except swells. The atheist of her dictum was the distinguished and misanthropic old Professor Kennedy, head of the Department of Mathematics, whose ample means and high social connections with the leading family of La Chance made his misanthropy ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... 'O Yudhishthira, the virtuous fowler, eminent in pity, then skilfully addressed himself again to that foremost of Brahmanas, saying, "It is the dictum of the aged that the ways of righteousness are subtle, diverse and infinite. When life is at stake and in the matter of marriage, it is proper to tell an untruth. Untruth sometimes leads to the triumph of truth, and the latter ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... loco dictum in eos, qui non facile, non sine gravi labore ac difficultate consequi possent, quod peterent, sive qui ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... the court who was listened to with most attention by his brethren was Sir Stephen James, who had made a European reputation by his studies in criminal law. His works on the subject were in every library, and his mere dictum carried almost as much weight as a decided case. When it began to be evident that he was going in the prisoner's ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... Italy's population have to go to the colonies of Spain, France, and Britain or to South American republics for a livelihood? The Italian press asked whether the Supreme Council was bent on fulfilling the Gospel dictum, "Whosoever hath, to ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... who admit the authority of the famous Vincentian dictum that the doctrine which has been held "always, everywhere, and by all" is to be received as authoritative, the demonology must possess a higher sanction than any other Christian dogma, except, perhaps, those of the ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... make the most of these perishable commodities while they were at their best, and the particular make and colour of them were in fashion. The Count was rich—and with amply sufficient brains, according to the dictum of one of his predecessors, to govern a kingdom; but he was not warlike; and Charles, who had lately taken the power into his own hands, knew nothing of mankind further than that they were made to be drawn ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... seen upon the noses of persons who wear spectacles. But he wore no spectacles, though the imprint between his laughing, dancing eyes was said to have been caused by glasses—soda water glasses which were continually tipped up against his nose in obedience to the dictum that a scout shall ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... whate'er we see possessing sense Must yet confessedly be stablished all From elements insensate. And those signs, So clear to all and witnessed out of hand, Do not refute this dictum nor oppose; But rather themselves do lead us by the hand, Compelling belief that living things are born Of elements insensate, as I say. Sooth, we may see from out the stinking dung Live worms spring up, when, after soaking rains, The drenched earth rots; ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... time when, I read this passage. But I have been unable to find the expression. It is however but reasonable that I should refer to it on this occasion, that I may hereby shew so eminent a modern concurring with the venerable ancient in an early era of letters, whose dictum I have prefixed to this Essay, to vouch to a certain extent for the truth of the ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... society he marched in front like a pioneer of new times, attacking tentatively all that he encountered on his way. "Nobody was ever at one and the same time more factious and more dictatorial," is the clever dictum ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... old Aaron called his henchman into the middle of the street and spoke vigorous words that all the Honeycutts could hear. Then they rode to the Hawn store, and old Jason called his henchman out and spoke like words that all the Hawns could hear. And each old man ended his discourse with a profane dictum that sounded like the vicious ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... I hope the report is not true. Who wants peace yet? It would ruin the King's friends in the Colony." Des Meloises looked as statesmanlike as he could when delivering this dictum. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... chapter of his Narrative Sir Francis attempts to excuse himself for this senseless act. The reader who thinks it worth while to consult the rhetorical plea there attempted to be set up will recall Pembroke's dictum, in King John, that ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... within a baby's reach; children should be watched and taught not to place things in their mouths. Mothers should be specially cautioned not to give nuts or nut candy of any kind to a child whose powers of mastication are imperfect, because the molar teeth are not erupted. It might be made a dictum that: "No child under 3 years of age should be allowed to eat nuts, unless ground finely as in peanut butter." Digital efforts at removal of foreign bodies frequently force the object downward, or may hook it forward into the larynx, ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... its lessons to a large body of his countrymen, without distinction of party, for the plain reason that he is not removed from the mass of men by the profession of extraordinary faculties. He has no genius, unless we accept Goethe's dictum that genius is only the capacity for hard work; he has no ornamental accomplishments; in social intercourse he does not shine by wit, nor charm by humor, and we have too often to regret that tact seems to have been wanting among his natal gifts. In these respects he ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... seemed to involve more than a boundary dispute. To his mind it called into question the portion of Monroe's message which, in 1823, stated that "the American continents... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." According to this dictum, boundaries existed between all nations and colonies of America; the problem was merely to find these boundaries. If a European power refused to submit such a question to judicial decision, the inference must be made ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... is passing out of Christian life and preaching under humanistic influence. We are accepting the Socratic dictum that knowledge is virtue. Hence we blur the distinction between the Christian and the non-Christian. Education supplants salvation. We bring the boys and girls into the church because they are safer ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... talked about in private life. It is impossible altogether to approve of the Penciller—his absurdities were too marked, and his indiscretions too many—yet it is probable that few who have followed his meteor-like career will be able to refrain from echoing Thackeray's dictum: 'It is comfortable that there should ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... IV. 7. [2] The plants and trees.—Aristotle's rule for pure fable is that its dramatis personae should be animals only—excluding man. Dr. Johnson (writing upon Gay's Fables) agrees in this dictum "generally." But hardly any of the fabulists, from Aesop downwards, seem to have bound themselves by the rule; and in this fable we have La Fontaine rather exulting in his assignment of speech, &c., not only to the lower animals but to "plants and trees," &c., as well as otherwise defying ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... that "the further progress of thought 'must force men hereafter to drop the higher anthropomorphic characters given to the First {80} Cause, as they have long since dropped the lower'"; but since our guide, a few pages later, quotes with approval the dictum that "unless we cease to think altogether, we must think anthropomorphically," we may be pardoned for declining to believe that "the further progress of thought must force men hereafter" to "cease to think altogether." Such a suicide of thought would furnish an odd comment ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... not get rid of God by any such dictum, but we get rid of the anthropomorphic views which we have so long been wont to read into the processes of nature. We dehumanize the universe, but we do not render it the less grand and mysterious. Professor Moore points out to us how life came to a cooling ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... suited her. Her living room was one of those very narrow, very deep rooms so often seen in the New York side streets. It was done up in French gray and rose, as was the dictum of the moment. On the rose-brocaded walls were few pictures, but just the right ones. Gray enameled furniture and deep window-seats with rose-colored cushions provided resting-places, and soft rose-shaded lights gave a mild glow ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... this dictum, he removed a slab of cake from a near-by plate, steered it through the ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... plays a great part—the plays that we, in our "passion for calamity," are apt to consider the finest. "They belong," he remarked, "to an epoch of darkness; but how can fatality touch us to-day? Policy—that is fatality!" Napoleon's dictum is not very profound: policy is only the merest fragment of fatality; and his destiny very soon made it manifest to him that the desire to contain fatality within the narrow bounds of policy was no more than a vain endeavour to imprison in a fragile vase the mightiest ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... which prevail to-day; but I am far from agreeing with the dictum of Pope that "whatever is, is right." Had the world ever proceeded on that principle we would still be honoring robbers and liars, thieves and polygamists. The wider license accorded man harmonizes neither ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... duties which lay before each of us towards ourselves and towards our fellow-creatures, there was scope for spiritual energy and spiritual emotion. I was penetrated by Browning's great idea expressed over and over again—the expansion of Paul's dictum that faith is not certainty, but a belief without sufficient proof, a belief which leads to right action and to self-sacrifice. Of the 70 years of life which one might hope to live and work in, I had no mean idea. I asked in the newspaper, "Is life so short?" ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... thoughts that strike you the most, either in conversation or in books; and you will find that they owe at least half their merit to the turn and expression of them. There is nothing truer than that old saying, 'Nihil dictum quod non prins dictum'. It is only the manner of saying or writing it that makes it appear new. Convince yourself that manner is almost everything, in everything; ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... immediately after Ibsen's death, Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson, questioned as to what he held to be his brother-poet's greatest work, replied, without a moment's hesitation, Gengangere. This dictum can scarcely, I think, be accepted without some qualification. Even confining our attention to the modern plays, and leaving out of comparison The Pretenders, Brand, and Peer Gynt, we can scarcely call Ghosts Ibsen's richest or most human play, and certainly not his profoundest ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... studies Anne expanded socially, for Marilla, mindful of the Spencervale doctor's dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings. The Debating Club flourished and gave several concerts; there were one or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs; there were sleigh drives and ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... As long as our realisation is incomplete a division necessarily remains between things known and unknown, pleasant and unpleasant. But in spite of the dictum of some philosophers man does not accept any arbitrary and absolute limit to his knowable world. Every day his science is penetrating into the region formerly marked in his map as unexplored or inexplorable. Our sense of beauty is similarly engaged ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... au fond ni un revolutionnaire ni un anarchiste, mais un reformateur pratique et modere qui a fait illusion par le ton vibrant de ses pamphlets centre la societe capitaliste."]His hostility to religion, his notorious dictum that "property is theft," his gospel of "anarchy," and the defiant, precipitous phrases in which he clothed his ideas, created an impression that he was a dangerous anti-social revolutionary. But when his ideas are studied in their context and translated into sober language, they are not so unreasonable. ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... of the matter is," the Bishop pronounced, "that the people have accepted the dictum that whatever form of republicanism is aimed at, there must be government. A body of men who realise that, however advanced their ideas, can do but little harm. I am perfectly certain—Stenson admits it himself—that before very long we ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... has in the former case Acbalec Mangi, in the latter "Acmelic Mangi qe vaut dire le une de le confine dou Mangi." This is followed literally by the Geographic Latin, which has "Acbalec Mangi et est dictum in lingua nostra unus ex confinibus Mangi." So also the Crusca; whilst Ramusio has "Achbaluch Mangi, che vuol dire Citta Bianca de' confini di Mangi." It is clear that Ramusio alone has here preserved the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... sentiment, showing that one by one the shackles had been stricken from the limbs of woman until now she was making her final protest against tyranny and her last appeal for liberty. "What is meant," said he, "by this mysterious dictum, 'Out of her sphere?' It is merely a sentimental phrase without either sense or reason." He then proceeded to say that if woman had a sphere the privilege of voting was clearly within its limitations. There was no doubt in his mind as to woman's moral superiority, and the politics ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... days"), and Mr. Higginson quotes it: "No weight, nor mass, nor beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought." This is a proposition to which one would cordially subscribe if it were not so intemperately stated. A suggestive commentary on Mr. Ruskin's impressive dictum is furnished by his own volume of verse. The substance of it is weighty enough, but the workmanship lacks just that touch which distinguishes the artist from the bungler—the touch which Mr. Ruskin, except when writing prose, appears not much to have regarded either in his later ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... sort of camaraderie, of personal attachment, for Mark Twain during all the years before I came into personal contact with him. It was the dictum of a distinguished English critic, to the effect that Huckleberry Finn was a literary masterpiece, which first awoke in me, then a mere boy, a genuine respect for literary criticism; for here was expressed an opinion which I had long secretly cherished, but ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... though this young man at Menlo Park had done some wonderful things for telegraphy and telephony; even if he had recorded and reproduced human speech, he had his limitations, and could not upset the settled dictum of science that the internal resistance must equal ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... orderliness of British rule—had to be preserved in the vast spaces of the North and West of Canada. Thousands of potentially lawless men were surging through our mining country in the Yukon, challenging Canadian administration with the dictum that huge frontier mining camps had necessarily to be outlaw regions where every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And it became the duty of the Mounted Police to back the administration of law, to answer the challenge of lawless men, and to prove to them and to the ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... said that the nation which occupies Constantinople must dominate the world. The present occupants have proved that this dictum is, to say the least, an exaggeration, but there is no doubt that if Russia possessed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, her power, for defensive and offensive purposes, would be greatly increased, and she might seriously threaten our line ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... "Sardah" (Thardah), also called "ghaut"crumbled bread and hashed meat in broth; or bread, milk and meat. The Sardah of Ghassn, cooked with eggs and marrow, was held a dainty dish: hence the Prophet's dictum. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... to be poring over the great book (the cases of the parties) before him, he is in reality absorbed in his own calculations. Nevertheless, he from time to time starts up, and throws in a question, a dictum, or a lecture, just as if he had been ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the beginning of things a Trojan dictum that the revealing of emotion was the worst of gaucheries—Clare, Garrett, and Robin himself had been schooled in this matter from their respective cradles; and now the lesson must be ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... commencing conversation. It might indeed be supposed to refer to the course of Gluck's thoughts, which had first produced the dwarf's observations out of the pot; but whatever it referred to, Gluck had no inclination to dispute the dictum. ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... and Lilian's congratulations were alike perfect. Cicely wondered how people could ever have said the critical things of her which some of her acquaintances were unkind enough to say at times. As to Bisset's dictum regarding the lady in the castle, that was manifestly absurd on the face of it. Miss Cromarty was clearly overjoyed to hear of her ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... very case selected [180] by the advocate of the doctrine that labour bestowed upon manufacture, without any intervention of capital, can produce wages, proves to be a delusion of the first magnitude; even though it be supported by the dictum of Adam Smith which is quoted in its ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... thoughtful and discreet that he was not estimated at his value by the one so near him. This I have been told by men and women who should know. I lack the trial which should give wisdom to myself, but I am inclined to accept the dictum of these others. It must be ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... Flowers, who charged sixpence for each "draw"; Puss was turned out of a bag and chased by dogs, her chance being to reach and climb a group of trees near the river, known as the "Brocas Clump." Of the quotations, "a Yorkshireman hippodamoio" (p. 35) is, I am told, an obiter dictum of Sir Francis Doyle. "Striving to attain," etc. (p. 33), is taken not quite correctly from Tennyson's "Timbuctoo." Our crew were "a solemn company" (p. 57) is probably a reminiscence of "we were a gallant ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... over material conditions, by virtue of his intelligence and freedom, is also an important element which, in these studies, we should not depreciate or ignore. We must accept, with all its consequences, the dictum of universal consciousness that man is free. He is not absolutely subject to, and moulded by nature. He has the power to control the circumstances by which he is surrounded—to originate new social and physical conditions—to determine his own individual and responsible ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... fact that he never acquired an understanding of the dignity of Rome's language, that he was temperamentally un-Roman in his love for meretricious gaudiness and prettiness, might have worked incalculable harm on this school had his taste in the least affected it. But whether he withheld his dictum, or it was disregarded by the others, no influence of his can be detected in the literature ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... eminent respectability, ancient and honorable customs, and family connections of a highly desirable kind. It would be a point in Miss Falconer's favor if I found her conventionally established—a decided point. Along most lines I was in the dark concerning her, but to one dictum I dared to hold: no girl of twenty-two or thereabouts, more than ordinarily attractive, ought to be traveling unchaperoned about this ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... a success on behalf of Optimism by reporting that the patient had smoked a cigar in defiance of medical prohibitions. "Can't be much wrong with his eyes," said this one, "if he can smoke. You shut your eyes, and try!" Put to the proof, this dictum received more confirmation than it deserved, solely to secure an audience for the flattering ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... spite of Professor Huxley's dictum, is contributing a good deal to the general doctrine of evolution; for though Descartes and Leibnitz may have thrown out hints pointing more or less broadly in the direction of evolution, some of ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... these were rarely allowed them save as a special indulgence or a crying necessity. To most applications from this source the Admiralty opposed a front well calculated "to encourage the others." "If he has not men enough to proceed on service," ran its dictum, "their Lordships will lay up the ship." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1471—Capt. Boyle, 1 March 1715-6, endorsement, and numerous instances.] Faced with the summary loss of his command, their Lordships' high displeasure, and consequent inactivity and half-pay for an indefinite ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... dictum that one can judge of a nation pretty fairly by the position and treatment of its women. Kirtley had never, in America, heard anything about Deutschland in this light. But he soon found in Saxony that this was only ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... of wisdom. One knows not whether to admire more the justness of the thought or the exquisite finish of the diction. Few finer things have been said on the raison d'etre of tragedy from the time when Aristotle in the Poetics formulated his memorable dictum. The admirable rhythmical flow should be noted. There is a rare suppleness and strength in the verses; we could not put one line before another without destroying the effect of the whole; no verse stands out obstinately from its ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... Jew; Peter of Capua compares it to the Cross; Saint Eucher calls it wisdom, and there are other meanings. But meanwhile I forget how far we had gone. Oh! lasciviousness; we here have ample choice. Besides certain trees there is cyclamen, or sow-bread, which, according to an ancient dictum of Theophrastus, is symbolical of this sin because it was used in the preparation of love-philtres; the nettle, which Peter of Capua says is emblematic of the unruly instincts of the flesh; and the tuberose, a more ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... messages might conceivably be optional, whilst it is obligatory on all barristers, whether English or otherwise, to defer to the judge's interpretation of the law in every case—appeal afterwards being the only remedy. As to the dictum that "the two races are not equal and will not blend," it is open to the fatal objection that, having himself proved, with sympathizing pathos, how the West Indies are now well-nigh denuded of their Anglo-Saxon inhabitants, Mr. Froude would have us also understand that ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... should excite suspicion; this same dictum applies to all brightly colored jams and jellies, as the colors are usually produced by the addition of carmine or ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... toleration, and a quiet measure of approbation, possibly on the supposition, realized in the fruition of time, that such discussion might eventuate in the liberation of white men from the octopus of subserviency to the dictum of slavery which permeated every ramification of American society. I heard Hon. Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, sometime in the forties, while making a speech in Philadelphia, say: "Gentlemen, the question is not alone whether the Negroes are to remain slaves, but whether ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... smiled openly. "It is your surest hold upon her. I shouldn't cavil at it, if I were you. To Anne you are the sum total of human knowledge. Your dictum is the last word ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... say the facts on which you reason are universally admitted: a gratis dictum which I ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... expect these things it is not our province to predict. It is too early to pass final judgment on Professor Patten's dictum that inter-racial cooeperation is impossible without integration, and that races must therefore stand in hostile relations or finally unite. But it is perfectly apparent that we have a long way to travel before ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... any pre-revolutionary society, authority must be undermined, women introduced whenever it can lessen the efficiency of the organization. But once the revolution has won, then Lenin's dictum about entrusting men of administrative talent with the full authority of the dictatorship of the proletariat is to be followed. As Taine was translated into German, Hitler is likely, directly or indirectly to have studied Napoleon. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... who have found difficulty in reconciling the critical dictum that the "Paradise Lost" is to be devoutly admired throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical only when, losing sight of that vital ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... officer, though the caution not to express it is wise, as well as becoming to the modesty of youth. Lord Howe's advice to Codrington, to watch carefully all that passed and to form his own conclusions, but to keep them to himself, was in every respect more reasonable and profitable. But in fact this dictum of Nelson's was simply another instance of hating the French as he did the devil. The French were pushing independence and private judgment to one extreme, and ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... profession I would choose before it," said Rex. "I should like to end my life as a first-rate judge, and help to draw up a code. I reverse the famous dictum. I should say, 'Give me something to do with making the laws, and let ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... we are told that willy-nilly every sound, healthy person of either sex must get married or at least betake him or herself to the business of propagating the race. That at least is the essence of his singularly offensive dictum that since the celibacy of the Catholic clergy and of members of Religious Orders deprives the State of a number of presumably excellent parents, "if monastic orders and institutions are to continue, ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... concise recti," as old Joe used to say, we must give a word of advice to both sexes; and ye who groan under the torments of corns, ("bunions" is a nasty word, we always think of onions when we hear it,) attend to our dictum. If any thing imperatively demands that utility should be consulted before ornament in its construction, it is the covering of the foot; whoever goes hunting in a dancing-pump is a fool, and whoever dances in a shooting-shoe is a clodhopper. There can be no doubt that the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... sickness. I have studied his case some. His attitude toward disease is very much like his attitude in business. When he has been well and able to do his best, he has been in the past an autocrat in our businesses. If he said a thing would not go, or would go, his dictum was always accepted. He has a good deal of pride in having what he predicts turn out to be true. I have sometimes thought that he was willing to have things break down in order to demonstrate his infallibility as an oracle. He shows the same ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... historical sense in full measure without having ever, both literally and figuratively, wiped away the dust from original documents—that is, without having discovered and restored them for oneself. We need not interpret in the Jewish or etymological sense the dictum of Renan: "I do not think it possible for any one to acquire a clear notion of history, its limits, and the amount of confidence to be placed in the different categories of historical investigation, unless he is in the habit of handling ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... After this dictum, which passed muster as a joke from the play on the word "whist," several card-players were of the opinion that the reader's voice needed a rest, and on this pretext one or two couples slipped away into the card-room. But Louise, and the ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... any mere dictum of etiquette is the fundamental code of honor, without strict observance of which no man, no matter how "polished," can be considered a gentleman. The honor of a gentleman demands the inviolability of his word, and the incorruptibility of his principles; he is ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... bespattered all over, from the beginning of his political life to the present time, with attacks upon judicial decisions; I may cut off limb after limb of his public record, and strive to wrench him from a single dictum of the court,—yet I cannot divert him from it. He hangs, to the last, to the Dred Scott decision. These things show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity for which he adheres to this decision, and ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... my knowledge and experiences of later days lead me to endorse most heartily the well-known dictum of Lawrence Oliphant—namely, that when he saw people sitting down in a casual, irresponsible way to "get messages through a table," it reminded him of an ignorant child going into a powder magazine with a lighted match ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... man who can only talk commonplace, and act according to routine, has little weight. To speak, look, and do what your own soul from its depths orders you are credentials of greatness which all men understand and acknowledge. Such a man's dictum has more influence than the reasoning of an imitative or commonplace man. He fills his circle with confidence. He is self-possessed, firm, accurate, and daring. Such men are the pioneers of civilisation and the rulers ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... petunias, and the like? Having in mind the Duke of Argyll's assertion that "no bird can ever fly backwards,"[2] I have more than once watched these humming-birds at their work on purpose to see whether they would respect the noble Scotchman's dictum. I am compelled to report that they appeared never to have heard of his theory. At any rate they very plainly did fly tail foremost; and that not only in dropping from a blossom,—in which case the seeming flight might have been, as the duke maintains, an optical illusion merely,—but even while ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... this concluding dictum of hers one day in October. The doctor and his wife were away. Rilla was presiding over Jims' afternoon siesta upstairs, purling four and knitting one with ceaseless vim. Susan was seated on the back veranda, shelling beans, and Cousin Sophia was helping her. Peace and tranquility brooded ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... If Spinoza's dictum be true, that "a wise man's meditation is not of death but of life," then Andreyev is surely not a wise man. Some philosophers might have written their works even without a guarantee against immortality, though Schopenhauer, who exercised a influence on the young ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... shade. But the mere fact that these varieties are not known in the cities should not preclude their popularity in suburban and town gardens and in the country, where every householder is monarch of his own soil and can satisfy very many aesthetic and gustatory desires without reference to market dictum, that bane alike of the ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... prejudice with which the above noticed 'address' and 'resolutions' abound, we are well aware of the power and influence we have attempted to resist. The gentlemen named as officers of the 'Colonization Society' are men of high standing, their dictum is law in morals with our community; but we who feel the effect of their proscription, indulge the hope of ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison |
