"Invincibility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... civil war, and ruining the few districts which had escaped from its ravages. The direct command of the siege operations at Talifoo was intrusted to Yang Yuko, a hunchback general, who had obtained a reputation for invincibility; and when Tsen Yuying had completed his own operations he also proceeded to the camp before the Mohammedan capital for the purpose of taking part in the crowning operation ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... life. While it insists, for example, that the writer who expresses an opinion in its columns on the ludicrous inadequacy of the Promenade Concerts shall accept personal responsibility for that opinion, it allows views and opinions on such vital matters as the sovereignty of Parliament, the invincibility of Capitalism and the immorality of Trades ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... was dead. She began to feel that it would be hard to look Lord Nick in the face again. His other killings had often seemed to her glorious. She had rejoiced in the invincibility of her lover. ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... she had not. She had come because he was a tantalizing object, because she could not credit his invincibility, which was a challenge to her. She laughed, shrugging ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... the billiard-room. They were stupid and sleepy, but for three hours they were forced alternately to play and listen to the old man's anecdotes of the days when he fought and felled the grizzly. He seemed particularly anxious to impress his hearers with his ancient invincibility. ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... Pharsalia. The Romans probably thought it strong enough to subdue all the slaves in Italy, and Varinius sufficiently skilful to defeat their leaders and send them to Rome in chains. But they were to have a rough awakening from their dreams of invincibility, though some early successes of Varinius for a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... replied the king. "I am not as happy as you and those who are in favor of war. I do not believe in the invincibility of my army. I feel that we cannot be successful. There is an indescribable confusion in the affairs of the war department; the gentlemen at the head of it, it is true, will not believe it, and pretend that ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... Murakumo, afterwards known as Kusanagi-no-Tsrugugi, or the grass-cleaving sword, is considered the most precious and most highly to be honored, for it is the symbol of strength to this nation of warriors and the talisman of invincibility for the Emperor, while he holds it sacred in the ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... too little attention in modern studies of the subject: partly because it was clumsily handled by some of the probably innumerable and certainly undiscoverable meddlers with the Vulgate. The unpopularity of Lancelot and his kin is not due merely to his invincibility and their not always discreet partisanship. The older "Queen's knights" must have naturally felt her devotion to him; his "undependableness"—in consequence not merely of his fits of madness but of his chivalrously permissible but very inconvenient habit of disguising ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... reign of terror; and so complete was its success that half the population of a state was in headlong flight within two hours. It was, first, mysterious; secondly, deadly, and within a very few hours it had built up a reputation for invincibility. Judged on the basis of its first twelve hours' work alone, it was the most successful experiment of the war. Its effect on civilian morale was incalculable." (Strategic Lessons of the War of 1941-43.—U. S. ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... alienation, which is deeply injurious to both parties. The perils threatened by this unnatural relationship have long been contemptuously ignored by the West. But the blind confidence of the strong in their apparent invincibility has often led them, from their dream of security, into terrible ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... them; I therefore put my sole trust in my own strength of body and courage of soul." Another yet more broad answer was made to St. Olaus, King of Norway, by Gaukater. "I am neither Pagan nor Christian. My comrades and I profess no other religion than a perfect confidence in our own strength and invincibility in battle." Such chieftains were of ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... is an entirely different person," thought Nekhludoff, for the first time experiencing, after his former doubts, the to him entirely new feeling of confidence in the invincibility of love. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... of Tzernagora or the Black Mountain is deserving of our admiration and wonder, its future prospects afford a no less open field for doubt and speculation. So far all has gone well with her: the manly character of her people, and their apparent invincibility, have enlisted the sympathies of the world in her behalf, while identity of religion and race have procured for her the more tangible advantages of ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... more or less ease by means of his fists alone. And in this conviction he was not far wrong. Yet it must not be supposed that Jo Bumpus was a boastful man or a bully. Far from it. He was so thoroughly persuaded of his invincibility, that he felt there was no occasion to prove it. He therefore followed the natural bent of his inclinations, which led him at all times to exhibit a mild, amiable, and gentle aspect—except, of course, when he was roused. As occasion for being roused was not wanting in the South Seas in those ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... who, no matter what his uniform, no matter what his nationality, comes to you with tales of Germany's invincibility, prophecies that "the war will end in a draw," and so forth. If he is saying such things on his own account, he is a German propagandist, a spy, a paid liar, and should be reported and punished as such. If he is repeating them second hand, he is nothing but an ass, ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... enquiry respecting it, as perhaps no question, in the circle of philosophical research, has received more complete solution by the testimony of credible witnesses. He that shall attempt to controvert their evidence, will have need of all the effrontery and invincibility to truth that ever stamped the forehead or hardened ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... Go The Sowing of the Seed Old Clothes High Noon Obstacles Thought Force Opulence Eternity Morning Influences The Philosophy of Happiness A Worn Out Creed Common Sense Literature Optimism Preparation Dividends Royalty Heredity Invincibility Faces The Object of Life Wisdom Self-Conquest The Important Trifles Concentration Destiny Sympathy The Breath Generosity ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... league of other powers—not necessarily numerous—which together are stronger in industries, commerce, finance, and the military and naval arts than the aggressive and ambitious nation which heartily believes in its own invincibility and cherishes the ambition ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... the command of her armies, will you follow him to the high grounds of Boston, where, to an undisciplined, courageous, and virtuous yeomanry, his presence gave the stability of system, and infused the invincibility of love of country? Or shall I carry you to the painful scenes of Long Island, York island, and New Jersey, when, combatting superior and gallant armies, aided by powerful fleets, and led by chiefs high in the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... cloth was removed, and the table replenished with bottles and glasses. Then followed the usual round of toasts—"the health of the king,"—"the invincibility of British arms,"—"success to the present expedition,"—and, with many a deriding epithet, "confusion to the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... of the crest over which it runs for more than eighteen miles. The moral effect of this victory was to give the French the assurance that they could beat the Germans on their chosen battle ground and force them out of their deepest defenses into the open field. German invincibility had become ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... subdue them. It seems an absurd and arrogant faith. But there is this to be said. They remained just as convinced of their own strength after their appalling experience north of the Somme as they were when they shouted for Sir Edward Carson in the streets of Belfast. Men who believe in their invincibility the day after they have been driven back, with their wounds fresh and their bones aching with weariness, are men whom it will ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... and his men thought little of these things. The success which had attended their predecessors had inspired the English sailors with a belief in their own invincibility, when opposed to the Spaniards. They looked, to a certain extent, upon their mission as a crusade. In those days England had a horror of Popery, and Spain was the mainstay and supporter of this religion. The ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... His Majesty's arms had never been called in question; he congratulated the legislature on the capture of Martinique, and triumphantly alluded to the battle of Talavera, which had torn from the French that character of invincibility which they had imagined themselves to have possessed in the eyes of the world. He recommended the renewal of those Acts which were designed to enable the Executive to discharge its duty against dangers, which ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... "small fight" the Spaniards had learned a lesson, and might even entertain a doubt of their invincibility. But before the sun set there were more serious disasters. Much powder and shot had been expended by the Spaniard to very little purpose, and so a master-gunner on board Admiral Oquendo's flag-ship was reprimanded for careless ball-practise. The gunner, who was a Fleming, enraged with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... the national defense still declaimed with stern reiteration: "Not a foot's breadth of our country; not a stone of our fortresses!" and positively rejected all proposals of treaty based on territorial concessions. Faith in the invincibility of the republic was rooted as an indisputable dogma in the hearts of the French people. The victories and the commanding position of France from 1792 to 1799 were regarded as so entirely the necessary result of the Revolution, that a conviction ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... though wretched people were not lacking in that throng, people with sunken stomachs, and with hunger in their eyes, that spectacle inflamed not only their desire of enjoyment and their envy, but filled them with delight and pride, because it gave a feeling of the might and invincibility of Rome, to which the world contributed, and before which the world knelt. Indeed there was not on earth any one who ventured to think that that power would not endure through all ages, and outlive all nations, or that there ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... bitter Whig—a Whig, at least, as far as opposition to the war-party was concerned, that being the question which affected his own interest; and only on that question did he profess any British politics at all. He liked to infuriate Helstone by declaring his belief in the invincibility of Bonaparte, by taunting England and Europe with the impotence of their efforts to withstand him, and by coolly advancing the opinion that it was as well to yield to him soon as late, since he must in the end crush every antagonist, and ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... and intrepidity displayed by your Majesty's Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hugh Gough, his readiness to carry on the service in cordial co-operation with the Governor-General, and the marked bravery and invincibility of your Majesty's English troops, have overcome many serious obstacles, and the precautions taken have been such that no disaster or failure, however trifling, has attended the arduous efforts of your ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... a gun, and the only place where he seemed formidable was behind a typewriter. Now he sat looking, down into the dead face of Pete Glass, trying to grasp the meaning of it all. From the first he had been with Pete, from the first the invincibility of the little dusty man had been the chief article of Billy's creed, and now his dull eyes, bleared with thirty years of clerical labor, wandered around on the galaxy of dead men who looked down at him from the ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... many affirm that the results to which such reasoning as that I have adduced would lead are themselves conclusive against its force. But that is scarcely a fair mode of judging of the strength and invincibility of any argument, far less one touching interests so momentous in character. To give the objection its greatest force it may be said, "If suffrage be the right of all men, why is it not also the right ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... armies, but to their very rashness, to their audacity even, and the hesitancy, cautious and deliberation of the government. Napoleon owed his successes as general and civilian far more to the air of power he assumed, and the conviction he produced of his invincibility in the minds of his opponents, than to his civil or military strategy and tactics, admirable as they both were. But the government believed it wisest to adopt a conciliatory and, in many respects, a ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... audacity, a courage of a similar description, perhaps we may say an equal invincibility, in the charms of those Tom and Jerry hats when duly put on, over a face of the proper description—over such a face as that of the Lady Crinoline. They give to the wearer an appearance of concentration of pluck. But as the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... All the traits which have been collected of Catherine II. penetrate one with admiration for her as a sovereign; and I know not whether the Russians are not more indebted to her than to Peter I. for that fortunate persuasion of their invincibility which has so much contributed to their victories, The charm of a female tempered the action of power, and mingled chivalrous gallantry with the successes, the homage of which was paid to her. Catherine II. had, in the ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... otherwise, that walked upon two legs, that he could not pommel to death, with more or less ease, by means of his fists alone. And in this conviction he was not far wrong. Yet it must not be supposed that Jo Bumpus was a boastful man or a bully. Far from it. He was so thoroughly persuaded of his invincibility that he felt there was no occasion to prove it. He therefore followed the natural bent of his inclinations, which led him at all times to exhibit a mild, amiable, and gentle aspect,—except, of course, when he was roused. As occasion ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... am." Even now with Adam's piercing eyes upon him, he had a feeling of invincibility; as if, aloof in the aerial sphere in which he seemed to float, he could ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... the tide of French victory, and broke the spell of Louis' invincibility. The loss at that battle was something more than men and fortresses. It was prestige, and that self-confidence which had made the great King believe that nothing could resist his purposes. It was a new sensation for him to bend his neck, and to ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele |
