"Noble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in his honor in New York in 1906, the late Alexandre Guilmant complained that no organ that he had played in this country possessed majesty of effect. The advent of Hope-Jones has entirely changed the situation. Tertius Noble, late of York Minster, England, who has just come to this country, asserts that organs can be found here equal to or superior to any built in England, and the celebrated English organist, Edwin Lemare, pronounced the reeds at Ocean Grove, N. J., the ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... how much more I've done than I ought, or how much less! It's torment, to think of the horrible thing I've done—oh, if it could only be undone! (looking down street) Look, though,—there he comes! To be decked out like that, the noble fellow! ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... extent of my happiness quite, or the entire conversion of my dear noble enemy of the previous morning. It must have been galling to the pride of an elder man to have to yield to representations and objections couched in language so little dutiful as that I had used towards Mr. Lambert. But the true Christian gentleman, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and in this noble eulogy he has given us the most wonderful and original account extant of the "summum bonum." We may divide it into three parts. In the beginning of the short chapter we have Love CONTRASTED; in the heart of it, we have Love ANALYZED; toward the end, ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... noble things,' dear, but hard to do them 'all day long.' My own feeling is, if one reaches the results one is struggling for, and does one's work as well as it lies in one to do it, that keeping boarders is as good ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... from flippancy. It is, in fact, tedious from the noblest motives and wearisome through its good intentions. Yet the story itself is not an uninteresting one. Quite the contrary. It deals with the attempt of a young doctor to build up a noble manhood on the ruins of a wasted youth. Burton King, while little more than a reckless lad, forges the name of a dying man, is arrested and sent to penal servitude for seven years. On his discharge he comes to live with his sisters in a little country town and finds that his real punishment ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... instructions of a father were always communicated, and with what rapture he dwelt upon the early discoveries of that elevated and generous character, by which my friend is so eminently distinguished. Never did the noble marquis refuse a single request of this son, or frustrate one of the wishes of his heart. His last prayers were offered for your prosperity, and the only thing that made him regret the stroke of death, was the anguish he felt at parting with ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste. But Zeus in the anger of his heart hid it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him; therefore he planned sorrow and mischief against men. He hid fire; but that the noble son of Iapetus stole again for men from Zeus the counsellor in a hollow fennel-stalk, so that Zeus who delights in thunder did not see it. But afterwards Zeus who gathers the clouds ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... same reason we can more easily bear a misfortune which comes to us entirely from without, than one which we have drawn upon ourselves; for fortune may always change, but not character. Therefore, subjective blessings,—a noble nature, a capable head, a joyful temperament, bright spirits, a well-constituted, perfectly sound physique, in a word, mens sana in corpore sano, are the first and most important elements in happiness; so that we should be more intent on promoting and preserving ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... [this was written for him in 1785], to speak to you of one of the greatest men of this Age. You admire him, though his neighborhood has done you mischief enough; and, placing yourself at the impartial distance of History, feel a noble curiosity on all that belongs to this extraordinary genius. I will, therefore, give you an exact account of the smallest words that I myself heard the great Friedrich speak.... The I (LE JE) is odious to me; but nothing is indifferent when"—Well, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... signifies 'learn thou,' and that it was adopted to distinguish the sect soon after he disappeared. The word, as is well known, has the same import in the Hindoovee" ("Asiatic Researches," vol. i. p. 293, and vol. ii. p. 200). This was a noble word to give a name to a body of followers supposed to be devoted to knowledge ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad, In the gleam of the evening star, In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child, In all sweet things that are. And you'll never die, my wonderful boy, While life is noble and true; For all our beauty and hope and joy We will owe to our ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... at maturity, give her a joyous initiation into the noble order of women. She will welcome the new function as a badge of womanhood and as a harbinger of ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... was not at that that all eyes were turned, but at a noble-looking ship hove-to in the offing, not a mile away, and flying ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... that noble part of you to grow. It was that I came so near really loving at the last. But—Paul! a woman don't want to lead her husband. She wants to be led. I have thought," she added, timidly, "so much of that verse in the Epistle—'the head of the woman ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the Cymmrodorion Society, has suggested that a certain Welsh noble, Bledri ap Cadivor, fulfils, in a large measure, the conditions required. Some years ago I published in the Revue Celtique a letter in which Mr Owen summarized the evidence at his disposal. As the review in question may not be easily accessible to some of my readers I will recapitulate ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... the unpardonable, Sally. And you not only ruined your own life but nearly caused me to lose my best friend. I'm still pretty sore about that. But what hurt me most was that you sacrificed your opportunity to be somebody in the world, to be a noble, useful woman. You linked yourself for life ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... "Rob, you didn't! How noble of you! You really are an admirable person!" Peggy lay back against her pillows and gazed at her "partner" in great contentment of spirit. After living an invalid's life for these past weeks, it was delightfully refreshing to look at the big strong face. The sight of it was ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... Franklin, "every noble-minded and fair-play loving Englishman will say, possessing greater claim upon your moderation. I can bring you, from my own country—through the official intervention of the American Minister, references to outweigh ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... Madame Elisabeth gave to all she said and did a noble character, descriptive of that of her soul. On the day on which this worthy descendant of Saint Louis was sacrificed, the executioner, in tying her hands behind her, raised up one of the ends of her handkerchief. Madame Elisabeth, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was a Lion, whose name was Maliavikrama[2] the tips of whose mane a Mouse was wont to gnaw, as he slept in his den. The noble beast, having discovered that his hair was bitten, was very much displeased; and as he was unable to catch the offender, who always slipped into his hole, he meditated what was best to be done; and having resolved, ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... whose mere voice was as balm to this man of many impulses, repeated to him, softly in the midnight silence, those noble lines in which Wordsworth has expressed, with the reserve and yet the strength of the great poet, the loftiest yearning of the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the arguments of the Czar nor the entreaties of Queen Louisa availed to move him. And yet, in the fond hope that her tears might win back Magdeburg, that noble bulwark of North German independence, the forlorn Queen came to Tilsit to crave this boon (July 6th). It was a terrible ordeal to do this from the man who had repeatedly insulted her in his official journals, figuring her, first as a mailed Amazon galloping at ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... edge rose, deeply enshrouded in their bright green, flowing, and furbelowed robes of thickly interwoven pines, the undulating hills, back to the summit level of that long, narrow tongue of forest land, which, for many miles, only separates the Umbagog from the parallel Magalloway, the noble stream that here comes rushing down from the British highlands, to join the scarcely larger Androscoggin, almost at the very outset of its "varied journey to the deep." Turning from this magnificent swell on the west, the eye, as it wandered to the right over the bright ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... spiritual condition, of which the central principle is coincident with charity. Shelley's own feelings towards others, as judged from his poetry, seem to be tinctured with the very essence of Christianity. [Footnote: His Essay on Christianity is full of noble views, some of which are held at the present day by some of the most earnest believers. At what time of his life it was written we are not informed; but it seems such as would insure his acceptance with any company of intelligent and devout Unitarians.] He did not, at one time at least, ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... this mean Offering of my OBSERVATIONS; which I am induc'd to make, from the common Duty which lies upon every Professor to preserve Musick in its Perfection; and upon Me in particular, for having been the first, or among the first, of those who discovered the noble Genius of your potent and generous Nation for it. However, I should not have presum'd to dedicate them to a Hero adorn'd with such glorious Actions, if Singing was not a Delight of the Soul, or if any one had a Soul more sensible of its Charms. On which account, I think, I have a just Pretence ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... who circled round him. Well might the Boer commander declare that in the whole course of the war he had seen no finer example of British courage. It is indeed sad that at this last instant a young life should be thrown away, but Sutherland died in a noble fashion for a noble cause, and many inglorious years would be a poor substitute for the example and tradition which such a ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wonderful! He told us how Horatius kept the bridge in the brave days of old. Wasn't that a great and noble deed, mother mine? ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... healed, then, the first wound in my infant heart. Not so the second. For thou, dear, noble Elizabeth, around whose ample brow, as often as thy sweet countenance rises upon the darkness, I fancy a tiara of light or a gleaming aureola [4] in token of thy premature intellectual grandeur,—thou whose head, for its superb developments, was the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... insurrections that are ordinary. Upon a slope that shall take the sun in winter, with trees about beneath which I may sit in the heat of summer-time. I will have a good show of servants, because I am a princess of noble lineage; I will have most of them Germans that I may speak easily with them, but some English, understanding German, so that the King may be advised I work no treasons against him. From time to time I will have the King to visit and to talk with me courteously ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... introduction. His appearance told what he was. His great stature and erect bearing, his intelligent and amiable face, his noble forehead, his beautiful snow-white locks, his precise and antique dress, his simplicity of manner, every thing, in short, about him, at once ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object—this, this is eloquence; or rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence, it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action. ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... road to fame and fortune for an obscure young man was to attach himself to some wealthy patron and acquire a position through him. With the aid of his wealthy friends Kingo could easily enough have obtained employment as a companion to some young noble going abroad for travel and study. It came, therefore, as a surprise to all when he accepted a call as assistant to the Reverend Jacobsen Worm at Kirkehelsinge, a country parish a few miles from Vedby. The position was so far ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... epoch are carefully noted, and the rules to prevent and remedy them clearly set forth. The all-absorbing topic of Love, is next treated of in a pure and elevated style, but strictly from the physician's point of view, and many salutary hints are given to direct the passion to noble ends and in proper channels, and to teach the youthful reader how to ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... This period in England was signalized by the abolition of the Corn Laws (1846), and the Navigation Laws (1849), the passage of the Bank Act (which separated the issue from the banking department, 1844), and the general abandonment of protective duties. Cf. Noble, "Fiscal ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... solely on driving home what she has to say. Her letters were talked rather than written. She learned to write only three years before her death, and even after this time was in the habit of dictating her correspondence, sometimes two or three letters at a time, to the noble youths who served ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... if not, she was to expect that force would be used against her. The councillors said, "Rather will we let ourselves be plagued with the mice, for to that misfortune we are accustomed, than give up our lives to such a monster as this." A noble youth, therefore, was sent to ask the cat "whether she would peaceably quit the castle?" But the cat, whose thirst had become still greater, merely answered, "Mew! Mew!" The youth understood her to say, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... man's life is drawn, turned, shaped, by a woman! He may deny it. He may swagger and lie about it. Heredity, ambition, lust, noble aspirations, weak self-indulgence, power, failure, success, have their turns with him. But the woman he desires above all others, whose breast is his true ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Morris Stories" is to sow the seed of pure, noble, manly character in the mind of our great nation's childhood. They exhibit the virtues and vices of childhood, not in prosy, unreadable precepts, but in a series of characters which move before the imagination, as living beings do before ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... others were county officials. County affairs were dreadfully mismanaged and county funds misused. For our own protection we had to take part in politics, form an Opposition, and after a long struggle, in which my partners did noble service, we carried an election, put in our own officials, secured control of the county newspaper, and had things as we wanted them. But it was a bitter fight, and the old robber gang, who had run the county for years, were desperate in their resentment. Unfortunately, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... the most noble part of man," said the stranger, "it is the least agreeable part of the rabbit. There are many persons who cannot bear it. I happen to like ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... by a train of noble peers, In brave and gallant sort, She gave in charge he should be brought To Aganippus' court; Whose royal king with noble mind So freely gave consent To muster up his knights at arms, To ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... noble voice, which can at all hours thus speak to the throne. Poetry, in old days, was called the language of the Gods—it is better named now—it is ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... folk must not only take wives whom we love and who love us, but we may, can and want to take such because we are neither noble, well-born nor rich, but lowly, mean and poor. Hence we do not need rich wives because our wealth dies with us, being in our heads. Of this wealth no man can rob us unless he cuts off our heads, in which case we should have need ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... preferential primary system, and committed to a course of active leadership in matters which concerned the state at large, in which category the selection of a United States senator certainly fell. He made a personal appeal to the Senator for the sake of the party to forego his desire and by a noble act of renunciation to win the regard of all the citizens of the state, saying: "Why, Senator, you have it in your power to become instantly, the biggest man in the state." But the Senator was firm. And so, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... settler had no sawmills, brick kilns, or stone-cutters, he had one noble friend,—a firm rock to stand upon,—his broad-axe. With his axe, and his own strong and willing arms, he could take a long step in advance in architecture; he could build a log cabin. These good, comfortable, and substantial ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... escape. The horse had been kicked by another horse the day before and was useless. That last faint hope was gone. On the night of December 23d the King slept, a prisoner surrounded with hostile guards, in the noble castle which in the days of his youth had rung with Jonson's lyrics and ribaldry; and the "Gipsy of the Masque" had prophesied that his "name in peace or wars, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... the Press," says my melancholic Friend, "is a noble thing; and in certain Nations, at certain epochs, produces glorious effects,—chiefly in the revolutionary line, where that has grown indispensable. Freedom of the Press is possible, where everybody disapproves the least abuse of it; where the 'Censorship' is, as it were, exercised ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... understand the spiritual, the best, and most noble part of man, as distinct from the body, even that by which we understand, imagine, reason, and discourse. And, indeed, as I shall further show you presently, the body is but a poor, empty vessel, without this great thing called the soul. 'The body without the spirit,' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... were only living! He himself was now worth—! Suddenly that lantern-slide shot before his eyes and shut out the noble ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... the Leatherstocking Tales. This skilled trapper, faithful guide, brave fighter, and homely philosopher was "the first real American in fiction," an important contribution to the world's literature. In addition, Cooper created the Indian of literature—perhaps a little too noble to be entirely true to life—and various simple, strong seamen. His Chingachgook and Uncas and Long Tom Coffin justly brought him added fame. In these narrative gifts, as well as in the robustness of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... back in the blue shadows of the brougham, striving to come to terms with herself, to arrive at some plain conclusion. It seemed to her that she had been animated by an honest and noble purpose. She had gone to Owen in the intention of marrying him if he wished to marry her, because it had seemed to her that it was her duty to marry him. But everything had turned out the very opposite of what she had intended, and looking back upon the hour she had spent with him, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... unless they are counteracted by a stronger power. The only men who are pure are those who are absorbed in some pursuit, or possessed by a great love; be it the love of clean, wholesome life which is religion, or the love of a noble man which is hero-worship, or the love of a true woman. These are the four powers which are stronger than 'the flesh'—the zest of a quest, religion, hero-worship, and the love of a good woman. If a man is not ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... of practical politics.' They call him the chief orator and the weakest man in the House of Commons. He has exhibited at every stage traces of an unhappy incoherence which is making him a mere bedouin of parliament, a noble being full of spirit and power, but not to be tamed into the ordinary ways of civil life. His sympathies hover in hopeless inconsistency between love for righteous national action, good government, freedom, social and commercial reform, and a hankering ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... spend time to demonstrate that Varuna-worship was not monotheistic originally. We gladly admit that, even if not a primitive monotheistic deity, Varuna yet is a god that belongs to a very old period of Hindu literature. And, for a worship so antique, how noble is the idea, how exalted is the completed conception of him! Truly, the Hindus and Persians alone of Aryans mount nearest to the high level of Hebraic thought. For Varuna beside the loftiest figure in the Hellenic pantheon stands like a god ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... child. In time he gave up the care of his orchard to other hands, but he reserved this seedling for his own especial coddling. He spaded and mulched and pruned it, and guarded it in the winter from rodent rabbits and in summer from terebrant grubs. It was not ungrateful. It grew a noble tree, producing a rich and luscious fruit, with a deep scarlet satin coat, and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell. The first peck of apples was given to Susie with great ceremony, and the next year the first bushel was carried to Colonel Blood, the Congressman. He was loud ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... Ethelbald, King of Mercians, a young noble named Guthlac, weary of life's rough way, sought peace in the ascetic life. He drifted in a boat to Crowland Isle, and there lived a hermit's life till his death in 817. On the spot where he died Ethelbald founded and endowed a monastery on the island, and it flourished exceedingly. The ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... Noodlesome, Nincompoopish, Namby-pamby, Numskulled, Needle-woman; Nevertheless, at Ninety-Nine she Neatly and Nimbly Nabbed in the Nuptial Noose a Notable Noble Nabob of Nagpoor. And directly after the marriage Nagged him into sending for ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... had asserted that all men were born equal and had equal rights. This sentiment had been loudly applauded, but he himself had sense enough to see that it was contrary to fact, and that men were not born equal. One was the son of a noble, the other of a serf. One child was a cripple and a weakling from its birth, another strong and lusty. One was well-nigh a fool, and another clear-headed. It seemed to him that there ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... would be inadvisable to give you a receipt. You have no doubt, I think, that your noble gift will be used for its proper object. Thank you a thousand times, and if you should ever stand in need of faithful and determined ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Blair detected a brown dot against the white. Steadily, as he advanced, it resolved itself into the thing he had expected, and stood revealed before him, the centre of a horribly legible page, the last page in the biography of a noble horse. Let us pass it by: Ben did, looking the other way. But a new and terrible vitality possessed him. His weariness left him, as pain passes under an opiate. He did not pause to eat, to drink. Tireless as a waterfall, watchful ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... unsatisfactory life, and yet a life not wanting in an ideal—a glorious ideal. He thought how his projects had always met with failure, with disapproval, above all, failure... and yet, and yet he felt, he almost knew, there was something great and noble in him. His eyes brightened, he slipped into thinking of schemes for a monastic life; and then he thought of his mother's hard disposition and how she misunderstood him. What would the end be? Would he succeed in creating the monastery ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... from big town residences of noble or distinguished families, by way of the beautifully decorated, costly houses of the rich middle-class merchants, to the humble dwellings of the poorest inhabitants. Every type of house from the palace to the hovel was well represented. The Archbishop's ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... Spanish captain with a noble present, and sufficient provision for his defence against the Indians, and removed everything from the prize which his ships could contain, Candish set the Santa Anna on fire on the 19th November, having still 500 tons of her goods remaining, and saw her ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... this. By careful rationing we can make our supplies hold out until after the harvest. Our men are out at the front, fighting a grim battle, but, unless we do our part of the business at home, they may fight a losing battle. It is for us to see that our noble dead have not died in vain. With martyred Belgium for an object lesson, it is the duty of every British girl to make every possible sacrifice to keep those unspeakable Huns out of our islands. I appeal to you all to use the utmost economy ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... is no danger of injury to our institutions from the rapid strides of Romanism. Allow me to ask your attention to the following remarkable political prediction by the Duke of Richmond, late Governor-General of Canada, and a British noble, who declared himself hostile to the United States on all occasions. Speaking of our Government, this deadly ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... it. In the western section of Paris, in the prisons of the rue de Sevres[41151] the prisoners consist of the most distinguished personages of the Quartier Saint Germain, prelates, officers, grand-seigniors, and noble ladies,—Monseigneur de Clermont-Tonnerre, Monseigneur de Crussol d'Amboise, Monseigneur de Hersaint, Monseigneur de Saint Simon, bishop of Agde, the Comtesse de Narbonne-Pelet, the Duchesse de Choiseul, the Princesse de Chimay, the Comtesse de Raymond-Narbonne and her daughter, two years ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... spoke. His whole appearance told me that he had been passing through an acute mental and moral crisis, and a queer feeling came over me which seemed to warn me that something irreparable was about to take place between us. I felt deep sympathy for this noble nature struggling for the ideal in a world all out of gear; so thoroughly unselfish and self-sacrificing as hardly to grasp clearly the personal side of its sufferings, and slowly and unconsciously, in its very effort to free itself ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... at; egregious; weighty &c (influential) 175; of note &c (repute) 873; notable, prominent, salient, signal; memorable, remarkable; unforgettable; worthy of remark, worthy of notice; never to be forgotten; stirring, eventful. grave, serious, earnest, noble, grand, solemn, impressive, commanding, imposing. urgent, pressing, critical, instant. paramount, essential, vital, all-absorbing, radical, cardinal, chief, main, prime, primary, principal, leading, capital, foremost, overruling; of vital importance &c in the front rank, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Alphonso Valenzano's everything that he possessed was ruined. In a place of concealment two small casks were found full of sequins, a box containing precious pearls, and a small packet of bills of exchange—it was all thrown into the fire. All the rich and noble persons who were concerned in the farming of tolls, as well as all members of the government, saw their houses demolished. Five palaces of the secretary-general of the kingdom, the Duke of Caivano, together with those of his sons, were burned. In one ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... passions they have been tossed by have still rendered them incapable of any fixed reflection, or the false prejudices that result from passions have, like a thick cloud, interposed between their eyes and that noble spectacle. A man deeply concerned in an affair of great importance, that should take up all the attention of his mind, might pass several days in a room treating about his concerns without taking notice of the proportions ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... darling scheme being worked out before his eyes! Not only that, but he was being called upon to help. Ester had wanted him to grow up to undertake just such efforts as these; and only last week they had seemed to him so altogether good and noble and so impossible to try. Yet here he was helping try them! No wonder ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... Jacob, Abraham's grandson, and among whom there was the tradition of a divinely guided pilgrimage from Babylonia to Canaan under Abraham's leadership just as we have described. It is a great thing to have memories of noble parents and traditions of heroic ancestors. These the Hebrews ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... the noble dog Ossian came to me again and laid the double-footed key upon my lap, as he had done at Beauseincourt—staining my white dress with blood, not mud, this time, and that Colonel La Vigne struck it furiously to the floor, and handed me instead the wooden one I had carved, with ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... him, for it was the one on which alone there was danger of our disagreeing. It was the only one in which he seemed to show signs of cruelty in his disposition, though it was, I well know, but a thoughtless cruelty; and in my heart I always felt that he was too right-minded and noble in the other great matters of life not to come right on that too when 'the hour had struck.' Meanwhile, he had a way of classifying amours by the number of verses inspired—as, 'Heigho! it's all ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... the cause of State Sovereignty as a trust from their fathers and grandfathers before them, the cause doubtless appears a noble one; but to the outsider, unbiassed by such inherited sentiment, it seems evident, first, that the cause, however noble, is also hopeless; and, second, that it is unreasonable that in the forlorn effort to preserve one particular shred of a fabric ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... noble of you, Karl, to engage Monsieur Labordin in my defence, but it was useless and may ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... figger it all out," he said. "But you sure done a noble job, Tosh, and we thank you for it. Can you tell us anything about those rascals with their tanks ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... days later we were anchored in the great stream in front of the city of palaces, and I was gazing with eyes full of wonder and eagerness at the noble buildings, the great flights of steps leading down to the water, the constant procession of people to and fro, with huge elephants gaily caparisoned and bearing temple-like howdahs, some filled with Europeans, more often with turbaned chiefs or ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... After quoting the noble examples of Sujah Dowlah, and the other persons whom I have mentioned to you, he proceeds to say, that some of his predecessors, without any pretensions to sovereign authority, endeavored to get these forts into their possession; and "I was ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have been so depressed that they have come to Tuskegee just to see and talk with their prophet once more and to be baptized again in his sweet and noble spirit. Many times we have seen them here and wondered at their presence. They were here to receive comfort, and to hear Mr. Washington say in his own convincing manner: 'It has been my experience that if a ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... the young man's noble face and bearing, and heard his simple words, the hearts of Asti and Tua, his mother and his love, beat so hard within their breasts that for a while they could scarcely speak. Glad were they, indeed, that the veils they wore hid their troubled faces from ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... an early age, those uncommon qualities which separately make the reputation of a great advocate, of a great civilian, and of a great master of the Laws of Nations; and, more memorable still, when, his high position attained, and able to add thousands upon thousands to his wealth, he, with noble self-denial, put another enticing cup away from his lips, and withdrew with a moderate competence only to the bosom of his family and to the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, leaving, as an example worthy ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... I toiled hard and spared no pains to regain what once I had been master of, yet I found it a matter of so great difficulty that I was ready to say as the noble eunuch to Philip in another case, "How can I, unless I had ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... sensible woman; better than all these gifts, she was deeply religious, with sincere and unaffected piety. She was a Dissenter, a Congregationalist, and brought up Robert in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, herself a noble example of her teachings. This evangelical training had an incalculably strong influence on the spirit of Browning's poetry. She loved music ardently, and when Robert was a boy, used to play the piano to him in the twilight. He always said that he got his devotion ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... the bars of the cage, awed by the unusual uproar and very attentive to what was taking place, as if they were making a careful study of human expression, had a magnificent model in the Irish doctor. His grief was superb, the noble grief of a strong man, which compressed his lips and made ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... Halbert, as he came up to them, "thou hast made good my word at last, and come to take service with my noble master, hast thou not? Thou shalt find a good friend and a true; and ere Saint Barnaby come round again, thou shalt know every pass betwixt Millburn Plain and Netherby, as if thou hadst been born with a jack on thy back, and a lance in thy hand.—What old carle hast ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... married too—to a Swedish countess of very high family, and I expect that I have a little boy or girl by this time. So you observe, Peter, that I am at last a gentleman, and, what is more, my children will be noble by two descents. Who would have thought that this would have been occasioned by my throwing the captain's jacket into the boat instead of my own? And now, my dear Mr Simple, that I have made you my confidant, I need not say, do not say a word about it to anybody. They certainly ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... not yet mastered the idea that the physical formation of Australia was not to be worked out on the same lines as that of other countries; they looked vainly for a river with a wide and noble opening, and none being found on the surveyed coast, conjecture placed it far away in a few leagues of unexplored shore line on the north-west. The constancy with which the southern coast had been examined, precluded all idea from men's minds that the entrance ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... Charles sailed for Raasay. Captain Macdonald then returned to Portree, where he slept a great portion of the next day. Here he was closely questioned by the landlord, who said, that he had a great notion that the gentleman who had supped at his house was the Prince, for he had something noble about him. Probably the imprudent liberality of Charles, and his carelessness about money, may have added to the impression which his lofty air and fascinating manners generally produced. On the fourth of July, Charles, after various adventures in the island of Raasay, escaped to the mountains. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... others with a deadly mechanism, he was leading in an attack. This last letter of his, which arrived after the telegram warning us, in effect, that there could be no more correspondence with him, alluded in contempt to his noble profession and task, and ended with a quotation from Drum Taps which he ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... from ceaseless anxiety on your account. I know now that you are safe from that accursed poverty which is to blame for all our sufferings. You I do not blame, though I have sometimes done so. My own experience teaches me how kindness can be embittered by misfortune. Some great and noble sorrow may have the effect of drawing hearts together, but to struggle against destitution, to be crushed by care about shillings and sixpences—that ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... great pleasure, an enjoyment which the horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits girdling a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow!—when mists as chill as death wandered ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... violence. But a few—a very few—were rather of the type of the English Robin Hood or the Scotch Rob Roy, living a lawless life, but not being needlessly cruel. It is those few who have given basis to the tradition of the Australian bushranger as a noble and chivalrous fellow who only robbed the rich (who, people argue, could well afford to be robbed), and who atoned for that by all sorts of kindness to the poor. Many books have been written on this tradition, glorifying the bushranger. But the plain fact is that most of the ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... art seized of Evil Fate, assume * The noble soul's long suffering: 'tis thy best: Complain not to the creature; this be plaint * From one most Ruthful ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Roosevelt's noble eulogy upon Lincoln, Secretary Lane's two addresses on American tradition and heritage, and Governor Coolidge's address at Holy Cross—remind the reader of the high significance of our national past and indicate the promise of a rightly apprehended future. There follow two articles—"Our Future ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... the heart to free us of this pest, and who will deliver him dead or alive, or take his life, the sum of 25,000 crowns in gold or in estates for himself and his heirs; and we will pardon him any crimes of which he has been guilty, and give him a patent of nobility, if he be not noble." It is a document which, however abhorrent or loathsome it may appear to us, was characteristic of the age in which it was promulgated and in accordance with the ideas of that cruel time. The ban was a declaration of war to the knife, and as such ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... supported down-stairs, rubbing his eye, yawning fearfully, and grumbling in the way. As soon as he popped his head into the parlour, the supposed stranger made divers awkward bows, and with a grinning aspect accosted him in these words: "Your most humble servant, most noble commodore! I hope you are in good health; you look pure and hearty; and if it was not for that misfortune of your eye, one would not desire to see a more pleasant countenance in a summer's day. Sure as I am a living soul, one would take you to be on ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... numberless opportunities of explaining the world and life to her children. She would point out the ways in which men, really great in themselves, had risen from obscurity; how they had started from the lowest ranks of society, with no one to look to but themselves, and achieved noble destinies. ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... of the voters in that pretended Assembly had no lawfull commission from the Kirk, to wit, 42 Noble men, officers of state, councellours, and Barrons, also the Bishops, contrare to the act of Dundie, 1597. And one of their caveats, the Noble men, were as commissioners from the King, the Bishops had no commission ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... sighed "after a life much more pleasing to his mind" than that of presiding over the government. Grafton urged the Countess of Chatham—for he dared not trouble his lordship—to state whether she thought her lord would resign. The countess, in reply, assured the noble duke that there was but little prospect of his ever being able to enter much into business; and intimated, that he was privy to, and highly disapproved of, an intention entertained of dismissing Lord Shelburne; adding, that he would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thousands of laborers, under all the influences incident of a foreign climate in a foreign country, in its primitive natural state. The Indians were then preferred for many reasons, as the common laborers on the continent, where nothing but the mining interests were thought of or carried on. This noble race of Aborigines, continued as the common slaves of the new world, to bear the yoke of foreign oppression, until necessity induced a substitute for them. They sunk by scores under the heavy weight of oppression, and were fast passing from the shores of time. At this, the foreigners ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... protesting and caressing her. That was Aud's practice; for she thought if she hugged and kissed a person none could say her nay. Next she went to flattery, said she knew the things were too noble for the like of her—they were made for a stately, beautiful woman like Thorgunna; and at that she kissed her again, and Thorgunna seemed a little pleased. And now Aud pled poverty and begged for the cloak in a gift; and now she vaunted the wealth of her goodman and offered ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... expression to a sentiment of private friendship which dates back from the pleasant time when I was Curate to your Father,—whose memory I never recall without love and veneration;—nor even in order to afford myself the opportunity of testifying how much I honour you for the noble example of conscientious uprightness and integrity which you set us on a recent public occasion. It is for no such reason that I dedicate to you this vindication of the last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... sitting in an obscure corner of the building, and heard the famous prediction, which was so soon to be fulfilled. 'Sire,' said the preacher, turning to the King of Navarre, and referring, with the boldness that ever characterised that great man and noble Christian, to the attempt, then being made to exclude the prince from the succession—'Sire, what God at your birth gave you man cannot take away. A little while, a little patience, and you shall cause us to preach beyond the Loire! With you for our Joshua we shall cross the Jordan, and in the ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... that 450:6 they appear to be innocent. They utter a falsehood, while looking you blandly in the face, and they never fail to stab their benefactor in the back. A third class 450:9 of thinkers build with solid masonry. They are sincere, generous, noble, and are therefore open to the approach and recognition of Truth. To teach Christian Science 450:12 to such as these is no task. They do not incline long- ingly to error, whine over the demands of Truth, nor play the traitor for ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... to your own selection. Those who have recourse to him seldom speak gratefully of his skill. He relieves you, it is true,—but of your money, not your malady; and the only branch of his profession in which he is an adept is that which enables him to bleed you! O mankind!" continued Augustus, "what noble creatures you ought to be! You have keys to all sciences, all arts, all mysteries, but one! You have not a notion how you ought to be governed; you cannot frame a tolerable law, for the life and soul of you! You make yourselves as uncomfortable as you can ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a letter from Templemore, informs his readers that a certain noble proprietor was just after paying a visit to his estate in that locality, and he had no sooner taken his departure, than notices were served on his tenantry to pay the November rent. The tenants asked time, saying they had only ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... force of soul, and strength of body; they love their country, they respect the magistrates, they are attached to a prince, to an order, and to laws to which they owe their peace and well-being. And you will no longer see the son of the honourable tiller of the soil so ready to quit the noble calling of his forefathers, nor so ready to go and sully himself with the liveries and with the contempt of the ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... clever. When they were boys at Eton, they were not popular; when they were at college, they cared nothing for study, and wasted both time and money, and made few real friends. The old Earl, their father, was constantly disappointed and humiliated by them; his heir was no honor to his noble name, and did not promise to end in being anything but a selfish, wasteful, insignificant man, with no manly or noble qualities. It was very bitter, the old Earl thought, that the son who was only third, and would have only a very small fortune, ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... I have been imprisoned in the narrow limits of Millbrook society. For myself I do not complain. If Mr. Carstyle chooses to place others before his wife it is not for his wife to repine. His course may be noble—Quixotic; I do not allow myself to pronounce judgment on it, though others have thought that in sacrificing his own family to strangers he was violating the most sacred obligations of domestic life. This is the opinion of my pastor and of other valued friends; but, as I have ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... altogether of the lowest order of the free citizens of Rome, artizans, and small shop keepers, and here and there a woman of low origin, or perhaps a slave, the house steward of some noble family, mingling half reluctantly with his superiors. For the time had not arrived, when the soft eunuchs of the East, and the bold bravoes of the heroic North, favorites and tools of some licentious lord, dared to insult the freeborn men of Rome, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... boy's father is. When the boy has reached his sixteenth year and is accomplished in every way, some fully trustworthy person tells him, 'Your father is the ruler of all these lands, famous for the possession of all noble qualities, wisdom, generosity, kindness, courage, valour and so on, and he stays in his capital, longing to see you, his lost child. Hearing that his father is alive and a man so high and noble, the boy's heart is filled with supreme joy; ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... will you attempt to bind And check the movements of an injured mind? Poor as I am, I shall be proud to show What dangerous secrets I may safely know: Secrets to men of jealous minds convey'd Have many a noble house in ruins laid; Anna, I trust, although with wrongs beset, And urged by want, I shall be faithful yet; But what temptation may from these arrive, To take a slighted woman by surprise, Becomes a subject for your serious ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... to give your readers some description of this old yet still strange and wild country, that has been settled for three hundred years, and is not yet inhabited—a land of shifting sand and deep mud—a land of noble rivers that rise in swamps and consist merely of chains of shallow lakes, some of them twenty miles long and two miles across, and only twelve feet deep—of wide, sandy plains, covered with solemn-sounding pines—of spots so barren that nothing can be made to grow upon them, and yet with a soil ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... The old noble families, who alone preserved a sense of their ancient dignity, were neglected in times of quiet, and persecuted in times of trouble. They still preserved an attachment to their country, but they had neither ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... of bread; the dark-skinned, sad-eyed mother, sending forth her only babe to perish in the waters of the sacred river of India, thus "giving the fruit of her body for the sin of her soul"; the proud and selfish noble, abounding in all he desires except the one thing needful; the great multitude of the sorrowful, which no man can number, who refuse to be comforted; the dying, whose death will be an unwilling leap in the dark—all these, ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... I can't say,' answered Knight carelessly; 'but it is without doubt a misfortune for a man who has a living to get, to be born of a truly noble nature. A high soul will bring a man to the workhouse; so you may be right in sticking up ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... a noble family, was born in 1631; in 1647 he was received as a novice into the Society of Jesus at Rome, and remained a pious member of the Jesuit society until the end of his life. He was greatly handicapped in his scientific investigations by the vows of poverty which the rules of the Order imposed ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... Sigrid made answer that to do such a thing would indeed be foolish, seeing that he is well married already, and better for him might not be. Harald confessed Asta to be a good wife and brave, 'but of such noble blood as mine is she not withal.' Then answered Sigrid. 'Maybe thou art of higher lineage than she, yet nevertheless it beseemeth to me that with her is the happiness of ye both.' And after that few were the words spoken between them ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson |
