"Paramount" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of paramount importance for the British geologists (some of them very popular geologists too) here in solemn annual session assembled, to inquire whether the severe judgment thus passed upon them by so high an authority as Sir William Thomson is one to which they must plead ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the ruin of every strong man who has once realized his strength. Supremacy was the note to which his ambition reached. To trample out Chilcote's footmarks with his own had been his tacit instinct from the first; now it rose paramount. It was the whole theory of creation—the survival of the fittest—the deep, egotistical certainty that he was ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... in his southward journey by the urgent persuasions of the Emperor Leopold, who made him chapel-master, with a salary of twelve thousand florins. The taste for the Italian school was still paramount at the musical capital of Austria. Though such composers as Haydn, Salieri, and young Mozart, who had commenced to be welcomed as an unexampled prodigy, were in Vienna, the court preferred the suave and shallow ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... kindness, but he never suffered his will to be disputed for an instant. He governed with such consummate tact, that they hardly felt it to be government at all, and hence arose their stupid miscalculation. But he felt that the time was now come to assert his paramount authority, and determined to do so at once and ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... commander-in-chief, and for this purpose even a scheme which the General called "a child of folly" was undertaken. Officers notoriously inimical to Washington, yet upon whom he would be forced to rely, were promoted. A board of war made up of his enemies, with powers "in effect paramount," Hamilton says, "to those of the commander-in-chief," was created It is even asserted that it was moved in Congress that a committee should be appointed to arrest Washington, which was defeated only by the timely ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... home. All the efforts made to secure Titian failed till nearly the end of his career. On the other hand, Venice was full of less famous masters following in Giorgione's steps. When Sebastian Luciani was a young man, Giorgione was paramount there, and no one could have foretold that his life would be of such short duration. It was to be expected, therefore, that a painter who consulted his own interests should leave the city where he was overshadowed by a great genius ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... fact that could not be denied, so that at first I was green enough to regard the boy as very considerate and indulgent. But my brother soon rectified my views or, if any doubts remained, he impressed me, at least, with a sense of my paramount duty to himself, which was threefold. First, it seems, I owed military allegiance to him, as my commander-in-chief, whenever we "took the field;" secondly, by the law of nations, I being a cadet of my house, owed suit and service to him who was its head; and he assured ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... establishments at the Great Slave Lake, to receive the supplies of ammunition and some other stores in the winter which were absolutely necessary for the prosecution of our journey, or to get the Esquimaux interpreter, whom we expected. If I had not deemed these circumstances paramount I should have preferred the route ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... lower part of the primitive window. Being thin and wiry, he had no difficulty in drawing himself up to it. With the skill of an acrobat he swung one leg over the opening. The task of drawing himself through was much harder to accomplish. But the will to do so was paramount. Emitting a jubilant shout of accomplishment, he dropped, landing lightly on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... pole of the earth. His land was his own to do with as he pleased. No man, no power but the Almighty and the law, could tell him what he MUST do. The tobacco pool was using the very methods of the trust it was seeking to destroy. Under those circumstances he considered his duty to himself paramount to his duty to his neighbor, and his duty to himself he would do; and so the old gentleman lived proudly in his loneliness and refused to know fear, though the night riders were getting busy now in the counties adjacent to ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... heart, 'I have many children: I will leave it them, for they want it more.' We shall see how unyieldingly, when his son entered a convent, he insisted, as against all the value and usefulness of monasticism, on the paramount obligation of God's command, that children should obey their parents. Luther also tells us how his father once praised in high terms the will left by a Count of Mansfeld, who without leaving any property to the Church, was content to depart from this ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... to this seemingly well-informed person, is paramount sovereign of Begarmi and Mandara,—these states paying each a tribute yearly of one thousand slaves, to which Mandara adds fifty eunuchs,—a most costly contribution. This seems to be the country where eunuchs are made ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... his triumphant days never, and for obvious reasons, lacked money. It was less an actual treasure that he required and valued so highly for political and military purposes, than an ever ready reserve of wealth easily portable, of paramount value at all times; "concentrated," so to speak. And nothing could come nearer to that description than rolls of English guineas. Indeed the vast numbers of these coins which fitfully appeared in circulation throughout Europe justified the many weird legends concerning the power ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... In his Essay on Style, published in Blackwood's, 1840, he deprecates the usual indifference to form, on the part of English writers, "the tendency of the national mind to value the matter of a book not only as paramount to the manner, but even as distinct from it and as capable of a separate insulation." As one of the great masters of prose style in this century, De Quincey has so served the interests of art in this regard, that in his own case the charge is sometimes reversed: ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... trampled conformity under foot, and with wild voice ridiculed conformity—especially when conformity meant to yield to the peasants a constructive share in the governments of the thirty-nine clashing German states. That is to say, his idea of freedom was to make the State paramount, guiding, directing and if need be disciplining ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... the temporizing caution of his predecessors by the Bull of Deposition against Elizabeth in 1570. He was the soul of the confederacy which won the day of Lepanto against the Ottomans in 1571. And though dead, his spirit was paramount in the slaughter of St. Bartholomew ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... were of paramount importance and they were kept out to the limits of their endurance. Every man physically able to do so accompanied them. Those who could not kill game could carry it back to the caves. There was no time to spare; already ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... loving of one's neighbour is not seen to be a primary truth; so far from it, that far the greater number of those who hope for an eternity of blessedness through him who taught it, do not really believe it to be a truth; believe, on the contrary, that the paramount obligation is to take care of one's self at much risk of ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... impossible, now asserted that it was unimportant, believed that Sherman could not remain in possession and, two days later, turned with vehemence to an analysis of the political struggle as of more vital influence. The Democrats, it was insisted, would place peace "paramount to union" and were sure to win[1226]. Russell, in the Gazette, coolly ignoring its prophecy of three weeks earlier, now spoke as if he had always foreseen the ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... we do. I have thought of nothing else for the last ten years. Say what you will, Balsquith, the Germans have never recognized, and until they get a stern lesson, they never WILL recognize, the plain fact that the interests of the British Empire are paramount, and that the command of the sea belongs by nature ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... offense of engaging in rebellion under this law must be an overt and voluntary act, done with the intent of aiding or furthering the common unlawful purpose. A person forced into the rebel service by conscription or under a paramount authority which he could not safely disobey, and who would not have entered such service if left to the free exercise of his own will, can not be held to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... her nights were rendered sleepless by the visions of awful torments, conjured up by her too vivid imagination, which that son might even then be enduring. No wonder was it that, under such circumstances, the one great and paramount desire that possessed her, to the exclusion of all other things, was the deliverance of Hubert from the fate which she pictured for him. Yet, when it came to the point of consenting to the going of her second son to the rescue of her first, her very soul sickened within her lest ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... had granted what he then requested to another member of the house, who was his brother-in-law. 'Vary true, vary true,' said Solomon Gruff, as he is sometimes called, 'but then you do not shleep vid my shister, my boy; dat makes all de differance.' At present this fellow's influence is paramount at most of the courts of Europe, at some of which his family enjoy considerable honours; in short, he is the head of the locust tribe, and the leader of that class of speculators whom a witty writer has well described ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Lady! the natural distraction of Thy thoughts at such a moment makes the question Merit forgiveness; else a doubt like this Against a just and paramount tribunal Were deep offence. But question even the Doge, And if he can deny the proofs, believe him Guiltless as thy ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... divided population, was distrustful of the President. Yielding the Administration a qualified support, and opposed to the Government in almost all its measures, was an old organized and disciplined party in all the free States, which seemed to consider its obligations to party paramount to duty to the country. This last, if it did not boldly participate with the rebels, was an auxiliary, and as a party, hostile to the Administration, and opposed to nearly every measure for suppressing ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... ignorant causes of so much misery, the time has come when the existence of a private pestilence in the sphere of a single physician should be looked upon, not as a misfortune, but a crime; and in the knowledge of such occurrences the duties of the practitioner to his profession should give way to his paramount obligations to society. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... thing" we now know, and very different from the thing it was when "expresses were unheard of, and telegraphs were uncrystallized from the lightning's blue and fiery film." Reporterism was beginning to assume its present importance, but it had not yet become the paramount intellectual interest, and did not yet "stand shoulder to shoulder" with the counting-room in authority. Great editors, then as now, ranked great authors in the public esteem, or achieved a double primacy by uniting journalism ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and of that; of his uncle when he should learn what had happened, it would be irksome, no matter how it turned out; but he immediately consoled himself with the thought that with his uncle, matters concerning kinship and wealth were always paramount, and these could advance the interest of the family. Jagienka was indeed nearer, but Jurand was a greater land owner than Zych of Zgorzelice. Moreover the former could easily foresee that Macko could not be long opposed to such a liaison, ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the good quality of the parents. Their heredity or the intellectual and physical value of their ancestry is of paramount importance. We must take into consideration, not only the intelligence and physical health, but also good sentiments, a conscientious character and energy of will. What is the use of procreating healthy and robust children if they are vain, egoistic, impulsive, crafty, wanting in will ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... majority, has been an unmixed advantage to the writers of it. Shakespeare indeed chose excellent subjects—the world could afford no better than Macbeth, or Romeo and Juliet, or Othello: he had no theory respecting the necessity of choosing subjects of present import, or the paramount interest attaching to allegories of the state of one's own mind; like all great poets, he knew well what constituted a poetical action; like them, wherever he found such an action, he took it; like them, too, he found ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... it not only unjust but impolitic. Impolitic, because Prussia was, and ought always to be, the obvious and natural ally of France, and Napoleon, instead of endeavouring to crush that power, should have aggrandized her and made her the paramount power in Germany. It was in fact his obvious policy to cede Hanover in perpetuity to Prussia, and have rendered thereby the breach between the Houses of Brandenburgh and Hanover irreparable and irreconcilable. This ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... to prevent what he believed to be the improper application of some public funds, assumed to himself the action which lawfully belonged to the Secretary of War. The question thus raised was considered paramount to that of the proper use of the funds. The young officer lost his point, and got a well-merited rebuke. But it is not to be expected that complete military education can be obtained without complete ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... at a time, not even when traveling, for fear of spoiling the crease in his trousers or of making them baggy at the knees! He does not attempt to disguise the fact that the faultlessness of his coats or of his uniforms is an object of paramount importance. These are, however, very harmless weaknesses, which are more than atoned for by the fact that he is an excellent father and husband, but the obstinacy of his temper and his vagaries as a leader of masculine fashion at Berlin have often been a source of impatience and ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Scriptures, we have a perfect ecclesiastical statute-book. The doctrine set forth in the New Testament was cordially embraced in the first century by all genuine believers. And it cannot be too emphatically inculcated that the written Word was of paramount authority among the primitive Christians. The Israelites had traditions which they professed to have received from Moses; but our Lord repudiated these fables, and asserted the supremacy of the book of inspiration. [191:1] ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... it is self-contradictory and self-destructive. On this account it is clear that our own existence and that of the world around us necessarily implies the presence of a Universal Mind acting on certain fixed lines of its own which establish the basis for the working of all individual minds. This paramount action of the Universal Mind thus sets an unchangeable standard by which all individual mental action must eventually be measured, and therefore our first concern is to ascertain what this standard is and to make it the basis of ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... put off till Thursday: yet owns you deserve not that, or any other favour from her. I will receive no more of your letters. You are too artful for me. You are an ungrateful and unreasonable child: Must you have your way paramount to every body's? How are ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... consider the traffic in the light in which it is now regarded. In his ship, the Paul, of Plymouth, he made three voyages to the Brazils, touching at the coast of Guinea, where he traded in slaves, gold, and elephants' teeth. At that time the English, considering themselves lords paramount at sea, insisted that ships of all other nations should strike their flags in presence of their fleets. Even when William Lord Howard, Mary's high admiral, went with a fleet of twenty-eight men-of-war to await the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... highest importance, since the material has neither beauty nor intrinsic value in itself; and here, even more than in many other forms of manufacture, the presence and influence of the intelligent designer is most desirable, and should be paramount. ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... by a nationality as well as an inflated conceit of their own merit absolutely unparalleled, whilst the circumstances of their hard and trying position under the jealous surveillance of an irresistible lord paramount, in the person of the Russian Czar, gave a fiercer edge to the natural unamiableness of the Kalmuck disposition, and irritated its gloomier qualities into action under the restless impulses of suspicion and permanent distrust. No prince could hope for a cordial allegiance from his subjects, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... why a fleet must be composed of various types of vessels. At the present moment, the battleship is the primary, or paramount type, the others secondary, because the battleship is the type that can exert the most force, stand the hardest punishment, steam the farthest in all kinds of weather, and in general, serve her ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... cases the Fiend is outwitted by the help of the Virgin or some other saint, and in this way the reader is reminded of the Norse Devil, the successor of the Giants, who always makes bad bargains. When the story was applied to Faust in the sixteenth century, the terrible Middle Age Devil was paramount, and knew how to ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... Monsieur de Gemosac assented readily enough. For he was an old man, and to such the importance of small things, such as dinner or a passing personal comfort, are apt to be paramount. Moreover, he was a remnant of that class to which France owed her downfall among the nations; a class represented faithfully enough by its King, Louis XVI, who procrastinated even on ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... tunnel to the Scotland Street Station, the sight of the trains shooting out of its dark maw with the two guards upon the brake, the thought of its length and the many ponderous edifices and open thoroughfares above, were certainly things of paramount impressiveness to a young mind. It was a subterranean passage, although of a larger bore than we were accustomed to in Ainsworth's novels; and these two words, "subterranean passage," were in themselves ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the big laurel. Her lover took her instantly into his arms and kissed the soft mouth again and again. She tried to put him from her, to protest that she was not going with him. But before his ardor her resolution melted. As always, when he was with her, his influence was paramount. ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... some weak triumph to Arabella. She said that it was very odd that he did not come,—and once added with a little sigh that he used to come in former days, alluding to those happy days in which another love was paramount. Camilla could not endure this with an equal mind. "Bella, dear," she said, "we know what all that means. He has made his choice, and if I am satisfied with what he does now, surely you need not grumble." Miss Stanbury's illness had undoubtedly been a great source of contentment ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... The paramount design of this series of School Readers is to help young people to acquire the art and the habit of reading well—that is, of interpreting the printed page in such manner as to give pleasure and instruction ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... would be supplied by Doddridges and Halls. He may think that the advantages which we have described are obtained, or might, if the existing system were slightly modified, be obtained, without any sacrifice of the paramount objects which all Governments ought to have chiefly in view. Nay, he may be of opinion that an institution, so deeply fixed in the hearts and minds of millions, could not be subverted without loosening and shaking all the foundations of civil society. With at least ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... occasion, when it is stated, that it was part of the great design which he had formed of opening a communication between his European dominions and India by sea; and that as the accomplishment of this design mainly depended on the success of the expedition committed to Nearchus, it was a paramount object with him to assist the fleet, which he thrice attempted, even in the midst of his ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... one time together upon its changeful surface. I know that to announce this sad conclusion is to break down one more universal and cherished belief; everybody considers that 'geological animals' were ever so much bigger than their modern representatives; but the interests of truth should always be paramount, and, if the trade of an iconoclast is a somewhat cruel one, it is at least a necessary function in a world so ludicrously overstocked with popular delusions as this ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... my duty, but there was another still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... not thus,' I urged, 'wealth and rank are two powerful aids to happiness in this life. But at all events; my beloved Vitangela, you now recognize more than ever the paramount necessity which induces you to maintain inviolate your ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the second and third chapters of the book may serve to throw some light. The fourth chapter relates to the strategical plan, worked out after much consideration, for the possible event of failure. The plan was throughout based on the maintenance of superior sea power as the paramount instrument. As is indicated, the conservation of sufficient sea power implied as essential close and friendly relations with France, and also with Russia. Had there been no initial reason for the Entente policy, to be found in the desire to get rid of all causes of friction with these two great ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... political discussions, and that I attach undue importance to them from the fact that I have never before been so intimately in contact with them; but, to my judgment, they indicate very clearly that it will not be wise or prudent to commit any question involving the paramount supremacy of the government of the United States to the States that have been in insurrection until the whole subject of restoration has been definitively ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... girls; and of the parish priest her husband, their father—the younger brother of the tolerably educated squire yonder, with his Larks' Hall; and of Granny, who kept house there still for her elder son, where she had once reigned queen paramount in the hearty days of her homely goodman. It was a scroll fairly unfolded, and perfectly legible ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... few exceptions, on my side. The Hill at first seemed disposed to rally round its insulted physician, and to make the dispute a party question, in which the Hill would have been signally worsted, when suddenly the same lady paramount, who had secured to Dr. Lloyd the smile of the Eminence, spoke forth against him, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The paramount anxiety in men's minds seemed to be to secure land. Sheep-runs in sheltered accessible parts of the country commanded enormous prices, and were bought in the most complicated way. The first comers had taken up vast tracts ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... see her in the parlour: she was scarcely in the room when Sally began in a voice capable of intimidating the most courageous of scolds, "Fine doings! Fine doings, here! You think you have the game in your own hands, I warrant, my Lady Paramount; but I'm not one to be bullied, you ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... heart on returning two members for St. Michael, one of those wretched Cornish boroughs which were swept away by the Reform Act of 1832. He was opposed by Lord Sandwich, whose influence had long been paramount there: and Fox exerted himself strenuously in Sandwich's behalf. Clive, who had been introduced to Fox, and very kindly received by him, was brought forward on the Sandwich interest, and was returned. But a petition was presented against the return, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the enjoyment of pleasure to the practice of self-denial. With the mass of men, the animal is paramount. They often spend all that they earn. But it is not merely the working people who are spendthrifts. We hear of men who for years have been earning and spending hundreds a year, who suddenly die,—leaving their children penniless. Everybody knows of such cases. ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... in the T-cart, with one portmanteau and one servant, leaving Bessie mistress of all things. It was a grief to Mrs. Wendover to be separated from home and children at any time, and she was especially regretful at being absent on her eldest daughter's birthday; but the Colonel was paramount. If his cough could be cured by sea air, to the sea he must go, with his faithful ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... as that end is gained they get the franchise automatically, without any change of the constitution.' To this the Liberal Democrats reply: 'Social legislation must not be regarded as a grudgingly admitted necessity, it is the paramount duty of the State, and as social legislation principally affects those who are now disfranchised, it is only just to begin by affording them the opportunity of expressing their opinions upon the subject, and hence to alter ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... this woman with gray hair, telling of her young husband's joy in his little son—who was not hers. And Eleanor's sense of the paramount importance of the child gave Mrs. Houghton a new and real respect for her. Aloud, she agreed heartily with the statement that Jacky must ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... upon size of force protected and tactical situation; Strategical Advanced Guard enables Tactical Advanced Guard to be reduced)—Distance—In Advances (Dash and resolution required but interests of Main Body paramount)—In Retreats—Training must be realistic—Tactical Principles (Vanguard for Reconnaissance; Main Guard for Resistance; Communication essential; Error at Sulphur Springs; Success at Fredericksburg and First Battle of the Marne; False tactics ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... to help certain presentiments, which have till now remained obscure, to become conscious of themselves. The moment is favourable to a study of Mr Bergson's philosophy; but in the face of so many attempted methods of employment, some of them a trifle premature, the point of paramount importance, applying Mr Bergson's own method to himself, is to study his philosophy in itself, for itself, in its profound trend and its authenticated action, without claiming to enlist it in the ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... a great issue been fought out as this issue has been, by the voters of a great party. On the fourth of March, 1895, a few Democrats, most of them members of Congress, issued an address to the Democrats of the nation, asserting that the money question was the paramount issue of the hour; declaring that a majority of the Democratic party had the right to control the action of the party on this paramount issue; and concluding with the request that the believers of free coinage ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... Paramount to all other influences must have been the character of his father, a "mute" but by no means an "inglorious" Milton, the preface and foreshadowing of the son. His great step in life had set the son the example from which the latter never ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... nodded, he went on:—"As for me, I have unfortunately nothing to tell. We found the studio, and everything was exactly as this poor young lady said it would be—with the one paramount exception that her husband was not there! And though his housekeeper seems to be expecting Mr. Dampier every moment, she has had no news of him since he wrote, some days ago, saying he would arrive this morning. It certainly is a very inexplicable business—" he looked ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... be seen that Newton, as well as the theologians, makes the Divinity a pure spirit, who presides over the universe as a monarch, as a lord paramount; that is to say, what man defines in earthly governors, despot, absolute princes, powerful monarchs, whose governments have no model but their own will, who exercise an unlimited power over their subjects, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... made good his escape, he prayed that he might never again encounter a woman possessed of charm. His paramount desire was to seize his hat and make a furtive exit. There was nothing to prevent him but the politeness due from a man to a woman—and she traded on it. As he passed into the dining-room he was secretly on his guard. "I wonder what she'll ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... and strolled away. Zora looked back at him and the paramount mission of her life formed itself in her mind. She would protect this girl; she would protect all black girls. She would make it possible for these poor beasts of burden to be decent in their toil. Out of protection of womanhood as the central thought, she must build ramparts against cruelty, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... done, and seek only to yield up their life, holding that to be virtue supreme. They are wrong; supreme virtue consists in the knowledge of what should be done, in the power to decide for ourselves whereto we should offer our life. The duty each holds to be his is by no means his permanent duty. The paramount duty of all is to throw our conception of duty into clearest possible light. The word duty itself will often contain far more error and moral indifference than virtue. Clytemnestra devoted her life to revenge—she murdered her husband for that he ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... snatch up his hat, and hurry off to Maggie to be soothed. His father knew where he was gone without being told; and was jealous of her influence over the son who had long been his first and paramount object in life. ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... stomach is peculiarity irritable, (from teething,) it is of paramount necessity to withhold all the nostrums which have been so falsely lauded as 'sovereign cures for cholera infantum.' The true restoratives for a child threatened with disease are cool air, cool bathing, and cool drinks ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... render larger &c (increase) 35, (expand) 194. Adj. superior, greater, major, higher; exceeding &c v.; great &c 31; distinguished, ultra [Lat.]; vaulting; more than a match for. supreme, greatest, utmost, paramount, preeminent, foremost, crowning; first-rate &c (important) 642, (excellent) 648; unrivaled peerless, matchless; none such, second to none, sans pareil [Fr.]; unparagoned^, unparalleled, unequalled, unapproached^, unsurpassed; superlative, inimitable facile princeps ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... levie cruel warres, Wasting the Earth, each other to destroy: As if (which might induce us to accord) Man had not hellish foes anow besides, That day and night for his destruction waite. The Stygian Councel thus dissolv'd; and forth In order came the grand infernal Peers, Midst came thir mighty Paramount, and seemd Alone th' Antagonist of Heav'n, nor less Then Hells dread Emperour with pomp Supream, 510 And God-like imitated State; him round A Globe of fierie Seraphim inclos'd With bright imblazonrie, and horrent Arms. Then of thir Session ended they bid cry With ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... occupying the south-eastern and perhaps central portions of Indo-China. It has been argued that Chen-la is simply the older name of Fu-nan and on the other hand that Fu-nan is a wider designation including several states, one of which, Chen-la or Camboja, became paramount at the expense of the others.[246] But the point seems unimportant for their religious history with which we have to deal. In religion and general civilization both were subject to Indian influence and it is not recorded that the political circumstances which turned Fu-nan into Chen-la were ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... one, could a colourable challenge come. In the legitimate course of succession by blood, the claim lay with Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots and now Dauphiness of France. But the Will of Henry VIII., authorised by Parliament, was paramount. That Will had given priority to the two children of his body who had both been declared illegitimate—not born in wedlock—by the national courts. The Papal pronouncement in an opposite sense in Mary's case would have made nugatory any attempt on the part of a Catholic to question her rights; but ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... Government, on the adoption of the Constitution, for all national purposes, took the place of the State Governments. The people of the United States from that time, in the language of a distinguished Senator from Kentucky, owed a paramount allegiance to the General Government, and a subordinate allegiance only to the State Governments. Changes in the Constitution, then, can only be properly made in the manner provided by the Constitution. Propositions for changes in it must come from the people, or their ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... commented Sanchez as a quintet of grinning vaqueros rode up from the rear. "As you have so aptly said, the necessities of war are paramount, alcalde." ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... laws? And among magistrates and rulers in the different states, you would scarcely refuse the palm of superiority to those who best contribute to make their fellow-citizens obedient to the laws? And you would admit that any particular state in which obedience to the laws is the paramount distinction of the citizens flourishes most in peace time, and in time of war is irresistible? But, indeed, of all the blessings which a state may enjoy, none stands higher than the blessing of unanimity. "Concord ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... Paramount within her, was the desire for Guy, the sight of his handsome, debonair countenance, the ring of his careless laugh. As soon as she saw Guy she knew she would be at home, even in the land of strangers, as she had ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... was enclosed and addressed. "To my friends Sara and Morva of the Moor," and Morva carried it home with mingled feelings of pride and pleasure, but paramount was the joy of knowing that she was completely released from the promise which had become so ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... with his own medicine, to pay him in his own coin, and to do it as quickly and as frankly as possible. Her rapidly increasing curiosity concerning the region he guarded with so much mystery counted as well, but the paramount force—for Katrina was young enough to take her responsibility seriously—was anxiety over the old gentleman himself. In fact, Katrina departed, as did Lot's wife, with her face and her thought turned backward, a policy not conducive to ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... ill-will among the priests, whose influence is paramount with the peasantry, he dexterously threw in a reverent word for them in his nomadic harangues, and now and then made a sounding present ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... "consider" and a second deputation went to him, and still a third, asking him to include the suffrage amendment in his message to the new Congress assembling in extra session the following month. And still he was obsessed with the paramount considerations of "tariff" and "currency." He flatly said there would be no time to consider suffrage for women. But the "unreasonable" women kept right on insisting that the liberty of half the American people was paramount ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... it be asked of the noble lord, his patron, has this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admitted to civic rights, constituted himself the lord paramount of our internal polity? Where is now that gratitude which loyalty should have counselled? During the recent war whenever the enemy had a temporary advantage with his granados did this traitor to his kind not seize that moment to discharge his piece against the empire ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... position in reference to the approaching election. Regarding the "Maine law" as a question of paramount importance, it will support members of the legislature friendly to its passage, irrespective of party. For state officers it will support such men as it deems competent and trustworthy, irrespective also of party, and ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... accession of the Bourbon king, who was called to the throne by the Spanish government and at first acknowledged by England and Holland; but, on the other hand, the Emperor of Austria does not withdraw the Austrian claim, which centred in his own person. The voice of the sea powers was paramount in the coalition, as the terms of the treaty safeguarding their commercial interests show, though, as they were about to use German armies for the land war, German claims also had to be considered. As a ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... visit another country house in Barsetshire, but on this occasion our sojourn shall be in the eastern division, in which, as in every other county in England, electioneering matters are paramount at the present moment. It has been mentioned that Mr. Gresham, junior, young Frank Gresham as he was always called, lived at a place called Boxall Hill. This property had come to his wife by will, and he was ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... student's formal training the difficulty of making them "fit in" is often sadly apparent. At any rate, in this borderland between cultural and professional studies, where the college is merging with the university or professional school, the necessity for the able teacher is a paramount issue. If the transition is to be successful, the obligation rests upon the teacher so to develop his subject that the specializing will not drown out the general interest but will inform it with those values which only ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... and brave every chance and danger; that, without her, I was a man utterly wrecked and ruined, and cared not what became of me. My mother had once consented, and had now chosen to withdraw her consent, when the tie between us had been, as I held, drawn so closely together, as to be paramount to all filial duty. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by seas or deserts; and, for a successful advance upon her from the direction of Asia, it was desirable both to obtain a quiet passage for a large army through the desert of El-Tij, and also to have the support of a powerful fleet in the Mediterranean. This latter was the paramount consideration. An army well supplied with camels might carry its provisions and water through the desert, and might intimidate or overpower the few Arab tribes which inhabited it; but, unless the command of the sea was gained and the navigation of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... Bacon, and perhaps Leibnitz, would have scouted it as a scientific abortion. Some men would draw disparaging comparisons between the mediaeval and the modern King. In the person of the first was normally embodied the force paramount over all others in the country, and on him was laid a weight of responsibility and toil so tremendous, that his function seems always to border upon the superhuman; that his life commonly wore out before the natural term; and that an indescribable majesty, ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... rule in his own domain with every power of feudal duke or prince. The King had his allegiance, likewise a fifth part of gold or silver found within his lands. All persons going to dwell in his palatinate were to have "rights and liberties of Englishmen." But, this aside, he was lord paramount. The new country received the name Terra Mariae—Maryland—for Henrietta Maria, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... administration of its laws, are far more vitally related to its well-being than the form of its government. The form of government is indeed a question of the first importance, but then this is owing in a paramount degree to the influence which it may have upon the other two sets of elements in the national life. Form of government is like the fashion of a man's clothes; it may fret or may comfort him, may be imposing or mean, may react upon ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... of gratitude to this brave and scientific physician for the unexceptionable way in which he has performed a work that has, up to the publication of this book, been a paramount need, not to be satisfied anywhere in the English language. If the volume contained only the chapter on the influence of the mother's mind upon her unborn child, we would recommend its purchase by every family ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... Neefit. He was very angry with his wife, and was considering what steps he would take to maintain his proper marital and parental authority. He was not going to give way to the weaker vessel in a matter of such paramount importance, as to be made a fool of in his own family. He was quite sure of this, while the strength of the port wine still stood to him; and though he was somewhat more troubled in spirit when his wife began to bully him on the next morning, he still ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... system was profitable and this was not the case in Pennsylvania. The industrial development of the State was in the direction of small farming, manufacturing and commerce, all of which were uncongenial to slavery. In the absence of paramount economic needs, slavery was unable to hold its own against the moral idealism of the Quaker and the racial antipathies of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... consists of nonelected Senate or Dewan Negara (69 seats; 43 appointed by the paramount ruler, 26 appointed by the state legislatures) and the House of Representatives or Dewan Rakyat (193 seats; members elected by popular vote weighted toward the rural Malay population ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... once assure your Excellency that subject to the paramount necessity of restricting German trade his Majesty's Government have made it their first aim to minimize inconvenience to neutral commerce. From the accompanying copy of the Order in Council, which is to be published ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... blue sky, with its stars—worlds filled, perchance, with the intelligence which I sought. On the desert below was the phantasm of a great city. I looked on its small and miserable streets, where hunger and cold reigned paramount, and man was as wretched as if flung but yesterday on the earth, and there had been as yet no time for art to yield its assistance, or labour to bring forth its fruit. I gazed next on scenes of festivity, but they were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... restrained these outbursts, and would not allow the people to meddle with foreign states, but used the power of Athens chiefly to preserve and guard her already existing empire, thinking it to be of paramount importance to oppose the Lacedaemonians, a task to which he bent all his energies, as is proved by many of his acts, especially in connection with the Sacred War. In this war the Lacedaemonians sent a force to Delphi, and made the Phokaeans, who held ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... not one of the elements that give people, when they commit the paramount stupidity of marrying, reason to hope that they may not be miserable. Not one. If he were a strong man I should pity him less. But he's not. He's immensely dependent on his tastes, his ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... was the result of a quarrel. I believed it my duty to give you opportunity to patch that quarrel up with the least possible delay. Perhaps this was not entirely professional on my part, but the claims of friendship are paramount ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... paramount question in the life of a bird is the question of food, perhaps the most serious troubles our feathered neighbors encounter are early in the spring, after the supply of fat with which Nature stores every corner and by-place of the system, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... like smoke before the first drop of rain, and the Duke therefore concluded that any errand undertaken, and continued, in a downpour must be for a purpose of paramount importance. So he watched with curiosity the approaching figure, observing with surprise that it was a child of some ten ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... on the earth. It was the great object of Leo to substantiate this claim, and root it in the minds of the newly converted barbarians; and then institute laws and measures which should make his authority and that of his successors paramount in all spiritual matters, thus centring in his See the general oversight of the Christian Church in all the countries of Europe. It was a theocratic aspiration, one of the grandest that ever entered into the mind of a man of genius, yet, as Protestants ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... her own self, she,—Sir Peregrine's daughter-in-law, the only lady concerned in the matter,—she also would have liked it. But her son disliked it, and she had yielded so far to the wishes of her son. Well; was it not right that with her those wishes should be all but paramount? And thus she endeavoured to satisfy her conscience as ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... are identical with those which governed the actions of mankind in a primaeval and rudimentary state, when man had only just emerged from the animal, and have been since worked off by the foremost races in the course of development, is surely rather an argument against the paramount and indefeasible authority of those principles than in favour of it. It tends rather to show that their real character is that of a relapse, or, as the physiologists call it, a reversion. When there is a vast increase of wealth, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... new master was still on every tongue at Bridetown Mill, and the women turned to the few men who worked among them for information on this paramount subject. ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the common theory that the South has maintained paramount political sway in the Union by a superior capacity for politics. He declares that men whose interests and ideas are concentrated in a very narrow range, on one object, have vast advantage over their intellectual superiors, when the latter pursue no such single course. He might have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... essential to the exercise of national authority for the protection of the people. Those who undertake the responsibility of management or employment in this industry do so with the full knowledge that the public interest is paramount, and that to fail through any motive of selfishness in its service is such a betrayal of duty as warrants uncompromising action ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... of royalty!" he snapped. "The safety of the race is paramount. Am I to understand that ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... You, sir, thought fit to withdraw your interests from that keeping nevertheless and to offer them to me. You brought them with clean hands, sir, and I accepted them with clean hands. Those interests are now paramount in this office. My digestive functions, as you may have heard me mention, are not in a good state, and rest might improve them; but I shall not rest, sir, while I am your representative. Whenever you want me, you will find me here. Summon me anywhere, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... life. From the chief settlement others were to branch off; fifteen miles distant from each other. A church, a school, a library, were to promote the reformation of the prisoners—an object to be considered paramount to every other. Such were the plans for a City of Penitence, projected by Bigge; and by which he expected, in several directions, to dispose of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West |
