"Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... toward preventing the first steps into forbidden ways than those interested in great city problems have yet dreamed. The day will come when these women will make the arm of the law an efficient friend of the weak and unprotected girl and give all the positive, helpful agencies an opportunity ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... seasonable retreat. In this important debate, Alaric displayed the spirit of the conqueror of Rome; and after he had reminded his countrymen of their achievements and of their designs, he concluded his animating speech by the solemn and positive assurance that he was resolved to find in Italy either a kingdom ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... woman of 35, though she would try to make believe she could not write, and that she was subject to fits of insanity. There was then presumptive evidence that she wrote a good deal, and there is now positive evidence that she could write. She used often, in the presence of Mrs. L., to take the Bible and other books and read them, and would often say she thought the Protestants had a better religion than the Catholics, and were a better people. Afterwards she told Mrs. L. that she had doubts ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... time, during several weeks, her vituperations descended upon the head of Sidney Herbert himself. He had misinterpreted her wishes, he had traversed her positive instructions, and it was not until he had admitted his error and apologised in abject terms that he was allowed again into favour. While this misunderstanding was at its height, an aristocratic young ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... they began by bursting into tears, and begging Mrs. Crabtree for this once to excuse them and to give some cakes and tea to their little visitors; but they might as well have spoken to one of the Chinese mandarins, for she only shook her head with a positive look, declaring over and over again that nothing should appear upon the table except what was always brought up for their own supper—two biscuits and ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... (appear) 446. become &c. (be converted) 144; bring into existence &c. 161. abide, continue, endure, last, remain, stay. Adj. existing &c. v.; existent, under the sun; in existence &c. n.; extant; afloat, afoot, on foot, current, prevalent; undestroyed. real, actual, positive, absolute; true &c. 494; substantial, substantive; self-existing, self-existent; essential. well-founded, well-grounded; unideal[obs3], unimagined; not potential &c. 2; authentic. Adv. actually &c. adj.; in fact, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of Omar Khayyam could have written The Kasidah, observes Mr. Justin McCarthy, junior; but the only Omar Khayyam that Burton knew previous to 1859, was Edward FitzGerald. I am positive that Burton never read Omar Khayyam before 1859, and I doubt whether he ever read the original ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... There were, of course, only four pins at the receiving instrument. Two were of iron and two of tellurium, it being the gist of Edison's plan to effect the marking of the chemical paper by one metal with a positive current, and by the other metal with a negative current. In the following diagram, which shows the theory of this arrangement, it will be seen that both the transmitting rollers and the receiving pins are arranged in pairs, one pair in each case being slightly in advance of the other. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... the lady with the "Caul on her Face" that we had called to have our fortune told, and she said, "Hand out your money." This preliminary being settled, Madame B. (who is a tall, sharp-eyed, dark-featured and angular woman, dressed in painfully positive colors, and heavily loaded with gold chain and mammoth jewelry of various kinds) and Jupiter indicated powerful that we were a slim constitution, which came down on to us from our father's side. Wherein our constitution was not slim, so ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... from the gossips. It had been brought to a lonely house at the end of the village by a major of engineers. He had returned to the trenches the day before, and the place for the time being was empty. The thieves were never discovered. The sentry was positive that no one had passed him but two women, one of them carrying a baby. Madame Lelanne had dressed it up in a child's cloak and hood, and had carried it in her arms. As it must have weighed nearly a couple of hundred-weight suspicion ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... school has done more for the intellectual advancement, hence, elevation, of the Negro, than anything else. When I say press, I mean specifically the Negro press, which is an integral part of the American press of the country. It is his positive mouthpiece, effective when other audiences are denied him. Before Negro newspapers, the Negro had nothing to set forth his claims and true status. The race consequently speaks through the press ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... [Greek phrase]—and the intellect, electrified, surpasses as greatly its every-day condition, as does the vivid yet candid reason of Leibnitz, the mad and flimsy rhetoric of Gorgias. Merely to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived positive pleasure even from many of the legitimate sources of pain. I felt a calm but inquisitive interest in every thing. With a cigar in my mouth and a newspaper in my lap, I had been amusing myself for the greater part of the afternoon, now in poring over advertisements, now in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as it should be. Mrs. Phelps, a bustling little figure in her handsome rich silks, with her crisp black hair severely arranged, and her crisp voice growing more and more pleasantly positive as years went by, fitted herself with dignity into the role of mother-in-law and grandmother. Cornelia had been married several years. When Austin came home from college, and while taking him proudly with her on a round of dinners and calls, ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference is, I presume, that one kind comes a little more expensive, but is more durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... dollars into the saddler's pocket: that's a positive good. He may or may not take thereby ten dollars out of your pocket: that's a negative injury. In this case there was no injury, for you had already cost Lacasse—how much had you cost him, Dauphin?" continued the Seigneur, with a half-malicious smile. "I've been ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... him, has not improbably been blessed with some years of previous intercourse with the said John. Taking, then, the above advertisement to be true, or nearly so, down to the words "left leg" inclusive, (though I have some doubt if the blemish there implied amount to a positive lameness, or be perceivable by any but the nearest friends of John,) ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth. He made straight for an armchair on the opposite side of the table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man with the withered hand gave the newcomer a short glance of positive dislike; the old woman took no notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes ...
— The Red Room • H. G. Wells
... the water might be raised to the 300-foot contour, and if the dam across Pompton Lake were constructed a continuous lake would be formed extending 10-1/2 miles to Hillburn, N. Y. The improvement in either case would be positive, for as the country surrounding is hilly or mountainous it affords excellent opportunity for the location of summer homes and parks, the lake being a potent factor in beautifying the situation and increasing the value of the surrounding region. There ...
— The Passaic Flood of 1903 • Marshall Ora Leighton
... square of stringy calico, fumble in his pocket for a scrap of paper, put his name at the bottom of it, and sneak out again five, ten, or twenty dollars better off. Once, as late as eleven o'clock, a fattish gentleman with a hooked nose and a positive dialect, assisted another stout member of his race to slide a very large object from out the tail of a cart. Whereupon there had been an interchange of wisps of paper between Pawson and the fatter of the two men, the late visitors bowing and smiling until they reached a street lantern ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... reader. How, then, is it to be priced, and how is it to be fairly marketed? All people must be fed, and all people must be clothed, and all people must be housed; and so meat, raiment, and shelter are things of positive and obvious necessity, which may fitly have a market price put upon them. But there is no such positive and obvious necessity, I am sorry to say, for fiction, or not for the higher sort of fiction. The sort of fiction ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... I am sure, assert that I gave you any pledge that King James would be required to leave France. You are too honourable a man, you are too much my friend, to say any such thing." "It is true," answered Portland, "that I did not insist on a positive promise from you; but remember what passed. I proposed that King James should retire to Rome or Modena. Then you suggested Avignon; and I assented. Certainly my regard for you makes me very unwilling to do anything that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... so once or twice," he returned, musingly; "there is rather a disagreeable resemblance. But what of that? many men are almost counterparts of each other. But I tell you what I think. I am almost positive he is some long-lost relation of the family—Fabio's uncle for all we know, who does not wish to declare his actual relationship. He is a good old fellow enough, I believe, and is certainly rich as Croesus; he will be a ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... thin, worrying myself to death.—Even Lady Dasher saw the change in me, hinting one day to the vicar, in my hearing, that she was positive I was in a decline, or suffering from heart-disease, and that office-work was really ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... tore carefully up into small pieces and destroyed. He did not even glance towards Peter, but Peter understood very well what had happened. He had been about to send him a message, but had found the Baroness watching. Peter was fully awake now. His faint sense of suspicion had deepened into a positive foreboding. He had a reckless desire to stop the car, to descend upon the road and let the secrets of Bernadine go where they would. Then his natural love of adventure blazed up once more. His moment of weakness ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of all the Oracles of Doom, which it was his fate to inscribe as final. Now to Baruch in such a mood the older man, the Prophet, might have appealed from his own example, for none in that day was more stripped than Jeremiah himself, of family, friends, affections, or hopes of positive results from his ministry; nor was there any whose life had been more often snatched from the jaws of death. But instead of quoting his own case Jeremiah brought to his despairing servant and friend a still higher example. The ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... know they are here," said the young soldier positively, but with great politeness. "I have positive information to that effect. They arrived last evening and have not left since. Their horses are still in the stable. I am sorry to be forced to do violence to my feelings, but I must search the house. ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... this. There seems no end, really, to the fine weather. Remind me to look at the thermometer after breakfast, before the sun catches it, love. It must have been quite two degrees hotter yesterday than the day before; but I neglected to make the entry in my journal, and so cannot be quite positive. Only fancy! Is it not annoying? I am getting sadly forgetful about everything. And I so dislike guess-work and conjecture in a record of the kind. I should like to see the rose-trees at home this morning: the garden must be gay with flowers by this,—though the last time I went pottering about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... not like eating and drinking and exercise, if he is not something positive in his tastes, it means he has a feeble body and should have some medicine; but children may be pure spirits, if they will, and take their enjoyment in a world of moon-shine. Sensation does not count ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... up a paragraph from a topic-sentence consists in telling what it is not; that is, giving the obverse. This is very effective in argument, and is employed in exposition and description. The obverse usually follows a positive statement, and again is followed by the affirmative; that is, first what it is, then what it is not, and last, what it is again. In the following description by Ruskin, the method appears and reappears. ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... was correctly informed. 'Eugene,' said M. de Veron, addressing his son in his usual cold positive manner, and at the same time locking his private ecritoire, the hand of the clock being just on the stroke of five, the hour for closing—'I have a matter of importance to inform you of. All differences between me and the Chevalier de Merode relative to your marriage with his daughter, Mademoiselle ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... Fitzherbert was President of the Board of Trade in the new government, but he is more likely to be remembered as Dr. Johnson's famous example of the truth of the observation, that a man will please more upon the whole by negative qualities than by positive, because he was the most acceptable man in London, and yet overpowered nobody by the superiority of his talents, made no man think worse of himself by being his rival, seemed always to listen, did not oblige you to hear much from ...
— Burke • John Morley
... its ramifications, to play with it, to embroider it with pathos or with wit, to penetrate to its roots, to trace its connexions and affinities. Question and answer, anecdote and jest are the staple of American conversation; and, above all, information. They have a hunger for positive facts. And you may hear them hour after hour rehearsing to one another their travels, their business transactions, their experiences in trains, in hotels, on steamers, till you begin to feel you have no ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... is the place," the first voice declared, and his statement was seconded by another and as positive a voice. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... may be assured, where discrepancies occur, that the writer of this memoir has obtained his data from direct and positive sources: letters, diaries, account-books, or other immediate memoranda; also from the concurring testimony of eye-witnesses, supported by a unity of circumstance and conditions, and not from hearsay or vagrant ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... influence, and, in its way, nothing is so important. It is significant that foreign students rarely speak of Oxford without commenting on its atmosphere; something in the air of the old town which, although intangible in its operation, is a positive factor in the educational result. Specific courses of instruction are less numerous than in many other places, and such instruction as is offered is often defective in methods and spirit; but the life of the place is adjusted to intellectual work; the library facilities ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... railroad officer, and is also the most devoted student of geography and military history, with the most accurate and extraordinary memory for every detail, however minute, of battles and all other military operations that I have ever met with. He is positive in his recollection that not less than 100,000 and probably more, of that army were gradually concentrated at Toulon and sent thence by sea to Genoa, and the rest were during some weeks being concentrated ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... "That I'm positive of," answered Zillah. "I never saw it in my life until my attention was drawn to it after he was dead. That book was brought in here during my absence, and it was neither bought nor pawned—that's absolutely certain! Of course, you know whose ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... be in a much happier condition; and problems of social reform can then be tackled with some hope of success. Honourable emulation in the arts of life may then take the place of desperate competition and antagonism. Human lives will begin to have a positive value, and we may even think it fair to honour our saviours more than our destroyers. The effects of past follies will then soon be effaced; for nations recover much more quickly from wars than from internal disorders. External injuries are rapidly cured; but 'those ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... Mr. Jones, the reflective man in spectacles, 'positive virtues are getting moved off the stage: negative ones are moved on to the place of positives; we thank bare justice as we used only to thank generosity; call a man honest who steals only by law, and consider him a benefactor if he does not ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... from their native country by positive evils, and disgusted by ill-treatment, real or imaginary, it were fit to remove their grievances, and quiet their resentment; since, if they have been hitherto undutiful subjects, they will not much mend their ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... they whom we are condemning: but such as knowing and even acknowledging this to be their case, yet proceed in a way directly contrary: who, scarcely seeming to suspect that any thing is wrong with them, voluntarily acquiesce in a state of mind which is directly contrary to the positive commands of God, which forms a perfect contrast to the representations given us in Scripture of the Christian character, and accords but too faithfully in one leading feature with the character of those, who are stated to be the objects of Divine ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... to journalist. Voltaire taught him to scoff and disbelieve, to demand "a quoi bon?" and that took the heart out of him. He was rather fond of exposing abuses, a habit that appears in those witty letters to the Gaulois which in 1878 obliged him to suspend that journal. His was a positive mind, interested in political affairs, and with something always ready to say upon them. In 1872 he founded a radical newspaper, Le XIXme Siecle (The Nineteenth Century), in association with another aggressive spirit, that of Francisque Sarcey. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... requested that it be officially announced to him 'that the instructions were intended to guide but not absolutely to bind him.' He was not afraid of incurring responsibility where discretion was allowed, but he would not do it in the face of strict and positive injunctions. Mr. Gallatin sailed from New York with his wife and daughter July 1, 1826. Mr. William Beach Lawrence, then a youth, accompanied him as his secretary. They reached London ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... our friend Gammon, who never got heated in discussion, and was very accurate in whatever he knew, had glaringly the best of it. His calm, smiling self-possession almost drove poor Bluster frantic. The less he knew, of course the louder he talked, the more vehement and positive he became; at length offering a bet that there was no such thing as a writ of Habeas Corpus before the time of Charles II.;[20] at which Gammon bowed, smiled, and closed the discussion. While engaged in it, he had of course been unable to keep his eye upon Titmouse, who drank, consequently, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... the ticket!" shouted Bandy-legs, seeing the game now for the first time. "Steve, you're as good as landed. Bless that old rope, it's already proved worth its weight in gold." Steve watched operations anxiously. Despite the positive assurance conveyed in these words from his chums, the terrible grip of that clinging sand made him cold with apprehension. He imagined all sorts of things, from the rope breaking under the sudden and terrible strain, to his arms being drawn from their sockets in the battle between ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... big. The States also are taking in ballast at a rather rapid rate; and we too took it in quickly when we were about it. But I cannot understand why their ship should not carry, without shipwreck, that which our ship has carried without damage, and, as I believe, with positive advantage to its sailing. The ballast, if carried honestly, will not, I think, bring the vessel to grief. The fear is lest the ballast should ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... been attached none had thought to inquire, for the followers of a Martian noble are many, coming and going at the whim of their master, so that a new face is scarcely ever questioned, as the fact that a man has passed within the palace walls is considered proof positive that his loyalty to the jeddak is beyond question, so rigid is the examination of each who seeks service with the nobles of ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Cyrilla's usually positive gray eyes looked vague. She smiled. "I never asked," said she. "I've known him nearly three years, and it never occurred to me to ask, or to wonder. Isn't that strange? Usually about the first inquiry we make is what a ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... Arend, and Hans were inclined to place but little reliance on this boast of the Bushman, they gave to the rest of his story more than a fair share of credence. To them it was positive evidence that any longer stay in the neighbourhood would be ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... I was following Kongoni, this faculty had full play, and it assured me vehemently that we were wrong. I called C. up from the rear for consultation. Kongoni was very positive he was right; but as we had now been walking over an hour, and camp should not have been more than three miles from where we had killed the roan, we were inclined towards my instinct. So we took the compass direction, in order to assure ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... late events have given a more decided turn to Mr. Jeffrey's mind, and that he feels that as in the struggle between liberty and slavery, the views of the one party have been laid bare with their success, so the exertions on the other side should become more strenuous, and a more positive stand be made against the avowed and appalling encroachments of priestcraft ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... "I'm positive of it, but I can't prove anything. They threatened to get the best of me when I would not sell them, for a ridiculously low sum, an interest in the secrets. And I believe they did get the best ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... we have a different case. He was brought up in the most secluded fashion, and though he was sharply enough disciplined into decorous behaviour by his very grim and positive mother, he was guarded like a precious jewel, and as he grew up he was endlessly petted and indulged. The Ruskins lived a very comfortable life in a big villa with ample grounds at Denmark Hill. ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "Positive. Why, I was standing at the door watching the dance, when I saw the two together upon the floor. Later they came over and sat down quite close to me. Curly did most of the talking, and the girl seemed quite uneasy. She left shortly after with a fine-looking ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... Transfiguration." Patricia gave a slight start, but he continued, unheedingly: "A certain newspaper man, Radnor by name, has already sought to interview me, and he went so far as to insist that he was positive in his assertions as to such a ceremony having taken place. Of course, Beatrice and I both know it to be untrue, and I now make this statement in order to warn you all of what may possibly appear in the morning papers; that is all I have ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... there, and I conceived a sudden desire to repair the damage I had done, to close up the hole through which I had crept, so as to conceal all traces of my resurrection. I do not believe that I had any positive motive in doing so. I only deemed it useless to proclaim my adventure aloud, feeling ashamed to find myself alive when the whole world thought me dead. In half an hour every trace of my escape was obliterated, and then I climbed out of ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... bit of a heretic himself and, consequently, carried a tender heart toward them. "Let a man doubt till he finds his faith. And that was Boyle's line. He let them doubt, but he insisted that they should have something positive to ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... l. 21. It is the opinion of some philosophers, that the electric ether consists of two kinds of fluids diffused together or combined; which are commonly known by the terms of positive and negative electricity, but are by these electricians called vitreous and resinous electricity. The electric shocks given by the torpedo and by the gymnotus, are supposed to be similar to those of the Galvanic pile, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... thousand marines had been cut off between Placentia and Ticinum.[250] After this success the river and its steep banks were no barrier to the Vitellian troops: indeed the Batavians and other Germans found the Po a positive temptation. Crossing suddenly opposite Placentia, they captured a handful of scouts and created such a panic that the others in terror spread the false report that Caecina's whole army ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... said or done to reassure her. She was still grievously disturbed, and he naturally ascribed her agitation to the horror of her capture. He dreaded a complete collapse if any further alarms threatened at once. Yet he was almost positive—though search alone would set at rest the last misgiving—that only one sampan had visited the island. Evidently the Dyaks were unprepared as he for the events of the preceding half-hour. They were either visiting the island to procure turtle and beche-de-mer or had merely called ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... Under the double fluid theory of electricity the action of electrification in accumulating positive electricity in one conductor and negative on the other of the ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... his infidel opponents, he goes upon deck, reminds the sailors, in a very bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; exhorts the Episcopal gunner not to trust to the Presbyterian quartermaster, issues positive orders that the Catholics should be fired at upon the first appearance of discontent; rushes through blood and brains, examining his men in the Catechism and xxxix. articles, and positively forbids every one to sponge or ram who ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... chance for him. Mr. Nelson was positive in his instructions. I don't think you need take the trouble to ask him, as I am almost sure ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... disagreement. "Let us hope that so happy an ending to all your sufferings is not far off, my dear Mr. O'Day. And now another question before we part for the night, one I perhaps ought to have asked you before. Are you quite positive that Kitty's ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... grew less and less frequent; for Hesper was on the downward incline; but, when the next came, after this interview, she found herself haunted, at a little distance, as it were, by a strange sense of dumb, invisible tending. It did not once come close to her; it did not once offer her the smallest positive consolation; the thing was only this, that the essence of Mary's being was so purely ministration, that her form could not recur to any memory without bringing with it a dreamy sense of help. Most powerful of all powers in its holy insinuation is being. To be is more powerful than even to ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... or imprisonment, such persons as we could not depend upon. He added that Longueville, too, was of opinion that there was no remedy left but to purge the Houses. This was exactly like him, for never was there a man so positive and violent in his opinion, and yet no man living could palliate it with smoother language. Though I thought of this expedient before M. de Bouillon, and perhaps could have said more for it, because I saw the possibility of it much clearer than he, yet I would not give him ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... pleasure, pain, etc. upon the self; and this with S'a@nkara is a beginningless illusion. All this had been said by Gau@dapada. S'a@nkara accepted Gau@dapada's conclusions, but did not develop his dialectic for a positive proof of his thesis. He made use of the dialectic only for the refutation of other systems of thought. This being done he thought that he had nothing more to do than to show that his idea was in agreement ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... of all is in Dante. He had known all manner of traveling; had been borne through vacancy on the shoulders of chimeras, and lifted through upper heaven in the grasp of its spirits; but yet I do not remember that he ever expresses any positive wish on such matters, ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... about the same with Jimmy Holden; the "missing person" report stated that one of the most prominent factors in the lad's positive identification was his high quality of speech and his superior intelligence. (This far Paul Brennan had to go, and he had divulged ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... caravan, why should he aid it?" When we asked the applauding hearers what they had done for us, they rejoined by inquiring whose the land was? Another, smitten by the fair Shehrazade's bulky charms, had proposed matrimony, and offered as dowry a milch camel: she "temporised," not daring to return a positive refusal, and the suitor betrayed a certain Hibernian velleite to consider consent an unimportant part of the ceremony. The mules had been sent to the well, with orders to return before noon: at ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... that tubes of clay were used at Awatubi in olden times for roof drains, but there remains no positive evidence of this. Three forms of this device are attributed to the people of that village. Some are said to have been made of wood, others of stone, and some again of sun-dried clay. The native explanation of the use in this connection of sun-dried clay, instead of the more durable baked product, ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... sensitive girl appreciated only too well that her opportunities were fine and unusual, but she also knew that in spite of some facility and much good teaching she had no genuine talent and never would fulfill the expectations of her friends. She looked back upon her mother's girlhood with positive envy because it was so full of happy industry and extenuating obstacles, with undisturbed opportunity to believe that her talents were unusual. The girl looked wistfully at her mother, but had not the courage to cry out what was in her heart: "I might believe I had unusual talent if I did not know ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... permitted the Obligation to be attracted to the Pact. I used this language on account of the advantage of a general expression, but it is not strictly correct unless it be understood to include the negative as well as the positive. For, in truth, the peculiarity of these Consensual Contracts is that no formalities, are required to create them out of the Pact. Much that is indefensible, and much more that is obscure, has been written about the Consensual Contracts, and it has even been asserted ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... This, of course, had been no fault of Margaret's, but it had made him feel justified in leaving his daughter as a burden upon his younger son. For the last fifteen years she had eaten bread to which she had no positive claim; but if ever woman earned the morsel which she required, Margaret Mackenzie had earned her morsel during her untiring attendance upon her brother. Now she was left to her own resources, and as she went silently about the house during those sad hours which intervened ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... dark, and, the monks of Arboga being accused of secreting certain treasures, the royal officer was instructed to make a diligent investigation, but to lay his hands on nothing until he received more positive commands. He was careful, also, that his practice of confiscating Church property should not be taken as an excuse for private individuals to do the same. In one case, where such a thing was done, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... proof of their having been worked by Elizabeth will now ever be forthcoming, but it is equally unlikely that any positive disproof ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... notwithstanding, his unfortunately rather too short stay with some adepts, he has by actual experiment and observation verified some of the less transcendental or incipient parts of the "Course." And, though it will be impossible for him to give positive testimony as to what lies beyond, he may yet mention that all his own course of study, training and experience, long, severe and dangerous as it has often been, leads him to the conviction that everything ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... their afflictions are considered with commiseration; if calamities be measured by the numbers and the qualities of men they involve; and if every suffering of a fellow creature draws a crowd of attentive spectators; if, even in the case of those to whom we do not habitually wish any positive good, we are still averse to be the instruments of harm; it should seem, that in these various appearances of an amicable disposition, the foundations of a moral apprehension are sufficiently laid, and the sense of a right which we maintain for ourselves, is by a movement ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... would Jerry have held the deck, for every lessened mile between the return boys and Malaita contributed a rising of their spirits, and under the imminence of their old-time independence, Lerumie, as an instance of many of them, with strong gustatory sensations and a positive drooling at the mouth, regarded Jerry in terms of food and ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... and inoffensive, through dun-coloured spectacles. He paid his bill and walked thoughtfully homeward, thankful for the cool night air which fanned his forehead. He even entered his bare sitting-room and threw up the window with a positive feeling of relief. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... necessary that the biographer should have personally known him. But this condition has been wanting in some of the best writers of biographies extant. [199] In the case of Lord Campbell, his personal intimacy with Lords Lyndhurst and Brougham seems to have been a positive disadvantage, leading him to dwarf the excellences and to magnify the blots in their characters. Again, Johnson says: "If a man profess to write a life, he must write it really as it was. A man's peculiarities, and even his vices, should be mentioned, because they mark his character." ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... cousin Harriet is quite another story," he went on softly, saucily. "Any conceit our dear Felicia rubs in to you, Harriet most effectually rubs out. Isn't it so? I am as a worm, a positive worm before her—can only 'tremble and obey' like the historic lady in the glee. She flattens me. I haven't an ounce of kick left in me. And then why, oh why, tell me, Damaris, does she invariably and persistently clothe ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... to join the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The Prime Minister has pledged to hold a public referendum if membership meets Chancellor of the Exchequer BROWN's five economic "tests." Scheduled for assessment by mid-2003, the tests will determine whether joining EMU would have a positive effect on British investment, employment, and growth. Critics point out, however, that the economy is thriving outside of EMU, and they point to public opinion polls that continue to show a majority of Britons ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... of figures of men, etc. At a distance, the words composed by the letters are alone distinguishable. Close at hand, the figures alone are seen, and not distinguished as letters. Thus things may have a positive, a relative, and a composite meaning, according to the point ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... usually another man's back; and who sketch out a much better speech between an orator's shoulder blades than he is making in front;—whose written language is a perplexity compared with which Greek is a relaxation and Sanscrit a positive amusement;—who deal in adjectives, and know their precise value, and how to administer them, as an apothecary knows the drugs that are boxed and bottled on his shelves;—who are less men than parts of an enormous mill grinding out grist to be branned and bolted in the editorial ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Islands as a position powerfully influencing the commercial and military control of the Pacific, and especially of the Northern Pacific, in which the United States, geographically, has the strongest right to assert herself. These are the main advantages, which can be termed positive: those, namely, which directly advance commercial security and naval control. To the negative advantages of possession, by removing conditions which, if the islands were in the hands of any other power, ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... red flags along the street and heard men calling upon the people in loud, strident voices to come and buy. At other places the grateful glow of coal fires shone from half-opened doorways, and the faint but positive click of ivory chips told that games of chance ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... quarrel is not so easy to find out. But of inducing the refusal to annul the decree, all alike charge Pericles. Some say he met the request with a positive refusal, out of high spirit and a view of the state's best interests, accounting that the demand made in those embassies was designed for a trial of their compliance, and that a concession would be taken for a confession of weakness, as if they durst not do ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... make I shall confine myself to four points: —1. That the committee find themselves in the painful condition of not spending enough money, and will presently apply themselves to the great reform of spending more. 2. That with regard to the house, it is a positive matter of history, that the house for which Mr. Williams was so anxious was to be applied to uses to which it never has been applied, and which the administrators of the fund decline to recognise. 3. That, in Mr. Bell's endeavours to remove the Artists' Fund from the ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... distinction between outside and inside, I beg of you, my dear sir. I hold that the ship is, at this identical moment, in the United States of America in a positive sense, as well as by a legal fiction; and I think Vattel will bear ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... hoped for. In Him the blessings and powers of the eternal life are our actual possession and experience. Jesus is full of grace and truth; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth; through Him the grace that is in Jesus is ours indeed, and truth a positive communication out of the Divine life. And so worship in spirit is worship in truth; actual living fellowship with God, a real correspondence and harmony between the Father, who is a Spirit, and the child praying in ...
— Lord, Teach Us To Pray • Andrew Murray
... to all this with the greatest interest. While he might to some extent share the confidence of his chum, still he did not feel quite so positive about the warmth of their welcome by the lawless band of shingle-makers peopling the lower reaches of the river that emptied into ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... "Positive of it, sir. I caught but a glimpse of him last night, but it was sufficient to show ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... Exhibition began early and have been arduous, persistent and effective. Any Inauguration of the Fair in which he did not prominently figure would have done him injustice. The Queen appears to be personally popular in a more direct and positive sense. I cannot remember that any one act of her public life has ever been condemned by the public sentiment of the Country. Almost every body here appears to esteem it a condescension for her to open ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... of his Majority, now darkly moped in his rooms, undecided to apply for a long home leave, unwilling to leave Delhi, and even afraid to ask his general for any positive favor as to a future station. Club and mess bandied the freest tattle as to old Hugh Johnstone's lovely "importation." Men eyed the prosperous Major Alan Hawke on his rising pathway with a growing envy. There was a smart coterie who now firmly believed ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... d'Enghien. This unfortunate and unjust impression had preceded Caulaincourt to St. Petersburg, and it was feared that he would not experience the reception due to the French Ambassador and to his own personal qualities. I knew at the time, from positive information, that after a short explanation with Alexander that monarch retained no suspicion unfavourable to our Ambassador, for whom he conceived and maintained great ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... "Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient." The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zad (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar better) and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... one another, or with the world, compare it with your own conduct. If you find yourself condemned, you have the same course to pursue, with a steadfast determination to exhibit more of the spirit of Christ. If it relates to some positive duty, inquire whether you have done it. If not, you have to go through the same work of repentance and application to the blood of Christ. But do not stop here. Do ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... distilled water, filling two glass tubes, connected by moist bladders, or any moist animal or vegetable substances, were submitted to the electrical action of the pile of Volta by means of gold wires, a nitro-muriatic solution of gold appeared in the tube containing the positive wire, or the wire transmitting the electricity, and a solution of soda in the opposite tube; but I soon ascertained that the muriatic acid owed its existence to the animal or vegetable matters employed; ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... give it to me," said Mrs. Kildair. She held out her hand without trembling, a smile of triumph on her face, which had in it for a moment an expression of positive cruelty. ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... be given which would give him unbounded joy or doom him to perpetual misery. To him, at least, the time dragged wearily along, the tunes were lifeless, the courses were inordinately long, and it was a positive relief to him when Nicholas rose up again and pronounced a benediction, equally as long and dreary as the ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... George up in one of the bear robes taken from the wall of the cavern, "I've been thinking that the cabin is a great deal nearer the camp. Of course I haven't been to the camp, but I've heard the location described and I'm positive that it is four or five miles further away ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... but did not comprehend the situation. In spite of the positive testimony he had given he did not even know Edward Granger ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... School," on page 18 says: "Neither Latin nor Greek would be contained in the curriculum of the Modern School—not, of course, because their literatures are less wonderful than they are reputed to be, but because their present position in the curriculum rests upon tradition and assumption. A positive case can be made out for neither." The president of Columbia University, in his Annual Report for 1915-1916, page 15, speaking of the "teachers of the ancient classics," says: "They have heretofore been all too successful in concealing from their pupils ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... what's going to happen? She'll ask twice as much now as she did before; and the moment it's clear that she isn't going to get it, she'll call in an agent of police. She'll get her money in a separate suit and send him to prison to do it. The case against him is positive; there isn't a shadow of hope for him. You talk of being with him; don't you see how preposterous that is? Do you imagine they encourage family housekeeping ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... grown up together from childhood. He was an only son and she an only daughter. It had always been an understood thing between the two families that the boy and girl should marry. But Marian's father had decreed that no positive pledge should pass between them until Marian ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and secondarily of the circulation, and that was all. To fulfil this object, and to answer the endless craving for habitual excitants of the cerebral functions, they had been admitted reluctantly to the diet of their patients, rather as necessary evils than as positive goods. It was reserved for the all-searching German mind to discover their better qualities; and it is only within the last five years, that the self-sacrificing experiments of Dr. Boecker of Bonn, and of Dr. Julius Lehmann, have raised them to their proper place in dietetics, as "Accessory ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... on. "You know, of course, that the force of magnetic attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distances separating the magnet and the attracted particles, and also that each magnetized particle had two poles, a positive and a negative pole, or a north pole and a south pole, as they ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... terminating in the syllable -lyche form the comparative in -loker and the superlative in -lokest; as, positive uglyche ( ugly), comp. ugloker, superl. uglokest. The long vowel of the positive is often shortened in the comp. and superl., as in the modern ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... and conjectures such an introductory conversation as follows: "Is it dawning in the east, or is a fiery dragon flying about, or are the turrets of some castle burning?" questions which the king negatives in the same order. Then comes the positive declaration, "rather they are warriors marching whose armor gleams in the moonlight." —Alt- und Angels. Lesebuch, 1861. Heinzel and B. conjecture, [beorhtor hor]nas byrnað nǣfre. So. G.—Beit. xii. 22; Anzeiger f. ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of his winter quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in his hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders from the Emperor, which they were directed to execute and he was commanded ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... more loudly, like some great cat purring. Louder snapped the electrical waves. The air vibrated with the enormous speed of the valve wheels, and there was a prickling sensation as the power flowed into the positive and negative plates, by which the projectile was ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... Temps of to-day, enters into a lengthy argument to prove that the Parisians are heroic. "Heroism is positive and negative," he says, "and we have, for the sake of our country, deprived ourselves during several months of the power to make money, and during this time we have existed without many of the comforts to which we are accustomed." ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... destiny is in your own hands. I come not to declare war against the fortunes and persons of individuals. The enemy of the liberty and independence of America alone is the object of the vengeance of the arms of the PATRIA. I promise you in the most positive manner, that your property and persons shall be inviolable, and that you shall be treated as respectable citizens, if you co-operate in the great ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... angel! you little dear!" he cried, with a positive dew of pleasure in his eyes. "Elsie, what have we ever done ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge |
