"Potent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then, getting off the main hatch, we proceeded to search the vessel. In the hold were several casks of French brandy, immensely strong spirit, intended to be diluted before being sold. From one of these the crew had evidently been helping themselves, and not being accustomed to so potent a liquid, fancying it of the ordinary strength, it had overcome their senses before they were aware of what was happening to them. We found, also, Dutch drops, several bales of tobacco, and sundry other things, amply sufficient to condemn the craft ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... a general introduction it would be difficult to enter every nook and corner of the poet's world. We must even pass over some of the most potent influences of his life. The national dreams of the Modern Greeks have a splendid dwelling in the thought of Palamas, who follows with restlessness his people's woes and exults in their joys. A group of poems dedicated ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... absolutely unconnected with the passing girl; third, these Evening and Night scenes, where, on the contrary, all is forced into more or less direct relation with the little figure whose most exquisite magic has hitherto resided in the fusion of her complete personal loneliness with her potent influence upon the lives and characters of those ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... Reformers on the Continent were brought into England by a great variety of carriers and over many routes. Some of the routes were devious and are difficult to trace, but some of them, on the other hand, are obvious and easily found. One of the potent and pervasive intellectual influences for the formation of the "spiritual" type of thought in England was the Platonic influence which came to England through the Humanists. This strand of thought, inherited from the ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... ironclad navy of the Western waters. Though the naval battles in the Atlantic were perhaps more brilliant, he says, none, unless that between the Merrimac and the Monitor, had more important results. Eads has been called as potent as a great general in clearing the upper Mississippi. He did not, to be sure, build the entire gunboat fleet, but he did build, as Captain Mahan says, the backbone of it; and that the praises for that fleet, which I have quoted, are not altogether extravagant, is further shown by the comments ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... me, 'I am first going to use one of our old means of getting knowledge. It has failed me in the past, but it will be, perchance, more potent in the presence of ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... pupils. It was an ominous circumstance, that we learned in a few days to designate the new master by a nickname, and that the name stuck—a misfortune which almost never befalls the truly superior man. He had, however, a certain dash of cleverness about him; and observing that I was of potent influence among my school-fellows, he set himself to determine the grounds on which my authority rested. Copy and arithmetic books, in schools in which there was liberty, used in those ancient times to be charged with curious revelations. In the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... motive, the mission, of the conservatory system in this country, inasmuch as organized is more potent than individual effort to elevate our national taste, to prepare the way for the future artist, that he may be born under the right conditions, his divine gift fostered and directed to become worthy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... to witness one of your wrestling-matches," he said, when the old gentleman concluded; "for I cannot imagine that any of your peculiar Cornish hugs or twists can be so potent as to overturn a stout fellow who is accustomed to wrestle in another fashion. Can you show me one of the particular grips or twists that are ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mary amiably when the woman who kept the eating-house brought him his breakfast. Mrs. Clark was a potent antidote for the prevailing spirit of romance, even in this woman-forsaken country. A good creature, all limp calico, Roman nose, and sharp elbows, she brought him his breakfast with an ill grace that she had not shown to the others. The men about the table gave him scant greeting, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... way the economic position, health, education, and all other phases of life of the family are the most potent influences both in the life of its members ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... skilfully and resolutely, Maxley resisted little for so strong a man; but the potent poison within fought virulently: as a proof, the chloroform had to be renewed three times before it could produce any effect. At last the patient yielded to the fumes and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Egyptians could not understand. The Egyptian believed in many gods, and while worshipping one god with fervour, by no means denied the existence or the power of others in other places. Even foreign deities were in his eyes real and potent beings, each in his own territory. It is henotheism, not monotheism, that we see in this most religious land; the worship of one god at a time while other gods are also believed to exist and act. The one god who is before the mind of the worshipper is exalted above the rest, and spoken of as if ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... was that between us which kept us apart. A hard, stern face was still in our recollection. We remembered a certain figure, whose steps had ceased about the house, whose voice was hushed, but who was potent yet. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... grave, and potent cotemporary, The Quarterly Review, has, in the number just issued, a very pleasant gossiping article on The Old Countess of Desmond. The writer, who pays "N. & Q." a passing compliment for which we are obliged, although he very clearly ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... the high prerogative of Woman! Yet when I dwell on the brilliant efforts accomplished by thy mighty genius in our behalf, the pen falls powerless from my despairing hand, and I can merely point to thee as the potent champion of our down-trodden rights! Instead of dwelling in dull obscurity, victims to the caprice of men; mending their thread-bare clothing and scolding servants—base, unwomanly pursuits!—instead of listening in silence to the storms of political ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... be confessed he had potent inducements for his return to Paris, to combat against those of continuing in the king of Sweden's service; and both by turns appeared so prevalent, that it is uncertain which would have got the better, had not an accident ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... rank, the fashion, and the worth of the city, in "linked sweetness long drawn out," coiling through the thoroughfares on pious errand. The fair petitioners were dressed as for a fete; diamonds sparkled in their hair, and the potent fan, never deserted by the Andalusians, was agitated by five hundred of the smallest of hands in the softest of gloves. But the civic tyrants were more severe than Coriolanus. They were not to be mollified by woman's entreaties, but rightly fearing her charms they fled. When the ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... they approached the edge, he did not lessen his speed she guessed the frightful truth. As he leaped head foremost with her into the water, she closed her eyes and breathed a silent prayer, for she was confident that the maniac had no other purpose than to drown himself and her. And yet, so potent is the first law of nature that even in the face of certain death, as she surely believed herself, she clung tenaciously to life, and while she struggled to free herself from the powerful clutches of the madman, ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the skilled and experienced actors a wandering life offered potent attractions. Apart from its liberty and adventure, its defiance of social convention and restraint, ambition had space to stir, and vanity could be abundantly indulged in the itinerant theatre. Dekker speaks of the bad ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... were placed in the most conspicuous part of the town, and there the culprit, in addition to his legal punishment, was also disciplined at the discretion of passers-by with rotten eggs and other equally potent encouragements to reform. These gratuitous inflictions, not mentioned in the statute, as well as the public exhibition of the prisoner were abolished in later times and in this modified form the method of correction was extended to the ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... revolutionary, has no incidence on war. But in organic chemistry a single worker, following up some rare family of compounds, may stumble upon a substance pot far removed chemically from related compounds yet infinitely more potent for war. Mustard gas, or B:B dichlordiethylsulphide, is a member of a group of compounds differing only slightly in chemical structure the one from the other. Yet its nearest chemical relative is comparatively harmless. The persistent ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... pushed into the grave one who was only trembling with uncertainty upon its brink. Yet as a set off against these feelings there is the satisfaction experienced when sufferings are relieved or health restored by the interposition of my aid. The profession of medicine is potent for good and evil. For good in the hands of him who makes it his lifelong study; for evil in his hands who adopts it merely as a respectable means of obtaining his livelihood. It is noble in the one case; detestable in the other. You ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... elements of Style in singing, the most potent and effective—the one, indeed, that is essential for the success of the lyric artist—is the ability to vary the vocal timbre; that is, to sing with Colour. This desideratum of varied tone-colour is sought even by instrumentalists. Nay, the instrument itself is sometimes constructed with this ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... like horrid necklaces of cannibals. And from a squat den—where on a translucent placard in the dull window flickered the words "Foreign Earth," and the guttering door-lantern hinted "As You Like It"—there came a sweet, insidious, potent smell that seemed more poisonous than ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... stranger—this Charley—over with a hostile eye, offended by his good looks, his confident manner, in which he thought he detected an air of ownership, as if—certainly he was holding her hands longer than was necessary! Of course, other men were in love with her, such a radiant personality held its potent attraction for men, but for all that, she was going to belong to him—Carrington! She did like him; she had shown it in a hundred little ways during the last week, and he would give her up to no man—give her up?—there wasn't the least tie between them—except that kiss—and she was furious ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... by this time Madame de Mortsmart has completely recovered. I agree with his Majesty that, in doctoring, you have not had much experience; still, friendship acts betimes as a most potent talisman, and the heart of the Abbess is of those that in absence pines, but which in the presence of some ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... Irrationality of the Belief of Immortality 4. The Examination of the Notion of Self 5. Nature is the Mother of All Things 6. Real Self 7. The Awakening of the Innermost Wisdom 8. Zen is not Nihilistic 9. Zen and Idealism 10. Idealism is a Potent Medicine for Self -Created Mental Disease 11. Idealistic Scepticism concerning Objective Reality 12. Idealistic Scepticism concerning Religion and Morality 13. An Illusion concerning Appearance and Reality 14. Where does the Root of the ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... self-reliance mingling with an innocent trust of others which Mrs. Isabel March had described to her husband as a charm potent to make everybody sympathetic and good-natured, but which it would not be easy to account for to Mr. Arbuton. In part it was a natural gift, and partly it came from mere ignorance of the world; it was ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... hands of the enemy. In spite of that most tangible warning, they nevertheless joined the Boer ranks. What then were their reasons for risking their very lives in a cause which might perhaps fail? Surely such men as rose in rebellion had potent and valid reasons! To be stigmatised for life by the title of rebel could not be deemed so great an honour as to induce a man to face all the dangers and hardships of war. Nor were these colonial rebels mercenaries; ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... to bed in a ferment of helpless rage. Virtually she was a prisoner, as much so as if Charlie had kidnaped her and held her so by brute force. The economic restraint was all potent. Without money she could not even leave the camp. And when she contemplated the daily treadmill before her, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... life and poems. In this part of the house, too, there is a parlor, fragrant with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a noggin of whisky is here quaffed to the memory of the bard, who profest to draw so much inspiration from that potent liquor. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... out incessantly, and licking the air a moment, were gone forever. Occasionally this thick, cloudy veil concealed all but the spars of the enemy from sight, and then the tall masts seemed rising, by some potent spell, out of nothing; occasionally the terrific explosions would rend and tear asunder the curtain, and, for an instant, the black hulls would loom out threateningly, and then disappear. The roar of three hundred guns shook the island and fort unremittingly: the water that washed ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... her voice—low trailing words that awoke at intervals into short staccato utterances. It was all awake and alive with feeling. She did not ignore a fact the English often miss, that there are certain unwritten laws of these elder people which are as potent and unswerving as any mind-polished tablets that have come down to England from ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... been something in it and there may not," the Doctor said; "but, at any rate, Bathurst, he ought to be a potent ally. There doesn't seem any limit to his powers, and he might, for aught one knows, be able to convey you away as ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... misery hath joynd 90 In equal ruin: into what Pit thou seest From what highth fal'n, so much the stronger provd He with his Thunder: and till then who knew The force of those dire Arms? yet not for those Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage Can else inflict do I repent or change, Though chang'd in outward lustre; that fixt mind And high disdain, from sence of injur'd merit, That with the mightiest rais'd me to contend, And ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... youngest days, My brow with passion-flowers, and I have lived Unknown to my dear land. Oh, fortunate My sisters that in the heroic dawn Of races sung! To them did destiny give The virgin fire and chaste ingenuousness Of their land's speech; and, reverenced, their hands Ran over potent strings. To me, the hopes Turbid with hate; to me, the senile rage; To me, the painted fancies clothed by art Degenerate; to me, the desperate wish, Not in my soul to nurse ungenerous dreams, But to contend, and with the sword of song ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... when Rome conquered Greece it annexed its vices also. While the most radical social changes do not usually come about merely through imitation, yet the imitation of a foreign people is frequently, in the history of a particular nation, one of the most potent causes in bringing about social changes. It was certainly so in the case of the growth of divorce ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... thing. It transcends sex. Theodore Roosevelt was a compelling personality, and his force and ability were recognized by his friends and enemies alike while the public, the masses, adored him without knowing why. Sarah Bernhardt, Eleanor Duse, and Mary Garden carry with them a force far more potent in its appeal to the public than their mere feminine charm. They hold their public by personality. It is not trickery, but art, ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... disunited; few among them had definite views respecting the future government of the realm: and they gradually lost the confidence of the nation. But the Independents reposed fearlessly on the greatness and grandeur of their abstract principles, and pronounced, without a scruple, those potent words which kindled a popular enthusiasm—equality of rights, the just distribution of property, and the removal of all abuses. Above all, they were enthusiasts in religion, as well as in liberty, and devoutly attached to the doctrines ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... neutralize Thy baneful force, thy potent spell? For deepest danger ever lies Within this poison draught of hell. And men will drink with eager lip, The cup thou holdest forth to them, Not knowing that the draught they sip May their, and other ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... still potent for harm, Gave Peter a lease of Cornelius' farm: Which Peter accepted with virtuous joy— For he lived quite adjacent ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... vibrating. If the bobbin be met by these lines in motion, there will develop in its wire a difference of potential that, according to Faraday's law, will be proportional to their number. All things equal, then, a telephone transmitter will be so much the more potent in proportion as the lines set in motion by the vibrations of the disk and meeting the bobbin wire are greater in number. In like manner, a receiver will be so much the more potent in proportion as the lines of force, set in motion ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... interests as Corliss did British. Not only had a cordial friendship sprung up between them, but in a business way they had already been of large assistance to each other. And it was well that they should stand together,—a pair who held in grip and could direct at will the potent capital which two nations had contributed to the development of the ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... example, are organized in the most formidable manner against the general interests of the community, and constantly subordinate the interests of the common-weal to their conception of justice to their class; the big railways are equally potent, and so are the legal profession and the brewers. But to-day these political interventions of great organized services athwart the path of statesmanship are sustained by enormous financial resources. The State employes under Socialism will be in the position of employing one another ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... placed her in a cushioned chair on his right, at the head of the table, and drew a footstool to her feet. There was a gentleness and solicitude in his bearing which indicated that her weakness was more potent than strength would have been in maintaining ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... reason in this cry, for argument it cannot be called? There is none. Why the very fact that the acts of the Federal executive have had power to produce this strange delusion and wild commotion of the public mind, is itself a potent argument for holding fast to the principle of the compromise of 1850, and rallying the people again to its support, so that the President and the Congress may no longer disturb the people by tampering with the local question of slavery. Again I say, ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... which render a man insensible of beauty, yet he was past those which had made him look on the enjoyment of it as the supremest bliss:—the fond desires that once engrossed him, had for some time given way to the more potent ardors of ambition;—he now made not love his business but amusement; the amours he had were only transient, and merely to fill the vacancy of an idle hour: his thoughts were so wholly taken up with advancing himself, and ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... that of the plant itself and that of the specimen with which it was paired. The result was that some pairs were fertile and others barren. Counting these two groups of pairs, I found them nearly equal in number, indicating thereby that for any given individual the pollen of half of the others is potent, but that of the other half impotent. From these facts we may conclude the presence of a curious case of dimorphy, analogous to that proposed for the primroses, but without visible differentiating marks in the flowers. At least ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... anywhere else recorded than in church history, gospel triumph, legislative reports, reviews, and pamphlets. There the facts may be found, but they are isolated and disconnected, teaching nothing; but could be made a most potent means, not only of instruction in the practical operation of our system of government, but of developing the human faculties, if introduced into our schools. They are full of objects for comparison. By comparison ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... scarred and troublous portions of Gissing's earlier life had served as a preparation. Some there are, no doubt, to whom it will seem no extravagance in closing these private pages to use the author's own words, of a more potent Enchanter: 'As I close the book, love and ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... impressionable. The material surroundings, the outside lot of a man, affects him, but after all that is mostly on the outside; for the higher functions of life may be served in almost any external circumstances. But the environment of other lives, the communion of other souls, are far more potent facts. The nearer people are to each other, and the less disguise there is in their relationship, the more invariably will the law ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... my youth, not a human being: I felt to him in such a variety of ways that it would have been impossible to have accosted him rationally. In the first place, his startling likeness to Catharine connected him fearfully with her. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination is in reality the least: for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to the floor but her features are shaped in the flags! In every cloud, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... to her entreating arms and eyes, as he had so often before in like moments, when the need to put aside the consciousness of existence, of the world as it appears, had come to one of them or both. Yet it seemed that this love was like some potent spirit, whose irresistible power waned, sank, each time demanding a larger draught of joy, a more delirious tension ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... that did me somedeal favour erst, Whereas I piped my silly oaten reede, And songs in homely guise to mine reherst, Well pleased with maiden's smilings for my meed; Sweet muse, do give my Pegasus good speede, And send to him of thy high, potent might, Whiles mortalls I all of my theme do rede, Thatte is the story of a doughty knight, Who eftsoons wageth war, Kyng COTEN ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... about his duty to the firm; I minded not at all, I was secure of victory. He was but waiting to capitulate, and looked about for any potent to relieve the strain. In the gush of light from the bedroom door I spied a cigar-holder on the desk. 'That is well ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fourth and fifth. At this moment we believe they are both in the State Prison. Now how was the ruin of this once respectable family accomplished? Why did the fate of the elder not deter the younger from crime? Were they merely drawn along by the contagion of ill-example, or were there more potent influences at work in their destruction? And why did punishment and penitentiaries do so little in their reformation? The greater part of their lives were passed within their walls, cut off from the influence ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... few successes amid general failure. But many years before this agitation, there was begun a work among farmers, which in form and spirit was university extension, and which has constantly developed until it is today one of the most potent among the forces making for rural progress. This work has been done chiefly by what are now universally known as ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... due honour to other forms of Christian opposition to the prevailing unbelief, I urge the cultivation of a quickened spiritual life as by far the most potent. Does not history bear me out in that view? What, for instance, was it that finished the infidelity of the eighteenth century? Whether had Butler's Analogy or Charles Wesley's hymns, Paley's Evidences or ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... resisting though overpowered Swiss, and that burning palace, had any seer whispered to him, "Emperor that shall be, all this blood and massacre is but to prepare your future empire!" Little anticipating the potent effect which the passing events were to bear on his own fortune, Bonaparte, anxious for the safety of his mother and family, was now desirous to change France for Corsica, where the same things were acting on a less ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... opinion, have been a fine end to a Quixotic, very touching, most remarkable life. Would he now immaturely fall a victim to an enticing face and the cares of a household? Would he be able to sustain his character? One thing was certain. He could never again expect to exercise precisely the same potent influence as he had in the past, over his earth-bound, self-indulgent friends. Self-indulgent people always exacted unusual privations from those who would seek to move them—and Robert's call was clearly to materialists rather ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... this book without an uncomfortable consciousness, that, if not already beside himself, the chances of his becoming so are desperately against him. For what practicable escape is offered from this impending doom? Shall we leave off work and devote ourselves to health? Idleness is a potent cause of derangement. Shall we engage in the hard and monotonous duties of an active calling? Paralysis and other organic lesions use up professional brains with a frequency which is positively startling. Shall we cultivate our imagination and make statues ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... evidently studied the matter both lovingly and attentively, and starts with the assumption that it is an example of what he calls "Dickens's favourite theme," which more than any other had a fascination for him, and was apparently regarded by him as likely to be most potent in its influence on others. It was that of "a wrong-doer watched at every turn by one of whom he has no suspicion, for whom he even entertains a feeling of contempt," and Mr. Proctor has certainly evolved a very suggestive and not ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... the growing glory of the dawn, he watched also the glorious resurrection of the one great love of his life. Again, after many years, she lived in him: in every thought and hope and dream; not now as a child, potent, through ignorance, to wound him past endurance; but as a woman, beautiful through time and sorrow, magnificent in the wreck of her woman's life. Still he knew well that if love was to be his, it must remain for a long time ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Charlemagne.... I am Charlemagne, because, like Charlemagne, I unite the French crown to that of the Lombards, and my empire borders on the Orient." In this conception, which a remote history furnishes to his boundless ambition, the terrible antiquitarian finds the gigantic and suitable framework, the potent, specious terms, and all the verbal reasons he requires. Under Napoleon, the successor of Charlemagne, the Pope can be only a vassal: "Your Holiness is the sovereign of Rome, but I am its emperor," the legitimate suzerain. "Provided ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... can get nearly anything done, either good or bad, if you persuade a sufficiently influential person to recommend it. Gorman's mistake, as it seemed to me, lay in supposing that influence is equally potent outside Ireland. I am convinced that it is no use at all in dealing with a man like Ascher. If a big financial magnate will not supply money for an enterprise on the merits of the thing he is not likely to do so because ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... long been surmised, though no actual proof was forthcoming, that the law of gravitation by which the order and stability of our system are maintained exercises its potent influence over other material bodies existing in space, and that other systems, though differing in many respects from that of ours, and presenting a more complex arrangement in their structure, perform their motions subject to the ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... century there will hardly be anybody so obscure, so isolated in his employment, that he will not, by the development of the organized State, be turned round to face it and to recognize it as the most potent factor in his life. From that it follows of necessity that literature will be concerned more and more with the shaping of the character of this Great Being. In free democracies, where the State interferes little with the lives of ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... his death, June 12th, 1878, in his eighty-fourth year, he was the central and commanding figure in the enlarging literary world of New York. His newspaper had gained a potent reputation, and it brought to bear upon public affairs a strong influence of the highest sort. Its editorial course and tone, as well as the earnest and patriotic part taken by Bryant in popular questions and national affairs, without political ambition or ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Quain became a mere dull ache in the back of his perceptions; of physical suffering he was unconscious. He fell a prey to freakish fancies—could stand aside and watch himself, an atom whirling in the mad dance of the tempest, as the snow-flakes whirled, as little potent. He saw himself pitting his puny strength of mind and body against the infinite force of the elements: saw himself fall and rise and battle on, gaining nothing: an atom, sport of high gods! To the flight of time he grew quite oblivious, his thoughts wandering in the past, ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... sailed from island to island and sea to sea, till we arrived at the Island of the Bell, which containeth a city two days' journey in extent, whence after a six days' run we reached the Island Kala, hard by the land of Hind.[FN55] This place is governed by a potent and puissant King and it produceth excellent camphor and an abundance of the Indian rattan: here also is a lead mine. At last by the decree of Allah, we arrived in safety at Bassorah-town where I tarried a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... designed not only to awe the people into submission, but to overturn the government of the people and establish kingly prerogative. Parliament could not have committed a greater blunder. Instead of humbling the people of Boston, it aroused the sympathies of the entire country, and became a potent influence in bringing about the union of the Colonies. Contributions of food, wheat, corn, rye, peas, beans, flocks of sheep, and herds of cattle came from ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... remarked to me that Browning came to us as one coming into his own. This is profoundly true. There was in good sooth a mansion prepared against his advent. Long ago, we should have surrendered as to a conqueror: now, however, we know that princes of the mind, though they must be valorous and potent as of yore, can enter upon no heritance save that which naturally awaits them, and has been made theirs ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... of hereditary arrogance! Yet my family, he says,—unexpected condescension! my family and every other circumstance is unexceptionable; how feeble, then, is that regard which yields to one only objection! how potent that haughtiness which to nothing will give way! Well, let him keep his name! since so wondrous its properties, so all-sufficient its preservation, what vanity, what presumption in me, to suppose myself an equivalent for ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... themselves in man, Outlive themselves for ever; if the heat Outburn the heart that kindled it, the sweet Outlast the flower whose soul it was, and flit Forth of the body of it Into some new shape of a strange perfume More potent than its light live spirit of bloom, How shall not something of that soul relive, That only soul that had such gifts to give As lighten something even of all men's doom Even from the labouring womb Even to ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... or other people, have forgotten that there are other potent causes of action which may interfere with this, it is no fault of scientific method but only their ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... the world be growing dark, And twilight cool thy potent day inclose! The sun, beneath the round earth sunk, still glows All the night through, sleepless and young and stark. Oh, be thy spirit faithful as the lark, More daring: in the midnight of thy woes, Dart through ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... his poetical friend.[201] Meanwhile, his house is not wanting in needful garniture to render a country residence most congenial. His cellars below vie with his library above. Besides 'the brown October'—'drawn from his dark retreat of thirty years'—and the potent comforts of every species of 'barley broth'—there are the ruddier and more sparkling juices of the grape—'fresh of colour, and of look lovely, smiling to the eyz of many'—as Master Laneham hath it in his celebrated letter.[202] ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... these worlds no wine Of Life refills, no seeds of potent change. So may Death's pale and lingering weeds entwine These hollow globes that still unhindered range Through Heaven. O famished Time! thy jaws devour The suns and slumbers of the broken spheres, Whose knell young stars have heard, whose rounded hour Strikes, and ...
— The Masque of the Elements • Herman Scheffauer
... sway, on praise and admiration. These stimulants—withdrawn more or less even from the most successful in latter years—leave a void which becomes the very nursery of ennui, or even of self-disgust. Instead of glory being "the potent motive-power in all great souls," as M. Sainte-Beuve approvingly quotes, it is, with a surer ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... it be true that a private letter, a word spoken in season, or a brief drawing-room conversation, is often more influential than a cloud of newspaper writing, then the Prince of Wales was for years a potent force in promoting good-will between the Empire and ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... diddest not cease to heape benefit vpon benefit, during the reigne of an innocent and tendre king, yet no man did acknowledge thy potent hand and meruelouse working. The stoute courage of capitaines, the witte and policie of counselers, the learning of 'bishoppes[1], did robbe the of thy glorie and honor. For what then was heard, as concerning religion, but the kinges ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... inherited" (p. 108). [And on the following pages he gives five further examples of such effects.] "Habit in producing constitutional peculiarities and use in strengthening and disuse in weakening and diminishing organs, appear in many cases to have been potent in their effects" (p. 131). "When discussing special cases, Mr. Mivart passes over the effects of the increased use and disuse of parts, which I have always maintained to be highly important, and have treated in my 'Variation under Domestication' at greater length than, as I believe, any ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... with some hazy recollection of dangers encountered in old wells, he bent down cautiously and started up again, for it gradually dawned upon both that for about two feet above the floor there was a heavy stratum of poisonous gas, so potent that it overcame them directly; and it was into this they had plunged as soon as they ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... under.' At this the town of Mansoul began to prick up its ears. And 'What is it? Pray what is it?' thought they. And he said, 'I have somewhat to say to you concerning your King, concerning his law, and also touching yourselves. Touching your King, I know he is great and potent; but yet all that he hath said to you is neither true nor yet for your advantage. 1. It is not true, for that wherewith he hath hitherto awed you, shall not come to pass, nor be fulfilled, though you do the thing that he hath forbidden. ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... side of the Pacific lies Japan come to the manhood of nationality, demanding recognition as the equal of the white race and room to expand. Behind Japan lies China, an awakened giant, potent for good or ill, of half a billion people, whose commerce under a few years of modern science and mechanics is bound to equal the commerce of half Europe. It may in a decade bring to the ports that have hitherto been the back ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... and notable good havens," he said, "the great number of ships and mariners, their impregnable towns, if they were in the hands of a potent prince that would defend them, and, lastly, the state of this shore; so near and opposite unto the land and coast of England—lo, the sight of all this, daily in mine eye, conjoined with the deep, enrooted malice of that your so mighty ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Ulster, he should have Connaught and Munster, or Leinster and Munster, in his obedience: in other words, he should be able to command the allegiance of two-thirds of his suffragans. If of Munster, he should be equally potent in the other Provinces, in order to rank among the recognised kings of Erin. Whether some of the seven kings subsequent to Malachy II., who assumed the title, were not fairly entitled to it, we do not presume ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... hidden secrets, was among the forces which brought about the great geographical discoveries of the period. Its influence in this direction is evident enough in England and elsewhere later on; but, judging by the difficulties of Columbus in securing support, it was not in his time potent with those in control of government policy and government funds. The Italian navigator John Cabot and his son Sebastian made their voyages from England in 1498 and 1500 with very feeble support from Henry VII, though it was upon their discoveries that England later based ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... in his way a clever fellow—for a nigger; but is none the less dangerous or the less hateful for that. The men in the ship told me that he was a collector: some of them had seen his collections. Such collections! All that was potent for evil in bird or beast, or even in fish. Beaks that could break and rend and tear—all the birds represented were of a predatory kind. Even the fishes are those which are born to destroy, to wound, to torture. ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... How potent Die Wacht am Rhein is to stir the hearts of the children of the Fatherland is proven abundantly by an apposite story regarding the great Bismarck, the 'man of blood and iron.' The scene is the German Reichstag, and the time is that curious juncture in history when the Germans, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... the inclosed part, it yawned wide, and admitted him into a cavern in the very bowels of the earth, where never human foot before had trod; and the various spirits, which inhabit the different regions of nature, were here obedient to his potent word. The cavern had been formed by the great inundation of waters, when the approach of a comet forced them from their source; then, when the fountains of the great deep were broken up, a stream rushed out of the centre ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... and wonder which alone induces the mood from which the creation of beauty springs. Light we regard only as a convenience "to see things by" instead of as the power and glory that it inherently is. Its intense and potent vibrations and the rainbow glory of its colour beat at the door of consciousness in vain. When we awaken to these things we shall organize light into a language of spontaneous emotion, just as from ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... found two creatures, and one laughed eerily. Sailormen believed in many awesome mysteries: ghosts and goblins peopled the ocean like a vast graveyard. The boat held off, and no man spoke, but Ryan shivered under his skin, and fumbled his memory for the name of a potent saint. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... how potent an element in bringing on the Revolution of 1688—a revolution which had placed the House of Hanover on the throne of Great Britain—the question as to the sovereign's dispensing power had been; what an engine of tyranny in the State and of destruction to the Church James II. had intended ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... love and service; and yet such a frame of mind was impossible, so this objection runs, if we read and believed the writing of The Nation. A man of character and ability, who had filled a number of public offices with credit, told me that the influence of The Nation had been potent in keeping college graduates out of public life; that things in the United States were painted so black both relatively and absolutely that the young men naturally reasoned, "Why shall we concern ourselves ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... earth helped the earth to reproduce the same sort of creatures. So living things came up and flourished. The poem expresses many beautiful ideas, but the underlying conceptions lack the unity and grandeur that marked Aristotle's work, which later was the potent influence in shaping men's minds. It died out after a while, only to awake in the Renaissance with marvelous vitality, starting the world to think afresh great thoughts that would not die, but would grow from that time on with ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy—trite announcements of post-season luncheons, dinners, dances, and bridge parties; of departures for Europe and for ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... later, and for an instant only, the two stood together on the narrow beam, Garstin a shrinking form, his every limb shaken by something more potent than the gusty wind, his face turned anywhere but downwards. Trevannion did not hold him, but his hand rested reassuringly on the other's quivering arm. For an instant only, and then Garstin was pushed on to the firm bank again and hurried ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... himself, at the same time, shelved in his new rank, powerless, and regarded as a nobody in the state where hitherto he had been a potent signior—mastered in every action by the secret tribunal, and presiding nominally in councils where his opinion was of little consequence—is evident. And a man so well acquainted, and so long, with all the proceedings ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a button, and a Chinese boy (all male Chinese are boys) entered, bowing in that deference which is so potent to separate the white man from his silver. The white man glories in being salaamed, especially by an Oriental, who can grovel with a touch of art. And the Oriental has not been slow to ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... the most rational and the most dispassionate of men. The conduct of his life was guided by a philosophy based on Combe's "Constitution of Man," and I used to feel that the law of the land was a potent instrument in shaping his paternal affections. His method of seeking a wife was so far unique that it may not be devoid of interest, even at this date. From careful study he had learned that the age at which ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... for six insectivorous birds were very common in the plantations, which were not to be seen on the heath; and the heath was frequented by two or three distinct insectivorous birds. Here we see how potent has been the effect of the introduction of a single tree, nothing whatever else having been done, with the exception of the land having been enclosed, so that cattle could not enter. But how important an element enclosure is, I plainly saw near Farnham, ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... so-potent art of Prospero himself would have failed in summoning the Barnacles from every speck of ocean and dry land on which there was nothing (except mischief) to be done and anything to be pocketed, it was perfectly feasible to assemble a good many Barnacles. This Mrs ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... season; what light there was seemed an emanation from the dull earth, the heavens would scarce have owned it, veiled as they were, by an opaque canopy of fog which weighed heavily upon the breathing multitude below. Gloom penetrated every where; no barriers so strong, no good influences so potent, as wholly to ward off the spell thrown over that mighty town by the spirits of chill and damp; they clung to the silken draperies of luxury, they were felt within the busy circle of industry, they crept about the family hearth, but abroad in the public ways, and in the ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... his original genius he has become a potent creative spirit influencing all intelligent people who care about poetry at all, yet, while thus inspiring a whole generation—perhaps, considering the youth of many of our poetic contemporaries, we might say two generations—he ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... no such result could be anticipated. Supposing a President, supported by a congressional majority, were to formulate some policy no more subversive than that which has been formulated by the present British Cabinet, and this policy were to be resisted, as it surely would be, by potent financial interests, the conflicting forces would converge upon the Supreme Court. The courts are always believed to tend toward conservatism, therefore they are generally supported by the conservative interest, both here and elsewhere. In this case a dilemma would be presented. ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... his flat, voluminous voice ordered, heavy with the man's potent and dreaded personality. They flocked to obey, scurrying like scared rats, glancing at him in timid hate. He came striding along the weather side of the deck from the remote, august poop; he was like a dreadful god making a ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... girdles, as if we knew not, we who are born and reared among the latter, unto what they are fain. In telling you this story, I shall at once show you how great is the folly of these folk and how greater yet is that of those who, deeming themselves more potent than nature herself, think by dint of sophistical inventions[140] to avail unto that which is beyond their power and study to bring others to that which they themselves are, whenas the complexion of those on whom ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... flamed about us both, majestic yet divinely simple. Only a dim suggestion of it, of course, lay caught in the words the Irishman used—words, as I found later, that were a mixture of Professor James and Dr. Stahl, flavored strongly with Terence O'Malley—but a suggestion potent enough to have haunted me ever since and to have instilled meanings of stupendous divinity into all the commonest things of daily existence. Mountains, seas, wide landscapes, forests,—all I see now with emotions of ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... lawgiver, and preserver of the universe and of man, everywhere and always present and potent, in permanent connection, nay, communication, with man, at one time by natural and at another by supernatural means, at one time by the channel of authority and at another by that of free-agency, this is the point of departure, this the fixed idea of the philosopho-theologians ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... note is struck which, with an old magic, transforms the world! In the dying beauty of an autumntide, Love Divine, last and most potent of the goddesses, came walking through the woods and diffused the mystery of heaven over the forest paths, the trees, the streets of the town; and she melted into a sweet and noble human face—a face I caught but for a moment clearly on one ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... the rear of my companion, and I think I have never experienced such a pang of nameless terror as pierced me at the moment of extinguishing the light; for Smith had not yet opened the door, and the utter darkness of The Gables was horrible beyond expression. Surely darkness is the most potent weapon of the Unknown. I know that at the moment my hand left the switch I made for the door as though the hosts of hell pursued me. I collided violently with Smith. He was evidently facing toward me in the darkness, for at the moment of ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... Stone," she answered. Her free hand went again to the talisman in her bosom. Surely, its charm was potent! ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... O see your sceptres bowing. Gone is the eagle once majestic; On us a cycle new is dawning; Look, from the skies it hath descended. O potent princes, ye the throne-born! See what Almighty will hath destined. Quit ye your seats, in low adoring, Set all the earth, with you, a-kneeling; Or—as the free-born men should perish— Sink in grave with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... has the courage of his opinions, if he genuinely is concerned for the future of this unfortunate island, he might name a dozen or so of the "myriad volumes which deride self-control, scoff at the God-like in man, deny the judgment, and by most potent illustration declare that death ends all." For myself, I am unacquainted with them, and nobody has ever solicited me to buy them. At least he might state where one is solicited to buy these shockers. I would go thither at once, just to see. In the course of his article, Dr. Barry ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... families. In order to make a clear presentation of the latter subject, it would be necessary to prepare a series of maps showing the areas successively occupied by the several tribes as they were disrupted and driven from section to section under the pressure of other tribes or the vastly more potent force of European encroachment. Although the data necessary for a complete representation of tribal migration, even for the period subsequent to the advent of the European, does not exist, still a very large body of material bearing upon the subject is at hand, and exceedingly valuable results ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... session. On the 27th of April, however, parliament was prorogued by commission, and on the 29th the king dissolved it by royal proclamation. Great efforts were made by both parties at the new general election; but so effectual were the exertions of the ministry,—so potent the cry of "No popery!" and, "The church is in danger!" &c., raised by their partisans, both from the pulpit, by the press, and in society at large, that of all the members of the late cabinet, only ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or wilfully ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... serviceable to men. Sumerian religion, in fact, was Shamanistic, like that of some Siberian tribes to-day, and its ministers were Shamans or medicine-men skilled in witchcraft and sorcery whose spells were potent to parry the attacks of the demon and drive him from the body of his victim, or to call him down in vengeance on the person ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... of it, and collected contributions in all parts, even in foreign nations, for that service. Amasis, at that time king of Egypt, and the Grecian inhabitants of his country, contributed considerable sums towards it. The Alcmaeonidae, a potent family of Athens, took upon themselves the conduct of the building, and made it more magnificent, by considerable additions of their own, than had been proposed ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... have flowers like miniature wild yellow roses. During the Middle Ages, when misdirected zeal credited almost any plant with healing virtues for every ill that flesh is heir to, the cinquefoils were considered most potent ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... little autobiography. "Not me. I 'filiates wid de Pullman company a long time back, conveyin' a westbound carload of Potent Nobles ob de Mystic Mecca wid blue Fezants. Us got divo'ced somewhere. Dey an' mah mascot goat gits drug to San F'mcisco. I gits penned up wid a rag-head Hindoo boy an' some crazy folks in anotheh train. I ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... have been very mixed too. But its style, a subtler thing than ethics, has nourished conceptions of a large and seeping sort, to play through what ethical ideas they might find. The more spiritual is any influence—that is, the less visible and easy to trace—the more potent it is; so style in literature may be counted one of the most potent forces of all. Through it, great creative minds mold the destinies of nations. Let Theosophy have expression as noble as that of the Bible—as it will—and of that very impulse it will bite deep into ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... serious responsibility on a captain of an India man, who takes charge of perhaps a dozen young women, who are to be cooped up for months in the same ship with as many young men. Love, powerful everywhere, has on the waters even more potent sway, hereditary, I presume, from his mother's nativity. Idleness is the friend of Love; and passengers have little or nothing to do to while away the tedium of a voyage. In another point, he has great advantage, from the limited number of the fair sex. In a ball or in general society, a man ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... him, by manning yards and firing a salute of twenty-one guns. We had also a feast spread for his entertainment, with an abundance of liquor, which he seemed to consider much more to the purpose. He and his chiefs indulged very freely in the potent beverages placed before them, and at length they returned on shore, highly delighted with the entertainment, vowing eternal friendship to England, and excessively drunk. The accounts of the atrocities committed by the Spaniards, which we had just received, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... they relax the previously immovable limb and useless foot have their function restored as if by magic, but are immediately thrown out of gear in the course of a few minutes as a recurrence of the tetanus of the petallar muscle takes place. The fascia of the thigh, like that of the arm, is a most potent factor in giving assistance to the constant strain imposed on the muscles of the limbs ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... alertness, ability to hide, ability to build structures which will protect the young while they are helpless, fecundity—all, and many more like them, have their several places; and behind all these visible causes there are at work other and often more potent causes of which as yet science can say nothing. Some species owe much to a given attribute which may be wholly lacking in influence on other species; and every one of the attributes above enumerated is a survival factor in some species, while ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... were for the most part younger, and Clavering was scarcely half his age: but when they met in conclave something usually happened, for the seat of the legislature was far away, and their will considerably more potent thereabouts than the law of the land. Sheriff, postmaster, railroad agent, and petty politician carried out their wishes, and as yet no man had succeeded in living in that region unless he did homage ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... inhabitant of Paris has one great blessing, which he does not take into account until he suffers from its loss—one great half of his existence is filled up without the least trouble to himself. The all-potent vitality which ceaselessly envelops him takes away from him in a vast degree the exertion of amusing himself. The roar of the city, rising like a great bass around him, fills up the gaps in his thoughts, and never leaves that disagreeable ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... laughed my mistress. "Any man who wants to pursue crime as a polite diversion and does not read the American newspapers fails to avail himself of one of the most potent instruments for the attainment of the highest artistic results. You cannot pick up a newspaper in any part of the land without discovering somewhere in its columns some reference to a new variety of house-breaking, some new and highly ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... sometimes seemed to him that this spirit was the most valuable possession he had; he thought that by means of it he could set flowering waste tracts of the earth, cure many ills, or raise up beauty where none now existed; it was, too, a fierce and potent spirit which would devour the dusty books and parchments on the office wall with one lick of its tongue, and leave him in a minute standing in nakedness, if he gave way to it. His endeavor, for many years, had been to control the spirit, and at the age of twenty-nine he thought he could pride ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... as for me, I reach the haven of my rest, sacrificed to duty and not without regret—ah! I tremble at that thought. God knows better than I whether I have fulfilled his holy laws in accordance with their spirit. Often, no doubt, I have tottered, but I have not fallen; the most potent cause of my wrong-doing lay in the grandeur of the seductions that encompassed me. The Lord will behold me trembling when I enter His presence as though I had succumbed. Farewell again, a long farewell ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... worshipers of old came by the gate of Fear into the invisible presence of Moloch, so he—of equally untutored mind—had entered the presence of Mr. King! And no devotee of the Ammonite god had had greater faith in his potent protection than Soames had in that of his unseen master. What should a servant of Mr. King fear from the officers of the law? How puny a thing was the law in comparison with the director of that secret, powerful, invulnerable organization ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... earthquake, faulty construction and defective materials were responsible for much of the damage caused by the Riviera earthquake. But, if we may judge from the sharp local variations in its amount, the nature of the surface-rocks must have exerted a still more potent influence. At Cervo, for example, the injury to property amounted to less than 3 per head of the population; at Diano Marina, only two or three miles to the west, it rose to 22 per head. The death-rate at Cervo was about one-tenth, and at Diano Marina about 8-1/2 per cent. Again, ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... hateful mask a demon lurks To urge the narrow soul to darksome deeds Of violence and greed, of hate and ruth. His God, a God of wrath, a tyrant force To mete to helpless souls eternal doom; A Juggernaut, a hard unsentient power,— But yet less potent than the yellow gold Those crooked talons clutch, and for the which The miser Shylock fain would sell ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... the military company belonging to the district where they resided. They did fatigue-duty. And the only time, that, by law, the Negro was admitted to the trainings, was between 1652 and 1656. But there is no evidence that the Negroes took advantage of the law. Public sentiment is more potent than law. In May, 1656, the law of 1652, admitting Negroes ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... was the Love-Song, The most subtle of all medicines, The most potent spell of magic, Dangerous more than war or hunting! Thus the Love-Song was recorded, ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... question. Apart from its broader contentions, the method of the critical school must be used tentatively and without dogmatism. Moreover, we must always remember that the critical student comes to his task with assumptions which are oftentimes more potent with him from his very blindness to their existence. Assumption in scientific investigation is inevitable. Suppose a critic to be markedly under the influence of some evolutionary hypothesis. Suppose him to believe that the formula which makes progress ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... orators. The press, with few exceptions, poured forth its eloquent appeals to the strong-bodied men of the country to range themselves on the side of right against wrong. Violence would be done to truth did we not mention, also, that the pulpits of the land were potent helpers in this work, by their religious patriotism and persistent efforts to keep the great issue distinctly before the people. Thus the mind and heart of the North were kept alive to the great problem of the nation's existence, and men were rallying to our standard. It was no ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... longer I reflected, the more positive I became that there existed a more potent reason for the Celebrity's disguise than ennui. As actions speak louder than words, so does a man's character often give ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Government, that in all this mess—for mess it was—the Tories could not succeed in getting up a feeling or a prejudice against the Government, and it was clear they were utterly powerless there, that the House only required to be a little cajoled, and was easily led; the word Reform was still potent there, and had only to be uttered on occasions to bring the majority round when they began ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... and diseased imaginations of thy votaries! thou anodyne for melancholy; thou disseminator of good feeling; conciliator and ratifyer of peace offerings! without thee what would mortal bush-man be?—they, to whom thou art a friend in need. All potent smoke! thine influence is supreme; thy virtues are legion; and thy capabilities are boundless as the vapour into which thou meltest as a holocaust for thy happy devotees. If the pipe could but speak, what ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... and a gown of red cloth, reaching to the ankle, lined also with baize, to be worn within the hospital." They are, therefore, known as Red Coats. The almsmen of Ely and Rochester have cloaks. The inmates of the Hospital of St. Cross wear as a badge a silver cross potent. At Bottesford they have blue coats and blue "beef-eater" hats, and a silver badge on the left arm bearing the arms of the Rutland family—a peacock in its pride, surmounted by a coronet and surrounded ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... environed Mistress Pen wick with sacred influences, and she had absorbed its most potent authority, religion, yet even that was not efficacious to the annihilating that 'twas born within; and one can but excuse the caprice and wantonness of a coquette, when 'tis an inheritance. She adhered pertinaciously ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... received his bride, and the nuptials were consummated. Towards the close of night he arose, and having taken off her ring, put his own in its room on her finger, and wrote upon the palm of her hand, "I am called Alla ad Deen, the son of a potent sultan, who rules in Yemen; if thou canst come to me there, well; ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... Most potent of all as a cause of the resolution to separate was Thomas Paine's pamphlet, "Common Sense," published in January, 1776, and circulated widely throughout the colonies. Its lucid style, its homely way of putting things, and its appeals to Scripture must have given it ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... see how it was possible to give herself to this man, not from an impulse of gratitude or because she liked him better than any one else, but because of a feeling, new, mysterious, which gave him a sort of divine right in her. Something in the expression of his eyes had been more potent than his words; something subtle, swift as an electric spark had passed from him to her, awakening a faint, strange tumult in the heart she thought so utterly crushed. A few moments before, she could have promised resolutely to be his wife; she could have permitted ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... too, black-eyed lass, and try That potent skill in palmistry. Which sixpences can wheedle; Mine is a friendly cottage—here No snarling mastiff need you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... fellow countrymen; indeed, inasmuch as good deeds are spoken of as having a sweet savour before God, it might be supposed that the freeing of the blacks might prove rather an odoriferous process than the contrary. However this may be, I must tell you that this potent reason for enslaving a whole race of people is no more potent with me than most of the others adduced to support the system, inasmuch as, from observation and some experience, I am strongly inclined to believe that peculiar ignorance of the laws of health and ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... presence. He had told her indeed that she intoxicated him; and truly, in those moments when she was compelled to oppose her dewy eloquence to his fervid importunities, her whole presence seemed to him to exhale a singularly potent sweetness. He had told her that she was an enchantress, and this assertion, too, had its measure of truth. But her spell was a steady one; it sprang not from her beauty, her wit, her figure,—it sprang from her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... political center of the world. The Atlantic-facing countries, first Portugal and Spain, then Holland, France, and England, became the great powers of Europe. Their trade rivalries and contests for colonial possessions have been potent causes of European wars for the last four ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... made on the spot, for this was a matter to be hushed up, ridicule being far more potent, in Paris, than reason. This is what you may have heard alluded to, in some of the journals of the day, as the escapade of the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... individual expression of life with the Divine Heritage of a pure soul. It is the individual's concern to keep this heavenly gift unstained in its descent into matter. The love force of the Spirit is the potent agent that does this for the individual when allowed to permeate and radiate the entire being. When individuals have learned to bathe their innermost beings in the Father's love, then it must follow that a nation made up of ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... no other safe course for the black man to pursue. If the Negro in the South has a friend in his white neighbor, and a still larger number of friends in his own community, he has a protection and a guarantee of his rights that will be more potent and more lasting than any our Federal Congress or ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... this statement. He has always been an opponent of the "Company Store" system; now he sees that it is likely to be the potent factor in exciting ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... O inexperienced Titmouse! unacquainted with the potent qualities of wine, I warn you to be cautious how you drink many glasses, for you cannot calculate the effect which they will have upon you; and, indeed, methinks that with this man you have a game to play which will not admit of much wine being drunk. Be you, therefore, on your guard; for wine ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... a French word signifying a person who puts another to sleep, the sleep makers," explained Kennedy. "They are the latest scientific school of criminals who use the most potent, quickest-acting stupefying drugs. Some of their exploits surpass anything hitherto even imagined by the European police. The American police have been officially warned of the existence of the endormeurs and full descriptions of their methods and photographs of their ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the burn, the snow ceased, the clouds parted, and a faint worn moon appeared. She looked just like a little old lady too thin and too tired to go on living more than a night longer. But her waning life was yet potent over Kirsty, and her strange, wasted beauty, dying to rise again, made her glad as she went down the hill through the snow-crowned heather. The oppression which came on her in Steenie's house was gone entirely, ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... on no merely local circumstance, but such as must find access to every nation acquainted with the most widely-circulated Book in the world. He has further enriched his native literature with an imperishable monument of majestic diction, an example potent to counteract that wasting agency of familiar usage by which language is reduced to vulgarity, as sea-water wears cliffs to shingle. He has reconciled, as no other poet has ever done, the Hellenic spirit with the Hebraic, the Bible with the Renaissance. And, finally, as we began ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett |
