"Precept" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the taper is purer and more fervent than the Bulbul's love for the Rose. Amongst the Greeks of the best ages the system of boy-favourites was advocated on considerations of morals and politics. The lover undertook the education of the beloved through precept and example, while the two were conjoined by a tie stricter than the fraternal. Hieronymus the Peripatetic strongly advocated it because the vigorous disposition of youths and the confidence engendered by their association ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Caecilius perhaps forgot, when he employed his always adventurous talents in so ambitious an attempt as a comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero: and, possibly, if it were a thing obvious and easy for every man to know himself, the precept had not passed ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to say. And remember the commandment, Honour thy—" But she broke down, when she too remembered it, and bore in mind that the precept would have called upon her daughter to honour the memory of the deceased Earl. "But if you cannot do it for love, you will never do it ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... was saying," I was here with a small party, and had fine sport picking, but the next day a precept, at the suit of Peter Gravespeech, was served upon Hull and myself, (the two gentlemen of the party,) issued from "Pettifogger's Delight," as the office of Squire Tappit, the justice, was called throughout ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... a verse from the precept addressed by St Paul to Timothy, as to the conduct necessary in a spiritual pastor and guide, and it was immediately evident that the good clergy of Barchester were ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of life, are learned from example and not from precept. Men and women, are only children of a larger growth, they are imitative creatures with a natural instinct to choose other, higher, and better lives as models. Hence the great value of travel as an educator. The larger the area covered ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... the Amsterdam International Congress they voted for a resolution extolling the 'tried and victorious policy based on the class war,' and on their return to England referred to the class war as a 'shibboleth' and as a 'reactionary and Whiggish precept, certain to lead the movement away from the real ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... and the special goodness of Mr Clayhanger and of Maggie, yes, and of her little Clara; and the pride which they all had in Edwin, and the unique opportunities which he had of doing good, by example, and also, soon, by precept, for others younger than himself would begin to look up to him; and again her personal pride in him, and her sure faith in him; and what a solemn ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... instruction had been such as we all receive. He had been taught to believe that there was an overruling power which would punish him if he did wrong, and reward him if he did right; or would, at least, be displeased in one case, and pleased in the other. The precept took primarily the monitory form, and first enforced the fact of the punishment or the displeasure; there were times when the reward or the pleasure might not sensibly follow upon good behavior, but evil behavior never ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... consequence is not really effected by the observance of a magical ceremony, so the dreaded consequence does not really result from the violation of a taboo. If the supposed evil necessarily followed a breach of taboo, the taboo would not be a taboo but a precept of morality or common sense. It is not a taboo to say, "Do not put your hand in the fire"; it is a rule of common sense, because the forbidden action entails a real, not an imaginary evil. In short, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... mankind. History—tradition itself—goes not back to a time when statutes, confessedly human, or professedly divine, were capable of controlling the fierce fires that blaze within the blood—when all-consuming Love was cold Reason's humble slave and Passion yielded blind obedience unto Precept. Although the heavens have been ever peopled with threatening gods and the great inane filled with gaping hells; although kings and courts have thundered their inhibitions forth, and society turned upon illicit love Medusa's ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... 's the spring-time o' your life, When seed is sown wi' care and toil, And hopes are high, and fears are rife, Lest weeds should rise the braird to spoil. I 've sown the seed, my bairnies dear, By precept and example baith, And may the hand that guides us here Preserve it ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of any other object, such as sensual pleasure, fame, or the like; but solely because he has knowledge of God, or is convinced that the knowledge and love of God is the highest good. (34) The sum and chief precept, then, of the Divine law is to love God as the highest good, namely, as we have said, not from fear of any pains and penalties, or from the love of any other object in which we desire to take pleasure. (35) The ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... the ballads we must go for example—precept of this or of any kind there is none—in the bourgeois and respectable virtues; of the sober and chastened behaviour that comes of a prudent fear of consequences, of a cold temperament and a calculating spirit. The good ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... away with my Sunday clothes, and don't take out till the day comes round again; I want something to see and feel and live by day-by-day, and I hope you 'll be one of the true ministers, who can teach by precept and example, how to get and ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... our labours is, it is as nothing compared with the torrent of evil which has called us out, and the conclusion which has been forced upon me is, that we should—every one of us, man, woman, and child—hold and pertinaciously enforce the precept that war among civilised nations is outrageous and intolerable. Of course we cannot avoid it sometimes. If a man will insist on fighting me, I have no resource left but to fight him; but for two CIVILISED nations to go to war for the settlement ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... was, to be on the best of terms with the sultan, and to hope to introduce reforms in his rule by degrees. The resident took the old school copy-book moral into consideration, that example was better than precept, and knowing full well that any sweeping code of rules and regulations would produce distaste, certain hatred, and perhaps a rising against the English rule, he determined to introduce little improvements by degrees, each to be, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... us; and herein is placed before us the secret of his greatness and strength. This firm assertion of the highest right his consciousness recognises, amid all difficulty, hardness, and disappointment; this persistent endeavour by precept and example to rouse men to a truer and better life than their own varied self-seekings; this unflinching struggle against everything false, mean, and base,—these things make him a power in the State before which King and Pope are compelled to bow in respect or fear. ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... can never be surprised; we know that death is always near, and it should therefore always be expected." "Young man," answered the philosopher, "you speak like one who has never felt the pangs of separation." "Have you, then, forgot the precept," said Rasselas, "which you so powerfully enforced?{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} consider that external things are naturally variable, but truth and reason are always the same." "What comfort," said the mourner, "can truth and reason afford ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... "You teach by precept and example too. Cruel teacher! Enough, this pleasure is too sweet. Love must be looking at us ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... December number of the "Contemporary Review." Whilst delivering severe lectures upon want of candour and impartiality, and preaching temperance and moderation, the practice of the preacher, as sometimes happens, falls very short of his precept. The example of moderation presented to me by my clerical critic does not seem to me very edifying, his impartiality does not appear to be beyond reproach, and in his tone I fail to recognise any of the [Greek: epieikeia] which ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... easy. If a year goes bad with one, let the others see to make it up. Live united, do your duty, and leave the rest to heaven." So Thompson spake; such was the legacy he left to those who knew from his good precept and example how to profit by it. My friendship with his children has grown and ripened. They are thriving men. Alec has inherited the nature of his father more than any other son. All go smoothly on in life, paying little regard to the broils and contests ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... the bottom of the veriest frondeur with English blood in his veins, in his most defiant moment there lies a conviction that after all something known as common sense is the measure of life, and that to work hard is a demonstrated precept of common sense. Carlylism exactly hits this and brings it forward. We cannot wonder that Byronism was routed ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... sent by him, for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well; teaching that this submission and obedience is to be clear, absolute, and without exception of any state or order of men. Also that they, according to the Apostle's precept, exhort, that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for the king, and all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; for this is good and ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... of Mind, this holy Officiousness (if I may be allowed to call it such) which is recommended to us by the Apostle in that uncommon Precept, wherein he directs us to propose to ourselves the Glory of our Creator in all our most indifferent Actions, whether we eat or drink, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... her and her daughter. She says to herself that it is to spare the servants the stairs; but, all the time, under the stairs, the servants are blushing for the sometimes unaccountable stinginess of their unusually munificent mistress. I shall give you "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little" of Aristotle upon munificence in little things till you come up to his pagan standard. "There is a real greatness," he says, "even in the way that some men will buy a toy to a child. Even in the smallest matters the munificent man will act ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... his brain, he wished that his mother were lying there too, beside his father, dead in the body but alive forever to him in that which is undying in woman; to be cherished still, still honoured; to be loved, and still obeyed in the memory of precept and teaching; to be his mother always, and he to be in thought her child, even until the grey years should be upon him, and the Bridge of Fear ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... Swedish lady was replaced by a young Swiss tutor, who was versed in gymnastics to perfection. Music, as a pursuit unworthy of a man, was discarded. The natural sciences, international law, mathematics, carpentry, after Jean-Jacques Rousseau's precept, and heraldry, to encourage chivalrous feelings, were what the future "man" was to be occupied with. He was waked at four o'clock in the morning, splashed at once with cold water and set to running round a high pole with a cord; he had only one meal a day, consisting of a single ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... careful about his food and drink; he locked himself in at night, and entrusted the key of the apartment to only a few. He ordered one, who was the author of the treason (and he was the one that was suspected), that in virtue of his [the provincial's] holy precept, he should not come into the convent of Manila, but that he should prepare to embark for Nueva Espana where they should take from him the cowl. Thereupon this individual, Fray Juan de Ocadiz—who was a native ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... neutrality as a positive political ideal: then the ethical solution of the dark questions of the right and wrong of the war, and the methods of warfare become a torturing and hopeless problem, and, in considering the future, the weakness and impracticability of what one has accepted as a legal precept becomes evident. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... infancy, childhood, and boyhood, passed as the father could have wished. A young Nazarene could not have been bred up with more rigour. All that was evil was withheld from his observation—he only heard what was pure in precept—he only witnessed what was worthy in practice. But when the boy began to be lost in youth, the attentive father saw cause for alarm. Shades of sadness, which gradually assumed a darker character, began to overcloud the young man's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... a dishonest man among our forefathers. If, therefore, any of you or any of your children should take to dishonest ways, it will not be because it runs in our blood: it does not belong to you. I leave this precept with you: Be honest." If, therefore, in the following pages I fall into any errors, I hope they will be dealt with as honest mistakes, and not as indicating that I have forgotten our ancient motto. This event ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... works, is the "Essay on Criticism," which, if he had written nothing else, would have placed him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he that delights himself with observing that such powers may be soon ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... aged mother's perplexities was that the Lord should want her to live on in such a helpless and useless condition, while her daughters, who might be so useful, must die; but oh, how successful she had by precept and example taught those daughters that "He hath done all things well!" How patiently she suffered whatever she thought was the Lord's will! How sweet was her constant thanksgiving! Said a pious Christian neighbor, whose poor health restricted her attendance at church, "When I'm hungry for ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... President of the United States warned us against entangling foreign alliances. The present President of the United States subscribes to and follows that precept. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... memory, and delivery are overlooked. Accordingly, the Treatise neatly fits into the category of a Renaissance rhetoric on style. It is this school which recognized the traditional five Ciceronian parts of rhetoric, but considered style to be the most significant precept. The Treatise is not the first to support an emphasis wholly on style, nor the foremost. We know that Aristotle's Rhetoric, Cicero's works on rhetoric, and Quintilian's Institutes discussed the significance of style, but they had a broad view. However, in England, ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... expect me to stultify all your training, both your example and precept—for lo! these many years—by setting my left hand to gossip about my ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... character, thereby bringing the real qualities of the subject to the front, and believing, also, that the biographies of the noblest men only should be written for the young, since "example is more powerful than precept," the author sends forth this humble volume, invoking for it the considerate indulgence of critics, and the blessing ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... contracted may be corrected or even displaced by conscious teaching, yet, in times of excitement, intentionally acquired modes of speech often fall away, and individuals relapse into their really native tongue. Secondly, manners. Example is notoriously more potent than precept. Good manners come, as we say, from good breeding or rather are good breeding; and breeding is acquired by habitual action, in response to habitual stimuli, not by conveying information. Despite the never ending play ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... for he that is mighty hath done great things to me, and holy is his name." And so it has been, and ever will be, as long as the sun illumines the earth. For more than nineteen centuries the people and nations have joyfully repeated the angel's words, "Blessed art thou among women." By precept of the Church we add the words "and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus," in order to join to our praise of Mary that of Jesus, from whom and on whose account she received all her privileges, and for whose sake she ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... such a manner that he may, if possible, be restored. Simple sequestration of the insane man is an outrage upon him and upon our humanity. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them," is the divine precept, which, if we follow it as we ought, will lead us to search for our fallen comrades in the alms-houses and penal institutions and reformatories, and sometimes in the outhouses or cellars of private homes, to our shame, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... of England. Nature and the great nations of antiquity suggested the former; the force and pressure of the times demanded the latter. It is from such demands that our chief institutions arise. By precept we may be taught their propriety; by example we may see their advantages. But until the necessity is personally felt they are sure to be neglected; and men wonder at their want of prescience and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... individuality. In so trespassing you are guilty of impertinence. This is obvious. And yet one of the chief activities of home-life consists in prancing about at random on other people's private lawns. What I say applies even to the relation between parents and children. And though my precept is exaggerated, it is purposely exaggerated in order effectively to balance the ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... in the march of civilisation the gradual triumph of liberty; to Leroux and Cabet, who preached humanitarian communism; to Louis Blanc and to Proudhon; to the bourgeois, who were satisfied with the regime of Louis Philippe and grew rich, following the precept of Guizot, as well as to the workers who overthrew it. It is significant that the journal of Louis Blanc, in which he published his book on the ORGANISATION OF WORK (1839), was entitled REVUS DES PROGRES. The political question as to the due ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Adelaide Palliser turned round and looked at him, still understanding nothing. Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances are you'll get over. The harder you ride the heavier the fall, if you get a fall; but the greater the chance of your getting over. This had been a precept in the life of Mr. Spooner, verified by much experience, and he had resolved that he would be guided by it on this occasion. "Ever since I first saw you, Miss Palliser, I have been so much taken ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... there has grown up in them the belief that State education will check ill-doing.... This belief in the moralising effects of intellectual culture, flatly contradicted by facts, is absurd a priori.... This faith in lesson-books and readings is one of the superstitions of the age.... Not by precept, though heard daily; not by example, unless it is followed; but only by action, often caused by the related feeling, can a moral habit be formed. And yet this truth, which mental science clearly teaches, and which is in harmony ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... His cardinal belief and precept was, as with Socrates, that the bios anexetastos is not to be lived by man. As we have seen, the freedom of the reason was so dear to him, that he counted it an abuse for a parent to instil his own convictions into the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... worship, at least in the nations of higher civilization. These votaries were engaged in keeping alive the myth, in impressing the supposed commands of the deity on the people, and in imitating him in example and precept. Thus they had formed a lofty ideal of man, and were publishing this ideal to their fellows. Certainly this could not fail of working to the good of the nation, and of elevating and ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... is such as excites the vivid imagination of the young, without leaving a trace of wild and unbridled adventure to torture their minds to a longing for border acts of cowboy heroism. There is a moral precept in every page, and an abundance of thrilling adventure to awaken the lethargy of any boy or girl. We cheerfully commend it to parents as a valuable adjunct to the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... title learning Of the earth's protector high, Shall, whene'er his form discerning, On it gaze with steadfast eye, And at times shall offer dresses, Offer fitting drink and food. He ten thousand joys possesses, And escapes each trouble rude. Whoso into deed shall carry Of the law each precept, he Through all time alive shall tarry, And from birth and death be free. Foutsa, thou, who best of any Know'st the truth of what I've told, Spread the tale through regions, many As the Ganges' sands ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... Neutral position for us to assume. If we sustain not this noble enterprise, both by precept and example, then is our influence on the side of Intemperance. If we say we love the Cause, and then sit down at our ease, surely does our action speak the lie. And now permit me once more to beg of you to lend your aid to this great ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... also be observed, judging from present indications, that no probability exists of the passage of such an act by a majority of both Houses, either in the present or the next Congress. Surely under these circumstances we ought to be restrained from present action by the precept of Him who spake as man never spoke, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The day of evil may never come unless we shall rashly ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... mind. And then, too, where amongst ourselves do we find so earnest a longing and endeavor to gain freedom, the highest good, as among the animals? Where such a regular and well-balanced life from generation to generation, without instruction or precept?" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to act well towards him; as says St. John (1 Ep. 3), 'Let us not love in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth.' But to wish and to act well towards anyone implies that we should succour him when he is in need, and this is done by almsgiving. Hence almsgiving is a matter of precept. But because precepts are given in things that concern virtuous living, the almsgiving here referred to must be of such a kind as shall promote virtuous living. That is to say, it must be consonant with right reason; and this in turn implies ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... noble principles, and seeks to elevate man to the highest perfection of which he could conceive. "And no greater praise can be given to a work of heathen morality than to say, as may be said of the ethical writings of Aristotle, that they contain nothing which a Christian may dispense with, no precept of life which is not an element of Christian character; and that they only fail in elevating the heart and the mind to objects which it ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... will continue to labour more and more in this world of things, and less and less in any other world, because here we begin to see things as they are—the deepest things of God and of man, that is. Also, because I have the precept, and the example, and the experience of God's greatest and best saints before me here. Because, also, our full and true salvation begins here, goes on here, and ends here. Because, also, teaching these things and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... to laugh" is another precept of the hypercritical mother. Why? Goodness only knows!—for none but a pompous blockhead or a solemn prig will pretend that he never relaxes. But let ancient Plato, brimful as he was of philosophy, answer the question ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... him, in order to render it well-modulated, to roll it out from the lowest tone to the highest, and to draw it back by making use of an ascending and descending scale; and he himself went through this exercise every morning in bed, according to the precept of the Greeks. Pecuchet, at the time mentioned, worked in the same fashion: each had his door closed, and ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... have produced four children in twenty years cannot be said to have ignored the precept "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth" because they have so selected the times for the conceptions of their children as to enable them to give those children a better upbringing rather than have selfishly left the sequence of their ...
— Love—Marriage—Birth Control - Being a Speech delivered at the Church Congress at - Birmingham, October, 1921 • Bertrand Dawson
... precept, "Keep wine and water apart," is conveyed at the close of a lyric distinguished in other respects for the brutal passion of its drunken fervour. I have not succeeded in catching the rollicking swing of the original verse; and I may observe that the last two stanzas seem to form a separate song, ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... (Lex Naturalis,) is a Precept, or generall Rule, found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... neither. 'Twas still my father's precept—"Better owe A yard of land to labour, than to chance ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... commit an untactful action—in that consisted the chief precept of Doubelov's life. He knew very well that this or that action was not good in itself, and that the chief thing was "how they would look upon it"—they, that is, the authorities. The authorities were favourably inclined towards Doulebov. He had already ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... you and I are alone together, to tell me some story—it must be a true one, mind—of some good man or woman, or boy or girl, who has shown moral courage just where I didn't show it. 'Example is better than precept,' they say, and I am sure it is a great help to me; for I shan't forget Christopher Columbus and his steady moral ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... so desirable, he hesitates not to stupify those noble faculties which he cannot hope to extinguish, and with which he has been endowed by the God of nature, for wise and benevolent purposes. And will you, gentlemen, by precept and example, longer sanction such a course of conduct,—conduct so degrading to us as intelligent beings, and as ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... affirm on the field of battle her adhesion to this precept, though uttered by German lips. In defense of it, Portuguese will fight side by side with Englishmen, as they fought with them at Aljubarrota, side by side with Frenchmen, who fought with them at Montes Claros. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... "Mingere cum bombis res est saluberrima lumbis." A precept to be found in the "Regimen Sanitatis," or "Schola Salernitana," a work in rhyming Latin verse composed at Salerno, the earliest school in Christian Europe where medicine was professed, taught, and practised. The original text, if anywhere, is in the edition published and commented ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... plain and wholesome, because well-cooked, food, plenty of cleanliness and fresh air, besides the elevating and refining influence of a home where Christian living was inculcated, not so much by precept as by practice. God "setteth the solitary in families," not boarding-houses or institutions; but that is the only true family which takes care "in all its ways to acknowledge him." If such families all over our land would open the arms of their exclusiveness each ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... essentially a desert bird, and here the comparison is good because it lays its eggs in the waste far from water which it must drink morning and evening. Its cry is interpreted "man sakat, salam" (silent and safe), but it does not practice that precept, for it is usually betrayed by its piping " Kata! Kata!" Hence the proverb, "More veracious than the sand-grouse," and "speak not falsely, for the Kata sayeth sooth," is Komayt's saying. It is an emblem of swiftness: when the brigand poet Shanfara boasts, "The ash-coloured Katas ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... going to these posts—where they were relieved every two or three months—the men were instructed with regard to Albanian customs, and no case occurred of any transgression. So rigidly did they enforce the precept that anyone who tried to violate or carry off a woman was, if he persisted, to be shot, that last year, at Tropolje in Gashi, when the girl in question was said to be not unwilling, they pursued the abductors, and in the subsequent battle there were fatalities on both sides. The Serbian ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... master Epicurus—as most men do who differ from him in opinion—but still why you disagree with him whom I consider as the only man who has discerned the real truth, and who I think has delivered the minds of men from the greatest errors, and has handed down every precept which can have any influence on making men live well and happily. But I imagine that you, like my friend Triarius here, like him the less because he neglected the ornaments of diction in which Plato, and Aristotle, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... of knowledge began to be questioned they had made an insistent appeal, and had come to be regarded as an essential prop to lend support to man's conviction of the reality of a life beyond the grave. A web of moral precept and the allurement of hope had been so woven around them that no force was able to strip away this body of consolatory beliefs; and they have persisted for all time, although the reasoning by which they ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... called thy son." This is repentance. This is the first move man makes in the way of approach to the feast the Lord has prepared. "Man liveth by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." This embraces all of Revealed Truth. Every law, every precept, every prophecy, every parable has some outflowing, healing virtue, some life-imparting power. We touch the hem of its garment when we read or hear in sincerity of heart. O sinner, come and partake of this feast, and thy soul ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... and as we have premised, what a beautiful exercise for the intellect to discover in the political doings of his Grace—in those acts which ultimately knock at your cupboard-doors—only a practical illustration of the divine precept of doing unto all men as ye would they should do unto you! Well, you pray for your daily bread; and with a profane thought of the price of the four pound loaf, your feelings are suddenly attuned to gratitude towards those who ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... which generations of venerating descendants have bestowed upon them, and appear as human characters. Though engaging in a great and difficult task, and while solving many problems, they nevertheless denied their own fundamental precept of the right of a man to worship God according to the dictates of his ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... think that in this particular the book falls short of the design of its author. There was this enormous difference between life in the Island of Jersey and life in French Canada, that in Jersey, tradition is heaped upon tradition, custom upon custom, precept upon precept, until every citizen of the place is bound by innumerable cords of a code from which he cannot free himself. It is a little island, and that it is an island is evidence of a contracted life, though, in this case, a life which has real power and force. The life in French Canada ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... arguments on the natural rights of every citizen, pressed as they have been on the nation's conscience for the last thirty years in securing freedom for the black race, and so grandly echoed on the floor of Congress during the past winter. We can not add one line or precept to the comprehensive speech recently made by Charles Sumner in the Senate, to prove that "no just government can be formed without the consent of the governed;" to prove the dignity, the education, the power, the necessity, the salvation of the ballot ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... sacred precept is—"Accompany thy friend as far as the margin of the first stream." Here then, we are arrived at the border of a lake. It is time for you to give us ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... chance sent him but fifty auditors he spoke with just as much feeling. His sermons were full of wit, often homely but never coarse. He knew how to interest tired men; how to keep the children awake. He interspersed anecdote with injunction, and precept with homely happenings. He yearned to better this life, and to evolve souls ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... feeling its worth, and the importance of simplifying it to the young, in order to awaken their interest, she bestowed special attention on catechetical instruction. Not satisfied with having Scripture truths committed to memory, she explained and inculcated them, with line upon line and precept upon precept, drawn from her own knowledge and experience. I can not think that this spiritual instruction interfered in the least with the other, but rather was a handmaid to it, furnishing a pleasant as well ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... criticism, showing what the experimenter conceived to be the conditions of success, and may thus, to borrow Horace's own metaphor of the whetstone, impart to others a quality which it is itself without. Perhaps I may be allowed, for a few moments, to combine precept with example, and imitate my distinguished friend and colleague, Professor Arnold, in offering some counsels to the future translator of Horace's Odes, referring, at the same time, by way of illustration, to my ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... while we censure their tenets, let us not adopt their errors; errors which would be infinitely more inexcusable in us, who, from the clearer views which revelation has given us, shall not have their ignorance or their doubts to plead. It were well if we availed ourselves of that portion of their precept, which inculcates the improvement of every moment of our time, but not like them to dedicate the moments so redeemed to the pursuit of sensual and perishable pleasures, but to the securing of those which are spiritual in their nature, and ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... vagabonds and "masterless" men.(5) He proceeded southward by easy stages, accompanied by a long retinue of Scotsmen, until he reached Theobald's, at that time the mansion house of Sir Robert Cecil, but soon to become a royal hunting-lodge. On the 19th the mayor issued his precept to the livery companies to prepare a certain number of members to accompany the mayor in his attendance upon the king, who was shortly expected in the city. It was intended that not only the mayor and aldermen but also the full number of 500 of the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... than the outer barbarian, Left him to die in his ignorant sin; Have you no principles, humanitarian? Have you no precept ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... in exalting himself "above all that is called God, or that is worshiped."(78) He had dared to change the only precept of the divine law that unmistakably points all mankind to the true and living God. In the fourth commandment, God is revealed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby distinguished from all false gods. It was as a memorial of the work of creation ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... nourishment, or rest, Hygeia's blessings, Rapture's burning tear, Or the life-blood that mantles in-my breast! If in my heart the love of Virtue glows, 'Twas planted there by an unerring rule >From thy example the pure flame arose, Thy life, my precept,—thy good works, my school. Could my weak pow'rs thy num'rous virtues trace, By filial love each fear should be repress'd; The blush of Incapacity I'd chace, And stand, Recorder of thy worth, confess'd But ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... be noted in this version. The singular refrain "I am God, thy God"—which does not appear at all in the received version—occurs ten times, being, as it were, a solemn ratification of the Divine sanction given at the end of each separate precept. If this be so, the first two commandments, as they are commonly reckoned, are here fused into one, and the tenth place is taken by a commandment which does not appear in the received version ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... a sudden resolution that had come to her. Encouraged by Mrs. Travilla's precept and example, she had been, for months past, industriously training herself in the use of firearms, and kept her loaded revolver at hand; and now she would create a diversion in her husband's favor, keeping the raiders at bay at the front ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... in the children of a nation. All youthful hearts do well to covet wealth, wisdom and leverage power! But man should remember that the chief value of prosperity is in its capitalization of personality, and the rendering of others sensitive to example and precept. Should man forget this, earth will hear no sadder cry than his when, closing the life career, he exclaims: "While thy servant was busy here and there ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... waters of Israel?" It is like the complaint of the popular prophets in the time of Hezekiah, whose taste demanded stronger flavor than the noble simplicity of Isaiah, "Thou givest us only line upon line, precept upon precept." It breathes the spirit of the Ephesian Christians who, when they heard St. John's repeated maxim of "Little children, love one another," said, "Is this all that he has to tell us?" It expresses the ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... loss, was Princeton's gain. He made men better, not alone physically, but morally. His work has been uplifting along all lines of university activities. In character and example he is as great and untiring as in his teaching and precept. The final and definite knowledge of his determination to leave Michigan is a severe blow to the students all of whom know and appreciate his work. Next to President Angell, no man of the University of Michigan, in the last ten years, has exerted a more wholesome influence ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... twenty years no less than nine hundred and fifty-four thousand divorces have been granted in the United States. Two thirds of these divorces were granted to aggrieved wives. In spite of the anathemas of the church, in the face of tradition and early precept, in defiance of social ostracism, accepting, in the vast majority of cases, the responsibility of self support, more than six hundred thousand women, in the short space of twenty years, repudiated the burden of uncongenial marriage. ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... lecture on the "Havamal," identifying in the ancient Northern poem those precepts which laid down later qualities of English character; for the Oriental reader it would be easier to identify the English traits in Thackeray or Dickens or Meredith if he could first consider them in a dogmatic precept. But the lecture gives us, I think, an extraordinary insight into ourselves, a power of self-criticism almost disconcerting as we realize not only the persistence of ethical ideals in the past, but also the possible career of new ethical systems as they may permeate the books written to-day. ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... point, a new author has just given us the following precept and criticism: "Never connect by or, or nor, two or more names or substitutes that have the same asserter [i.e. verb] depending on them for sense, if when taken separately, they require different forms of the asserters. Examples. 'Neither you nor I am concerned. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... composedly to the most perilous enterprises, beckoned onwards by the shades of the brave that were. In civil courage, moral courage, or courage shown in the minute circumstances of everyday life, the same law is true. Courage may be taught by precept, enforced by example, and is good to be taught to ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... ways they were equal to any nation of our own world of which I had knowledge. None are more skilled in the arts, few are better architects or boast purer laws. Moreover, they were brave and had patience. But their faith was the canker at the root of the tree. In precept it was noble and had much in common with our own, such as the rite of baptism, but I have told what it was in practice. And yet, when all is said, is it more cruel to offer up victims to the gods than to torture them in the vaults of the Holy Office ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... so sacred and so clear as imperatively to demand the sacrifice of men's lives, of their families and their fortune. They resolved to give up everything, not to escape from actual oppression, but to honour a precept of unwritten law. That was the transatlantic discovery in the theory of political duty, the light that came over the ocean. It represented liberty not as a comparative release from tyranny, but as a thing so divine that the existence of society must be staked to prevent even the least ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... discussed the subject in the Gazette, literally giving line upon line and precept upon precept. Nor did he seem to make much of an impression for many months. But, finally, a strip of brick pavement having been laid down the middle of Jersey Market, he succeeded in getting the street ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... of old. "That precept descended from Heaven." Know thyself! Is that maxim wise? If so, know thy soul. But never yet did man come to the thorough conviction of soul but what he acknowledged the sovereign necessity of prayer. In my awe, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his left hand. He concluded the pantomime with a loud laugh, which he could command at all times extempore. — Notwithstanding his disorder, he did not do penance at supper, nor did he ever refuse his glass when the toast went round, but rather encouraged a quick circulation, both by precept and example. ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the necessity of relinquishing the prerogative of our race, and being contented with recipient silence. There is another precept of a kindred nature to be observed, namely, not to talk too well when you do talk. You do not raise yourself much in the opinion of another, if at the same time that you amuse him, you wound him in the nicest point,—his ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... who had raised a large fortune by very indirect means, confess his life had been contrary to every precept of the Gospel; but that he hoped the pardon of Heaven for all his sins, as he intended to devote one of his daughters to a ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... ineffectual fires of the fetich-house, and lifted the grovelling thoughts of idolaters heavenward. His language, like the new juice of the vine, made its way to the very roots of Negro dialects, and gave them method and tone. In the song and narrative, in the prayer and precept, of the heathen, the Arabic comes careering across each sentence, giving cadence and beauty ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... thought, as I fear too many papas do, that this duty belonged exclusively to his wife. This we think is a grave mistake. Children cannot be taught too early the lesson of obedience; and often it happens that the weakness or tenderness of a mother prevents her from enforcing this very salutary precept. ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... perchance, by the fear of discovery. This is quite apart from the teaching that it is the duty of all men to obey all laws, a proposition so general that it has no effect. Even those who make the statement do not follow the precept, and the long list of penal laws that die from lack of enforcement instead of by repeal is too well known to warrant the belief that anyone pays serious attention to such a purely academic statement. ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men;' but the master tells him, 'Tsze, you have not attained to that.' It would appear from this reply, that he was aware of the difficulty of obeying the precept ; and it is not found, in its condensed expression at least, in the older classics. The merit of it is Confucius's own. When a comparison, however, is drawn between it and the rule laid down by Christ, it is proper to call attention to the positive ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... beneficent influence on his life and conduct. If our hearts go out in love to all with whom we come in contact, we inspire love, and the same ennobling and warming influences of love always return to us from those in whom we inspire them. There is a deep scientific principle underlying the precept—If you would have all the world love you, you must first ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... Gap that a visit to it could not be evaded. The Gap is about twenty-four miles southeast of Asheville. In the opinion of a well-informed colonel, who urged us to make the trip, it is the finest piece of scenery it this region. We were brought up on the precept "get the best," and it was with high anticipations that we set out about eleven o'clock one warm, foggy morning. We followed a very good road through a broken, pleasant country, gradually growing wilder and less cultivated. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... enforcing residence of bishops, better payment of tithes. (Hist. Parl. i. 322-27.) The Dignitaries, we can observe, walk stately, apart from the numerous Undignified,—who indeed are properly little other than Commons disguised in Curate-frocks. Here, however, though by strange ways, shall the Precept be fulfilled, and they that are greatest (much to their astonishment) become least. For one example, out of many, mark that plausible Gregoire: one day Cure Gregoire shall be a Bishop, when the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Scotch are an intelligent people is generally acknowledged. 2. That the moon is made of green cheese is believed by some boys and girls. 3. That Julius Caesar invaded Britain is a historic fact. 4. That children should obey their parents is a divine precept. 5. I know that my Redeemer liveth. 6. Plato taught that the soul is immortal. 7. Peter denied that he knew his Lord. 8. Mahomet found that the mountain would not move. 9. The principle maintained by the colonies ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... institution back to their low-down homes on the borders of rice fields and cotton plantations, where their fathers and mothers have toiled in slavery, and by an inspiration that is divine, will dissipate the dark memories of the past, and will show, by precept and example, that sanctification of spirit and purity of life will shape the destiny of their race for coming time. Again we ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various
... sends children there to be educated, they can do so with perfect safety to their Pagan, Mohammedan, or infidel superstitions or opinions. They will not, through the whole course of instruction, hear a prayer, a lecture, or a single advice, lesson, or precept of the Church; they will, as far as the State plan of teaching extends, remain ignorant of the "holy name of God," or the Blessed Trinity, or the Lord's Prayer, or the Ten Commandments, or the Gospels, or ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... the light of eternity. In that light, rank and title, with all their lofty associations and splendid accompaniments, faded away, while true nobleness, the nobleness which dwells in the Christian precept "Love your enemies—do good to those that despitefully use you," stood out in all its beauty ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... added, with the prim politeness of a child who accosts a guest according to rule and precept. Ellen had never, in fact, had a young man make a formal call upon her before. She reflected now, both with relief and trepidation, that her mother was away, having gone to her aunt Eva's. She had an instinct which she resented, that her mother and this young man were on two parallels which ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ease and convenience, in order that he might enter into the pursuits and amusements of his children, was united with an unremitting endeavor to maintain a high standard of moral and religious feeling. Thus by example as well as by precept did he evince his deep concern for their best welfare. As years passed on, his cordial sympathy with their interests, and his anxiety as far as possible to share his own with them, gave an additional power to his influence, not easily estimated." Such were the simple and natural ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... democratic republic is the best form of government yet devised, and that the ideals and institutions of the great republic taken together must and do work out in a prosperous, contented, peaceful, and righteous people; and also to exercise, through precept and example, an influence for good among the nations of the world. That destiny seems to us brighter and more certain of realization to-day than ever before. It is true that in population, in wealth, in knowledge, in national efficiency generally, we have reached a place far beyond the farthest ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... among His competitors, that pure and sublime morality, of which He only hath given us both precept and example? The greatest wisdom was made known amongst the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on earth. The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... vice and immorality were very prevalent among professing Christians. Still among all classes there were notable examples of true piety, and ardent zeal for the propagation of the truth. The excellent queen-mother, Kaahumanu, by her precept and example did much to advance the cause of religion. I must tell you of another native lady, Kapiolani, the wife of Naike, the public orator of the kingdom, by whose courage and faith one of the most terrible of the old superstitions ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... my good mother Baystate wants no praise of mine, She learned from her mother a precept divine About something that butters no parsnips, her forte In another direction lies, work is her sport (Though she'll curtsey and set her cap straight, that she will, If you talk about Plymouth and red Bunker's hill). Dear, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... depends upon the force of example rather than of precept. Parents must be scrupulously just and truthful to the child, for his quick perception will detect the slightest deceit, and the evil impression made on his mind may be lasting. They must confidently expect conduct from him of a high moral ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... illegality, because he appeared to be irritated by such an obstacle to his will and to transfer his irritation against the law to the one who raised it as an objection. I think that he was especially resentful toward any one who volunteered criticism based on a legal provision, precept, or precedent, apparently assuming that the critic opposed his purpose on the merits and in order to defeat it interposed needless legal objections. It is unnecessary to comment on the prejudice which such an attitude ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... me this art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... not know at first whether to honour this bold young man with an answer. But there is a precept in the law which declares that every inquirer must be answered, so one of them said curtly and roughly: "Of course a man ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... facts that happened long after their death. But I am deceived, if a better comment could be anywhere collected, upon the moral part of the Gospel, than from the writings of those excellent men; even that divine precept of loving our enemies, is at large insisted on by Plato, who puts it, as I remember, into the mouth of Socrates.[7] And as to the reproach of heathenism, I doubt they had less of it than the corrupted Jews in whose time they lived. For it is a gross piece ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... the fragrance of the honeysuckle were no longer about them. Miss Tupper in the calmer light of the day considered her words with due regard to precept and standard. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... stimulus to him against whom it was directed; the old precept that he who strikes first strikes best, John Steele seemed fully to appreciate. His heavy stick flashed in the air, rang hard; the way before him cleared, he did not linger. But close behind now the others came fast; his ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... two Nirvanas;—that of entire passionlessness attained in this life, and the consummate Nirvana entered at death. The saint does not need to wait for death for his redemption, nor must he hasten his death in order to enjoy it fully; Buddha, by example and by precept, forbids any such anticipation. Death seals that which was already won, there is no return from the Nirvana of death to any further life. This, however, does not amount to an assertion that the dead Arahat has no ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... love one's neighbour as oneself was, he said, the first and greatest law. And in the Sermon on the Mount he requires the passion to be felt in such strength as to include those whom we have most reason to hate—our enemies and those who maliciously injure us—and delivers an imperative precept, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... When the Czar, by his malevolent obstinacy, finally brought these two men to accord, it was deemed needful to adopt various devices in order to shatter the forces which Russian diplomacy had succeeded in piling up in its own path. But here again we are reminded of the Horatian precept— ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... The precept is sound, and its due application Is fraught with undoubted advantage to some, But I'm free to remark that my own situation Represents a recalcitrant re-sidu-um; Clocks I cannot abide with their truculent ticking— A nuisance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... to maintain among that gallant race a high sense of their purposes, their powers, and their position; to invigorate the principles which had made them the surest defenders of the throne in its day of adversity; and to fix in their minds by example, more effectual than precept, a solemn fidelity to the faith and to the freedom of their forefathers:—these were the objects which I proposed to myself, and which the loftiest intellect, or the amplest opulence, might be well employed in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... doing his eight days' work of preparation at the Lighthouse Battery, between the 12th and the 20th, Amherst, whose favourite precept was 'slow and sure,' was performing an even more arduous task by building a road from Flat Point to where he intended to make his trenches. This road meandered over the least bad line that could be found in that country of alternate rock, bog, sand, scrub, bush, and marshy ponds. ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... France, so entirely reasonable, so profitable, so pacific, and so harmonious with ours, would spread. Conquering Germany could not resist its influence. Nations are taught by example more than by precept, and either is better than force. Other nations would follow; nor would Russia, elevated by her great act of Enfranchisement, fail to seize her sublime opportunity. Popular rights, which are strongest always in assured peace, would have ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... unalterable; the fashions of clothes and furniture have remained the same for ages; suttees are so ancient as to be mentioned by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus; justice is still administered at the palace-gates as of old; in short, "every usage is a precept of religion and a ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... continued Mr. Griffith, "that 'a perfect start is our first and greatest assurance of a perfect finish.' And nowhere is this precept more truly exemplified than in vocal tone production. The tone must have the right beginning, then it will be right all through. A faulty beginning is to blame for most of the vocal faults and sins of singers. Our country is full of beautiful natural voices; through lack of understanding ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... me now as a maister, bent on the improvement of his prentice, to commence learning Mungo some few of the mysteries of our trade; so having showed him the way to crock his hough, (example is better than precept, as James Batter observes,) I taught him the plan of holding the needle; and having fitted his middle-finger with a bottomless thimble of our own sort, I set him to sewing the cotton-lining into one leg, knowing that it was a part not very particular, and not very likely to ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... California without a single defeat. As captain and manager of a ball team Mr. Wright had few equals, and no superiors, as his subsequent history in connection with the Boston and Philadelphia Clubs will prove. He was a believer in kind words and governed his players more by precept and example than by any set of rules that he laid down for their guidance. As a player at the time of this trip he was still in his prime and could hold his own with any of the younger men in the outfit, while his knowledge of the English game proved almost invaluable to us. Harry Wright died ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... foes, there was one proof of unimpeachable orthodoxy that was rarely disputed. He must be a good Catholic who could curse and swear. The Huguenot soldier would do neither.[278] So nearly, indeed, did the Huguenot affirmation approach to the simplicity of the biblical precept, that one Roman Catholic partisan leader of more than ordinary audacity had assumed for the motto on his standard the blasphemous device: "'Double 's death' has conquered 'Verily.'"[279] But the strictness with which theft and profanity were visited in the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... That which God commands.] He alludes to the precept- "Render unto Caesar the things ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... sea-coast running northward. It comes into its more proper line at a celebrated sea-marsh called Cameria,[524] concerning which the oracle said "Ne moveas Camarinam," and the transgression of which precept brought on a pestilence. The road here is a wild pass bounded by a rocky precipice; on one hand covered with wild shrubs, flowers, and plants, and on the other by the sea. After this we came to a military position, where ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... would of necessity desire and choose that his friend should commit offences very frequently, so as to give him, so to speak, the more numerous handles for fault-finding, and on the other hand one would be vexed, pained, aggrieved by all the right and fitting things that friends do. This precept then from whomsoever it came, amounts to the annulling of friendship. The proper rule should be, that we exercise so much caution in forming friendships, that we should never begin to love a friend whom it is possible that we should ever hate; but even in case we should have been unfortunate ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... brethren; and hath not encouraged them to learn the laws and the mystery of Christ. But he that least knew was most cherished by him; and he hath been highly displeased and [hath] disdained when his brothers would say that 'it is God's precept and doctrine that ye ought to prefer before your ceremonies and vain constitutions.' This saying was high disobedient, and should be grievously punished; when that lying, obloquy, flattery, ignorance, derision, contumely, discord, great swearing, drinking, hypocrisy, fraud, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... a very natural antipathy to Pope . . . but they have been joined in it by . . . the whole heterogeneous mass of living English poets excepting Crabbe, Rogers, Gifford, and Campbell, who, both by precept and practice, have proved their adherence; and by me, who have shamefully deviated in practice, but have ever loved and honoured Pope's poetry with my whole soul." There is ten times more poetry, he thinks, in the "Essay on Man" than in the "Excursion"; and if you want ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... insignificance, if not of dishonour? For it was dishonour to live with a man she could not love, whether her heart cherished another image or was merely vacant. A dishonour to which innumerable women submitted, a dishonour glorified by social precept, enforced under ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... policy should be laid in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles, it is in vain to look for public virtue. It is therefore the duty of legislators to enforce, both by precept and example, the utility as well as the necessity of a strict adherence to the rules of distributive justice. We beg you to be assured that the Senate will at all times cheerfully cooperate in every measure which may strengthen ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... Illustrious foe And teacher, Nelson: blest and over blest In thy outgoing at the noon of strife When glory clasped thee round; while wayward Death Refused my coaxings for the like-timed call! Yet I did press where thickest missiles fell, And both by precept and example showed Where lay the line of duty, patriotism, And honour, in that combat ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... has been, that men have not always been spiritually free. Freedom has been a social growth—a phase of progress. It has taken wars and persecutions, revolutions and reformations, the blood of saints and martyrs, the sorrow of ages, to plant this precept in ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... at present like a monster threatening to swallow up the moral life of man; you by precept and by example have been teaching him to disgorge. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... indulging in cant; and the genuineness of the sentiment which dictated those words is therefore above suspicion. To work vigorously, to do well whatever he (or she) has to do, is a real pleasure to the Utopian child. Indeed his whole being is a living response to the familiar precept: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... doubt is excellent, for it is certainly true that I have missed every pigeon which I tried to shoot with these confounded little rifles. But if you could demonstrate in practice what you so kindly set out in precept, the value of your ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... capitalist class, alarmed at the amazingly rapid growth of anti-militarism in this country, is endeavoring, through church and government, to combat this just sentiment, and by law and precept to create an artificial respect and love for the soldiers' uniform and the ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... influence for righteousness, moulding his people in that simplicity of life and independence of spirit, which in all times have been preeminent as features in the Dutch character. Into the homespun of common life, he wove the threads of gold, revealing by life and precept that type of religion which is not "too bright and good for human nature's ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various |
