"Profess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way to be robbed! Besides which, have you not yourself been guilty of gross injustice in leading poor weak Shank Leather into vicious courses—to his great, if not irreparable, damage? I don't profess to teach theology, Ralph Ritson, my old friend, but I do think that even an average cow-boy could understand that a rebel has no claim to forgiveness—much less to favour—until he lays down his arms ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... profess to be the real thing," replied Ike modestly, as if disclaiming an excellence he could hardly hope to attain, "but I ginerally kin ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... they have nothing to say. Ramsden, a little ruffled by the lack of any response, continues] I don't know that I can consent to act under such conditions. Mr Tanner has, I understand, some objection also; but I do not profess to understand its nature: he will no doubt speak for himself. But we are agreed that we can decide nothing until we know your views. I am afraid I shall have to ask you to choose between my sole guardianship and that ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... that appeared to me most important and interesting among the events and the scenes that came under my notice during my sojourn in the interior of Africa. If my account should not entirely harmonise with preconceived notions as to primitive races, I cannot help it. I profess accurately to describe native Africa—Africa in those places where it has not received the slightest impulse, whether for good or evil, from European civilisation. If the picture be a dark one, we should, when contemplating these sons of Noah, try and carry our ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... his much earlier Les Excentriques (not unnaturally but wrongly called "Contes Excentriques" by some), handling what profess to be true stories, he shows a most excellent narrative faculty. Whether they are true or not (they rather resemble, and were perhaps inspired by, some things of Gautier and Gerard) matters little—they are quite good enough to be false. They are, necessarily, not quite equal, and there may ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... complains of Jamieson, that his versions from the Danish are done in a broad Scotch dialect, almost as unintelligible to ordinary readers as the language of which they profess to give the meaning. But if any one compare Jamieson's rendering of "The Buried Mother" with Dr. Prior's, (Prior, vol. i. p. 368,) he will, we think, see cause to regret that Jamieson did not do what Dr. Prior has attempted, and that he has not left us a greater number of translations ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods in conceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... blessed thing it is to lose one's will! Since I have lost my will I have found happiness. There can be no such thing as disappointment to me, for I have no desires but that God's will may be accomplished." "Christians might avoid much trouble if they would only believe what they profess, viz.: that God is able to make them happy without anything but Himself. They imagine that if such a dear friend were to die, or such and such blessings to be removed, they should be miserable; whereas God can make them a thousand ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... learnt," the Major said, "that some more chupaties were brought last night. It is most annoying. I have questioned several of the native officers, and they profess to have no idea whence they came or what is the meaning of them. I wish we could get to the bottom of this thing; it keeps the troops in a ferment. If I could get hold of one of these messengers, I would get out of him all he knew, ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers, and fuss about an authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody needs, and the meaning of which the very man who wrote it does not understand. We all profess the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries and love of our neighbors, the law in honor of which we have built in Moscow forty times forty churches—but yesterday a deserter was knouted to death and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... drowned, the event being learned only long after. "Daifusama, being persuaded by Fray Geronymo, had granted leave for our religion to be preached in his kingdoms, to build our churches, and for all who wished to profess our religion with public authority." Accordingly the orders send various missionaries to different districts of Japan. "Many persuaded Don Pedro not to send away these religious, but, although those persuasions were well founded, and obstacles put in the way of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... concurred in a scheme for introducing the Catholic religion, or that none of them understood the nature and effects of what they were doing so well as a few obscure clubs of people whose names you never heard of, is shamelessly absurd. Surely it is paying a miserable compliment to the religion we profess, to suggest that everything eminent in the kingdom is indifferent or even adverse to that religion, and that its security is wholly abandoned to the zeal of those who have nothing but their zeal to distinguish them. In weighing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the Saturnians can be said to have any pride in anything, it is in the absolute level which characterizes their political and social order. They profess to be the only true republicans in the solar system. The fundamental articles of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... poor who are destitute of any regard for their future well-being, and who, from being under the care of vicious parents, have no attention paid to their moral conduct; and also wishing to become acquainted with those persons of the different religious societies who profess to be followers of the same Master, they agreed to associate themselves. Having great reason to believe that God will bless their humble efforts for the spread of pure religion and virtue, and looking to Him for guidance, the ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... with few exceptions, used all their influence to foster dark old superstitions which lurk in such good words as those of patriotism and honour, to keep the people blind so that they might not see the shining light of liberty, and to adulterate the doctrine of Christ which most of them profess, by a gospel of international jealousy based upon trade interests and ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... taxidermy profess to give descriptions of the attitudes of animals, I cannot do so for the simple reason that I consider the acquirement a speciality and purely a matter of experience. Nature must be closely studied; failing this, reference must be made to illustrated works on natural history. All of Gould's ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Cromwell advocated unrelenting Puritanism by legislation and by the sword. James I, though a Protestant wedded to imperialism in government, permitted oppression. The Bill of Rights, which secured to the English people the privileges of constitutional government, insisted that no person who should profess the "popish" religion or marry a "papist" should be qualified to ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... We do not profess to give Mr. Carson's precise words. These were his views. They were so manifestly correct that all, at once, fell in with them. The united party then again advanced, with rifles cocked and primed, towards ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... our own want of experience, we neither grimace about it, nor lie. If there must be sundering betwixt those who meant never to sunder, so it must be: but there need be no pretext of unity when the reality of it is gone: nor do we drive those who well know that they are incapable of it to profess an undying sentiment which they cannot really feel: thus it is that as that monstrosity of venal lust is no longer possible, so also it is no longer needed. Don't misunderstand me. You did not seemed shocked when I told you that there ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... am aware that these things are but trifles to the Theosophists and Esoteric Buddhists, who profess to project their astral bodies, and play many other hocus pocus tricks of transmitting voices and articles to immense distances. They may therefore be able to explain these phenomena, I cannot; still I have the belief that there is some spirit-force which can and does ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... is. Dear me! Should I be plainer to you if I called him a Christian gentleman? It's the cant of a detestable school, my child. It means just this—but why should I disturb your future faith in it? The professors mainly profess to be 'a comfort to young women,' and I suppose you will meet your comfort, and worship them with the 'growing mind;' and I must confess that they bait it rather cunningly; nothing else would bite. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... much has been required from one man, a combination not to be found probably in one man in a thousand. Such Admirable Crichtons are rare in any profession or business, and that of mining is no exception. Men who profess too much are to be distrusted. Your best men are they who concentrate their energies and intellects in special directions. The Mining Manager should, if possible, be chosen from men holding certificates of competency from some technical mining school and, of course, should, in addition, ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... Countess Auk, of Stornaway Rock, in the Hebrides; and with her were her two nieces, Lady Isabella Snipe and the Honourable Miss Woodcock. I saw Mr. Reynard, the celebrated member for Hollowoak, having a long gossip with the Countess and her young charges, for both of whom he seemed to profess great admiration. Mr. Jay, the member for Chatterfield, was likewise there, and paid a good deal of attention, I thought, to the Honourable Miss Dove, a cousin of Miss Pigeon's. Miss Dove plays very nicely, and sometimes, when the band required rest, she rattled off a waltz ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... a list of those families that still profess the true faith. Almost to a man they place their country before their Church, and prefer to fight for their heretic Queen rather than the Holy Mother ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... gratified by congratulations on their improvement, should be intent upon demonstrating that there never was anything to improve. As we were neither born nor bred in Ireland, we cannot be supposed to possess this amor patriae in its full force: we profess to be attached to the country only for its merits; we acknowledge that it is a matter of indifference to us whether the Irish derive their origin from the Spaniards, or the Milesians, or the Welsh: we are not so violently anxious as we ought to be to determine ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... of a size such as the reader can never in his life have beheld. A similar caricaturing of nature is to be noted in the historical pictures (of unknown origin, period, and creation) which reach us—sometimes through the instrumentality of Russian magnates who profess to be connoisseurs of art—from Italy; owing to the said magnates having made such purchases solely on the advice of the couriers ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... confidence you are good enough to profess in me," said Stair with biting irony, "I beg you to remember that it will be ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Auceps. And I profess myself a Falconer, and have heard many grave, serious men pity them, it is such a heavy, contemptible, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... The reproach is often urged against science—the knowledge of the order of nature—that it does not tell us "why we are here." Man inevitably desires to know why he is here; but "science," as that word is now understood, does not profess or even seek to answer that question, although the false hope has been raised in ignorant minds, sometimes by knavery, sometimes by honest delusion, that it could do so. By knowledge of nature mankind ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... change of some of his opponents in political principles, Toombs declared they "would profess any opinion to gain votes. It had been the belief of Crawford that if a man changed politics after thirty he was ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... work! God bless the Regent and the Duke of York! Ye Muses! by whose aid I cried down Fox, Grant me in Drury Lane a private box, Where I may loll, cry Bravo! and profess The boundless powers of England's glorious press; While Afric's sons exclaim, from shore to shore, "Quashee ma boo!"—the slave-trade is no more! In fair Arabia (happy once, now stony, Since ruined by that arch apostate Boney), A Phoenix late was caught: the Arab host Long ponder'd—part ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... not done what you profess to believe," he said. "You do not believe it. Will you tell me why you ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "I don't profess to understand her. Her character is not easily sounded. But no doubt she has the puritanical spirit in a rather rare degree. I daily thank the fates that my wife grew up apart from that branch of the family. Of all ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... master, that water's no water, or that, stanes are no stanes. But that's just your gate, an' it's a great pity, aye to do a thing an profess the clean contrair. Weel then, since you havena paid me ony wages, an' I can prove day and date when I was hired, an' came hame to your service, will you be sae kind as to pay me now? That's the best ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... Bury (My Visit to Ruhleben) writes: "Again I was conscious of just the same spirit of privation—extraordinarily pathetic it was—about people and places...." (p. 79) It is to be feared that some who "profess and call themselves Christians" can see nothing pathetic in the sufferings of an ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... yet remains a subject which, though often urged, still continues to demand our serious attention; we allude to the most proper means of extending the principles of just and equal liberty amongst mankind: and as we profess to assume no other powers than those of persuasion and convincement, founded on the unerring basis of truth and justice, we wish you duly to advert to the magnitude of the cause in which we are engaged, to persevere with patience and fortitude in your applications ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... Professor Hering and "Life and Habit," he had nevertheless nowhere shown that he considered memory and heredity to be parts of the same story and parcel of one another. In his letter to the Athenaeum, indeed, he does not profess to have upheld this view, except "by implications;" nor yet, though in the course of the six or seven years that had elapsed since "Life and Habit" was published I had brought out more than one book to support my earlier one, had he said anything during ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... mysterious Individual ever since had a status for himself in this visible Universe, some modicum of victual and lodging and parade-ground; and now expanded in bulk, faculty and knowledge of good and evil, he, as HERR DIOGENES TEUFELSDROCKH, professes or is ready to profess, perhaps not altogether without effect, in the new University of Weissnichtwo, the new Science of Things ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... than he was in his natural state of ferocity. You seem to think that the business of philosophy is to polish men into slaves; but I say, it is to teach them to assert, with an untamed and generous spirit, their independence and freedom. You profess to instruct those who want to ride their fellow-creatures, how to do it with an easy and gentle rein; but I would have them thrown off, and trampled under the feet of all their deluded or insulted equals, ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... How odd that is! We all profess to believe when we're told that this world should be used merely as a preparation for the next; and yet there is something so cold and comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for our children. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... presents to the town—the top of it garnished with two rows of brackets, perforated with holes to receive the staves of the "velarium"—bears the traces of more than one tier of ornamental arches; tho how these flat arches were applied, or incrusted, upon the wall, I do not profess ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... a Christian, you must believe in the spirits of the dead," he declared; "but to go out of your way to summon these spirits, to call them from the next world back to ours, and to consult people who profess to be able to do so—extremely doubtful characters, as a rule—that I think is much to be condemned. I deny that there are any living mediums of communication between the spirit world and this one, and I should always judge the man or woman who claimed ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... outside the Bible the world has never known a more sublime moral philosophy than that of Confucius. It means much, therefore, that every Chinese pupil must know the maxims and principles of the great sage by heart. Moreover, as Confucius did not profess to teach spiritual truth, the missionaries in China are fast coming to realize that it is both unnecessary and foolish to urge the people to abandon Confucianism. The proper policy is to tell the Chinese, "Hold on to all that ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... and reprobated all the destined inhabitants of heaven and hell, unalterably, independently of their choice or action. At the same time, reception of the true faith, and a life conformed to it, are virtually necessary for salvation, because it is decreed that all the elect shall profess and obey the true faith. Their obedient reception of it proves them to be elected. On the other hand, it is foreordained that none of the reprobate shall become disciples and followers of the Prophet. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... because socialists, and other sentimental thinkers, like Ruskin, attach such extreme importance to it; but mainly because it affords us an exceptionally striking illustration of the manner in which they are accustomed to reason about matters with regard to which they ostentatiously profess themselves to be the pioneers of accurate science. One of the principal grounds—to repeat what has been said already—on which they attack what they call the Economics of Capitalism, is that it deals exclusively with the actions of "the economic man," or the man whose one motive is the appropriation ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... of 1834, Mr. Schauffler baptized a German Jew, whom he named Herman Marcussohn, having formed his acquaintance in South Russia, sixteen years before. As he could not there profess Christianity except by joining the Greek Church, he had come to Constantinople, bringing letters to Mr. Schauffler, and was engaged by him as ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... not despicable. It was well provided with ordnance, small arms, and ammunition, and might easily seize on the unarmed boats, freighted with millions of property, which passed almost daily within its reach. It did not profess to belong to any regular government, and had, in fact, no recognized dependence on or connection with anyone to which the United States or their injured citizens might apply for redress or which could be held responsible in any way for the outrages committed. Not standing before the world ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... believe themselves descended from rattlesnakes, and all, more or less, profess relationship with that reptile. A Seneca chief told me that his maternal ancestor was a maiden rattlesnake, but he destroyed the sublimity of the fiction by asserting that on their nuptial night she bit off ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... high religious association which rests upon it. The same silver may be moulded to the altar-chalice or the Bacchic goblet; but we touch the one with reverent and clean hands, while the other is tossed aside in the madness of the revel. Men clamor for a new version of the Sacred Scriptures, and profess to be shocked at its plain outspokenness, forgetting that to the pure all things are pure, and that to the prurient all things are foul. It was a reverent and a worshipping age that gave us that treasure, and so long as we have the temper of reverence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... the German language," answered Hardman, rather tartly. "I don't profess to admire it or defend it. But nobody can deny its utility for the things that are taught in it. You can learn more science from half a dozen recent German books than from a whole library of Latin and Greek. Besides, you ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... this, we ourselves, who profess to be Christians, and boast of the peculiar advantages we enjoy by means of an express revelation of our duty from heaven, are in effect these very untaught and rude heathen countries. With all our superior light, we instil into those whom we call savage and barbarous, the most despicable opinion ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... profess no religion, though acknowledging the existence of good and bad spirits. To the good they pay no heed; "Why should we?" they say, "the good spirits do us no harm; the evil spirits, who dwell in every rock, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... to cases in which young women, even girls at puberty, experience dreams of erotic character, or at all events dream concerning coitus or men in erection, although they profess, and almost certainly with truth, to be quite ignorant of sexual phenomena. Several such dreams of remarkable character have been communicated to me. One can imagine that the psychologists of some schools would see in these dreams the spontaneous eruption of the experiences ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... us be rational, make us enthusiastic by force. Do you love your children? I ask you again. If you do, you must love them more than another man's. Only they who are indifferent to all, profess a parity. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... "do not seem to be receiving the attention they deserve from our food experts." Several of our younger readers who profess to be food experts declare that they are ready to attend to all the peanuts that our contemporary cares ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... consideration does not touch those who believe in no Church at all. They are in the position of that individual whom the great Constantine recommended to take a ladder and mount to heaven by himself. But it touches all who profess to believe in an episcopate, in councils, in sacraments, in an organised Church, in authority deposited in that Church, and, finally, in history and in historical Christianity. To all such it may surely be said, as the simplest enunciation of reasoning, that they cannot profess ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... condition of the Empire and Church at his accession, 98-9; writes to Euphemius, who will cede everything except the person of Acacius, 103-5; the bishops of Eastern Illyricum profess their obedience to the Apostolic See, 105-6; to whom the Pope declares that the see of Constantinople has no precedence over other bishops, 107; that the Holy See, in virtue of its Principate, confirms every council, 109; his great letter to the emperor Anastasius defines the domain of the Two ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... know nothing about; if lamps turn blue suddenly it may quite well be a 'Something' that may be magic and might be God or Satan; anyhow, it cannot be explained by an American young man; it is of the things that the clergy profess to believe in ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... full, direct, and conclusive contradiction of every fact asserted by General Jackson is impossible. Yet it had no effect upon his prospects or policy. His partisans continued to propagate the calumny, and profess their belief in it; and he gave encouragement to this course by maintaining a scrupulous silence on Mr. Buchanan's contradiction. Mr. Clay, speaking on this point, observed: "After Mr. Buchanan's statement appeared, there ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... objection comes: "Prisoners will be often hypocritical, profess goodness from sinister motives, pretending to have reformed for a time, and then become as ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... mind, that this number is an inferior limit, and that the velocity of the rays of light amounts to 77,000 leagues (192,000 English miles) per second, the philosophers who profess to explain the force of attraction by the impulsive energy of a fluid, will see what ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... wars which have taken place for the last three hundred years since the world has improved in civilisation, show that nations rush into war as eagerly as ever, and that cruelties and abominations of all sorts, such as the fiercest savages cannot surpass, are committed by men who profess to be Christians. Read the accounts of the wars of the Duke of Alva and his successors in the Netherlands, the civil wars of France, the foreign wars of Napoleon, the deeds of horror done at the storming and capture ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... assist the royalists, or if we would assist them: so apt are men, under the influence of strong feeling themselves, to doubt of perfect indifference in others, that I question much whether they believed in the strict neutrality we profess. They left us, however, without betraying any particular anxiety, and made a very circuitous passage home, in order to avoid the Recife cruizer, which was looking out for straggling boats or vessels of any description belonging ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... They scorn the alliance with the Copperheads; they tell me to my face that they respect Grant, McPherson, and our brave associates who fight manfully and well for a principle, but despise the Copperheads and sneaks at the North, who profess friendship for the South and opposition to the war, as mere covers for their knavery ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... begun to beat very hard. "Is it?" said she in a tone of apprehension. "Do they profess to ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... How much better did Christ know him. "What! dost thou profess thyself willing to die with Me? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt deny Me thrice, between now and cock-crow to-morrow morning." These words silenced Peter for all the evening afterward. He ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... a chief? Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Tylor, M. Fustel de Coulanges, a dozen others, have made all this matter of common notoriety. As Hearne the traveller says about the Copper River Indians, 'it is almost necessary that they who rule them should profess something a little supernatural to enable them to deal with the people.' The few examples we have given show how widely, and among what untutored races, the need is felt. The rudimentary government of early peoples requires, and, by aid of dreams, necromancy, 'medicine' (i.e. fetiches), ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... clear when Germany really recognised the fact that the unrestricted U-boat warfare had no effect, and was thus a terrible mistake. To the public, as well as to the Allied Cabinets, the German military authorities continued to profess the greatest optimism, and when I left my post in April, 1918, the standpoint held in Berlin was still that England would be defeated by the naval war. Writing on December 14, 1917, Hohenlohe reported that in competent ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... other men's crimes. I know, that nothing can be so innocently writ or carried, but may be made obnoxious to construction; marry, whilst I bear mine innocence about me, I fear it not. Application is now grown a trade with many; and there are that profess to have a key for the decyphering of every thing: but let wise and noble persons take heed how they be too credulous, or give leave to these invading interpreters to be over-familiar with their fames, who cunningly, and often, utter their own virulent ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... incapable of forming any opinions or any judgment of their own, being merely the echo of others' opinions; and, nevertheless, they defend them with all the greater zeal and intolerance. For what they hate in people who think differently is not so much the different opinions which they profess, as the presumption of wanting to form their own judgment; a presumption of which they themselves are never guilty, as they are very well aware. In short, there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... its highest images an analogon in the spiritual condition of those who profess it. The God of Mohammed . the solitariness of the desert, the distant roar of the lion, the vision of a formidable warrior. The God of the Christians . everything that men and women think of when they hear the word "love". The ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... labour. To have any success, Sol, you must be a man who can thoroughly look at a door to see what ought to be done to it, but as to looking at a window, that's not your line; or a person who, to the remotest particular, understands turning a screw, but who does not profess any knowledge of how to drive a nail. Dan must know how to paint blue to a marvel, but must be quite in the dark about painting green. If you stick to some such principle of specialty as this, you ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... Israelites, and among them are learned and rich men. But the Jews live there under great oppression. Thence it is two days to Nihawand, where there are 4,000 Israelites. Thence it is four days to the land of Mulahid. Here live a people who do not profess the Mohammedan religion, but live on high mountains, and worship the Old Man of the land of the Hashishim[155]. And among them there are four communities of Israel who go forth with them in war-time. They are not under the rule of the king ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... not profess to know how he saw it. So far as I know, inability to make speeches does not show on a man's face, and Titherington had no other means of judging at that time except the appearance of my face. No one in fact, not even my mother, could have been sure then that I was a bad ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... responsibility or duty to perform in the way of giving a helping hand in this most important work of life. Now I ask you, brethren of the Christian Church, are such things in accordance with the grand and noble precepts of Christianity, in which we profess to believe—thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself? Of course, husbands and wives who are able are but too glad to take care of their own children; but there are multitudes who need help. If wealthy husbands and wives are not willing or able to have ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... would receive for them, as the banks could not profitably use this cash if it were added to what is deposited now, and that the only sufferers by this frightened and forced selling would be the people whom you profess to be working for? ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... effect these multitudinous preparations and ceremonies have upon the pleasures they profess to subserve. Who, on calling to mind the occasions of his highest social enjoyments, does not find them to have been wholly informal, perhaps impromptu? How delightful a picnic of friends, who forget all observances save those ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... lived a wild life, and was completely used up. When he came to me he was pretty well gone in consumption. I saw he couldn't last long. I went to see him a good many times. He used to profess the deepest repentance. He told me once that he was writing a confession of his crimes, which he was going to send to his brother. The miserable creature had scarcely any spirit or courage left, and generally ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the soldier answered, "for I believe she was as fair as she was good. She married an honest gentleman named Cloud, whose honesty compelled him to profess the faith he believed in. My ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... youth, Improves so with a wig and band on, That all thy pride's to waylay Truth, And leave her not a leg to stand on. Thy patent prime morality,— Thy cases cited from the Bible— Thy candor when it falls to thee To help in trouncing for a libel;— "God knows, I, from my soul, profess "To hate all bigots and be-nighters! "God knows, I love, to even excess, "The sacred Freedom of the Press, "My only aim's to—crush the writers." These are the virtues, TIM, that draw The briefs into thy bag so fast; And these, oh TIM—if ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... continued the Baron, with unusual warmth, "I am clear that there are cases in which the influence of nature has worked what you profess to treat as an impossibility or a miracle. I am myself acquainted with an instance of a peculiar character. A few years ago, a gentleman of high rank found himself exposed to the unhappy suspicion of being connected with ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... any such thing as a body of inhabitants, in any Roman Catholic country under the sun, that profess an absolute submission to the pope's orders in matters of an indifferent nature, or that in such points do not think it their duty to obey ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... is angry," was one of the first questions she put to Ughtred, "what does he give as his reason? He must profess to have a reason." ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... use in supposing anything," interrupted the skipper. "You profess to be anxious to avoid anything in the nature of force or bloodshed. Very well; I tell you that there will be both if you scoundrels persist in turning us all adrift under such circumstances as you have named. No, stand back; don't attempt violence with me, my fine fellow. ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... you came to Paris; and your damn'd philosophical indolence or indifference stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the language! What the devil!—are men nothing but word-trumpets? are men all tongue and ear? have these creatures, that you and I profess to know something about, no faces, gestures, gabble: no folly, no absurdity, no induction of French education upon the abstract idea of men and women, no similitude nor dis-similitude to English! Why! thou damn'd Smell-fungus! your account of your landing and reception, and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... is any reference made to the debates in the House on the unhappy Bill of Uniformity, nor does any record of those discussions anywhere exist. The Savoy Conference proved a failure, and no lay reader of Baxter's account of it can profess wonder. Not a single point in difference was settled. In the meantime the restored Houses of Convocation, from which the Presbyterian members were excluded, had completed their revision of the Book of Common Prayer and presented it ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... those well-meaning but temporarily misguided persons who think they are going to be satisfied with staying on indefinitely in Europe. They profess themselves as being amply pleased with the present arrangement. For, no matter how patriotic one may be, one must concede—mustn't one?—that for true culture one must look to Europe? After all, America is a bit crude, ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Renthall, who had been an undergraduate there with his father. Professor Renthall was also a Friend, and it was perhaps this fact that first drew them together. For while Bob did not in any way profess adherence to the Society of Friends, he greatly admired those of that persuasion. In addition to this, too, his father's influence was still strong upon him. The boy revered his father's memory, and treasured in his heart those faiths by ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... true, profess to find in it a reference to the unfortunate Sicilian Expedition, then in progress, and a prophecy of its failure and the political downfall of Alcibiades. But as a matter of fact, the whole thing seems rather an attempt on the dramatist's part to relieve the overwrought minds of his fellow-citizens, ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... my heart imagine what way there was to get out of my dominions. But certainly, thought I, there must be some way or other, or she would not be so peremptory. And as to my jacket, and showing myself in my natural clothing, I profess she made me blush; and but for shame, I would have stripped to my skin to have satisfied her. "But, madam," says I, "pray pardon me, for you are really mistaken; I have examined every nook and corner of this new world in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... you can surely make allowances for my education: that may have been unfortunate; but still I profess the most entire respect for the ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... in Paris was a devotee. She took great pains to convert me. I gave way to her kind endeavours for the good of my soul. She thought it a point gained to make me profess some religion. The catholic has its conveniencies. I permitted her to bring a father to me. My reformation went on swimmingly. The father had hopes of me: he applauded her zeal: so did I. And how dost thou think ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... which often exists even among those who profess the deepest scholarship and the most certainty of opinion as to the development of men of great wealth was instanced by a misstatement of Dr. Felix Adler, leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. In an address on "Anti-Democratic Tendencies ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife, No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean, But banished to kill me; banished? O friar, the damned use that word in hell; Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd, To mangle me with ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... pathetic patience he waved the fair tempter from him, saying steadily, "I will never tell you, though you rob me of that which is dearer than my life. Go and work your will, but remember that when you might have won the deepest gratitude of the man you profess to love, you chose instead to earn his hatred ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... cried Blondy, when I had finished my lecture, 'not so bad.' 'But can you, in the mean time, point out to us any apartment that we can ransack? We are, you see, like Harlequin, and have more need of cash than advice;' and they left me, laughing deridingly at me. I called them back, to profess my attachment to them, and begged them not to call again at my house. 'If that is all,' said Deluc, 'we will keep from that.'—'Oh yes, we'll keep away,' added Blondy, 'since that is unpleasant to your mistress.' ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... reason why all mankind, though they have ever, without hesitation, acknowledged the doctrine of necessity in their whole practice and reasoning, have yet discovered such a reluctance to acknowledge it in words, and have rather shown a propensity, in all ages, to profess the contrary opinion. The matter, I think, may be accounted for after the following manner. If we examine the operations of body, and the production of effects from their causes, we shall find that all our faculties ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... different manner from them, or from what they consider suitable for you. If you thus err, they will neither allow you to exercise any influence over them, nor will they be at all prejudiced in favour of the, it may be, stricter religious principles which you profess, when they find them lead to unnecessary singularity, and to disregard of the feelings and wishes of those around you. It is therefore your duty to dress like a lady, and not like a peasant girl,—not only because the former is the station in life God himself ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... are pleased to profess, I will believe. What you are pleased to feign a wish for, I am proud to furnish. In Skitzland, the inhabitants, until they come of age, retain that illustrious appearance which you have been so fortunate as never to have lost. During the night of his twenty-first birthday, each Skitzlander loses ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... he and his brother had been Christians from their childhood from having been bred up amongst Christians, but were too indignant at the treatment which they and their brethren met with at Christian hands, to profess Christianity; and he earnestly pleaded, as essential to their being induced to receive the gospel, that those who participate in the attempt should approach them with a language of decided ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... tail, which almost touches the ground. The other cans of the lechero contain a mixture known to him alone. I never analyzed it, but have remarked a chalky substance in the bottom of my glass. He does not profess to sell pure milk; that you can buy, but, of course, at a higher price, from the pure milk seller. In the cool of the afternoon he will bring round his cows, with bells on their necks and calves ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... are doubly condemned as a double traitor," said Sir Robert. "So prepare to die; the religion you profess I know not, but the time you will be allowed to make your peace with ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... "I don't profess mine to be more than a free rendering," went on the little apothecary. "The Latin, as you would ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... disturbed by this image, which followed him everywhere, retired to Heraclea in Elis, where there was a temple served by priests who were magicians, called Psychagogues, that is to say, who profess to evoke the souls of the dead. There Pausanias, after having offered the customary libations and funeral effusions, called upon the spirit of Cleonice, and conjured her to renounce her anger against him. Cleonice at last appeared, and ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... to spare their red-skinned foes. Many of their friends, who had never hurt the savages in any way, had perished the victims of wanton aggression. They themselves had seen innumerable instances of Indian treachery. They had often known the chiefs of a tribe to profess warm friendship at the very moment that their young men were stealing and murdering. They grew to think of even the most peaceful Indians as merely sleeping wild beasts, and while their own wrongs were ever vividly before them, they rarely heard of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... The result was the discovery of the composite character of many books, the rearrangement of the Biblical literature in the probable order of its writing, and the use of the documents as historical sources, not so much for the periods they profess to describe, as for those in and for ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... might so relieve the horse a little, while still himself riding, lifted his load and carried it. We laugh at the simplicity of the idiotic lad, and yet how often we are guilty of similar folly! We profess to cast ourselves and our cares upon the Lord, and then persist in bearing our own burdens, as if we felt that He would be unequal to the task of sustaining us and our loads. It is a most wholesome lesson for Christian workers to learn that all true work is primarily the Lord's, and only secondarily ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... of what was presented, in the first instance, to feeling and imagination. The time must eventually come for understanding that rich product of active Reason which the history of the world offers to us. It was for a while the fashion to profess admiration for the wisdom of God, as displayed in animals, plants, and isolated occurrences. But if it be allowed that Providence manifests itself in such objects and forms of existence, why not also in universal history? This is deemed too great a matter to be thus regarded. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... his plans should work out, this is what would happen: in 1883 the firm's note for $75,000 would come due. Orde would be unable to pay it. Therefore at once his stock in the Boom Company would become the property of Newmark and Orde. Newmark would profess himself unable to raise enough from the firm to pay the mortgage. The second mortgage from which he had drawn his personal loan would render it impossible for the firm to raise more money on the land. A foreclosure would follow. Through ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... kindly squire was coming out at the gate as I stood gazing, and asked me if I would care to look round. He led me up to the gate-house, and then into a great hall, with vast doors of oak, flagged with stone. "There is our ugliest story!" he said, pointing to the flags. I do not profess to explain what I saw; but there was in one place a stain looking like dark blood just sopped up; and close by, outlined in a damp dimness, the rough form of a human body with outstretched arms, just as though a warm corpse had been lying on the cold stones. "That was where the young heir was ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... strength. But just as in these cases there is no improvement unless, by the abatement of what weighs them down till they rise in the opposite scale, they recognize a change, so in the case of those who profess philosophy no improvement or sign of improvement can be supposed, unless the soul lay aside and purge itself of some of its imperfection, and if it continue altogether bad until it become absolutely good and perfect. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... as good as the other; there is not a pin to choose between them. There is the same bright easy, gossiping style, the same pleasing rapidity. There is nothing tedious, nothing dull anywhere. They do not profess to have anything to do with the graver processes of history—these entertaining volumes; they seek rather to amuse than to instruct, and they fulfil their purpose excellently. There is instruction in ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... prophet; and they would appeal to the Zend-Avesta, as containing the Word of God, revealed by Ormuzd to Zoroaster. If more closely pressed, however, they would have to admit that they cannot understand one word of the sacred writings in which they profess to believe, nor could they give any reason why they believe Zoroaster to have been a true prophet, and not an impostor. 'As a body,' says Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, 'the priests are not only ignorant of the duties and objects of their own profession, but are entirely uneducated, except ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... men profess They weary of Thy parts, E'en let them die at blasphemy And perish with their arts; But we that love, but we that prove Thine excellence august, While we adore discover more Thee ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... move the tongue against them, yet I dare not doubt of their destruction, when the Lord hath sworn by his life, that he will avenge the breach of covenant. When, and by whom, and in what manner, he will do it, I do profess ignorance, and leave it to his glorious majesty, his own latitude, and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... the Italian musician and profess to think he's the guilty party," said one. "If they have taken any steps beyond this, before to-day, we have not ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... "syndicalism" became an everyday English word. It had its origin in the French word "syndicalisme," which is French for trade unionism, just as French and Belgian trade unions are "syndicats." But because for reasons that cannot be gone into here so many of the French trade unionists profess this peculiarly revolutionary philosophy, there has grown up out of and around the word "syndicalisme" a whole literature with writers like George Sorel and Gustave Herve as the prophets and exponents of the new movement. So the word "syndicalism," thus anglicized, has come to signify ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... and competition fell from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest,—he acknowledged no criterion but success,—he worshiped no God but ambition, and with an eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he dill not promulgate; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... was originally concluded in 1850, but was amended with a view to avoid some objections which were made on the very subject to which you refer. In its present form, although it may not remove some difficulties with reference to those who profess the Israelitish faith, yet I do not see that it discriminates against this class of our citizens in any mode whatever. Undoubtedly in some portions of the Confederation the local laws are less liberal to Israelites than to others, and this is deeply to be regretted; but the Government of ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... Yes; there are books much better written: They are really written too well for the generality of readers. He wanted to adapt something to the genius and pockets of the people. The generality of such as profess religion are poor, and have little time, little capacity, little money. If they read and understand this, perhaps they may be capable of relishing something better. However, the writer throws in his mite, and hopes it will be acceptable. In the meantime ...
— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor
... to find in your letter some sentences which reflect upon the character of his most Christian Majesty. It certainly is not kind, or consistent with the principles of philanthropy you profess, to traduce a gentleman's character, without affording him an opportunity of defending himself; and that, too, a near neighbor, and not long since an intimate brother, who besides hath lately given you the most solid additional proofs of his ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... us," said my father to him. "If you have the regard for me you profess, you will willingly go; and should we hear favourable accounts of the progress of events in the island, you will be able to return, should ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... only those fruits which of themselves fell to his hand. In like manner he fought all his battles by sea and land with a crushing superiority of force. Had this moderation proceeded from the strict observance of the instructions given to him, as Pompeius was wont to profess, or even from a perception that the conquests of Rome must somewhere find a limit and that fresh accessions of territory were not advantageous to the state, it would deserve a higher praise than history confers on the most talented officer; ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Colfax. Apart from a nerve-racking night, the mere proximity of the railroad with its accompanying associations served constantly to bring to mind all that I had fled to the mountains to escape. Yet I cannot bring myself to agree with those who profess to brand a railroad "a blot on the landscape." The enormous engines which pull the overland trains up the heavy grades of the Sierra Nevada impress one by their size, strength and suggestion of reserve power, as not being out of harmony with the forces of Nature they are ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... Morton coolly. "Why call them in to hear me recapitulate your disgrace? As to your appeals to me for help, and your claim, which you profess to have upon me, let me remind you that you were engaged as a soldier of fortune, and well paid for your services, though you and yours disgraced the royal army by your robberies and outrages. All you gained you wasted in riot and drunkenness, and now ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... portals press In your divine resorts: With thanks his power profess, And praise him in his courts. How good! How pure! His mercies last; ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... equivalent numbers do not profess to be exact, and are taken almost entirely from the chemical results of other philosophers in whom I could repose more confidence, as to these points, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... profession of the heart and the outward life is often not what it should be, but is not that true also of many Christians of any race? There are Christians of highest education who enjoy abundant and varied opportunities of enlightenment and culture who fail to show in all their outward life what they profess in their heart to be. Some do fall into the error of trying to separate between the religion of the heart and that of the life, but generally they are learning the better way. Where so large a percentage of the people cannot read and write, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... that a serene gratification might flow from my pages, unsullied by a single start. Now I am aware that there is that in the last chapter which appears to offend against the spirit of calm recital which I profess. People will begin to think that they are to be kept in the dark as to who is who; that it is intended that their interest in the novel shall depend partly on a guess. I would wish to have no guessing, and therefore I at once proceed to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... influence is either wanting, deficient or injurious. What children suffer from this want in the development in their natures must of necessity be, and it unquestionably is, sufficient to handicap them throughout their whole life. Parents profess that they have done their best with this or that child and that they have failed, but the fault largely lies in the parents undertaking the task with every expectation of failure, and the chief characteristics noticed by the child have been ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... scale are no more sinful than the ordinary behaviour of most of their preceptors at the other end. Most of the talk about sin is unreal; that is the trouble; so verily the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before us. In church a man will profess himself to be a miserable sinner, but if we were to address him in the same way out of church he would sue us for libel—if he thought we meant it. For heaven's sake let us have done with the sham of it all and face the truth. What mankind is suffering from is selfishness. Get rid ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell |
