"Solve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ancient philosophy disdained to be useful, and was content to be stationary. It dealt largely in theories of moral perfection, which were so sublime that they never could be more than theories; in attempts to solve insoluble enigmas; in exhortations to the attainment of unattainable frames of mind. It could not condescend to the humble office of ministering to the comfort of human beings. All the schools contemned that office as degrading; some censured it as immoral. Once indeed Posidonius, a distinguished ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fortifications of eternal ice and snow, intrepid explorers have made known nearly every part of the world. There Giant Frost guards his frozen secrets and defies man to wrest them from him. Many a hero has perished in endeavoring to solve the Sphinx-like riddle of northern lands and seas. Many a gallant ship has found its grave in northern ice-clad waters. Yet there has never been a lack of adventurous spirits to ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... no position in life which is secure. No complication ever comes to our friends, which our advice, acted upon, would not immediately solve. If our most minute directions are not thankfully received and put into effect, there is always the comforting indication ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... the moral, and even the religious nature. Its obvious sophistries are mixed up with the profoundest truths, and the speaker's tone has often the tenderness of one who, with all his inconstancy, has loved deeply and long. We can only solve the problem by referring to the circumstances in which the idea of ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... aware I somehow grew, 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place All round to mountains—with such name to grace Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. How thus they had surprised me,—solve it, you! How to get from them was ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... To solve the problem whether her appearance on the evening of the dance were such as to inspire a fleeting love at first sight, she dressed herself up exactly as she had dressed then—the muslin, the spencer, the sandals, the para-sol—and looked in the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... to do this, in spite of your wife's warning that it is better that you should not solve ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the series, entitled "Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers" there was related the adventures of himself and his friends when they tried to solve the mystery of ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... and the inflammable liquor produced, and in what manner a sweet vegetable oxyd becomes thus converted into two such opposite substances, whereof one is combustible, and the other eminently the contrary. To solve these two questions, it is necessary to be previously acquainted with the analysis of the fermentable substance, and of the products of the fermentation. We may lay it down as an incontestible axiom, that, in all the operations of art and nature, nothing is created; an equal quantity of matter ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... soothe the agitated girl, and looked sorrowfully at Larcher, who could only deplore in silence his inability to solve ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... that its mysteries might open upon her in any hour, she had, in her sane intervals, ranked together the promises and penalties that had been set before her by the good Doctor: now worrying her spirit, as it confronted some awful catechismal dogma, that it sought vainly to solve; and then, from sheer weakness and disappointment, seizing upon the symbol of the cross, (of which the effigy was always near at hand,) and by a kiss and a tear seeking to ally her fainting heart with the mystic company of the elect who would find admission ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... broken. The barons had secured the freedom of the realm; the secret of their long patience during the reign of Henry lay in the difficulty of securing its right administration. It was this difficulty which Earl Simon was prepared to solve when action was forced on him by the stir of the realm. A great famine added to the sense of danger from Wales and from Scotland and to the irritation at the new demands from both Henry and Rome with which the year 1258 opened. It was to arrange for a campaign against Wales ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... whereby the greater part of the labor might be saved. Perhaps a series of breeding tanks arranged in proximity to the fish troughs, into which the water containing the larvae might be drawn when desirable by the simple opening of faucet, would solve the problem. ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various
... lines of Homer's Iliad." Elihu Burritt's father died when he was sixteen, and Elihu was apprenticed to a blacksmith in his native village of New Britain, Conn. He had to work at the forge for ten or twelve hours a day; but while blowing the bellows, he would solve mentally difficult problems in arithmetic. In a diary kept at Worcester, whither he went some ten years later to enjoy its library privileges, are such entries as these,—"Monday, June 18, headache, 40 pages Cuvier's 'Theory of the Earth,' 64 pages French, 11 hours' forging. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... biology I class it unhesitatingly among the works of sheer exuberance. Each of these books is, in effect, an answer to some rather whimsical question, and the problem that Dr Moreau attempted to solve was: "Can we, by surgery, so accelerate the evolutionary process as to make man out of a beast in a few days or weeks?" And within limits he found ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... don't understand you; it's not possible; you would not humiliate me. Come, come, it's a riddle, and I am too stupid to solve it. I give it up. Don't tantalise me any longer; ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... with rivals too numerous to mention. Haven't I also looked across No Man's Land toward the enemy's parapet? Whoever has must have conjectured about a machine that would take frontal positions with less loss of life than is usual and would solve the problem of breaking the solid line of the Western front. The possibility has haunted ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... nothing: my first idea being that my poor friend, being demented, had composed the whole thing, though it scarcely seemed likely that such a story could have been invented by anybody. It was too original. To solve my doubts I took up the potsherd and began to read the close uncial Greek writing on it; and very good Greek of the period it is, considering that it came from the pen of an Egyptian born. Here is ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... to act decisively and firmly at an instant's notice, to solve on the spur of the moment some intricate problem of public order, to know the law, so that he may arrest a person on one occasion, and let him go on another, to act as guide or consultant to the public, to aid at a ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... of what you say as to your belief that theft and not murder is the object of these people, I am still convinced that my life is aimed at. However, I think that for the present I have hit on a way of frustrating their plans. With regard to the other problem you are helping me to solve, I am seeing a great deal of both the young people, and I believe there can be no doubt as to the identity of one of them, but I will write to you on this subject also in a ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... sweet, and merry, and do their duty as faithfully as any Christian, yet to them Heaven and Hell are meaningless abstractions; God and the soul are problems they, with quiet cheerfulness, leave time to solve. ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... energy into the next campaign of the army in Virginia. He learned also that the President, the Cabinet, and General Halleck despaired of the accomplishment of this by any stringency of orders from a distance, and thought it could be done only when he should be near enough to solve questions as they arose by his personal presence and influence. As a subordinate, few men could do better service than General Meade; but he seemed to develop a caution amounting almost to inaction in the presence of the Confederate ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... "Perish thou shalt by deed thine own, And yet a stranger's hand shall fell thee." Such was his prophecy. Now am I fallen— Though struck by no one. Who will solve the riddle? ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... sanitary conditions and decorative schemes, the architect and client of to-day work out these problems with excellent results. Practical needs are considered just as worthy of the architect as artistic achievements. He is a poor excuse for his profession if he cannot solve the problems of utility and beauty, and work out the ultimate harmony of ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... not Mr. Belloc's aim to drive us towards "a world set free." He does not visualize an ideal state which he would have the world attain. His whole object is to solve our immediate problems, practically and usefully, as they may best be solved; that is, by applying to the present the teachings of the past. He leaves himself open to the influences of his time: he does not attempt to force the men ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... trembling reader, until, when he almost feels himself lost, the clue suddenly brings him to daylight and to upper air. Poe founded upon this terrible tragedy the tale of Marie Roget, in which he effects a plausible solution of the question of guilt. Why did he not also solve that question, equally perplexing, as to who murdered Ellen Jewett? The deed was committed with a hatchet, and as this was proved to have belonged to Hoxie's store, it was a strong proof of Robinson's guilt; but this was rebutted by the assertion that it had been ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the character described thrust upon Sir Alfred was easier to discuss than to solve. The League was a power so wide that it was almost impossible to get rid of its influence in the country. It was controlled by Rhodes, by De Beers, by the Chartered Company, by the members in both Houses who were affiliated to it, by all ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... this time Captain Putnam had been doing his best to solve the mystery concerning the disappearance of Jack's gold watch and chain. But, though all the hired help and the cadets and teachers were watched and questioned, nothing of importance came to light. Peleg Snuggers said he had once seen ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... glance after what fashion the great manufacturers set to work here to solve the problem before them. The life of ease and the life of toil are seen side by side, and all the brighter influences of the one brought to bear on the other. The tall factory chimneys are unsightly here as elsewhere, and nothing can be uglier than the steam tramways, noisily running ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... it seems to me that if all you thinking people had set yourselves to solving great problems, all these little questions that you fuss about now would solve themselves by the way. If you go up in a balloon to see a town, you will incidentally, without any effort, see the fields and the villages and the rivers as well. When stearine is manufactured, you get glycerine as a by-product. ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to solve the riddle of her fate, she shrugged her shoulders in perplexity, shook her head, and clasped her hands. She spoke as though she were singing, moved gracefully, and reminded me of a celebrated Little ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to solve. I made inquiries every where. At last I gave it up. So when circumstances threw Beatrice again in my way I tried again. I have always been baffled There is only, one who can tell—only one. She is here, in this room; and, in ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... Zepplin instead of waiting where he was, reached for his revolver and then strode boldly out into the open space in front of the tents, determined to solve the mystery, and, if possible, without waking ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... as President called upon to apply in one of the most perplexing moments in all American history. In keeping with his own traditions and following in the footsteps of Jefferson, he vainly tried to solve the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... affair?" "Sir," replied she, "I can give you no other account than I have done already. Here are my husband's clothes, which he put off last night; perhaps you may find something among them that may solve your doubt." She then shewed him Buddir ad Deen's turban, which he examined narrowly on all sides, saying, "I should take this to be a vizier's turban, if it were not made after the Bussorah fashion." But ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... distance rendered them inarticulate. The noise seemed to come from the midst of the small Vault in which He and the Nuns then were, and which a multitude of passages branching out in various directions, formed into a sort of Star. Lorenzo's curiosity which was ever awake, made him anxious to solve this mystery. He desired that silence might be kept. The Nuns obeyed him. All was hushed, till the general stillness was again disturbed by the groaning, which was repeated several times successively. He perceived it to be most audible, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... to solve the problem of the eminent man. "Good men," he says, "differ from any individual of the many, as the beautiful are said to differ from those who are not beautiful, and works of art from realities, because in them the scattered elements are combined.... ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... American facts, and he wondered just what part in the picnic Jeff was to bear socially. He was neither quite host nor guest; but no doubt in the easy play of the life, which Westover was rather proud to find so charming, the question would solve ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the above remarks that only a small proportion of the material in our museums has yet been published. It is greatly to be desired that every existing tablet should be published, as in no other way can we hope to solve many important problems. Not only the chronology but much of the actual history can be recovered from these tablets, while the names of the witnesses and parties to the transactions will settle the order of the years which are still doubtful. It is from these deeds that the greater part of this ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... the cloudiness and the barrenness from many a life; and its mutual recognition—and action based upon it—would bring order and sweetness and mutual gain in vast numbers of instances in family, in business, in community life. It would solve many of the knotty problems in all lines of human relations and human endeavour, whose solution heretofore has seemed well-nigh impossible. It is the telling oil that will start to running smoothly ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... of the world and its shape, its countries and climates, its seas and continents, on every side of practical exploration, was bound to be before Prince Henry as a theorist; the practical question which he helped to solve was only a part of this wider whole. Did this Africa stretching opposite to him in his retreat at Sagres never end till it reached the Southern pole, or was it possible to get round into the Eastern ocean? ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... about this going away, on which the squire seemed fully resolved. She was sure that he intended to keep the child; perhaps he had a legal right to do so;—but would the mother ever part from it? Her father, however, would solve the difficulty,—her father, whom she always looked to as so clear-seeing and experienced. She watched and waited for his coming. The February evening drew on; the child lay asleep in the squire's ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... observations are necessary to solve these problems. It is an immense field for experiment, which will afford infinitely curious results. I intreat you to pardon my frequent digressions. The subject is deeply philosophical, genius such as your's is required ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... resuming our pursuit of the millionaire whom we have dispossessed of his railroad plunder, we find the chase taking us into town, where Confiscation will find many problems which it alone can solve - where it will find his sixteen story building, for his hours of plotting, and his suburban palace for his hours of ease, and the hiving humanity between over whom he had to walk to reach either. Those palaces on the Nob hills of these United States are the toadstools of the ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... of the night-light to resist the dawn reminded him of something unpleasant, though he could not discover just what the unpleasant thing was. Here was a puzzle that irritated him the more because he could not solve it, yet always seemed just on the point of a solution. However, he may have lost nothing cheerful by remaining in the dark upon the matter; for if he had been a little sharper in this introspection he might have concluded that the squalor ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... ascertain the cause. As soon as he arrived upon the brow of the hill he saw the glittering array of more than a hundred men almost directly upon him. Appalled by the sight, he also fled like his predecessors. Nanuntenoo, amazed by this conduct, dispatched two more to solve the mystery. These last proved more faithful to their trust. They came running back in breathless haste, shouting, ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... know how long ago it started, but people say that there is some mystery about the Blandamer descent, and that those in possession have no right to what they hold. But there is something else. Many have tried to solve the riddle, and some, you may depend, have been very hot on the track. But just as they come to the touch, something takes them off; that's what happened to Martin. I saw him the very day he died. 'Sharnall,' he said to me, 'if I can ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... glad if I've said or done anything to make you feel like that! You're a trump, girl, and I'm glad to have you for a friend. Now, vanish, my lady, and as soon as I can scrabble into a costume, I'll meet you below stairs, and solve all your kitchen ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... too long to describe the dodges that weary men and stiff have recourse to when they are at the close of a difficult task: how they divide it up in lengths in their minds, how they count numbers, how they begin to solve problems in mental arithmetic: I tried them all. Then I thought of a new one, which is really excellent, and which I recommend to the whole world. It is to vary the road, suddenly taking now the fields, now the river, but only ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... came to be made, and remade, against the sympathies and aspirations of a free people is one of the mysteries of diplomacy which Italian history has yet to solve. Perhaps there was corruption; perhaps there was nothing worse than honest blundering; perhaps the frequent spectacular visits to Rome of the Kaiser William (who is almost Oriental in his "sense of the theatre," and knows better, perhaps, than any European sovereign since Napoleon ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... in the soundness of the bank and in the character of its directors. Investing my own funds so largely in its stock proves how I trusted it. But I was mistaken. It is a mystery which I cannot solve. Perhaps, when the examination of its affairs is completed, light may be thrown on the subject. I hope that no more of your relations or friends have stock ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... "is the algebra, with which I won the highest honors in our academy. I have missed it many and many a time since I came into this war. It is filled with the most beautiful problems, Dick, questions which will take many a good man a whole night to solve. When I think of the joyous hours I've spent over it some of the tenderest chords in my nature ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... stumbled some antiquaries, and has made them imagine that an earl was superior to an alderman. The weregild, or the price of an earl's blood, is there fixed at fifteen thousand thrimsas, equal to that of an archbishop; whereas that of a bishop and alderman is only eight thousand thrimsas. To solve this difficulty we must have recourse to Selden's conjecture, (see his Titles of Honour, chap. v. p. 603, 604,) that the term of earl was in the age of Athelstan just beginning to be in use in England, and stood ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... that some sudden noise in the wood had seemed to Johnny's excited imagination like a human voice—though why he should fancy that it uttered those particular words—the words of a strange language, was a puzzle which we could not solve. We, however, turned into the forest, and Johnny pointed out the spot where he was standing when he heard the voice. There were the vines, with flowers like morning-glories; and there was the thicket whence, as he alleged, the sound had proceeded. We shouted ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... horse and rider had been incontinently turned away with a nescio vos of the most positive character. All this for Malicorne, whose mind being fully occupied by his own love affair and personal ambition, was a problem he had not applied himself to solve. Had he wished to do so, we should hardly venture, notwithstanding the intelligence we have accorded as his due, to say he would have succeeded. A few words will prove to the reader that no one but Oedipus in ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Captain John Smith, Miles Standish, Benjamin Franklin. Mothers and teachers with children of from seven to nine years of age will give this book a hearty welcome—the teachers because the market supply is so painfully deficient in this line, and the mothers because it will so admirably solve the oft-repeated query of "Mother, what can I do next?" It is so well gotten out and still so cheap that it should have a large sale.—Mother's Journal, ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... grand and grim, Ordered the Mufti brought to him. "Now let thy wisdom solve for me The question ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... ears brought truth in rhyme.[228] But though to poets we allow, No matter when acquired or how, From truth unbounded deviation, Which custom calls Imagination, Yet can't they be supposed to lie One half so fast as Fame can fly; Therefore (to solve this Gordian knot, A point we almost had forgot) 510 To courteous readers be it known, That, fond of verse and falsehood grown, Whilst we in sweet digression sung, Fame check'd her flight, and held her tongue, And now pursues, with double force And double speed, her destined course, Nor stops ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... lightning flashed again, whether they had set themselves free; or whether some human hand had undone the knotted bridles. We stood by the tree waiting for the light. It did not tarry long; and when it came it enabled us to solve the doubt. My conjecture was correct; the horses had freed themselves. The broken branches told the tale. Something— the lightning—or more likely a prowling wild beast, had stampeded them; and they had ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... problems, people are going to solve a lot of these along very simple lines. I think I see a great body of opinion rising in favor of the appropriation by the Government of ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... through the ubiquitous pages of PUNCH, whether his, Mr. W.'s apparatus—which, as his friend George Robins would say, is a lot which seems to be worthy only of the great Bidder—(he thinks he had him there)—whether this automatical American, or steam calculator, could solve for him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... I laughed as I had not since my illness. "How long is a proper time, Mrs. Yocomb? I remember being once told that a woman was a mystery that a man could never solve. I fear it's true." ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... of circumstances, the attempt to solve the mystery of Ferrari's disappearance was suspended for ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... Problems and Terrain Exercises. In the case of map problems you are given tactical problems to solve on a map; in the case of terrain exercises you are given problems to solve on the ground. (The word "Terrain," means earth, ground.) These are the simplest forms of tactical problems, as you have only one phase of the action, your information is always reliable and your imaginary ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... a moment quailing and scared under his cruel gaze, then went on his way, working upon the new problems she had brought him to solve. No matter was too small for Rupert's mind, he knew how inextricably the most minute and apparently insignificant may be connected with the most ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... she betook herself into Tai-yue's apartments. Contrary to her expectation Tai-yue was not at this time in her own room, but in Pao-yue's; where they were amusing themselves in trying to solve the "nine strung rings" puzzle. On entering Mrs. Chou put on a smile. "'Aunt' Hsueeh," she explained, "has told me to bring these flowers and present them to you to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... never can tell. Their learned appearance may be all bluff. I'd sooner think it was Del Pinzo and his gang. But he may be working with the professors. Anyhow, they haven't got away with anything yet, and they won't if dad's boys keep their eyes open. Only I would like to solve the mystery of that camp," and he looked back toward the deserted one, where some ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... is no longer young.—No, no! As long as she has her beauty, a woman is under no necessity to bolster up her conscience, or to be reasonable, or to think.—Think? God forbid! There are plain women enough for that. We don't ask our Lady of Milo to be witty for us, or to solve us problems. Believe me, there is more thought, more eloquence, in the corners of a beautiful mouth—the upward look of two dark eyes—than in all women have said or done from Sappho down. Springy colour, light, music, perfume: they are all to be found in the curves of ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Uncle Peabody traded three sheep and twenty bushels of wheat for a cook stove and brought it home in the big wagon. Rodney Barnes came with him to help set up the stove. He was a big giant of a man with the longest nose in the township. I had often wondered how any one would solve the problem of kissing Mr. Barnes in the immediate region of his nose, the same being in ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... Marine Life Conservation opened for signature—29 April 1958 entered into force—20 March 1966 objective—to solve through international cooperation the problems involved in the conservation of living resources of the high seas, considering that because of the development of modern technology some of these resources are in danger of being overexploited parties—(37) Australia, ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... loose. I turned to gaze at my companion, and our eyes met. Hers were either gray or blue; I could not be certain which, so quickly were they lowered, and so shadowed by long lashes. And they were merry eyes, smiling, and deep with secrets no man could hope to solve. Perhaps she deemed it only fair that I should look at her as she had been observing me; perhaps it was but the coquetry of the "eternal feminine" conscious of her own attraction, but she sat there silent, the lashes shading her eyes, the clear light of the dawn upon her face. ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... vital thought from which Pascal's apologetic proceeds. It does not ignore any of the external evidences of Christianity; but the irresistible evidence is that derived from the problem of human nature and the essential needs of the spirit—a problem which religion alone can solve, and needs which Christ alone can satisfy. Pascal's "Thoughts" are those of an eminent intelligence. But they are more than thoughts; they are passionate lyrical cries of a heart which had suffered, and which had found more ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... alone Can solve this mystery. But if my wish Can move you, let me never see her more; Suffer Hippolytus to disappear For ever from the home that holds ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... generation" seems so obscure, because people have associated with the term a mass of very different, and often very absurd, ideas, and have attempted to solve the difficulty by the crudest experiments. The real doctrine of the spontaneous generation of life cannot possibly be refuted by experiments. Every experiment that has a negative result only proves that no organism ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... this illusion, or the world of appearance, is a question which no human being will ever solve. There are questions which must be set aside as simply ultra vires by every reasonable philosophy. We know that we cannot hear certain tones, cannot see certain colours; why not then understand that we cannot ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... necessary to insist on it, that Mr Racksole, owner of the Grand Babylon Hotel, was by no means in a state of self-satisfaction. A mystery had attached itself to his hotel, and with all his acumen and knowledge of things in general he was unable to solve that mystery. He laughed at the fruitless efforts of the police, but he could not honestly say that his own efforts had been less barren. The public was talking, for, after all, the disappearance of poor Dimmock's body had ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... often thinking over the adventure, and wondering what the man could have meant when he said that I had come between him and fortune. I determined to try and get my mother to solve the mystery, so one day I asked her, casually, if my father had inherited his estate, or how it was that he became possessed of it. She seemed surprised at the question, but told me, with some hesitation, it seemed to me, that he had gained the property a short time before, after a long-contested ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... not because they have a present need for them, but on the chance that at some time in the future such volumes as they see for sale will solve a doubt or answer a need. The precise doubt or the pressing need rarely arises. I met a Celt who had bought a copy of Josephus in most irritating type, in the hope that it would help him to confute a Roman Catholic on the Power of the Keys. Then again, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... said, more calmly, "I must say your coolness surprises me. Your escape yesterday was, of course, reported to us; and the manner in which you obtained that rope, by which you descended, is a mystery that the jail authorities are wholly unable to solve. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... to the Duke that you may be faithful to the Duchy?" he questioned, scorn running ever stronger in his voice. "Sirs, it is a riddle I'll not pretend to solve." ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... a retort. But he closed them, turned on his heel, and left the room. Grimm shook his head as over a problem he could not solve and did not greatly care to. Then he fell to sorting ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... Mysteries of Udolpho" which they read in the mow of the barn lying in the dusty hay. However unusual, the situation was real; and he felt himself confronted by as hard a problem as he had ever tried to solve in fiction. He knew something about carpentry, so that his first step, after examining the drawers and cupboards and finding them empty, was to take careful measurements of the entire cabinet, particularly of the thicknesses of ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... room, and looked out at the night, revolving that profound question in his man's brain, and so unable to solve the enigma as the thousands of his brethren who have perplexed themselves over the same question before. After staring a moment at the blinding whirl of snow he returned ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... Two policies are open under these conditions. The one, always followed for a time, is to leave individual self-interest unguided to solve the problem. If the tenant agrees to rent a disease-breeding house, he is the first to suffer. The interests of investors, it is said, will supply as good a house as each tenant can pay for. The other policy now adopted is to set a minimum standard of sanitation and comfort, in respect to plans, ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... solve this difficulty from Bahya's premises is by saying that if we suppose matter (or matter and form as separate entities) to have existed from eternity, we are liable to the difficulty involved in the idea of anything having traversed infinite time and reached us; ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... a certain moral apathy, an indisposition to attack the evil with the sharp weapons which its nature demanded. Consequently, there developed steadily, irresistibly, a vast social problem, which required two centuries and a half for a nation of trained European stock and boasted moral fibre to solve. ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... votives of bright philippi; heard a hundred time-honoured tales that they knew not whether to believe or laugh at; speculated among themselves as to the sources of the Nile, the cause of the vocal Memnon, and fifty more darkened wonders, and resolved to solve every mystery during a second and more ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... pamphlet on the White Slave Traffic on the Continent showed that he was still at work. Vivie was thought to be fully equal in her knowledge of the law to her cousin, though not allowed to qualify for the Bar. Case after case was referred to her with the hope that if she could not solve it, she might submit it to her cousin's judgment. In this way, excellent legal advice was forthcoming which drove the Home Office officials from one ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... hastened to try to solve the mystery of the Nameless was Fanning Harding, whose attention had been attracted by the rush of the crowd. At his side was Regina Mortlake. They arrived just in time to ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... evening paper, in the portmanteau problem, in a jig-saw puzzle, and in Patience, but none of these supplied the stimulus to lead her mind away from Major Benjy's evenings, or the narcotic to dull her unslumbering desire to solve a problem that was rapidly becoming one of ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... pathology may just as well be used for the opposite end of killing a man. Whether it is wise to work toward long life, or whether it is better to kill people, is again a problem which lies outside the sphere of the applied sciences. Ethics or social philosophy or religion have to solve these preliminary' questions. The physician as such has only to deal with the means ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... Whilst sunk in unsuspecting sleep I lay, Some midnight ruffians rush'd into my chamber, Sent by Egisthus, who my presence deem'd Obstructive (so I solve it) to his views, Black views, I fear, as you perhaps may know, Sudden they seiz'd, and muffled up in darkness, Strait bore me to the sea, whose instant prey I did conclude myself, when first around The ship unmoor'd, I heard the chiding wave. But these fel tools of cruel power, it seems, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... conversation, Carthew recovered interest and confidence; the man (whatever he might have done) was plainly good-natured, and plainly capable; if he thought well of the enterprise, offered to contribute money, brought experience, and could thus solve at a word the problem of the trade, Carthew was content to go ahead. As for Hadden, his cup was full; he and Bostock forgave each other in champagne; toast followed toast; it was proposed and carried amid ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... compel us to bow to the conventions of the intellect, as to those of polite society; but secretly, in our moments of immersion in ourselves, we may find them a great nuisance, even a vain nightmare. Could we only listen undisturbed to the beat of protoplasm in our hearts, would not that oracle solve all the riddles of the universe, or ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... would be to solve a most curious problem; observing, that the solution would, in every case, depend on a ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... Jennie, and sat for a long time wondering just how deeply she had unintentionally wounded the feelings of her father's field-hand; deciding that if he was driven from her forever, it would solve the problem of terminating that old childish love affair which still persisted in occupying a suite of rooms all of its own in her memory; and finally repenting of the unpremeditated thrust which might easily have hurt too deeply so sensitive ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... in the interview, and there was none in the touch of his hand. He was not young, and the tragic loneliness of approaching old age confronted him. He was trying to solve his problem and Tillie's, and what he had found was no solution, but ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Well, no, Monsieur Nanteuil, we will not make any search whatever, you can rely on that!... For the last three months we have been striving and struggling to solve a maddening mystery: we never could reach a certain solution of it: we have been vainly pursuing an assassin, who for ever escaped us ... and now, when for once, we get hold of a definite fact, an indisputable reality, ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... exhaustively in an introductory volume of this sort, but one can, at least, indicate the direction in which it seems most reasonable to look for an answer to the questions which have been raised. How do we come to a knowledge of space, and what do we mean by space? This is the problem to solve; and if we can solve this, we have the key which will ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... our money being good abroad, and great fear is expressed by the banker's party that our silver money under bimetallism will only be worth fifty cents on the dollar in foreign countries. Now, my friends, let us use common sense, and we will easily solve the problem as to how to make our silver dollars good abroad, that feature of the question can be accomplished by following this plain easy method, namely, the next time a foreigner presents a bond of a few million dollars for payment, ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... wintertime recipe, the making compost when you can't make a pile recipes. Instead, I prefer to compliment your intelligence and first explore the principles behind composting. I believe that an understanding of basics will enable you to function as a self-determined individual and adapt existing methods, solve problems if they arise, or create something personal and uniquely ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... unknown to walk, to rise, to sit down. Each one of them kept a close watch on his slightest movements. It seemed as if he were some enchanted person upon whom the happiness, the life, or the fortune of all depended. Was it fear or affection? Society could discover no indication which enabled them to solve this problem. Concealed for months at a time in the depths of an unknown sanctuary, this familiar spirit suddenly emerged, furtively as it were, unexpectedly, and appeared in the salons like the fairies of old, who alighted from their winged dragons to disturb festivities to which they had not ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... Lois arrived in Nome, on the last boat. She was older, graver; she had heard of the Lulu, but it was not that which had brought her back. She had returned in spite of the Lulu to solve an aching mystery and to learn the why of things. Her husband's riches—she still considered him her husband—merely made ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... books about the West Indies, North America, Australia, and South Africa, a translation of Caesar, and monographs on Cicero and Thackeray. His novels are light of touch, pleasant, amusing, and thoroughly healthy. They make no attempt to sound the depths of character or either to propound or solve problems. Outside of fiction his work was generally superficial and unsatisfactory. But he had the merit of providing a whole generation with wholesome amusement, and enjoyed a great deal of popularity. He is said to have received L70,000 ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... already face to face with his life's work. That impotent sense of his own value, as of a ship aground, which makes one of the agonies of youth, began to fall from him. New problems which he was endowed to solve, vistas of new enquiry which he was fitted to explore, opened before him continually. His gifts had found their avenue and goal. And with this pleasure of effective exercise, there must have sprung up at once the hope of what ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... animals and plants must have existed of which we have no record; while we are usually without any information as to the habits and general life-history even of those of which we possess some fragmentary remains; so that the truest and most complete theory would not enable us to solve all the difficult problems which the whole course of the development of life upon our globe presents ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... a flight and maintain a personnel of twenty men for a year," the President told him. "I've checked into that, and even this estimate is based on the most optimistic projection. So you can see there's no use in continuing now. We'll never solve our problems by attempting to colonize the ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... fresh and cool this morning as they buckled down to the problem they had to solve, and the wisdom of the previous night's ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... that much on her mind. And if we manage to solve this case, we can thank her. That little tongue of hers wags at both ends—and out of the welter of words that drip from her lips—I've managed to extract more information than from every other source we've tapped. I've ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... year." Whether it would be possible to fix exactly by mathematical calculation in what year Jupiter was in the Chinese zodiacal sign embracing part of both Virgo and Scorpio, and thereby help to solve the difficulty of the passage, I do not know, and in the meantime must leave that difficulty ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... this, Jonas Creyshaw and his friends have been unable to solve the mystery of Old ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... one of the peculiarities of Americans, that they attempt to solve the unsolvable problem of successfully mixing gastronomy and oratory. In chemistry there are things known as incompatibles, which it is impossible to blend and at the same time preserve their original characteristics. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... contact with Rivas, by their legs getting linked together. Then forward throughout the hours and incidents that came after, recalling everything that had occurred, in act as in conversation—mentally reviewing all, in an endeavour to solve the problem that was ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... have given their attention to textual criticism of the Confucian Canon, and few have condescended to examine critically the works of heterodox writers. The foreign student therefore finds himself faced with many knotty points he is entirely unable to solve. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... broadly and brightly forward, and with features all noble, serene, and glad. This was Eternity. These three faces were the wonder and admiration of the neighborhood, and had been for now some years back employed to solve the problem of existence for all the little lads and lasses of Keeton who might otherwise have failed sometimes to see the harmonious purpose working in all things. The sculptor had it all his own way, and took care that Life should have the worst of it. Keeton was in almost all its conditions ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... rejoined Cumberland, "I really was so buried in thought, trying to solve that problem about bisecting the Siamese twins—you know it, Lawless? However, it is not too late, is it? Allow me to introduce you, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... is our redemption. It was the greatness of the crisis that thrilled the Nation's heart when the war burst upon us. It is the very greatness of our present problem that calls in trumpet tones to men and women and children all over the land; "Come and help solve this problem for Christ." ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 1, January, 1890 • Various
... in the fifth? If this paragraph should be read by any teacher or student of natural philosophy who has not been accustomed thus to apply principles, the author would suggest that it may be found pleasant and perhaps profitable to pause and solve these ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... tender-hearted infant. If I have been a true witness of my own growth, I was slower to love than I was to think. I do not know when the change was wrought, but to-day, if you ask my friends, they will tell you that I know how to love them better than to solve their problems. And if you will call one more witness, and ask me, I shall say that if you set me down before a noble landscape, I feel it long before ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... propaganda literature, and how many come from the rank and file of suffragists whom we ought to be expected to hold as regular readers, cannot be known. Detailed records showing this are being kept for 1916, and we expect to be in a better position to solve some of the circulation difficulties in the future than ever in the past,—chiefly because we never dared to spend the money to have the records and ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the - Woman's Movement • Agnes E. Ryan
... Matilda," answered the major, "I never give or take a tip on a love race. The Almighty endows women with inscrutable eyes and the smile of the Sphynx for purposes of self-preservation, I take it, so a man wastes time trying to solve a woman-riddle. However, Hobson Capers is running a risk of losing much valuable time is the guess I chance on the issue ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Mollie Ainslie was not speculative. She could not solve this problem of strength and weakness. In power of thought, breadth of reasoning, and keenness of analysis she felt that he was her master; in knowledge—the power of acquiring and using scientific facts—she could but laugh at his weakness. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... strength, and we could only do so, for some mysterious reason, when we had been "sitting at the table" beforehand. Ingenious Theories of Human Electricity raised to a higher power by making a Human Battery, etc. etc., were not so common then as now, and we accepted facts without trying to solve their problems. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... far unfounded, that, naive in my selfishness, as in my reliance on him, I still continued to tell him everything, and in return constantly sought his help when philological or mathematical difficulties which I could not solve alone ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... is NO rule for them. To develope the curve mathematically would require a knowledge of the exact quantity of water in the river, the shape of its bed, and the hardness of the rock or shore; and even with these data, the problem would be one which no mathematician could solve but approximatively. The instinct of the eye can do it; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... entwined round a knotted staff is the symbol of AEsculapius. A humorist of the present day has suggested that the knots on the staff indicate the numerous "knotty" questions which a doctor is asked to solve! Tradition states that when AEsculapius was in the house of his patient, Glaucus, and deep in thought, a serpent coiled itself around his staff. AEsculapius killed it, and then another serpent appeared with a herb ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... explain the phenomena of birth and death, of conscious and unconscious life, by a theory of a double human spirit, one associated with the heart and the other with the shadow. The psychology is rudimentary, still it is interesting as an attempt to solve problems which ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... with a telescope constructed by himself, was enabled to solve the enigma which for so many years baffled the efforts of the ablest astronomers. He announced his discovery in the form of a Latin cryptograph which, when deciphered, read ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... all the psychologists, all the inspirational writers cannot put into a man the vision and the will to do things which are gained by a clear faith. Most of us to-day are frantically trying to invent a machine which will solve our problems, when all the while we have the machine within us, if we will only set it going. That machine is the ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... is in all Persons, and at all Times to be detested. It is Matter of Necessity that we eat, but that Necessity shall be taken away at the Resurrection of the Dead. But if we are lustful, that proceeds from Wickedness. But there is another Scruple that I can't tell how to solve, or how to reconcile to that Passage: But I will not be brought under the Power of any. For he says, he has the Power of all Things, and yet he will not be brought under the Power of any one. If he may be said to be under another Man's Power, that abstains for Fear of offending, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... sent for me again, and told me he could not satisfy Morrison, and he did not know how he was going to solve the complication. I said, in effect, that I had been a Governor of a State and I knew sometimes that an executive officer had to do things he did not expect to do, and did not desire to do, but that he had to yield to party pressure. I ceased insisting upon an appointment, ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... other of their hard lot in being obliged to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. "Why," asks the woman, "should I be more obligated to work than the fine Dame Agnes? What is she more than me? The man, unable to solve so knotty a point, says he doesn't see how he himself is not as good as a lord's son, but he will ask Sir Roger the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... looked one to the other in deep tribulation for counsel. But behold, here was a dead wall, and nothing in English history to tell how to get over it. The Master of Ceremonies was not present: there was no one who felt safe to venture upon this uncharted sea, or risk the attempt to solve this solemn problem. Alas! there was no Hereditary Scratcher. Meantime the tears had overflowed their banks, and begun to trickle down Tom's cheeks. His twitching nose was pleading more urgently than ever for relief. At last nature broke down the barriers of etiquette: Tom lifted up an ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a poetic excursion upon the subject, not to solve but to illustrate the difficulty; take it in ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... to the shipowner; his idea was to keep Matheson under observation if possible, and try to solve the riddle. ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... he spoke thus confidently, Tom Swift had not the slightest notion, just then, of how to set about his difficult task. He had had hard problems to solve before, so he was not going to give up this one. First he wanted to think matters out, and arrange a plan ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... and accurate reasoning, all attributes which are strengthened greatly by proper education. This is so true that many men, perhaps most men, are forty before they have grasped the problems which the truly successful farmer must solve. ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... up her head with a determined air, gathered up all the things she had found in the secret drawer, and rising, drew a chair to her table, where she sat down to solve ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, involving it around itself; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... had much virtue on its side, and made a sincere and earnest effort to solve certain problems that yet ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... agree with you," replied Mon. Valorbe. "At most, I thought there might have been an unconscious complicity. But I confess that even that theory must be abandoned, as it does not help solve the ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc |
