"Weaken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... situation. The commandant at Irkutsk wired that he had information which proved there was no truth in the rumoured approach of Bolshevik forces, which reply I knew from the experience I had gained in Russian ways merely indicated his determination not to weaken his ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... pretending themselves the followers of such a man? What if it was a little truth greatly exaggerated? Only, be it what it may, less than its full idea would not be enough for the wants and sorrows that weaken ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... man—or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of—and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a very old man—but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... weaken, but define them. When I preach that sermon I spoke of the other day, I shall have to lay down some principles not fully recognized in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... course of continued offence upon the imperial interests; since in that quarter his injuries and insults were already past forgiveness. The interest of Holkerstein, then, ran in the same channel with that of the Landgrave. It was impolitic to weaken him. It was doubly impolitic to weaken him by a measure which must also weaken the Landgrave; for any deduction from his own military force, or from the means of recruiting it, was in that proportion a voluntary sacrifice of the weight he should obtain with ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... reached that, she would be lost for ever, and the day would be lost beyond hope of redemption for the Chinese. To lose one powerful battleship, and to find another suddenly arrayed against them— for that is what it would of course amount to—would so weaken the already enfeebled Chinese strength that success would be out of the question; and the Englishman determined that, come what might, he would prevent the traitor prince from ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Madam, interrupted I, with villainous premeditation! —Do not give such a construction to my offence as may weaken your uncle's opinion—as may ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... different sides and in as curiously different manners—the death-blow to the notion that the novel was an inferior if not actually discreditable kind, suitable for weak intellects only, and likely to weaken strong ones, frivolous when not positively immoral, giving a distaste for serious reading, implying in the writer an inability to do anything more serious, and generally presenting a glaring contrast ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... wild sound of the human voice choking Through vile brutal organs—low tremulous croaking: Cries swallow'd abruptly—deep animal tones Attuned to strange passion, and full-utter'd groans; All shuddering weaken, till hush'd in a pause Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yawning jaws; And I guessed that those horrors were meant to tell o'er The tale of their woes; but the silence told more, That writhed on their tongues; and I knelt on the sod, And pray'd with my voice to the cloud-stirring ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... air is rare? Air is not a chemical compound, but a simple mixture. When a stronger, more life-giving atmosphere is needed, let there be less of the diluting gas. The nitrogen is of no known use, except to weaken the oxygen." ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... "would not your signing the pledge do rather harm than good? Would it not rather weaken your own influence by giving people reason to think, (those I mean especially who might not know you well), that you had once been intemperate yourself, or that you were unable to keep sober, or at any rate moderate, without the help ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... Europe that ever have been framed," was really only the third of a series. The second compact was in 1743. The object of these successive agreements was one and the same: to maintain and extend the possessions of the Bourbons in Europe and outside Europe, and to weaken and divide the supposed enemies of Bourbon supremacy. England was directly aimed at as one of the foremost of those enemies. In the compact of 1733 the King of France and the King of Spain pledged themselves to the interests of ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... tried not to think of Francis Sales, who had deserted her. She might have known he would desert her. He had looked at Aunt Rose and she had seen him weaken, yet he had promised. He was that kind of man: he could not say no to her face, but he left her in this ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... treaty. The poor fellow had been taken up as a convenience, and was dropped when no longer wanted. But he was only an African Turk, and, although not black, was probably dark enough in complexion to weaken his claims upon the good feeling and the good faith of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... member of that vast company was keeping a wary eye on the director all the time seeming to be working like mad. They were waiting to catch the signal that was to inaugurate the final scene, where those on the walls were to weaken, allowing one after another of the ascending men on the ladders to crawl ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... every obstacle, and resolved to fulfil the object of his mission, or perish in the attempt. Whatever might be his own misgivings and apprehensions, he concealed them from his comrades, resolved that no disclosure of them should damp their confidence, or weaken ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... this was overshadowed by the ambition to be rich. And all for Madelaine. Sometimes he fiercely resolved that he would be rich; and again he lost heart at the thought that lovely, dainty Madelaine was certain to find another palace long before his was built. Her frank worldliness did not weaken his ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... "We mustn't weaken our defense-perimeter; we'd be inviting disaster. Why, this whole country in here is simply swarming with outlaws. They fired on one of our gunboats, ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... enticing, as all my meals since coming aboard had been brought to me in any out-of-the-way corner of the deck, and I had found them but cold comfort. Not that my resolution was weakening, though my captain let no meal-hour pass without doing his best to weaken it, and more than once had brought me a message from mademoiselle herself begging me to join them at table. No; I was as fixed as ever, and, in a way, enjoying my own discomfort, since to pose as a martyr ever brings with it a certain satisfaction ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... long as this fever grows our man will steadily weaken; it shows that he's on the downward path. If it breaks—why, that means that he will have a chance—more than a chance—to get well. It will mean that he has enough reserve strength to fight off the shock of the wound and survive ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... Kildare's will; but he refused, would not listen, hid his eyes with his hand so that the pleading of her face would not weaken him. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... fear lest proportional representation should weaken the party system is now the most serious obstacle in the way of its acceptance by the practical politician, yet there are others who warmly approve of the principle, who regard proportional representation as the ideal, but still entertain some doubts as to its practicability, ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... her hands, upon the back of his easy-chair; 'upon that subject which first occasioned a division between us, my mind and heart are incapable of change. Whatever influence they have undergone, since that unhappy time, has not been one to weaken but to strengthen me. I cannot profess sorrow for that, nor irresolution in that, nor shame in that. Nor would you wish me, I know. But that I might have trusted to your love, if I had thrown myself manfully upon it; that I might have won you over with ease, if I had been more ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... realized, better, after all, than to cling to the ledge in case he could not find her. For it must be only a matter of time, and no very long time at that, when exhaustion and starvation would weaken him and when he ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... desperate course, for the sake of Rome, if you can prove to me that Commodus designs a wholesale massacre. And even so, if your name and Galen's and mine are not on his proscription list—if he only intends, that is, to punish Christians and weaken the faction of that Carthaginian Severus, I will observe my oath of loyalty. I will counsel ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... they be sent into Egypt? Could it be done? To do so; it would be necessary to send with them a numerous escort, which would too much weaken our little army in the enemy's country. How, besides, could they and the escort be supported till they reached Cairo, having no provisions to give them on setting out, and their route being through a hostile territory, which we had exhausted, which presented no ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... produce their results, are at present ruling over our educational institutions, although these were based originally upon very different principles. These forces are: a striving to achieve the greatest possible extension of education on the one hand, and a tendency to minimise and to weaken it on the other. The first-named would fain spread learning among the greatest possible number of people, the second would compel education to renounce its highest and most independent claims in order to subordinate itself to the service ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... keep himself free from all those perturbations of mind which not only weaken energy, but darken and confuse the inductive faculty; from haste and laziness, from melancholy, testiness, pride, and all the passions which make men see only what they wish to see. Of solemn and ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... hold on her waist and with a mighty effort gripped the rope with the hand thus freed. Even with two hands it was no mean task to maintain his hold, for the current slight as it was, swung them down so the pull was directly against it. The Texan felt the girl's grasp on his neck weaken. He shouted a word of encouragement, but it fell on deaf ears, her hands slipped over his shoulders, and at the same instant the man felt the strain of her weight on his arm as the scarf seemed to cut into the flesh. The Texan felt himself growing numb. He seemed to be slipping—slipping—from ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... the naif abandonment of those boyish friendships, of that candid and ready admiration that, like a well-adjusted spring, leapt forth at a touch, even when I heard a stranger praised! Two or three disillusionments have sufficed to weaken that spring. Already I begin to question my own enthusiasm, and a rising doubt silences the warm, frank words of affection that once leapt involuntarily to my lips. I read with dry eyes many a book that I used to cry over; when I read ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... unrelated particles in which it is a mere toss-up which is next to which and how they are arranged. Nature is evidently not a chance collection of unrelated particles. We came to that conclusion when studying the forest, and a study of the stars shows nothing to weaken that conclusion. Nature is ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... received from General Lee was that the enemy was collecting in strong force at Fredericksburg. "For this purpose," he wrote, "they must weaken other points, and now is the time to concentrate on any that may be exposed within our reach." He then suggested that, if Banks was too strong in numbers and position, Jackson and Ewell combined should move on Warrenton, where ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... still to increase in fury, and through the sleet, which swept in long horizontal lines down the street, and whirled round the corner, and froze fast to the houses. As I went on, the violence of the storm did not at all weaken my purpose. I had my one idea, and that one idea I was bent on ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... nature-study, and made a clumsy section of a pair. Look at each in turn. Mark the one tunnel that leads upward to the nest, mark the two galleries that surround it, mark that they wind in a spiral, and are not joined by shafts at intervals. That would so weaken the surroundings as to leave the nest an easy prey to scratching weasel. Why is the spiral made? To cheat inquiry; a dozen tunnels join it from the run; from it are a dozen exits to the surrounding field. One tunnel only leads into the nest. Only ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... and that men probably do not so much choose what they shall do, as do what they are compelled to do by some unfathomable power behind and above them. This thought may seem, to men of practical activity, to weaken the force of effective energy in both poet and scientist. But they will be content to be misunderstood on this point, because they will be aware that such activity as they manifest is the direct effect of something larger and greater ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Canada. At the end of twenty minutes my every garment was not wringing but dripping wet, so that when I carried my rifle over my arm water ran down the barrel and off the muzzle in a steady stream. After a bit of this my knees began to weaken; and it became a question of saving energy, of getting along somehow, and of leaving the actual hunting to Memba Sasa and the guide. If they had shown me a sable, I very much doubt if I ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... northern from the southern individuals of the African species correspond with the presence, in the north but not in the south, of certain entirely different butterflies. That this additional information should so greatly weaken, in certain minds, the appeal of a favourite study, is a psychological problem of no little interest. This curious antagonism is I believe confined to a few students of insects. Those naturalists who, standing rather farther ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... any longer her feeling of alarm and suspense, Beth resolutely followed where Gettysburg had gone, and soon came in sight of the stable and high corral. Then her heart struck a blow of excitement in her breast, and her knees began to weaken beneath her. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... muttered Pride between his clenched teeth; "for she not only shuts her own door against me, but tries with all the power that she has to weaken my influence with her brothers and sister. She has not succeeded, and she shall not; but I never forget a wrong, and I'd give anything in the world to be able to spite and ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... the many admirable institutions existing among them. I once ventured to say a part of what I thought about it to one of the Professors of Unreason. I asked him whether he did not think it would do serious harm to a lad's principles, and weaken his sense of the sanctity of his word, and of truth generally, that he should be led into entering upon an engagement which it was so plainly impossible he should keep even for a single day with tolerable integrity—whether, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... where had she already, for weeks and days past, planted her feet if not on her acceptance of the offer? Cold indeed, colder and colder she turned, as she felt herself suffer this close personal vision of his attitude still not to make her weaken. That was her very certitude, the intensity of his pressure; for if something dreadful hadn't happened there wouldn't, for either of them, be these dreadful things to do. She had meanwhile, as well, the immense advantage that she could have named Charlotte without exposing herself—as, for ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... not, of course, require the same care as fresh fish. However, as many of these varieties are strong in flavor, it is well to weaken their flavor before cooking them by soaking them or, if possible, by ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... Stop fishing for it, and when you see it coming, turn away and stop your ears against it. And should it still insinuate itself, at any rate do not repeat to others what has already so flattered and humbled and weakened you. Telling it to others will only humble and weaken you more. By repeating the praise that you have heard or read about yourself you only expose yourself and purchase well-deserved contempt for yourself. And, more than that, by fishing for praise you lay yourself open to all sorts of flatterers. Honest men, men ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... it otherwise," answered the Scot. "I felt afraid that my fears might weaken my arm. To make sure, I gave him a good thrust. Besides, did you not tell me that his hide was tough, and advise me to ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... a most wholesome tendency which leads us to esteem religion as the main interest in life. We must feel a sense of shame when we consciously permit the influences, which most favorably mold our character, to weaken their hold upon our lives. Certainly in our time religion is the essential agent by which character is molded. Any of us would be foolishly short-sighted were he willing to weaken the hold of religion upon his life for the sake of a scientific theory, the truth or falsity ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... priests at the Colony express against Catholics marrying Protestants must tend to weaken the religious and moral obligation of the marriage contract, as entered into between them. I have known the priests refuse to marry the parties of the above different persuasions, at the time that they were co-habiting together, as though it were better for them to live in fornication, than ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... alas! I make no doubt his private resources cannot bear delays. I almost begin to fear that he covets to be driven publicly to America by our Government, as less ignominious than being starved into the same step. I cannot understand ... how he fails to see that if we weaken Russia we strengthen the chances of liberty, though Aberdeen would not allow his particular policy in 1853-4. We are doing so very much more than he asked of the Americans in 1852 that the tone he assumes is wonderful. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... completely at the disposal of a single mind, her movements, for either good or evil, are wholly dependent on the caprice, the ambition, or the absurdity of the individual on the throne. The idea that Russia would weaken her power by the possession of Constantinople, seems to us utterly incapable of proof. She has been able to maintain her power at once on the Black Sea, seven hundred miles from her capital; on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... adventure, to follow him wherever he might lead; and Wunpost never stopped spurring until he had descended the steep canyon and led them out in the dry wash below. It was like climbing down a wall into a sink-hole of boiling heat, but Lynch did not weaken and Wunpost bowed his head and took the main trail to ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... be asked, then, if not from Stradivari, from whom did Guarneri receive instruction?[10] To disagree with what is popularly accepted, and yet to withhold one's own counter-theory, may perhaps tend to weaken one's case. There can be but one method to be pursued if, in the absence of any historical data, we set about the investigation of the question, viz., that of analogy. Starting upon this ground, the first step to be taken is to endeavour to discover the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... the sky, and the intense, still cold that haunts the prairie country. He grudged the hours of rest he must give his horse, pitying the poor beast for its lack of food and water, but compelled to urge it on and on. After what seemed a lifetime of hardship, both boy and beast began to weaken. The irresistible sleepiness that forebodes freezing began to overcome Little Wolf-Willow. Utter exhaustion was sapping the strength of the cayuse. But they blundered on, mile after mile, both with the pluck of the prairies in their red blood; colder, ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... virtue and his own dignity altogether, will it be able to repress religious faith, should other causes tend to produce a new outbreak of it. But the chief difficulties in the matter are still in store for us. Let us see never so clearly that science, if we are moral beings, can do nothing to weaken our belief in God and immortality, but still leaves us free, if we will, to believe in them, it seems getting clearer and yet more clear that these beliefs are inconsistent with themselves, and conflict with these very moral feelings, of which they are invoked as an explanation. ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... to shelter themselves with the canvas, and shouted back and forth through the falling snow that they were having a "scrumptious" time. But some of the girls, as Isadore said, "began to weaken." ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... them. She twisted and butted them with her gray head. She screamed and squirmed,—at last to weaken. Slowly Harry forced her arms aside and took from them the precious contents,—whatever they might be. Grimly old Sheriff Mason wrapped her in his coat and led her to a horse, there to force her to mount and ride with him into town. The house—with Squint Rodaine—was gone. Already ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... declared that the National Bank had become unsafe and therefore an unfit place for the keeping of $10,000,000 of the people's money, the amount then on deposit. But the real reason of the change was social and political. The President desired to weaken the Bank, lest its representatives, its masterful lobbyists, and the financial pressure it was bringing to bear should wrest from Congress a charter which ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... personal observations in the field, not as a thought borrowed from books. He had, of course, read the works of his grandfather much earlier in life, but the arguments of Zoonomia and The Temple of Nature had not served in the least to weaken his acceptance of the current belief in fixity of species. Nor had he been more impressed with the doctrine of Lamarck, so closely similar to that of his grandfather. Indeed, even after his South-American experience had aroused him to a new point of view he was still unable to see anything of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... been allowed a short interview with Oswald, and he had indulged himself in a few words with Doris. But he had left those memories behind with other and more serious matters. Nothing that could unnerve his hand or weaken his insight should enter this spot sacred to his great hope. Here genius reigned. Here he was himself wholly and without flaw;—a Titan with his grasp on a mechanical idea by means of which he ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... with incredulity—that the habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings: as indeed it has, when no other mental habit is cultivated, and the analysing spirit remains without its natural complements and correctives. The very excellence of analysis (I argued) is that it tends to weaken and undermine whatever is the result of prejudice; that it enables us mentally to separate ideas which have only casually clung together: and no associations whatever could ultimately resist this dissolving force, were it not that we owe to analysis our clearest knowledge of the permanent sequences ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... he cried. 'Why, you must be still pringling from the first. Nay, if you will I shall not refuse you, though I fear it may weaken your hold upon ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and wrong. He was responsible for Viviette. That risk of horror he could not let her run. He had hoped, with a great agony of hope, that Dick would have seen it for himself. To formulate it had been torture. But he could not weaken. The barrier between Dick and Viviette was not of his making. It was composed of the grim psychological laws that govern the abnormal. To have disregarded it would have been a crime from which his soul shrank. All the despair in Dick's face, though it wrung his heart, could not move him. It was ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... car a little, began to fight with the Suta's son. The illustrious Bhimasena showered clouds of straight shafts. Desiring also to arrive at the end of those hostilities by slaying Karna, Bhima began to weaken that hero conversant with every weapon and clad in mail, and staying before him for engaging in a single combat. Then mighty Bhima, that scorcher of foes, that wrathful son of Pandu, having slain numerous Kauravas, shot diverse showers of fierce shafts at Karna, O sire! The Suta's ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... would have the smallest amount of wall surface, and consequently less friction for the ascending currents, and less absorption of heat by the walls. Chimneys should be closely built, having no cracks nor openings through which external air may be drawn to weaken the draught. If they could be made throughout their length as impervious to air as a tube of glass, with interior surface as smooth, one cause of smoky chimneys would be removed. A downward current of air is frequently caused by some contiguous object higher than the chimney, against ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... patache were getting ready, for the affairs which he had mentioned gave him more anxiety than the enemy themselves. Several, in the council which they held, thought best that he should not take the risk or weaken his forces; and that this renforcement should be sent in light vessels, and to the usual amount. But considering the condition and the danger of those forts, it was resolved to renforce them creditably, sending the said two galleons manned with good infantry and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... theories, our attention must first be directed to some defects which appear to weaken the whole course of the argument; and then we may consider the peculiar difficulties in the way of the processes of natural and sexual selection; and the grounds for the belief that man is in possession of something entirely different in KIND from any faculty or power possessed by any lower ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... memorial that had been addressed to him the evening before, that it was, perhaps, to be apprehended that the Huguenots might take up arms;" "that in case they did not dare to do this, a great number would leave the kingdom, which would injure commerce and agriculture, and thereby even weaken the state." The King replied that he had foreseen all and provided for all, that nothing in the world would be more painful to him than to shed a drop of the blood of his subjects, but that he had armies and good generals whom he would employ, in case of necessity, against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... the hand. I have had boys stand in front of a hyena cage with a curry-comb and brush all day, trying to get on good terms with the hyenas, and occasionally the hyenas would forget to snarl and the boy would think the animals were beginning to weaken, and the boy would work up closer to the cage, and say: "Pretty pussy," and hold out his hand and say: "Good fellow." Then the whole cageful of hyenas would make a rush for him, howling, snapping and scratching, with their bristles up, and ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... twenty or thirty millions in interest annually by reducing interest one per cent, than to attempt to save two thirds that amount by taxes, which would inspire lenders with distrust, injure the credit of the nation, and weaken its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... art, None know—but that high Soul secured the heart,[rx] And panted for the truth it could not hear, With longing breast and undeluded ear. 20 Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind,[ry] Which Flattery fooled not, Baseness could not blind, Deceit infect not, near Contagion soil, Indulgence weaken, nor Example spoil,[rz] Nor mastered Science tempt her to look down On humbler talents with a pitying frown, Nor Genius swell, nor Beauty render vain, Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain,[sa] Nor Fortune change, Pride raise, nor Passion bow, Nor Virtue teach austerity—till now. 30 Serenely purest ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... disciples of the twelve Apostles, that they must have been in being at the time they were rejected, and therefore could not have been forged, a century after that period. I am not conscious of any wish to weaken the force of Mr. English's arguments, by affecting to speak of them in contemptuous terms, I would, as I have, answered them fairly, ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... story of the man working at high pressure, often under stimulants, who has had the grippe to weaken him, so that when the strain comes there is no resistance, no reserve. He snaps like a sapped reed.... The tears rolled down Milly's face, and Reinhard looked away. He said nothing, and for the first time Milly thought him hard and unsympathetic. When the car drew up before his door, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... weaken, and suddenly aware of the catastrophe that lay just ahead, changed her chancellor, and called upon the President for an armistice upon the basis of the Fourteen Points. The explanation of Germany's attitude in this matter was simply that she knew she ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... Fritz's expression of surprise to be a compliment to the ship's sailing powers; and so Fritz would not undeceive him by telling him his real opinion about the vessel. It would have been cruel to try and weaken his belief in the lubberly old whaler, every piece of timber in whose hull he loved with a fatherly affection almost equal to that with which he ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... half should try for "El Dorado's" land, the spoils of each expedition to be put into the common fund, and then shared according to the terms of the cruise. A few reckless spirits agreed to this, but Captain Drake would make no such division of his forces. To do so, he argued, would be to weaken both parties to ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... draw me to her side, a willing and devoted slave; she measured my weakness with her own power; she knew—what did she not know? I torture myself with these foolish memories. All men past the age of twenty have learned somewhat of the tricks of women—the pretty playful nothings that weaken the will and sap the force of the strongest hero. She loved me? Oh, yes, I suppose so! Looking back on those days, I can frankly say I believe she loved me—as nine hundred wives out of a thousand love their husbands, namely—for what they ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... had, at the instance of the Chief Odysseus, written to request that some stores from the laboratory at Missolonghi might be sent to Athens. Neither Prince Mavrocordato, however, nor Lord Byron considered it prudent, at this time, to weaken their means for defending Missolonghi, and accordingly sent back by the messenger but a ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... written by an Englishman for an English boy, and there are a great many allusions to things that only English boys appreciate or understand, and it has seemed wise to omit most of these. On the other hand, nothing has been omitted to weaken the story of Tom, and nothing has been added to destroy the charm ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... plan the admiral of the fleet was totally opposed. It was natural that he should be so, since the detaching of three hundred ships for this enterprise would greatly weaken the force under his command. It would leave the fleet, he told the king, a miserable remnant, not superior to that of the enemy, for they had already lost four hundred ships by storms. He thought it infinitely ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Dubois, because I in no way spared him when with M. le Duc d'Orleans. He on his side, fearing the power I had over the Regent, the liberty I enjoyed with him, and the freedom with which I spoke to him, did as much as he could to injure me, and to weaken the confidence of M. le Duc d'Orleans in me. Dubois and I continued, nevertheless, to be on good terms with each other in appearance, but it was in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... between one in my position and those of my—my corps of assistants who may so far forget themselves as to seek them, must always be deplored. They tend only to weaken..." ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... the first season, especially where it cannot be irrigated, is usually condemned, lest it should weaken the plants unduly for entering the winter. It would seem probable, however, that under some conditions such grazing would be helpful rather than hurtful. The cropping of the plants by stock, in the influence which it exerts upon the plants, is akin to that which arises from cutting them back ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... and I'm going to enforce my demands! I've got to have money. I darn't sell your diamonds—at least I don't want to. I'd rather you'd have them," and he seemed to weaken as if with romance when it came to this sentiment. ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... efficiency. The Congress has absolute authority over the appropriations and is free to exercise its judgment, as the evidence may warrant, in increasing or decreasing budget recommendations. But it ought to resist every effort to weaken or break down this most beneficial system of supervising appropriations and expenditures. Without it all the claim of economy would be a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... information, as well as to cause friction when questions were raised affecting expenditure, accompanied by protests, even in those cases in which these questions were manifestly of a legitimate character. The result was discouraging, and in the opinion of Mr Main had done much to weaken financial control and to defeat the purpose of the order. It is unnecessary to detail the various changes that have been made by the institution of dockyard expense accounts in the department of the controller, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... there were proof of it, be admitted without raising a presumption that would compel us to give a brute origin to man, why should we admit a thing of which there is no proof? Why should we encourage the guesses of these speculators and thus weaken our power to protest when they attempt the leap from the monkey to man? Let the ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... the original strikers, their former rate of wages. The Knights of Labor felt impelled to accept such a trivial settlement for two reasons. The coal-handlers' strike, which drove up the price of coal to the consumer, was very unpopular, and the strike itself had begun to weaken when the brewers and stationary engineers, who for some obscure reason had been ordered to strike in sympathy, refused to come out. The situation was left unchanged, as far as the coal-handlers employed by the other companies, the longshoremen, and the many thousands of ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... latter, well in advance and with no exhausting march behind them to weaken horse and man, reached the Potomac by the Hancock road at a point where they had boats moored, and got clean away, joining Lander on the Maryland shore. The lesser number, making for Sir John's Run and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... "Don't weaken," he cautioned her. "Lynn's gone, and it's all over. We've got the whip-hand on all of 'em—Hammon, Merkle, Bob, Lilas —everybody. We've got 'em all, understand? ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... the entire area of Central Asia and comprises much of the greater part of Europe as well. In its own territory, it is unassailable, and never has been invaded with success. No power can plunder or weaken Russia as long as she remains within her own borders. Of all the great powers in Europe she is the one that after England has the least need of a ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... that he suffered, but the ultimate nightmare horror of a death more awful than anything he had ever imagined. Jose would have met a bullet, a knife, a lash, without flinching; flames would not have served to weaken his resolve; but this slow drowning was infinitely worse than the worst he had thought possible; he was suffocating by long, black, agonizing minutes. Every nerve and muscle of his body, every cell in his bursting lungs, fought against the outrage in a purely physical frenzy over which his ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... and we should quench with all our might the smoking flax of sin. He commanded the Church in Sardis to "be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die" (Rev. iii. 2). The counterpart and complement of that command is binding, too, upon his disciples: Be watchful, and weaken—if possible, kill outright—the germs of evil that are springing from unseen seeds within your own heart and around you in the world. "The God of peace will bruise Satan under your feet shortly:" He will bruise Satan, but Satan must be bruised under ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... sent her to weaken him; of that Duane was sure. And he felt that she had wanted to come. Her eyes were dark, strained, beautiful, and they shed a light upon Duane he had ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... radical improvement in the functioning of the metropolitan treatment plants that must be achieved, and other measures to relieve pollution in this part of the river, valid objections to such recirculation will of course weaken and ultimately disappear. But no one can reasonably expect that these things are not going to take a certain amount of time—quite conceivably enough time to run the city up against an emergency it could ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... same time we cannot overlook the fact that elopement, or real marriage by capture, as distinguished from formal abduction, would, so far as we can see, have a similar effect, and the rise of the custom of exchange of sisters would in that case tend to re-establish rather than weaken the power of the woman's kin, at any rate ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... the one way to freedom for us both. For my own poor sake, my girl, don't seek to weaken my resolve. I would like to do the right thing once before I die." He kissed her. "Now leave me, and don't fret. Don't let any one come to me ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... rancher's red eyes was hard to support. Archie felt himself weaken before the personality of this man ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... must have patience with her. Consider that she has been unfortunate in her associates. Consider that she has been a petted child all her life, and that you have helped to pet her. Consider how much your sex always do to weaken the moral sense of women, by liking and admiring them for being weak and foolish and inconsequent, so long as it is pretty and does not come in your way. I do not mean you in particular, John; but I mean that the general course of society ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... reforms and decentralized economic decision making. Output quadrupled in the next 20 years and China now has the world's second largest GDP. Political controls remain tight even while economic controls continue to weaken. ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... on him long enough to weaken him any," said Mose in offensive reply, and Dan did not care to ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... you don't weaken," said the Cherub, hungrily attacking her omelette. "And the wortht is yet to come! I thuppose all you old dears realithe that this show will have to be rewritten from end to end, and we'll be rehearthing day and night all the time ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... sex-passion plays in the lives of most men and women; considering how it permeates the literature and art of the World and is—as the basis of the home—the most potent factor in social life, its profanation is a terrible loss, and the habit of mind which such profanation engenders cannot fail to weaken the whole spirit of reverence. I must confess that the man who jests over sex relations is to me incomparably lower than the man who sustains clean but wholly illegitimate sex relations; and while I am conscious of a strong movement of friendship towards a lad who has admitted impurity in ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... delightful, cannot, as I have just observed, be made without great application, or the application of some years. Now all this long application is of a sedentary nature. But all occupations of a sedentary nature are injurious to the human constitution, and weaken and disorder it in time. But in proportion as the body is thus weakened by the sedentary nature of the employment, it is weakened again by the enervating powers of the art. Thus the nervous system is acted upon by two enemies at once, and in the course of the long ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... Elizabeth, you used to have faculties above those of the rest of your sex. Don't let your new position weaken them. I have surely not the least need to tell ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Warriours She has forced to desist from their Purposes, and do her dirty Work against their own Interest. I shall say Nothing of the Holy War; how often the Church has kindled and renew'd it, or what a Handle She made of it to raise and establish her own Power, and to weaken and undermine that of the Temporal Princes in Christendom. The Authority of the Church has made the greatest Princes and most haughty Sovereigns fall prostrate before, and pay Adoration to the vilest Trumpery, and accept of, as Presents of inestimable Worth, despicable Trifles, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... the future. Of course, we have to look ahead, and in reference to many things to take prudent forecasts, but how many of us there are who weaken ourselves and spoil to-day by being 'over-exquisite to cast the fashion of uncertain evils'! It is a great piece of practical philosophy, and I am sure that it has much to do with our getting the best out of the present moment, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... itself into a struggle for a bare existence, it makes for cowardice and selfishness. In time the strongest characters deteriorate with inferior associates and only small interests to occupy their minds. Wills weaken, standards lower unconsciously, ideals grow misty or vanish. Youth, enthusiasm, hope, die together. Ambition turns to bitterness or stolid resignation. Suspicion, meanness, cruelty, are the natural offspring of small intelligences ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... enough to triumph over principle and sweep our minds bare of all the every-day thoughts. But afterwards—there is always the afterwards. The conflict must come. Reason stays with us always, and sentiment might weaken with the years." ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... kindles a fire and cooks her victuals alone. Her seclusion lasts four days. During this time she may not approach or touch a horse, for the Indians believe that such contamination would impoverish or weaken the animal.[227] Among the Potawatomis the women at their monthly periods "are not allowed to associate with the rest of the nation; they are completely laid aside, and are not permitted to touch any article of furniture or food which the men have occasion to use. If the Indians ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... hear no more of such disgraceful scenes as it has been necessary to record; but it was long before the old 'Family-Compact' party forgave the Governor who had dared to be impartial. By many kinds of detraction they sought to weaken his influence and damage his popularity; detractions probably repeated in all sincerity by many who were honestly incapable of understanding his real motives for forbearance. And as the members of this party, though they ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... tons register, laden with sugar and rum. She was therefore a valuable recapture. She carried thirty-two passengers, and by great good luck her own British crew was also on board. It was not necessary, therefore, for me to weaken my own force by putting a prize crew on board her; my chief mate being quite sufficient to represent and watch over the interests of the Sword Fish and her owners. The individual who had been put on board her as prize-master, when she was captured by Monsieur Villeneuve's ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... alteration in Carlton's social position was received with the utmost satisfaction in Berkly Square. Edith was too firmly convinced of the unalterable attachment of her lover to fear that a change of fortune would, in any way, alienate or weaken the love he bore her, believing, as she did, that Arthur loved her with all the devotion of a long tried affection. Certain alterations in the programme had to be made, consequent on the elevation to the Peerage of the Bridegroom elect. The wedding, which, was to have ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... had begun to walk, and he was keeping pace with her. "Jackson," he proceeded, "was a man of absolute courage. He took the woman he wanted—defied public opinion to do it—and it only made him the more popular. I had always intended to strengthen myself by marrying. If I married you I'd weaken myself politically, while if I married some Western girl, some daughter of the people, I'd make ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... limit, it is a matter of some importance to ascertain to what distance it does extend; because, if circumstances do not permit that the encampment be removed out of its reach, prudence directs that remedies be applied to weaken the force ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... him, weary and stupefied, out of some famous picture-gallery. But what is thus admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) natural beauties no amount of excess in sublime mountain outline or the graces of cultivated lowland can do anything, it is supposed, to weaken or degrade the palate. We are not at all sure, however, that moderation, and a regimen tolerably austere, even in scenery, are not healthful and strengthening to the taste; and that the best school for a lover of nature is not to the found in one of those countries where there is no stage ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bird of ill-omen; "thou speakest unwisely. 'Tis not for us to adjudge the displeasure of Heaven upon slight testimonies. He trieth our faith, when the dark cloud overshadoweth His mercy. But let us not dishonour this good cause, and weaken our hands by indulging in such gloomy anticipations. The night showeth little token of a change, and when I was last abroad, the river passed on, shallow and murmuring, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... deceitful and treacherous themselves, are constantly asking me if I do not drink a little all the time. And then they say I use morphine and opium. There is nothing that has made me more wretched, and done more to weaken and drag me down, than the continued accusation of doing something that it is just as impossible for me to do as it would be to live without breathing; that is, to take a drink of liquor without getting drunk. And if there is any one thing that will make me hate ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... give the command to seek continence of God, and to weaken the body by labors and hunger, why do they not proclaim these magnificent commandments to themselves? But, as we have said above, the adversaries are only playing; they are doing nothing seriously. If continence were possible to all, it would not require a peculiar gift. ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... the real influence of stimulants and narcotics upon the brain? Do they give increased strength, greater lucidity of mind and more continuous power? Do they weaken and cloud the intellect, and lessen that capacity for enduring a prolonged strain of mental exertion which is one of the first requisites of the intellectual life? Would a man who is about to enter upon the consideration of problems, the correct solution of which will ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... water; and although I don't quite know how good coffee tastes, no doubt this was very like the true Java. It poured clear and rich as wine. Now try this in full strength with your spouse, being very witty when he drinks. And as the mornings pass, oh, weaken it more and more. That is, cheat him pleasantly at first, then worse and worse, till he is glad to take milk or pure water with you. Conspiracies are usually contemptible; but this is one of the very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... replied Don Philip; "we shall only weaken our force: besides, they may fall into the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Suffrage Amendment, the Prohibition Amendment, Food Administration as outlined by Mr. Hoover and a Minimum Wage for Women were endorsed. Protests were made against any attempt to lower educational standards or to weaken the laws safeguarding women and children. The Legislative Committee reported that before the Legislature convened its members had been completely canvassed as to their views on woman suffrage; these were classified and only a few were tagged impossible. A "suffrage school" was held in Columbia ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... instances, during a period of about fifteen or twenty years.) Possibly the fondness for individual utterance may throw out a skin-deep arrangement, which is readily accepted as beautiful—formulae that weaken rather than toughen up the musical-muscles. If the composer's sincere conception of his art and of its functions and ideals, coincide to such an extent with these groove-colored permutations of tried out progressions in expediency, that he can arrange them ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... teasingly. "Oh, I don't say he was an impostor. Perhaps he really was hungry; but, if he wasn't, what do you think of a civilization that makes the opportunity of such a fraud? that gives us all such a bad conscience for the need which is that we weaken to the need that isn't? Suppose that poor fellow wasn't personally founded on fact: nevertheless, he represented the truth; he was the ideal of the suffering which would be less effective if realistically treated. That man is a great comfort to me. He probably rioted for days ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... month later, Hugonet tried to weaken the effect of their answer by a suggestion that it had better not be considered the final decision, but a mere informal expression of opinion. "There were so many strangers present," etc. The States determinedly refused to be trifled with. "Madame must ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... the hammer, springing up from the ground as though carried away by the force he put into the blow. He was a fierce one, who fought with the iron, annoyed at finding it so hard, and he even gave a grunt whenever he thought he had planted a fierce stroke. Perhaps brandy did weaken other people's arms, but he needed brandy in his veins, instead of blood. The drop he had taken a little while before had made his carcass as warm as a boiler; he felt he had the power of a steam-engine within him. And the iron ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... the spectator takes in the circumstances in which the character is placed, is much greater when the actor is so wholly under the influence of the feelings which the situation of the part ought to excite, as never to betray any emotion which can weaken that general effect which this situation would naturally produce. To those, therefore, accustomed to the greater variety of expression which the practice of the English stage renders necessary in the countenance of every ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... now would fatally weaken their small clan. Deklay and those of a like mind might elect to withdraw and not one of the rest could deny ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... his death-bed in 1913, his thoughts were fixed on the war. 'It must come to a fight,' were the last words he was heard to mutter, 'only give me a strong right wing.' Von Moltke, though he did not absolutely weaken the right wing, weakened it relatively, by using most of the newly formed divisions of the German army ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... instructed by the leaders to make no effort to check it; it was deemed better strategy to tire out the opposition; it was decided to vote down every proposition to adjourn, and so continue the sitting into the night; opponents might desert, then, one by one and weaken their party, for they had no personal stake in ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... man who felt that he had expressed himself so aptly and so well, that anything additional would only weaken its effect; he therefore changed the conversation immediately, by pointing to a tree at some little distance from the house, and remarking that it was the rock maple ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... they shall be called forth to engage and fight with the King's foes, and the enemies of the town of Mansoul; yet a little discountenance cast upon them from the town of Mansoul will deject and cast down their faces, will weaken and take away their courage. Do not, therefore, O my beloved, carry it unkindly to my valiant captains and courageous men of war, but love them, nourish them, succour them, and lay them in your bosoms; and they will not only fight for you, but cause to fly from you all those the Diabolonians that ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... the people being dissatisfied with the mode of supporting the war, there is danger to apprehend, that evils actually felt in prosecuting it may weaken the cause which began it, evils founded not on immediate sufferings, but on a speculative apprehension of future sufferings from the loss of their liberties; there is danger that a commercial and free people, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... the attempt to work with others. It was clear that few men thought at this time that coercion was so inexpedient that a single member of the Government would be justified in venturing on a course which would weaken the hands of Government itself, increase Mr. Gladstone's difficulties, and retard or hamper the remedial legislation which I myself thought most desirable. Moreover, we had weakened the Irish executive in past years by continually teaching them to rely on unconstitutional ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn |
