"Act upon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... warehouses, and cottages, and small row, and place, and terrace houses, must be built and lived in, however joyless and inconvenient. And it is assuredly intended that all of us should have knowledge, and act upon our knowledge, in matters in which we are daily concerned, and not be left to the caprice of architects, or mercy ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... with them. In minor matters, we remember, in our dealings, that this man is a Scotchman, and that man a Welshman, and that a Frenchman, and that a German. But in great questions of principle and method touching humanity, such as education and religion, we drop race and nation, and act upon simple manhood. If we do not, we are sure to err. The true idea in the case before us is, not to think perpetually of the black skin and the African blood, but of the man, and to use with the negro precisely the measures which should ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various
... his lip, as if to say, "You're a pretty scoundrel to betray your companions," but immediately resolved to act upon it. Without stating his intentions, he ordered all the men out, and putting me between two marines, so as to prevent my escaping, I was desired to lead on. I did so, and we proceeded in silence until ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... seemed good, and Paganel recommended that they should act upon it. He also thought that the presence of the yacht would be very useful, and he added, that if the Lucknow road was once passed, it would be impossible ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... India as elsewhere. We have acted successfully upon this knowledge in the scale of salaries and gradation of rank assigned to European civil functionaries, and to all native functionaries employed in the judicial and revenue branches of the public service; and why not act upon it in that of the salaries assigned to the native officers employed in the police? The magistrate of a district gets a salary of from two thousand to two thousand five hundred rupees a month.[11] The native officer next under him is the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... inferences are questioned, women, as a rule, are much more ready to "swear their testimony through" than men. They are so accustomed to act upon inference that, finding themselves unable to substantiate their assertion by any sufficient reason, they become irritated, "show fight," and seek refuge in prevarication. Had they not, during their entire lives, been accustomed to mental short-cuts, they would be spared the ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... the constancy with which you will despise their good fortune, you will prove to them that it is not through cowardice that you submit to their sufferings. See them in thought such as they ought to be when you must act upon them; but see them as they are when you are tempted to act for them. Seek to owe their suffrage to their dignity; but to make them happy keep an account of their unworthiness; thus, on the one hand, the nobleness of your heart will kindle theirs, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... pithy speech, characterized by his usual homely wisdom, begged for it their most favourable consideration. His words fell upon willing ears, for nowhere was the disgust at the prevailing anarchy greater than in Philadelphia. But still it was not quite in order for the assembly to act upon the matter until word should come from the Continental Congress. Since its ignominious flight to Princeton, four years ago, that migratory body had not honoured Philadelphia with its presence. It had once flitted as far south as Annapolis, but at ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... London—the Sheriffs of Middlesex—and the Twelve Judges? As to the court physicians, though three or four nominally, virtually they are but one man. They have a common interest, and in two separate ways they are liable to a suspicion of collusion: first, because the same motives which act upon one probably act upon the rest. In this respect, they are under a common influence; secondly, because, if not the motives, at any rate the physicians themselves, act upon each other. In this respect, they are under a reciprocal influence. They ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... of originality, that when any foreign model is accepted it receives hardly any colour from the native genius, and remains a cultivated exotic. The less promising soil of Anglo-Saxon idiom waited for the foreign influences, ancient and modern, of the Renaissance to act upon it, and then it produced a crop which has dwarfed all the produce of the modern world, and has nearly, if not quite, equalled in perfection, while it has much exceeded in bulk and length of flowering time, the produce ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... tore his hair at having missed this letter till it was too late to act upon its contents; but he had chastened himself considerably of late, and at last his chimerical expedition to Kennetbridge really did seem to have been another special intervention of Providence to keep him away from temptation. But a growing impatience of faith, which he had noticed in ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... spanking. Even so I observe that, while able to agree cordially with Christ on the necessity of becoming as little children as a condition of entering the Kingdom of Heaven, we are not so injudicious as to act upon any such belief; nay, we find ourselves obliged to revise and re-interpret the wisdom of the Gospels when we find it too impracticably childish. When Christ, for instance, forbids oaths of all kinds, we feel sure He cannot be serious, or we should have to upset a settled ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... grateful for the advice and promised to act upon it. But Dick was a new boy; he remained in doors all Saturday and Sunday, wandering about the house in an aimless manner, trying to read and failing, trying to divert himself in unusual ways and failing in everything. He presented all the symptoms of ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... beneath that cold dismal surface there would not be rest from the troubles of earth. But she could not hold an idea before her for two consecutive moments; and she forgot what she thought about before she could act upon it. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... arrangement that might prevent the unnecessary effusion of blood. General Hull replied very courteously in the negative. Captain Dixon, of the Royal Engineers, had thrown up a battery in Sandwich, on the very ground so recently occupied by the Americans, to act upon Detroit. In this battery there were two five and a half inch mortars, and one eighteen and two twelve pounder guns, and it was manned by sailors under the command of Captain Hull. For upwards of an hour the cannonade was terrific, the ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... are sheep literally without a shepherd. They are people whom you have subdued, and who have the highest and strongest claims upon you—claims which you cannot forget—claims which, if you do not act upon, you may rely upon it that, if there be a judgment for nations—as I believe there is—as for individuals, our children in no distant generation must pay the penalty which we have purchased by neglecting our duty to the ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... will increase as the work proceeds. This condition is by all means to be avoided, since it entails serious difficulties on the process of separating the sugar from the molasses. In case this second crop of crystals, called "false grain" or "mush sugar" has appeared, the sugar boiler must act upon his judgment, guided by his experience as to what is to be done. He may take enough thin sirup into the pan to dissolve all of the crystals and begin again, or, if very skillful, he may so force the growth ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... "Some people act upon us somewhat as nature does sometimes. And Vere paid the boy. There is another irony of unconsciousness. Vere, bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, rewards your pain-giver. How we hide ourselves from those we love best and live with most intimately! ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... above, the news of Mr. Lincoln's assassination has reached me. It is enough for me to say that I am dissatisfied with the result. I do not attempt to excuse the assassin. Yet there will be men who will charge this act upon the chivalrous South. This leads me to repeat a remark once before made by me in this connection, which has become ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... produce alcohol. When surrounded with air, they live in their aerobian state and we have no fermentation; immersed immediately afterwards in carbonic acid gas, they now assume their anaerobian state, and at once begin to act upon the sugar in the manner of ferments, and emit heat. As for seeing in these facts anything like a confirmation of the theory of hemi-organism, imagined by M. Fremy, the idea of such a thing is absurd. The following, for instance, ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... us this? David believed just the opposite. He said that he was ashamed that he should dwell in a house of cedars, whilst the Ark of God dwelt among curtains. You know how he was prevented from building the Temple, and how Solomon did the work. Now, did Solomon act upon the mean principle of building a poor, cheap house for God, whilst he erected a gorgeous palace for himself? No! the Temple was one of the most glorious buildings ever seen, and those that were erected in later times were splendid also. We find our Blessed ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... contrast that there is gradually growing up between the way people at home and these foreign peoples are receiving the Gospel? Out there there is an openness to the truth, an eager willingness to believe it simply, and to act upon it, that suggests the way they did in the Book of Acts. In our home-lands of America and Great Britain and Germany there seems to be either indifference, or an atmosphere of quibble and criticism. With questions and doubts naturalistic ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... lust of power on the part of a few selfish, unprincipled men, may invent a cause, and for the carrying out of their own ambitious schemes, they may lead the people to believe and act upon it. No one proposes to interfere with our institution where it already exists—even the Republican party has emphatically denied any such intention—yet the hue and cry has been raised that slavery will be abolished by the incoming administration, arms put into the hands of the blacks, and ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... but it is to be hoped that the information, reflections, and opinions of the Embassador himself, may one day be fully communicated to the public, when the present objections to it shall cease, and the moment arrive (which is probably not very distant) that will enable us to act upon the ideas of that nobleman's capacious and enlightened mind, and to prove to the world that the late Embassy, by shewing the character and dignity of the British nation in a new and splendid light, to a court and people in a great measure ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... themselves as beings acted upon by surrounding objects and by their own kind, should be carefully imparted to them simultaneously with the knowledge of the qualities of the surrounding objects destined to act upon them. ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... ever. This your opportunity. Do not go back to it. I do not, it is true, know anything about it from actual experience, but I can gather that it presents, must present, exceptional temptations. Will you not be guided by me? Will you not take and act upon my advice?" ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... whole life depends upon your cultivating an affectionate and obliging disposition. If you will adopt the resolution that you will confer favors whenever you have an opportunity, you will certainly be surrounded by ardent friends. Begin upon this principle in childhood, and act upon it through life, and you will make yourself happy, and promote the happiness of all within ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... this resolution and keeping it, and not letting go of it, no matter what happens? From what I've seen of you, Helen, I know that if you do not summon all your energies together, and fling aside every purpose but this, and act upon it now, while you feel it so keenly, you will surely fail. For anybody can withstand a temptation for a while, when his mind is made up; all the trouble is in keeping it made up for a long time. I tell you if I found I was losing, sooner ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... begin. We say that time is now,—now, while thousands of unwillingly idle hands are waiting for work, and money is cheap; cheap, because labor is unemployed. We say to you, gentlemen of the city government, respectfully but earnestly, Act upon this matter now. ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... water by cold, we shall be enabled alternately to submit any surface to a pressure equal to the elastic force of the steam, and to relieve it from that pressure, so as to permit it to move in obedience to any other force which may act upon it. Or again, suppose that we are enabled to expose one side of a movable body to the action of water converted into steam, at the moment that we relieve the other side from the like pressure by reconverting the steam which acts upon it into water, the movable body will be impelled by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... case of the so-called neurotic poisons, those which act upon the nervous system, the symptoms are so closely simulated by natural disease that even when they agree in the most absolute manner with those usually developed by any such poison they only render poisoning highly probable, not certain.[15] When in any case the symptoms diverge from the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... was not very easy, for Sir Tom meant two things directly opposed to each other. He meant what he said, and yet said what he knew was nonsense, and laughed at himself inwardly with a keen recognition of this fact. Notwithstanding, he was as much determined to act upon it as if it had been the most certain truth, and in a way pinned his ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... rights as king and husband, only to be flouted and dismissed with the conviction that his life was no longer safe in Scotland, and that he had best cross the Border. Yet, to his undoing, detained perhaps by the overweening pride that is usually part of a fool's equipment, he did not act upon that wise resolve. He returned instead to his hawking and his hunting, and was ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... to you who is commander-in-chief." A higher compliment could not have been paid to any commander-in-chief than to say of him that he understood the merits of Nelson, and left him, as far as possible, to act upon his own judgment. ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... constructed with loose stones, ranged for the most part with some tendency to circularity. It must be placed where the wind cannot act upon it with violence, because it has no cement; and where the water will run easily away, because it has no floor but the naked ground. The wall, which is commonly about six feet high, declines from the perpendicular a little inward. Such rafters as can be procured are ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... had a visitor who might have influenced her to take this step; but I have reason to believe that Joyce did not act upon this other's initiative entirely. She had certain knowledge of her own that—urged the course she ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... will stand before it bowing. There is a sense of satisfaction in this, and of completeness. But there is another method—the method of the life we all lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange coming and going of feet. Men appear, act and re-act upon each other, and pass away. When the crisis comes the man who would fit it does not return. When the curtain falls no one is ready. When the footlights are brightest they are blown out; and what the name of the play is no one knows. If there sits a spectator who knows, he sits so high ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... dragged on and she did not come, a hundred alarms tormented him. First among these was a dread that she might have made resolves such as had sprung up so plenteously in him, and that she might have been strong enough to act upon them and to remain at home. But he was mistaken in the girl. Such resolutions as he had been making and breaking had never come to her at all. The difference between the man and the woman was this: he resolved in his mind not to see her ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... essential that the Houses should not be interfered with, that they should be allowed full liberty to express their wishes and to act upon them. Accordingly, the practice then usual with ministers, of undertaking the direction of the proceedings, was clearly on this occasion foregone. In the House of Commons then, as much as now, there was in theory unrestricted ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... learn one piece of wisdom, at all events—the uncertainty of life—however slow we may be to pick up others; and, therefore, when we sail, leave our last will and testament behind us. You'll take care of this for me, and act upon it, should I never return to ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... act upon this trial which was to decide his future destiny, Rushbrook suffered so poignant an uncertainty, that he became at length ill, and before the end of the week that was allotted him for his reply, he was confined to his bed in a high ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... argument would expend nearly its whole strength on this policy of saving appearances. For what was there conveyed in it that could strike inward to act upon the fixed tenets of the mind, to destroy there the effect of the earliest and ten thousand subsequent impressions, of inveterate habit and of ancient establishment? Was it to convince and persuade by authority ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... point of military skill, the two campaigns which followed were the most brilliant of Eugene's life; but with only thirty thousand men, opposed to a force of double that number, he could alone act upon the defensive. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... case the Budget fails to receive the approval of Parliament the Government cannot act upon the previous year's Budget, nor may items of expenditure not provided for in the Budget be appended to it. Further, the Government shall not be allowed to adopt extraordinary financial measures ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... absolute mind's intentions would.]] All feeling is for the sake of action, all feeling results in action,—to-day no argument is needed to prove these truths. But by a most singular disposition of nature which we may conceive to have been different, MY FEELINGS ACT UPON THE REALITIES WITHIN MY CRITIC'S WORLD. Unless, then, my critic can prove that my feeling does not 'point to' those realities which it acts upon, how can he continue to doubt that he and I are alike cognizant of one and the same real world? If the action is performed ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... and for which her father died, the old ties were stronger than the new, and she could not resist the temptation? A nature like hers is capable of going to any extreme. Naturally I hate to suspect her of any connection with enemy agents, but as a servant of the government it is my duty to act upon anything that is in the least suspicious. Sanders is absolutely convinced that she's a dangerous spy in the employ of the enemy, for she answers the description of a young girl he has been trying to find for a long time, a girl who belongs to the Hungarian nobility who has ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... in 1858,—"the crown! it is the House of Commons!" Theoretically Mr. Roebuek is right, and the British practice conforms to the theory, whenever the reigning prince is content to receive the theory, and to act upon it: but all must depend upon that prince's character; and should a British sovereign resolve to rule as well as to reign, he might give the House of Commons much trouble, in which the whole Empire would share. The House of Commons was never stronger than it was in the latter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... seized the opportunity of revenge; and revoking Pole's legatine commission, appointed in his room Cardinal Peyto, an Observantine friar, and confessor to the queen. But Mary would never permit the new legate to act upon the commission; and Paul was afterwards obliged to restore Cardinal ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... by the parasitic fungi of centuries, that book it was which sent to these trans-Atlantic shores the founders of your great nation. That book gave them their instinct of freedom, tempered by reverence for Law. That book gave them their hatred of idolatry; and made them not only say but act upon their own words, with these old Persians and with the Jewish prophets alike, Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldst not; then said we, Lo, we come. In the volume of the book it is written of us, that we come to do thy will, O God. ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... Congress did not act upon the recommendations for internal taxes, but this subject was also left over until the next session. It did provide, however, for a large increase of revenue from imports, mainly upon articles that were then free from taxation and upon articles regarded as luxuries; also for a direct tax on ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... spoke in this House on the question of the South African Constitution, I took occasion to affirm the excellence of the general principle, one vote one value. I pointed out that it was a logical and unimpeachable principle to act upon; that the only safe rule for doing justice electorally between man and man was to assume—a large assumption in some cases—that all men are equal and that all discriminations between them are unhealthy ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... these ideas find general acceptance, it is dangerous to act upon them? that for an individual here and there to go out of the common course is only to make himself notorious, a stranger or a bore to his friends? Were such statements true, they would still be cowardly. We should be faithful to our convictions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... presence above the horizon for ten hours in the day, no sensible effect had yet been produced on the average temperature of the atmosphere. The uniformly white surface of the snow, on which, at this season, the sun's rays have to act, or, rather, leaving them nothing to act upon, is much against the first efforts to produce a thaw; but our former experience of the astonishing rapidity with which this operation is carried on, when once the ground begins to be laid bare, served in some measure to reconcile us to what appeared a protraction ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... of Sforzando Coupler, the mechanism of which is described and illustrated in Stainer's Dictionary, a device was formerly found in some organs by which the keys of the Swell were caused to act upon the keys of the Great. The coupler being brought on and off by a pedal, sforzando effects could be produced, or the first beat in cadi measure strongly accented in the style of the orchestration of the great masters. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... to agree to buy the slaves of the loyal slave states, and urged the members of Congress from those states to advise their constituents to set free their slaves and receive $300 apiece for them. This they would not do; whereupon he decided to act upon his own authority, and declared all slaves within the lines of ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... associated capitals. The question now arises, "Will not the same forces, which, in order to avoid the waste and destruction of ever keener competition, compelled the private capitalists to suspension of hostility and to combination, act upon the larger masses of associated capital?" The answer is already working itself clearly out in industrial history. The concentrative adhesive forces are everywhere driving the competing masses of capital to seek safety, and escape waste and destruction, by welding ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... revolution could be accomplished, he saw, only by a personal example so strong, so undeviating, so entirely free from self-seeking, that all men would be compelled to pause and consider it, and then to act upon it. He therefore sacrificed his whole life for the good of the race. In the end he achieved his aim, single-handed, single-souled. No one who believes in God and in Christianity throughout, can maintain that Francis of Assisi ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... not have to select his own instrument, his own teacher, nor even his own practice time. Every author would know just how and when to write, and in order to become famous, he need only act upon the suggestions for stories and improvement of style which are gratuitously given him from day to day, by people who cannot write a clear and correct sentence. This thing actually happened; consequently ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... 'I did not think all this would happen.' He looked into her face for comfort—her poor face all wild and white; for neither she nor my father had dared to acknowledge—much less act upon—the terror that was in their hearts, lest Peter should have made away with himself. My father saw no conscious look in his wife's hot, dreary eyes, and he missed the sympathy that she had always been ready to give him—strong ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... are similar to those of the Voltaic battery, they are incomparably weaker. Indeed Dr. Wollaston, in using it for chemical decompositions, was obliged to act upon the most minute quantities of matter, and though the result was satisfactory in proving the similarity of its effects to those of the Voltaic battery, these effects were too small in extent to be in any considerable degree applicable to ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... grown to its perfect form, the egg-shell is broken and out swims the young fish. When it leaves the shell we say it hatches, just as we say the plant embryo sprouts when it leaves the egg-shell or seed-shell. Like the pollen of the flower, the fertilizing cells of the fish cannot act upon any ova but those of its ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... of that also. Eh, well; I leave the affair in your hands, and they are capable ones. When the time comes, act, act upon your own initiative. In this matter we shall give no accounting ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... now spread with the breakfast equipage. Anxiously they pored over its pages, finding more than one reference that seemed fairly to fit the case; and at length Leslie, to whose judgment the mate seemed disposed to defer, decided upon a treatment, which they proceeded forthwith to act upon. It consisted in the administration of a draught, and the application of a blister; and owing to the absolute insensibility of the skipper and his consequent powerlessness to assist in any way it was a somewhat lengthy job; but they completed ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... I wish him to receive before he sails. He might decide to act upon it before leaving New York, to advise with some legal authority he knows and trusts, to prepare our mother in some way—to do some wise thing we cannot foresee the value of. He has known the outline of the story, but not exact details—particularly recent ones. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... an exceedingly strange thing, that when a few Senators in the city of Washington, ill at their houses, give assurance that they can be here to act upon a great public question on the day following this, we should hear a piece of declamation, the Senator appealing to his God, and saying, with an Io triumphe air, 'Well or ill, God has made them ill.' Sir, the god of desolation, the god of darkness, the god of evil is his ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... counsel, and we will act upon it without loss of time. My horse is in tolerable good trim, and I volunteer to ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... reflecting that the laws of nature are suspended, or inquiring how the scene could have been so suddenly shifted before us. We are familiar with prodigies; we accommodate ourselves to every event, however romantic; and we not only reason, but act upon principles, which are in the highest degree absurd and extravagant. Our dreams, moreover, are so far from being the effect of a voluntary effort, that we neither know of what we shall dream, or whether we ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... atmosphere; and towns will vary with their industrial life, and individuals favourably disposed to this atmosphere will come to the town, and those unfavourably inclined to it will leave. These changing citizens, as they act upon and react to their surroundings and vary in their powers age by age, are the real evolvers of the conditions in which they dwell; hence the citizen must not be omitted from our study if we are to understand ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... this thought occur to Mrs. Cameron, than she resolved to act upon it. Of course the Doctor would be delighted to part with Flower. She would see him on the subject ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... as Clay, Webster, and Calhoun in the councils of the nation, the calamity was averted for the time. The North had broken compact after compact, promises after promises, until South Carolina determined to act upon those rights she had retained for herself in the formation of the Union, and which the general government guaranteed to all, and withdrew when that Union no longer served the purposes for which it ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... that Emancipation is no longer a question of sectional interference, but of national preservation, it has the right to judge, and the constitutional right to act upon that judgment. And if Congress can properly allege, as motive for taking and cancelling a multitude of life-long claims to service, the preservation of the national existence, can a consideration of greater magnitude be imagined for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... been acted upon by the scouts several times, but, as all shared the feeling of Smith, the scouts, joined this time by the old man's two sons, set out to act upon his proposal. After examining the bank upon which they stood, with the greatest care, for several hundred yards both above and below, they returned with the report that no signs of danger had ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... right because he believes in it and loves it, whether it is called successful or not, is always bringing out far more than he thought was in him. The faithful doing of daily duty continually reveals opportunities which, used with readiness and a good conscience, act upon life with ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... have been put to him "in black and white," "Will you marry me?" and he must have answered "No, I will not," or something to that effect. In default of this the defendant might plead "True I gave the promise and it stands unbroken, for you never required me to act upon it." Now in Mr. Pickwick's case this actually occurred. As we have seen he left town the morning after the imputed proposal and while he was away, within a month, the notice of action was sent to him. Up to that time he had not heard a word of Dodson ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... should be attempting the lives of his fellows on so large a scale. Yet it is the scale that makes the difference: a man who would abhor to kill another will with a smile direct the machine that destroys twenty; and he, if anyone, has the right to act upon this reduced estimate of the value of human life, for he counts his own as lightly as that ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... reason. There was no motive for her asking him to come to see her but that she liked him, which it was the more agreeable to him to perceive as he perceived at the same time that she was exquisite. She was enviably free to act upon her likings, and it made Wayworth feel less unsuccessful to infer that for the moment he happened to be one of them. He kept the revelation to himself, and indeed there was nothing to turn his head in the kindness of a kind woman. Mrs. Alsager occupied so completely ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... their minds with the wishy-washy flood of commonplace prepared for them by dull writers and commercial publishers, and continued on in those so-called domestic stories (as if domestic meant idiotic) until their minds were diluted to that degree that they could not act upon anything that offered the least resistance. Beginning with the pepsinized books, they must continue with them, and the dull appetite by-and-by must be stimulated with a spice of vulgarity or a little pepper of impropriety. And fortunately for their nourishment ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... has spread over the land? London is the antithesis of the domestic ideal; a social reformer would not even glance in that direction, but would turn all his zeal upon small towns and country districts, where blight may perhaps be arrested, and whence, some day, a reconstituted national life may act upon the great centre of corruption. I had far rather see England covered with schools of cookery than with schools of the ordinary kind; the issue would be infinitely more hopeful. Little girls should be taught cooking and baking more assiduously than they are taught to read. But with ever in ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... so much as a dinner to order for anybody. Your Coercive measures for Ireland frighten me. I do not trust any Englishman on the subject except yourself, and you cannot keep to your own opinion in favour of leniency and act upon it. I often think how unfortunate it is that there should be that little channel of sea between England and Ireland. It prevents each country from considering itself a part of the other, and a bridge across it would make it much more difficult for Orange or Repeal bitterness to be kept up. ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... the suburbs, it is to be remembered, were members of the Assembly: the mass of them remained outside that body. But this mass, being Presbyterian almost to a man, had organized itself in such a way as both to act upon the Assembly and to obey it. Since 1623 there had been in the city, in the street called London Wall, a building called SION COLLEGE, with a library and other conveniences, expressly for the use of the London clergy, and answering ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... enable us to supply at least a partial answer. For we understand that the success of wireless messages being transmitted and received depends upon absolutely perfect "tuning"; the electric waves set up, i.e., will only act upon a receiver most delicately attuned to a particular rate of oscillations, and when the difference between the rate of oscillation of the waves and the receiver exceeds one per cent., resonance ceases altogether, so that the message may be sent, but will not be received. It strikes us as hardly ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... more so, is the cultivation of social sentiment in the community. Sentiment is higher than law, and the endeavor of all honest legislation should be to make laws expressive of the mandates of the highest and best sentiment. Any given community can almost always be trusted to act upon the impulse of sentiment, whether this comports with the law or not. Whether expressed or unexpressed, the social sentiment among Negroes—and it is seemingly often innate—is not favorable to the support of their own enterprises ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... planting weeds in rivers and streams to those used in ponds. If the weeds are planted in baskets, the baskets must, of course, be weighted when put in a position where the current can act upon them. ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker
... morning to the officers of the body-guards chosen to be in attendance in the room where the Bed of Justice was to be held. They were to fix their eyes upon the Regent, and when he made any of the above signals, immediately to act upon it according to their written instructions. The Abbe Dubois also drew out a sort of programme for M. le Duc d'Orleans, of the different orders he was to give during the night, fixing the hour for each, so that they might not arrive a minute too soon ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... safe where I am; I am never so sure of it as when I can actually see it, so that I have always a cause for fear which did not exist in broad daylight. I know, indeed, that a foreign body can scarcely act upon me without some slight sound, and how intently I listen! At the least sound which I cannot explain, the desire of self-preservation makes me picture everything that would put me on my guard, and therefore everything ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... somehow, and I dropped her hands, and thought of saying good-morning to the group, and returning to the farm alone, so that John might not feel himself hindered from going to breakfast as well as to dine with these new old friends of his who were so eager for his company. But before I had time to act upon the thought Mr. Hill handed Rachel into the carriage, followed her himself, and the carriage rolled away. John and I were left standing there together; I stupid, like one awakened from a dream, staring at the wheel-marks on the snow and at other signs ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... maturity to its principles. The scene which that country presents to the eye of a spectator, has something in it which generates and encourages great ideas. Nature appears to him in magnitude. The mighty objects he beholds, act upon his mind by enlarging it, and he partakes of the greatness he contemplates.—Its first settlers were emigrants from different European nations, and of diversified professions of religion, retiring from the governmental persecutions of the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... should not do right, lest I should love my ease too well, lest it should be said to me in the other world, "A great opportunity, a glorious field was opened to you, and you did not improve it,"—lest, in other words, I should not act upon considerations sufficiently high, comprehensive, and disinterested,—fit, in short, for contemplation from the future world as well ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... whatever line it may be, it is after all, living the life that tells. This is a great law that but few who would have great power and influence seem to recognize, or, at least, that but few seem to act upon. ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... indeed become the laughing-stock of Italy," he muttered, in a concentrated voice, "but I shall carry my resolve through, and my first act upon entering Roccaleone will be to hang this knave Gonzaga ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... recover, it was likely that Madame du Barri would he equally resentful, and that the confessor who should make her removal a necessary condition of his administering the sacraments of the Church to the king, and the courtiers who should support or act upon their requisition, would surely find reason to repent it. Accordingly, for the first few days of Louis's illness, she remained at Versailles; but he grew visibly worse. His daughters, who, though they had not had the disease themselves, tended his sick-bed with the most devoted and ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... driving axle is arranged to act upon another toothed wheel on a shaft connected with the regulator, so as to control its ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... we can adopt. And what is better, the use of it leaves no after bad consequences, as is too often the case with medicines, which act upon the system as poisons." ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... to Professor Hughes that, if this were so, it might be possible to cause the air-vibrations of sound to so act upon a wire conveying a current as to stretch and contract it in sympathy with themselves, so that the sound-waves would create corresponding electric waves in the current, and these electric waves, passed through a telephone connected to the wire, would cause the telephone ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... its vicinity, there were two six-pounders so placed as to command it and a small bastion close by. Within sixty yards of the gate, and commanding two cross roads, were three six-pounders, and one twenty-four pound howitzer, which could be so managed as to act upon any part of the magazine in that neighborhood. After all these guns and howitzers had been placed in the several positions above named, they were loaded with a double charge of grape. After these arrangements ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... Caesar," she said, gently disengaging herself. "I must think it over; we are both too young to act upon it rashly; it would be unfair to you, who are so quiet and have seen so few girls—I mean Americans—to tie yourself to the first one you have known. When I am gone you will go more into the world. There are Mr. Slinn's two sisters coming here—I ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... begin by being a first rate boy. When I am out here, and happen to remember any thing that has, in any way, done me good in my life time, I will tell it to you, if you will promise to try to keep it in mind and to act upon it. ...
— Charley's Museum - A Story for Young People • Unknown
... 5. If the Committee on Publication neglects to fulfil the obligations of his office according to these By-Laws, and this becomes apparent to the Christian Science Board of Directors, it shall be the duty of the Directors immediately to act upon this important matter in accordance ...
— Manual of the Mother Church - The First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts • Mary Baker Eddy
... of the late Doctor Day has been read in your presence. I presume you all heard it, and that there can be no mistake as to its purport. All that remains now is to act upon it. I shall claim the usual privilege of twelve months before administering upon the estate or paying the legacies. In the mean time, I shall assume the charge of my ward's person, and convey her to my own residence, known as the Hidden House. Mrs. Rocke," ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... well act upon Hemingway's suggestion, and find out how things were over there. And after he'd seen Vandervelde, he'd go down south and visit that tiny brown house on the cove, and the River Swamp, and Neptune's old cabin, and the cemetery alongside the Riverton Road. It seemed ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... lifetime is too brief for the accomplishment of any lofty aim?—for her oil whose feminine nature had been imposed the heavy gift of intellectual power, such as a strong man might have staggered under, and with it the necessity to act upon the world?—in a word, not to multiply instances, what better could be done for anybody who came within our magic circle than to throw the spell of a tranquil spirit over him? And when it had wrought its full effect, then we dismissed ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... exhibited an influence few men in the State have ever exercised. The convention was made up of the strongest and most independent men in the party. Nearly all had held seats in the state or national legislature, or had occupied other important office. Experience had taught them to act upon their own convictions. The delegates interested in the Chenango Valley canal were especially obstinate and formidable. "Weed," said one of them, "tell me to do anything else; tell me to jump out of the window and break my neck, and I will do it ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... in low tones. Only an occasional word was audible to the three watchers on the motor boat. It was evident that Wyckoff had been drinking and was inclined to be a trifle quarrelsome. The watchman was doing his best to restrain Wyckoff from some act upon which he seemed determined. They were using harsh words but still talked in a ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... pressed to the end of the war. If we give him no peace whilst the war lasts, the end cannot be distant. Now that we have all of Mobile Bay that is valuable, I do not know but it will be the best move to transfer Canby's troops to act upon Savannah, whilst you move on Augusta. I should like to hear from ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... suppose that numerous images present themselves to the mind, which begins to act upon them and to arrange them in various ways. Besides the impression of external objects present with us or just absent from us, we have a dimmer conception of other objects which have disappeared from our immediate recollection ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... 1677, he was taken by Lord Clarendon to Salisbury to survey the River Avon, and find out how that river might be made navigable, and also whether a safe harbour for ships could be made at Christchurch; and that having found where he thought safe anchorage might be obtained, his Lordship proceeded to act upon Yarranton's recommendations.[16] ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles |
