"Definition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Continent. When they're female they always seem to wear the wrong kind of corsets. And when they're male they watch themselves in the mirrors, or talk so much about themselves that you haven't a chance to talk about yourself—which is really the completest definition of a bore, isn't it? I'd much rather know them through their books than through those awful Sunday evening soirees where poor old leonine M—— used to perspire reading those Socialist poems of his ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... student, when asked by his instructor to define "space," said: "I have it, sir, in my head, but can not put it into words." The Instructor replied: "I suppose that under those circumstances, Mr. ——, the definition really would not help much." And so it is with contours—the definition does not help much if you know a contour when you meet it on a map. For examples of contours, turn to the map in section 2 and, starting at the United States penitentiary, note ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... term, the Logos, which is only the Greek name for I'shvara—a descent of I'shvara, uniting Himself with a human soul. With all respect for the profound learning of the lamented pandit, I cannot but think that that is only a partial definition. Probably he did not at that time desire, had not very possibly the time, to deal with case after case, having so wide a field to cover in the small number of lectures that he gave, and he therefore chose ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... and kept his unquestioned place as a chief, not by force of gold lace, banners, and salutes of trumpets and guns, but by doing things. He filled Carlyle's definition, King, Koenning, which means Can-ing, Able-man. All who are at all familiar with his character and deeds must recognise the fact that he was a man of great qualities, both of mind and character. He did not do things ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... were certain persons who could not leave life alone—they must always be seeing it as a key to something wider, bigger altogether. This was nothing to do with Christianity or any creed whatever, because Creeds implied Certainty and Definition of Knowledge, whereas Peter and the others like him did not know for what they were searching. Again, they were not Mystics because Mysticism needed a definite removal from this world before any other world were possible. No, they were simply Explorers and one traced ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... very sensibly asked for a definition of our respective duties, and it was settled that I was to be guide to the expedition; Higgs, antiquarian, interpreter, and, on account of his vast knowledge, general referee; and Captain Orme, engineer and military ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... feet pattering swiftly down the stairs. He came flying back, still laughing, and laid a heavy dictionary in my lap. I hastily turned the leaves, Pola questing in each one like an excited little dog, till I found the definition of his word, "to fall squash like a ripe ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the gate, slowly, so as to get time to think. The question surprised me and I was not prepared to give, offhand, a definition ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... will be the enthronement of the idea of public right as the governing idea of European politics." Nearly fifty years have passed. Little progress, it seems, has yet been made toward that good and beneficent change, but it seems to me to be now at this moment as good a definition as we can have of our European policy. The idea of public right; what does it mean when translated into concrete terms? It means, first and foremost, the clearing of the ground by the definite repudiation of militarism as ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... he had failed to remark what in such circumstances is too often forgotten, that the element on which he flung himself, beaten into foam against the shallows, was, according to Mr. Bremner's shrewd definition, not water, but a mixture of water and air, specifically lighter than the human body; and so at the shore, though so close at hand, he never arrived, disappearing almost at the vessel's side. "The ground was rough," said my informant, "and the sea ran mountains high; and I can scarce tell you how ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... altruism that cannot be hypnotized or modified like Knight Chick's, I fear," he muttered. "You'd have to hit it on the head—kill it with sticks! And my definition of philanthropy has always been, 'giving away something you don't want in order to get yourself advertised.' Etienne is interesting. He is the only philanthropist I have even found who will eat lard instead of butter so as to save more ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... drawing. Therefore, to the Futurist, Cubism is reactionary. What difference does it make, he asks, whether you draw a head round or square? Why draw a head at all? The Futurist denies the fundamental postulates of the art of painting. Painting has always, and by definition, represented upon a surface objects supposed to lie beyond it and to be seen through it. Futurism pretends to place the spectator inside the picture and to represent things around him or behind him as well as those in front of him. Painting has always assumed the single moment of vision, and, ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... repeated incarnation, or embodiment in flesh, of the soul or immaterial part of man's nature. The term "Metempsychosis" is frequently employed in the same sense, the definition of the latter term being: "The passage of the soul, as an immortal essence, at the death of the body, into another living body." The term "Transmigration of Souls" is sometimes employed, the term being used in the sense of "passing ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... inhabitants, or the people invested with the rights of society. Is it defined and its boundaries fixed? Who has done it? The people. But who are the people? We are as wise as we were at starting. The logicians say that the definition of idem per idem, or the same by the same, is simply no ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... to this definition of their partnership that Iris suddenly became frigid. Then she saw the ridiculous gleam of the tiny wick and blew ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... trying to be the perfect young lady according to dear mummy's definition. You should see me running baby ribbon in my lingerie and combing out the fringe on tea-napkins. Every afternoon we are 'entertained' or give an entertainment. Of course we meet the same people over and over, but truly I like the cordiality. Even the inquisitiveness ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... however, necessary for Christianity that any such view should prevail. Man, according to the old scholastic definition, is "a rational animal" (animal rationale), and his animality is distinct in nature from his rationality, though inseparably joined, during life, in one common personality. This animal body must have ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... would call attention to 1 Corinthians 11:5, which gives instructions how a woman should pray or prophesy. If a woman be instructed how to prophesy, she surely is granted the right to prophesy. The New Testament definition of "prophesy" is: "He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, exhortation and comfort." If, then, a woman be allowed to prophesy; that is, to speak unto men to edification, exhortation, and comfort, she is granted all the privileges that ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... that egoistic little bean of his. And he's suffering, I suppose, the old contest between the ancestral lust to kill and the new-born inclination to succor and preserve. That means he may some day be "a gentleman." And I've a weakness for that old Newman definition of a gentleman as one who never inflicts pain—"tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd"—conducting himself toward his enemy as if he were some day to be his friend. And ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the field or define the relation of this new science of anthropo-geography to the older sciences. It is unwise to put tight clothes on a growing child. The eventual form and scope of the science, the definition and organization of its material must evolve gradually, after long years and many efforts of many workers in the field. The eternal flux of Nature runs through anthropo-geography, and warns against precipitate or rigid conclusions. But its laws are none the less well ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... differences between an Englishman and an American, that in politics is the strongest and the most essential. I cannot here, in one paragraph, define that difference with sufficient clearness to make my definition satisfactory; but I trust that some idea of that difference may be conveyed by the general tenor of my book. The American and the Englishman are both republicans. The governments of the States and of England ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the creator's work goes out into the world. And in this act, he puts the world away. For the artist's work defines: and definition means apartness: and the average man is undefined in the social body. Here is a danger for the artist within the very essence of his artistic virtue. During the years of his apprenticeship, he has struggled to create for ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... even give us a substantial devil, but coins a strange personification of a negative. Such was not the devil, by the way, at the time of "the noblest heroism ever transacted on the earth." Such a definition of the "roaring lion," would, in those days of light and happiness, have procured its author, at the very least, a trip to Barbadoes. Even Cromwell ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Valentinian I., in 364, pass to a new man. As this is the first occasion on which the succession to the Byzantine throne comes into our review, it may be well to consider what sort of thing it was. I suppose the Caesarean succession even from the first is a hard thing to bring under any definition. Since Claudius was discovered quaking for fear behind a curtain, and dragged out to sit upon the throne which his nephew Caius had hastily vacated, after having been welcomed to it four years before with universal acclamation, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... lust, or in the frantic rush to escape the clutches, fangs, or claws of a pursuing enemy, he was obliged to fly and leap over thorny briars and bramble-bushes or hornets' nests, or plunge through swamps alive with blood-sucking insects and leeches—Ricord's definition would certainly have been inapplicable. In those days, but for the protecting double fold of the preputial envelope that protected it from the thorns and cutting grasses, the coarse bark of trees, or the stings and bites of insects, the glans penis of primitive man would have often looked ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... as difficult of definition as is poetry. It is an intimate quality of the mind, which predisposes a man to look for remote and unreal analogies and to present them gravely as if they were valid. It sees that many of the objects valued by men are illusions, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... case of the Kayans, the conception is only half-way on the road to a full anthropomorph; whereas with the Ibans the change has been completed and the hawk-god is completely anthropomorphic. Corresponding with this increased importance and definition of the anthropomorphic hawk-god, we find that for the Mans the virtue has departed out of the individual hawks, and that they are no longer consulted for omens; for the Ibans say that Singalang Burong never leaves ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... very well that the grammarians—[Nigidius, Aulus Gellius, xi. ii; Nonius, v. 80.]— distinguish betwixt an untruth and a lie, and say that to tell an untruth is to tell a thing that is false, but that we ourselves believe to be true; and that the definition of the word to lie in Latin, from which our French is taken, is to tell a thing which we know in our conscience to be untrue; and it is of this last sort of liars only that I now speak. Now, these do either wholly contrive and invent the untruths ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... interest in these Celtic folk-tales is the light they throw upon the relation of hero-tales and folk-tales (classes 2 and 3 above). Tales told of Finn of Cuchulain, and therefore coming under the definition of hero-tales, are found elsewhere told of anonymous or unknown heroes. The question is, were the folk-tales the earliest, and were they localised and applied to the heroes, or were the heroic sagas ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... great portion of such secrets as belong to the nuptial couch. There are perhaps some witty people who may take this long definition of politeness for a description of love, while in any case it is no more than a recommendation to treat your wife as you would treat the minister on whose good-will depends your promotion to the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... this day the men claim the right to kiss every woman they meet, and, strange to say, every woman expects to be kissed, and is quite offended if she is passed by without being saluted in this way, which is so much more ancient and historic than the meaningless modern one of shaking hands. This Indian definition of New Year's Day vastly amused the boys, and when in the morning Mrs Ross and Wenonah came in, they, of course, had to be saluted in the orthodox fashion. This was very agreeable, but when the Indian cook came ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... ventured on a definition;—only a few loose ideas which had been troubling me lately. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... has been said, it may be collected, that the definition of wit (which has been so often attempted, and ever unsuccessfully by many poets,) is only this: That it is a propriety of thoughts and words; or, in other terms, thoughts and words elegantly adapted to the subject. If our critics will join issue on this definition, that we may convenire ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... as he could command bade him look up and view with scorn the ragged defenders of the forts; but whence came this hail of missiles which kept him so sore? Clearly there was some element of his nature which eluded grasp and definition, a misty influence making itself felt here and there. To none of the sources upon which I have touched was it clearly traceable; in truth, it arose from them all. The man had never in his life been guilty of offence against his graver ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Bolingbroke, "a judge of the subject," says Warton, thought his "Epistle on the Characters of Women" his "masterpiece." And even with respect to the grosser passion, which takes occasionally the name of "romantic," accordingly as the degree of sentiment elevates it above the definition of love by Buffon, it may be remarked, that it does not always depend upon personal appearance, even in a woman. Madame Cottin was a plain woman, and might have been virtuous, it may be presumed, without much interruption. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... though he had been very lucid in his definition, had not got no nearer to his object; had not even yet ascertained what his own object was. This marriage would be ruinous to Greshamsbury; and yet, what was he to say against it, seeing that the ruin had been his fault, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... described as the greatest of games. I am not going to quarrel with the definition. I am going to accept it. From that point of view there is something to be said for it. As a game it can be respectable; as a business it is contemptible. Wars for profit—for gold mines, for mere extension ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... between normal and abnormal worry, and directed his efforts against the latter. Webster's definition of worry (A state of undue solicitude) obviates the necessity of deciding what degree and kind of worry is abnormal, and directs attention rather to deciding what degree of solicitude may be ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... the original Constitution, here recited, it appears that prior to the thirteenth, if not until the fourteenth, amendment, the whole power over the elective franchise, even in the choice of Federal officers, rested with the States. The Constitution contains no definition of the term "citizen," either of the United States, or of the several States, but contents itself with the provision that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States." The States were ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... our surprise: and my friend gave his definition and notion of harmonious verse, that it consisted, (the English iambic blank verse above all,) in the apt arrangement of pauses and cadences, and ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... much as good painting. He regards it in the light of an offence, and what makes it peculiarly irritating in his eyes is the difficulty of declaring it to be an immoral action; he instinctively feels that it is immoral, but somehow the crime seems to elude definition. ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... New Testament which speaks of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament as divinely inspired, gives us no definition of divine inspiration. It says, 'All Scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, tending to make the man of God perfect, thoroughly ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... conscience of LOGICAL METHOD. Not to assume several kinds of causality, so long as the attempt to get along with a single one has not been pushed to its furthest extent (to absurdity, if I may be allowed to say so): that is a morality of method which one may not repudiate nowadays—it follows "from its definition," as mathematicians say. The question is ultimately whether we really recognize the will as OPERATING, whether we believe in the causality of the will; if we do so—and fundamentally our belief IN THIS is just our belief in causality itself—we MUST make the attempt to posit hypothetically the causality ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... it had come to crawling before Mr. Kurtz, he crawled as much as the veriest savage of them all. I had no idea of the conditions, he said: these heads were the heads of rebels. I shocked him excessively by laughing. Rebels! What would be the next definition I was to hear? There had been enemies, criminals, workers—and these were rebels. Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me on their sticks. 'You don't know how such a life tries a man like Kurtz,' cried ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... everything that is coarse in expression, or doubtful in conduct. The natural tendency of this is to mark more strongly the limits of the realms of vice and virtue; and vice, as a matter of course, in order to obviate the detrimental effect which such a clear definition of her boundaries must produce, loses no opportunity of travelling over into the marches or debateable land which is left under the warden ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... the burned and the unburned areas seemed extraordinarily well defined. Bob looked closer and saw that this definition was due to a peculiar path, perhaps two yards wide. It looked as though some one had gone along there with a huge broom, sweeping as one would sweep a path in deep dust. Only in this case the broom must have been a powerful implement ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Charity is called in Parsee language, asho-dad the gift to a pious man, or the gift of piety, and the pious man, the ashavan, is by definition the worshipper ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... granted that I would bury her in the graveyard, down the valley. But I consulted with Brother Polifilo. I argued that every high mountain-top by its very nature came within the definition of consecrated ground; and after a show of reluctance he accepted the heresy, on condition I allowed him first to visit the spot chosen and recite the prayer ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... variation from previous Latin compilers is to be found in the headnotes relative to the various kinds of figures. Nor is it as thorough in handling the figures as its predecessors. It utilizes, however, the customary Greek and Latin terms and supplies a definition, but here the similarity with contemporaries and ancients ends. It is weak in amplification of examples during an age when amplification was practiced. Sherry economizes by selecting usually one example in support of a figure while contemporary cataloguers, ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... possible to make bromide negatives in the camera. They have their advantages in classes of work not requiring the finest definition, are much lighter, cheaper, more easily stored and less liable to breakage or other mishaps. They are best made on a thin, smooth paper, a soft paper being better than the hard. They are placed in the plate-holder by means of the ordinary cut ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... society, and a deep, though of course carefully concealed, satisfaction in my own little fame; which fame I foster by a gentle system of non-interference. I know that I am spoken of as "that quiet young fellow who writes those delightful little studies of society, you know;" and I live up to that definition. ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... only the salient points or sharper prominences are thus displayed, the great novelist is using his undoubted privilege of showing the large degree to which human intercourse is carried on, not by men's habits or ways at their commonest, but by the touching of their extremes. A definition of Fielding's genius has been made with some accuracy in the saying, that he shows common propensities in connection with the identical unvarnished adjuncts which are peculiar to the individual, nor could a more exquisite felicity ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... to be referred. They may, or they may not, in this or that case, follow or surpass the laws of nature, and they may do so plainly or doubtfully, but the common sense of mankind will call them miraculous; for by a miracle is popularly meant, whatever be its formal definition, an event which impresses upon the mind the immediate presence of the Moral Governor of the world. He may sometimes act through nature, sometimes beyond or against it; but those who admit the fact of such interferences, will have little difficulty ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... prostitution presents no serious problem for solution. It is, at most, they say, a necessary evil, and, at best, a beneficent institution, the bulwark of the home, the inevitable reverse of which monogamy is the obverse. "The immoral guardian of public morality," is the definition of prostitutes given by one writer, who takes the humble view of the matter, and another, taking the loftier ground, writes: "The prostitute fulfils a social mission. She is the guardian of virginal modesty, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... p. 221. In some of these declarations, supposed to be penned by Lord Falkland, is found the first regular definition of the constitution, according to our present ideas of it, that occurs in any English composition; at least any published by authority. The three species of government, monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical, are there plainly distinguished, and the English government ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... to be essentially a true lunar one, though the exact definition of each month is, to some extent, conventional, and the words of the Son of Sirach still apply ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... Literacy: definition: age 15 and over has completed five or more years of schooling total population: 89% male: 90% female: ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... transcendental vision, or the perception of beings regarded as on another plane of existence." A distinguished investigator along psychic lines, in one of her reports to the English Society for Psychical Research, has given the following definition of this term as employed by her in her reports, viz., "The word 'clairvoyant' is often used very loosely, and with widely different meanings. I denote by it a faculty of acquiring supernormally, BUT NOT BY READING THE MINDS OF PERSONS ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... is the vital element in the Atonement. In order to understand the truth about this let us return to what has already been said on the subject of sin and pursue it a little farther. I have already pointed out that sin is selfishness pure and simple, and that that definition will cover all its manifestations. There is no sin that is not selfishness, there is no selfishness that is not sin. All possible activities of the soul are between selfishness on the one hand and love on the other. If people would only ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... to understand this definition we must know exactly what is meant by 'thought,' by a 'law of thought,' by the term 'formal,' ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... to laugh at, you young rascal," he said to Bob. "I'm sure I've given you quite as good a definition as you would find in any of those 'catechisms of common things'—catechisms of conundrums, I call them—which boys and girls are made to learn by rote, like parrots, without really acquiring any sensible ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the great poet whom they jointly edited in is needless to say: and how they could read the last two lines of the third verse and commend the lady's wisdom for slighting her lover, seems a problem which defies definition. This mistake was pointed out by a friend, and corrected in a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... derived or inferred knowledge. On its objective side, reasoning may be roughly defined as a conscious transition of mind from certain facts or relations of facts to other facts or relations recognized as similar. According to this definition, a fallacy would be a hasty, unwarranted transition to new cases not identical with the old. And a good part of immediate knowledge is fundamentally the same, only that here, through the exceptional force of association and habit, the transition is too ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... all a question of one's definition of impertinence," he said. "I made certain inquiries—rather searching inquiries regarding you—that ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... need and the Great Mother—he meant the sea—provides food. We will soon go into space ourselves and meet as equals with you. We cannot tolerate what you call an 'observer,' who seems to us a spy, and not subject to our laws by your own definition. That is ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... smile reflected in countless dimples which, even when her words were those of a man's reasoning, made them seem gentle with a woman's sentiment,—"why must your road through the world be so exclusively the stony one? It is not from necessity, it can not be from taste; and whatever definition you give to genius, surely it is not your own inborn genius that dictates to you a constant exclusive adherence to the commonplace ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... alluvial action; and some of the thick beds of laterite in India may have had a similar origin. In India, however, especially in the Deccan, the term "laterite" seems to have been used too vaguely to answer the above definition. The vegetable soil in the gardens of the suburbs of Catania which was overflowed by the lava of 1669 was turned or burnt into a layer of red brick-coloured stone, or in other words, into laterite, which may now be seen supporting ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... is - Does the idea of "kind" include variability or not? and if so, how much variability? Now, "kind," or "species," as we call it, is defined nowhere in the Bible. What right have we to read our own definition into the word? - and that against the certain fact, that some "kinds" do vary, and that widely, - mankind, for instance, and the animals and plants which he domesticates. Surely that latter fact should be significant, to those who believe, as I do, that man was created in ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... probably true in essentials for all parts of China. These rites unite in incongruous confusion several orders of ideas. Pre-Buddhist Chinese notions of the life after death seem not to have included the idea of hell. The disembodied soul is honoured and comforted but without any clear definition of its status. Some representative—a person, figure, or tablet—is thought capable of giving it a temporary residence and at funeral ceremonies offerings are made to such a representative and plays performed before it. Though Buddhist language may be introduced into this ritual, its spirit is ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... "And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light certainly, their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow, that in both, man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... that, the next best thing is to be a Southerner, either by birth or descent. People who have Southern blood in their veins are very proud of it and can join a club on the strength of it; and some of them do a lot of talking about it. The definition is rather elastic—anybody whose ancestors worked on the Southern Pacific is eligible, ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... clear intimation to the reason why she had vaguely imagined or divined a remarkable character in this man. A hunter was one who killed animals for their fur, for their meat or horns, or for some lust for blood—that was Helen's definition of a hunter, and she believed it was held by the majority of people living in settled states. But the majority might be wrong. A hunter might be vastly different, and vastly more than a tracker and slayer of game. The mountain world of forest was a mystery to almost ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... Capitel in Mill's 'Utilitarianism' gelesen and das Wort happiness mehr als einmal gefunden: hatte ich eine Definition dieses vielumworbenen Wortes irgend Jemand zu geben, ich wurde sagen (I have been reading several chapters of Mill's 'Utilitarianism' to-day, and met with the word 'happiness' more than once; if I had to give anybody a definition ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... to define a horse!" said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. "Girl number twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... his teaching when the precise Hebrew expression was lacking, or when he explained difficult terms, especially technical terms of arts and crafts. The use of a French word saved him a long circumlocution. Sometimes, the laaz followed a definition or description, in a striking manner giving the meaning of the word ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... which could not be lifted out by two men without tackle came within the definition of a boulder. Thirty, or even forty, tons was no very unusual weight for these blocks of smooth, water worn quartzite. Every one, no matter how large, had to be shifted, the reason being that whatever ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... for that primitive age. The man from whom we hired it described it as "compact." The man to whom, at the end of the first month, we tried to sub-let it, characterised it as "poky." In our letters we traversed this definition. In our hearts we agreed ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... teaching of those smart gentlemen who waste reams of good paper in establishing, to their own satisfaction, that even the mathematical surface itself has thickness! In the lesson on 'perpendicular and horizontal,' the definition of perpendicular is correct; but all the developing, before and after, unfortunately confounds the perpendicular with the vertical—a bad way toward future accuracy of thought, or toward making scientific ideas, as they should be, definite as well as ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... at him with an expression of profoundest feeling. She was too little used to arguments of this sort to discern that the whole matter was involved in the definition one gave to the phrase "The best of life," and that to assume that this meant mere selfish or sensuous enjoyment, was to beg the whole question. She was carried away by the dramatic fashion in which he ended, dashing down his palette and throwing ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... this unfavourable impression. He talked on serious subjects seriously, quoted the New Testament appositely, vindicated Hammond from the charge of popery, and, by way of a decisive blow, gave the definition of a true Church from the nineteenth Article. Portland stared at him. "I am glad, Mr. Prior, to find you so good a Christian. I was afraid that you were an atheist." "An atheist, my good lord!" cried Prior. "What could lead your ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... character, founded on propriety, which neither falls short of the demands, nor overleaps the modesty of nature. Applied to execution it means that dexterous power which hides the means by which it was attained, the difficulties it has conquered." We humbly suggest, that both parts of this definition may be found where there is little grace. It is evident that the lecturer did not subscribe to any theory of lines, as per se beautiful or graceful, and altogether disregarded Hogarth's line of beauty. Had Mr Hay's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... he preferred writing "nec nunc," instead of "nec tunc;" he therefore did that which was fatal to the work that he wanted to palm off upon the world as the composition of a Roman, because a Roman would not have done this, because he could not have done it. Definition of time in reference to himself was a necessity of expression; he could not have sacrificed it for alliteration or any other trick of composition, because he would not have dreamt of changing the time in ascribing words to persons. A modern, on the other hand, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... distinguish clearly between the two, I will begin with two brief definitions. They will be expanded naturally in the course of the lecture, but I will define each of these two words in a single sentence so as to make the definition clear and brief. Spirituality is the Self-realisation of the One; psychism is the manifestation of the powers of consciousness through organised matter. Each word of that definition has its own value. We are far too apt, in our ordinary thought and talking, to limit the words "psychical," ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... dear Helen, the thing that is most essential, (you remember our friend Dumont's definition of une betise: c'est d'oublier la chose essentielle;) I forgot to tell you that the general declares he will not hear of a mere visit from you. He bids me tell you that it must be 'till death or marriage.' So, my dear friend, you ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Canada. This war will, no doubt, produce a change after English models. At present the situation here is prevented from being painful because no marching has yet been attempted, and the commanding officers permit the most generous construction in the definition of what is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... simple this definition of species may appear to be, we confidently appeal to all practical naturalists, whether zoologists, botanists, or palaeontologists, to say if, in the vast majority of cases, they know, or mean to affirm anything more of the group of animals ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... and social aspiration proper to American life is, of course, the aspiration vaguely described by the word democratic; and the actual achievement of the American nation points towards an adequate and fruitful definition of the democratic ideal. Americans are usually satisfied by a most inadequate verbal description of democracy, but their national achievement implies one which is much more comprehensive and formative. In order to be ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... indeed, treats this last mentioned symptom in merely a superficial way and dismisses it with a few cursory remarks, viz: "It may be defined a passion to possess books of which the edges have never been sheared by the binder's tools." This definition is vague and unsatisfactory. Mr. Adrian H. Joline (Diversions of a Booklover, Harper & Bros., New York, 1903,—a charming book that should be read by every book-fancier) discourses upon the subject more intelligently; he observes that the word uncut ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... as that. The people of Bristol are proverbial for their bravery; witness the Belchers, Pierce, Neate, &c. but what is called the gentry of Bristol, with a very few exceptions, are the most mean, dastardly, selfish, and cowardly of their species. Burke's definition of a Bristol merchant is truly characteristic. "He has no church but the Exchange; no Bible but his ledger; and no God but his gold!!!" Burke stood a contested election for Bristol, and represented that city many years in Parliament, and he well knew the character of the dominant ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... to arrive at a proper definition of Rationalism we should consult those authors who have given no little attention to this department of theological inquiry. Nor would we be impartial if we adduced the language of one class to the ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... I will tell you. When St. Patrick first preached the Christian faith in Ireland, before a powerful chief and his people, when he spoke of one God, and of the Trinity, the chief asked how one could be in three. St. Patrick, instead of attempting a theological definition of the faith, thought a simple image would best serve to enlighten a simple people, and stooping to the earth he plucked from the green sod a shamrock, and holding up the trefoil before them he bade them there behold one in three. The chief, struck by ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... definition was apparently satisfactory, for there was a silent interval of rubbing. Presently ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... expected, since I am upon this subject, that I should take notice of Mr. Dryden's definition of wit, which, with all the deference that is due to the judgment of so great a man, is not so properly a definition of wit as of good writing in general. Wit, as he defines it, is "a propriety of words and thoughts ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... occasion for the uprising of rebellion. Sin is an intruder, for whose presence no reason can be given. It is mysterious, unaccountable; to excuse it, is to defend it. Could excuse for it be found, or cause be shown for its existence, it would cease to be sin. Our only definition of sin is that given in the word of God; it is "the transgression of the law," it is the outworking of a principle at war with the great law of love which is the foundation of the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... The prevailing definition of study gives further proof of a very meager notion in regard to it. Frequently during the last few years I have obtained from students in college, as well as from teachers, brief statements of their idea of study. Fully nine ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... foreign policy as carried on through the regular official channel, the Foreign Office. The ground for this popular interpretation is a constitutional device which to an Englishman, if it be not offensive to say so, can only recall the well-known definition of a metaphysician as "a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... of compounds and mixtures included under this definition is very large, and they are of very different chemical composition. Among the substances that have been nitrated are:—Cellulose, under various forms, e.g., cotton, lignin, &c.; glycerine, benzene, starch, jute, sugar, phenol, wood, straw, and even such substances as treacle and ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... developing. Teachers found that what they considered to be "the simple" was not the simple to children; what they took to be "the known" was the unfamiliar to children. For instance, the "simple" in geography, in the adult sense, was the definition of an island, with which most of us began that study, and in geometry it was the point. To children of the ordinary type, both are far-away ideas, and not related to everyday experiences; "the known" in arithmetic, for example, was to teachers the previous lesson, quite regardless of the ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... reiterating in the most solemn manner his firm belief in the dogma that nothing was good which was not useful, and again detailing the persecutions which this conviction had brought upon him, was delighted that an opportunity was now afforded to gain from the lips of a distinguished philosopher a definition of what utility really was. The distinguished philosopher could not refuse so ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... year no fewer than 1,346 dwellings had actually been completed, and twelve thousand more were in various stages of construction. But he showed no enthusiasm for the suggestion that be should extend the benefits of the Acts to others besides the "working classes," and flatly declined to attempt a definition of that ambiguous term. It is believed, however, that recent experience has convinced him that builders in general and bricklayers in particular cannot properly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... papal system for what it did in the organization of the family, the definition of civil policy, the construction of the states of Europe, our praise must be limited by the recollection that the chief object of ecclesiastical policy was the aggrandizement of the Church, not the promotion ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... further over the description of faith here as to point out that it is precisely this, a description, not a definition. To quote Heb. xi. 1 as a good definition of faith is to mistake its import altogether. I have often recalled, in speech or writing, a story told me forty years ago by an Oxford friend when we were masters together ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... Cromwellian rgime and as the Cromwellian planters were still in possession, the House of Commons was to all intents and purposes Protestant. An Act of Settlement was passed whereby Catholics who could prove their "innocence" of the rebellion were to be restored, but the definition of innocence in the case was so complicated that it was hoped few Catholics, if any, would succeed in establishing their claims (1661). A Court of Claims composed of five Protestant Commissioners, was set up to examine the individual cases, but in a short time, ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... rapidity of a mushroom, and like a mushroom is withering on its rootless stalk. Are those men federalized to support the liberties of their country or to overturn them? To add to its fair fame or riot on its spoils? The name contains no defined idea. It is like John Adams's definition of a Republic, in his letter to Mr. Wythe of Virginia.(2) It is, says he, an empire of laws and not of men. But as laws may be bad as well as good, an empire of laws may be the best of all governments or the worst of all tyrannies. But John Adams is a man of paradoxical ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... opportunities of escape. I might for instance have asked for a definition of vaccination, of prophylactics and of smallpox, and thus have argued till the audience grew weary. But some God of vengeance fought upon his side, the hand of doom was over me, and a power I could not resist dragged ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... our Lord here employs the word 'belief' without any definition of what or whom it is that they were to believe. He Himself, and not certain thoughts about Him, is the true object of a man's faith. We may believe a proposition, but faith must grasp a person. Even when the person is made known to us by a proposition which we have ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... every heroic anecdote. The novels are as useful as Bibles, if they teach you the secret, that the best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or perfect understanding between sincere people. 'Tis a French definition of friendship, rien que s'entendre, good understanding. The highest compact we can make with our fellow is,—"Let there be truth between us two for evermore." That is the charm in all good novels, as it is the charm in all good histories, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... (in or out), as the definition in Chapter III states, is used to indicate a lapse of time in the action of a story without using a leader. Also, in scenes between which there is supposed to be only a very brief interval, but which nevertheless call for a definite break of thought, the ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... at the point of view of a /S/a@nkara, I am startled at the outset by the second Sutra of the first adhyaya, which undertakes to give a definition of Brahman. 'Brahman is that whence the origination and so on (i.e. the sustentation and reabsorption) of this world proceed.' What, we must ask, is this Sutra meant to define?—That Brahman, we are inclined ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... expression of his satisfaction with those two of my operas which had been performed in Dresden. He expressed with polite hesitation his feeling that if my operas left anything to be desired, it was a clearer definition of the various characters in my musical dramas. He thought the interest in the persons was overpowered by the elemental forces figuring beside them—in Hienzi the mob, in the Fliegender Hollander the sea. I thought I understood ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Characters follow the 8-bit ISO 8859/1 Latin-1 character set. ASCII is a proper subset of this character set, so any "Plain ASCII" file meets ths criterion by definition. The extension to ISO 8859/1 is required so that Etexts which include the accented characters used by Western European languages may continue to be "readable ...
— People of Africa • Edith A. How
... A modern poet's definition of poetry as "the heat and height of sane emotion" would have been unintelligible to Boileau. Deficient in imagination, he always saw life on its material side, and was irritated by any display of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... "Glossary of Architecture," gives the following definition of the miserere, patience or pretella. "The projecting bracket on the underside of the seats of stalls in churches; these, when perfect, are fixed with hinges so they may be turned up, and when this is done the projection of the miserere is sufficient, without actually forming a seat, ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... about in her mind to find a definition, when it occurs to her that it is easier to point out the substantial object itself, massive against the dark-blue sky and ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... for a nautical dictionary, and quite defeat the purpose of the book. The author's technical vocabulary, even when most bewildering, serves to give force and the vividness of local color to his descriptions. To pause in the midst of a storm at sea for comment and definition would result merely in checking the movement of the story and putting a damper upon ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... on his own immortality, as all men of genius probably do at one time or another. Afterwards, the poem in which he does so, is interesting, not only for this reason, but because it contains implicitly a definition and a defence of the author's achievement in literature. The poem is too long to quote in full, but the first three verses will be sufficient to illustrate ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... do not know any definition of purity, you know enough to begin to be pure. You do not know what a man is, but you know how to make his acquaintance—perhaps even how to gain his friendship. Your brain does not know what purity is; your heart has some acquaintance with purity itself. Your brain in ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... freeman is peculiar to British corporations, and that we have it not in the charters and constitutions of Pennsylvania. The laws agreed upon in England in May 1682, use the word in this specific sense, and even furnish a definition of it: 'Every inhabitant of the said province that is, or shall be, a purchaser of one hundred acres of land or upwards, his heirs or assigns, and every person who shall have paid his passage, and shall ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... all the way from Millbrook to Spotswood, corresponds to the mathematical definition of a straight line. It forms the third concession of the township, and there is not a curve in it anywhere. The concessions number from west to east, and the sidelines, running at right angles to them are exactly two miles apart. At the northwestern angle formed by the intersection of the ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... still to ask: How speedy? At what degree of speed; in what particular points of this variable course, which varies in velocity, but can never stop till Time itself stops, does revolution begin and end; cease to be ordinary mutation, and again become such? It is a thing that will depend on definition ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... ourselves, which makes for righteousness," and in the love of God and of our neighbor, will steadily grow stronger and stronger, not only in the American institutions of learning but in the world at large. Thus may the declaration of Micah as to the requirements of Jehovah, the definition by St. James of "pure religion and undefiled," and, above all, the precepts and ideals of the blessed Founder of Christianity himself, be brought to bear more and more effectively ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... are perfectly free, and their transport by the mails is nearly so; and this is because our government, that is to say, the people, consider newspapers one of the necessaries of a Yankee's life. In the definition of a New-England man, you should always insert that he is "a go to meeting animal, and a newspaper reading animal!" The sums which we poor prisoners paid for one English newspaper a year, would have paid the annual board of a man in the interior of our own plentiful ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... source from which these sums are derived is taxation. Taxes have been defined to be "the legally determined and legally collected contributions of individuals for meeting the necessary and general expenses of the State."[1] In the large majority of cases this is a good definition, but in a few instances it is too narrow. There are some taxes that are levied not primarily for the purpose of raising an income to meet the expenses of the government, but to subserve some other purpose. For instance, the maintenance of ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... life. Mr. Stephen has no right to them. If he has, he must be able to draw a hard and fast line between them; for if his conceptions of them be 'vague in outline' and 'unsubstantial,' they belong by his own express definition to the land of dreams. But this is what Mr. Stephen, with the solemn imbecility of his school, is quite incapable of seeing. Professor Huxley is in exactly the same case. He says, as we have seen already, that, come what may of it, our highest ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... in propria persona, called upon a Southern student one morning in the recitation-room to define logic. The question was something in this form. "Mr. ——, what is logic?" Ans. "Logic, Sir, is the art of reasoning." "Ay; but I wish you to give the definition in the exact words of the learned author." "O, Sir, he gives a very long, intricate, confused definition, with which I did not think proper to burden my memory." "Are you aware who the learned author is?" "O, yes! ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... men, seems to have been much more debated than the question what is the nature of justice whatever its origin or foundation. Yet some attempts, other than those attributed to Socrates, have been made of old to give a definition of justice. The earliest description I have found is that of the early Pythagoreans, who, in accordance with their practise of symbolizing the virtues by geometrical figures, designated justice by the square, and the just man by the cube. Plato seems to have ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... English meaning, "affect" is used by White to mean "mode" or "modification" ("affection") as well. In the circumstances, therefore, I thought it advisable to change "affect" to "emotion" and "affection" to "modification" or "mode." I also corrected White's translation of the Definition of Attribute by deleting the word "if." In spite of the need for these changes, it was desirable to use White's translation because it is the most accurate and ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... N.Y. Zoological, see Zoological Society. South America. South Carolina deer killed in almost hopeless condition of private preserves in. South Dakota few laws needed by. Sparrow pest. Sparrows consume weed-seeds. Spoonbill, Roseate. Sportsman, case of a character of true definition of a. Sportsman's Platform. Sportsman's Review. Sports Afield. Sprague, John P. Spruce Woods Game Preserve. Squirrel, fox, extinct in New York; gray, in danger, red, as bird destroyer Squirrels killed in Louisiana Standard-Union, Brooklyn Stanford, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday |
