"Impotency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... us sum up in a few words the practical or theoretical ideas we have endeavored to place in relief in this episode of a prison life. We shall esteem ourselves very happy if we have shown the insufficiency, the impotency, and the danger of imprisonment in common. The disproportion which exists between the appreciation and punishment of certain crimes, and those of certain other offenses. And, finally, the material impossibility for the poorer classes to enjoy the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... with rage and a sense of impotency. She felt her words and all her arts of pleasing were being nullified, and that she was up against an odious situation in which her strongest weapons were powerless. It made her nervous and very cross. She particularly resented not being able to ascertain the cause of the change in him, ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... Idols of the Tribe, the Idols of the Palace, the Idols of the Cave, and the Idols of the Theatre. That these four, added to the incapacity of the mind and the vanity and malignity of the affections, leave nothing but impotency and confusion. A recital of the particular kinds of these four Idols, with some chosen examples of the opinions they have begot, such of them as have supplanted the state of ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... frightened sheep, riding incessantly round them and forcing back every beast that looks as though it might extricate itself from the tangle, and galloping after any that do escape with screams of anxiety and impotency. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the deformed, the insane; go out into the by-lanes and dens of this vast metropolis, and contemplate that reeking mass of depravity; pause before the terrible revelations made by statistics, of the rapid increase of all this moral and physical impotency, and learn how fearful a thing it is to violate the immutable laws of the beneficent Ruler of the universe; and there behold the terrible retributions of your violence on woman! Learn how false and cruel are those ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... state of degradation and impotency into which have fallen Syria, and that vast Peninsula which extends westward of the Euphrates, after having occupied so proud a place in the page of history, from the earliest traditionary periods ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... no means reduced to impotency. On the 15th September we saw them shoot down in flames six of our sausage balloons, all on the sector in front of us and apparently without loss to himself. On other days we saw more of our balloons coming ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... February, 1917, what China had been doing was not really to maintain her neutrality, since she had been unable to defend her territory from being made a common battleground in 1914: she had been engaged in guarding and perpetuating her traditional impotency. For whilst it may be accurate to declare—a fact which few Westerners have realized—that to the mass of the Chinese nation the various members of the European Family are undistinguishable from one another, there being little to choose in China between a Russian or a German, ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... schemes that advertise a speedy cure for "Loss of Youth," "Lost Vitality," "A Cure for Impotency," "Renewing of Old Age," etc. Do not allow these circulating pamphlets and circulars to concern you the least. If you have a few Nocturnal Emissions, remember it is only a mark of vitality and health, and not a sign of a deathly disease, as many of these advertising ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... degree of temper that shocked me,—shocked me in one so young. On that occasion he turned very red in the face,—he was quite red before,—doubled up his ridiculous hands in the most threatening manner, and finally, in the impotency of rage, punched himself in the eye. When I think of the life he led his mother and Susan during the first eighteen months after his arrival, I shrink from the responsibility of allowing Johnny to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... two men stared at each other in blank impotency. Meantime the scarecrow was showing signs of returning consciousness and a message was dispatched for the physician. On his way he met Barnett, who asked and received permission to accompany him. The stranger was tossing restlessly in his bunk, opening and ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... secretary the truth flashed upon me. I realized I was completely in his power, and with a sense of my own impotency my rage and hatred increased. Forgetful of the weapon in his hand and almost blind with fury, I sprang towards him, intending to throttle him—to strangle him—until he should plead for mercy. Instantly he raised the revolver in warning, but not before I had seized his wrist, turning the weapon ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... in full retreat on Mouzon by that time, as was indicated by the sound of the firing, which was receding more and more to the eastward, as a deadly hurricane moves off after having accomplished its disastrous work. With a fierce gesture, expressive of his sense of impotency, General Douay outstretched his arms toward the wide horizon of hill and dale, of woods and fields, and the order went forth to proceed with ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... midnight was the message sent— It was an awful hour, Proclaiming man's impotency And ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... Neely they wheel back here after the operation." He motioned for her to bend closer for the sound of his voice was becoming weaker. "In my field I've seen a lot of crazy reactions to loss of basic ability. Personality reversals brought about by loss of hearing, impotency, or even the inability to bear a child." He stroked the back of her hand with his finger. "Bart Neely without a voice-box might be a stranger. I'm not sure you'd like him. I don't think I'd even ...
— The Alternate Plan • Gerry Maddren
... corpses of truths; and statements are to be found in every stage of approach to this final condition. Every time there is an impotency or unreality in their enunciation, they are borne a step nearer the sepulchre. If the smirking politician, who wishes to delude me into voting for him, bid me his bland "Good-morning," not only does he draw a film of eclipse ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... regard to morality, Augustine showed that the gods were no examples to follow. He ridicules their morals and their offices as severely as he points out their impotency to bestow happiness. He shows the absurdity and inconsistency of tolerating players in their delineation of the vices and follies of deities for the amusement of the people in the theatre, while the priests performed the same obscenities as religious rites in the temples which were upheld ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... from him; all things in a gospel sense; all things comparatively to other men, and to himself, when he was another man. See, I beseech you, how without a Christ, and thro' a Christ, makes one man differ from another; yea, and from himself, as much as can and cannot; all things and nothing; impotency and omnipotency, "Without me ye can do nothing." "Through Christ I can do all things." If therefore you would make a covenant with Eternity to eternity, study Christ more than ever, labour to "know nothing but ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... out with bent head and a gloomy expression on his face. At that moment he felt all the impotency of youth against age, influence, and authority. He felt that the fetters of the patriarchial organisation of his family were growing heavy on him. And the mere thought of that small, thin, trembling woman's hand, which had shielded him from a rough act of force, caused a touching smile of ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... invitin'!" But the lack of vitality was not in the landlord, but in the guests. The regular customers were disappointed, vacant, hopeless men, who gathered listlessly on the veranda, and talked vaguely of the past. Their hollow-eyed, feeble impotency affected the stranger, even as it checked all ambition among themselves. Do what Jeff might, the habits of the locality were stronger than his individuality; the dead ghosts of the past Campville held their property ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... bowl, as though one could not drink too deeply of the elixir of life. Gerry ate ravenously and sipped the coffee, at first sparingly, then greedily.... Gerry set down the empty bowl with a sigh. The rusks had been delicious. Before the coffee the name of nectar dwindled to impotency. Its elixir rioted in ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... book,—which I should have seen at all events be sure, whether you had sent it or not. Should I not, do you think? And considering what the present generation of critics really is, the remarks on you may stand, although it is the dreariest impotency to complain of the want of flesh and blood and of human sympathy in general. Yet suffer them to say on—it is the stamp on the critical knife. There must be something eminently stupid, or farewell criticdom! And if anything more utterly ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... at once declared that this striking magnanimity of his at this time was due to the calumnies of Antony and of Lepidus and was intended to lay the blame of former unjust behavior upon them alone. Others said that since he was unable in any way to collect the debts he made of the people's impotency a favor that cost him nothing. In spite of this various talk that gained currency in different quarters they now resolved that a house be presented to him from the public treasury. He had made the place on the Palatine which he had bought to erect a structure public ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... Some talk of a sister of Denmark; others of a good virtuous Protestant here at home. The King disavows it; yet he has sayed in publick, he knew not why a woman may not be divorced for barrenness, as a man for impotency. The Lord Barclay went on Monday last for Ireland, the King to Newmarket. God keep, and increase ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... surrounded by the soldiers who are distributed in the missions, in order to add more effect to the counsels of the monks; and those Indians who were not entirely satisfied with respect to the consequences of the dance, and the impotency of the evil spirit, were brought to the festivity. The oldest and most timid of the Indians, however, imbued all the rest with a superstitious dread; all resolved to flee al monte, and the missionary adjourned his project ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... advising the Earl of Somerset in the dark business of his divorce and re-marriage. And, in a mournful pause in the midst of many harrowing concerns, he writes to a friend: 'When I must shipwreck, I would fain do it in a sea where mine own impotency might have some excuse; not in a sullen, weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming. Therefore I would fain do something, but that I cannot tell what is no wonder.' 'Though I be ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... of a dying man! The dimmed eye of the dying father saw his son Napoleon's sword, "which one day was to triumph over all Europe;" as he prophesied its power, he sighed at the same time over the impotency which holds all mankind in its bands, and leaves even the hero as a powerless child in the hands of fate. The sword which was to be a yoke to all Europe could not terrify from the breast of his father the ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... pretext of chatting with them, found means to poison my food. The unfortunate kahuna died fully persuaded that I was a more powerful sorcerer than he. It was to be feared that, when he discovered his impotency, he would intrust the execution of his designs to his fellows, as is common among sorcerers; but his suicide fortunately removed this sword of Damocles which hung over ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... veterinarian and his prescriptions were probably genuine, but whether he authorized their sale by proprietary manufacturers or was himself rewarded in any way are questions for speculation. The versatile Dr. Larzetti seems to have experimented both with impotency and deafness, but his ear oil—a number of specimens of which were still on hand in the abandoned factory—was identical in every respect with Dr. McNair's oil, as the labels and directions, aside only from the names of the doctors, were exactly ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... to this. Of all the subjects naturally under the church's supervision, there is not one in which her influence is less than in this. She neither represses nor regulates. One of two courses she must pursue if she would escape the stigma of impotency. Either she must reassert her old dogmas, and back them by the severest discipline, or she must modify them, and openly commit herself to a larger liberty. Is she prepared for the first of these courses? Is she prepared, first of all, to defend it ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... the flight, scarce commanded himself sufficiently to maintain that air of firmness which was exacted by discipline and professional pride. But there was no other show of military force, for the politic power which ruled in Venice, knew too well its momentary impotency, to irritate when it could not quell. The mob beneath was composed of nameless rioters, whose punishment could carry no other consequences than the suppression of immediate danger, and for that, those who ruled ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... useful Jurisconsult; distinguished Paine, the rebellious Needleman;—some of whom may be chosen. As is most fit; for a Convention of this kind. In a word, Seven Hundred and Forty-five unshackled sovereigns, admired of the universe, shall replace this hapless impotency of a Legislative,—out of which, it is likely, the best members, and the Mountain in mass, may be re-elected. Roland is getting ready the Salles des Cent Suisses, as preliminary rendezvous for them; in that void Palace ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... rising, would look upon a sea of floating dead. Jeb had not noticed the sun. His face was lowered close to the planking of their frail refuge. The ocean had again become a thing of peace and beauty—and silence. Those who were on upturned boats had realized the impotency of screaming, and merely clung with dogged tenacity; those who had been too much lacerated to reach these places of imperfect shelter, had yielded to the cradling waves and were now asleep. Thus the minutes dragged. Then the sergeant ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... which all objects melted, but my right eye was quite bereft of sight. It was the coma of my whole being, as if a thunderbolt had struck me. My will was annihilated; not a fiber of flesh obeyed my bidding. And yet amid the impotency of my inert limbs my thoughts subsisted, sluggish and lazy, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... that a nation which can dig a canal 150 feet wide through a mountain some seven miles in length admits its impotence if it can not dig one 300 feet wide, or 600 feet, if it should please to do so? But why should it be less difficult or a declaration of impotency on the part of our engineers to build a safe lock canal including a satisfactory and safe controlling dam at Gatun? As I conceive the problem, it is one of reasonable compromise, and while I do not question the ability of American engineers and contractors to ...
— The American Type of Isthmian Canal - Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the - United States, June 14, 1906 • John Fairfield Dryden
... could only be used against one life at a time. He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers. He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... end,—to frame and fashion thy soul to an union and communion with him in love; if it do not discover thyself unto thyself, that in that light of God's glorious majesty thou mayest distinctly behold thy own vileness and wretched misery, thy darkness and deadness and utter impotency. The angels that Isaiah saw attending God in the temple, had wings covering their faces, and wings covering their feet. Those excellent spirits who must cover their feet from us, because we cannot behold their glory, as Moses behoved to be veiled, yet they cannot behold his glory, but must cover ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... cause of infertility, as with other fruits, is the impotency of pollen on the pistils of the same variety. There are a few cases in which pollen does not seem to be formed abundantly, but these are very few. There are a few cases, also, in which the pistil does ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... law might crumble under our hands piece by piece. What we are now contending for in this matter is the very essence of the things that have made America a sovereign nation. She cannot yield them without conceding her own impotency as a Nation and making virtual surrender of her independent position among the nations of the world." This definite enunciation was in effect an appeal to the American people, which came as a relief to those who had suffered ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... indeed in this sense it may be esteemed as a good, yea, as the greatest good, which satisfies the anger of Heaven, and averts that wrath which cannot continue without our destruction. Thirdly, our impotency of relieving ourselves demonstrates the folly and absurdity of our complaints: for whom do we resist, or against whom do we complain, but a power from whose shafts no armour can guard us, no speed ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... not always follow intercourse of the male and female. Impotency in the male and sterility in the ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... which forces me to return to the rule. That fixed and immutable rule is so inward and intimate, that I am tempted to take it for myself. But it is above me, since it corrects and rectifies me; gives me a distrust of myself, and makes me sensible of my impotency. It is something that inspires me every moment, provided I hearken to it, and I never err or mistake except when I am not attentive to it. What inspires me would for ever preserve me from error, if I were docile, and acted without precipitation; for that inward inspiration would teach ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... effect both upon their mind and character. "Multifarious reading," said Robertson of Brighton, "weakens the mind like smoking, and is an excuse for its lying dormant. It is the idlest of all idlenesses, and leaves more of impotency than any other." ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... creature's myself. There are also bars and circles and splashes of various colors, dark and bright. Sometimes it dreams of wings—wings of an archangel, no less, Warburton! The next moment there seems to be an impotency to produce even beetle wings!... What a weathercock and variorum I am, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... ignorance in these professions than to show his knowledge. This Boswell owned he had found to be true.' European Magazine, 1798, p. 376. Boswell wrote to Temple in 1775:—'You are very kind in saying that I may overtake you in learning. Believe me though that I have a kind of impotency of study.' Letters ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... consciousness that the narrow-gauge folks were giving him a raw deal on that dynamite matter. They had hauled plenty of explosive for the Comas—for Craig. To admit at the outset of his career on the Noda that he could not get what the Three C's folks were getting—to advertise his impotency by making a twenty-mile tote trip over slushy and rutted roads—was a mighty poor send-off as a boss, he told himself. He knew what sort of ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... cleared himself from the crowd. He gave vent to a groan of despair; he lifted his strong arms in impotency. Then he turned ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... his mind. It almost seemed that Lillian had brought him there to prove that she had finished with him—had cast him aside, having used him for the day's excitement as she had used her poodles, her Persian cats, her crystal-gazing. All at once the impotency and uncertainty of his position goaded him. Turning swiftly in his seat, he glanced back to where she sat, slowly swaying her fan, her pale, golden hair and her pale-colored gown delicately silhouetted against ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... towards which they had long been groping; these could agree with him without an effort. A few had reached his stand-point before they knew him, and hailed with rapture the leader who, unlike themselves, was not kept back by either dread of novel-sounding terms or by the impotency of private station. But here and there he met Catholics as dead-set against him as the Judaizing converts had been against his patron, St. Paul. Their only love was for antiquity, and that they loved passionately and in all its forms, even the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... marriage is annulled on account of the consanguinity or affinity of the parties, or because of impotency, the issue shall be illegitimate, but when on account of non-age, or insanity, or idiocy, the issue is the legitimate issue of the party capable of contracting ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... part of Pennsylvania itself were conforming themselves to the acts of excise, a few counties were resolved to frustrate them. It is now perceived that every expectation from the tenderness which had been hitherto pursued was unavailing, and that further delay could only create an opinion of impotency or irresolution in the Government. Legal process was therefore delivered to the marshal against the rioters and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... a poor farmer, or the assassin would have been hung. He is now brooding over revenge; the law gave not justice, he will take it into his own hands, and he will probably have it to-night, or to-morrow. Injustice causes crime, and ninety-nine out of a hundred are forced into it by the impotency of the law; they suffer once, and afterwards act towards others as they have been acted by. That man may have been till this day a good, industrious, and hospitable farmer; to-night he will be a murderer, in a week he will have ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... yet entirely lost, with the people, that popularity which swept him, on so triumphant a billow, again into the office of Minister of the Interior, now, conscious of his utter impotency, presented to the Assembly his resignation of power which was merely nominal. Great efforts had for some time been made, by his adversaries, to turn the tide of popular hatred against him, and especially ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Seventh, The impotency and limitations of the world order are most evident. Its leader, though mighty, is inferior to Christ: "Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... zest which remains for the reading by telling here all the ingenious but reasonable complications which beset this man, how love withers under the unseen blight, how rest forsakes him, how success becomes a satire, and how the impervious will sinks into impotency when beset by intangible and inscrutable forces. It is enough to point out that in this book the author has planted his characters upon an elemental truth, and something of the efficacy of that truth gives a strange fascination and power ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... abolished. Only the great powers of morality are vital enough, are dynamic and powerful enough, to carry out our peace program. These forces lie dormant, and simply need stimulation and development. Recognizing the impotency of appeals to economy and to reason, what ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association |
