"Impotently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... immeasurably, as with the educated, things of the mind are stronger than things of the body. Those who deny this are fools, or imposters,—I know not which. To do so is to strike at the very foundation of human nature,—but impotently,—for in fundamentals, human nature is good." Unconsciously, a smile flashed over the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... anger and despair stormed through her veins again with yet greater violence, but this time George Goring was forgotten and all its waves broke impotently against that adversary whose diabolical power she was so impotent to resist, who might return to-morrow, to-day for aught ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... or to despise. He was not a frothy orator who made his appeal to the masses, but the leader of the trained thinkers of the revolutionary party, a political rebel who, instead of fulminating wildly and impotently after the manner of his kind, expressed his theories in clear, reasonable and logical form. It is easy, but unprofitable, to sneer at the futility of some of Godwin's conclusions or to complain of the aridity of his style. His ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... rang and muffled by the fog a voice proclaimed itself—a voice which I knew. I felt Weymouth writhing impotently beside me; heard him mumbling incoherently; and I knew that he, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had returned to their game. Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of chips mingled with the drunken snores of ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... never anticipated. Bruce Carmyle seemed to be creeping into her life like an advancing tide. There appeared to be no eluding him. Wherever she turned, there he was, and she could do nothing but rage impotently. The situation ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... inverted Bowl we call The Sky, Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die, Lift not thy hands to It for help—for It Rolls impotently on as ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... innumerable multitude which swayed to and fro like the tempest tossed waves of ocean; the main body continued for hours, loading the air with hoarse murmurs or angry shouts; detachments breaking off from time to time to rush with frantic speed and hurl themselves successively but impotently upon the iron doors and stone walls of the Station House ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... voice and pen, he was incessantly busy in personal rescue of the slave. Especially was this the case when it became the duty of every lover of his kind to defy the Fugitive Slave Law. How eagerly he then sprang to aid the escape of those against whom a law of the land impotently tried to bar the law of our common humanity! During the years that followed the passage of this infamous bill, the position he had attained here was of particular service. Recognized as one, who, being ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... she awoke, shivering and half-sobbing, to feel herself the loneliest of little mortals—to long impotently for her father's touch, her father's kiss,—to pray to that dimly-radiant phantom of her mother's loveliness which was pictured on her brain, and anon to stretch out her pretty rounded arms with a soft cry of mingled tenderness and pain—"Oh, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... devil that you spirit away great herds like this. Across the keg, I know, but how—how? Twenty thousand! My God, you'll swing for this night's work," he went on impotently. "The whole countryside will be after you. I am not the man to sit down quietly under such handling. If I spend every cent I'm possessed of, you shall be hounded down until you dare not show your face on this side of ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... cause is black, In puling prose and rhyme, Talk hatefully of love, and tack Hypocrisy to crime; Who smile and smite, engross the gorge Or impotently frown; And call us "rebels" with King George, As if they wore ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... and only a jug of water and some weevily biscuit to save him from starvation. All through the day and during the long, long hours of the awful night, in pain and suffering from his lopped-off limb and bruises, had he lain on his hard bed with clenched hands, blaspheming and impotently raging in his agony and despair. No prayer, however, dawned in his ruthless heart, or was breathed from his brutal lips; but curses upon curses came thick and fast, till his tongue refused to give them utterance, and he fell back in utter exhaustion. As the noise, however, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... thought of making stand. Just in the nick of time he sprang aside in a bound that carried him a full thirty feet. Another such, another and another, and then he went capering off frivolously down the woody aisles, while the bear lumbered impotently after him. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of indignation, rather than a mere glance from the human eye, that Mr. Hargrove threw instantly upon Frank; while his fine form sprung up erect. He did not speak, but merely transfixed him with a look. Frank curled his lip impotently, as he tried to return the old ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... confessed that I liked to cheat the railway company, and I excused it on the ground that "a ten-mile journey without a ticket is the only romantic experience left in a drab world." That was a delightful bit of rationalisation. The real reason for my delinquency lay in my unconscious. As a child I impotently rebelled against the authority of parents and teachers. Later in life I unconsciously identified the railway company with the authorities of my infancy. Authority said: "Don't do that or you will be smacked"; the railway company put up a notice saying: "Don't travel without a ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... Republics were Military and aggressive only because they tolerated and cherished Human Slavery; and it is this which recently fomented hostilities between the two Republics of North America, and now impotently threatens the internal peace of our own. Liberty, if thorough and consistent, always did and must incline to Peace; while Despotism, being founded in and only maintainable by Force, inevitably fosters ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... into the wonderful glowing twilight. There was no need for the sun in the steely glittering heavens. The full moonlight of the lower latitudes was incomparable with the Arctic night. From end to end in a great arc the aurora lit the world, and left the stars blazing impotently. The cold was at its lowest depths, and not a breath of wind stirred the air. Up to the eyes in furs the two figures moved out beyond the stockade into ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... presidential piety. Having thus acknowledged the only power he was at all disposed to recognize as above himself, he would scatter acts of political grace in a sardonic wantonness of clemency. There was no other way left now to enjoy his power but by seeing his crushed adversaries crawl impotently into the light of day out of the dark, noisome cells of the Collegio. Their harmlessness fed his insatiable vanity, and they could always be got hold of again. It was the rule for all the women of their families to present thanks afterwards ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... they were like barbarians, cursing impotently the man lying with a white face shining in the moonlight. They had expected to pay a debt of vengeance and to win a fortune at the same stroke. The latter they had missed. The disappointment of their loss stripped them to stark primeval savagery. ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... fury which convulsed her face, effectually terrified me, and disengaging myself from her grasp, I screamed as loud as I could for help. The blind woman continued to pour out a torrent of abuse upon me, foaming at the mouth with rage, and impotently shaking her ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... pretty, lively scene. For background the long straggling town; in the foreground the motley groups of bathers, the far-reaching smooth surface of the lake; and, beyond, the broad Atlantic, thundering impotently upon the barricade of sandhills that makes possible the ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... great intrigues of the world have a yoke upon their necks and cannot look back. And he that covets many things greedily and snatches at high things ambitiously that despises his neighbor proudly and bears his crosses peevishly or his prosperity impotently and passionately he that is a prodigal of his precious time and is tenacious and retentive of evil purposes is not a man disposed to this exercise: he hath reason to be afraid of his own memory and to dash his glass in pieces ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... to Mr Graybody. He simply was willing to shuffle off his mortal coil, because he found it uncomfortable in the wearing. In all likelihood, had his time come as nigh as that of Crasweller, he too, like Crasweller, would impotently implore the grace of another year. He would ape madness like Barnes, or arm himself with a carving-knife like Tallowax, or swear that there was a flaw in the law, as Exors was disposed to do. He too would clamorously swear that he was much younger, as did the old women. ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... impotently roving glance fell upon Simon Cameron. And into his sullen face leaped stark terror. At sight of it, Gavin Brice hit on a new idea for wringing speech ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... impotently in his retirement at Friedrichsruh, and by every loud and insulting means in his power—by voice, pen, by special interviews, in his private letters, in his telegraphic dispatches, in his talks with the old friends or ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel |
