"Oscillate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the aspect of Venus due to her varying positions in her orbit are not confined to those which cause her to oscillate with a pendulum movement eastward and westward from the sun. The discovery that she undergoes phases exactly like those of the moon, followed that of the existence of Jupiter's satellites as the second great result ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... indication that the repast was finished, Fougas arose without difficulty, gracefully offered his arm, and conducted his partner to the parlor. His gait was a little stiff and oppressively regular, but he went straight ahead, and did not oscillate the least bit. He took a couple of cups of coffee, and spirits in moderation, after which he began to talk in the most reasonable manner in the world. About ten o'clock, M. Martout, having expressed a wish to hear his history, he placed himself on ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... imitation and recitation of the French oscillate between two opposite extremes, the first of which is occasioned by the prevailing tone of the piece, while the second seems rather to be at variance with it,— between measured formality and extravagant boisterousness. The first might formerly preponderate, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... and a tendency to become foul after a few shots. A short light rifle, whether with a large or a small bore, is, I believe, utterly worthless. In the hands of a man trembling with running and with exhaustion, it shakes like a wand: the shorter the rifle, the more quickly does it oscillate, and of course, in the same proportion, is it difficult to catch the exact moment when the ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... basis of a legal principle, I would endeavour to fix that mercury by a positive law. If to please an administration the judges can go one way to-day, and to please the crowd they can go another to-morrow; if they will oscillate backward and forward between power and popularity, it is high time to fix the law in such a manner as to resemble, as it ought, the great Author of all law, in "whom there is no variableness nor shadow ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... be free from the faults of the other. It may be described as being the reverse of that of Garnerin, being made in the form of an umbrella blown inside out. The resistance to the air, it was thought, would be sufficient to check the rapid descent, while its form would prevent the tendency to oscillate. ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... villages had Carnations as large as Dahlias flung at us by sunburnt urchins posted at their several doors. The sandy shore for many miles is beautifully notched in upon by tiny bays like basins, on which boats lie motionless and baking in the sun, or oscillate under a picturesque rock, immersed up to its shoulders in a green hyaloid, which reflects their forms from a depth of many fathoms. On more open stretches of the shore, long-drawn ripples of waves ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... own minds, or, in other words, whether there are any reasons or external considerations by which the mind guides itself in its decisions on matters of conduct. Do our moral opinions merely vary, or do they grow? Is there any progress to be traced in morality, or does it simply oscillate, within certain limits, round a fixed point? If some 'simple' and 'innate' idea of right, or some universal sense, were the test of morality, then we might expect that the moral decisions of all men would be uniform, or, at least, approximately uniform; if, on the ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... firelight, play the humble rural tunes on the fiddle to my happy children, and bask in the smiles of my sweet wife, than to be the 'archangel of war,' with my hands stained with human blood, or to make the 'frontiers of kingdoms oscillate on the map of the world, and then, away from home and kindred and country, die at last in exile and ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... denudation by rain. Whether any further rise is caused by elevation from below is doubtful; there is no direct evidence of it, though slight earthquakes annually occur; and even when they have not been felt, the water of tanks has been seen to oscillate for three-quarters of an hour without intermission, from no discernible cause.* [The natives are familiar with this phenomenon, of which Dr. Baker remembers two instances, one in the cold season of 1834-5, the other in that ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of mankind, who are little addicted to speculative inquiry, or to serious thought of any kind, it may be safely affirmed that, in the absence of Revelation, they will inevitably fall into one or other of these two extremes, or rather, that they will oscillate alternately between the two,—in seasons of ease and prosperity living "without God in the world," and in seasons of distress or danger betaking themselves for relief to the rites of a superstitious worship. The apostle describes at once ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... Leaf to insinuate, "fashion" has really nothing to do with the question. People who disbelieve in written texts must, and do, oscillate between the theory of an Homeric "school" and the Wolfian theory that Pisistratus, or Solon, or somebody procured the making of the first written text at Athens in the sixth century—a theory which fails to account ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... center of the pendulum. The plane of the oscillations remains fixed, but the Earth revolves beneath, from West to East. The fundamental principle of this experiment is that the plane in which any pendulum is made to oscillate remains invariable even when the point of suspension is turned. This demonstration enables us in some measure to see the Earth ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... research, but must one go into such minutiae in order to teach singing? I think the answer must ever be in the negative. You might as well talk to a gold-fish in a bowl-and say: 'If you desire to proceed laterally to the right, kindly oscillate gently your sinister dorsal fin, and you will achieve the desired result.' Oh, Art, what sins are committed ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... for consummate folly as for consummate success. Adopting such maxims, we can enjoy 'Coningsby' throughout; for we need not care whether we are laughing at the author or with him. We may heartily enjoy his admirable flashes of wit, and, when he takes a serious tone, may oscillate agreeably between the beliefs that he is in solemn earnest, or in his bitterest humour; only we must not quite forget that the farce has a touch in it of tragedy, and that there is a real mystery somewhere. Satire, pure and simple, becomes wearisome. If a latent sense ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... a tempest there passes through the forests a terrible gust of wind which makes the trees shudder, to which profound silence succeeds, so had Napoleon, in passing, shaken the world; kings felt their crowns oscillate in the storm, and, raising hands to steady them, found only their hair, bristling with terror. The Pope had travelled three hundred leagues to bless him in the name of God and to crown him with the diadem; but ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... between which men oscillate, passing from one to the other with equal ease, according to the influences brought ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... comic journals themselves have fallen far too much into the hands of the Imperial University, whose literary style is a combination of the humor of the cider-cellars with the verbal fluency of Billingsgate. Under such auspices the ill-starred periodicals naturally oscillate between insipid propriety and labored coarseness. For a month or two the talented contributors go smoothly on in their career of untranslatable pleasantry, till some special atrocity calls forth the fatherly admonition of the police. Immediately a reaction ensues, filling the objectionable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... no!" cried the ancient gnome, in something between astonishment and horror. "No, Monsieur. 'Pas mon metier, ca!" He shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those toys in a shop-window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a gleam of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye. "There is the old Justine!" he suggested. "Toujours sur les genoux, cette ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... manufactures to factories, we like to grow moderately rich by small profits, small expenditure, and constant accumulation. We hate the nouveaux riches, and scarcely wish to be among them. The progress for which we wish is political progress—not within, for there we are satisfied to oscillate, and shall be most happy if in 1860 we find ourselves where we were in 1820—but without. I believe that our master's sortie against Belgium was a pilot balloon. He wished to see what amount of opposition he had to fear from you, and from Belgium, and how far we should ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... geological views will have to be considerably modified. My greatest trouble is, not being able to weigh the direct effects of the long-continued action of changed conditions of life without any selection, with the action of selection on mere accidental (so to speak) variability. I oscillate much on this head, but generally return to my belief that the direct action of the conditions of life has not been great. At least this direct action can have played an extremely small part in producing all the numberless and beautiful adaptations in every living creature. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... kaleidoscope and the vessels were seen drawn up in three parallel lines on the east and three on the west. Then the search-lights again flashed out, filling the whole intermediate area of the sky with beams of brilliant coloured light, which were caused to oscillate sideways and overlap, producing a most gorgeous intermingling of glowing colours. The Martians certainly had a complete understanding of all the peculiarities connected with ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... frequenter of the Royal Institution tells me that he often craves for an absence of visual perceptions, they are so brilliant and persistent. The Rev. George Henslow speaks of their extreme restlessness; they oscillate, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... we see at sundown on the western coast of our island when the bay is hazy. The whole history of that century in both Am-ri-ka and Yoo-rup might well be written around the fact of transit, for transit was the spinal cord of the whole social, civil, and political order. Man-life then seemed to oscillate more rapidly than ever before, as if in sympathy with the vibration of the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... to prevent the breakwaters from clashing against each other, they are united end to end in a very simple and ingenious manner. From each of them there starts a deeply inserted iron bar which terminates in a journal that permits the breakwater to oscillate. Between these two bars there is a sort of swivel, whose pieces, in playing upon one another, give the breakwaters elasticity, while always holding them apart (Fig. 4). From each side of the swivel start the branches of a stirrup iron to which the anchorage ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... every three seconds you can coax it into vigorous motion, assuming that every push catches it exactly on the rebound. The same effect would be produced more slowly if 6 or 9 second intervals were substituted. But if you strike it at 4, 5, or 7 second intervals it will gradually cease to oscillate, as the effect of one blow neutralizes that of another. The same phenomenon is witnessed when two tuning-forks of equal pitch are mounted near one another, and one is struck. The other soon picks up the note. But a fork of unequal pitch ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... commence descending, and, if lower, then it must ascend till it reaches its true level; and, more than that, in the event of either such excursion mere impetus would carry it beyond this level, about which it would oscillate for a short time, after the manner of the pendulum. This is substantially true, but it must be taken in connection with other facts which have a far greater influence on a balloon's ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... only injurious because it perpetuates error with the obstinacy engendered by the evidence of ill-observed facts, but also because it hinders the mind from attaining to higher views of nature. Instead of seeking to discover the 'mean' or 'medium' point, around which oscillate, in apparent independence of forces, all the phenomena of the external world, this system delights in multiplying exceptions to the law, and seeks, amid phenomena and in organic forms for something ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... motion? Roughly we may say two—elasticity and inertia. Elasticity in some form, or some equivalent of it, in order to be able to store up energy and effect recoil; inertia, in order to enable the disturbed substance to overshoot the mark and oscillate beyond its place of equilibrium to and fro. Any medium possessing these two properties can transmit waves, and unless a medium possesses these properties in some form or other, or some equivalent for them, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... whipped the end of the bullock-hide lariat round the tree to which he held, and began to oscillate it, so that the blazing bush might reach the ledge on which the daring convict sustained himself. The groan which preceded the fierce belching forth of the torrent was cast up to ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... walls of which were hundreds of little indicators. From the front they looked like rows of little square compartments, tier on tier, about the size of ordinary post office boxes. Closer examination showed that each was equipped with a delicate needle arranged to oscillate backward and forward upon the very minutest interference with the electric current. Under the boxes, each of which bore a number, was a series of drops and buzzers numbered ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... men of the Middle Ages look on the world as a vale of tears, which Pope and Emperor are set to guard against the coming of Antichrist; while the fatalists of the Renaissance oscillate between seasons of overflowing energy and seasons of superstition or of stupid resignation) here, in this circle of chosen spirits, the doctrine is upheld that the visible world was created by God in love, that it is the copy of a pattern pre-existing in Him, and that ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... which the Greve now presented was a frightful one. The heads, leveled by the perspective, extended afar, thick and agitated as the ears of corn in a vast plain. From time to time a fresh report, or a distant rumor, made the heads oscillate and thousands of eyes flash. Now and then there were great movements. All those ears of corn bent, and became waves more agitated than those of the ocean, which rolled from the extremities to the center, and beat, like the tides, against the hedge of archers ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... it can be most advantageously displayed. Others, of more austere taste, allow ornament only to emphasize the main lines of the design, or to conceal such inharmonious elements as nature or utility may prevent them from eliminating.[12] We may thus oscillate between decorative and structural motives, and only in one point, for each style, can we find the ideal equilibrium, in which the greatest strength and lucidity is ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... at Mrs. Lincoln's own estimate, and prices range from $25 to $75—about 50 per cent less than cost. Some of them, if not worn long, have been worn much; they are jagged under the arms and at the bottom of the skirt, stains are on the lining, and other objections present themselves to those who oscillate between the dresses and dollars, 'notwithstanding they have been worn by Madam Lincoln,' as a lady who looked from behind a pair of gold spectacles remarked. Other dresses, however, have scarcely been worn—one, perhaps, while Mrs. Lincoln sat for her picture, and from one the basting ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... We oscillate between the society of Saint-Vincent de Paul and the International. But this latter commits too many imbecilities to have a long life. I admit that it may overcome the troops at Versailles and overturn the government, the Prussians ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert |
