"Overstep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wagered; it implies Doubt. If I doubted? Pshaw! I'll walk awhile And let the cool air fan me. 'Twas not wise. 'Tis only Folly with its cap and bells Can jest with sad things. She seemed earnest, too. What if, to pique me, she should overstep The pale of modesty, and give bold eyes (I could not bear that, nay, not even that!) To Marc or Claudian? Why, such things have been And no sin dreamed of. I will watch her close. ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... of the rights which she was enjoying under the Burlingame treaty. It leaves us by our own act to determine when and how we will enforce those limitations. China may therefore fairly have a right to expect that in enforcing them we will take good care not to overstep the grant and take more than has been ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... standing by the side, looking over into the boat, whose crew turned up their curious eyes. Waiting a moment for the Spaniard to relinquish his hold, the now embarrassed Captain Delano lifted his foot, to overstep the threshold of the open gangway; but still Don Benito would not let go his hand. And yet, with an agitated tone, he said, "I can go no further; here I must bid you adieu. Adieu, my dear, dear Don Amasa. Go—go!" suddenly tearing ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... remains of their buns, and fencing with rulers. And they actually had the cheek to tell me they weren't making any more noise than we were with our singing and playing! I sent them home at once, and I think we'd all better go too. Those intermediates always overstep the line if they've an atom of a chance. I told them what I thought about them. It's been quite a ripping concert, and I'm sorry to break it up, ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... with men. Remember this too that the stronger rules; We must obey his orders, these or worse. Therefore I plead compulsion and entreat The dead to pardon. I perforce obey The powers that be. 'Tis foolishness, I ween, To overstep in ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... them, there is nothing disinterested or meritorious in that, for I can never too affectionately remember the confidence and friendship that they have long reposed in me. My sphere of action—which I shall never change—I shall never overstep, further than this, or for a longer period than I do to- night. By literature I have lived, and through literature I have been content to serve my country; and I am perfectly well aware that I cannot serve two masters. ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... incomprehensible to blundering sages! And you, as you stand before me, dare not say, 'Let the child pray for me no more!' But will the Creator accept the child's prayer for the man who refuses prayer for himself? Take my advice, pray! And in this counsel I do not overstep my province. I speak not as a preacher, but as a physician. For health is a word that comprehends our whole organization, and a just equilibrium of all faculties and functions is the condition of health. As ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... improve the painting of a rose garden by bathing it in rose perfume in order that the spectators might get the odor of the roses together with the sight of them. The limitations of an art are in reality its strength and to overstep its boundaries ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... kai doxan auto donta, hoste ten pistin humon kai elpida einai eis theon]. Here we find a conception of the pre-existence of Christ which is not yet affected by cosmological or psychological speculation, which does not overstep the boundaries of a purely religious contemplation, and which arose from the Old Testament way of thinking, and the living impression derived from the person of Jesus. He is "foreknown (by God) before the creation of the world", not as a spiritual being without a body, but as a Lamb without ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... beyond all reason and by some accident of association, was sweet. The little Lambinet abode with him as the picture he WOULD have bought—the particular production that had made him for the moment overstep the modesty of nature. He was quite aware that if he were to see it again he should perhaps have a drop or a shock, and he never found himself wishing that the wheel of time would turn it up again, just as he had seen it in the ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... need not obey it; that is, if he finds the god agreeing with him in opinion, then the god's judgment is infallible; if not, then, in plain terms, he is no god. And they who have closely observed the workings of jealousy, know right well that in all this Shakespeare does not one whit "overstep the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... spot where canned meats and bread were located and made a movement as if to obtain a supply for the woman, but the eyes of brother soldiers and a superior officer were upon him and he again assumed his position. It is said to be not unusual for the soldiers, under cover of dusk, to overstep their duty in order to serve some applicant who, through age or lack of physical strength, is poorly equipped to bear the strain. All sorts of provisions are asked for. One woman asks boldly for ham, canned chicken, vegetables and flour. Another ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... such as she is," dowager lady Chia laughed. "Besides, she's truly no child, ignorant of the distinction between high and low. When we are at home, with no strangers present, we ladies should be on terms like these, and as long, in fact, as we don't overstep propriety, it's all right. If not, what would he the earthly use of making them behave ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... though while he entered into the spirit of the hour, his natural dignity never forsook him. He was gay, playful, fascinating—but never did he overstep the modesty of nature, or the respect due to himself, in his wildest sallies. Yet I own, that considering the task which Raymond had taken on himself as Protector of England, and the cares to which it became him to attend, I was exceedingly provoked to observe ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... the swing of his machine on a very rapid turn, and to prevent it skidding outwards. But with the novice, engrossed completely as he is with the mere problem of getting his machine round in the air, "banking" is an art that must be deferred for awhile. It is perilously easy, for a beginner, to overstep the danger-line between a ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... you a cup of coffee; and you take it like a thankless fool. Pooh, captain, I don't expect any man to be a pattern of morality and temperance. But even for a man there are some limits—and those limits you overstep, my good sir!" ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... man, on his side, never attempted to overstep his own rights, the interests of the rival firms rarely clashed. As to the few disputes that did arise, Thorpe found Mr. Daly singularly anxious to please. In the desire was no friendliness, however. Thorpe was watchful for treachery, and could hardly believe the affair finished ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... ekzameni. Overhead supre. Overlook (inspect) viziti, ekzameni, esplori. Overlook (excuse) senkulpigi, pardoni. Overlook malatenti, malintenci. Overplus preterajxo, plimultajxo. Overpower venki, submeti. Overrun enpenetri. Overseer observisto, oficisto. Overstep transpasxi. Overtake atingi. Overthrow renversi. Overture (music) uverturo. Overture (proposal) propono. Overturn renversi. Overweening tromemfida. Overwhelm premegi. Owe sxuldi. Owl strigo, gufo. Own propra. Own (possess) posedi, havi. Owner (of property, etc.) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... chivalrous mediaeval type, his character was dashed largely with the spirit of romance. Though earnest, sagacious, and penetrating, he leaned to the marvellous; and the faith which was the life of his hard career was somewhat prone to overstep the bounds of reason and invade the domain of fancy. Hence the erratic character of some of his exploits, and hence his simple ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... fear that my devotion to her youngest boy is leading me to overstep the bounds of even Mrs. Dunn's ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... acting on such an idea in his own case, unless guided by supernatural light, beyond the usual spiritual illumination given to all Christians. This supernatural light is rarely vouchsafed, and it is accordingly in the highest degree presumptuous in any person to overstep the ordinary routine of distinctly ordered duty, under the idea that he is called by God to break the rules given for the guidance of mankind in general. In all such supposed cases, the Catholic Church has the proper tests to apply, by which the soul ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... book he endeavors to prove that the emperor holds by divine right, and not by permission of the pope. He assigns supremacy to the pope in spirituals, and to the emperor in temporals. This was a delicate subject, and though the king of Saxony (a Catholic) says that Dante did not overstep the limits of orthodoxy, it was on account of this part of the book that it ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... what sort of man I am," said the clerk, "but if you worry me any more, I am man enough to make you pay for it. Look here! I will draw a line on the floor, and by God, if you overstep it, be it ever so little, I wish I may die if I do not make you pay ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... clans of mollusks, the race of man appears at last as the degenerate copy of a splendid model, which the Creator has perchance destroyed. Emboldened by his gaze into the past, this petty race, children of yesterday, can overstep chaos, can raise a psalm without end, and outline for themselves the story of the Universe in an Apocalypse that reveals the past. After the tremendous resurrection that took place at the voice of this man, the little drop in the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... which accorded with his profession, otherwise he would become a disturbing element. Already Joyce seemed to consider herself under obligations to him, and in her enthusiastic gratitude was prone to overstep the limits of dignified propriety which he wished her to observe. Would to heaven that the Government had sent them a married man as Civil Surgeon of Muktiarbad! Bachelors of mysterious habits and manners were totally out of place in a station ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... dependence and in subjection to another. No inequality is justified other than that which Nature itself establishes in the differences between one individual and another, and for the fulfillment of the purpose of Nature. The natural boundaries no sex can overstep: it would thereby destroy its own ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... to overstep the bounds which should justly limit my action and my interest in this matter. You will also do me the justice to remember that I have never interfered in your business, and have rarely asked you about it, though ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... the moral world humanity, justice, and reason enjoy an undisputed supremacy; in the political world vested rights are treated with no less deference. The majority recognizes these two barriers; and if it now and then overstep them, it is because, like individuals, it has passions, and, like them, it is prone to do what is wrong, whilst ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... established religious and state forms. "Shakespeare," says Gervinus, "would abhor an independent and free individual who, with a powerful spirit, should struggle against all convention in politics and morality and overstep that union between religion and the State which has for thousands of years supported society. According to his views, the practical wisdom of men could not have a higher object than the introduction into society of the greatest spontaneity and freedom, but precisely because of ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... must not overstep the limit if she desired to attain her end, flung the whip full into the stolid, indifferent face, and fled, raving ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... but not least, utterly eschew all slang. There are some young ladies who apparently think that a little slang, to spice their remarks, is piquant and saucy, but, in the majority of cases they so soon overstep the mark and fall into the deplorable habit of constantly and copiously interlarding their speech with all manner of slang phrases, that one is forced to advocate total ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... Steve. Why don't you use yore brains?" answered Homer impatiently. "We can go just so far. If we overstep the limit this country will get too hot for us. There'll be a grand round-up, an' we'd get ours without any judge or jury. The folks of this country are law-abidin', but there's ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... blessed us; how we are in possession of actual paradise—yes, the entire kingdom of heaven—if we only recognized the fact: and yet we shamefully, ungratefully and unreasonably reject the kingdom; as if it were not enough for us to overstep the Ten Commandments in our disobedience, but must even trample under foot the mercy God offers in the Gospel. Then why should we be surprised if he send down wrath upon us? What else is he to do but fulfill our Gospel ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... betwixt likeness and unlikeness that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a word or a look, his real sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being mine, is that the not mine is mine. I hate, where ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... money-chest, the glitter of gold darted like lightning through the souls of all, and each secretly determined to make the man his friend, in order to get possession of it. The alderman shouted, "We must make him a citizen, and give him a seat and voice in the council. Policy demands that we should overstep law and custom, if the advantage of the State depends ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... the pitcher within a parallelogram ("box") 6 ft. long and 4 ft. wide, the lines of which he may not overstep, on penalty of being declared out. His object is to get to first-base without being put out. This he may do in several ways. (1) He may make a "safe-hit," i.e. one that is "fair" but cannot be caught, or fielded in time ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... greatest capital was made. Whilst the politicians themselves prudently remained for the most part in Calcutta, making high-sounding speeches and writing inflammatory articles, or were careful in their own overt demonstrations not to overstep the extreme bounds of legality, they showered telegrams and letters of congratulation on the young "martyrs" who ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art. Some have this merit only. The scholar is not apt to make his most familiar experience come gracefully to the aid of his expression. Very few men can speak of Nature, for instance, with any truth. They overstep her modesty, somehow or other, and confer no favor. They do not speak a good word for her. Most cry better than they speak, and you can get more nature out of them by pinching than by addressing them. The surliness with which the woodchopper speaks of his woods, handling them as indifferently as ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... pauperism it found in the poor law itself. Benevolence, which is the legal remedy for social crime, favours social crime. As regards pauperism in general, it is an eternal natural law, according to the theory of Malthus: "As the population unceasingly tends to overstep the means of subsistence, benevolence is folly, a public encouragement to poverty. The State can therefore do nothing more than leave poverty to its fate and at the most soften death for the poor." With this amiable ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... sphere of its delegated authority, is also a complete sovereignty. While the General Government should abstain from the exercise of authority not clearly delegated to it, the States should be equally careful that in the maintenance of their rights they do not overstep the limits of powers reserved to them. One of the most distinguished of my predecessors attached deserved importance to "the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administration ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... transiliency[obs3], transgression; trespass; encroachment, infringement; extravagation|, transcendence; redundancy &c. 641. V. transgress, surpass, pass; go beyond, go by; show in front, come to the front; shoot ahead of; steal a march upon, steal a gain upon. overstep, overpass, overreach, overgo[obs3], override, overleap, overjump[obs3], overskip[obs3], overlap, overshoot the mark; outstrip, outleap, outjump, outgo, outstep[obs3], outrun, outride, outrival, outdo; beat, beat ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... especially at times when there is notorious danger of offences being committed. At the same time they are bound not to legislate under the influence of panic; not to yield to fears having no substantial ground. And in their measures of precaution they are farther bound to depart from or overstep the ordinary law as little as is compatible with the attainment of their object. In all such cases each action of theirs must stand or fall by its own merits; by the greatness of the emergency which ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... the foundation of the social union there is a circle round every human being which no government ought to be permitted to overstep; there is a part of the life of every person of years of discretion within which the individuality of that person ought to reign uncontrolled either by any other individual or by the public collectively. Scarcely any degree of utility short of absolute necessity will justify prohibitory regulation, ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... department is a fit depositary of such power. Both these, from the nature of their powers, are aggressive. They act of their own volition. They initiate proceedings and measures to carry out policies. In their activities they are apt, consciously or unconsciously, to overstep the boundary lines between the departments and also the limits set for the protection of the citizen against such activities. Again, questions may and often do arise between the government and the individual citizen ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... make a start estudiar, to study estufa, stove eternamente, eternally, for ever etiqueta, ticket, label evitar, to avoid exacto, exact, accurate examen, examination exceder, to exceed, to overstep exclusive, exclusive, sole exhibir, to show, to exhibit exigir, to require exiguo, slender, slight, small existencias, stocks exito, result exito (bueno, malo), success, failure expedidor, sender experimentar, to experience, to experiment experto, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... previous relations with Stanbury and Schenk suffered by comparison, and if she secretly hoped for the death or removal of Mme. Poussette it was with soft womanly compunction and pity, and with stern resolves not to overstep ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... hear me, O my Kenkenes," he said after some silence. "If I overstep the liberty of a friend, remind me, but remember thou—whatsoever I shall say will be said through love for thee, not to chide thee. No man shapeth his career for himself alone, nor does death end his ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... in the manner of one who fears he might overstep discretion, by obtruding beyond the limits imposed by modesty. He glanced furtively upwards at the place where Maso bad posted himself, and muttered something of an intention to ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Gospel by the Supernatural.") The same talent and great eloquence; but the orator does not understand that the supernatural must either be historically proved, or, supposing it cannot be proved, that it must renounce all pretensions to overstep the domain of faith and to encroach upon that of history and science. He quotes Strauss, Renan, Scherer, but he touches only the letter of them, not the spirit. Everywhere one sees the Cartesian dualism and a striking want of the genetic, historical, and critical sense. The idea ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... easy way to gratify it. Neither in these transactions did I ever suppose that I was offending the statute law of the country, since by the exercise of the same caution which enabled, and still enables, other men to tread very closely upon, but never to overstep, the limits of legality, I too might have kept myself secure from criminal prosecution. I considered myself justified, therefore, in availing myself of such means as were in my power to evade the operation of laws I had never ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... partiality to Sir Francis Burdett at the Middlesex election, in 1802. This was the present Alderman Cox, who was at that time a zealous friend of reform, and whose great zeal and anxiety to promote that cause was supposed to have made him overstep the bounds of prudence, so far as to prevent him, in his capacity of Sheriff, from being able to conceal his ardent desire to serve his friend, Sir Francis Burdett. He was accused, by the House of Commons, of having, in ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... mercy," said the elder cavalier; "I forgot how important a person I had before me, dubbed by King Edward himself, who was moved no doubt by special reasons to confer such an early honour; and I certainly feel that I overstep my duty when I propose any thing that savours like idle sport to a person of such ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... I would burst sooner than let a d—d Frenchman know it. We have made peace with the French despotism, and we will, I hope, adhere to it whilst the French continue in due bounds; but whenever they overstep that, and usurp a power which would degrade Europe, then I trust we shall join Europe in crushing her ambition; then I would with pleasure go forth and risk my life for to pull down the overgrown detestable power of France." When the mob in London dragged the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... round in the ladder that reaches to eternal rest is repentance. If man never takes this step upon the way he can never reach that happy end. Because repentance includes so much, many men would gladly overstep this first round and begin their Christian life on some round higher up. This they can not do; they must take this first step, or perish. And should they strive to climb up some other way they are dishonest, and the Savior calls ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... projected on a historical personality, was fundamentally the same thing. The love of God also—and in this connection I might mention Jacob Boehme, Alphonso da Liguori, Novalis—is metaphysical eroticism; but I have restricted my subject to the metaphysical love of woman, and shall not overstep my limits. I will merely elucidate a little more the ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... but told Robert it was not for sorrow. He, longing to catch her in his arms, and punctilious not to overstep the duties of his post of guardian, could merely sit by listening, and reflecting on her as a strange Biblical girl, with Hebrew hardness of resolution, and Hebrew exaltation of soul; beautiful, too, as the dark women of the East. He admitted to himself ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... practical reality; and, consequently, to make his inexorable logic draw too much, or to little, for legitimate practical effect. If, occasionally tempted by the excitement of our present types of speculative and conjectural science, he seemed to overstep the limits which God has prescribed to us in our present probationary state, and to make the human a measure of the Divine, it was done not presumptuously, from a spirit of conceited and ambitious intermeddling ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... thyself, daughter! Canst thou forget thy habits; overstep the diffidence of thy years and condition; stand and speak fearlessly in the presence of the great ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Mount Tabor, and by the disproportionable size of the Christ and of the two Prophets." But we question if the mind, in that state of feeling in which it beholds a miraculous and altogether overwhelming subject, is not necessarily in a condition to overstep the actual rules of nature, and to receive a type of things for the reality, admitting the small to stand for the great. Were it conscious of very exact formal truth, the power of the subject would be reduced. Actual perspective would have, in Raffaelle's case, ruined the picture. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... fearful severity upon the people of the South. Comprehensive as was the Enrolment Act, which rendered liable to military duty the entire male population between the ages of seventeen and fifty, the South was compelled to overstep its self-imposed limit. The forces which Lee and Johnston surrendered contained so many boys unfitted by youth and so many men unfitted by age for military service, that a Northern General epigrammatically remarked that for its armies the Confederacy had been compelled in the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Augustinian; and between these two orders was continual friction. Tetzel was working Luther's territory, and Luther told what he thought of him, and issued a challenge to debate him on ninety-five propositions. That priests in their zeal should overstep their authority, and that people should read into the preaching much more than the preacher intended, is not to the discredit of the Church. The Church can not be blamed for either the mistakes of Moses, or for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... know the Rector wishes very much to have a little conversation with you, and has something to speak of in which you would be interested. Perhaps my husband might feel a little strange in asking you to overstep the barrier which somehow has been raised between you two; but I am sure if you knew each other better you would understand each other, and this is one of the things we women ought to be good for. I will take ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... wandering mendicants, such as male sorcerers, female diviners, hermits, blind people, beggars, and tanners (Etas), have had from of old their respective rulers. Be not disinclined, however, to punish any such who give rise to disputes, or who overstep the boundaries of their own classes and ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... when I came with the men who bore the guard upon a stretcher, and felt that he might overstep ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... logic. And as in the mean while they must live, consequently they wish to get some consolation in this life. Masters of Zola's kind gave them only corruption, chaos, disgust for life, and despair. Their rationalism cannot prove anything else, and if it did, it would be with too much zeal, it would overstep the limits. To-day the suffocated need some pure air, the doubting ones some hope, tormented by uneasiness, some quietude, therefore they are doing well when they turn therefrom where the hope and peace flow, there where they bless them and where they ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... and has fallen; but (says the Chorus) let the conquerors look to it that they do not overstep the mark; let there be no dishonoring the native Gods of Troy; (the Athenians had been very considerably overstepping the mark in some of their own conquests recently;)—let there be no plundering or useless cruelty; (the Athenians had been hideously greedy and cruel;)—or Karma would overtake ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... criticism by acknowledging that the course he followed during Wapole's administration was indefensible. All due weight being given to these various considerations, it must be admitted, nevertheless, that Pitt did overstep the limits within which inconsistency is usually regarded as venial. His one great object was first to gain office, and then to make his tenure of office secure by conciliating the favour of the king. The entire revolution which much of his policy underwent in order ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... this theory is meeting must be attributed to the fact that men of science no longer believe in the origin of species by the accumulation of slight fluctuating modifications. To quote the words of De Vries, "Fluctuating variation cannot overstep the limits of the species, even after the most prolonged selection—still less can it lead to the production of new, permanent characters." It has been the wont of Darwinians to base their speculations on the assumption that "an inconceivably long time" could effect almost ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... animals are separated from one another by a space which Nature cannot overstep—yet some of them approach so nearly to one another in so many respects that there is only room enough left for the getting in of a line of separation between them,"[57] and on the following page he distinctly encourages the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... had bidden the company a rapid business-like farewell, tempered in Suzette's case by the exact degree of tender intimacy that it would have been considered improper to omit or overstep, Elaine turned to her expectant cousin with an air ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... the wildest fanaticism to predict; but its fatal power will not be stayed in the mid-sweep of its career. The Ordinance of 1787 torn to shreds and scattered to the winds,—the line drawn in 1820, which the slaveholders plighted their faith Slavery should never overstep, insolently as well as infamously obliterated,—Slavery presiding in the Cabinet, seated on the Supreme Bench, absolute in the halls of Congress,—no man can say what shape its next aggression may not take to itself. A direct attack on the freedom of the press and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... thought she showed any intellectual promise they might consider it worth while to have her trained. They had never made much of her attainments, but if she could come out third or fourth in the school she felt they would be pleased. It would be impossible to overstep Geraldine or Hilary, but her work was tolerably on a level with Ida's and Stuart's, ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the thirst of the world, and should not be left only for the quenching of the thirst of a single nation, for the use of a single people. Therefore the Lover of men came, in order that the water of life might be poured out; He broke down the wall, so that the foreigner might overstep her borders. The Greeks swept in, the Mussulmans swept in, invasion after invasion, invasion after invasion, until the conquerors who now rule India were the latest in time. Do you see in that only decay, only misery, only ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... and looking him full in the eye, 'with all due deference to your superior rank, permit me to say, that if you say I am guilty of mutiny you overstep ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... work in the world afterwards, yet the very qualities that help them to future success are not those to bring present popularity. They are not for the many, but for the few, and only show their best to an occasional friend whose sympathy can overstep the wall of shyness ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... men) could so long confide in Bourrienne, who, with the usual presumption of my countrymen, is continually boasting, to a degree that borders on indiscretion, and, by an artful questioner, may easily be lead to overstep those bounds. Most of the particulars of his quarrel with Napoleon I heard him relate himself, as a proof of his great consequence, in a company of forty individuals, many of whom were unknown to him. On the first discovery which Bonaparte made ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... an' now that you've come to man's estate nothin'll please me more than to make a diver of you. But," continued Baldwin, while a shade clouded his wrinkled and weatherbeaten visage, "I can't let you go down in the dress without leave. I'm under authority, you know, and durstn't overstep—" ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... Will leave me cold; M.O.'s who have a tender Passion for my own type of sock-suspender Won't utter it. Though on my heaving breast They lean their heads, they'll lean them uncaressed; We'll part, nor overstep the auscultation test. ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various
... does not free it from duties. No state is anything more than a brute force, except as it incorporates, in some measure, the Rational Social Will. And states that fall far short, as judged by this standard, may overstep their rights and ignore their duties, whether they are dealing with individuals or with ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... said Mahtoree, looking at his aged companion, with an expression of irony, that sufficiently denoted he was one of those who overstep the trammels of education, and who are perhaps a little given to abuse the mental liberty they thus obtain. "He is very old: has he made a journey to the far country; and has he been at the trouble to come back, to tell the young men what ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a passion of disgust and fear. It seemed incredible that Gus Trenor should have spoken of her to Rosedale. With all his faults, Trenor had the safeguard of his traditions, and was the less likely to overstep them because they were so purely instinctive. But Lily recalled with a pang that there were convivial moments when, as Judy had confided to her, Gus "talked foolishly": in one of these, no doubt, the fatal ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... The treaties concluded in 1795 with Tuscany, Prussia and Spain show that peace was easy and that the recognition of the Republic was effected even before the Republican government was organized..... that France, whether monarchical or republican, had a certain limit which French power was not to overstep, because this was not in proportion to the real strength of France, nor with the distribution of force among the other European governments. On this capital point the convention erred; it erred knowingly, through a long-meditated calculation, which calculation, however, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that I came to be there, or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was there. That I suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but I. How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell. No man's imagination can overstep the reality. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work. I knew from the first that if I could not do my work as well as any of the rest I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon became at least as expeditious and as skilful ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... his face or come between him and a hiding-place. The water is rising fast. He dare not guess how high it will come; but rise as it may, linger at its height as it may, he will not be driven out. In his belief a hundred men are ready, at every possible point where his foot could overstep the line of this vast inundation, to seize him and drag him to the gallows. Ah, the gallows! Not being dead—not God's anger—not eternal burnings; but simply facing death! The gallows! The tree above his head—the rope around his neck—the signal about to be spoken—the one wild moment after ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to the intimate tones of her voice. And she met him in a more delightful mood of informality than had found expression even during their afternoon ride. She was apparently in the highest spirits, eager to overstep all conventionality. ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... of tremendous importance. A difference of six hours might mean war. Powerful influences in Germany were all for war. It filled the air. It needed only a false or overstep on the part of any government official to bring about an explosion. France seemed fairly itching for a fight. My verbal message to the captain of the Panther must be delivered on schedule or the explosion might occur. I began to see what they hoped to gain by the trick of detaining ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... improvised speeches would turn the scene into burlesque. Besides, Mr. Gascoigne prohibited the acting of scenes from plays: he usually protested against the notion that an amusement which was fitting for every one else was unfitting for a clergyman; but he would not in this matter overstep the line of decorum as drawn in that part of Wessex, which did not exclude his sanction of the young people's acting charades in his sister-in-law's house—a very different affair from private theatricals in the full sense of ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... replied, stretching himself luxuriously in the long lounge chair, "the most commonplace life hovers on the edge of the bizarre. But those of us who overstep the border become preposterous in the eyes of those who have never done so. This is not because the unusual is necessarily the untrue, but because writers of fiction have claimed the unusual as their particular province, and in doing so have divorced it from fact ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... calm, and still? Our faculties fail us when we try to estimate the Deity, and we are betrayed into contradictions and absurdities; but does it therefore follow that He is not? It seems to me that to deny His existence is to overstep the boundaries of our thought-power almost as much as to try and define it. We pretend to know the Unknown if we declare Him to be the Unknowable. Unknowable to us at present, yes! Unknowable for ever, in other possible ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... it was and quite lately established for a permanence in Paris, to put down such disorders and such men. In the course of its long career the French magistracy has committed many faults; it has more than once either aspired to overstep its proper limits or failed to fulfil all its duties; but history would be ungrateful and untruthful not to bring into the light the virtues this body has displayed from its humble cradle, and the services it has rendered to France, to her security at home, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618-907), to grow up a class of romantic tales in which the kinship of ideas with those that distinguish the products of Arabian genius is too marked to be ignored. The invisible world appears suddenly to open before the Chinese eye; the relations of the sexes overstep for a moment the chilling limit imposed by the traditions of Confucian decorum; a certain degree of freedom and geniality is, in a word, for the first time and only for a brief interval infused into the intellectual expression of a nation hitherto closely cramped in the bonds of a narrow pedantry. ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... I know,' she said, carrying it off with an air of comic contrition. 'I even said, "There's a modesty in nature that it isn't wise to overstep" (I'd forgotten some people think speech-making comes under that head). "It's been realized," I said—yes, rushing on my doom!—"it's been realized up to now only in the usual one-sided way—discouraging boys from marrying women old enough to be their mothers. ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... obligations even toward those who had absolved us by their own act from the letter of our duty. We are speaking of the government which, legally installed for the whole country, was bound, so long as it was possible, not to overstep the limits of orderly prescription, and could not, without abnegating its own very nature, take the lead in making rebellion an excuse for revolution. There were, no doubt, many ardent and sincere persons who seemed to think this as simple a thing to do as to lead off a Virginia ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... for them. I may be fortunate enough to gain friendship and even very warm affection from them; but my loyalty to their husbands and their hearths and their happiness obliges me to draw a line and not overstep it. Of course I value such affectionate regard very highly indeed. I am surrounded with women who are most dear to me. But every one of them has a post sticking up, if I may put it that way, with the inscription Trespassers ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... few and for all her queenly graciousness kept those she had at so discreet a distance. Of course everyone knew why. The reason was plain to all who had eyes to see. But that fact did not help any to overstep the barrier, nor did it keep the majority from being affronted. Dot was not of the latter, but she was ever shy in Anne's presence, though it was more the fear of hurting than of being ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... a word. Such people are all that, and a great deal more. And accordingly they stand beyond the range of this dissertation. We are to treat of folk who are disagreeable, and not worse than disagreeable. We may sometimes, indeed, overstep the boundary-line. But it is to be remembered that there are people who in the main are good people, who yet are extremely disagreeable. And a further complication is introduced into the subject by the fact, that some people who are far from good are yet unquestionably agreeable. You disapprove ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the Governors may, either from want of knowledge or from other reasons, overstep the limits of their duty. The Press will then in leading articles gently point out the error of their ways, and offer sensible advice on the subject; if the offender be wise he will withdraw, unconditionally, and then all will be well; but should he persevere in his antagonism he will receive ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... briefly, to Mr. Irving's politics or religion, even if I had intimate knowledge of both, (which assuredly I had not,) would be, perhaps, to overstep decorous limits. It may, however, properly be mentioned, that, in the face of all inherent probabilities as to his comfortable conservatism, and his earnest instincts in favor of fraternal conciliation and justice, (which was as marked a quality in him as in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right, or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in putting on the walls this terrible bill of attainder against certain citizens of the United States, whom their country's constitution has endeavored to protect from "infamous punishments,"—the student of moral ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... then, been an obstacle to his confidences. Now that he was master at Westmore it was plain that another tone became him—that his situation necessitated a greater reserve; but her enquiry did not imply the least wish to overstep this restriction: it merely showed her remembrance of his frankly-avowed interest in the operatives. Justine was struck by the fact that so natural an allusion should put him on the defensive. She did not for a moment believe that he had lost his interest in ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton |
