"Unalterable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... With one accord, citizens who have remained in their own homes and the soldiers who have hastened to join the colors, proclaim by their votes or by their action on the field, to Germany and to the world, the unalterable determination to ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... the daily flow and ebb of the tide affords a safe entrance and departure to the vessels of commerce. The king is head of a powerful and turbulent aristocracy: his principal vassals hold their estates by a free and unalterable tenure; and the laws define the limits of his authority and their obedience. The kingdom has been often afflicted by foreign conquest and domestic sedition: but the natives are bold and hardy, renowned in arms and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... beyond any former civilization but positively good in itself, while the future could only be a progressive magnifying of what then was going on. "Just as" to quote Mr. Chesterton's admirable Dr. Pelkins, "just as when we see a pig in a litter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable law of the Inscrutable, it will some day be larger than an elephant...so we know and reverently acknowledge that when any power in human politics has shown for any period of time any considerable activity, it will go on ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... despatch. The evening being by this time almost consumed, these new allies retired separately to rest; though each passed the night without repose, in very different reflections, the Castilian being, as usual, agitated with the unceasing pangs of his unalterable misery, interspersed with gleaming hopes of revenge; and Fathom being kept awake with revolving plans for turning his fellow-lodger's credulity to his own advantage. From the nature of the Spaniard's situation, he might have appropriated the jewels to himself, and remained in Paris ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he look'd, and sank. Around the ancient track march'd, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law— ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... seriously offer it to the universe than to the atmosphere. This point cannot be too clearly realised. Prayer is the soul's communion with God; but if the soul is an {194} integral constituent of God, a mode or phase of the Divine Being, then this communion, being already an accomplished and unalterable fact, cannot be so much as desired, still less does it need to be brought about by prayer or any other means whatsoever. Nothing could be more instructive in this connection than what is apparently a favourite illustration with those for whom immanence ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... Art.—Schools to be established on thoroughly sound principles of manufacture, and use of materials, and with sample and, for given periods, unalterable modes of work; first, in pottery, and embracing gradually metal work, sculpture, and decorative painting; the two points insisted upon, in distinction from ordinary commercial establishments, being perfectness of material to the ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... are definite, unalterable! But that will not prevent you from taking a cup of coffee with us, I feel sure. I have the highest esteem for Monsieur Dupont, and the terms in which he has recommended you to me are such that, from now on, I have not the ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... place (Eccles. iii. 19). But the modern soul, a nothing, a string of negations, a negative in chief, is thus described in the Mahbhrat: It is indivisible, inconceivable, inconceptible: it is eternal, universal, permanent, immovable: it is invisible and unalterable. Hence the modern spiritualism which, rejecting materialism, can use ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... silence after he had finished, which Major Walters was the first to break. He offered no argument—he simply expressed again his unalterable cheerfulness. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... planet crumpled, and split wide. A thousand pieces, and suddenly there was a further mistiness about it, and the whole enormous mass, seeming but a toy, as it was from this distance in space, and as it was in this ship, was enclosed in that same, immovable, unalterable ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... afterwards realised at the Ecole Pratique, and School of Anatomy adjoining the Hospital La Pitie, Paris, a few years since. As far as the subject of relative anatomy could admit of novel treatment, rigidly confined to facts unalterable, I ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... by this calmness from all apprehension of reproach, found in her manner a coldness that convinced her of the loss of her affection, and in the introduction to her business a solemnity that assured her what she should decree would be unalterable. She uncovered her face to shew her respectful attention, but she could not raise it up, and could ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... under their feet, they are helpless and find no stay. For this reason the merriest of all children are those, much pitied, who are brought up neither in a family nor in a public home by paid guardians, but in a place of charity, rightly named, where impartial, unalterable, and impersonal devotion has them in hand. They endure an immeasurable loss, and are orphans, but they gain in perpetual gaiety; they live in an unchanging temperature. The separate nest is nature's, and the best; but it might be wished that the separate nest ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... from you whether it is a thing fixed and settled and unalterable; absolutely done? I suppose it is, or he ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... their fame went on, And they went on—from bad to worse; Till, goaded hot with nothing done, And each accoutred with a curse, The friends of Old King Cole, by twos, And fours, and sevens, and elevens, Pronounced unalterable views Of doings that were ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... try himself against Nature, and her everlasting unerring Laws; these will tell a true verdict as to the man. So much of virtue and of faculty did we find in him; so much and no more! He had such capacity of harmonising himself with me and my unalterable ever-veracious Laws; of cooeperating and working as I bade him;—and has prospered, and has not prospered, as you see!—Working as great Nature bade him: does not that mean virtue of a kind; nay of all kinds? Cotton can be spun and sold, Lancashire operatives ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... both the transfusion of blood, and engrafting or transplanting of teeth, are capable, with judgment and discrimination, of being made subservient in a variety of cases; though the chances of general success militate against these experiments; for it is the unalterable plan of nature to proceed gradually in her operations; all outrage and extravagance being at ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... She had passed by degrees out of her husband's life. Her fine tact and her prudence told her that misfortune must come, and that not singly, of this cooling of an affection already lukewarm and wholly selfish. Sure though she was of her ascendency over Victor, and certain as she felt of his unalterable esteem, she dreaded the influence of unbridled passions upon a head so empty, so ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... all nations to adopt their principles; men would then be happy, and the globe not stained with blood. Let us join in our supplications to the supreme Being, that he may unite us in the bonds of a tender and unalterable charity. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... will speak my mind; and in the name of Destiny and the Fates take not my candour amiss. If the case stands thus, if the Fates are mistresses of all, and their decisions unalterable, then why do men sacrifice to you, and bring hecatombs, and pray for good at your hands? If our prayers can neither save us from evil nor procure us any boon from Heaven, I fail to see what we get for ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... spirit in his blood, and he found himself wondering foolishly if Laura could have played with so high an air the part of a neglected wife. To a man of his peculiarly eager temperament there existed a curious fascination in the idea of pushing to its limit of endurance an unalterable constancy. Would Laura have uttered her futile lies with so exquisite an insolence? or would she have acted in tears the patient Griselda in her closet? The virtue of truthfulness was the one he had most nearly associated with ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... moving slowly towards ten. She waited for the hour to strike; it was then that she usually went to bed. Her thoughts moved as in a nightmare; and paramount in this chaotic mass of sensation was an acute sense of the deception that had been practised on her; with the consciousness, now firm and unalterable, that it had become impossible for her to live. When the clock struck she got up from her chair, and the movement seemed to react on her brain; her thoughts unclouded, and she went up-stairs thinking clearly of her love of this old house. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... unfettered a fashion with a comrade of nearly his own age; and soon forgetting even their own game, the boys were walking with arms twined round each other's neck, telling each other all that was in their hearts, and exchanging vows of unalterable affection. ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... sufficiently provided for the legal establishment of our former happy reformed constitution, which necessarily obliged the civil rulers to employ their power to maintain and defend, not only the doctrine, but also the Presbyterian worship, discipline and government, as the only and unalterable form instituted by Christ in his house. Whereas this craves the abolition of prelacy, and the superiority of any office in the church above presbyters in Scotland, simply as it hath been a great and insupportable grievance and trouble to this nation, and ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... is already come, when none are wretched, but by their own fault. Nothing is more idle, than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach. The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law, with which every heart is originally impressed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity. He that lives according to nature will suffer nothing from the delusions ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... several other expressions yet more strong, he made use of; and had Sir Philip had less unalterable politeness, I believe they would have had a vehement quarrel. He maintained his ground, however, with calmness and steadiness, though he had neither argument nor wit at all ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... were too hungry. Both were oppressed by the fear that at any minute they would come upon a solid wall of cacti and be obliged to retrace their steps, and both knew that might mean a stunning blow to courage. At times the constant zig-zagging, the unalterable, smooth, grey-green surface of the cacti, made them halt dizzily, for both brain and body were sick for want of food. But by degrees the wood grew thinner and thinner; and when the sun was half way between the zenith and the western horizon, they left behind the ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... Lady Hamilton was one of the "we" is plain, for in the postscript to the letter he says: "Your Ladyship will, I beg, receive this letter as a preparative for Sir William Hamilton, to whom I am writing, with all respect, the firm and unalterable opinion of a British admiral," etc. Certainly these words—taken with those already quoted, and written just a week afterwards, "Lady Hamilton has been my ambassadress to the queen"—indicate that she was the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... ch. xiii. See also ch. xi. "This legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it; nor can any edict of anybody else, in what form soever conceived, or by what power soever backed, have the force and obligation of a law, which has not its sanction ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... convention both the old Federal leader and the old Democratic chief objected to the incorporation in the constitution of a bill of rights. Governor Treadwell opposed it on the ground that such "unalterable" regulations were unnecessary where, as in a republic, all power was vested in the people. Alexander Wolcott objected that such a "bill would circumscribe the powers of the General Assembly" and also because of his disapproval ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... pale, showing that she felt strongly on the subject, but she spoke decidedly, as if her purpose was unalterable. ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... unnerved arm the hostile spear? Madness! The very thought would make me fain To tear the spanglets from yon gaudy plain, And hurl them at their Maker!—Fix'd as Fate I am his foe!—Yea, though his pride should deign To soothe mine ire with half his regal state, Still would I burn with fix'd unalterable hate. ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... attempted their destruction, seems to have been that old law of the Medes and Persians, not yet laid aside, that whatever decree was signed both by the king and his lords could not be changed, but remained unalterable, Daniel 6:7-9, 12, 15, 17; Esther 1:19; 8:8. And Haman having engrossed the royal favor might perhaps have himself signed this decree for the Jews' slaughter instead of the ancient lords, and so might have rendered it by ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... their ferocious persecution of the Turks; while the greater part of their history is a bloody record of injustice to weaker nations, we can not but admire their indomitable courage, their intense and unalterable attachment to their brave old Czars, and their sublime devotion to their religion ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... long as the South insist that slavery is unavoidable, and say they will not tolerate any schemes tending to its abolition—and so long as the North take the necessity of slavery for an unalterable truth, and put down any discussions, however mild and candid, which tend to show that it may be done away with safety—so long as we thus strengthen each other's hands in evil, what remote hope is there ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... over to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah passed it on to Daffingdon with an expression of unalterable firmness and decision. "You must do something with this, if you are going to do anything for us at all," his air said. "It's this or nothing. It is our own idea; we're proud of it, and we insist ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... words of a good critic by supposing that for the moment he has fallen into this confusion: 'The mere matter of all poetry—to wit, the appearances of nature and the thoughts and feelings of men—being unalterable, it follows that the difference between poet and poet will depend upon the manner of each in applying language, metre, rhyme, cadence, and what not, to this invariable material.' What has become here of the substance of Paradise Lost—the story, scenery, ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... it. Sacrifice is thus regarded as possessing a mystical potency superior even to the gods, who it is sometimes stated attained to their divine rank by means of sacrifice. Sacrifice was regarded as almost the only kind of duty, and it was also called karma or kriya (action) and the unalterable law was, that these mystical ceremonies for good or for bad, moral or immoral (for there were many kinds of sacrifices which were performed for injuring one's enemies or gaining worldly prosperity or supremacy at the cost of others) were destined to produce ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... of time. I think the first chicken that was ever hatched in Eden must have experienced some great nervous shock that has descended along the infinite line of its progeny. The monotonous rooster chants ever and anon from the top of the fence his unalterable convictions. The ducks waddle waggishly through the rain and the pigeons coo softly the mellowest melodies that ever sounded from ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... disreputable playmate. At length it had appeared that the five-year-old was learning unsavory language from the elder boy, who rarely had an opportunity of hearing speech more desirable. To the bitter grief of both children, the companionship had at length been stopped by unalterable decree of the master of the ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... comprehended in that moment of intense resolution that this woman had become the whole world to him. That one fact never would change. It came over him as a distinct revelation untinged by either despair or hope. It was merely an unalterable truth, which he must henceforth face as fate willed. He was of fighting blood, and the seeming obstacles in the way of success did not dismay; they merely served to inspire him to ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... incident was characteristically revealing, and shows how firmly rooted in his imaginative temperament was the belief, the unalterable conviction rather, that his life operated upon an outer and an inner plane simultaneously, the one ever reacting upon the other. It was as if he were aware of two separate sets of faculties, subtly linked, one carrying on the affairs of the physical ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... plants and animals to be dispersed over the surface of a changing earth. The fact is that fertility, adequate to the various ends in view, is found in all the quarters of the world, or in every country of the earth; and the permanency of our land is such as to make it appear unalterable to mankind in general and even to impose upon men of science, who have endeavoured to persuade us that this earth is ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... drawn, and fading her delicate skin to the colour of withered flowers. Yet the little smile, which lingered like autumn sunshine around her lips, was full of that sweetness which time could not destroy, because it belonged not to her flesh, but to an unalterable quality of her soul; and this sweetness, which she exhaled like a fragrance, would cause perhaps one of a hundred strangers to glance after her with the thought, "How lovely that woman ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... know that this god dwells within them and that of him they are a part. There he dwells and there they mould him to their own fashion, as the potter moulds his clay, though whatever the shape he seems to take beneath their fingers, still he remains the god infinite and unalterable. Still he is the Seeker and the Sought, the Prayer and its Fulfilment, the Love and the Hate, the Virtue and the Vice, since all these qualities the alchemy of his spirit turns into an ultimate and eternal Good. For ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... obtains regarding it seems to be very much a scepticism of effort, conjured up by toiling intellects, in a quiet age, and among the easy classes; while the belief which, partially and for the time, it overshadows, lies safely entrenched all the while amid the fastnesses of the unalterable nature of man. When danger comes to touch it, it will spring up in its old proportions; nay, so indigenous is it to the human heart, that if it will not take its cultivated form as a belief in Providence, it will to a certainty take to ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... last. I wish to merit the flattering things you say of my talents; but your expressions of esteem and regard are still more flattering, and these, I am sure, I shall never fail to merit, if the warmest friendship and unalterable attachment can ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... heavenly influences—it knows no diminution of brightness, no darkness from earthly shadows, no dimness from worldly cares or worldly sorrow, but, turned away from the observation and uses of mankind, its phaze is one of unalterable quiet, of undimmed and shadowless lustre. Earth is not permitted to project one shadow upon its plane, while heaven and heavenly light lie beautiful and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... been received by the Editor of The Spiritualist from WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, announcing his unalterable resolve to change his Christian name because of the posthumous discredit attached to it by the KAISER. Asked what he proposed to substitute for it, the Bard created a prodigious sensation by announcing that he thought Francis would do as well as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... more ability than of old:—"Let us examine a little farther into the weight of the argument derived from the supposed immutability of the Laws of Nature. It has constantly been the theme of modern Unbelievers, that the course of Nature is fixed, eternal, unalterable; and that nothing which is supposed to violate it can possibly take place. Now, we may readily allow, that the course of Nature is unalterable by human power; nay, even by the power of any created being whatsoever. But the question is,—Are these Laws unalterable by Him who made them? ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... or remove from its object. Men having this kind of uprightness and loyalty, rarely are much given to words or demonstrations of affection. To them love takes its place, side by side with the common air, the course of the sun, the succession of days and nights, and all other unquestioned and unalterable things in the world. To suggest to such a man the possibility of lessening in his allegiance to a wife, is like proposing to him to overthrow the whole course of nature. He simply cannot conceive of ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... had brought with us for the purpose, and how at last we laid her in all her calm, unconscious loveliness on the great table which stood in the middle of the chamber in which Djama was to do his work. But here my story must cease for the time, for Djama made it an unalterable condition that he should do the work that only he could do in absolute solitude. Only thus, he said, would he, or could he, perform the task upon whose issue the completion of Golden Star's life on earth, if it was ever ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... as rich as Croesus. Accordingly, Vargrave spoke with more than his usual vigour. His first sentences were welcomed with loud cheers; he warmed, he grew vehement, he uttered the most positive and unalterable sentiments upon the question alluded to, he greatly transgressed the discretion which the heads of his party were desirous to maintain,—instead of conciliating without compromising, he irritated, galled, and compromised. The angry cheers of the opposite party ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... emphasize by this is, that those who come with gifts and dedications should bind themselves in terms of unalterable covenant. They should stand to their consecration when loss or pain or temptation come, as come they will in one form or another. It is just here where so many fail—they do not really maintain their sacrifice. ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... result. In the month of October the Allies overthrew the colossal edifice denominated the French Empire. When led by victory to the banks of the Rhine they declared their wish to abstain from conquest, explained their intentions, and manifested an unalterable resolution to abide by them. This determination of the Allies induced the French Government to evince pacific intentions. Napoleon wished, by an apparent desire for peace, to justify, if I may so express myself, in the eyes of his subjects, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... towards some objects or other, i.e. feels it with regard to some persons and some circumstances. Now this is an excellent foundation of a reasonable and religious resignation. Nature teaches and inclines as to take up with our lot; the consideration that the course of things is unalterable hath a tendency to quiet the mind under it, to beget a submission of temper to it. But when we can add that this unalterable course is appointed and continued by infinite wisdom and goodness, how absolute should be our submission, how entire our ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... likeness to his former self. He spoke no longer impulsively, but in the steady deliberate tones of unalterable conviction. And Lucia no longer heard the Cockney accent in this voice that came to her out of a suffering so lucid and so profound. She forgot that it came from the other side of the social gulf. If at any point in that conversation ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... in herself and in the suggestions of her own imagination. So fixed and unalterable was that belief that it amounted to positive knowledge, so far as it constituted a motive of action. In her strange youth wild dreams had possessed her, and some of them, often dreamed again, had become realities to her now. Her powers were natural, those gifts which ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... assured her that he was. Helen simply said that her determination was unalterable. He looked pleased yet his last words in taking leave of her were, "Remember, my dear, that when you have given away your fortune, you cannot live ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... common life—on these his mind brooded, one by one, till gradually the solemn consciousness of opportunities for ever missed, of failure, of limitation, evoked another, as solemn, but sweeter and more touching, of human lives irrevocably dependent on his, of the pathetic unalterable claim of marriage, the poverty and hopelessness of all self-seeking, the essential wealth, rich and making rich, of all self-spending. As he thought of his wife and son a deep tenderness flooded the man's whole nature. With a long sigh, it was ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... character were sweetness and gentle tolerance in the presence of honest opposition, and implacable vigor against shams and evil-doing. His was the perfect type of well-regulated individual judgment. His humility and love of poverty were true and unalterable. In Italy he refused the mitres of Genoa and Milan in turn, and in France successively declined the sees of Chalons, Langres, and Rheims. He wrote and spoke with simplicity and directness, and with an energy and force of conviction which came from absolute command of his subject. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... this unalterable determination, the half-starved, though still merry Giles, quitted his companion; and the following month, in pursuance of the resolve he had made, he enlisted in his Majesty's service. Fortunately for the youth, he received more billets than bullets, and consequently ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... improved on them, held firm to no prescribed proportions, but to the natural types alone, gave freedom and beauty to their unbending outlines, and now have left our masters far behind us. But how was this possible? simply because the Egyptians, bound by unalterable laws, could make no progress; we, on the contrary, were free to pursue our course in the wide arena of art as far as will and power ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... once again our unalterable purpose to make of the atom a peaceful servant of humanity, I shortly shall ask the Congress to authorize full United States participation in the International Atomic ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... question was not decided by the people. It was to compel the President to take his stand that the question was brought forward at that particular time. He met the challenge, willingly took the position into which his adversaries sought to force him, and frankly declared his unalterable opposition to the bank as being both unconstitutional and inexpedient. On that ground the case was argued to the people; and now that the people have sustained the President, notwithstanding the array of influence ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... getting down into a well, I contrived to descend with it into the vault; where there was hardly space enough left to let me stand. The two girls drank out of the hat together; looking up at me with an unalterable, idiotic expression, that almost made me faint. The woman spoke not a word, and did not stir. While the girls were breaking and eating the bread, I tried to lift the woman's head; but, feeble as she was, she seemed bent upon holding it down. Observing her arms still clasped upon her bosom, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... me a haughty nod, and ran up-stairs with a quick light step. The old butler came to lock and bolt the hall-door as the clock struck ten, according to unalterable custom; and I went back to my room, wondering what could have kept Mrs. Darrell out so long— whether she had been upon some special errand, or had only been wandering about the ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... was more than this. It was France embracing America, beneath the benediction of "God and Liberty." Only a few days later, Voltaire died. But the alliance with France had received a new assurance, and the cause of American Independence an unalterable impulse. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... found in nature, but the basis is there, and it remains for the artistic imagination to select and to amplify. Already many years ago the scientist Helmholtz said, "Our system of scales and of harmonic tissues does not rest upon unalterable natural laws, but is partly at least the result of aesthetic principles of selection, which have already changed, and will change still further with the progressive development of humanity."[293] In other words the limits of receptivity of the human ear cannot be foreseen nor can the workings ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... pending, and would fain give a bias to causes so slender and insignificant, as the skittle-player bends his body to give a bias to the bowl he has already delivered from his hand, not considering that what is once determined, be the causes ever so trivial or evanescent, is in the individual instance unalterable. Indeed, to be a great philosopher, in the practical and most important sense of the term, little more seems necessary than to be convinced of the truth of the maxim which the wise man repeated to the daughter of King Cophetua, That if a ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... considered the plan as too dangerous, we ought to have firmness enough to renounce the satisfaction we promised ourselves in such a correspondence, and rest satisfied with the acquaintance we had formed, the mutual pleasure we had already derived, and the unalterable goodwill we felt towards each other, which resulted from it. I filled four pages with my explanations, and expressions of the warmest friendship; I briefly alluded to the subject of my imprisonment; ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... instant the whole family was divided into two parties—two very ardent parties, who, with an unceasing flow of words, set to debating the momentous question:—whether one can call a dog of eight years an old dog or not. Both sides became warm, and, although each one kept on repeating his unalterable opinion into his opponent's face, it did not seem likely that they would ever arrive at unanimity—not even when old grandmother hurriedly rose from her chair, and positively insisted upon telling some story about the Queen-Dowager's lap-dog, which she had had the honour ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... let any one imagine that the expression of the belief constantly avowed or implied throughout these pages, that Home Rule would be as great an evil to England as Irish independence, shows a reckless and most unbusinesslike indifference to the perils and losses of separation. My conviction is unalterable that separation would be to England, as also to Ireland, a gigantic evil. This position is fully compatible with the belief that there are other evils as great, or greater. If a man says that he prefers the loss of his right hand to the loss of his life, he cannot reasonably be ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... He springs into the air, decides between the two attractions, one of them, so deadly to his interests and—drops upon the fly-paper to perish miserably! The future is in his hands no longer. We must lie upon the bed that we have made, nor can Providence change its unalterable decrees." ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... destroyer of the Boer nation. The personal note in the address was, therefore, both instructive and welcome, and it elicited a response in which the charm of a calm and generous nature shines through an unalterable determination to know and ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... employed absorbing the products of the inflammation, and any attempt to interfere with this necessary process of nature can end only in disaster or in a prolongation of the difficulty. This is the law of pathology, unalterable and not to be evaded. Physicians at times resort to soothing and astringent applications in an emergency, to carry the artist through a performance; but the lack of edge to the voice for weeks following is an all-sufficient indication of the revenge nature takes for this trespass ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... its understanding of what had heretofore been intricate and elusive impulses of his strange nature. His determination was to meet Poggin; meet him before any one else had a chance—Poggin first—and then the others! He was as unalterable in that decision as if on the instant of its acceptance he had ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... me; I cannot control events," and as the dreadful war progressed and became more deadly and dangerous, the unalterable conviction was forced upon him that, in order that the frightful sacrifice of life and treasure on both sides might not be all in vain, it had become his duty as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, as a necessary war measure, to strike a blow at the Rebellion which, all others failing, would inevitably ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... to the aid of her relatives at such tremendous personal risk. Indeed it was clearly stated, with the unimpeachable Mr. Beaumont as authority, that she had entreated him not to go, and had not the slightest expectation of his going until he surprised her by his unalterable decision. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of expanding our merchant marine, that it will argue its own approval. It is enough to say to-day that we are so possessed of ships, and the American intention to establish it merchant marine is so unalterable, that a plain of reimbursement, at no other cost than is contemplated in the existing act, will appeal to the pride and encourage the hope of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding
... began to talk thick and at once, each performing his own part in the conversation without the least respect to his neighbour. The Baron of Bradwardine sung French chansons-a-boire, and spouted pieces of Latin; Killancureit talked, in a steady unalterable dull key, of top-dressing and bottom-dressing, [Footnote: This has been censured as an anachronism; and it must be confessed that agriculture of this kind was unknown to the Scotch Sixty Years Since.] and year-olds, and gimmers, and dinmonts, and stots, and runts, and kyloes, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... till their mutual repugnance will know no bounds, and of everything concerning which they obtain knowledge through their senses. Thus these poor creatures seem to be the victims of circumstances and the unalterable laws of fate, and were there such a thing as death, their misery would unquestionably finally break their hearts. That there will be final forgiveness for the condemned, has long been a human hope; but as yet they ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... by the Congress of the Confederate States of America that this Congress do solemnly declare and publish to the world that it is the unalterable determination of the people of the Confederate States, in humble reliance upon Almighty God, to suffer all the calamities of ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... reasons the Peasants' Congress sustains entirely the Revolution of November 7th... as a social revolution, and expresses its unalterable will to put into operation, with whatever modifications are necessary, but without any hesitation, the social ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... once. But nothing is more true than that a nation can alter its constitution by its own deliberate and voluntary action, and many nations have done so, and sometimes for the better, as well as for the worse. If the constitution once given is fixed and unalterable, it must be wholly divine, and contain no human element, and the people have and can have no hand in their own government—the fundamental objection to the theocratic constitution of society. To assume it is to transfer to civil society, founded ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... Coxe went away, with an oath of unalterable faithfulness in his heart; and Mr. Gibson had unwillingly to fulfil an old promise made to a gentleman farmer in the neighbourhood a year or two before, and to take the second son of Mr. Browne in young Coxe's place. He was to be the last of the race of pupils, and as he was rather more ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... is a shield from which all the fiery darts of the wicked one harmless rebound. Forgiveness brings heaven to earth, and heaven's peace into the sinful heart. Forgiveness is the image of God, the forgiving Father, and an advancement of Christ's kingdom in the world. Your unalterable duty is clear: as surely as we are Christians, men who have experienced great compassion, who see in every man a brother in Christ, and are going forward to God's righteous judgment, so surely we must forgive. Of no commandment ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... some persons in Parliament, and from others in the sixpenny societies for debate, a great deal about unalterable laws passed at the Revolution. When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool. A law passed when there was Germany, Spain, Russia, Sweden, Holland, Portugal, ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... otherwise so inadequate, that I thought it much stronger, taken the contrary way: he called it a miracle, and so I look upon it, but in a different sense. The Turkish historians say, that the persuasion those of their nation have imprinted in them of the fatal and unalterable prescription of their days, manifestly conduces to the giving them great assurance in dangers. And I know a great prince who makes very fortunate use of it, whether it be that he really believes it, or that he makes it his excuse for so wonderfully hazarding ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... a great deal of important business to do in it. Time and death are both in my view, and seem both to call aloud to me to make no delay. I beg of you, therefore, not to disquiet yourself or me. What must be, must be. The decrees of Providence are eternal and unalterable; why, then, should we torment ourselves about that which ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe
... what you would say,' he softly said; 'but be it frenzy or no, I cannot forbear; I am unalterable—be you ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of their language by fully exposing the facts that should determine their practice. Every word has its history, and no word can prosper in the speech or writing of those who do not respect its inherited and unalterable associations; these cannot be got rid of by ignoring them. Littr['e] in the preface to his dictionary claims for it this pre-eminent quality of usefulness, that it will enable his countrymen to speak and write good French by acquainting them with historic tradition, and he ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... not long rest in that unavowed consciousness which left a shadow of doubt as to their reciprocal attachment. To Evellin's declaration of unalterable love, Isabella answered, that she knew too little of his situation to say whether she ought to be his, but her heart told her she never could be another's. The lover poured forth protestations of gratitude. "No," answered she, "I deserve no thanks; ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... before he might see her again, and ere she took her departure left a third pear and a third handkerchief behind her. When the miller awoke and found that she had gone he went nearly crazy with grief, but nevertheless he declared his unalterable intention of regaining the Princess, even if he should have to travel to the ends of the earth in search of her. Accordingly he set out to find her abode. He walked and walked innumerable miles, until ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... once started with a velocity of 1,000 miles a minute, then it must preserve that velocity. Neither the lapse of centuries nor the mighty length of the journey could alter it. The path of Sirius would be inflexible in its direction; and it would be traversed with unalterable velocity. ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... currency. She mints her spiritual coinage and stamps it with the image of some beloved face. With it she pays her debts, with it she reckons, saying, "This man has worth, this man is worthless." And in time she forgets its origin; it seems to her to be a thing unalterable, divine. But the soul can also have ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... she was no use for pulling. She was a wise little animal with excellent gaits and great endurance. We were forced to leave, behind another mare that I had ridden a good deal on reconnaissances, and that used to amuse me by her unalterable determination to stick to cover. It was almost most impossible to get her to cut across a field; she preferred to skirt the woods and had no intention of exposing herself on any sky-line. In spite of her caution it was on account of wounds that she had eventually to be abandoned. I trust ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... him again and again that "the way of transgressors is hard," and that "though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished." She who had loved, cared for, and watched over him with almost a mother's undying, unalterable ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... him, but honest, simple and very eager to be liberal-minded. He was bald, with an almost conical baldness, with a grizzled pointed beard, small featured and, under the stresses of a Zeitgeist that demanded liberality, with an expression of puzzled but resolute resistance to his own unalterable opinions. He made a tall dignified figure in his gown. In my junior days he spoke to me only three or four times, and then he annoyed me by giving me a wrong surname; it was a sore point because I was an outsider and not one of the old school families, the Shoesmiths, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... wore her little Kodak swung across her shoulder in jaunty military fashion. She invariably carried a camera on such occasions, and never by any chance used it to take any photographs; the programme was so unalterable that it had ceased to attract ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... taking so rash a step, consider the proposal which I have made to you? I can offer you the substance of which the other was only the shadow, and I can pledge to you the stable and unalterable devotion of a man who has lived long enough to know his own mind, and who declares to you that you are the only woman whom he has ever desired to put in the position of ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... he may still continue to accept them in some other sense. In short, our whole key of thinking or tone of thought having been in certain respects changed, we can no longer anticipate that in these respects it should continue to harmonize with the unalterable system of theology. ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... the President's unalterable determination to have his form of guaranty in the Covenant, in which he was successful, and his firm refusal to modify it in any substantial way resulted in strengthening the opponents to the League to such an extent that they were able to prevent the ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... to the hostelry next in rank, a proceeding recognized by the inferior hostess as both just and friendly, for the good woman never thought of measuring The Star against The Boar's Head. More than one comical story had been the result of this law of The Boar's Head, unalterable almost as that of the Medes and Persians. I say almost, for to one class of the footfaring community the official ice about the hearts of the three women did thaw, yielding passage to a full ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... countenance, there was something leonine about Marshall Sothern. It appeared reasonable that if he were going into the battle against Madden and Hasbrook, then Madden and Hasbrook would need their wits about them. He seemed at once gifted with infinite patience and unalterable will. He did not move from his window until he had seen David Drennen come out of his dugout, making his slow way to supper at Joe's. Sothern's eyes, as keen as knife blades, studied the dark face, probing deep ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... of expression common to them; and though they rarely brightened with a smile, they were never deformed with a frown. There was in their expression a fixity indicative of his character, a purpose settled and unalterable. Of all the men I have ever known, Washington was the only one who never descended from the stilts of his dignity, or relaxed the austerity of his bearing. It has been said that he swore at General Charles Lee at the battle of Brandywine—I could never have it authenticated. He ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... comparatively fresh. In fact, the waters of the sea require to be stirred, because numerous agents are at work day and night, from pole to pole, altering their specific gravity and deranging, so to speak, the mixture. This stirring is secured by the unalterable laws which the Creator has fixed for the carrying on of the processes of nature. The currents of the sea may be said to be the result of this process ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... day sick. There was no hope for the child. Death had marked her as his prey, and nothing could stay or turn away his ruthless hand from this little flower of earth. Stern fate had decreed that she should die. The unalterable sentence had been registered in the book of Heaven, and an angel stood at her bedside ready to ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... communicating the most joyful intelligence, and thinking nothing of the way in which such joyous news is received. Zillah made no observation. Involuntarily her eyes sought those of Windham. She read in his face a depth of despair which was without hope—profound—unalterable—unmovable. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... his Life of Emerson: "The object of this fine essay quaintly entitled Circles is to reconcile this rigidity of unalterable law with the fact of human progress. Compensation illustrates one property of a circle, which always returns to the point where it began, but it is no less true that around every circle another can be drawn.... Emerson followed his own counsel; he always keeps a reserve of power. His theory ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... trait was gaiety, a cheerfulness that, while not exactly joy itself, was constant and unalterable; it might be said that she was born a flower, and that her ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... from the mirror of the lake, nor melt away in the noontide sun. They haunted his pictorial fancy, not as mockeries of life nor pale goblins of the dead, but in the guise of portraits, each with an unalterable expression which his magic had evoked from the caverns of the soul. He could not recross the Atlantic till he had again beheld the originals of those ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... yes. I do not at all mean that the question between us has not been settled by the fact of your marriage turning out hopelessly unalterable. I merely meant—well, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... ruin will follow." Some of this is true, some fallacious. It is undoubtedly a difficult problem which we have to solve; and I am inclined to think it is this difficulty that makes men conclude that what seems a necessary and unalterable state of things must be good-that its benefits must be greater than its evils. This was the feeling of the American advocates of slavery; they could not see an easy, comfortable way out of it. In our own case, however, it is to be hoped, that ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... explanation!" cried the young count. "Let us now hasten to thine aunt; and in her presence will I renew to thee all the vows of unalterable and honorable affection which my heart suggests, as a means of proving that I am worthy ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... her carry on with the medical assistant; that is her business. I must do what my conscience demands of me. And my conscience expects me to sacrifice my freedom. My resolution to marry her, if only in form, and to follow wherever she may be sent, remains unalterable." Nekhludoff said all this to himself with vicious obstinacy as he left the hospital and walked with resolute steps towards the big gates of the prison. He asked the warder on duty at the gate to inform the inspector that he wished ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... but one central orb in the world's monetary systems, and that is Gold. And its satellites, paper or silver, will never be able to get out of their orbits where the fixed and unalterable laws of the world's financial systems have placed them. Temporary disturbances may deceive the searcher, but he has mistaken his calling who cannot distinguish planets from the sun ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... sentence suggests that the just price was not a fixed and unalterable standard, but was somewhat wide and elastic. On this all writers are agreed. 'The just price of things,' says Aquinas, 'is not fixed with mathematical precision, but depends on a kind of estimate, so that ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... Colonials such as we, who were, I fear, very apt to forget the little niceties of manner which are inbred in the native Briton. While we afterward became the best of friends there was never any danger of our becoming "alike." We secretly admired their perfect and unalterable observance of all orders even though we were, at the same time, scheming to evade a lot of those same restrictions which appeared to us to be unnecessary. They, on their part, could not help admitting that the dash and "devil-may-care" spirit shown by our men often accomplished results not otherwise ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride |
