"Dignify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... logic, to serve as the basis of the law. Here, one fact says yes; there, a thousand facts say no. To which evidence shall we lend an ear? If we only wish to bolster up a theory, it would be prudent to listen to neither. The how and why escapes us; what we dignify with the pretentious title of a law is but a way of looking at things with our mind, a very squint-eyed way, which we adopt for the requirements of our case. Our would-be laws contain but an infinitesimal shade of reality; often ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... its true sense is supposed to ennoble and dignify a man; and love has shed refinements on innumerable Cymons. But Mr Pecksniff—perhaps because to one of his exalted nature these were mere grossnesses—certainly did not appear to any unusual advantage, now that he was left alone. On the contrary, he seemed to be shrunk and reduced; to be trying ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... above and below, the result being that the entire structure formed a good, substantially- built raft, having in its centre portion a platform or deck measuring twelve feet fore and aft, and eighteen feet athwartships. The craft—if one may dignify the structure with such a name—was rigged with one mast, situated exactly in the centre, and well supported by shrouds on each side, and she was provided with a lateen or three-cornered sail bent to a very long yard composed of a number ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... after honour hunts, I after love: He leaves his friends to dignify them more; I leave myself, my friends, and all for love. Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me,— Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, War with good counsel, set the world at naught; Made wit with musing weak, heart ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... height of them, and by the force of imagination make them his own! He could turn abruptly from the law—to hotels! A disconcerting man! And the mere tone in which he mentioned his enterprise seemed, in a most surprising way, to dignify hotels, and even boarding-houses; to give romance to the perfectly unromantic business of lodging and catering!... And the seed from which he was to grow the magic plant sat in the room there with Hilda: ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... sentences, which are shaped and corrected by the teacher and then written up on the blackboard, until there are enough of them to fill one page of an ordinary exercise book. Then the whole essay (if one must dignify it with that name) is copied out, very neatly and carefully, by every child in the class; and the result is shown to the inspector as original composition. At other times or in other schools the class ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet; his tawdry lampoons are called satires, his turbulence is said to be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the study of one who read rather to awaken the imagination than to benefit the understanding. And yet, knowing much that is known but to few, Edward Waverley might justly be considered as ignorant, since he knew little of what adds dignify to man, and qualifies him to support and adorn an ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... and I left the room. Since that day I have only met her in society, where we exchange a friendly bow, and occasionally a sarcasm. I talk to her of the inconsolable women of Lancashire; she makes allusion to Frenchwomen who dignify their gastric troubles by calling them despair. Thanks to her, I have a mortal enemy in de Marsay, of whom she is very fond. In return, I call her the ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... little, I can manage here On brocoli and mutton round the year, 'Tis true no turbots dignify my boards, But gudgeons, flounders, what ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with the name of reflection, when suddenly an irruption of madcap boys from Westminster school, playing at football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. I sought to take ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... the frivolity of his favourite pursuits; and this consciousness produced one of the most diverting of his ten thousand affectations. His busy idleness, his indifference to matters which the world generally regards as important, his passion for trifles, he thought fit to dignify with the name of philosophy. He spoke of himself as of a man whose equanimity was proof to ambitious hopes and fears, who had learned to rate power, wealth, and fame at their true value, and whom the conflict ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the same theory: the fact being meanwhile that in all which is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey dissents perhaps as widely and as determinately as Mr. Coleridge; dissents, that is to say, not as the numerous blockheads among the male blue-stockings who dignify their ignorance with the name of dissent—but as one man of illustrious powers dissents from what he deems after long examination the errors of another; as Leibnitz on some occasions dissented from Plato, or as the great modern philosopher of Germany ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... as truths or titles to posterity. Certain it is that Echevarria sent for the nearest Jesuit priest to mediate, and he luckily, or unluckily, proved to be that Father Thadeus Ennis, who played so prominent a part in the futile rising which the enemies of the Jesuits have chosen to dignify with the high-sounding title of ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... historical motives, as in a typical composite canvas by Cole (Thomas), who generally ranks as the most important of the Hudson River School of landscape painters. There is really not enough artistic moment to this American group to dignify it by the name of a school. For historical reasons, however, this classification is very convenient. Cole's four sketches for the "Voyage of Life" show strong imagination, giving the impression, however, that he ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... such the theme, becomes the poet's task: Yet must he try by modulation meet Of varied cadence and selected phrase Exact yet free, without inflation bold, To dignify that theme." ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... though of his earliest works, is the "Essay on Criticism," which, if he had written nothing else, would have placed him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it: he that delights himself ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... situation his lack of self-control has created, the lover spirit will conquer the brute. He will regret the pain he has caused; he will want to forget and be forgiven quickly though he may not go through the formality of an apology. A formal apology and reconciliation will, in his judgment, dignify the episode and make a mountain out of a molehill. The wife will be wise to so regard it though it is an injustice to her. The husband will not underestimate the importance of the event, however, and in many ways will be a better husband in future, but ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... Prague." Mrs. Tag-rag, a fat, showily dressed woman of about fifty, her cap having a prodigious number of artificial flowers in it, sat reading a profitable volume, entitled "Groans from the Bottomless Pit to Awaken Sleeping Sinners," by (as he was pleased to dignify himself) the Rev. DISMAL HORROR—a very rousing young dissenting preacher lately come into that neighborhood, and who had almost frightened into fits half the women and children, and one or two ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... one of Abelard among his pupils in the infant university of Paris. Cousin elevated the soul while he intoxicated the mind, and created a spirit of inquiry which was felt wherever philosophy was recognized as one of the most ennobling studies that can dignify the human intellect. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... continue to act according to your wishes. I am not called upon to proclaim to the world and my acquaintance that I am the daughter of my own servant, and that you were kind enough to marry your estimable mistress after my birth in order to confer upon me what you dignify by the name of legitimacy. No. That is not necessary. If it could hurt you to proclaim it I would do so in the most public way I could find. But it is folly to suppose that you could be made to suffer ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... night; But none of these possess'd a sting to wound her— She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight. Perhaps she wish'd an aspirant profounder; But whatsoe'er she wish'd, she acted right; And whether coldness, pride, or virtue dignify A woman, so she 's ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... in childhood, when the mother and the family fail to develop the womanly qualities of modesty, grace, generosity of character, and geniality of temper, which dignify, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... of the new Abbot served of itself to dignify a ceremonial which was deprived of all other attributes of grandeur. Conscious of the peril in which they stood, and recalling, doubtless, the better days they had seen, there hung over his brethren an appearance of mingled terror, and grief, and ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... attentions from the clan-fellows of the group." "She is the receiver of the supplies furnished by her lover, measuring his competence as would-be husband. Through his energy she is enabled to dispense largess with a lavish hand, and thus to dignify her clan and honour her spouse in the most effective way known to primitive life; and at the same time she enjoys the immeasurable moral stimulus of realising she is the arbiter of the fate of a man who becomes a warrior ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... establishment is a Savings Bank, and evening instruction in writing, singing, and arithmetic. There was also a reading-room, and the same valuable and liberal provision we had found attached to some of the Manchester warehouses. Such accessories dignify and gladden all kinds of labor, and show somewhat of the true spirit of human brotherhood in the employer. Mr. Chambers said he trusted they should never look on publishing chiefly as business, or a lucrative and respectable employment, but as the means of mental and moral ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... suffering of the slave mother, who has given all the best of her life to a large family, battling with poverty in her efforts to dignify her little home, and to give her children an education, when she realizes that she is losing ground intellectually, yet has no time or strength for reading, or self-culture, no opportunity for broadening her mental outlook by traveling or mingling with the world! But ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... sir, the fellow, by way of asking pardon—ha, ha, ha! had the modesty to wait on me two or three days ago, to inform my honour—ha, ha, ha! as he was pleased to dignify me,—that the execution was now ready to be put in force against my honour;—but that out of respect to my honour—as he had taken a great deal of my honour's money— he would not suffer his lawyer to serve it, till he had first informed my ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... as nothing: the injury which can be done him, and the injury which he can do, have so momentary an existence that they may be safely neglected: but the abiding injury is to the most august interest which for the mind of man can have any existence,—viz. to his own nature: to raise and dignify which, I am persuaded, is the first—last—and holiest command [1] which the conscience imposes on the philosophic moralist. In countries, where the traveller has the pain of seeing human creatures performing the labors of brutes, [2]—surely the sorrow ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... of his reign, wished only to maintain such a government? And why not at least compound matters with him, when, by all his laws, it appeared that he had agreed to depart from it? especially AS he had put it entirely out of his power to retract that resolution. It is in vain, therefore, to dignify this civil war, and the parliamentary authors of it, by supposing it to have any other considerable foundation than theological zeal, that great source of animosity among men. The royalists also were very commonly zealots; but as they were at the same time ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... bass! Why should he make a boast of it? If he has a voice, I have got the ghost of it! When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is, When I pitch it high, heavens! what a squeak it is! But I never mind; for what does it signify? See my graceful hands, they're the things that dignify: All the rest is froth, and egotism's dizziness— Have I not played with Phelps? (To Wenman) I'll teach you ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... wealth belongs to everybody; take it wherever you can find it; have no scruples about the means of taking it; use dynamite, the dagger, or the torch to take it; kill innocent people to take it; but, at all events, take it.' This is the doctrine which they call anarchy, and this policy they dignify with the name of 'propagandism ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... spending more than one night on the way, we abandoned our steamer that evening, and set off at an early hour the next morning. We made camp at the end of the day's march within ten miles of Buford, and arrived at the post without having had any incident of moment, unless we may dignify as one a battle with three grizzly bears, discovered by our friendly Indians the morning of our second day's journey. While eating our breakfast —a rather slim one, by the way—spread on a piece of canvas, the Indians, whose bivouac was some distance off, began shouting excitedly, "Bear! bear!" ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... Augustus! who so well inspired, Couldst throw thy pomp and royalties aside. Attentive to the wise, the great of soul. And dignify thy mind. Thrice glorious days. Auspicious to ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the commissioners, the king being arrived in parliament, they began to dignify several of the Scots nobility with offices of state, and because a lord-treasurer was a-wanting it was moved that none did deserve that office so well as the earl of Loudon, who had done so much for his country. But the king, judging more wisely in this, thought it was more ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... overthrown. The system of spoils and plunder must also be destroyed, in order that freedom itself may be rescued from the perilous activities quickened into life by its own spirit, and the conduct of public affairs inspired by the great moralities which dignify ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... it may go far to dignify their daily needs," said Robert. "For instance, a poor man about to buy his to-morrow's dinner may feel his soul take a little fly above the ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... prescribed; and since they know little about the ground or meaning of what they do, they feel content and safe if at least they have done it properly. Sacrifices are often performed in this spirit; and when a beautiful order and religious calm have come to dignify the performance, the mind, having meantime very little to occupy it, may embroider on the given theme. It is then that fable, and new religious sentiments suggested by fable, appear prominently on ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... defenseless Lamb of God was led into a den of ravenous wolves, who were thirsting for his blood. They did not dignify his case by even filing a formal charge against him. They sought, contrary to the law, to make him testify against himself. They knew nothing themselves against him; and notwithstanding they sat as the high and dignified court of the nation of Israel, ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... even, that seemed as natural as it was inevitable. His very presence was a restraint upon everything like levity or frivolity, and diffused a thoughtful and composed, if not always grave, air about him, which, never ceasing to be cheerful and bright, never failed to dignify the objects of pursuit and elevate the intercourse of life. A gentleman in the primitive sense of the word, he was, without seeking to be thought so, always felt to be of ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... bass-ropes; besides, the truncheons make a far better coal for gun-powder than that of alder it self; Scriblets for painters first draughts are also made of its coals; and the extraordinary candor and lightness, has dignify'd it above all the woods of our forest, in the hands of the Right Honourable the White-Stave officers of His Majesty's Imperial Court. Those royal plantations of these trees in the parks of Hampton-court, and St. James's, will sufficiently instruct any man how these (and ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... when properly conducted and liberally pursued, has an obvious tendency to dignify the whole character. How can he be a man of refined literary taste, who cannot speak and write his native language grammatically? And who will deny that every degree of improvement in literary taste tends to brighten ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... there, to act as in the presence of God, to interfuse one's little part with religion. So only can we inform the detail of life, all that is passing, temporary, and insignificant, with beauty and nobility. So may we dignify and consecrate the meanest of occupations. So may we feel that we are paying our tribute to the universal work and the eternal will. So are we reconciled with life and delivered from the fear of death. So are we in order ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lady again named them to the Queen at the moment they saluted her; if she and the tirewoman were absent, the first woman took the place and did that duty. The ladies of the bedchamber, chosen solely as companions for the Queen, had no domestic duties to fulfil, however opinion might dignify such offices. The King's letter in appointing them, among other instructions of etiquette, ran thus: "having chosen you to bear the Queen company." There were hardly any emoluments accruing from ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... qualities by which it is to be reconciled to us, and we reconciled to it, are moderation, gentleness, a little indulgence to others, and a great deal of distrust of ourselves; which are not qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them, but virtues of a great and noble kind, and such as dignify our nature as much as they contribute to our repose and fortune; for nothing can be so unworthy of a well-composed soul, as to pass away life in bickerings and litigations, in snarling and scuffling with every ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... possible, in any place where Providence has put you, for the future at least. And the firm purpose of serving God in it, will dignify for the ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... a curious fact, makes a very curious mistake. "To dignify his capital," he says, "having discovered that the ancient name of Porto-Ferrajo was Comopoli (the city of Como), he commanded it to be called Cosmopoli, or the city of all nations." Now the old name of Porto-Ferrajo ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... and yet the world in general hath given me a proud pre-eminence over them in profligacy. Yet I like the men, and, God knows, ought not to condemn their aberrations. But I own I feel provoked when they dignify all this by the name of love—romantic attachments for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... admirably displayed the discrepancy, in this view, between the alleged origin and the alleged authority of reason. Such an argument ought to be used not to discredit the confident reason, but to illuminate and dignify its dark beginnings, and to show that at every step in the long course of growth a Power was at work which is not included in any term or in all the terms of ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... makes itself indispensable, has solved most of its problems."[3] "As a race there are two things we must learn to do—one is to put brains into the common occupations of life, and the other is to dignify common labor."[4] "Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the State Legislature was worth more than ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... well-regulated, self-respecting lives of the elder and wiser masters is much more satisfactory. We pity the Maginns, and Mangans, and Poes, whom we have always with us; but we admire and reverence such writers as Wordsworth, and Thackeray, and Bryant, who dignify their high calling. The last thirty years of the life of Mr. Bryant were devoid of incidents, though one of them (1866) was not without the supreme sorrow—death. He devoted himself to journalism ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... by a messenger from Mr. Wetter, the outgoing American Consul at Madagascar, and I was piloted ashore. The view of Tamatave from the ship was not prepossessing, and my walk through the city to the hotel was not inspiring. The attempt to dignify the six or eight feet wide alleys (which were the main arteries for travel) as avenues or streets, seemed ludicrous, and the filthy condition, the absence of all sanitary regulations in a province pretending a civilized administration, was to me a revelation. ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... conflict. In a little triangular tract of country on the east shore of Jamaica, hemmed in between the sea and the Blue Mountains, twenty-five miles long and two thirds as wide, occurred in October last what Governor Eyre has seen fit to dignify with the name of an insurrection. The first act of violence was committed at Morant Bay,—a town where it is said that no missionary to the blacks has been permitted to live for thirty-five years,—in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... was, and still continues the principal Foundation of the universal Tribe of Sallets; which is to Cool and Refresh, besides its other Properties: And therefore in such high esteem with the Ancients; that divers of the Valerian Family, dignify'd and enobled their Name ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... are so cross-grained that it is a wonder to me that men should ever have anything to do with them. They have about them some madness of a phantasy which they dignify with the name of feminine pride, and under the cloak of this they believe themselves to be justified in tormenting their lovers' lives out. The only consolation is that they torment themselves as much. Can anything be more cross-grained than you are at this ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... were not enough children for the homes offered. It would be such a blessed privilege to have a missionary's child in the house. The various Judson children that were scattered here and there were perpetual curiosities. Their very presence was enough to sanctify, dignify, and make illustrious any ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... modest by living on a poultry farm, for there are constant expositions of the most deplorable vanity among the cocks. We have a couple of pea-fowl who certainly are an addition to the landscape, as they step mincingly along the square of turf we dignify by the name of lawn. The head of the house has a most languid and self-conscious strut, and his microscopic mind is fixed entirely on his splendid trailing tail. If I could only master his language sufficiently to tell him how hideously ugly the back view of this gorgeous fan is, when ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... as if the new woman were striving, by making the best of her present environments, and simply developing her woman nature instead of struggling to usurp man's, to enunciate a philosophy of life which I shall so dignify homely duties and beautify the commonplace that her creed might ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... exists in most of the mechanic arts is, however, far simpler than the science of cutting metals. In almost all cases, in fact, the laws or rules which are developed are so simple that the average man would hardly dignify them with the name of a science. In most trades, the science is developed through a comparatively simple analysis and time study of the movements required by the workmen to do some small part of his work, and this study is usually made by a man equipped merely with a stop-watch and a ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... confidential talk to mothers and their daughters on the responsibility, power and maternal duties of woman. These counsels should do much to dignify and elevate parenthood to the place intended by ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships. This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand. At length ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... A dignify'd Clergyman, who had given a few Sacks of Coals amongst some poor People in hard Weather, happen'd to come into Brown's Coffee-House in Spring-Garden, where some of the Gentlemen cry'd out, Doctor, you're in the Papers. The Gentleman seem'd ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... springs upon its prey. Destruction is one of its chief ends. Deception is one of its chief means, and one of the great arts of skilful generalship is to deceive in order to destroy. Whatever other elements may mingle with and dignify war, this at least is never absent; and however reluctantly men may enter into war, however conscientiously they may endeavour to avoid it, they must know that when the scene of carnage has once opened these things must be not only accepted and condoned, but stimulated, encouraged ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is, that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... this:—'Your example sir, has recommended poetry with the greatest grace to the example of those who are engag'd in the most active scenes of life; and this, though confessedly the least considerable of those qualities that dignify your character, must be particularly pleasing to one whose only hope of being introduced to your regard is thro' the recommendation of an art in which you are a ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... will consult him for no other reason, might do so to see how the energies of Woman may be made available in the pecuniary way. The object of Fourier was to give her the needed means of self-help, that she might dignify and unfold her life for her own happiness, and that of society. The many, now, who see their daughters liable to destitution, or vice to escape from it, may be interested to examine the means, if they have not yet soul enough to appreciate the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the joyous sun His twelfth diurnal race begins to run. Meantime my train the friendly gifts prepare, The sprightly coursers and a polish'd car; With these a goblet of capacious mould, Figured with art to dignify the gold (Form'd for libation to the gods), shall prove A pledge and monument ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which they daily instruct the people, by not considering ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... envy. In petty minds that leprosy becomes a base and brutal cupidity, both insolent and shrinking; in cultivated minds it fosters anti-social doctrines, which serve a man as footholds by which to rise above his superiors. May we not dignify with the title of proverb the pregnant saying, "Tell me what thou hast, and I will tell thee of what ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... With organic infusions he obtained the results of his celebrated predecessor, but he did much more—the atoms and molecules of inorganic liquids passing under his manipulation into those more 'complex chemical compounds,' which we dignify by calling them 'living organisms.' [Footnote: 'It is further held that bacteria or allied organisms are prone to be engendered as correlative products, coming into existence in the several fermentations, just as independently as other less complex chemical compounds.'—Bastian, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... Dixon in silent contempt. She was very angry, so that for the moment her embarrassment was swamped. But she did not choose to dignify his spleen by replying ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... presence or his tangible body that we shall so much miss. It is the magnetism of a pure mind, the silent, potent influence of a spotless character, the power of a great, good, and noble soul to elevate and dignify all with whom it came in contact that will prove our irreparable loss. No man ever associated with Gen. LEE without feeling the better for it. To have been with him made you feel like one who had drawn a long deep inspiration ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... moments, a slight stir, as of company taking leave, was heard in the front part of the house; and very soon a fashionably-dressed personage of a somewhat swaggering deportment, accompanied with many of those supercilious airs with which the colonial loyalists of the times often thought to dignify their carriage among despised republicans, made his appearance in the yard, where, equipped for riding, stood a stout, well-conditioned horse, which he approached and led out some distance into the road, preparatory to mounting. He ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant Men are very subject to decry those Beauties in a celebrated Work which they have not Eyes to discover. Many of our Sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the Name of Criticks, are the genuine Descendants of these two illustrious Ancestors. They are often led into those numerous Absurdities, in which they daily instruct the People, by not considering that, 1st, There is sometimes a greater Judgment shewn in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and tractable, though wild; And Innocence hath privilege in her, To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes And feats of cunning, and the pretty round Of trespasses, affected to provoke Mock chastisement and partnership in play. And, as a fagot sparkles on the hearth Not less if unattended and alone Than when both young and old sit gathered ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... testimony of the mail-carrier; now be good enough to tell the jury where you were on the night of the robbery—how many miles from this mail-sack?" and he waved his hand contemptuously toward the bag. It was probably the first time in all his life that Bud had heard any man dignify his personality with any ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... it. We must not assume an a priori justification for the forces of the past. The customs of men may represent the thwarting of the impulses of the many at the expense of the few not less easily than they may embody a general desire; and it is surely a mistaken usage to dignify as natural whatever may happen to have occurred. A man may find self-realization not less in working for the common good than in the limited satisfaction of his narrow desire for material advancement. And that, indeed, is the starting-point ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... be levelled to the ground, that the Roman commons may be able to raise their heads. Wherefore stand by me, prevent judicial proceedings from going on regarding money. I profess myself the patron of the commons—a title with which my solicitude and zeal invests me. If you will dignify your leader by any more distinguishing title of honour or command, ye will render him still more powerful to obtain what ye desire." From this his first attempt is said to have arisen with respect to the obtaining of regal power; but no sufficiently clear account is handed ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... the conversation just described was one of those glorious autumn mornings which sometimes come as a faint compensation for the utter vileness and bitter disappointment of the season that in this country we dignify by the name of summer. Notwithstanding his vigils and melancholy of the night before, the Squire was up early, and Ida, who between one thing and another had not had the best of nights, heard his loud cheery voice shouting ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... the head, but towards its outlet has a magnificent assemblage of mountains. Yet, as far as respects the formation of such receptacles, the general observation holds good: neither Derwent nor Lowes-water derive any supplies from the streams of those mountains that dignify the landscape towards ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the ordinary tourist will find little to interest him. He will see nothing which he can possibly dignify by the name of scenery, and he may journey on for many days without having any occasion to make an entry in his note-book. If he should happen, however, to be an ethnologist and linguist, he may find occupation, for he will here ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... their imperilling human life. He knew that a novelist had no right even to introduce the terrible except for the purpose of exhibiting human heroism, developing character, awakening emotions which when awakened dignify and save from harm. It is want of genius and of knowledge of their craft that drives novelists to outrage humanity with horrors. Miss Austen can interest and even excite you as much with the little domestic adventures of Emma as some of her rivals ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... vain to deserts thy retreat is made; The Muse attends thee to the silent shade: 'Tis hers, the brave man's latest steps to trace, Re-judge his acts, and dignify disgrace. When Interest calls off all her sneaking train, When all the obliged desert, and all the vain, She waits; or, to the scaffold, or the cell, When the last lingering friend has bid farewell. Even now she shades thy evening walk with bays, (No hireling she, no prostitute to praise) Even now, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... would dignify Georgian aldermen; square red houses set about with wistaria and high garden walls, worthy to be neighbours of Richmond Park; worthy, too, of a handsomer neighbour than Petersham church, an insignificant ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... whose dominion extended to Benevento; all the rest being possessed by the Greek emperor, with whom Charles was in league. About this time Pascal I. occupied the pontificate, and the priests of the churches of Rome, from being near to the pope, and attending the elections of the pontiff, began to dignify their own power with a title, by calling themselves cardinals, and arrogated so great authority, that having excluded the people of Rome from the election of pontiff, the appointment of a new pope was scarcely ever made ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... justice to my father with reference to his conduct in regard to the riot. But let the Intendant recollect that, although a merchant, my father is above all things a Norman gentleman, who never swerved a hair-breadth from the path of honor—a gentleman whose ancient nobility would dignify even the Royal Intendant." Bigot looked daggers at this thrust at his own comparatively humble origin. "And this I have further to say," continued Philibert, looking straight in the eyes of Bigot, Varin, and Cadet, "whoever impugns my father's honor impugns mine; and no man, high or ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the first touch of the brush or chisel to the last." "Believe me," he concludes, in a striking passage that may very fitly serve us, too, with a conclusion to these passages, "believe me, whatever of dignity, whatever of strength we have within us, will dignify and will make strong the labours of our hands; whatever littleness degrades our spirit will lessen them and drag them down. Whatever noble fire is in our hearts will burn also in our work, whatever purity is ours will also chasten and exalt it; for as we are, so our work ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... Gothic strength, produces the most delectable effects in the long, rolling line of slow-marching dactyls and spondees. The tempered realism of Tegner, which shuns all that is harsh and trite, accords well with the noble classical verse. He employs it, as it were, to dignify his homely tale, as Raphael draped the fishermen of Galilee in the flowing robes of Greek philosophers. The description of the church, the rustic youth, and the patriarchal clergyman has, however, the note of experience and the touch of earth which we miss in the more declamatory ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... "Dignify labor," and he laughed. "Mother dear, I was so thankful to get something to do! And I am proud of making a home for you. Am ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... different one. Surely this is so, they say, for is not typhoid fever due to the bacillus typhosus and pneumonia to the pneumococcus? But it is not so. Outside of mechanical injuries there is but one disease, and the various conditions that we dignify with individual names are but manifestations of this disease. The parent disease is filthiness, and its manifestations vary according ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... go, after all? Suppose she should go, and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more quiet and peaceful? The very fancy filled her heart with sudden calm. A love so deep and sure, so broad and sweet—could it not dignify any woman's life? And she had been thought worthy and had ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam
... Montenegrin Government motor. He had two companions, a girl simply dressed with coat and skirt which did not match, and cotton gloves whose burst finger ends were not darned, a Miss Petrovitch, and an officer. The coachwork—if one may dignify it by such a phrase—which was made from packing cases, had a thousand creaks and one abominable squeak, which made conversation impossible. The scenery was all grey rock and little scrubby trees; the road was ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... the work of skilled fingers serve to dignify the art of which it is capable, and to sing a varied song in the ears of the modern embroiderer, who follows her own will in spite of time-hallowed examples. The women of today, 1920, have been called to work that is widely different from that of the ages when embroidery was a ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... whether we should dignify by the name of ancestor-worship the older Roman festival of the Lemuria, which was held on the 9th, 11th and 13th of May. For the lemures were, like our unlaid ghosts, unburied, mischievous or inimical spirits, and these three days ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... all the world knows from Madame de Stael, was wont, when he found himself observed, to discharge his face of all expression. But emperors and rich men are by no means the most skilful masters of good manners. No rentroll nor army-list can dignify skulking and dissimulation; and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, as really all the forms of good-breeding ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... thought I saw was something so extraordinary that no really sane man could dignify it with the credit of having actually happened. I was standing, the last evening I was with you, half- hidden in the hedgegrowth by the orchard gate, watching the dying glow of the sunset. Suddenly I became aware of a naked boy, a bather ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... wild; and a pair of whiskers so huge, as to refuse all accordance with the thin diminutive cheeks which wore them; thin lips, and a sharp chin;—completed the outline of a very unprepossessing face, which a broad high forehead did not tend very much to improve or dignify. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... He had even told her of the anxieties he had felt before his first Confession, and of how difficult he had found it to decide upon the sins that he could, without arrogance lay to his own charge. He told her that he had invented several crimes, in order to dignify the occasion. Frederica wondered secretly how that charming Jesuit Father, to whom, at Monkshurst, she had been introduced as her nephew's spiritual director, had dealt with the sinner; but this, Larry had not divulged. There were, from that time forward, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... said to himself, "what chateau? Ah, I understand! Athos is not a man to be thwarted; he, like Porthos, has obliged his peasantry to call him 'my lord,' and to dignify his pettifogging place by the name of chateau. He had a ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... been thrown into such a position as to justify the name of Fingal's Cave, which they bear, and which was bestowed on them in the olden times before Scottish history began to be written. It is singular how many of the names which dignify, or designate, favorite spots of the Giant's Causeway have been duplicated in the Palisades. Among the Hudson rocks are several 'Lady's Chairs,' 'Lover's Leaps,' 'Devil's Toothpicks,' 'Devil's Pulpits,' and, in many spots on the water's edge, especially those most openly exposed to the weather, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... made, or seen, or felt, in the majestic spectacle of the campaign of the Sutlej. Their toil and their perils were in common—so shall be their honours and their fame: and while all men agree that every excellence which can illuminate and dignify the character of a British soldier, was displayed in stainless brightness by our European regiments on these colossal battle-fields, all men will also agree that the exact and cloudless counterpart of such merit shone ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... it, as they are of smoaking, of the sedative influence of which, though he himself never smoaked, he had a high opinion[936]. Besides, there is in draughts some exercise of the faculties; and, accordingly, Johnson wishing to dignify the subject in his Dedication with what is most ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... whom he had lost his heart two years and a half before, he was considerably surprised. It would be absurd to suppose that the boyish fancy which had made so much romance in his life for so many months could outlast the excitements of the University. It would be absurd to dignify such a fancy by any serious name. He had grown to be a man since those days and he had put away childish things. He blushed to remember that he had spent hours in writing odes to the beautiful unknown, and whole nights ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... long-encouraged truckling to the sets of men, whom he was accustomed to dignify with the name of the public, had a profound deference or the principles, character, and station of Mr. Effingham, that no sophistry, or self-encouragement in the practices of social confusion, could overcome; and he paused before he communicated the next resolution to his employers. But perceiving ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... an expression of profound sadness on his face, which seemed to dignify it, to make it more powerful, more manly, than it had been. The choir-boy look was gone. Malling of course knew how very much expression can change a human being; nevertheless, he was startled by the alteration in the curate's outward man. It seemed, to use the rector's phrase, that he had "shed ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... author* writes: "Yoritomo, convinced by observation and experience that the beautiful and the splendid appeal most to human nature, made it his aim to inculcate frugality, to promote military exercises, to encourage loyalty, and to dignify simplicity. Moral education he set before physical. The precepts of bushido he engraved on the heart of the nation and gave to them the honour of a precious heirloom. The Hojo, by exalting bushido, followed the invaluable teaching of the Genji, and supplemented it with ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... manners, education, language or religion. I now proceed to show, that these circumstances have engendered towards the colonists in the, mass of the Mexican nation, feelings of unconquerable jealousy and hostility. Yes! our superiority in enterprise, in learning, in the arts and in all that can dignify life, or embellish human nature, instead of exciting in them a laudable ambition to emulate, to equal, or excel us—excites the most hateful of all the passions—envy—and has caused them to endeavor for years past, by an unremitting series of vexatious, oppressive and ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton
... next: from hence new pleasure springs; For Styles are dignify'd, as well as Things. Tho' Sense subsists, distinct from phrase or sound, Yet Gravity conveys a surer wound. The chymic secret which your pains wou'd find, Breaks out, unsought for, in Cervantes' mind; And Quixot's wildness, like that King's of old, Turns all he touches, into Pomp and ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... generally depicted as the Blue-eyed Dove of Virtuous and Serpent-like Attitudes, has been scattering glory upon the Si-chow Hall of Celestial Harmony for many days past. It is an enlightened display which the high-souled Ling should certainly endeavour to dignify with his presence, especially at the portion where the amiable Li-Lu becomes revealed in the appearance of a Peking sedan-chair bearer and describes the manner and likenesses of certain persons—chiefly high-priests of Buddha, excessively round-bodied merchants who feign to be detained ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... which belong to her in all circumstances and throughout all time. Here every thing is art, nakedly, or but awkwardly concealed. No prepossession for the mere antique (and in this case we can imagine no other prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of poetry, a series, such as this, of elaborate and threadbare compliments, stitched, apparently, together, without fancy, without plausibility, and without ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... against intermarriage, that in a recent Missouri case, where a colored man ran away with and married a young white woman, the man was pursued by a "posse"—a word which is rapidly being debased from its proper meaning by its use in the attempt to dignify the character of lawless Southern mobs—and shot to death; the woman was tried and convicted of the "crime" of "miscegenation"—another honest word which the South degrades along ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... preserved in the legends of the Indians an accurate and unmistakable description of the Japanese dragon (which is mainly Chinese in origin). Even Spinden, who "does not care to dignify by refutation the numerous empty theories of ethnic connections between Central America" [and in fact America as a whole] "and the Old World," makes the following statement (in the course of a discussion of ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... my dear ladies, ask, what that passion is, which generally we dignify by the name of love; and which, when so dignified, puts us upon a thousand extravagances? I believe, if examined into, it would be found too generally to owe its original to ungoverned fancy; and were we to judge of it by the consequences that usually attend it, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Englishman surveys the untouched monuments of English greatness!—and treads the floor of that venerable building which shrouds the remains of all who have dignified their native land—in which her patriots, her poets, and her philosophers, "sleep with her kings, and dignify the scene," which the rage of popular fury has never dared to profane, and the hand of victorious power has never been able to violate; where the ashes of the immortal dead still lie in undisturbed repose, under that splendid roof which covered the tombs of her earliest kings, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... that I—for you make the personal application—shall be better able henceforth to win men's love, because—ah, surely, Dr. Marmion, you do not dignify this impulse, this foolishness of yours, by the name of love!" She smiled a little satirically at the fingers I ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... his magazine of provisions, according to the usual practice of war, he ordered the whole to be either sold at a low price, or distributed among the poor of the city, who had been long exposed to the horrors of famine: an act of godlike humanity, which ought to dignify the character of that worthy nobleman above all the titles that military fame can deserve, or arbitrary monarchs bestow. The regency of Hanover were so deeply impressed with a sense of his heroic behaviour ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... had no universal conceptions, they would have done well to look at the trees. Instead of fostering a number of little souls on the pabulum of varying theories of future life, they should have been concerned to improve their present shapes, and thus to dignify ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... much," he continued, "when I tell you that I prefer your pen-and-ink work to the miniature. 'The Consequences of Crime' is full of humour; and I have been given to understand that you can't produce an effect without skill,—what you would probably dignify with the name of technique. The second small boy on the right is ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... which it should be studied, and the events by which his theory is illustrated. To study history as it should be studied, much more to write history as it should be written, is a task which may dignify the most splendid abilities, and occupy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... I change my clothes. Then we 'll be ready to start. I 'm not even going to dignify this letter by replying to it. And for one principal reason—" he added—"that I think the Rodaines have ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... supercilious eye on their superiors in the highest. Thus the least pretensions to preeminence in title, birth, riches, equipages, dress, &c., constantly overlook the most noble endowments of virtue, honour, wisdom, sense, wit, and every other quality which can truly dignify and adorn ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... life and death. It is fit for serene days and graceful gifts and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive and add rhyme and reason to ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... own weakness that you make yourself so; for it is virtue, not pedigree, that renders a man either valuable or happy. Philosophy does not either reject or choose any man for his quality. Socrates was no patrician, Cleanthes but an under-gardener; neither did Plato dignify philosophy by his birth, but by his goodness. All these worthy men are our progenitors, if we will but do ourselves the honor to become their disciples. The original of all mankind was the same, and it is only a clear conscience that ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the case to have the poor little creatures arraigned at the bar of divine justice, and condemned to suffer as malefactors and criminals do, is more than we can possibly comprehend. To have them thus arraigned, condemned, and punished as criminals, may dignify their sufferings, and render them more worthy of the rank of human beings; but this is a dignity to which, we trust, they ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... this, the life I lead, To sit all day in the sunshine like a weed That grows to naught,—I love thee more than they Who serve thee most; yet serve thee in no way. Father, I beg of thee a little task To dignify my days,—'tis all I ask Forever, but forever, this denied, I perish." "Child," my father's voice replied, "All things thy fancy hath desired of me Thou hast received. I have prepared for thee Within my house a spacious chamber, where Are delicate things to handle and to wear, ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... indignation which is fairly universal and permanent, it may be regarded as a crime coming under the jurisdiction of the law. If opinion varies, if a considerable section of the community revolt against the punishment of the alleged anti-social act, then we are not entitled to dignify it with the appellation of "crime." This is not an altogether sure or satisfactory criterion because there are frequently times and places, especially under the stimulation of some particular occurrence ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... us—boundary questions, banks, tariffs, internal improvements, currency; all very necessary but secondary topics. They touch nothing deeper than the pocket. In this respect, there would be a marked contrast between the subjects which occupy us, and the grander life-themes that dignify European thought, were it not for one subject—Slavery. THAT is the ONLY question, in our day and in our community, full of vital struggles ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... I may proceed. You think women have no resolution, and no souls—be it so—and what you dignify with the name of perseverance in your own sex, you call obstinacy in ours. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... letters are absolute jest-and-story books, unless you will be so good as to dignify them with the title of Walpoliana. Under that hope, I will tell you a very odd new story. A citizen had advertised a reward for the discovery of a person who had stolen sixty guineas out of his scrutoire. He received a message from a condemned criminal in Newgate, with the offer of revealing the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... often added to names of things which we frequently hear personified, or which we wish to dignify, and to names of periods of time, and to words denoting value; as, the earth's surface, fortune's smile, eternity's stillness, a year's interest, a day's work, a dollar's ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics, that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. Nothing will dignify and elevate science while it is sundered so wholly from the moral life of its devotee, and he professes another religion than it teaches, and worships at a foreign shrine. Anciently the faith of a philosopher was identical with his system, or, in other words, ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Man must feel, who lends his Ear to the inchanting Prattler, why does the Author's Modesty mislead his Judgment, to suspect the Style wants Polishing?—-No, Sir, there is an Ease, a natural Air, a dignify'd Simplicity, and measured Fullness, in it, that, resembling Life, outglows it! He has reconciled the Pleasing to the Proper. The Thought is every-where exactly cloath'd by the Expression: And becomes its Dress as roundly, and as close, as Pamela her Country-habit. ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... however, politely addressed herself to Lady L——, and begging her aunt to withdraw for a few moments, she owned to her, in French, her passion for her brother: She was not, she said, ashamed to own it to his sister, who must know that his merit would dignify the passion of the noblest woman. She had endeavoured, she said, to conquer hers: she had been willing to give way to the prior attachments that he had pleaded for a lady of her own country, Signora Clementina della Porretta, ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... poor: "Come up to Nannau, show me that you are willing to work, and I will give you your wages." It is for benevolence like this, well and usefully exercised, that Sir Robert Vaughan is especially remarkable, as well also for all those qualities which adorn and dignify the British country gentleman. Always careful of the welfare, habits, and comforts of the poor around him; patronizing the industry, ingenuity, and good conduct of his more humble countrymen, and ministering to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... letters is not half of their indebtedness to external revelation. For they will not deny that a Fiji cannibal has just the same "insight," "spiritual faculty," "mighty and transcendent soul," "self-consciousness," or any other name by which they may dignify our common humanity, which they themselves possess. How does it happen, then, that these writers are not assembled around the cannibal's oven, smearing their faces with the blood, and feasting themselves on the limbs of women and children? ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... national misfortunes that the strength and character of our army are thus impaired. Familiarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, it can no longer boast of the noble and generous principles which dignify a soldier; no longer sympathise with the dignity of the royal banner nor feel the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war that makes ambition virtue. What makes ambition virtue? The sense of honor. But is this sense of honor consistent with the spirit of plunder or the practice of murder? ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... game. That one night in the open had shaken his nerves. Until then there had been left to him at least a few grounds upon which he could base his unblushing demands upon his neighbours' stores. Now he must beg instead of borrowing. The most brazen sophistry could not dignify by the name of "loan" the coin contemptuously flung to a beachcomber who slept on the bare ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... indeed bestow on us a portion of their fire, they seem to have lighted it in sport and left it; the harder task and the nobler is performed by that genius who raises it clear and glowing from its embers, and makes it applicable to the purposes that dignify or delight our nature. I have ever said, 'Reverence the rulers.' Let, then, his image stand; but stand apart from Pindar's. Pallas and Jove! defend me from being carried down the stream of time among a shoal of royalets, and the rootless weeds ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... every drop is subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united infinity of billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men call the Sea. No matter how humble the calling of the individual, how uninteresting and dull the round of his duties, he should do his best. He should dignify what he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he should vitalize what little he has of power or energy or ability or opportunity, in order to prepare himself to be equal to higher privileges when they come. This will never lead man to that weak content that is satisfied ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... Commence is hol' Down at de gr'ad beeg hall, W'ere plaintee peopl' can gat seat For dem to see it all. De School Board wid dere president, Dey sit opon front row, Dey look so stiff an' dignify, For w'at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... useful, on account of his money: the opulent possessed what the indigent wanted, and the shortest road to the goal of Cupidity, lay through the region of Vanity. There was none of that servility which Mr. Carlyle has attempted to dignify with the name of "hero-worship," for the rich man was rather a bird to be plucked, than a "hero" to be worshipped. And though it may seem that I do the schoolmaster little honor by the distinction, I can not but think cupidity a more manly ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... the one whose story is told in these pages was devoted and finally sacrificed to dignify their common country in the eyes of his countrymen, and to unite them in a common patriotism; he inculcated that self-respect which, by leading to self-restraint and self-control, makes self-government possible; and sought to inspire in all a love of ordered freedom, so that, whether under ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... never ashamed! I ask for whatever I want, and I do not always wait to ask before I take it. Those who are deprived by their own diffidence dignify their privation by the name of modesty. The world into which we are born is the world of reality. When a man goes away from the market of real things with empty hands and empty stomach, merely filling ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... man, though that were bad enough—any of these he might have been in an accidental way, that at least would have been picturesque; but it is only the possession of land, by whatsoever means or title, that can dignify an habitual personal contact with it in the form of soil. That is one of the accepted prejudices which one does not meddle with at nineteen. "Youth is conservative because it is afraid." Moya, for ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... wedded love! by gracious Heaven design'd, At once the source and glory of mankind! 'Tis this can toil, and grief, and pain assuage, Secure our youth, and dignify our age; 'Tis this fair fame and guiltless pleasure brings, And shakes rich plenty from its brooding wings; Gilds duty's roughest path with friendship's ray, And strews with roses sweet the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... follows the mastering of every difficulty, and the addition of every fresh item of knowledge to their previous store; trained also in habits of healthfulness and of amiability; will not only cheerfully give themselves to study, but will also seek to dignify by their conduct and to improve by practice the knowledge they progressively acquire, soon understanding, among other things, why they are sent to school and the importance of that education, part of which they are to acquire ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... much of life was left. Inferiority is ever sceptical and self-satisfied; it is only given to the really wise to know how much lies hidden from their view. Though the scope and object of all the imitative arts is the same, to dignify, elevate, and embellish nature—though the beauty of the ideal is the aim of the musician, equally as it is the aspiration of the poet, painter, and the sculptor, the character of these pursuits is in some respects essentially different. In the latter, material objects are imitated and embellished, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... terms "revealed religion," and the generality of priests apply this term to the books called the Old and New Testament. There is no man that believes in revealed religion stronger than I do; but it is not the reveries of the Old and New Testament that I dignify with that sacred title. That which is a revelation to me exists in something which no human mind can invent, no human hand can counterfeit ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... dignify it with the title since this habitation has been arranged with a certain art? Skillful hands have carved an ornamental facade in the rock. A large door affords access to it. Colored glass windows in wooden frames let ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... vocabulary, if we dignify it by that name, of the mammals. The sloths, those curious animals whose entire life is spent clinging to the underside of branches, on whose leaves they feed, may be said almost to be voiceless, so seldom do they give utterance to the nameless ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... ludkuboj. Dictate dikti. Dictation diktato. Dictator diktatoro. Dictionary vortaro. Die morti. Die presilo. Diet dieto. Differ diferenci. Difference (dispute) malpaco. Difficulty malfacileco. Diffusion vastigo. Dig fosi. Digest digesti. Digit fingro, cifero. Dignify indigi. Dignitary rangulo. Dignity indeco. Dignity (rank) rango. Dilapidate ruinigi. Dilate plilargxigi. Dilatory prokrastema. Diligence diligento. Diligent diligenta. Dim dubeluma. Diminish (length) mallongigi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... plumy helmet, and the martial mien, Might dignify Minerva's awful charms; But more resistless far the Idalian queen— Smiles, graces, gentleness, her ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... wish to discourage all friendships with your own sex. Oh, no; they possess too great a charm to be thus rudely thrown aside. To me, there is hardly a more lovely sight in the world than the union of two congenial spirits in the tie of sincere and unselfish affection. But I do not dignify with the name of friendship those caprices of the moment, which so often assume its title and usurp its place. A young girl meets another at an assembly—she is pleased with her manners; thinks her amiable, because she smiles ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... emotions and opinions, it had better turn journalism at once. It had its law, and its law was distinction of ideal and elevation of tendency, no matter what material it dealt with. It might deal with the commonest, the cheapest material, but always in such a way as to dignify and beautify ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... Prohibition—a despotism exercised by a body of ignorant, superstitious, self-seeking and thoroughly dishonest men. One may, without prejudice, reasonably defend the Catholic clergy. They are men who, at worst, pursue an intelligible ideal and dignify it with a real sacrifice. But in the presence of the Methodist clergy it is difficult to avoid giving way to the weakness of indignation. What one observes is a horde of uneducated and inflammatory dunderheads, eager for power, ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... simpler and simpler. Small shops are set into the street wall at either side of the entrance door, and on entering one finds himself in a very limited and utterly dingy court with a few dirty compartments opening thence, which it would be absurd to dignify by the name of "rooms." Again one ceases to wonder that the male Athenians are not "home folk" and are glad to leave their houses to the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... With nerves improved, pursue the mimic chase, Coursing around; unto thy choicest friends Commit thy valued prize: the rustic dames Shall at thy kennel wait, and in their laps Receive thy growing hopes, with many a kiss Caress, and dignify their little charge With some great title, and resounding name 110 Of high import. But cautious here observe To check their youthful ardour, nor permit The unexperienced younker, immature, Alone to range the woods, or haunt the brakes Where dodging conies sport: his nerves unstrung, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... our commander, his staff and escort. He is facing the distant crest, holding his field-glass against his eyes with both hands, his elbows needlessly elevated. It is a fashion; it seems to dignify the act; we are all addicted to it. Suddenly he lowers the glass and says a few words to those about him. Two or three aides detach themselves from the group and canter away into the woods, along the lines in each direction. We did not hear his words, but we know them: "Tell General X. to send ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... envy, discontent, and pride; The bound of all his vanity, to deck, With one bright bell, a favourite heifer's neck; 495 Well pleased [129] upon some simple annual feast, Remembered half the year and hoped the rest, If dairy-produce, from his inner hoard, Of thrice ten summers dignify [130] the board. —Alas! in every clime a flying ray 500 Is all we have to cheer our wintry way; [131] And here the unwilling mind [132] may more than trace The general sorrows of the human race: The churlish gales of penury, that blow Cold as the north-wind ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... party aspect, no influence of passion or prejudice, or any motive but the desire to promote the good of my country. Our national and material interests must be fully considered, as also those great moral principles and intellectual developments which exalt and dignify the character of man. I shall examine the subject inductively and deductively, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... contest ensued, which I shall dignify with the name of the battle of Falling Waters, for a real battle it was, although it is not mentioned in the histories that I have read, and the number engaged was small. On one side were portions of the four regiments of Brockenbrough's brigade, with ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... have another cause. It may be the intention of the husband and wife to dignify themselves in the eyes of each other, and, according to their different tempers or expectations, to win ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... planting belief.—Most of us, I am afraid, get our opinions by haphazard; like the child in the well-known story, whose only account of herself was that 'she expected she growed.' That is the way by which most of you come to what you dignify by the name of your opinions. They come in upon you, you do not know how. Youth is receptive of anything new. You can learn a vast deal more easily than many of us older people can. Set down a man who has never learned the alphabet, to learn his letters, and see what a ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... yet with a certain gratification as though Harold Jupp had asked him to dignify the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... as were produced by the visible interposition of divine power are above the power of human genius to dignify. The miracle of creation, however it may teem with images, is best described with little diffusion of language: "He spake the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... cunning accomplices. Rebellion smells no sweeter because it is called Secession, nor does Order lose its divine precedence in human affairs because a knave may nickname it Coercion. Secession means chaos, and Coercion the exercise of legitimate authority. You cannot dignify the one nor degrade the other by any verbal charlatanism. The best testimony to the virtue of coercion is the fact that no wrongdoer ever thought well of it. The thief in jail, the mob-leader in the hands of the police, and the murderer on the drop will be unanimous in favor of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... whose acknowledged mission is not to fight, but to rob, to burn, and to fly. Although the smoke of burning ships has everywhere marked the track of the Georgia and the Florida upon the ocean, they have never sought a foe or fired a gun against an armed enemy. To dignify such vessels with the name of ships-of-war seems to me, with deference, a misnomer. Whatever flag may fly from their mast-head, or whatever power may claim to own them, their conduct stamps them as piratical. If vessels of war even, they would by this conduct have justly forfeited all courtesies ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... was composed, I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavoured to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtues. With some account of his life I have been furnished, by the kindness of a citizen of that republic, which is still proud of the memory of a man worthy of the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... guide them! To kneel first together before Him, and then to pass on—to acknowledge His goodness as the author of love, and then to go up on to love's high places, what could be more just to the real facts! I know not with what solemnities those who do not believe in God are going to dignify that hour in life, but to all young men and women who do believe in God, I would like to say with all possible urgency: Be sure you do not take that great step until you can ask God's blessing on the taking of it. Be sure you ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray |
