"Invent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now in their turn deserted, and the proprietors pondered for a week trying to invent some way to still further cut down the entirely vanished rates. They at last placarded the taverns with announcements that they would not only carry their patrons free of expense, but would give each traveller on their ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... "If he does, I'll invent some stratagem by which I may see him. But he will not refuse. When he finds that I am so resolute as to follow him here, he will not ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... presumption which necessarily arises from circumstances,—is very often more convincing and more satisfactory than any other kind of evidence; it is not within the reach and compass of human abilities to invent a train of circumstances, which shall be so connected together as to amount to a proof of guilt, without affording opportunities of contradicting a great part, if not all, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... what was likely to happen, put an end to the brawl by the following advice: "How foolish it is in us," said he, "thus to put ourselves in a passion! After we have said all the ill of one another that we can invent—nay, after going stoutly to fisticuffs, like Sudra rabble, should we be at all nearer to the decision of our difference? The fittest person to determine the controversy, I think, would be the man who occasioned it. The soldier, who chose to salute one of us, cannot yet be far off: ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... the cruelties of the siege outweigh. The galleys of Ptolemy, though unable to keep at sea against the larger fleet of Demetrius, often forced their way into the harbour with the welcome supplies of grain. Month after month every stratagem and machine which the ingenuity of Demetrius could invent were tried and failed; and, after the siege had lasted more than a year, he was glad to find an excuse for withdrawing his troops; and the Rhodians in their joy hailed Ptolemy with the title of Soter or saviour. This name ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... saved, the two of us together. And then was started that scandalous report of the woman on the yacht." Again the laughter sounded in his voice. "You see, mon ami, how small a spark can start a conflagration. In self-defence I had to invent something, and I invented it quickly. I said she was Larpent's daughter. I wonder if you would have thought of that. You'd have done it if you had, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... to speak of other discoveries, of the inventions which had been made during the long cycles of time lying between the present and those early days when the sons of Adam began to make use of material things about them and invent instruments of various kinds in brass and gold and silver. He gave us a short but succinct account of all the inventions referred to in the Old Testament, from the time when Adam walked in the garden ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... conducted themselves as became the heroic character with which they are so splendidly endowed. And this suffering, we are sorry to say, is not yet over. For many years to come the desperate and despotic hand of Rome, which could in the name of religion invent the horrible inquisition and organize the bloodthirsty order of Jesuits, has not changed its attitude completely and will resist desperately to the last the inevitable ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... it happened, had time for his excitement to calm down, for, after listening intently for Waller's foot upon the last flight of stairs, one of which always gave out a now familiar crack, he found that he had allowed his imagination to invent, for he had not heard his companion coming up. In fact, a good ten minutes elapsed, during which the silence was profound, and, growing hotter than ever, lying there beneath the clothes, fully dressed, and after going through a great deal of ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... far from sharing the narrow views of the Vogels. She had seen real sorrows too near ever to try to invent others. Humble, broken by life, having received little joy from it, and having asked even less, resigned to everything that happened, without even trying to understand it, she was careful not to judge or censure others: ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... people of this country run their government more than they do? Four-fifths of the inventors who get up great things that would put the United States on top, and keep us there, have to go abroad to find a market for their inventions! If I could invent a cannon to-day that would give all the power on earth to the nation owning it, would the American Government buy it from me? No, sir! I'd have to sell the cannon to England, Germany or Japan—or else starve while ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... in the Isle of Elba, said to an officer who was conversing with him about France, "You believe, then; that the police agents foresee everything and know everything? They invent more than they discover. Mine, I believe, was better than that they have got now, and yet it was often only by mere chance, the imprudence of the parties implicated, or the treachery of some of them, that something ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... experimentally and practically by doing it! That invention hath invented and found out all the sin and misery under which the world groans. It is a poor invention to devise misery and torment to the creature. This was the height of folly and madness, for a happy creature to invent how to make itself miserable and all others. Indeed, he intended another thing—to be more happy, but pride and ambition got a deserved fall, the result of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... so useful at home that they found it difficult to manage without her. Seven younger brothers and sisters all looked to Patty to settle their quarrels, hem their boat sails, dress their dolls, kiss their bumps and bruises better, sympathize with their small woes and troubles, tell them stories, invent new games, and generally take the lead in all the important matters of the nursery. She was her mother's right hand, and from the time she was old enough to feel herself a little older than the rest, she had helped to stitch on buttons, ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... used in the plural meant an undue partiality for the object which it denoted; and so forth, and so forth. At the same time, the meaning depended considerably upon the expression of the face and the context of the conversation; so that, no matter what new expression one of us might invent to define a shade of feeling the other could immediately understand it by a hint alone. The girls did not share this faculty of apprehension, and herein lay the chief cause of our moral estrangement, and of the contempt ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... man can believe that the son of a carpenter, together with twelve of the meanest and most illiterate mechanics, unassisted by any superhuman wisdom and power, should be able to invent and promulgate a system of theology and ethics the most sublime and perfect, which all such men as Plato, Aristotle and Cicero had overlooked, and that they, by their own wisdom, repudiated every false virtue, ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... introduction of the mill and screw-press in Queen Elizabeth's reign, prevented the introduction of the machinery, and consequently he did not produce pattern pieces until 1653.... It is certain that Blondeau did not invent, but only improved the method of coining by the screw-press, and I believe his improvements related chiefly to a method for 'rounding the pieces before they are sized, and in making the edges of the moneys ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... prescription is not going to cure you. No medicine that I can give you is going to perform any such miracle unless you help yourself. Nothing on earth that man has invented, or is likely to invent, can cure your disease unless by God's grace the patient pitches in and helps himself. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... every sort,[535] and taken from everywhere. Chaucer never troubled himself to invent any; he received them from all hands, but he modelled them after his own fashion, and adapted them to his characters. They are borrowed from France, Italy, ancient Rome; the knight's tale is taken from Boccaccio, that of the nun's priest is imitated from ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... unable, and was certainly unwilling, to say it to her children. Happily, her eldest child was of so sweet and docile a temper that spoiling did him little harm; but even with him her inability to say no got the mother into difficulties. She was obliged to invent excuses to "fub off," when she ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... suggestions rise before the mind, but they are recognised as old suggestions, or as inadequate to reveal what is sought; the experiments by which the problem may be solved have to be imagined; and to imagine a good experiment is as difficult as to invent a good fable, for we must have distinctly PRESENT—clear mental vision—the known qualities and relations of all the objects, and must see what will be the effect of introducing some new qualifying agent. If any one thinks this is easy, let him try it: the ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... appeared on this occasion without guidance or order, the young crowding out the old, and these pushing away their leaders. [501] Their bad conscience after making this request - for they knew that their true motive was lack of faith in God - caused them to invent all sorts of pretexts for their plans. They said to Moses: "So long as we are in the wilderness, the clouds act as scouts for us, for they move before us and show us the way, but as these will not proceed with us into the promised land, we want men to search out the land for us." Another plea ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... happy is the future that lies before them. Lest they should be too elated by such good tidings, they are, however, reminded that it will be necessary to retain the law relating to passes, which is, in the hands of a people like the Boers, about as unjust a regulation as a dominant race can invent for the oppression of a subject people, and had, in the old days of the Republic, been productive of much hardship. The statement winds up by assuring them that their "interests will never be forgotten or neglected by Her Majesty's Government." Having read the document the ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... Shamkhalat: that he implored the Colonel to allow him to kill him in an ambuscade, or to poison him in his food; but that the other consented only to send him to Siberia, beyond the end of the world. In one word, invent and describe every thing cleverly. You were formerly famous for your tales. Do not eat dirt now. And, above all, insist that the Colonel, who is going on a furlough, will take him with him to Georgieffsk, to separate him from his kinsmen and faithful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... listen whole-heartedly, fixing his great luminous eyes on Mary's face. Mary wished he wouldn't look at her so. She felt she could make a better job of the ghost story if Walter were not looking at her. She could put on several frills and invent a few artistic details to enhance the horror. As it was, she had to stick to the bare truth—or what had been told ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of that. I tell you, Clarissa, it is not in her cold proud nature to care much for any man. We can invent some story to account for the rupture, which will save her womanly pride. The world can be told that it is she who has broken the engagement: all that will be easily settled. Poor Lord Calderwood! Don't imagine that I am not heartily sorry for him; he ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... up here safely in this room, turning switches, pressing buttons, depressing levers. Ten miles away a vehicle, a ship, an aeroplane, a submarine obeys me. It may carry enough of the latest and most powerful explosive that modern science can invent, enough, if exploded, to rival the worst of earthquakes. Yet it obeys my will. It goes where I direct it. It explodes where I want it. And it wipes off the face of the earth anything which I ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... second cousin, I'll believe all Darwin said on the subject, but as the thing stands I've nothing but Darwin's word to prove that men and monkeys are near relations. So far as I can learn, Darwin didn't know as much about animals as a man ought to know who undertakes to invent a theory about them. He never was intimate with dogs, and he never drove an army mule. He had a sort of bowing acquaintance with monkeys and a few other animals of no particular standing in the community, but he couldn't even understand ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... propagandists of slavery to become its destroyers. Think you his work was easy? Count the long years of his unequal strife; gather from the winds, which scattered them, the curses of his foes; suffer under all the annoyances and insults which malice and falsehood can invent, and you will then understand how much of heart and hope, of courage and self-relying zeal, were required to make him what he was, and to qualify him to do what he did. And what did he? When the rough hand of ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... two titles, the latter had the wider currency; the enemy, being greatly in the majority, attended to that. Whatever the doctor believed, he believed with all his heart, and would fight for it whenever he got the chance; and if the intervals between chances grew to be irksomely wide, he would invent ways of shortening them himself. He was severely conscientious, according to his rather independent lights, and whatever he took to be a duty he performed, no matter whether the judgment of the professional moralists ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... laying in simple designs, by watchful imitation of the mother, of colored sticks, colored squares, etc.; the building with colored blocks; stringing of large beads; weaving with wide strips of colored paper simple designs that a mother could invent with the material at hand or could learn from any kindergarten manual. The point that must be firmly, but pleasantly, insisted upon in these exercises is careful and obedient following by the child of the exact order of movement and manner of placing adopted ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... priceless liberty should be their children's pride. But read Motley, or the recent and remarkably well-written volumes of Douglas Campbell, and you will see that every atrocity that Spanish hatred, religious intolerance, and mediaeval bigotry could invent, every horror that ever followed in the train of war, swept over and desolated Holland. And yet, to teach a lesson to oppressors, they endured, they fought, they suffered, they conquered; and when they conquered, the whole ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... charge, for I cannot keep back my protest, however ineffectual, against the annexing your latter lines to those former—this putting of new wine into old bottles. This my duty done, I will cease from writing till you invent some more reasonable mode of conveyance. Well may the "ragged followers of the nine" set up for flocci-nauci-what-do-you-call-'em-ists! And I do not wonder that in their splendid visions of Utopias in America they protest ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... sower of falsehood. To slander a political antagonist, to misrepresent all that he says, and, if that be impossible, to invent for him what he does not say; to put in circulation whatever baseless calumnies against him are necessary to defeat him,—these are habits so common as to have ceased to excite notice or comment, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... ever said such a thing. It was preposterous to imagine any mystery connected with Old Grannis. Miss Baker had chosen to invent the little fiction, had created the title and the unjust stepfather from some dim memories of ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... decried as savage and heathenish, and as tending to keep up the memory of the pagan brood that originally possessed it. Many were the consultations held upon the subject without coming to a conclusion, for, though everybody condemned the old name, nobody could invent a new one. At length, when the council was almost in despair, a burgher, remarkable for the size and squareness of his head, proposed that they should call it New Amsterdam. The proposition took everybody by surprise; it was so striking, so apposite, so ingenious. The name was adopted ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... preference to which our attainments in science, and especially in mechanics, entitle us. I have heard a man exclaim, after contemplating the structure and uses of a house-clock, "Is it not fitting that such as we should be slaves to people who have the ingenuity to invent, and the skill to construct, so wonderful a machine as this?" "The sun," he added, "is a machine of this nature." "But who winds it up?" said his companion. "Who but Allah," he replied. This admiration of our superior attainments is however not universal; for, upon an occasion ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... Rose could now invent could avert the discovery by the Confederates that McDonald and Johnson had disappeared, and the mystery of their departure would be almost certain to cause an inquiry and investigation that would put their plot in peril and ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... nature; some are of a nature and consistency entirely different to ours; some can only give effect to their will through a material medium; some possess creative powers, and can, by the sole exercise of will, invent the most lovely forms of beauty, and transmit themselves to immeasurable distances with ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... imperial state-councillor, came to the queen's parlors and regaled her guests by reading to them his romance Adolphe; and Metternich, the Austrian ambassador seemed to have no other destiny than to amuse the queen and the circle of ladies assembled around them, and to invent new social games ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... case is manifestly thus: We are divided into two parties, with very little charity or temper toward each other; the prevailing side may talk of past things as they please, with security; and generally do it in the most provoking words they can invent; while those who are down, are sometimes tempted to speak in favour of a lost cause, and therefore, without great caution, must needs be often caught tripping, and thereby furnish plenty of materials for ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... to invent the story from beginning to end, if I wanted to impose on any one?" asked Mr Johnson, with pretended indignation. "However, as I have more than once observed, I have an especial objection to be interrupted by cavillers and doubters; so I'll thank you, Mr Dubersome, ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... spirit of the English school of wisdom altogether rejected. Bacon would not have thought it beneath the dignity of a philosopher to contrive an improved garden chair for such a valetudinarian, to devise some way of rendering his medicines more palatable, to invent repasts which he might enjoy, and pillows on which he might sleep soundly; and this though there might not be the smallest hope that the mind of the poor invalid would ever rise to the contemplation of the ideal ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... loudly disavowing any connection with the crime, the newspapers of England and Germany were snarling and howling and roaring and bellowing at one another, and the Foreign Office and the German Chancellery were wiring frequent, carefully coded appeals to each other to invent some plausible excuse for not mobilizing their armies and fleets. Even then Sir Maurice, who knew too well the value of German press opinion, would not have interfered, had not the extremely active wife of a cabinet minister consulted him about the easiest way for ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... with his brain. His brain may be more emotional or less emotional, more acute or less acute; but to invent a faculty of reason distinct from reason, or to suggest that man can feel or think otherwise than with his brain, is to darken counsel ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... bumpy in the head, Patriarch was the word for him. He had been accosted in the streets, and respectfully solicited to become a Patriarch for painters and for sculptors; with so much importunity, in sooth, that it would appear to be beyond the Fine Arts to remember the points of a Patriarch, or to invent one. Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he was, and on being informed, 'Old Christopher Casby, formerly Town-agent to Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle,' had cried in a rapture of disappointment, 'Oh! ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... and again, for the same frank simplicity that brings us nearer than books usually bring us to a living knowledge of some features of a bygone time; and yet again, because it helps us a little to come near to Milton in his daily life. He would be a good novelist who could invent as pleasant a book as this unaffected record of a quiet life touched by ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... fear to hope. Can poet's brain More than the Father's heart rich good invent? Each time we smell the autumn's dying scent, We know the primrose time will come again; Not more we hope, nor less would soothe our pain. Be bounteous in thy faith, for not mis-spent Is confidence unto the Father lent: Thy need is sown and rooted for his rain. His ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... is other than appears. But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with a human ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... watching the Gujarati keenly. The man's manner fully confirmed his suspicions, and even in the tenseness of the moment he felt a passing amusement at the big fellow's puzzle-headed attempts to invent an explanation that would square with the facts. Failing to hit upon a plausible ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... teacher's experience had he taught a more brilliant pupil. Miss Thompson looked with interest at the algebra papers. If this had not come up, she thought, Miss Leece would certainly have managed to find a flaw somewhere, even if she had had to invent one. But under the circumstances, it was more to that wily woman's purpose to give Anne her due. For Miss Leece knew that a perfect examination paper would tell more against the young girl than ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... can't get a taxi after the theatre—she says it does 'em good. So first I told him he mustn't leave me to look for one. Then I said I'd wait where I was, and then I said we'd walk on, and then I said we must take a motor-bus. It was that that finished him. He said: 'Did I expect him to invent a taxi when there wasn't one?' And he swore. So of course I sulked. You must, you know. And my shoes were too thin and I felt chilly. But only a fortnight before I was making cigarettes in the window of Constantinopoulos's. Funny, isn't it? ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... to speak of numberless other examples). Nay, but these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and according to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law, which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like young lions,—charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to them, that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... torments and terrors we "Jenny Wrenites" had endured at the hands of our enemies the town boys, on the whole patiently. In process of time they got tired of one sort of torment, and before their learned heads had had time to invent a new one, we had had time to muster up courage and tell one another we ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... pretty or homely, tall or short, fair or dark, plump or spare. I was interested in their eyes, but, somehow, I was still more interested in their mouths. Some mouths would set my blood on fire. I would invent all sorts of romantic episodes with myself as the hero. I would portray my engagement to some of the pretty girls I had seen, our wedding, and, above all, our married life. The worst of it was that ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... repulsive; it knew not itself even; it was almost lovable, and did not prevent them from sincerely loving each other! Young Otto used to weep on his pillow as he told himself stories of romantic devotion of which he was the hero; lie used to invent pathetic adventures, in which he was strong, valiant, intrepid, and protected Jean-Christophe, whom he used to imagine that he adored. Jean-Christophe never saw or heard anything beautiful or strange without thinking: "If only Otto were here!" He carried ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... you can understand why the Germans were so confident. They did not invent stories of coming victory which they did not believe. They believed that Verdun was to fall because they knew, and the same thing was known and mentioned in London. I heard it there when the battle was in its earlier stages—that the French ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... sculptor who set down before her A Friendship the fairest his art could invent! But so cold and so dull that the Youthful adorer Saw plainly this was not the ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... born 1771, at Prague (Austria), started life with writing plays, and too poor to pay a printer, he determined to invent a process of his own which should serve to print his manuscript without dependence upon the ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... tergiversation, to invent some subterfuge to cover his retreat—he did not feel himself capable of such a course; moreover, his manoeuvre would be quickly suspected by a clever woman ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... here, where the largest machine for conveying weights does not exceed sixteen arrobes, or 400lb. This enormous plant will require twenty men at least to place it upon the vehicle, with the aid of such levers as our Indians can invent. It grows in the deep ravines of our loftiest mountains, amongst huge stones; the finest plants are inaccessible to wheeled vehicles, and even on horseback it is difficult to reach them. I shall pack him carefully in mats before ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... provincial imaginings, with golden robes and the royal diadem about her brows, and arms outstretched to talent of every kind. Great men would greet him there as one of their order. Everything smiled upon genius. There, there were no jealous booby-squires to invent stinging gibes and humiliate a man of letters; there was no stupid indifference to poetry in Paris. Paris was the fountain-head of poetry; there the poet was brought into the light and paid for his work. Publishers should no sooner read the ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... went by, an ever-extending knowledge of the mystery of the natural laws governing the development of man and nature led him to make the characteristically frank avowal that he "found it more and more difficult ... to invent evidence which would suffice to convince"; adding, "This disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress."[57] With Wallace, however, his early disbelief ended in ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... but he must not deviate into the paths of speculation. The owner of a factory, on the contrary, being commonly possessed of a large capital, and having all his workmen employed under his own immediate superintendence, may make experiments, hazard speculation, invent shorter or better modes of performing old processes, may introduce new articles, and improve and perfect old ones, thus giving the range to his taste and fancy, and, thereby alone enabling our manufacturers to stand the competition with their commercial ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... trying to persuade me to join their school, to become one of the white-spotted ones. I have no desire to be of their company, but I am prepared to make a suggestion to the founder of the school. It is that he should invent a pipe, white spot and all, which smokes itself. His pupils could hang it in the mouth as picturesquely as before, but the incidental bother of keeping it alight would no ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... had driven him out of the world. Yea, that they might, if possible, have extinguished his name, and exploded his doctrine out of the world, they, against all argument, and in despite of Heaven, its mighty hand, and undeniable proof of his resurrection, did hire soldiers to invent a lie, saying, his disciples stole him away from the grave; on purpose that men might not count him the Saviour of the world, nor trust in him for the remission ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... about the genius of the family—the fourth brother—who wanted to invent something new and original? He tried to build a lofty storey himself, but it fell to pieces, and he fell with it and broke his neck. However, he had a splendid funeral, with the city flags and music in the procession; flowers were strewn on the pavement, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and dominant thought of many gunmakers is to make the very deadliest guns that human skill can invent, sell them as fast as possible, and declare dividends on their stock. The Remington, Winchester, Marlin, Stevens and Union Companies are engaged in a mad race to see who can turn out the deadliest guns, and the most of them. On the market to-day there are five ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... then, is the honour of Paris interested in feting the murderers of our brothers? Other profound politicians say, this fete will humiliate those who have sought to fetter the nation. What! in order to humiliate, according to their judgment, a bad government, it is necessary to invent extravagances capable of destroying every species of government—recompense rebellion against the laws—crown foreign satellites for having shot French citizens in an emeute. It is said, that in every place where this procession passes, the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... set of actions half seen and words half heard, wrought and said by a man in a curious dress, were more precious than all meditation and prayer put together. Could the vast superstructure of prayer and effort and aspiration rest upon a piece of empty folly such as children or savages might invent? ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... his "Spanish Friar," Lorenzo says to Elvira that they "will travel together to the ridge of the world, and then drop together into the next." It is idle for us poor Yankees to hope that we can invent anything. To say sooth, if Dryden had left nothing behind him but the "Annus Mirabilis," he might have served as a type of the kind of poet America would have produced by the biggest-river-and-tallest-mountain recipe,—longitude ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... with the Hittite foes of the Court. His insolence helped him successfully out of these awkward difficulties also whenever the matter came under discussion. When preparing fresh raids he did not hesitate to invent news of Hittite invasions which he was bound to resist, and all territory which he then took from his co-vassals would, according to his own account, otherwise certainly have fallen into the hands of the enemy. But as the result was always the same—i.e., to the advantage ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... be kept always by you for the regulation of your style. Instead of copying the touches of those great masters, copy only their conceptions. Instead of treading in their footsteps, endeavour only to keep the same road. Labour to invent on their general principles and way of thinking. Possess yourself with their spirit. Consider with yourself how a Michael Angelo or a Raffaelle would have treated this subject; and work yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and criticised by ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... on obstinately with the siege. He sought to invent terrible machines such as had ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... a clever ruse. No need to invent details: he had them all ready to his hand. The question is, what next? The game is up, and he knows it. What will be ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... o' all the story-loving bairns! But I must invent me a new history for the next time ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... after the fight was over that the Mullah's hand was very badly cut. His followers began to murmur, and wonder how the giver of this charmed rice could himself be wounded in battle. The Mullah was, however, smart enough to invent a story about having seized a bayonet and purposely cut himself. His simple followers believed him, and continued ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 46, September 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... must keep up with the literature of the day. I used to read each book as it came out, but at last found satiety. The best novel palls. For my own comfort I had to invent a new plan to stimulate my interest. I will tell you about it. I take ten at a time, spread them on the table in front of me, and read each chapter ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... I expose To Satan; let him tempt and now assay His utmost subtilty, because he boasts And vaunts of his great cunning to the throng Of his Apostasie; he might have learnt Less over-weening, since he fail'd in Job, Whose constant perseverance overcame Whate're his cruel malice could invent. He now shall know I can produce a man 150 Of female Seed, far abler to resist All his sollicitations, and at length All his vast force, and drive him back to Hell, Winning by Conquest what the first man lost By fallacy surpriz'd. But first I mean To exercise ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... its own individuality, its own atmosphere. And he himself wished that this should be so; it was a part of his study to avoid repeating himself. 'One must not become the slave of any general concept',—so he wrote to Goethe in July, 1800,—'but have the courage to invent a new form for each new matter and keep the type-idea ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... disseminated among the masses, I would appropriate to myself and my accomplices the monopoly of the sciences. I would hide them under the veil of a dead language and hieroglyphic writing; and, in order that no danger might take me unawares, I would be careful to invent some ceremony which day by day would give me access to ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... Independents. A kind of Chiliasm or Millenarianism, he says, had been held by some former English Divines, including Joseph Meade; but it had been reserved for two Independents—"Mr. Archer and his colleague at Arnheim, T. G." (i.e. Thomas Goodwin)—to invent new dreams on the subject; and these had recently been adopted by Mr. Burroughs. The purport of their doctrine was that in the year 1650, or, at the furthest, 1695, Christ was to reappear in human form at Jerusalem, destroy the existing fabric of things in a conflagration, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... strain of its appliances, no bigger and no stronger than the brains of the men who heard Moses speak, and saw Aristotle and Archimedes pondering over a few worn rolls of crabbed manuscript. Until some new Gutenberg or Watt can invent a machine for magnifying the human mind, every fresh apparatus for multiplying its work is a fresh strain on the mind, a new realm for it to ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... not have observed Mr. Razumov or guessed at his reality by the force of insight, much less have imagined him as he was. Even to invent the mere bald facts of his life would have been utterly beyond my powers. But I think that without this declaration the readers of these pages will be able to detect in the story the marks of documentary evidence. And that is perfectly correct. It is based ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... heed the thing they say? They never asked if it were true. Why brush one scribbler's tale away For others to invent ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... fitted to stand each strain, whether to use steel that is rigid or that which is so flexible that it can be tied in a knot. On the designer depends the price asked for the work, and so it is his business to invent, for each bridge is a separate problem in invention, a bridge that will carry the required weight with the least expenditure of material and labour and at the same time be strong enough to carry very ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... shielding his eyes with his hand, he continued in a scarcely audible whisper: "It would be advisable that you should withdraw a little from society; and of course to any unavoidable questions it will be necessary to invent an answer of some sort. It seems to me it will be best to say that your old lung-trouble obliges you to take ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... thing was for Robert to invent a pretext and vanish. But Robert, no doubt, had his own reasons for wishing to stay, and besides, he had the excuse that he could not go without taking his sisters. If his sisters went, they could not well leave the friend ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... not a man to take up such a question and to let it drop. Legal steps! What did legal steps mean, and what could they do to her? Would Mr. Camperdown be able to put her in prison,—or to take away from her the estate of Portray? She could swear that her husband had given them to her, and could invent any form of words she pleased as accompanying the gift. No one else had been near them then. But she was, and felt herself to be absolutely, alarmingly ignorant, not only of the laws, but of custom in such ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... remembered as familiar in former years, but unknown to them since their campaigns commenced, adorned their humble mess tables. Among other luxuries, "hasty pudding" and johnny cake became common articles of diet. The process of producing these articles, was after the rude manner of men who must invent the working materials as they are needed. One-half of an unserviceable canteen, or a tin plate perforated by means of a nail or the sharp point of a bayonet, served the purpose of a grater or mill for grinding ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... child; and when she is stronger perhaps I may be able to comfort her. Oh! I wish she would not speak to him so tenderly and trustfully, when she is delirious. I could curse him when she does." And then Nest would call for her mother, and Eleanor would go, and invent some strange story about the summonses Edward had had to Caernarvon assizes, or to Harlech cattle market. But at last she was driven to her wits' end; it was three weeks since he had even stopped at the door to inquire, and Eleanor, mad with anxiety about her child, who was silently pining off ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... anyone—that is, to anyone who knows even less about it than I do—about the marvellous development of electricity, for instance, I feel as if I had been personally responsible for it. As for the linotype and the aeroplane and the vacuum house-cleaner, well, I am not sure that I didn't invent them myself. I believe that all generous-hearted men feel just the ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... but I would face all these Indian fears, The horror of the huge power of life, The beasts all fierce and venomous, the men With cruel souls, learned to invent pain, All these and more, if I had any hope That, braving them, Lord Christ prosper'd through me. If Christ desired India, He had sent The band of us, solder'd in one great purpose, To strike His message through those dark vast tribes But one man!—O surely it is folly, And we misread the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... lechery with his tongue much worse than that which the Cunnilingi used among the old Romans. He strips Nature stark naked, and clothes her in the most fantastic and ridiculous fashion a wild imagination can invent. He is worse and more nasty than a dog, for in his broad descriptions of others' obscene actions he does but lick up the vomit of another man's surfeits. He tells tales out of a vaulting-school. A lewd, bawdy tale does more hurt and gives a worse ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... especially the cooks, Aunt Judy, there was no end to the cooks. So one day after we came back, and we didn't know what to play at, I said: 'Do let us play at telling Cook Stories, like the ladies at — .' So we've dressed up, and played at Cook Stories, ever since. Dear Aunt Judy, I wish you would invent a Cook Story yourself!" was the conclusion of ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... point to the hand That grasps its term! let every seed that falls In silent eloquence unfold its store 20 Of argument; infinity within, Infinity without, belie creation; The exterminable spirit it contains Is nature's only God; but human pride Is skilful to invent most serious names 25 To hide its ignorance. The name of God Has fenced about all crime with holiness, Himself the creature of His worshippers, Whose names and attributes and passions change, Seeva, Buddh, Foh, Jehovah, God, or Lord, 30 Even with the human dupes who build His shrines, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... titanic symbols, if these had not had for them a special psychic value, and therefore touched them closely. If any one should object that they would not have "chosen" them (because they did not purposely invent allegories, as was formerly thought), I should raise the contrary question: Who has chosen them? I will stick to the word "choose" for a choice has taken place. But the powers that arranged this choice lived and still live in ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... about it," urged Kitty. "I'll invent something—'phone her later on to say you're stopping ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... in the words of the stout Puritan, a nation not slow and dull but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... on a comb with a bit of paper over its teeth; and comb music is not to be despised when there is no other sort. We knew the polka and the waltz, the mazurka, the quadrille, and the lancers, and several fancy dances. We did not hesitate to invent new steps or figures, and we never stopped till we were out of breath. I was one of the most enthusiastic dancers. I danced till I felt as if ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... not the time, and I cannot invent the experiments," replied the professor, impatiently. "I have a great mind to advise Carvel to put her into an asylum, and have done with all ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... it was strange and startling, and the inevitable result was that the Record reporters endeavoured to make everything strange and startling, to play up the outre details at the expense of the rest of the story, and even, I fear, to invent such details when ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... We had an army captain in Chervlena who was my kunak: a fine fellow just like me. He was killed in Chechnya. Well, he used to say that the preachers invent all that out of their own heads. "When you die the grass will grow on your grave and that's all!"' The old man laughed. 'He ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... huge white arms, she begins, joining kicks to blows, to put forth her fists like stones from a catapult. Most of their voices are terrific and threatening, as well when they are quiet as when they are angry. All ages are thought fit for war. They are a nation very fond of wine, and invent many drinks resembling it, and some of the poorer sort wander about with their senses ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke |
